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Fallout: Canterlot City - Something of A Prologue
This scene you have seen many times before.
You see the television on and an advertisement from so long ago of a company that even though it’s gone, it changed the way the country would not be what it is today.
The camera pans out and instead of the normal living room full of contemporary furnishing, it is now a destroyed and dilapidated house that only houses a skeleton on a sofa.
The world is not what it was and is now only a fallout wasteland filled with irradiated fauna, raiders ready to pillage everyone and the unknown.
Welcome to Fallout: Canterlot City.
Think of this little chapter as something of a prologue/introduction to this new world that had splintered from The Many Destinies of Sunset Shimmer. This is one world that was made with the intention of seeing carefully into those things that make the world of Fallout so interesting for me and others.
To understand this world we need to talk not only of the original Fallout, you know, the real video game series that is now property of Bethesda, but to those works of fiction that have been created as tribute and homage of this amazing series.
There are two worlds that I think we need to talk about; the first one is, of course, Fallout Equestria. This is a world that needs to be read more than explained since it is so expansive that trying to mention the story and all of its spin-offs need its own database. To make things a little easier, this world has nothing to do with Sunset and is its own story; if you want you can go and check it out.
The other work that we need to talk about is Fallout Equestria Girls and I do believe that that world and this will be scrutinized and compared in some ways but beyond having Sunset as a protagonist -or deuteragonist in the case of Fallout Equestria Girls- there is little to no real comparison in both stories.
In Fallout: Canterlot City, Sunset Shimmer is in a different point of life than the one in FEG - from now on I’ll try to refer to Fallout: Canterlot City as FCC and Fallout Equestria Girls as FEG -. In terms of timeline, FEG starts at the end of Rainbow Rocks in a manner of speaking, finding a Sunset who is already redeemed and kinder in general while the one in FCC is still the bad girl that is trying to find her place in this new world.
Another difference is the way these two stories look at things and the way the world works. In FEG, people are trying to rebuild the world around them after only some years since the bombs fell, which in Fallout lore is possible considering how fast radiation disappeared in most of the wasteland. The world they have in in a sense less harsh and characters bounce back easier from shocking moments. In FCC, things are not that nice; the world left behind the members of Vault 47 as you may see. Many of the things that had happened in the games had happened in here, just like the Vault Dweller being exiled or the Courier declaring New Vegas an independent state.
Life in FCC is harsher with many actions having some kind of repercussion, being either socially or mentally, just like in the case of Sunset Shimmer and the way she reacts after doing her first kill. It will also deal with serious aspects of Fallout that are almost seen as an afterthought, like addiction to substances like Sunset with Nuka Cola, who the Zetans are, the Forced Evolution Virus and what kind of strange symptoms it can have and if there is some kind of cure beyond the vial you find at the Institute and several others.
This is not going to a nice story where the girls will be cheery - although they will have moments of peace and relaxation -, it will be hard and dangerous, because war… war never changes.
Because War... War Never Changes
She said that I took the easy path by running away; she said that I had run away from my responsibility to my world when I turned my back on Princess Celestia in search of power. You know what I answered back to the so-called Princess? That she knew nothing about my decision. Saying that I was a coward? She haven’t seen what I’ve seen, she hadn't walked among rubble and ruins and think about the time when they were still intact and functional.
Every time we found out a new place in this lonely place that was once a budding city, I felt the loneliness and pain of what have this world has become, of what a simple decision could cause and how many souls could suffer from the madness of few.
The old flag had been torn down by the ravage of radiation and time, but I have also seen that same flag being put back on its place by the brave few that lived on newly made towns, signaling that civilization was back and no matter what kind of raider band or crazy government lunatic appeared they will stay here.
It all started so long ago, when countries around the world began to see that their dependence on oil was bringing them to the point of no return. There was a shift on renewable energy, but companies that had made a fortune selling oil and many of its products saw the danger to their way of life and quickly searched for another product, quickly going back to the energies that were found before; nuclear power.
That research was a curse in disguise.
