Starlight rubbed her hoof and grinned awkwardly, glad nopony else was around to see her discomfort. Except for a certain draconequus, of course.

“Really, Starlight, while I appreciate your faith in my abilities, it's going to take me just a teensy bit longer to search every nook and cranny in Equestria and beyond,” Discord said airily. “In fact, I was just finishing up my search of Klugetown when you summoned me. And before you ask, no, I didn’t find any magical gateways, rifts, portals, or other remnants of such, though I did find a poor fellow suffering from Pastellus Coloritis. Quite unpleasant; it probably won’t be long before bits star-”

“I-it’s okay, Discord,” Starlight interrupted quickly, holding up a hoof. “We, uh, we don’t need you to search Equestria anymore.”

Discord raised an eyebrow, “You’ve found them already? That was quick.” He shrugged and turned away, waving a claw distractedly, “Well, I suppose if you don’t need my help anymore, I’ll just be off. I have a tea party to prepare for.”

“We still need your help, now more than ever!” Starlight replied quickly, prompting the spirit to turn his back around allowing him to face her while slowing his walk to a stop midway through a wall. “It turns out our mirror friends were sucked through another portal. One not connected to Equestria.”

“One not connected to Equestria?” Discord ran his single fang through his beard absently as he turned around and reassimilated properly, humming in thought, “That can’t be right. While I’ve never actually been to the world through the mirror, I have a policy against going to dimensions that lack magic, I could have sworn that that world and Equestria are only linked to each other.”

Starlight nodded, “They are, or, at least, they were, but there was an incident in the human world. The Diviner, the machine we were using to communicate through our portal, overloaded and it picked up a connection to another world. Our friends got sucked through and we haven’t been able to contact them since.”

“What do you mean, it picked up a connection?” Discord asked, narrowing his eyes and lowering his head to Starlight’s level.

Starlight shuddered at the sudden chill in his voice, “The Diviner overloaded while we were talking through it. We shut down the portal here in Equestria, but the Diviner in the human world somehow opened up a portal to another world.”

“You mean you somehow managed to rip open a fresh hole in the border between realities?” Discord hissed.

Starlight winced, “Um… yes?”

Discord stood as tall as his serpentine body would allow and looked in the exact direction of the Mirror Portal. “Is the new portal still open?” he asked quickly.

“No. The Diviner needs a constant supply of Equestrian magic on both sides of the portal to function,” Starlight replied.

Discord hummed and folded his mismatched arms into origami cranes while he thought, “Well, I suppose that’s something of a silver lining.”

“How can you say that!?” Starlight retorted angrily. “My friends are lost on some alternate world, we have no idea whether they’re safe or not, and so far we have no way of even finding them, and you think that’s a good thing!?”

“Ah, ah, ah. That’s not what I said,” Discord retorted, waggling a claw. “I said it’s a good thing the portal isn’t still open. If it was, who knows what sort of things could have slipped back through,” he curled around himself and formed into a donut with sprinkles that he then slithered completely out of while wearing a velociraptor costume.

Starlight frowned at him, “What do you mean?”

“The only worlds you know of are our one and the human world, but there are far more than that out there: An infinite number of different realms, realities, even whole multiverses all happily existing and minding their own business.” A series of miniature globes, solar systems and bizarre symbols sparked into life around Discord as he spoke while the light in the room dimmed enough so the created objects shone and sparkled brilliantly, “and trust me when I say that some of them are far, far more dangerous than anything you’ll find in the human world. A few contain beings even I would tread carefully around.”

Starlight shivered involuntarily when Discord said that in one of the most serious voices she’d ever heard him use. She didn’t even want to imagine a creature that could make Discord wary. On the other hoof, the thought of her human friends being trapped in a world with a monstrosity like that was more than enough to harden her resolve, “I can’t just abandon my friends, no matter how dangerous it is,” she stomped a hoof in resolution.

