The river was still beautiful, with mirelurks still gently breaking the surface every now and again, but Luna couldn’t appreciate it. Chief Harkness had tried to suggest that she wait inside in the warm until word came through from the Rainbooms, but she had flat-out refused and opted to wait on the bridge instead.

It was all just too much. Only a couple of hours ago, Luna had been standing with the security officers, worrying about Sonata and waiting for the Rainbooms to return from Regulator HQ. Then everything else had somehow gone horribly wrong all at once.

It was bad enough that Sonata’s foolishness had gotten Sunset injured, but to have her go charging off again immediately after having been rescued was galling. The fact that Trixie had joined the Siren on her suicidal quest to Fort Bannister made Luna feel even worse. The young magician was hardly the most rules-conscious student, but Luna had assumed that she would at least be sensible enough not to hurl herself directly into harm’s way.

“I think I’m getting deja vu.” Luna didn’t answer as Chief Harkness leaned against the railings next to her. “I’ve had the weird heart that Talon Company gave us locked away in a reinforced safe in a secure room. Given Talon Company’s betrayal, I don’t trust it not to be a magical bomb or something. You should come inside. You aren’t going to help anyone if you end up getting sick.”

“I’m hardly helping anyone as it is,” the Vice-Principal countered. She knew that it was a childish response, but it was hardly incorrect. “I can’t protect the Rainbooms from this world’s dangers anywhere near as well as they can themselves, I can come to terms with that, but how am I supposed to-”

A sudden outbreak of yelling and gunfire from near the ruins put the two instantly on alert. Harkness was sprinting to the Embark Center before the first shout had died away, while Luna barely even realized what she was doing as she followed after him a second or two later. She felt a little out of place as she reached the building, joining Harkness and a handful of other security officers, but she still stepped up to the railings alongside them and looked out over the area below.

Several security officers were running across a snow-cleared parking lot towards the safety of the Embark Center, apparently fleeing from the entrance of a metro station.

“It looks like we set up that new metro security gate just in time,” Harkness said wryly.

“Security gate?” Luna asked.

“The Council voted to have it built as soon as we heard that Sonata had wandered off,” Harkness replied. “It’s just a bunch of scrap metal welded together, but it should be enough to hold back an attack from feral ghouls long enough for us to get everyone back onto the ship.”

Almost as soon as he said it, the horrendous screeching of metal being torn filled the air.

Luna felt her stomach drop as a horde of humanoid monsters poured forth from the metro station. Most of them looked like typical zombies from a horror flick, though there were a handful mixed in that were glowing with a sickly yellow light. All of them sprinted after the retreating security officers much faster than their rotting frames should have been capable of.

“So much for that!” Harkness slipped his assault rifle off his shoulder and raised it as he barked orders, “Get on the intercom and evacuate everyone to the ship, then tell the city to get ready for lockdown! Luna, you get back inside, too!” He opened fire on the horde below almost as soon as he had finished talking, and was swiftly joined by the other nearby security officers.

Luna took one look at the growing horde pouring out of the metro and sprinted back over the bridge. Now was not the time to argue. “Feral ghouls!” She exclaimed as she skidded to a halt at the entrance. “Chief Harkness wants the city ready for lockdown.”

The guards nodded and one got on the intercom without hesitation, while another got ready on the bridge controls. Only a few seconds later, the first security officers and construction workers hurried across the bridge from the Embark Center. Luna briefly considered drawing the assault rifle that Adam had given her, currently slung across her back in a vain attempt to make herself feel useful, but she decided against it. She hadn’t practiced with it enough to feel safe using it freely around other people.

As soon as all of the officers and workers stationed on the riverbank were on the bridge, Harkness and his team peeled off and retreated as one disciplined unit. They were barely halfway across when the bridge began to swing back away from the Embark Center.

Not a moment too soon, either, as the feral ghouls piled onto the roof of the building before the bridge had gone more than a few feet. Some tried to jump onto the bridge and missed, while the rest of them ran heedlessly off the edge of the building and plunged into the river below. The icy water instantly erupted into churning froth as the mirelurks swarmed over the prey that had suddenly dropped into their domain. Luna couldn’t help but shudder as the river swiftly turned red.

“This ain’t normal,” one of the guards muttered as he watched the awful scene. “Since when do ferals swarm outside in broad dayl- fuck!” He suddenly whipped out his submachine gun. “Reaver!”

Every local immediately stopped and tensed up, even the people who had one foot through Rivet City’s main door. Luna looked around, trying to figure out what they were worried about, when she spotted a unique ghoul standing its ground where the others were all pressing forward. It was wearing heavy-looking metal armor, and its entire body seemed to be wreathed in a flame-like haze. Even as she watched, the reaver pulled something from its waist and hurled it at the gathered security officers.

“Look out!” Harkness pulled an officer out of the way as a wad of flame-wreathed foulness sailed past and splattered against the wall. The reaver snarled, apparently annoyed that it had missed, and leaped into the river with its fellows.

