Fluttershy was dead. She was sure of it. She had died and gone to Tartarus. It was the only explanation for the waking nightmare her life was becoming.

She was currently sitting beside a bed in the Citadel's infirmary; Adam lay on the bed next to her, trapped in a deep coma. The medics kept saying that it was a miracle that he was even alive, given the amount of radiation he had been exposed to, but it was a cold comfort at best.

The Wonderbolts and Lyons' Pride had explained everything that had happened at Project Purity, and the knowledge of what Adam had done caused conflicting emotions to rage across the young nurse's mind.

Fluttershy was proud of what he had done, that was undeniable, and she greatly respected the courage that it must have taken to sacrifice himself like that. Naturally, she was worried about whether or not he would ever wake up again, and she was unspeakably sad at the thought of losing him so soon after they had truly gotten closer, but there was something else burning within her heart, something that was growing stronger with every hour that passed.

Anger.

Fluttershy hated herself for feeling it, but it was there nonetheless. Anger at the Enclave for what they had done, at the Brotherhood of Steel for allowing him to sacrifice himself, and, most of all, anger at the wasteland itself for being the kind of shithole where things like this were considered normal and allowed to happen.

Fluttershy was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't notice someone else enter the room and talk to one of the medics, not until he stepped up next to her.

"How are you holding up?" Elder Lyons asked. When Fluttershy didn't reply he just sighed and said softly, "I understand. We may have retaken Project Purity, but that doesn't make this any easier."

Fluttershy glanced up at him, then followed his sad gaze over to the room's other patient. Sentinel Lyons had tried to stop Adam and activate the purifier in his place, but she had failed and been knocked out by the massive burst of radiation unleashed when Project Purity was switched on. Just like Adam, she was now stuck in a coma, too.

"Don't give up hope, Miss Fluttershy." Elder Lyons patted her shoulder gently before going to sit next to his daughter, leaving Fluttershy to her own dark thoughts and inner turmoil.

---

The Citadel's training area was unusually quiet as most of the Knights and Initiates were busy trying to refortify Project Purity by nightfall, while those few who weren't were taking the opportunity to rest while they could.

All of that suited Rainbow Dash just fine, it simply meant that she could redo the assault course as many times as she wanted without anyone else getting in her way.

Rainbow still had her armor on with Flashburn sheathed at her waist and its gas tank secured on her back, though she could swear that it had shrunk somehow over the day, and she had strapped her pack over the top of it for extra weight. The only missing item was her Geode, which had been left with Applejack for safe keeping.

Ideally, Rainbow would have preferred to train with it, but she didn't want to risk supercharging the others again. Having her magic get more sensitive was the last thing Sunset needed right now. Unable to push her magic's limits, Rainbow's only option was to push her body's.

The assault on Project Purity should never have gone down the way it did; if she had been faster, been stronger, been better, then she could have prevented most of the Brotherhood's casualties, she was certain of it. But, because she had gotten bogged down struggling to pierce the Enclave's power armor, people had gotten hurt. Her friends had gotten hurt.

Rainbow would never let that happen again. It was that single thought that filled her mind as she ran through the assault course over and over again, until finally a passing instructor had to step in and physically drag her away from it.

---

It sucks being in a hospital and the Enclave are dicks. Those were the stunning realizations that Twilight and Pinkie came to while they were cooped up in a recovery room together.

Twilight had been awake for a couple of hours now, long enough to hear about everything that had happened at Project Purity. It hardly felt real, hearing what everyone else had been through, but then again, Twilight was currently lying in a hospital bed dosed up to her eyeballs on painkillers and was being propped up by strategically placed cushions so she didn't hurt her back, and she was also completely unable to move her arms.

A lot of things didn't feel real right at that moment.

Still, Twilight was at least glad that she should regain most of the use of her arms, eventually.

Throwing the likelihood of permanent disability to the back of her mind as best she could, Twilight looked over at Pinkie. The medics had brought her in an hour or so after Twilight had woken up and plonked her in the chair next to the bed. Pinkie was looking a lot perkier than she had been when she was first brought in, though her hair was still flatter than it was normally.

According to the medics, Pinkie had been suffering something of a severe dissociative experience and they felt that having her speak to Twilight would help her in some way; partially because seeing a close friend would be beneficial for them both, and partially because Twilight was the only Rainboom who wasn't currently processing any mental trauma from the assault on Project Purity. The implications of that worried Twilight more than anything, but she kept it to herself.

Fortunately, the medics had been right and Pinkie had been slowly emerging from her shell. Speculating on whether or not the apprentice medic who blushed every time she entered the room was attracted to one of them certainly seemed to help their mentalities. Pinkie wasn't back to normal yet, but she was a lot better than she had been back in Rivet City; at least she was currently feeling well enough to lament the necessity of hospitals and viciously slate the Enclave in their entirety.