“I wasn’t suggesting you should,” Discord replied. “Even if I did, I highly doubt you would listen. However, I would suggest, quite strongly, that you and our little Princess Purple Smart take every precaution you can possibly think of when you try and open up the portal again. You should probably get Starswirl to take a look as well, he was always fond of that sort of thing.”

Starlight nodded, “I’ve already sent him a message. In the meantime, we were hoping that you would be willing to help us look for the world they’ve been sent to.”

“What!?” Discord cried, poofing his little floating globes and things back out of existence, “Did you not hear me when I said there are infinite realities out there?” He reached and grabbed her ears, with a tug several ears of corn sprouted from the tips. “It could take eons for me to find your friends by just searching randomly!”

Starlight flipped her ears and turned her head freeing herself from the magical prop while she levitated a sheet of parchment out of her saddlebags, “What if I could show you the magical signature of the world they were sent to?”

Discord grabbed the parchment, pulling a pair of pince-nez glasses out of thin air and putting them on with a comical squeak sound, “Hmmm, this should narrow it down slightly,” he said puffing on a corncob pipe he’d made from one of the corns from Starlight’s ear.

Starlight’s shoulders slumped, “Only slightly?”

Discord nodded, “Sadly, yes. Unless I’ve been to a world before, it’s extremely difficult for me to open a direct portal to it. It’s just as likely that I’ll end up in a completely random reality full of sapient toenail clippers.” He shook his head and tossed away the glasses, “Having the signature should help,” he spat the pipe out and it flew away on its own, “but even then it just makes it more likely that I’ll open a portal to a reality that’s only roughly in the same area, metaphysically speaking.”

Starlight looked up at him hopefully, “Will you at least try? Please?” She adopted the cutest look she could while asking.

“Well I would but…” Discord squirmed uncomfortably under the little pony’s pleading look. Finally he sighed, “Oh… fine.” He pinched two fingers together on the parchment and pulled away a wad of thick black sludge. He span it around his hand a few times then flicked it away, only for it to splat onto an invisible surface apparently hanging in empty air. “You should probably stand back,” Discord waited for Starlight to heed his warning, then ran a claw through the hovering sludge, tearing a hole through the fabric of realities.

Both Starlight and Discord recoiled as a palpable aura of hatred and suffering poured out of the gap. Peering through the tear, the pair could see a large building build solidly of wood. Panelled glass windows lined the walls, with a small archway forming the entrance. Above the arch was a sign covered in writing, though not in any language that Starlight recognised, and above that again was a large clock. Roiling black clouds could barely be seen above the building.

Starlight tried not to retch as the sickening aura intensified, “What… urk… what is that?” she dry heaved.

“Dark magic,” Discord replied with an uncharacteristically bleak expression, “of a variety far more terrible than anything you will ever find in Equestria.”

Starlight fought back a terrified shudder, “Is… is that where my friends are?”

Discord shook head, “I don’t know. For all we know the magical signature you showed me could be one of dozens, or even hundreds that exist within the reality your friends ended up in. I’ll have to go through and search the area thoroughly before I can be certain, one way or the other.”

A shrill scream suddenly rang out from inside the building. The two stared fearfully for several seconds, but no further sounds were forthcoming.

“I don’t know about you, but I sincerely hope your friends are not in this particular reality,” Discord said slowly. Coming to a decision, Starlight pulled a book out of her saddlebags, a sibling to those that Twilight and Sunset shared, and wrote a lengthy note in it while Discord watched the world beyond. “I don’t want to picture finding any version of Fluttershy in a place like this.”

Starlight looked up at him, “I’m coming with you.”

“You most certainly are not!” Discord spluttered.

“I know how to handle myself, and there is no way I’m letting a friend go to such a dangerous place all alone,” Starlight said firmly. A short buzz from the book grabbed her attention and she nodded grimly when she opened and read from it, “That was from Twilight, she says she’s happy for me to go with you. She and Starswirl should be able to reconfigure the Diviner between them.”

Discord rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “I… w-well that is… um… I mean, thank you, Starlight,” he said gratefully.

“Don’t mention it,” Starlight replied. “One quick question though,” she pointed a hoof through the tear, “can you read that sign?”