Blinded by the opportunities that nuclear power brought and its subsequent transformation into fusion cells, Earth reached a new golden age. But it didn’t last long; soon everybody saw that this was not an eternal source of power and they were just putting a blindfold to the world and every problem that they had before was now even greater.
Tensions reached a point of no return and with just a couple of buttons being pressed around the globe, Earth ceased to exist in matter of minutes. War like never seen before raged through the surface of the world destroying everything in its wake.
Those lucky enough were saved from nuclear annihilation thanks to huge shelters called Vaults. These Vaults allowed people to survive underground until the time it was deemed safe for them to return to the surface. In time these vaults opened to a new and bizarre landscape. They soon began their own tribes, expanding across the country and creating a new society among the destruction of the last.
But not all Vaults were safe. What people didn’t know is that the Vaults weren’t created to save humanity, but to study them and research them, with each Vault being a completely different experiment. Some put drugs on their water just to see what would happen; another separated the survivors into two groups and filled them with so much paranoia until they broke and began attacking the other side.
I was lucky, Vault 47 was an experiment focused on mass stasis. I could still remember the day I went inside the metal monster, with other citizens of Canterlot flooding the entrance waiting to be saved from the incoming salvo of nuclear missiles.
The only ones I could recognize were the Stetson wearing girl with her family with her, the fashionista looking for her little sister and an annoying girl with rainbow colored hair. All of us were being herded to a massive hall telling us that we were going to be decontaminated. I should have known something was wrong because the next moment there was a flash and then a feeling of floating in the void, where there were no time or suffering, it was a weird feeling that lasted forever and just for a second.
What we discovered was that after almost 200 years in use the machines finally malfunctioned and the stasis field was lifted, freeing all the Canterlot citizens in the middle of what seconds for us had been immaculate halls, now only rusty walls and empty halls welcomed us.
We were an experiment, one that had been abandoned, just like the people in charge of the machines had been; in the end we found out the bodies of those that had been in charge sprawled among the halls, now turned into skeletons. They had killed each other, some trying to leave the vault and others following the rules imposed by Vault Tec.
In the end, one worker had survived, only to die due to blood loss right in front of the vault door.
Many of us didn’t like each other, in fact I was sure AJ and the rest would have thrown me from a cliff, but we understood something the precise moment we left the vault… the people we were before the end were dead, only together could we survive on this cruel and devastated land.
And it had been hard, oh so hard.
Our own little village had been attacked by insects the size of a small car, by crazy junkies in search of supplies and by what seemed to be zombies out of a horror movie but were humans so contaminated with radiation that since that moment we did everything we could to avoid it.
I don’t know how we survived those first few months, but between AJ’s family knowledge of plants we soon had food, Rainbow and others volunteered themselves as the village’s guards and with me and a rather dorky girl by the name of Twilight, we got the machines inside the Vault functioning again so medicines and supplies were not a problem anymore.
But soon it was not enough, there was a desire in me growing incessantly every time I watched the horizon, the desire of knowing what was beyond the walls we have created, and would you believe it? I wasn’t the only one, because those three girls that I once bullied felt the same thing, and with a hug to their family and sisters we all geared up in search of the rest of their old friends, to finally put their ghosts to rest, to find their fate among the Canterlot Wasteland.
So here we were, hearing the sound of machine guns being fired and bandits screaming either in rage or pain. A bullet went flying at my side before the bandit that had been shooting at me before his head exploded in bits of meat and bone all thanks to Treacle’s sniper rifle.
It was quite the surprise for all of us to find among the rubble and ruins of Canterlot City a new town that had become quite the beacon of hope among the bleak Wasteland; its name? Pie Town, could you believe it? Pinkie Pie’s message of smile, hope and happiness infected everyone inside Vault 52 and until this day they still lived every day with a true smile. Treacle Tart was the direct descendant of Pinkie and the other three girls took an instant liking to her, it was hard not to. She was so peppy and cheery, just looking at her smile and yellow curls put you on a happy mood.