Luna watched with morbid fascination as a mirelurk immediately snatched the reaver and tried to drag it beneath the water. Just as she started to relax, assuming that the ship was untouchable with the bridge retracted, she spotted something that gave her a jolt of fear. “They’re climbing the hull!”

The officers looked around at Luna’s shout, then rushed to the railings to get a better look. Harkness swore when he saw that a handful of ghouls had gotten past the mirelurks and were clambering up the metallic roots that covered the ship’s hull. “I want every single security officer at their stations, the city on total lockdown, and the Brotherhood of Steel out here helping to keep these assholes out!” He grimaced and shot down a ghoul that was getting close as he gave his orders. “I’m authorizing use of the turret that we got from the Enclave; have it target any ferals that aren’t on the Embark Center.”

As his officers either scrambled to fulfill his orders or started blasting away at the climbing ghouls, Harkness turned to Luna. “How confident are you with that thing?” He nodded to the weapon slung across her back.

“Not very,” she admitted. “I’ve practiced a little on the flight deck, but I’m not confident using it in a fight.”

“In that case, if you really want to help, get up to the flight deck and give us fire support from there,” Harkness told her. “That way you can pick them off from the hull or the riverbank without worrying about hitting friendlies.”

Luna nodded and charged through the door that led to the city’s main stairwell, taking the steps beyond two at a time as she hurried to prove herself useful. She didn’t like the idea of killing, but she’d rather be damned than let her students be the only ones to get blood on their hands in this foul world.

The weak siren that croaked feebly over the intercom grated on Initiate Peters’ nerves, but she ignored it as she and Danse escorted Maxson and Elder Lyons towards Rivet City’s entrance. Admittedly, the fact that the Elder was the only one with power armor and was lugging a dirty great gatling laser made it feel like she was the one escorting the other three, but Peters at least appreciated the sentiment. Getting a shiny refurbished laser rifle when she officially became an Initiate certainly hadn’t hurt either.

“Are they seriously locking down the whole ship because of some dumb feral ghouls?” Maxson asked.

“Don’t underestimate those walking corpses,” Peters said sharply.

Elder Lyons nodded without looking back. “She’s right, a ghoul horde isn’t an easy thing to deal with. I’ve seen Knights dragged down through sheer weight of numbers, or poisoned by the radiation that glowing ones pump out, and as for reavers-” Lyons shook her head grimly, “-if even one of those things manages to get on board then we are all in deep shit.”

Even Peters was a little taken aback by the Elder’s words. She had heard stories about reavers from her old raider crew, but she had always assumed they were just tall tales told to try and scare people.

“What are reavers?” Danse asked curiously. “I don’t recall ever hearing about them in the Commonwealth.”

“If you’re lucky, you’ll never have to find out,” Lyons told him. “For now, let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

It took Peters a moment to realize that they were already at the city entrance. Muffled gunfire could just about be heard through the door, and she fought back a shudder as the thought of feral ghouls massing just beyond it brought back unpleasant memories. Thankfully, no-one noticed her brief moment of weakness as Danse hauled the door open.

The noise crashed through like a wave as soon as the door was opened. A squad of security officers was holding the small landing area outside, firing down at something below. Peters shivered at the sight of a massive horde of ghouls on the other side of the river, swarming on and around the Embark Center and hurling themselves into the water like deranged animals. Dozens of them fell or were utterly torn apart by heavy firepower from the upper decks, but they just kept coming.

“What’s the situation?” Lyons asked as she strode through the door.

Harkness spared her a momentary glance before turning his attention back to the ghouls. “These things just started pouring out of the metro system and trying to get on the ship. This timing can’t be a coincidence, but questions are going to have to wait until we’ve dealt with these bastards. Especially since there’s reavers out there.”

Before anyone could comment on that, a sickly yellow blur shot out from among the ghouls on the Embark Center, soared over the river, and slammed into the side of the ship with an audible thud. Peters caught a split-second glimpse of a glowing one clinging to the metallic roots on the hull before it rocketed up towards the flight deck.

“Shit, those fuckers have magic now?!” Peters spat incredulously.

“We need reinforcements,” Lyons said calmly as she stomped to the front of the group. “Danse, Maxson, I need you to get a radio message out to the Rainbooms and Project Purity and let them know what’s going on. While you’re at it, find the Enclave ambassador and ask if they can spare a Vertibird gunship. Air support will be invaluable against a feral horde. Initiate Peters, with me!” With her orders given, the Elder hefted her gatling laser and unleashed hell on the opposite bank, scything down ghouls with a storm of scarlet death.

Maxson scowled and stepped forward, apparently about to argue, but a glare from Peters made him think better of it. She smirked as the boy beat a hasty retreat, then joined Lyons and the security officers.

A quick look down revealed that Mirelurks were slaughtering most of the ghouls that entered the water, but there were just so many ferals that more and more were making it past them and climbing up the side of the ship. Peters snorted and took aim at one that the others weren’t firing at. The ghoul twitched as the lasers struck it in the chest, then slipped and fell as a bolt blew a chunk out of its shoulder.