“Tenjin Shougakkou,” Discord said after a quick look, “it roughly translates as ‘Heavenly Host Elementary School’.”

Starlight pawed the ground nervously. Her voice quavered as she spoke, betraying her nerves, “Well, I guess it can’t be that bad. I mean, how dangerous can a school be?”

“I suppose we’ll soon find out,” Discord muttered darkly knowing better than she the true horrors the multiverse held. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Absolutely,” Starlight replied with far more bravado than she felt. “Come on, let’s go.”

Side by side, the two strode through the rippling tear in reality.

Sheltered within a bombed-out building, not far from Project Purity, several dark figures shifted restlessly as they watched the activity around the Memorial building.

“Stupid fucking weather,” Blades muttered. The torrential rain made it difficult to make out anything more than dark shapes interspersed with occasional lights. Scratching idly at his stubble, he called to the woman perched several meters away, right on the edge of the ruined floor, “Hey, you see anything yet?”

Lightning didn’t answer at first. She was staring down at the Jefferson Memorial through a pair of compact binoculars. Eventually she sighed and lowered them, “The Rainbooms are definitely down there, but I have no idea who those other fuckers are.” She tossed the binoculars to Blades, who caught them easily and raised them to his eyes, “Looks like they got to the freaks first, they’re loading them onto one of those plane-things.”

“Yeah, I see it,” Blades muttered, the binoculars’ night-vision easily penetrating the darkness and rendering the rain as little more than a constant static. Normally he would have wondered where she’d managed to pick up such impressive tech, but right now he had more pressing problems. “They’re moving the Rainbooms on stretchers, did they kill them already?”

Lightning shook her head, “I doubt it, not with the way those dorks without the armour keep fussing over them. They must be medics or scientists, or something.”

Crawler stepped over and crouched next to Blades, peering out into the rain, “You reckon we can take ‘em?”

“Nah, there’s too many of them, and most of them have power armor,” Blades replied.

“Shit,” Crawler hocked a mouthful of phlegm out of the window, “What’s the plan then?”

Blades just grunted. As he watched, two more power armored figures emerged from the building, carrying a stretcher that bore a grizzled-looking man in a trench coat. Behind them came another power armored soldier and a scientist. The two seemed to be engaged in a heated argument, with the scientist gesturing angrily between the stretcher, the building, and the Rainbooms.

A nudge from Crawler dragged Blades out of his reverie, “Hey, come on, man, we gotta move fast. Now that we’ve got this crew, it ain’t going to take long for news to get back to the Red Flags that we’re still-”

“Shut the fuck up!” Blades hissed quietly, jerking a head in Lightning’s direction.

Lightning smirked at them, “Relax, I’m not going to sell you morons out to Shí Yáng.” Her smirk widened into a full grin as she turned to stare out into the rain, “I’ve got my eyes on a bigger prize.”

Blades eyed her warily, then shrugged and stood, glancing down through the hole in the floor to where the rest of his new crew were sheltering from the elements. Satisfied that none of them had been paying attention, he stepped over to hand the binoculars back to Lightning, “Come on, let’s get everyone off their asses. We’ll track the plane-thing the Rainbooms are on. If we’re lucky, they’ll put down somewhere where there’s a lot less people around. We’ll figure our next move from there.”

“Unbelievable! Absolutely unbelievable!” Doctor Turner spat as he stomped up the ramp of his Vertibird. The Rainbooms had already been loaded; special harnesses secured them and their stretchers to the floor of the Vertibird so, hopefully, they wouldn’t be bounced around too much during any in-flight turbulence.

Turner scowled anew as he spotted the vile bruise maring Fluttershy’s forehead and the equally concerning monstrosity blooming across Applejack’s exposed abdomen. The methods Autumn had used to acquire Project Purity would probably be enough to turn the Rainbooms thoroughly against the Enclave on their own, let alone the injuries they’d suffered from simply defending themselves.

Stepping gingerly around their unconscious forms, Turner tried not to let his drenched clothes drip on the girls as he made his way to the benches.