A loud bang and I watch AJ put down a bandit with her Cowboy Repeater, the same with Rarity and her Plasma Rifle. Looking at my side I nodded to Rainbow Dash, she immediately covered me with a salvo of bullets from her SMG, I guess we had fought together so much that we didn’t need to talk.
Without even needing to say anything I feel a prickle on my skin and immediately the world seems to have slowed down. It was my own invention, one that I was proud of, a combination of chemicals that when injected had this reaction. So far and after making test with animals it was found that the only being that could not get addicted to it was me, probably something to do with my own blood considering I come from another world. It also didn’t hurt that if taken orally it tasted slightly like Nuka Cola.
Quickly leaving my cover I aim my modified Gauss Rifle to a bandit and press the trigger, then once again and a final one before the effect of Turbo finished and three heads are separated from their body, then I feel a bullet graze my arm. It’s nothing serious and I know Fluttershy will immediately start working on any damage.
Fluttershy… poor Fluttershy. The quiet and demure girl had found herself in another Vault away from her friends and her problems had just started; one of the scientist in charge of Vault 51 had fallen in love with Fluttershy, or better said, he was obsessed with her to the point of using her for the real experiment behind the Vault, the birth of a new type of AI using a human brain.
For two hundred years Fluttershy had lived inside a computer with the scientist transferring his mind into a Brain Bot model; by the time we found the Vault he had gone beyond insane, saying over and over that Fluttershy and he had been destined to spend eternity together. I swear, making a brain go splat had never been so satisfying.
It was sad, the reunion of friends, but Fluttershy had survived the situation with aplomb, spending huge amount of times in a state of energy saving so she didn’t live through much, but what she did was upload herself upon my newly acquired Stealth Suit. I swear, hearing the suit talk was a surprise on itself.
Anyways, with all the bandits taken care of and everyone on our side alive, we put our attentions on the one reason we attacked the bandits. A girl that looked just like Twilight back in our village, but immediately I could see that this girl was not only terrified, but that she didn’t belong in here.
I have met her once, hundreds of years ago, when I was still the bully, when I had left Princess Celestia and Equestria behind. I don’t know what effect the radiation had on the portal but seeing her here was proof that the times between dimension were screwed, but also that it was still working.
There was only one thing going through my mind the moment I extended my hand to the fallen girl to help her get up.
Because war... war never changes.
But you know what?
Ponies do.
Sunset Shimmer sat at the steps of a partly fallen house, all the while watching the small 10mm gun that she held in her hands. The redheaded girl noticed how black it was and how much it shined, how well kept it was considering the age of the weapon. She did all that just so she wouldn’t think about what she had done.
She had shot once and the bullet had went through the back of the head, as simple as that, no screaming, no groaning or cursing out from the victim, he just felt and didn’t get up again. It was disheartening, surprising and oh so shocking. So shocking that Sunset has been sitting down in front of what used to be one of the favorite stores of kids before the war. The good ol’ Sugarcube was now defunct just like the rest of businesses that had been part of that block; thankfully they had arrived in time to Vault 47.
Sunset could only stare at the gun so she wouldn’t stare at the empty eye of the bandit, and she did mean one eye since the bullet had destroyed the other eye and part of its face, leaving behind a husk of what once was a living being.
She knew she should be feeling sick, that she should be raging or screaming or crying… but the only thing she felt right now was relief knowing that the bandit would hurt no one after this. Was she a bad person for thinking that? Was something wrong with her?
Her sight and mind never put attention to the oncoming reinforcements; thankfully those same reinforcements were on her side.
Consisting of Applejack, Quick Trigger and Chrome Shield, the three had guns ready and were looking around before meeting with the other person besides Sunset and AJ all but threw herself at his arms.
“Pa, never scare me like this again.” The usually tough farm girl all but bawled at seeing her father alive while this one gladly returned the hug. They maintained the hug for several seconds before they separated. Applejack turned her head to the sitting girl not too far from them and her face changed from relief to annoyance. “So, in what kind of trouble did you got my father this time?”
“AJ, that’s enough.”