“That reaver is back, take it down!” Harkness yelled.

All of the security officers immediately turned their guns on a ghoul that had just dragged itself out of the water. It was covered in deep wounds and missing its left arm below the elbow, but that barely even seemed to slow it down. Even the storm of bullets didn’t faze it in the slightest. As the reaver got closer, Peters saw Harkness toss something out of the corner of her eye.

The perfectly-timed grenade exploded right as it hit the reaver, blasting it off the boat entirely.

“That was fucking awesome!” Peters shouted excitedly.

“Focus, Initiate!” Elder Lyons snapped.

“R-right!” Peters hid her embarrassment by shooting down another ghoul that had gotten a little too close for comfort.

Together, the team worked to try and clear away the ghouls climbing the hull, but the reaver’s distraction had bought time for even more of them to break through the mirelurks. It was almost impossible just to keep them from getting up to the entrance area. The ghouls were unrelenting, never seeming to drop in numbers no matter how many were shot down or savaged by mirelurks. If the battle carried on for too much longer then ammunition was going to become a problem. To make matters worse, despite the team’s best efforts, more and more ghouls were climbing up past the entrance and heading for the higher decks.

“How the hell are there so many of these fuckers?!” One of the officers shouted in frustration.

“No one knows how many ferals are in the D.C. metros!” Elder Lyons yelled back. “Besides, the damned glowing ones keep healing the others, and there’s something over there that I’ve never seen before!”

Just as she was about to ask what the Elder meant, the sound of the door opening made Peters flinch and whip around on pure instinct. Her newly-trained trigger discipline was the only thing that kept her from shooting Danse in the face as he rushed outside. He barely even spared her a glance as he called out to Lyons, “Elder! Project Purity and the Exodus building are both under siege by Super Mutants, they can’t spare any reinforcements!”

Lyons swore loudly as she reloaded her gatling laser. “What about the Rainbooms?”

“Knight-Sergeant Pie informed us that they’re dealing with the last few pockets of Talon Company resistance!” Danse replied over the gunfire. “She’s trying to send Knight-Captain Dash our way, but she’s having trouble contacting her!”

“So we’re on our own,” Lyons muttered quietly enough that Peters barely heard her. The Elder took a deep breath before speaking again, “Get as much ammo out here for us as you can, then get back to Maxson and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid!” As Danse hurried away, Lyons turned her gatling laser on the ghouls once more. “You heard him, people, we’ve got to hold these monsters back for as long as humanly possible! Don’t give these fuckers an inch!”

Luna gasped for air as she charged up the last flight of stairs. She liked to think that she was fairly fit, but sprinting up several flights while wearing armor was easier said than done. When she finally reached the top she allowed herself a few seconds to catch her breath, resting against the railings, then pushed through the door to the outside.

There were already at least a dozen armed civilians on the flight deck, along with a handful of security officers. All of them were lined up against the railings and firing down at the riverbank. Thankfully, the snow had mostly been cleared away so that people could see where the crystals and metallic tree roots were growing through the floor.

The sound of whirring machinery brought Luna’s attention around to the new turret that the Enclave had installed near the base of the tower; an almost entirely enclosed dome with twin gun barrels sticking out of a slit in the front and a small circular hatch in the side for the operators to enter. It was low-tech compared to the automated laser turrets that the Enclave had all over their facilities, but Luna didn’t doubt that it was one of the biggest weapons that the locals had ever seen. Even as she watched, the turret slowly turned and tilted down as it searched for a target.

Luna shook her head with a grimace as she realized that she was just trying to distract herself from what she had to do. Slipping her assault rifle off her shoulder, she hurried over to join the others at the railings. She shuddered as she got her first clear look at the riverbank.

Ghouls were flooding out of the metro in appalling numbers. Most of them sprinted towards the Embark Center, either climbing up it or charging past it, but a fair few of them were splitting off from the main horde and diving into the water closer to either end of the ship. Several glowing ones could be seen amongst each group, each of them letting out a bright yellow flash every few seconds. The sheer cacophony of gunfire and animalistic shrieks was surreal and utterly terrifying at the same time.

Luna flinched as the turret suddenly opened fire. Each distinctive cough it let out reverberated through her bones and punched a fist-sized hole through a feral ghoul. Luna felt her gorge rising as blood and gore splattered in all directions, and it took an incredible effort of will to keep herself from throwing up. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to try and calm herself, finding the acrid tang of cordite to be surprisingly inoffensive, then opened them once more and raised her weapon.

It was hard to pick a target amongst the horde. There were so many ghouls that it almost felt impossible to miss, but that was an illusion that the Enclave instructor had warned Luna about. Looking carefully, she spotted a glowing one charging past the Embark Center.

The assault rifle kicked as Luna gently squeezed the trigger.

She tensed up, bracing herself for a wave of guilt as a mist of pale green blood puffed from the ghoul’s chest, but it never came. Luna wondered for an absurd moment if she was in shock, then threw her misgivings to the back of her mind and took aim once more. The glowing one was still running, unconcerned by something as minor as a bullet wound, so she kept firing single shots at it until it ran headlong off the edge of the riverbank.

