Crossing the city ruins wasn’t as difficult as the girls had expected. Vast piles of unstable rubble blocked the routes, forming a nearly impenetrable barrier for most people, but for the Rainbooms it was barely a hindrance at all. They didn’t even have to pony up; Rarity simply conjured small ramps taking them from one safe stopping point to the next.

Once the rubble had been cleared, the ground mostly levelled off. Aside from having to snake between buildings, the odd broken fence, and piles of debris the going was far smoother on the other side. The girls didn’t encounter much in the way of threats either, save for a pair of feral ghouls that were swiftly dispatched by Rainbow before they even noticed there was a threat and several obscenely large ants down in a lower street, which were given a very wide berth.

It wasn’t until they came to a bridge leading out of the ruins that the girls saw another human being. A ramshackle little store had been set up in the middle of the bridge, surrounded by sandbag walls and occupied by a scavenger and her two dogs. Funnily enough, the woman turned out to be a fan of the Rainbooms and very much enjoyed listening to their songs on the radio.

Thrilled at meeting the group, the woman was more than happy to help them out. She didn’t know the way to Little Lamplight, unfortunately, but she did give them information on the local topography in exchange for nothing more than their autographs and a signed picture, which was taken using Twilight’s magic with an old press camera the woman owned.

Leaving the scavenger behind with her prize, the Rainbooms continued across the bridge and headed out through the outlying ruins. Following an old road on the scavenger’s advice, they made their out of the city limits and up to the top of a nearby hill, one that provided plenty of cover while also giving them a great vantage point to watch out for danger.

Finally out in the wastes proper, the girls made sure to keep their eyes peeled at all times, not dropping their guard for an instant. Their diligence was soon rewarded, as they spotted a group of what appeared to be raiders lurking in a group of blasted trees on the far side of the hill.

Entirely unwilling to risk a battle, the girls went out of their way to avoid them, taking care to stay out of sight as they took a circuitous way past. The going was slow and nerve-wracking, each of the Rainbooms half-expecting to hear a shout or feel the sting of a bullet, but after a few minutes of tense creeping they managed to get by safely.

The trek onwards was long and arduous. The distance to Little Lamplight was easily greater than what they had covered between Megaton and Rivet City, but the girls had little choice but to press on, hoping against hope that they wouldn’t run into any more trouble. Unfortunately, trouble had a way of finding the Rainbooms, no matter how hard they tried to avoid it.

Somewhere past the halfway point of their journey, or so the girls hoped, they came across a thick concrete wall jutting out of the ground. Past that they came across several more walls clustered around a wide field of rubble, though whether they were originally part of a single building or a whole complex was impossible to tell.

Amongst the mess were several old explosion craters, the ground around them bulging as they rose to the lip of the bowl-shaped pits. Pinkie attempted to get a closer look at the first one they spotted, but the sudden warning ticks of her Pip-Boy’s Geiger counter quickly made her rethink the idea, and none of the group dared to approach any of the others too closely. In the center of the ruins, however, they discovered a crater that drew their attention like moths to a flame.

Much larger than the surrounding ones, the vast crater was easily over a dozen meters deep and more than double that in width, but that in itself wasn’t what had drawn them. Billowing out of the crater was a thick cloud of multicoloured magic, the colours mixing and separating as they swirled and rose slowly into the sky before dispersing far above their heads.

“That doesn’t look good,” Applejack supplied.

“You’re not wrong,” Sunset replied with a frown. “I don’t understand. That’s clearly Equestrian magic, but what is it doing here? And why does it look like that?”

Twilight folded her arms and hummed, staring thoughtfully at the cloud. “I wonder…” To the surprise of the others she suddenly walked right up to the lip of the crater, then stopped and backtracked when her Pip-Boy started ticking. “I thought so. This crater is radioactive, too.”

“Well duh!” Rainbow spat incredulously.

“No offence, darling, but we probably could have told you that without you having to go near it,” Rarity added.

Twilight shook her head, “That’s not what I meant. Do you remember when we used our magic on the soldier back at Project Exodus? Specifically, do you remember what he was standing next to?”

“The rocket,” Sunset answered, thinking about how it had been leaking radioactive fluids all over the hapless trooper. “You think the radiation is affecting the magic somehow?”

Twilight nodded. “I think so. After all, we didn’t overload our magic, it only went out of control when it hit the Delta IX rocket.”

“Well, that all sounds pretty fucking interesting!” a voice called out suddenly. The girls spun around to see three men in black combat armour. One of them bore a heavy combat shotgun, another carried an assault rifle, and the third bore a laser rifle like those the Brotherhood used. All three of them were taking cover behind chunks of broken concrete and all had their weapons pointed carefully at the Rainbooms.