“But Pa, she…”
“I said enough.” Red Barn had a voice of command that made everyone stay straight when he talked, probably due to his past in the army before the bombs. Nowadays people could forget his curriculum until he had to be serious, and this was one of those times. “I don’t know what kind of grudge you two have, but I won’t have my own daughter talk that way to an innocent girl.”
“Sure, an innocent, which Sunset isn’t. Don’t you remember how she was before we all went down into that damn Vault?”
“I sure do, but this is a different time, we all changed because of that, now look at her, does she look like that bully?”
“No, but… what is she doing?”
“She went into shock… I hate to think that I wasn’t capable of defending myself but… Sunset saved my life killing the last bandit; I thought this zone was safe once again and wanted to scout for a little bit, thankfully miss Shimmer here followed me. I heard her say that she wanted to find a clean holotape, no idea what she wanted to do with it,” Barn said knowing full well that all any explanation about the technology that had been created due to the atom craziness would always fly over his head.
“Then we found three bandits, new kids, probably couldn’t get into any big band and decided to go solo. One of them had me under his sight before I could react and if it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
“But why is she like that?”
“Because she had to kill. Not everyone reacts the same way after something like that,” he said, sitting down at Sunset’s side, then he took the 10mm from her hands and the teenager finally turned around to look at him with vacant eyes. Red Barn almost cursed seeing such a young girl having to live with the consequences of taking a man’s life.
“Is it wrong?”
“What is it?”
“That I feel relieved that he’s dead?” she simply asked before the tears began to fall from her eyes. Barn had no answer to her question. The only thing he could do was hug the teenager until she stopped crying.
Life went on at what was known as Vault 47, at least by the people that remembers what the world was like before the bombs fell. It was an arduous job and never boring to tell the truth. Red Barn took in the fresh air - if slightly metallic on its taste - that was being pumped around the main hall of what they called home.
The tall blonde man knew that it was bizarre to call a hole in the ground home, but it was all they had. Work outside the vault was slow considering they were using materials from the now destroyed city of Canterlot. He also had to deal with men and women that never in their life have touched a hammer. If it weren’t because he had his family - minus his beloved Golden Apple; sometimes he missed that woman too much - with him alongside the family of his daughter’s friends to help, he wouldn’t have been able to get things going. With Shining Armor and Big Mac taking care of patrolling and construction respectively, Red Barn was finally able to do what he had been planning to do.
Looking around the now, once again, colorful interior of the Vault, he began to walk in the direction of the science duo that had taken residence in the Infirmary. It was bizarre to understand the place and how well designed it was, considering what the plan for its denizens was. To think that they had all kind of ‘departments’ like Security, Infirmary, Maintenance; hell, even an Overseer Office that he had no intention of using. For some reason, folks in the Vault looked at him as if he were the Overseer but he was no politician and no way he could think of himself as a major or anything close to that. He was a retired army guy turned family guy then once again pulled into the front when it came to protecting his new people. He left that kind of job to Celestia, she was basically born for taking charge of a situation.
If there was someone he could trust in leading people or at least organize them, it would be the redheaded girl that was sitting at a workbench with some kind of valve on her hands. Red Barn coughed calling her attention, making also the other young girl in the room to turn around to meet him. That girl was also a blessing for the newly formed town. With both Twilight and Sunset working on the different systems they not only had fresh air filters but electricity thanks to the both of them repairing the generators down in the vault.
“Hey Red, is something wrong?” It was hilarious how Sunset was more like him than Applejack; he loved his daughter but she was as stubborn as her mom. Sunset on the other hand was always on the move, always checking something out, and most importantly, she had something of a paranoiac bug on her, always thinking that something could go wrong and preparing for it.
“I won’t call it wrong but… well; we got some folks outside, saying that they’re traders.”
“Wait, what? Traders? Are they by themselves or are they trying to make a route?” Sunset said forgetting what she had been working on.
“I have no idea, and that’s why I came for you.”
“Okay, I'll bite; why me?”
“Do you think I trust my kids among traders? I know those three; they would probably get in a mess or be convinced to sell the Vault.” He loved his kids but sometimes honesty was not the best policy, especially in business. Sunset and Twilight both winced at the mental image.