“Don’t bother with single shot, it won’t put those fuckers down unless you hit their head or their heart!” The civilian next to Luna called out. “Short controlled bursts are the way to go, or my name ain’t Flak!”

Luna didn’t have a clue whether or not that was really the man’s name, but she couldn’t see any reason to ignore his advice. She switched her rifle to automatic before taking aim once more. As she looked for targets a sickly yellow blur erupted from the metro, shot past the Embark Center and bounded across the river in the blink of an eye, slamming into the hull somewhere below.

Barely a second later someone further along the deck let out an agonized scream that was abruptly cut off. Bedlam erupted as people suddenly started yelling and scrambling about, firing wildly in their panic. Luna yelped and stumbled back as a stray bullet tore through Flak’s neck. She ducked behind a nearby copper sapling, her heart pounding, and carefully peeked out.

A glowing one was viciously mauling the locals, moving so quickly that it was little more than a blur, until it attacked a security officer. By some miracle, the man’s armor held up beneath the assault long enough for someone to slam a sledgehammer into its skull. The ghoul dropped to the floor instantly. Luna looked away just as the hammer fell again, but the sound that followed sent a shiver down her spine.

“Keep your wits about you, you fuckwits!” One of the security officers barked. “If you can’t keep trigger discipline under pressure, then fuck off back inside!” Luna was suddenly incredibly grateful that she hadn’t tried to shoot the glowing one herself.

A couple of the civilians did actually take the opportunity to turn and run back inside. Others tended the wounded or helped to move the dead while the officers got back to shooting. Luna wanted nothing more than to go back inside as well and curl up in a corner, but somehow she found her legs carrying her back to the railings.

The horde had somehow grown even bigger over what must have been less than a minute. Thankfully, the defenders seemed to have got their hands on some heavier weaponry, as a torrent of lasers was decimating the ghouls atop the Embark Center. Seeing that the situation wasn’t utterly dire, Luna took a deep breath and raised her rifle, scanning for targets. As she looked, she saw something that chilled her blood. “The dead ghouls are regenerating!”

“It’s the glowing ones, they heal the others with radiation!” A security guard shouted back. “Target them first!”

Hearing that made Luna hesitate for a second, but only for a second before she set about gunning down every glowing one she could spot. At first it was easier said than done; Luna used short controlled bursts like she had been told, but she had only practiced single shots before so the gun kicked a lot more than she expected. Thankfully, she managed to get the hang of it before she burnt through more than one magazine.

Almost as soon as Luna was starting to feel confident, she heard a small explosion from somewhere below. As if that was some sort of signal, more and more ghouls managed to climb up the hull to the flight deck, of both the regular and glowing variety, forcing the defenders to split their attention between the climbers and the main horde. The only silver lining was the fact that no more of them had any magic.

Unfortunately, a lack of magic didn’t mean a lack of danger. More than once, Luna had to skip back out of the way as a ghoul tried to grab her leg through the railings. After shooting the most recent feral to attempt this, and trying not to shudder at the bloody splatter it left on the floor as it fell, Luna cautiously checked to make sure that none were following after it. She let out a sigh of relief as she saw that the hull directly below her was relatively clear, but when she went back to seeking glowing ones on the riverbank she spotted something new and horrifying.

“That doesn’t look good,” someone noted, clearly looking at the same thing.

Three creatures stalked out of the metro amongst the rest of the monsters. Luna assumed that they were feral ghouls of some kind, but they towered over the others despite being hunched over, and they were so skeletally thin that their bones poked out through their sagging skin. The creatures’ heads rolled around with every step as if their necks had been broken, but most disturbing of all were their eyes; jet black orbs that looked like gaps in the fabric of reality.

They weren’t glowing ones, but Luna suspected that they were just as dangerous. She fired at one, staggering it at bullets stitched their way up its torso. It righted itself and tried to run after its fellows, but the defenders near Luna added their firepower to hers, bringing the creature down before it could move more than a few steps.

“That was easy!” A civilian shouted.

Luna felt like punching him for tempting fate as the corpse writhed, tripping some of the ghouls that were charging past it. “Hold on, it’s doing something!” She fought the urge to retch as a bunch of what looked like foot-long bright yellow slugs burrowed out of the body and disappeared into the mob. “What in Tartarus are those things?!” Luna anxiously looked around to see where the other two had gone, but they were nowhere to be seen.

“There! On the Embark Center!” Someone yelled.

Luna snapped her weapon up just in time to see one of the creatures grab a dead ghoul and vomit one of the yellow slugs onto its face. She clamped a hand over her mouth and struggled not to vomit as the slug forced its way into the corpse’s mouth and messily rammed itself down its throat, splashing foul yellowy mucus everywhere. The corpse twitched and shifted a second later, its wounds already healing, while the slug carrier crawled over to the next dead ghoul.

