“Sure enough to end this stupid stand-off.” Pinkie fired at the hulking overlord nearby, vaporizing its upper body and the deadly tri-laser it was carrying. “Screw you, Brok,” she muttered as all hell broke loose.

Rainbow and Lightning were the main cause of the racket, barely visible inside the storm of magical energy caused by their weapons. Pinkie and the Knights used the distraction they were causing to blast the dithering Super Mutants. There were enough of them that it was almost impossible to miss, each shot from the party cannon blowing apart three or more of them while Fawkes’ and the Knights’ lasers scythed through their crude armor like a hot knife through butter.

The Super Mutants soon gathered their wits and retaliated, but Pinkie charged at the closest group and dove amongst them. She ducked and weaved around the oversized brutes as they tried frantically to get a hit on her, causing more damage to each other than to anyone else. One tried to smash Pinkie’s with an enormous sledgehammer and instead pulped his neighbor’s skull as she dodged the swing. Others fired wildly at her and ended up blasting chunks out of the walls and the other Super Mutants. All the while Pinkie kept moving, relying on her Pinkie Sense to keep her safe and taking pot-shots at those further away.

A quick glance revealed that Fawkes and the Knights were holding their own as well. The Super Mutants had no fire discipline whatsoever, and their moronic plan of completely surrounding the Brotherhood squad meant that all of the Mutants were trying to shoot while avoiding fire from both the Brotherhood and their own troops.

“Got you!” A Super Mutant bellowed from behind.

“Nope!” Pinkie ducked as her left ear twitched and the bullets meant for her buried themselves in the gut of another Mutant. The shooter swung its gun around after her, but she smashed a Nuka-Cola bottle in its face and darted away. A pink explosion splattered gore across the floor a second later.

Risking a glance around, Pinkie saw that Rainbow and Lightning had disappeared somewhere, the Knights were still fighting as bullets cracked off their battered armor, and Fawkes was barely visible in the middle of a swirling melee with a mob of other Mutants.

A twinge in the neck and a brief flash of purple from behind provided a split-second warning. Pinkie dove into a commando roll, snapping up her Party Cannon as she rolled to her feet facing the enemy. Zap was standing over her, still surrounded by crackling purple and turquoise magic, clutching his staff as if he had been about to take a swing with it. “Time to break you, yep.”

“Don’t pretend that you can tell the time,” Pinkie shot, but inside she was panicking. She had already fulfilled her part of the plan while Zap had been occupied with Rainbow, but instead of disappearing like usual the Mutant was sticking around to fight. Killing him now would be way too risky; he had to be chased off somehow. “Don’t you need to be out running errands for Shephard or something?”

“I am, yep.” Zap thrust his staff forward and fired off a beam of turquoise magic, forcing Pinkie to skip aside. The beam vaporized a Super Mutant before hitting the far wall, boring a hole clean through it. “Hm, stronger than anticipated, yep.”

Pinkie grimaced and fired at Zap. She had intended to miss without making it too obvious, but the Mutant used his magic to swat the glowing Nuka-Cola aside anyway, blowing another hole in the rotunda wall. A shiver ran down Pinkie’s spine at the realization that he could have just as easily tossed it at one of her allies instead.

“Go ahead, you should try that again,” Zap said with a grin, clearly having the same idea.

“I’ve got a better idea.” Pinkie ducked to avoid a wayward bullet and slung her Party Cannon over her shoulder, then charged empty-handed at the Super Mutant. Zap blinked in surprise, but his confusion only lasted for a second as he swung his staff at her. Magic hissed as Pinkie dove under it. As she rolled to her feet, she drew a fresh weapon out of a pocket that was way too small to hold it and swung it at Zap’s legs. The pickaxe smashed into his magical shield with a flash that lit up the room, followed by a hollow boom that threw up a cloud of dust and brought more cascading from the ceiling.

Pinkie coughed and spluttered as she staggered back from the impact. She hadn’t used her magic pickaxe since the battle at Raven Rock, and despite the new grayish-purple gems embedded in the head she had still underestimated just how powerful it was.

Someone groaned loudly as the dust started to clear. Zap hauled himself to his feet, leaning heavily on his staff, and turned to glare at Pinkie. He thrust his staff at her once again, only to drop it with a yelp when a line of sparks burst out along its length.

“Huh, I guess your stick doesn’t work anymore,” Pinkie noted flatly. “You should see a doctor, they might have some pills that can-”

Zap roared and drew his arm back as if he was about to throw a shotput. Turquoise magic rippled across his body and gathered into a roiling ball ball of energy in his hand, and Pinkie threw herself out of the way as he hurled it with a grunt. The room shook yet again as the ball crashed into the far wall. Snarling angrily, Zap turned and ran for the sealed door, blasting a hole through it with another flash of magic and fleeing into the corridors beyond.

Pinkie briefly considered letting him run, but she had to make sure that he teleported far away from this building. Anything else wasn’t safe. “Sweep the building, I’ll get Zap!” Pinkie shouted to the others before charging through the smoking hole in the door.