“Alright, I’ll take care of it, Sparky, can you-”
“I’ll keep looking on these plasma cartridges but I am still not sure how long this will take.”
“Doesn’t matter. If we get those things going then we will have a lot of power in here,” Sunset said before leaving everything in the work station and accompanying Red barn in the direction of the exit.
“So… Sparky?” Red Barn began before Sunset simply grumbled.
“Look, she is the only one in here that I can talk about my work or ideas. Besides, she is the only one close to my age that doesn’t look at me as if they wanted me to drop dead.” At least Sunset was better from the whole accident Barn and she had not too long ago. The first week Red Barn had found Sunset in the Infirmary station working on something Turns out that she had been working in the new air pumps for more than a day without even sleeping. Seems that she was working like that because she didn’t want to have nightmares again.
Thankfully she started talking with others like Shining Armor - who had wanted to be a police officer, so guard was not too bad a job for him in the end - and who had become the resident sweetheart Cadence.
“It can’t be that bad.”
“Well, yesterday Applejack said hello to me without trying to punch me in the face so I have that going for me, which is nice.” Ouch.
“So, what’s the thing you were working on?”
“Oh, that? Is a little side project; if I get the right pieces together we will find ourselves the proud makers of our own Nuka Cola product… well, not really Nuka-Cola since we don’t have the formula but both Sugarcoat and Mystery Mint are working on their own formula, and for what it looks like is going to be pretty good.”
“And the thing with Miss Sparkles?”
“Oh, that… is something of a pet project between us. Apparently the guys that were guarding this place had some high quality tech. They basically had one of those high tech plasma weapons the army was testing at the beginning of the war.” Barn remembered those, they were very interesting in that they didn’t shoot those lasers, but instead pure energy that ‘gooified’ the enemy. Wwe still cannot replicate the technology but we are getting closer and closer, maybe one day we will be able to mass produce it.”
“Sunset, you are starting to scare me.”
“Thank you.”
Every time Sunset went out of the Vault, it was the same grim landscape that said hello to her. For someone that had grown up in a world where green and pretty colors were everywhere, it was slightly depressing the way the world was so rusted, destroyed and grim in some ways. Strangely, it was also refreshing in a weird way, considering this world had become a place of wonder too. So many new things were out there and so many things to explore and know, but Sunset was wiser now; there was no way she would go out there like last time.
The redhead watched the wood and steel walls being erected in a wide area but she knew that they were simply provisional and were there until they decided it was time to begin construction on the surface. For most of the residents in Vault 47, it was hard to live underground with metal walls and small hallways. It also was a shame that the Vault was designed for a small number of actual living space considering the purpose of the building. There was no space for all of them, point; so now they had to think about expanding outside and say hello to the world outside.
Sunset had spent hours reading every single file that they could find in terminals around the Vault. Most of them talking about how Vault-Tec prepared the area for mass stasis in which they would put the subjects – which being the people that signed for the Vault - for a determined time, basically only 2 years. In the end it was the stupid Overseer who had other ideas and being a paranoid asshole. He forbade every single employee from even trying to make contact outside. The Vault only had so much food and there was no hydroponic room like the one in other Vaults.
In the end it didn’t even matter since every single Vault Tec employee was dead, either by bullets or the unforgivable time that ate every single human that had lived at the time of the bombs. Sunset knew that she should count herself lucky that she was still alive and kicking thanks to the whole experiment, but there was something inside of her that told her she had been robbed of something important, something irreplaceable. It didn’t matter in the end as Sunset simply waved at the young people walking away from their small settlement, the two headed weird cows along with them serving as beasts of burden.
Sunset finally let a sigh out relaxing after what was a tense negotiation. In the end it was accorded that Vault 47 would help the trading company be their main business. In exchange of fresh water and fruit – not to mention that Sunset was planning to introduce their brand new Nuka Cola flavor to them if everything went right - in exchange of raw materials and equipment so needed for them. They had a limited number of bullets and Sparky’s project of plasma cartridges was still in its infancy.
