Preston Garvey, senior officer of the Commonwealth Minutemen, sat on a stool inside the ruins of a pre-war diner accompanied by a few newcomers to their militia, all eager to fight for the cause, watching the former base of operations of the Minutemen through a large hole on the wall; it was a structure hundreds of years old, formally known as Fort Independence but simply referred to as “The Castle” by the people. As he took one last swig from a bottle of Nuka-Cola, the bell above the door of the diner rang, signaling that a new person had joined them. He turned his head and saw that it was none other than their General Nora.

“There it is.” Preston said, pointing his bottle at the structure atop a hill. “Pretty impressive, huh? Now you can see why I wanted to take it back.”

“Definitely. For 600 years old, it’s in pretty good shape.” Nora commented, looking through the same gap in the wall. “Those walls could use some work, though.”

“I’ll admit, it’s seen some better days. But the Minutemen have never been afraid of hard work.”

“Hell yeah!” One of the Minutemen said, raising his bottle of water. The others mimicked him.

“Well-fortified, centrally-located, and most important: it has a powerful radio transmitter we can use to broadcast to the whole Commonwealth.” He continued.

“So what happened to this ‘Castle’ if it was so well-fortified?” She asked with a tone of concern in her voice.

“This was long before I joined up, but the story I heard was that some kind of monster came out of the sea and destroyed the fort, now the place is abandoned and crawling with mirelurks.” He looked at the Castle once more, sadness evident in his eyes and in his voice. “A lot of the leaders were killed in that battle, and I guess nobody ever felt it was worth the risk to retake it.” He placed his bottle on the counter and stood up. “I’ve always wondered if losing the radio station was the beginning of all our later problems.”

“What are we waitin’ for?” One of the Minutemen asked. “Let’s just get in there and shoot those lobsters!”

“Yeah, let’s do this!” The General agreed.

“Actually, General, I wanted to ask you to wait a little bit longer.” Garvey said.

“Oh come on, let’s just do this already!” A Minutemen complained.

“Whatever for, Garvey?” Nora asked.

“I was approached by someone before we came here; I told her about our plans, and she volunteered to help us retake the Castle. I’ve seen the things she can do, she is definitely someone we want on our side. I was hoping she would get here before you, but…”

The ex-vault dweller thought about it for a second, then shrugged and sat on one of the stools. “If she’s half as good as you say she is, then we can afford to wait a little longer. But not too long, so let’s hope she can get here fast.”

“Did someone say ‘fast’?” Someone with a somewhat raspy female voice spoke in a cocky tone from the outside of their meeting place.

The people in the diner looked at the broken down wall through which a newcomer joined them; she was an athletic young woman with light blue skin, had one magenta eye – her left eye, along with a nasty-looking burn, was covered by an eyepatch that seemed to have been part of a pirate costume at some point – and long, unkempt hair composed of all the seven colors of the rainbow. She wore dirty army fatigues with combat boots, an old, worn-down army helmet and held an automatic laser rifle on her hands.

“I’m Rainbow Dash, and ‘speed’ is my middle name. Nice to meetcha, General!” She introduced herself. “Sorry I’m late. Overslept. I’m all good to go though, just point me a target and I’m all over it!”

“Nice to meet you, too. Garvey spoke highly of you, I can’t wait to see what you’re capable of.”

“We’re clearing out the mirelurks infesting the Castle, right? Want me to scout ahead?”

“I—”

Rainbow Dash disappeared, although Nora could have sworn she saw a blur dash off towards the fort – one that left a faint trail of multicolored energy in its wake that dissipated in a fraction of a second.

“What in the goddamn…?” One of the Minutemen mumbled, looking at his drink to make sure he didn’t mix up his bottle of water with his bottle of booze.

Just as fast as Rainbow Dash vanished, she also returned; this time Nora was sure she saw a blur leaving behind a rainbow trail – a blue blur that revealed itself to be Rainbow Dash running at superhuman speed.