As if it’ll make a difference anyway, they’re already bloody soaked! I’ll have to have them dried off and brought warm clothes the second we get to the Exodus beta site, then Doctor Bohn can take a look at them when they wake up. That is, if they let her.

Doctor Turner sighed heavily as he dropped onto the passenger benches opposite his security detail. “Ready when you are, pilot!” he called out, fastening his harness and donning his headset.

“Are you alright, Doctor?” one of the bodyguards asked.

Turner glanced back at the girls as the Vertibird’s ramp closed with a hiss of hydraulics. His stomach performed a familiar lurch as the noise of the tiltwing’s rotors grew to a dull roar, lifting the craft from the ground. “There’s a term I never really understood until today.”

His bodyguards raised an eyebrow, “What term is that, Doctor?”

“Clusterfuck,” Turner said simply. “The President is going to pitch a fit when he hears about this. Autumn is really going to get it in the neck. If he survives, that is.”

The bodyguards shared a blank look, “If he survives?”

Turner nodded, “It turns out he didn’t just totally mess up the task of peacefully recruiting the Rainbooms, he even managed to let the creators of Project Purity somehow activate a failsafe of sorts, turning it into a radioactive deathtrap.”

One of the security aides snorted at that while the other tilted his head curiously, “Didn’t he have some of that experimental Rad-X though? I thought all of the top brass were supposed to keep a shot of it on their person at all times?”

“He did, yes. Unfortunately for him, however, James managed to completely lock down the main section of Project Purity,” Turner replied. “He’s lucky I arrived just in time to hack into the mainframe and reactivate the shielding on the nuclear generator, another minute or two and he’d have been beyond saving.”

And he’s even more lucky I didn’t realise exactly what he had done to the Rainbooms until after I’d deactivated the failsafe. If I’d known beforehand I would’ve pretended it was impossible and left the arrogant prick to rot.

“What are we going to do about the Rainbooms now?” one of the aides asked, “Do you think they’ll still agree to work with us?”

Turner shrugged, as much as he could in a restrictive harness, “It seems unlikely. We may end up having to keep them contained as best we can, if they revert back to hostilities when they wake up. I’ll suggest to the others that we do everything we possibly can to bring them around peacefully. I doubt it’ll work, but it’s worth trying. Hopefully the rest of the team will agree with me.”

“Can’t you just order them to?” the aide asked.

Turner smiled bitterly, “I wish I could, but when I contacted the President and informed him that I’d let the Rainbooms go, he made it very clear that I am no longer the lead scientist on Project Exodus. Doctor Strong is in charge from now on.” He cast another worried glance back at the Rainbooms, his eyes settling on Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer. The resemblances to his fellow scientists were far too uncanny for mere coincidence. “I just hope she can get some answers.”

Across the river from Project Purity, nestled amongst several large rocks on the bank, a well-hidden manhole cover was slowly lifted and pushed aside. A battered and bloody young man painfully hauled himself out, then turned to help a far less brutalised woman clamber onto the riverbank. The two sat there in the rain for several minutes, catching their breath.

Fleeing Project Purity had not been easy. The Enclave had somehow deployed two full squads of soldiers into the escape tunnels forcing Adam and the doctor to use stealth to get out. The pair had almost made it, too, but the soldiers had been too well trained and the escape had devolved into a desperate battle for survival. Even when they finally managed to get away from the soldiers, the appearance of feral ghouls in the final stretch of the tunnels had nearly proved fatal. If the two hadn’t stumbled across a Brotherhood of Steel outpost, they would almost certainly have died.

“Are… are you alright?” Doctor Li asked eventually.

Adam just nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He was far from alright, in every sense of the word. Physically speaking, he was a wreck. Blood was dripping down his arm from under a hastily-applied bandage, he had a nasty plasma burn on his leg that was in dire need of medical attention, and he was pretty sure he had torn something in his shoulder, not to mention the impressive number of minor cuts and bruises that he was practically covered in.