The redhead finally stopped smiling - it was hurting her cheeks being so cheery - and went back to her usual scowl. She didn’t understand how Princess Celestia could stay so happy all the time, it wasn’t even worthy in her opinion. If what just happened was even an ounce of what was needed of her, she didn’t want to be a Princess anymore. Just thinking about all the work that came with politics or power in general was not for the redhead anymore. The nightmares she got from killing one person were enough to keep her humbled, but cheery? She will gladly shove a plasma grenade inside someone’s… backdoor before she had to smile so much.
She was ready to go back to the Infirmary Station - although by now everyone called it Research Center, considering all the work she and Twilight did in there - before she groaned, watching who exactly was walking her way.
The hair was a dead giveaway and Sunset was preparing herself for being screamed at since Rainbow Dash was one of the most fervent Anti-Sunset members back when the world made sense and didn’t lay destroyed everywhere.
“So, how did things go?” A voice interrupted Rainbow before this one could even open her mouth. It was none other than the brother of what was probably the only friend Sunset had, like ever. Shining Armor was a nice guy, no wonder why Cadence had her eyes on him, and while there was a slight age difference the world was so screwed that no one even batted an eye at something like that.
“I think they are honest. They will also start making trips back and forth bringing things like weapons, ammo, things we definitely need. They were very interested in making deals with a Vault since apparently the other two closest ones are unusable.”
“Did they say why?”
“One is now caved in, which I have no idea why, so don’t ask me. And the other is filled with bandits and raiders, something about becoming a gambling and fighting arena.”
“I thought Vaults were made so they wouldn’t have accidents like a cave in.”
“Hey, your guess is as good as mine, and unless you want to check it by yourself I suggest we forget about it.”
“Yeah, you’re right. As we are now we have no manpower to start scouting the surrounding area. I hope you and Twily help us in that regard,” Shining said with his brand new -or at least looking like new - Assault Rifle on its holster, wearing the Vault Security armor that they had found out in the Armory. It was quite the miracle that they all those things still under lock just for emergencies.
“Do you even believe what she is saying?”
“Rainbow, you-” Shining tried to say something but Rainbow was on a roll and she was not going to stop this time. She needed to say everything she knew about the redhead.
“I don’t care what you think; do you even know what she is? She is nothing but a bully and a liar!”
“Yes, I was that, and you know what am I now? I’m Head of Research, so if you excuse me I have a lot of work to do.”
“Oh, isn’t that rich? Head of Research? Who was so fucking stupid to name you that?” Rainbow said screaming at Sunset as this one tried to control herself. She knew it would be wrong to throw a haymaker in Rainbow’s direction, but she was so tempted.
“I did, is there a problem with my judgment Miss Dash?” the voice of what was the unofficial ‘Overseer’ of Vault 47 said. Her colorful hair that looked like the sky at different times always made Sunset feel nostalgic and sad at the same time. Every time she watched this Celestia she could do nothing but remember she had thrown away.
“Why would you do that?”
“Because her technological expertise would be invaluable if we truly want to settle on the surface. We cannot depend on the Vault forever if we want to expand and recover at least a minimum of what our lives were before Miss Dash.”
“But how can you trust her? Don’t you know what she did to us all the time in school?”
“I was petty and a brute, I know,” Sunset said looking directly at Rainbow who couldn’t believe what she had heard. “I was a bully and so many other things, but you know what? The people that we were died the moment those stupid bombs did. Do you want me to say I’m sorry? Yes, I’m sorry; it was foolish and childish, but most of all, it was useless. I wanted all the power I could because I deserved it.
“You wanna know what happened? FUCKING BOMBS HAPPENED! Who fucking cares about power when you can die the next day? All I know now is that we are living on borrowed time until we get everything ready to start our settlement, so excuse me if I have more important things than being part of a childish grudge match. Like I said, I have a lot of work to do, so I’ll give you my report later on Principal Celestia.”