A security officer yelled orders to kill the new creatures as quickly as possible. Luna followed them gladly, her reluctance overridden by disgust and horror. The creature fell in a hail of bullets, but she made sure to keep firing at the body to kill as many of the slugs as possible. Once every slug was either dead or had escaped, Luna went back to coldly and methodically targeting every glowing one she could find. As she put them down one by one, she noticed the flood of ghouls from the metro abruptly stop.

Hope flared for a brief moment, only to be shattered as a living nightmare crawled out of the metro entrance and let out the scream of a tortured god.

Peters was struggling. The barrel of her laser rifle was glowing with heat, but for every ghoul that was shot off the hull another two took its place. Even the mirelurks turning the river into a churning crimson nightmare wasn’t enough to keep the ferals back.

Yet another explosion tore through the air as Harkness threw another grenade with perfect timing, blasting apart a cluster of ghouls. As much as Peters hated to admit it, she admired his skill. Him and Elder Lyons were probably the only reason the city hadn’t been entirely swamped already.

As if the universe had taken offense at her thoughts, the security officer guarding the intercom yelled, “Chief, the ferals have gotten into the city!”

“Fuck!” Harkness spared the man a quick glance. “How?!”

“Smashed in through a weakness in the prow!” The officer leaned in to listen to the intercom. “Security’s holding them off, but it’s touch and go!”

“It’s touch and go out here, god damn it!” Harkness spat. “Have the-”

His order was drowned out by an impossibly loud shriek; a high-pitched ululating noise that rattled the bones and froze the blood. Even the sky seemed to get a little darker at the sound.

Peters felt herself shaking uncontrollably at the sound, involuntary tears running down her face for the first time in years as she fought the urge to simply curl up into a ball. A quick glance revealed that the security officers were feeling the same. Only Harkness and Elder Lyons didn’t look scared, but even they had stopped firing and were simply staring blankly at the riverbank. It took the sound of claws scrabbling over metal close by to make everyone realize that they were all standing still like morons, but by then it was far too late.

One of the security officers let out a bloodcurdling scream as something grabbed him and yanked him off the landing. Peters whipped around just in time to a feral ghoul pull itself up, its skin wreathed in a sickeningly familiar haze. “Reaver!”

Everyone snapped their weapons up, but just as everyone fired the reaver launched itself at the officers. The first died before Peters could even register it, toppling backwards with deep gouges through his skull, while the second was practically torn apart under a flurry of vicious blows.

“Get back!” Lyons swung her gatling laser like a giant club, but the reaver ducked under it with a snarl and hurled itself at the Elder. Lyons didn’t even flinch as she tossed the laser at the ghoul’s head and met its charge head-on. The reaver smashed the laser aside with appalling ease, only for the Elder’s armored fist to slam into its face with bone-crunching force. Peters assumed that the fight was over then and there, but the reaver pressed forward as if it was nothing, clawing at Lyons in a frenzy.

The Elder stood her ground against the onslaught. She kept her guard raised, trying to create an opening as she blocked and deflected the reaver’s attacks, but it was so fast and strong that it was all Lyons could do to fend it off and protect her head. The blood drained from Peters’ face when she saw the Elder’s armor starting to buckle under the raw strength of the reaver’s fury.

“Hold the others back!” Harkness suddenly leapt to Lyons’ aid in an act of insane bravery, wielding a combat knife in one hand and a steel baton in the other.

Peters balked as she realized that more feral ghouls were already pulling themselves up. Her and the last security officer worked frantically to push them back, blasting them before they could get a foothold on the landing. Thankfully, there were hardly any glowing ones among the ferals, but being cornered by a horde again was enough to make Peters shake with fear and anger. She refused to let them take her out this time.

Just as she steeled her resolve, a cry of pain made Peters glance back over her shoulder.

The reaver was pressed back against the wall, with Elder Lyons holding it immobile and Harkness forcing his knife into its neck with both hands, while the ghoul itself had crumpled the armor around Lyons’ abdomen with one arm and was slowly pushing its claws deeper. Even as Peters watched, Harkness twisted his body sharply and tore out half of the reaver’s throat. The reaver twitched as blood sprayed everywhere, and Lyons took the opportunity to slam a quick hook into its jaw before grabbing what remained of its neck and pulling. The ghoul’s head came off in a welter of blood and radioactive gunk.

Lyons let the corpse drop to the floor and staggered back, clamping an arm to her side. Peters froze at the sight of blood leaking from the Elder’s armor.

“Everybody inside!” Harkness commanded. Lyons looked like she was about to argue despite her injury, but just as she opened her mouth there came a deafening groan of straining metal from the riverbank.

Peters looked back and almost dropped her weapon as she saw that the ferals on top of the Embark Center had stopped charging off of it and were now just standing still, watching. “What the f-” Her words died in her mouth as a huge arm reached up from behind the Embark Center, braced itself against the top, and an equally huge creature hauled itself up.

The monster looked vaguely like an oversized ghoul, more than three times the size of an ordinary feral despite the fact that it was missing its whole body below the waist, but it was covered with a pulsating network of jet-black veins. A closer look revealed that the monster had no eyes, just a blank stretch of half-rotted skin. Peters didn’t doubt for a second that this was the creature that had let out the nightmarish scream.