Adam’s mental state wasn’t any better. His entire world had been ripped out from underneath him once again, and this time he wasn’t sure what to do about it. His mother’s dream was little more than ashes, the scientists working on it had all been rounded up, save for the woman seated next to him, his friends had been kidnapped by the evil organisation responsible, and as for his father…

With a hiss of agony, Adam pushed himself to his feet. He couldn’t afford to think about that right now. He rolled his good shoulder to try and settle his shishkebab and pilfered plasma rifle more comfortably on his back before turning to Doctor Li, “Come on, we should get under shelter before we catch hypothermia or something. How far to the Citadel?”

“It’s just up there,” Doctor Li stood, wrapped her arms around herself, and led the way away from the banks of the rain-swollen river. Adam dutifully limped after her, but his injuries slowed him. He was so focused on trying to catch up he ended up stumbling over a pile of loose rocks. The sound grabbed Doctor Li’s attention. She gasped and hurried over when she saw him struggling, “I’m so sorry! I should have realized how hurt you were!”

“It’s fine,” Adam mumbled as Li gently tugged one of his arms around her shoulders to support him. “It’s been a bit of a rough day for both of us.”

Doctor Li chuckled nervously, “That’s the understatement of the century. Come on.”

As the two shuffled along, a huge building slowly came into view through the rain. Large support struts lined the walls with a tower crane looming over the whole construction attached to a colossal slab of rusted metal forming a crude, but effective, gate mechanism. Two Brotherhood Knights in full power armor stood watch at the gate, accompanied by the imposing form of a well cared for sentry bot.

The men lifted their guns up warily as the two approached, “Who’s there? Identify yourselves!”

“I’m Doctor Madison Li,” the doctor replied. “This man’s injured, we need help.”

The first Knight shook his head, “I’m sorry ma’am. No unauthorized citizens allowed in the Citadel. You’ll have to leave.”

Doctor Li gave him a disgusted look and slipped out from under Adam’s arm, shoving past the Knight and thumping an intercom set in the wall, “Lyons!? Lyons, I know you’re in there! I know you can hear me! You open this god damned door right now! Lyons?!”

The Knight shouldered his rifle and reached for Li, “Ma’am, please, step away fro-”

Doctor Li shrugged his arm off and slapped the intercom again, “Lyons, you bastard! Open this damn door now!”

There was an almighty grinding sound as the crane kicked into gear, dragging the metal slab up and revealing a bombed-out section of building that had been crudely repaired and repurposed as a makeshift bottlenecked entranceway. The Knights stepped aside as Doctor Li ducked back under Adam’s arm, “Just go straight down there and through the doors at the end,” she was instructed by a slightly baffled soldier.

“Gee, thanks,” Doctor Li muttered sarcastically, gently guiding Adam forwards.

Pushing through the doors at the end, the two found themselves in a wide pentagonal bailey. The entire area was set up as a training field with multiple shooting ranges, a makeshift sparring ring, a small rest area lined with beds, and even a crude assault course.

Brotherhood personnel were everywhere. Most of them were clad in simple, light, reconnaissance armour, though there were a few individuals on the assault course wearing power armour, an instructor standing on the sidelines alternating between offering advice and hurling insults.

Adam and Doctor Li both turned as a door slammed open. An elderly man and a young woman stepped out into the rain and made a beeline for the new arrivals. The man was ancient sporting a bald head with a long well kept white beard that reached his sternum, but his back was straight and his steps were sure, his heavy blue robes splaying out impressively as he walked. The woman next to him was no less interesting. Tall, lithe and muscular so much that it was evident under her light armor, she had vivid red hair that poked out from under the officer’s cap she wore proudly.

“That’s Elder Lyons,” Doctor Li whispered. “He’s the leader of the Brotherhood of Steel, here in the Capital Wasteland.”

“Here, let me help,” the woman said as she stepped forward. Doctor Li nodded gratefully as they switched places, the woman carefully pulling Adam’s arm around her shoulder instead.

Elder Lyons reached out and placed a hand on Li’s shoulder, a worried expression on his face, “Madison, what’s going on? Are you alright?”