“Done!” She said. “And wow, there are a lot of them in there – at least ten in the courtyard alone, plus several egg clutches, some looking ready to hatch. We have one heck of a fight ahead of us, guys!”

“How did you do that?” A Minuteman asked, pointing at Dash with a shaky index finger.

“Because I’m awesome!” She puffed out her chest and placed her hands on her hip.

“…Right.” Nora said as she got up from the stool and adjusted the straps of her pieces of leather armor. “Now that we’re all here, we can begin.”

“How do you want to play this, General?” Preston Garvey asked as he picked up his trusty laser musket.

“Rainbow Dash’s speed gave me an idea.”

Vibrations on the ground disturbed the sleep of a softshell mirelurk, prompting it to rise from its burrow and confront the invader of its territory. Standing in front of it was a human, pointing its laser rifle at it.

“Whassup, crab cake?” Rainbow Dash pulled the trigger, firing a barrage of red laser beams at the creature.

The mirelurk felt intense pain, but not enough damage was caused to end its life. The decapod lowered its body, shielding its vulnerable parts with its tough shell, which was strong enough to deflect the lasers. It swung its claws at the human, but the target moved out of the way just in time. Taking matters into its own claws, the softshell mirelurk chased after the runaway human outside the boundaries of the nest it shared with its brethren, only to be confronted by even more humans.

“Fire!” Nora shouted; all her subordinates pointed their fully-charged laser muskets at the mirelurk and pulled their respective triggers, reducing the aquatic creature to ash.

“Boo-yah!” Rainbow Dash raised her automatic rifle in celebration, thrilled by the success of the General’s plan.

“Let’s not celebrate too early, there are more of them in there. Ready for the next one, Dash?”

“Am I!” Summoning magical energy from her geode of super speed, Rainbow dashed back inside the Castle, ready to bait another mirelurk into chasing her back to the firing squad.

By the time they were done, Nora noticed Rainbow Dash had started to sweat and breath heavily. Once all the fully grown mirelurks were dealt with, all that was left was get rid of the eggs; some of them hatched mid-purge, but despite mirelurks hatchlings having a mean bite and being very good jumpers, they weren’t very strong.

“You hold here in the courtyard and take care of any eggs you find.” Nora instructed her Minutemen. “Garvey and I will clear the walls.”

“Yes, ma’am.” All of the Minutemen replied with a salute.

They all suddenly went quiet when they felt the ground shake, looking at each other as if hoping someone had the answer.

“What was that?” Preston asked what they were all thinking. Rainbow Dash shrugged when eyes fell on her.

Another tremor, followed by the sound of something surfacing and splashing a lot of water around – something big. The sound was accompanied by a loud and bestial roar.

“What’s that noise?” Another Minuteman asked; her question was answered by the sudden appearance of a massive creature coming from the breach on the western wall of the fort facing a small lake separated from the Atlantic Ocean by a long and thin strip of land.

The monstrosity resembled a mirelurk but with three times the height, four times the girth and somehow looking even more intimidating, even without the size difference. It let out another rage-fueled roar and raced towards the invaders of its territory.

“Inside the walls, now!” The General commanded as she raced towards one of the many doors of the Castle; her subordinates followed suit, but before all of them managed to take shelter the behemoth began shooting green liquid from spouts located near its head. Most of the Minutemen were already inside, but one straggler was bathed in the secretion. He screamed in pain as his flesh began to melt like candle wax, exposing bones in a matter of seconds; his screams only prompted the giant mirelurk to shoot more acid at him, until he was reduced to a pile of goop on the ground.

“What the ever-living fuck is that thing?” Nora asked, trying her damnest not to panic.

“It’s a mirelurk queen.” Garvey explained while peeking through a window. “Guess that’s the sea monster we were told about in the stories.”

“What’s the plan, boss?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking!” General Nora massaged her temples, trying to come up with a way out of the situation they found themselves in.