All of the lesser ghouls moved aside as the monster dragged itself forward. When it reached the edge of the Embark Center, the monster calmly leaned over as if it was looking down into the river. It cocked its head, apparently curious, then slapped its hands down on the metal floor. To Peters’ horror, inky black tendrils slowly grew out of the metal and started reaching across the river.

“Get inside! Now!” Harkness yelled as he wrenched the door open. Not even Elder Lyons argued this time, instead she just waved Peters and the remaining security officer through before stomping in herself. Harkness slammed and locked the door behind them. “Me and Higgins will hold the door. Elder, you head on up to the Doc, but you, Initiate-”

“I’ll hold the door.” Lyons shoved Harkness out of the way and braced herself back first against the door. “Power armor has the advantage in tight spaces like this. You hold the marketplace entrance, that’ll be an easier place for the ghouls to break through.”

Harkness scowled, but accepted the logic. “Fine. Either way, I need your Initiate to get to the science lab as quickly as possible.”

“What for?” Peters asked quickly.

“The black gunk that was bleeding out of that thing out there is the same shit that weird heart that Talon Company brought us,” Harkness replied grimly. “I’d bet every cap I have that the heart is what’s drawing them here, somehow. We need to burn it!”

Lyons frowned at him, but Peters jumped in before she could say anything, “Find the heart, burn the heart. Got it.”

Harkness nodded. “Pia has it in the main science lab, go!”

“Sir!” Peters turned and hared off without a second thought. Thankfully, the residents of Rivet City took the lockdown order seriously, as she didn’t encounter anyone other than the occasional security officer as she belted through the corridors.

Just as Peters turned into the corridor leading to the labs a violent tremor shook the ship, tipping her against the wall. “What the fuck was that?!” She glanced back anxiously, then shook her head and hurried onward. A dozen or so people were already in the science lab when Peters arrived; technicians and scientists who were going about their business as if the lockdown wasn’t their problem.

“What’re you doing here? Is the battle over?” A familiar squeaky voice asked.

Peters raised an eyebrow as Maxson hurried over, with Danse trailing him. “”Why are you-? Fuck it, where’s Pia? I need the heart thing that Talon Company gave us, pronto!”

“Y-yes, ma'am!” Maxson immediately turned and bolted off, shouting for Pia like a good little brat. A few moments later he came back with Pia in tow.

“Where’s the heart from Talon Company?” Peters demanded without preamble.

The question clearly took Pia by surprise, but she jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “It’s in a lockbox over there with Olmstead. Don’t worry, it’s sa-”

“Good, we need to burn it. Right now,” Peters said flatly. “Chief Harkness thinks it’s what’s attracting the feral ghouls,” she added in response to everyone’s curious looks.

Pia swore and shouted over to one of the technicians, “Clarke, bring me a blowtorch, now!” Peters, Danse and Maxson all followed as she scrambled over to a table in the corner of the lab. Two men in lab coats were arguing next to it. “Damn it, Whateley, will you please get back to work?!”

One of the men cocked his head and looked around at the group. His eyes were glassy and unfocused, as if he had just taken a hit of jet. “The heart is calling to me. I can hear the voice of Ug-Qualt-”

“What fucking chems are you on?!” Pia spat as she shoved between the two. She grabbed a heavy-looking lockbox off the table, set it on the floor, and flipped the lid open before backing away from it.

Peters grimaced at the sight of the oversized organ inside. The vile thing was still beating somehow, pumping out tar-like blood with every pulse.

“Clarke!” Pia shouted.

“I’ve got it!” Clarke called back. He ran over and pressed the bulky old blowtorch into Pia’s hands.

“What are you doing?” Whateley asked with narrowed eyes. When Pia lit the torch, he suddenly realized what was about to happen and dove at her with a strangled yell.

Peters and Danse both darted forward as the two crashed to the ground. Together, they managed to pull the lunatic off of Pia, but he was so strong and was writhing so much that it was all they could do to hold him back.

All of a sudden the room was lit up by a jet of searing fire. The air practically screamed from the sheer heat that was unleashed, forcing everyone to back away or burn. After a few seconds, a tremendous boom rocked the room, followed by the ghostly echo of a despairing wail.

Peters blinked rapidly, trying to clear her vision, before pushing herself to her knees and looking over at the lockbox. Flames crackled as it and the heart both burned merrily away. “Whoa…” Peters looked back over her shoulder, wondering where the fire had come from, only to spot a little girl standing proudly with her hands on her hips. She had little red wings sticking out of her back, and her hair looked as if it was made from living flame itself.

“I burned it for you!” The girl called out cheerfully.

Right at that moment another colossal tremor ran through the ship.

Luna’s hands shook as she shot another ghoul off the hull. She wished that she had a chance to get a few shots off at the monstrous ghoul crawling towards the Embark Center, but there were just too many ferals climbing up the hull for her to risk it. Besides, the AA turret was already pounding the monstrosity, but it was just ignoring the impacts entirely. A mere assault rifle would barely even be an irritation in comparison.