“Don’t even think of trying anything!” the man with the shotgun shouted. “If any of you so much as twitches we’ll blow the whole fucking lot of you away! Drop your weapons and get your hands in the air! Slowly!”

Sunset cursed under her breath. One unusual sight had been all it took to get her and her friends to drop their guard, and now they were back in yet another potentially lethal situation. Deciding it was best to do as asked for now, she bent to place her rifle on the floor and straightened up, raising her hands slowly. Applejack did the same a moment later.

“What do you want with us?” Sunset called out.

The man grinned at her. “The Commander has put a price on you lot, wants you brought in alive. Never thought you’d come sniffing around our neck of the woods.” He chuckled darkly. “Must be our lucky day.”

“More like your unlucky day if you think you can take us!” Rainbow challenged.

“Cool it, Rainbow!” Sunset hissed, before looking back to the men. “Are you with the Enclave?”

The man spat on the floor. “Fuck the Enclave. Now step away from your weapons and get those tight little asses over here. Nice and slow. No funny business.”

“Hey, who’s your Commander?” Pinkie called out brightly.

The man just snorted, his aim never wavering from Sunset. “Oh, don’t worry. You’ll be meeting him real soon.”

Pinkie beamed and pointed off behind the men. “I knew it! He’s that big ugly bear thing coming down the hill, isn’t he!”

All three of the men gasped and looked around to see what she was talking about. They realised their mistake just a second too late.

The man with the shotgun was the first to fall. He looked back to the girls just in time for Rainbow to smack his weapon aside and plunge a knife into his throat, ripping it back out in a crimson arterial spray. The other two barely had time to react before Twilight gripped their guns and crushed them to pieces with her magic.

The men stood there dumbfounded, looking from their empty hands, to the Rainbooms, to the corpse of their companion lying at Rainbow’s feet. Sunset opened her mouth to demand that they either leave or surrender when one of them suddenly lurched forward, screaming in agony.

The air behind the man seemed to shimmer and ripple, a dark outline slowly appearing as if from thin air. Sunset’s blood ran cold as the outline solidified to reveal a gigantic black scorpion, bigger even than Applejack’s family truck. The scorpion scuttled forward, claws raised menacingly, and it’s sting lashed out almost faster than the eye could follow, bringing the man’s screams to an abrupt halt.

The last survivor, seeing his colleagues slaughtered so easily, turned and fled as fast as he could. Sunset considered joining him as she snatched her weapon back up. Against such a huge creature, her hunting rifle felt like little more than a pop-gun.

Fortunately, the scorpion didn’t appear to be interested in them. Scooping up its prey in its claws, the scorpion turned and scuttled away towards one of the craters, the colour already bleeding from its carapace once again. By the time it crested the lip of the crater and disappeared inside all that could be seen of it was a telltale ripple in the air as it moved.

An appalled silence remained in the wake of the brief struggle. “Did… did that really just happen?” Applejack asked tentatively.

“I think so? Either that or we’re all starting to go crazy.” Sunset replied, her rifle aimed at the crater the scorpion had disappeared into. Giving herself a shake, she lowered her rifle and walked over to Rainbow. Stepping up alongside her, Sunset saw that she was staring down at the corpse of the man she had killed, a stream of blood still trickling from his neck. Rainbow’s expression was inscrutable.

Sunset slowly reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, you okay?” she asked softly.

Rainbow’s eyes flicked sidelong at her before looking back at the body. “I… I don’t know. This feels… weird. I mean, I’ve killed a bunch of those feral ghouls, no problem, and going for super mutants doesn’t bother me either, but… this…” She shook her head slowly. “It just feels weird.”

Sunset nodded in understanding. Looking down at the corpse brought back memories of the two raiders and the discussion in Megaton that followed. It took an effort, but Sunset managed to say, “You did the right thing.”

Rainbow looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

“If you didn’t, then neither did I,” Sunset replied evenly.

“Heh, you have a point,” Rainbow admitted.

“Darn right I do.” Sunset gave her a gentle thump on the shoulder and turned away. “Come on, let's get out of here before anything else shows up.”

Eager to get moving again, the girls quickly made their way onwards, keeping their eyes peeled for any more camouflaged giant scorpions. They made sure to take a more northern route than originally planned to avoid going in the same direction as their fleeing assailant. Their caution proved to be justified when Rainbow spotted what appeared to be a large ruined military compound not far from the cratered area. They made sure to keep as far away from it as possible as they headed around, taking extra care to stay out of sight of any sentries that may have been on the lookout.

Once the Rainbooms were past the complex, the rest of the journey passed in relative peace. There was a rather hair-raising encounter with a particularly fearsome-looking bear, but thankfully the big brute proved to be quite a softy and was perfectly happy to leave them alone after a quick chat with Fluttershy.