The corridors on the other side were all dark. Purple light glimmered faintly around a nearby corner, so Pinkie hurried after it, taking care not to let her pickaxe touch the walls. The light led her on a wild goose chase through a maze of corridors and stairwells, until finally she saw Zap skid to a halt outside an office on the second floor. He glanced back at her, yelped, and disappeared in a purple flash.

Pinkie slowed to a stop and frowned at the spot where he had vanished, wondering why he had bothered to run when he could have just teleported out in the first place.

“Hey, this isn’t Pelosi’s office!” A voice exclaimed loudly.

“Huh? Whoa!” Pinkie threw herself backwards just in time to avoid a figure diving out of the closest office. She gritted her teeth and readied her pickaxe when she saw who she was facing. “You again.”

Diane grinned widely. She was wearing nothing but a gore-splattered butcher’s smock and a pair of leather boots and she had a miniature chainsaw the size of a carving knife buzzing away in one hand. A ripper; weapon of choice for psychopaths and spree killers. “Are you messing with the Super Mutants again? That’s so silly! You should really leave them alone, they’re really good customers of mine.”

“Maybe you should target a different demographic,” Pinkie said quietly. Her Pinkie Sense was tingling like crazy, but she held her ground nonetheless. “What are you doing here?”

“Cooking, duh!” Diane replied. “Well, technically I was preparing the food first, and then I was going to start cooking, but then Zap came up here and brought you with him, so I guess that’s going to have to wait until I’ve dealt with you.” She tapped a finger against her chin thoughtfully. “Maybe he was hoping that I could be his trump card. Eh, I’m not an NFT, but I’ll see what I can do.”

Pinkie snapped her pickaxe up as Diane suddenly lunged forward. Sparks flew as the ripper met the pickaxe’s handle, only for Diane to twist and swipe up from a different angle. Pinkie backed away, desperately blocking every attack, until finally she found an opening and swung the pickaxe at her counterpart’s chest. Diane skipped back out of the way, giggling madly. “Careful, if you touch anything with the pointy bits then we’re both going to blow up.”

Pinkie grinned savagely and jabbed the point of the pickaxe into the wall, dragging it down and leaving a deep furrow in the exposed concrete. “I’ve added a couple of neat gems to it. Now it only blows stuff up if I want it to.”

“Ooo, fun!” Diane lunged at her again, but this time Pinkie darted forward, smacked the ripper aside with the pick’s shaft, and fought back with short chopping motions. Diane dodged each strike and backpedaled swiftly; even a weak hit from the business end of a pickaxe was nothing to joke about. “You’re getting pretty good at this, especially for a pony from another world.”

Pinkie snarled and brought the pickaxe around in a wide arc. Diane ducked away from it and hopped through a nearby door, but when Pinkie charged through after her she saw nothing but an empty office.

Diane’s voice echoed eerily through the corridor, “Oh? Don’t you want people to know that you’re from Equestria?”

“I’m not!” Pinkie spat as she stepped out of the office and stalked down the corridor. “Pony Pinkie can take down Storm Beasts ten times her size with nothing more than a plateful of cupcakes. If she was here, the Knights would be scraping what was left of you into a bucket by now.”

“Awww, that doesn’t sound so fun.” Diane sprang out of an office on the left, her ripper snapping up in a tight slash that Pinkie barely managed to dodge, then vanished behind the door again just before the pickaxe smashed into it with a loud thunk. Pinkie yanked the pick free as a voice rang out once more, “Does that mean you haven’t learned anything from Equestria?”

“I’ve learned plenty,” Pinkie replied. She wasn’t sure how Diane knew about Equestria, but she put it from her mind and checked the office anyway just in case.

“Oh, oh, oh! Did you learn new magic from Princess Twilight?!” Diane asked excitedly. “Or did you learn something from Applejack? No, wait, I bet it was Rainbow Dash!”

Pinkie stepped back out into the corridor and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath in, held it for a moment, then let it out slowly. Opening her eyes again, Pinkie looked up and down the corridor, this time examining her surroundings with a more critical eye. “If you really want to know, I learned from the most important someone that any real Pinkie knows.”

Diane gasped in apparent realization. “Oh, I know! It’s Princess Cele-”

Pinkie moved the instant she felt her shoulder twitch, slamming the base of her pick into the wall as hard as she could. There was a loud crack as a chunk of concrete fell from the ceiling behind her. She was already spinning when she heard a thump and a yelp, her pick leaving a trail of pink glitter in its wake as she swung it in an upward crescent. Diane doubled over with a grunt as the tip of the pickaxe slammed into her gut and punched out of her back.

“Maud,” Pinkie spat. She ripped the pickaxe out of Diane’s gut, whirled it overhead, and smashed it into the side of her counterpart’s skull with enough force to pin her to the wall. Diane hung there for a heartbeat, her eyes and mouth open in shock, before the magic flared, splattering bone and brain matter everywhere with a loud bang.