Taking a slow, deep breath, Twilight closed her eyes to hide the icy wrath she felt at the thought of the Enclave. As soon as she was back on her feet, Twilight was going to make them suffer for what they had done to her friends.

---

Applejack stretched as she ambled through the corridors to the room she was sharing with Rarity, enjoying the sensation of her joints popping between paces with each twist and tweak of an achy limb. She had done what she could to help with clearing the battlefield, using her prodigious strength to help shift any larger pieces of equipment that could be salvaged, but now she was in the mood to get some much needed rest.

"Finally," Applejack muttered when she spotted the door to her shared room. As she opened it, she called out, "You in here, Rarity?"

Rarity looked around from the small table she was sitting at and gave a wan smile. "There you are, darling. I was wondering how much longer you were going to be."

"Sorry about that." Applejack sat on the edge of her bed and tugged her boots off. "Hoo-wee, my dogs’re barkin' after today. What are you working on over there, Rares?"

"Not much, I've just been fixing our clothes, mostly to try and take my mind off…" Rarity gestured vaguely at her head and sighed heavily. "I'd probably have finished by now, but…"

"Your hand still giving you trouble?" Applejack asked.

Rarity nodded. Ever since she had been shot by the raider on the way back to Arefu, the fingers of her left hand had had a tendency to freeze up on occasion. It wasn't painful, or so she said, but it did occasionally flare up when she was performing delicate work like sewing, forcing her to improvise. "In any case, I've at least managed to patch up the worst of the damage and I've fixed up that broken brassiere of yours. You shouldn't have any more trouble with the wire for a while."

"Thanks, Ah owe you one." Applejack said sincerely. "Speaking of bras, this one's coming off." Standing back up, she pulled off her top before undoing her bra and letting it slip to the floor. "Phew! Now that's better." Applejack basked in the feeling of sweet release for a moment before stripping off the rest of her clothes and then changing into a baggy t-shirt and shorts.

Rarity chuckled softly. "At least one of us in high spirits, how do you manage it?"

"Easy enough, Ah don't know any girl that don't feel better when they take their bra off at the end of the day." Applejack grinned as she dropped onto the edge of the bed again. "You should try it yourself."

Rarity gave one of her characteristic scoffs. "As much as I enjoy mammary liberation, I'm afraid I still have to go and fetch some food from the dining hall later, and I refuse to step outside of this room without a brassiere on. Goodness knows how many of these Knights are secretly lecherous perverts... then again," she added coyly, "I suppose I should be more concerned about the lecherous pervert currently sharing a room with me."

Applejack didn't reply. She had just spotted dried blood underneath her fingernails, she must have missed it in the shower, and the sight of it had utterly ruined her attempts at distracting herself from the morning's events.

The chair creaked, and a moment later Applejack felt a weight on the bed next to her and an arm reaching around her shoulders. "It's going to be alright, darling," Rarity said quietly. "I know this must be awful for you; it was bad enough using my magic against Super Mutants, I can't even imagine how hard it must have been to use your power against other people; but we're going to get through this together. I promise."

"That's just it, Rarity, it wasn't hard. It was as easy as knocking down an old barn," Applejack replied darkly. When her gun had proven useless against the Enclave's power armor, she had resorted to her magic; sneaking up on the enemy and using her strength to crush armor, snap limbs, and shatter skulls. "Don't get me wrong, all that fighting was scarier than anything Ah've ever seen before, but every time Ah killed someone, Ah just felt… nothing." Applejack stared down at her hands as if they were still soaked in blood. "What kinda person can crush a man's skull between her palms and not be bothered by it. How… how can Ah ever look Apple Bloom in the eye ever again, knowing that Ah'm that kinda person, that Ah'm some kind of… of monster."

"You're not a monster, Applejack," Rarity said firmly, squeezing her tightly. "Maybe it'll hit you later, or maybe it won't, but fighting for what's right is not something you should be ashamed of. The fact that you're worrying about this at all is proof that you aren't a monster."

Applejack didn't say anything, she just leaned into Rarity's hug and hoped that, despite everything, she was right.

---

Cold wind rattled the broken glass of old window frames, filling the room with a biting chill.

Sunset welcomed it.

She had been wandering through the Citadel randomly for hours trying to familiarise herself with her own body, trying to remember the simple feeling of just existing, until finally she ended up in this unused room in the Citadel's outer ring. It must have been an office once, going by the large desk in the corner with windows that looked out onto a wreck-strewn parking lot.

Sunset bit her lip as she stared out of the window. The cold, the soreness in her limbs, even the sting of the cuts she had picked up in the morning, Sunset accepted all of it. Needed it. Anything that would remind her that she was still alive.

None of it was working, though. No matter where she went or what she did, Sunset couldn't shake the feeling of that gaping abyss leeching at her soul, of how it felt to die.