“I’m not a Principal anymore, and yes, you can give me your report later on.” Sunset only nodded before briskly walking away. For her part, Rainbow could only watch Sunset’s back, still reeling from being chewed out.
Applejack had been right, there was something going on with Sunset. She didn’t feel very proud of what she had done; basically irk Sunset until she exploded. It had worked when they were back in High School, but what she had said rung true. This was a new world and they had new obligations and responsibilities; they needed to be together and she had to be sincere, she was getting worried about Sunset.
“Whatever you are planning Applejack, it better help Sunset… and if I needed something to make me believe the world is screwed up it was that sentence.”
Old Problems Always Pop Up
What was it with people coming at every hour at her office? Well, it wasn’t her office per se, but it was still a place where she spends most of her time, either working or swapping ideas with Twilight. For the first time Sunset felt that she had met someone that truly understood her thirst for more knowledge, to understand more about the world that was so bizarre, and maybe the reason for the last one was that the whole world had exploded and people were trying to reassemble it.
It was quite the surprise when Sunset began to get more and more visitors in her small corner of the world. First it was Rainbow Dash coming to pester Sunset and Twilight. She was a little hard to get along with but she wanted to learn how to take care of her weapon, a small 10mm handgun that they found at the armory - Red Barn was very careful in giving people guns since they still didn’t have a reliable source of ammo for them - and Sunset had to spend time studying the weapon alongside her. In the end they gained, not a friendship, but an understanding that whatever happened back at Canterlot High was over and done; maybe it was the base for a new friendship. Sunset snorted at that thought. She having friends? Wasn’t that the reason she had been exiled from Equestria? For not having friends? Well, that and trying to gain dark powers just so she could ascend but that was a very small thing.
Another one that used to bother Sunset all the time had been Applejack and she was the one that Sunset had gotten to know the most. Between talking with Red Barn and how his family was settling on this new world, to stories of how Canterlot was before the bombs fell. It was really… humbling in a way, to know such a man. Before the bombs, when she was still the maniacal bully, Sunset may have simply ignored him, but now, with the world as screwed up as it was, Sunset simply listened to him talking. In the end, she usually ended up asleep, and with no nightmares as a plus.
Sunset was no fool - after all that’s why she was unofficially the Head of the Research Department -. She knew that so many people visiting her, including kids that she had tormented before no less, mean that they all had a plan. Apparently it was ‘keep Sunset Shimmer company,’ but for what reason? It was not like if magically they were worried about the redhead; because she knew that there was no way in Tartarus that they all were worried about her.
Whatever the case, it worked, because Sunset felt less like if someone was pulling her teeth every time she went to her weekly visit to Cadence. Principal Celestia - the woman was now Overseer or Mayor, but for Sunset and the rest of the students couldn’t avoid the title - had a nice idea when she put Dean Cadence in charge of monitoring the mental health of the people living in the Vault. Her cheery disposition and the almost sisterly way in which she behaved, alongside her psychology degree, made her the perfect person to check something as important as how sane people were.
In the end, it helped, if only slightly. Of course, Sunset still felt the pull every time she looked at a rocket bottle full of dark liquid. Cadence had explained her that the sugary soft drink had become a crutch of sorts; that Sunset had been using the sugar rush it gave her to avoid sleeping and having to see nightmares of Sunset at her worst, gleefully enjoying killing the students of Canterlot and even seeing the face of the man she had killed.
Cadence had called it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Only after Sunset had begun to actually socialize, was when she finally began to open up to her fears. It had been a slow affair, but at least Sunset didn’t break into a sweat when she went to sleep at night.
But things tend to change no matter what we do, and this was the time when things changed for better or worst. Sunset was walking in the direction of the main office that had been taken over by both Celestia and Luna who worked as the administrative force of Vault 47. Inside, the two women looked to watch Sunset walk into the office before placing some kind of machine part on top of Celestia’s desk.
“We have a problem, the water chip is busted and we have no replacement in the Vault; unless we get a new one the Vault will stop having water in less than two months.” Sunset said, not knowing that the adventure of a lifetime started just for those words.