Just as the thought passed through Luna’s head, the turret fell silent. She risked a glance up at it as the hatch in its side opened. “Out of ammo!” The security officer shouted as he climbed out of it.

Almost everyone within earshot swore viciously. Without the turret reducing the horde’s numbers on the riverbank, it was going to get a lot harder to hold the city’s exterior against them.

“I hate this world,” Luna muttered to herself. She leaned over the railings and emptied her magazine into a glowing one that was hauling its way up, grabbed a fresh one out of the ammo boxes that runners had been bringing up constantly, and went straight back to shooting ghouls. It was easier, now that Luna could see just how savage and monstrous the feral ghouls were, she just hoped that she would still feel that way once the battle was done and the adrenaline had gone away. If she survived that long.

The sound of creaking metal caught Luna’s attention as the monstrous ghoul clambered up on top of the Embark Center. She tried to watch it out of the corner of her eye, but a trio of ferals climbed up to her position all at once, forcing her to focus on them.

The fight reached a new level of intensity as more and more ferals reached the flight deck. It was all the defenders could do to hold the horde back, but it was a stalemate that could only last so long before one side caved.

It was the defenders who broke first.

A loud fizzing sound filled the air, audible even over the gunfire, followed by a thunderous impact that shook Rivet City. Luna glanced down quickly, then did a double-take as she saw a bridge made of thick black tendrils stretching from the Embark Center to the city’s entrance. Ferals were pouring across it in droves, many of them falling or getting knocked off by fellows, while the monstrous ghoul had crossed over and was leaning with its fists against the ship’s hull.

As worrying as the sight was, Luna spared it little more than a passing glance. The last thing she needed in a fight was a distraction. Unfortunately, she got one anyway, as someone on the deck screamed in terror. Luna spun around just in time to see a ghoul yank a resident over the railings and drop them into the river below. The people nearby quickly put the ghoul down, but those couple of seconds were enough for more ghouls to get close enough to attack.

The defense crumbled almost immediately afterwards. Too many people turned their weapons on the ghouls on the deck, which let more of them reach the top and scramble over the railings. The security officers desperately tried to restore a measure of firing discipline, but it only took a few seconds for the firing line to become embroiled in a mad melee.

Luna jumped back as a ghoul swiped at her. She managed to sidestep the next attack and slammed the butt of her rifle into the side of its head, knocking it back. A short burst of gunfire made sure it didn’t try again. Another ghoul lunged at Luna a second later, forcing her to fire wildly to bring it down. Heart pounding, she risked a quick glance around at the others.

More ferals were swarming over the railings all over the deck. Many of the defenders were still standing and fighting, but the ghouls were overwhelming them one by one. The flight deck was lost.

Several nearby ghouls snarled as they turned their attention to Luna, prompting her to panic and squeeze her gun’s trigger tightly. The rifle kicked madly, but she managed to control it just enough to drop four or five ghouls before it finally clicked empty.

“Horseapples!” Luna spat. The first ghoul was on her in an instant, forcing her to use her rifle like a shield to fend off its attacks. She ducked under one particularly wild swing and cracked the ghoul across the knee with the rifle butt, then smashed it in the face, booted it in the gut and turned to run to the door. Another ghoul snagged Luna’s coat and she whirled around, panic lending her strength as she swung the rifle like a club and smacked the ghoul with the barrel. Two more solid hits to the head dropped the ghoul with a sickening crunch.

More ghouls charged after Luna, and she raised the gun menacingly, determined to fight tooth and nail if she had to. Right before the first feral got in range, something blurred across her vision and the ghoul fell, bisected across the waist. The other ghouls died a heartbeat later with blue flames streaked across their necks.

“This day is turning into a real fucking mess!” Rainbow stood protectively in front of Luna, her wings outstretched, her sword blazing with azure fire and her crystalline armor shimmering with the reflected light. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this!”

Luna watched, awestruck, as Rainbow blurred into action. The feral ghouls didn’t stand a chance as she carved through them like a hot knife through butter, moving faster than the eye could follow. A carpet of mutilated corpses grew in her wake.

Seeing her student turn the tide single-handedly, Luna swallowed her revulsion and ran over to the nearest ammo box. There wasn’t any assault rifle ammunition in there but, before she could find another box, a muffled boom came from somewhere within the city, followed by a faint ghostly wail. The ghouls immediately stopped in their tracks, their drive and aggression disappearing as if a switch had been flipped. The defenders were quick to take advantage of the situation, slaughtering the ferals where they stood, but they were only granted a few seconds before the city shook beneath a powerful impact.

“Oh, come on!” Luna belted over to the railings just in time for another blow to send a tremor through the ship. The monstrous ghoul was still moving, pounding on the hull of the ship with more energy and haste than it had displayed before.

“What the fuck is that?!” Rainbow exclaimed.