Without any targets in sight, the queen did nothing other than stomp around the courtyard, hoping to spot some more invaders to kill. The quiet was disturbed by the sound of a laser musket firing at her back from one of the windows. She turned around to look for the source of the irritation the felt on her carapace, but found nothing. Another shot from another window hit her, followed by another and another. The pain she felt was minimum because most shots hit her hard shell, but some managed to hit soft spots that actually hurt her. The queen approached the walls, looking for the source of the beams causing her pain.

“Go!” Nora yelled, signaling Rainbow Dash to move.

Running up the stairs leading to the top of the walls of the fort with one grenade on each hand, the blue-skinned woman activated the power of her necklace; back in Canterlot the necklace actually gave her the power of super speed, but the trip through the portal seemed to have had an effect on it: to the world, Rainbow Dash looked like a blur leaving behind a trail of rainbow energy, but to Rainbow Dash the world moved in slow motion while she still kept moving at regular speed. That change meant that she needed a running start in order to jump the gap between the wall and the mirelurk queen.

She jumped once she was close enough to her target, landing on the back of the massive crustacean; she stuck both grenades in gaps on the carapace near the head before jumping down and running to the other end of the courtyard, careful to avoid the puddles of mirelurk acid on the ground.

Rainbow Dash leaned against the wall, breathing heavily; she had run nonstop since the moment they arrived on the Castle and, physical exhaustion aside, her magical powers consumed a lot of energy, making her twice as tired as a regular person would – her physical fitness gave her reserves of stamina that were usually enough when using her powers back in her home world, but this unexplained change in her power was taking its toll on her body. When she finally turned off her ability and her speed synced with the rest of the world, she fell to her knees, gasping for air, unable to move her legs.

She lost consciousness the moment the grenades exploded and hit the ground at the same time as the body of the mirelurk queen.

Rainbow Dash groaned as she regained consciousness; she managed to sit up, but her entire body was too sore to do much else.

“Good morning, champ!” Nora greeted from the chair she was sitting on next to the bed Rainbow Dash had been placed. “How are you feeling?”

“Alive. And a little thirsty.”

“I thought so. Here!” The General offered a can of purified water that she took with some difficulty due to the pain.

“How long was I out?” She asked before taking a sip, looking through the door of the room she was in – they took back the Castle a couple of hours after sunrise, but the lighting outside suggested it was already past noon.

“A little over a day. You fainted due to exhaustion. I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“It was my plan that did this to you. I just assumed your necklace was like Applejack’s, giving you magical powers but with minimum strain on the body, when I should have played safe and assumed it was like Rarity’s.”

The General of the Minutemen not only knowing the true nature of her super speed but also dropping the names of her friends from Canterlot High surprised Rainbow Dash at first, but she just shrugged it off and chuckled. “So you know about us, huh? You’re more resourceful than I thought, boss. And don’t be sorry, I’m the one who should know my limits. My friends used to scold me all the time for abusing my powers, but without them around to keep me in check, I end up making a lot of bad decisions.” She looked down at the can with a sad expression before taking another sip of water.

Nora cocked an eyebrow. “This isn’t about your powers, is it?”

Rainbow Dash sighed. “It’s about my powers and… other things.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“No.”

With some difficulty due to the pain, the speedster stood up and limped out of the room. Nora thought about stopping her, but decided to let her go instead. Dash dragged herself across the courtyard; the Minutemen, with the help of some newcomers, were gathering the corpses of the mirelurk in a corner to extract the meat later on. The sight of the mirelurk queen being easily carried by a single person startled her, until she realized who the person underneath it was.

“Is there a point in time when you aren’t working?” She asked, smiling as she crossed her arms.

“Someone’s gotta do the heavy liftin’.” Applejack replied, setting the giant corpse next to the pile of smaller corpses as some Minutemen watched, mouths agape. “It’s either me or twenty people strugglin’ to move it one inch at a time. I felt bad for ‘em and stepped in. Heya, Rainbow.”

“Good to see ya, AJ.” She finished drinking her water and tossed the empty can over her shoulder. “What are you doing here?”