After another couple of hours walking, a large hill slowly came into view. Picking their way across several large boulders scattered around, the Rainbooms skirted the bottom until, finally, a campground came into view. Bunting and electric lights were strung up between posts dotted at random intervals and there were several wooden wind-pumps installed at the top of a nearby rise. At the bottom of the rise, decorated with more bunting and lights, and partially obscured by a broken down old school bus, was the entrance to a cavern.

Applejack stopped and tilted her hat back to get a better look. “Ah guess that must be Little Lamplight.”

“Yep!” The girls all glanced at Pinkie as she shouted gleefully, only to leap apart with startled yells when they noticed a random woman standing in their midst. The woman was clothed in little more than a simple tank top and a baggy pair of shorts and sported a beaming grin that showed she was utterly unbothered by the Rainbooms’ reactions to her appearance. She giggled and snorted before giving a little wave. “Hi, I’m Diane! What’re your names?”

Sucking in deep breaths in an attempt to get her thundering heart under control, Sunset held up a hand to stall for time until she was capable of forming a coherent response. “We… we’re the Rainbooms.”

Diane gave an almost impossibly large gasp and in the span of a blink was suddenly right up in Sunset’s face. “Oh my gosh! That’s so amazing! I’ve heard all about you on the radio!” She instantly darted over to Pinkie, inspecting her with intense interest and zero concern for personal space. “Wow! You look just like I did when I got hit with that weird floating ball of pink pinkie stuff earlier! It hit me right in the boobies! At first I was all like, ‘Hey, you’ve gotta take me out for dinner first, Buster!’, but then it was already inside me, and I mean don’t get me wrong; I don’t really mind that, but it didn’t feel good in the usual kinda ‘oh, it’s inside me!’, kinda way, but it still felt kinda good, and then I had pink hair and it was really weird and-”

Diane paused mid-sentence to suck in a deep breath. Pinkie attempted to use the opportunity to slip away from her, but the new nutcase had already zipped over to Rainbow, pulling a tray of desserts out of nowhere and holding it out. “Cupcakes?”

Rainbow back away a couple of steps, eyeing both the cakes and their bearer with concern. “Uh, no thanks. I’m good.”

“Did you say your name was Diane?” Twilight asked.

Diane tossed the tray away and whipped around, snapping a crisp salute. “Yep! Diane Pinkamena Pie, travelling baker and merchant, at your service! I’d like to stay and chat, aw, who am I kidding, I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve got to be getting on with my deliveries!” She skipped over to a charred picnic table and pulled a heavy rucksack out from under it, slipping it onto her back with practiced ease.

“One delivery to Little Lamplight, right on schedule! Now, I’ve just got to get this shipment over to Andale and then I’d better go on the hunt for some more ingredients! Bye bye!” With one last vigorous wave Diane turned and skipped away faster than they could run, soon disappearing from sight around the hill.

The girls stared after her, still struggling to process what exactly had just happened. Rarity was the first to finally stir. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but that was this world’s version of Pinkie, wasn’t it?”

“I… I think so?” Twilight answered uncertainly.

“It was,” Pinkie said in a flat voice.

Applejack glanced at her curiously. “Do you think we should go after her?”

“No,” Pinkie replied firmly. In response to the others querulous looks, she shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t know, something just feels… off. Besides, I get the feeling we’re going to run into her again at some point.” She looked up in the direction Diane had gone, then shook her head again and turned away. “Come on, let’s go and find Adam.” The rest of the Rainbooms could only give each other confused looks and follow after Pinkie as she made her way down to the cavern entrance.

The ground just inside the entrance sloped downwards towards a flimsy wooden door. Inside the girls found themselves in a narrow but dry and surprisingly warm cave system, well lit by string lights and strategically placed lanterns. After following the lights for a short way down some stairs and around a few corners the cave opened up into a larger chamber. The way ahead was blocked by a sturdy wall constructed out of old billboards and sheets of metal plating.

A young boy looking over the wall stood up the moment he spotted the Rainbooms. “For fuck’s sake what’s with all the fucking mungos tod- hey, you’re the fucking Rainbooms!”

“Nah, we’re just the Rainbooms. No fucking going on here,” Rainbow replied dryly.

“Rainbow Dash!” Rarity cried in a scandalized voice. “You shouldn’t use such foul language, especially not in front of a child!”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow at her. “Uh, you do realise that kid swore like three times in one sentence. Plus, Sunset’s sworn a few times before.”

“That’s not the point!” Rarity countered. “Besides, while I may not approve of Sunset using expletives, at least she only does so when we’re under duress!”