“I don’t know, but I think someone made it mad,” Luna replied grimly. Even as she watched, the ferals around the beast twitched and started to move again, snarling as they came around. “It looks like whatever messed up the others is wearing off!”

Rainbow swore under her breath. “Security should be able to hold the flight deck now, I’ll see what I can do about the big one.”

“Don’t touch that black stuff, it looks toxic,” Luna warned her.

“No shit.” Rainbow snapped her wings open and disappeared in a flash. A second later the monstrous ghoul screeched in pain and rocked backwards, a burning blue line smoldering across where its eyes should have been.

Luna silently wished Rainbow luck and got back to looking for ammo. She finally found some in the third box she looked in, by which point the surviving defenders had butchered most of the ghouls on the deck. Determined not to let things get that desperate again, Luna charged over to the railings and leaned over, ready to pick off any ferals that were climbing up the hull before they could reach the deck. She blinked in surprise when she saw that the hull was almost entirely clear.

“There aren’t any more coming from the metro!” Someone shouted in relief. “This is the last of them!”

Unless another horde turns up, Luna thought sourly, though she kept it to herself.

After picking off the few ghouls still on the hull, a couple of the security officers took aim at the ones still on the bridge with their oversized variant. “Careful where you’re aiming, Rainbow Dash is out there!” Luna snapped, as if the blazing wounds that now crisscrossed the flailing beast hadn’t made it obvious enough.

The sound of the door slamming open made everyone whip around in shock. A lone security officer stumbled through, clutching at a horrific wound in his side. “They’re… inside,” he said weakly as another officer ran forward to support him. “They… broke through… the prow…”

Horror flashed across Luna’s mind at the thought of these creatures stalking through the city’s corridors. One of the security officers barked orders at the others, organizing a small team to stay on the flight deck while the others cleared the interior, when the ship was rocked by yet another impact, this one accompanied by the sound of torn metal.

Looking down, Luna was horrified to see that the monstrous ghoul had given up on trying to swat Rainbow Dash, and had instead punched a hole right through Rivet City’s hull. It tried to pull its arm free, only for multicolored lightning to crackle around the hole and shear the beast’s arm off with a deafening crack.

Luna felt her heart leap as the monster swayed backwards and shrieked in agony. A multicolored blur rocketed past the beast a heartbeat after, slashing it from armpit to shoulder and eliciting another screech of pain and rage.

“What the hell just happened?! Did Lady Dash do that?!” A resident shouted excitedly.

The only security officer that hadn’t gone back inside shook his head. “It looked like Rivet City itself wanted a crack at that thing, but how the hell is that little sword managing to hurt it when the damned turret did fuck all?”

“It’s probably the magic, maybe that’s all that can… hurt it…” Luna turned to look around the flight deck. There was an insane amount of magic in the ship and all of the weird things growing through it, so there had to be something that could be used as a weapon against the beast. Finally, Luna’s eyes fell on a pale blue crystalline spike growing near the base of the trees. She’d been told that most of them had been harvested, but this one was easily three feet tall and an inch or so thick with a wickedly sharp point at the tip.

Luna darted over to the spike and tried to pull it out of the deck. It resisted at first, enough that she thought she’d have to smash the base of it, but as she gave it one last heave it ripped free. Tiny crystal roots splayed out from the bottom of it, but it was heavy and solid enough to do some damage.

With her makeshift weapon in hand, Luna ran back over to the railings and waved it in the air as she shouted, “Rainbow! Throw this at super speed! Rainbow!”

The giant ghoul snarled as a blur opened a gaping wound on its cheek, but Rainbow didn’t react to Luna no matter how much she yelled. Luna felt a jolt run through her as she realized that Rainbow probably couldn’t hear her. Hearing aids weren’t designed with super speed in mind, so there was a good chance that all Rainbow could hear at those speeds was incomprehensibly distorted tones.

“For the love of-!” Luna flipped the spike over so it was point-down and backed up several steps. She took a deep breath, raised the spike parallel to the floor, then charged forward and hurled it like a javelin down at the beast. The spike struck the ghoul in the chest, right over where the heart would be.

“Good shot!” The security officer shouted as the monstrous ghoul screeched in pain, but Luna just shook her head. The spike was stuck fast, clearly lodged either in or between ribs, but it hadn’t gone deep enough to seriously hurt the creature. The ghoul hissed and reached for the spike with its remaining arm. Just as its fingers were closing around it, there was a multicolored blur and the beast let out a grunt.

Rainbow was curled up in a ball with her feet against the ghoul’s chest. With her momentum spent, she kicked off of the creature before she could fall and soared away. Luna gasped as she realized that the Rainboom had used her weight and momentum to slam the spike through the ghoul’s heart, right up to the roots.

The monster swayed, letting out a gurgling death rattle, and finally keeled over backwards. With the magic supporting it gone, the bridge disintegrated under the weight and dumped the ghoul into the river below. The water erupted into a churning mess as the mirelurks swarmed over the corpse in a feeding frenzy.

Next Chapter: Chapter 176 - Cleanup Estimated time remaining: 6 Hours, 6 Minutes