Doctor Li shook her head and crossed her arms across her chest, “No, no I’m not. It was the Enclave. They’ve overrun Project Purity.” She gestured to Adam, “This is-”

“James’ son, yes. I see the resemblance,” Lyons interrupted, with a glance at Adam. “Our sentries reported that something was happening at the Jefferson Memorial,” he returned his attention to Doctor Li, “but we had no idea it was you over there. I thought you’d abandoned that project years ago?”

Doctor Li nodded, “We did, but James he… he found a way to make it work. He discovered what it was that we were missing.”

“Do the Enclave know this?” Lyons asked sharply.

“I don’t… I don’t know,” Doctor Li admitted. “We had barely arrived, we were just doing some basic repairs and seeing what we could salvage before we sent a messenger here, then the Enclave attacked out of nowhere. Now they have Project Purity, they’ve captured the Rainbooms and James is…” she trailed off slowly, breathing hard as she tried to hold back a sob.

Lyons let out a soft sigh, “I’m sorry about James, he was a good man. I hate to press you so soon, but, when you say the Rainbooms were at Project Purity-”

“It’s true,” Doctor Li cut in, “their magic, their abilities, everything. It’s all true. If the Enclave can figure out how to control that power…”

Elder Lyons frowned, his mouth set in a grim line, “You did the right thing, coming to us. Come with me, I’ll need you to explain everything before we can make a move against the Enclave.” He glanced over at the woman he had arrived with, “Metzger, get that young man to the infirmary, then gather your squad. Have them prepare for a scouting mission in known enemy territory.”

“Yes, Elder!” Metzger snapped a salute as Lyons led Doctor Li through the nearest door. “Alright, you, let’s get you to a medic,” she said quietly to Adam before helping him shuffle across the courtyard. Even in his pained state, Adam couldn’t help but marvel at how easily she supported his weight, though neither of them could suppress a shiver as they passed out from under cover and into the rain.

As the two slowly approached the covered rest area, Metzger called out to one of the people relaxing there, “Squire Peters! I’ve got a job for you, and you’re not going to like it.”

A young woman jumped up and saluted at the shout. She couldn’t have been older than fifteen or sixteen, and her hair was little more than a brown fuzz, as if she’d recently had her head shaved. “Yes, Knight-Sergeant! What do you need me to-” her eyes widened as she saw who the sergeant was carrying, then her expression settled into a snarl, “What’s that fuck-stain doing here!?”

“Watch the language, recruit,” Metzger warned. “I know you’ve got a beef with this guy, but he’s our ally, and that means we help him. That means you have to help him.” When the squire ignored her, glaring at Adam and clenching her fists, she lowered her voice so only the three of them could hear, “Come on, Madeleine. You’ve got a chance at a fresh start and a new life here. Don’t throw all of that away, not like this.”

Squire Peters kept up the glare for a few more seconds, then finally sighed and relented, unclenching her fists, “Fine.”

Metzger raised an eyebrow, “What was that?”

“I said ‘yes, Knight-Sergeant’!” Peters cried, snapping another salute.

“That’s better,” Metzger huffed. “Here, you grab his gear and bring it with us to the infirmary.”

“Yes, Knight-Sergeant.”

Adam just stared in bemusement as the squire stripped him of his weapons and pack. “Um, did I do something to offend yo-” he snapped his mouth shut as the squire gave him another seething glare.

“We’ll sort that out later,” Metzger said firmly. “Right now, let’s get you to the infirmary. And while we’re on our way I want to know exactly what happened to the Rainbooms. I owe those girls. If the Enclave really do have them, then me and the rest of the Wonderbolts are going to have something to say about that.”

Familiar faces return for this chapter! Next time, the Rainbooms and the Exodus team finally meet...

Major credit to my editors Mocha Star and Night Quill for bringing this chapter up to spec, with an extra thanks to Mocha for vastly improving Discord's antics!

Comments and Criticisms are welcome and, as always, thanks for reading!