“Man, who rammed a stick up her ass?” the kid called out, prompting an indignant splutter from Rarity and an amused snort from Rainbow. “What the fuck are you all doing here, anyway?”

“We’re looking for a friend of ours,” Sunset replied quickly. “His name is Adam, he was trying to get into Vault 87 and we think he might have came through this way.”

The kid gave her a surprised look, “Huh. Yeah, I remember that mungo, he did us a favour earlier so I let him in.”

“Do you mind if we come in to wait for him?” Sunset asked.

The kid gave her a calculating look. “That depends. We don’t usually let mungos in here.”

“And what, exactly, is a ‘mungo’?” Applejack asked.

“Big people, like you,” the boy replied. “The second anyone here turns sixteen they have to leave and head out to Big Town instead.”

Pinkie gasped and charged up to the wall, bouncing on the tips of her toes. “You mean everyone in here is a little kid?!”

The boy folded his arms and glared down at her. “Yeah, but don’t think you can fuck with us just because we’re young. You pull any funny shit and I won’t hesitate to pump your ass full of lead.”

“He’s too young to pump it full of anything else,” Rainbow muttered, earning a smack from Applejack.

Pinkie squealed loudly and clapped her hands together. “Please can I come in? If everyone in here is a kid then that means this is gonna be a giant slumber party and I haven’t had a slumber party or even any kind of party in aaaages! Please! Please, please, please!”

She kept up a barrage of rapid-fire talking interspersed with pleading until the boy finally relented, holding up his hands to try and pacify her. “Alright, alright, fine! Look, I’ll let you all in on three fucking conditions.”

“What conditions?” Twilight asked.

The boy held up three fingers. “One, you help out around here until your friend comes back. I’m not gonna let you just come in and fucking laze around. Two, you feed your fucking selves. We hardly have enough food to go around as it is.”

“That seems fair,” Applejack replied. “What’s the third condition?”

The kid leaned forward, an eager glint in his eye. “Prove what Three Dog’s been saying. That you can all do magic.”

The Rainbooms all glanced at each other and shrugged. Touching a hand to their Geodes, the girls each ponied up one by one. “Is this good enough for you?” Sunset asked.

The boy’s grin was so wide it must have been almost painful. “This is so fucking cool! Alright, I’ll let you all in now.”

“Yay!” Pinkie cried gleefully

The boy flicked a switch and a series of pulleys on the ceiling raised one of the billboards enough for the girls to duck under. As soon as they were through the girls let the magic fade from their bodies, returning themselves to normal. The cave on the other side was fairly large, with a tunnel leading off to the left and a wooden cabin on the right.

Sunset nodded up at the boy on his little platform beside the gate. “Thanks. Uh… what was your name?”

“MacCready,” he replied. “I’m the Mayor around here.” He pointed to the tunnel. “The main chambers are that way, you can wait for your friend down there. Three Dog said you girls are good people, but if you cause any problems whatso-fucking-ever, I’ll put you in the ground. Is that clear?”

“Crystal,” Rarity replied huffily.

“We’ll behave ourselves, don’t you worry about that,” Applejack put in.

Macready nodded, “Good. Oh, and be careful when you’re in the Great Chamber. New people who aren’t careful tend to fall off the paths.”

The Rainbooms shared a wary look at that. “Uh… thanks?” Sunset replied slowly. Leaving the Mayor behind, the girls made their way down the short tunnel and emerged in another large cave filled mostly with a deep pool of water.

The cave was lit by lots more string lights strung across the ceiling, illuminating a single path of thick rock poking up above the waters, and several makeshift islands made out of wood floating on top connected by little bridges. Some of these islands bore picnic tables and benches, and there were several children milling around them or nimbly running across the bridges with youthful ease. Pinkie skipped ahead happily, waving and calling out greetings to each of the kids as she passed.

“Easy now, sugarcube. Don’t go slipping and hurting yourself,” Applejack warned.

“It’s fine, I’m not going to sli- whoops!” Pinkie’s one foot skidded and she flailed for a moment before regaining her balance and looking back sheepishly. “Hehe, meant to do that?” She shook her head and continued on, a little more carefully. “Anyway, let’s go and find somewhere dry to sit. I can’t wait to- oh, hi, Adam- I can’t wait to see the look on Adam’s face when he sees us all waiting for him!”

Sunset did a double-take at Pinkie’s words, her gaze snapping to the person Pinkie had waved at. A young man stood there, staring at the Rainbooms with an expression of blank shock matched only by their own.

Adam smiled and waved nervously at the group, “Um… hey, how’s it going?”

Another of the counterparts are here!

Only bit parts for the moment, but they are all eventually going to become very important.