Sunset clicked her tongue in annoyance and turned to storm out of the room. As she considered where she was going to go next she yanked the door open, swept through the doorway, and promptly collided with someone else in the corridor.

"Whoa! S-sorry about that, Miss Shimmer." The man kept apologizing profusely as Sunset looked him over critically, a ludicrous idea quickly taking shape in her mind. The man wore a Scribe's robe, but he was powerfully built nonetheless, with heavily muscled forearms and messy black hair. He was even a full head taller than her to boot. Perfect.

The scribe clearly misinterpreted the look he was receiving as he shrank back, cowering slightly. His obviously timid nature fanned the reckless fire building in Sunset's core. Abandoning her reservations, Sunset seized the front of his robes and pulled him down to mash her lips against his.

Taken by surprise, it took the scribe a few seconds to realize exactly what was going on, but when he did he responded enthusiastically, grabbing Sunset's hips and pulling her close as she pushed her tongue into his mouth. Sunset ground herself against him to make sure he definitely knew what she was after then pulled away, dragged him into the old office, and kicked the door shut.

There was no tenderness between the two as they clashed together once more, just animal lust and, on Sunset's part, a desperate fervour. She moaned as the scribe's hands roamed over her body and as they slid up and under her top. Following his lead, Sunset shrugged off her jacket and pulled her top off before wrapping her arms back around his neck.

The scribe eagerly took the unspoken invitation, wrapping one arm around Sunset's lower back as the other slid up to her breast. He massaged her through the bra, groaning as she pressed into him, then slowly trailed his hand down her body. Just as the scribe's fingers slipped under her waistband the door suddenly slammed open, startling the two of them.

Paladin Metzger was standing in the doorway, her expression set in an icy glare. "Scribe Irons, don't you have someplace else you need to be?" She asked in a tone of deadly calm.

The scribe whipped around instantly. "Wha- er, I-I mean, y-yes, Paladin!" Without another word he darted out of the room as if his life depended on it.

Sunset couldn't even watch him leave. She just stared at the ground instead, utterly frozen in place. Metzger's arrival had been like a bucket of ice-cold water to the face, snapping her back to her senses. The realization of what she had been doing, of what she had been about to do, burned in Sunset's thoughts; a hidden brand of shame that left her feeling sick to her stomach. She could feel Metzger's eyes on her, judging her.

"I get what you're trying to do, Sunset, but this isn't the right way to do it," Metzger said slowly, pushing the door closed behind her as she spoke.

"If you're going to call me a whore or something, then just get it over with already," Sunset managed to spit out.

Metzger just sighed. "That's not what I meant." She picked Sunset's top up off the floor and handed it to her, then leaned against the desk and patted the spot next to her. "Come on, let's talk."

Thrown off by Metzger's sudden change in demeanor, Sunset slipped her top back on and leaned next to the Paladin. The two sat in silence for a while, until eventually Metzger spoke up, "Look, I may not know the details, but I get what you're going through." She held a hand up as Sunset tried to interject. "If you're gonna say something about your magic, that's fair. I don't know a damn thing about magic. But I do know that you've been through hell, you've seen people dying in horrible ways up close and personal, and you're reacting to it."

Sunset didn't have a response. Metzger's words were forcing her to confront the pain inside and she was afraid that if she tried to open her mouth, then she would lose whatever composure she had.

Metzger pressed on regardless. "You want to shut out the bad thoughts, but at the same time you want to revel in any sensations you can just to reassure yourself that you survived where others didn't." She huffed a laugh. "Sex can be great for that, but were you seducing Irons because you wanted to get laid, or because you wanted out of your own head and he was there? I'm not saying that either way is right or wrong, but… just try and be more careful, okay?"

There was nothing Sunset could say because she knew Metzger was right, she had to try to pull herself together. Normally she would turn to her friends, but she could hardly dump her issues on them when they were all struggling themselves. Then again, the Rainbooms might not be the only people she could rely on. "I felt him die," she half-whispered.

"Your magic?" Metzger asked.

Sunset managed a nod. She tried to speak, to explain what had happened, but all that came out was a strangled sob. Sunset tried to rein herself in, but the floodgates had opened and a moment later her composure shattered like glass.

Neither woman knew how long they stayed there as Sunset let her stress flow from her eyes, but Metzger kept a reassuring arm around Sunset’s shoulders until she finally managed to get herself under control; that was when Sunset found the pain and the fear that had gripped her so tightly had lessened somewhat. The abyss was still there, but its grip on her had weakened.

With her head clearer than it had been in a while, Sunset found herself filled with fresh resolve. Project Purity had been secured and the Brotherhood had promised to help the Rainbooms get home once that was done. All that remained was to find one of the SDT-1 artifacts that Tara had shown them, but to do that…

"I have to get stronger."

Next Chapter: Chapter 65 - Machinations Estimated time remaining: 31 Hours, 17 Minutes