The headless corpse dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. Pinkie stood over it, waiting for the echoes of the fight to fade away, then sighed and slumped against the wall as the tension flooded out of her body. Staring down at the body, Pinkie wondered what had happened to make her counterpart turn into a complete monster. A moment later she realized that she was covered in what was essentially her own ruined brain and desperately tried to wipe it off of her face.

Just as Pinkie managed to get rid of the worst of the foulness, a slow clap echoed through the corridor. Every nerve in her body burst into life as her Pinkie Sense suddenly went into overdrive.

“And into her own reflection she stared… yearning for one whose reflection she shared…” An icy hand gripped Pinkie’s heart as Diane stepped out of the empty office, this time wearing her usual wasteland gear. “And solemnly sweared not to be scared… at the prospect of being doubly mared.”

Pinkie straightened and raised her pickaxe. She glanced from Diane to the identical corpse on the floor and back again, trying not to quake in her boots as she tried to figure out what was going on. “How are you still alive?! I killed you!”

Diane grinned and planted her hands on her hips. “Nope, just a clone! Did you know that this world has a Mirror Pool too?” She threw her head back and laughed maniacally. Pinkie took a step back, weighing her options, when Diane suddenly darted forward. The pickaxe fizzed and popped as Pinkie swung it around, but Diane ducked underneath it with casual ease and tackled her to the ground.

“Got you again!” Diane used her bodyweight to pin Pinkie’s arms and pressed a forearm into her throat, pressing down to cut off her breathing. “You’re getting good, but you’re not quite ready yet. Should I put you out of your misery already?” She smirked, then got up and crossed her arms triumphantly as Pinkie gasped for air. “Nah, not just yet. I might need you to finish my new recipe if the other ingredients don’t work.”

Pinkie tried to stand as Diane turned to skip away, only to gasp and shudder as a wave of energy washed through the building, making both of the women pony up. She glanced in the direction the magic had come from in surprise.

“Was that a Sonic Rainboom? I can’t wait until I can finally get a good taste of her!” Diane glanced back over her shoulder at Pinkie. “By the way, Zap is way away from here by now, so you should be fine to press the button. Just try not to take out too many of my customers, okay?” With that, she turned and skipped away, humming a bouncy little tune as she went.

Pinkie scowled and tried to climb to her feet, but her knees shook beneath her and she ended up leaning against the wall to stop herself from falling. As much as she hated to take the advice of a monster like Diane, it was true that she needed to finish the mission. Taking a deep breath, Pinkie pulled the little detonator out of her pocket, flicked off the safety, and pressed the button.

Various landscapes flickered through Zap’s vision as he teleported to a bunch of different sites one after the other. His power let him instantly travel to anywhere he had visited or seen in person before, but something about the Pink Rainboom made him want to cover his tracks as much as possible. Her powers were too much like Diane’s, and given that the Gore Merchant was the one who had somehow kidnapped the Glimmerwitch from the Red Flags and delivered her to Vault 87’s secret exit in one piece, it seemed wise to be careful.

Still, the encounter hadn’t been a total failure. There was a fair chance that Diane and Lightning could each deal with their Rainboom opposites, the secret chambers under the Capitol Building were still hidden, and the new technology derived from the Glimmerwitch’s powers worked perfectly. Shephard would be immensely pleased.

After several more jumps, Zap finally appeared in the middle of a bombed-out chapel, way out in the middle of nowhere. Half a dozen fellow Super Mutants instinctively raised their weapons, then lowered them when they recognized him. “It’s just me, yep. Just checking in and making sure everything is good, yep.”

The other Mutants all cocked their heads and stared at him in confusion until one of the younger ones piped up, “Everythin’s good, boss. Borin’, but no trouble.”

“Good, yep. Get back to what you’re doing then, yep.” Zap stomped over to a small fire burning in the corner of the chapel, eager to rest and get some food, only to realize that the others were still staring at him. “What do you want, yep?”

“What’s that?” One of the younger Mutants asked, pointing at his back.

Zap frowned and reached around. His fingers brushed against something solid, so he shifted and twisted until he managed to pull whatever it was off of his back.

It turned out to be a heavy metal box covered in old pre-war wrapping paper. Zap raised an eyebrow, wondering how the hell he hadn’t noticed it before, but curiosity soon got the better of him. He eagerly ripped away the wrapping and popped the lid off. Inside were a few bottles of Nuka-Cola Quantum, a pair of mini-nukes, and a bunch of small pink crystals all connected by a mess of wires and solder. A fusion pulse charge sat right on top of all of it. The words ‘Sunshim’s Regards’ were scrawled across the bomb in bright pink paint.

Just as Zap realized what he was holding, a little light on the pulse charge changed from red to green. “Oh, shi-”

Next Chapter: Chapter 185 - ShyWanderer Taxi Service Estimated time remaining: 4 Hours, 41 Minutes