“Heard it on the radio that the Minutemen cleared out the Castle. I was in the neighborhood, thought they could use an extra pair o’ hands, and wouldn’t ya know it, I not only find a gosh-darned mirelurk queen dead on the ground, but also that you were the one who took it out. Nice work, RD!”

“Yeah, I am pretty awes— Ow!” She tried to puff out her chest again, but the muscle pain wouldn’t let her.

Applejack shot her an impish but concerned look. “Abusin’ yer powers again, huh?”

“In my defense, it was for a good cause.”

Applejack looked around the courtyard; most of the heavy lifting had already been done and all that was left to clean up were the remains of the egg clutches. Sure that her services weren’t needed anymore, she looked back at her long-time friend.

“Things don’t look too busy no more. Wanna catch up?”

“Sure thing.”

The two of them walked towards what was left of the western wall; the rubble served as a shortcut to the top of the fort, where the two young women sat with their legs dangling over the southern wall, watching the sunlight reflect on the murky water of the ocean.

“So where’s your friend?”

“Outside.” Applejack pointed her thumb in the general direction behind her. “Folks were a little on edge with ‘im around, so I asked ‘im to wait. What about your bucketheat buddies? Haven’t seen ‘em around.”

“Yeah, we…” Rainbow Dash turned her head to look at the Prydwen, a giant blimp hovering in the distance over the Boston Airport. “…had a disagreement.”

“Really? You and that Dancer fellow seemed to get along pretty well, what changed?”

She turned her head back around, once again looking at the Atlantic. “Paladin Danse is a great guy, my problem is not with him. It’s with the Brotherhood in general.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“When Paladin Danse recruited me, when he said I would make my mark on the world, I believed him. Working with him, Field Scribe Haylen and Knight Rhys, retrieving tech that could be misused, wiping out ferals, muties and other things that prey on innocents, I really felt like I was a part of something important.”

“But…?”

“But then the Prydwen arrived. I was so excited when I boarded her, all those people dedicated to making the wastes better, safer! But meeting Elder Maxson changed everything; his mission to wipe out all monsters is a noble one, but the problem is, he does not discriminate. In his eyes all super mutants are bad, all synths are evil, all ghouls are monsters, but that’s not what I see out here. I travelled all over the Commonwealth and beyond, met all kinds of people.

“Sure feral ghouls are a problem, but what about the non-ferals like the farmers from the Slog? Or the people of Goodneighbor? My friend Hancock? The people of Acadia in Far Harbor; they are all synths but they are just as afraid of the Institute as rest of us, all they want to do is live freely, without hiding who they really are. Nick Valentine from Diamond City, the number of people he helped throughout the years is probably higher than the number of kills under the belt of any Brotherhood soldier. Even some super mutants deserve the benefit of the doubt; you and Strong get along, and back in Far Harbor I met a super mutant named Erickson, he raises and sells dogs — that is the most wholesome fucking thing I’ve seen since we got here!

“What about raiders? Or trappers? Or the Children of Atom? I can’t move five feet without walking right into an ambush, does that mean every single human being deserves to die? The world may look black and white from Elder Maxson’s ivory tower, but that’s not how things are down here. Not by a long shot.” Rainbow Dash picked up a rock and tossed it in the ocean. “They claim to care about the people of the Commonwealth, but one of my first assignments once in the Prydwen was to visit a nearby farm and ‘convince’ them to donate a portion of their crops to the Brotherhood ‘by any means necessary’. Doesn’t leave much room for interpretation, does it?” She tossed another rock.

“So what did ya do?”

“Tossed my dog tags overboard, jumped in the first vertibird leaving the place and never looked back.”

“Think they’re gonna hunt you down for desertin’ ‘em?”

“Maybe if I took a suit of Power Armor or something with me, but I left everything they gave me on board. I don’t think they care – if anything, they’re glad that I’m gone. I saw the way they looked at me, like I was just another mutant freak who didn’t know its place.” She looked at her cyan-colored arm as she raised her hand to block the sun. “They probably only accepted me because my recommendation came from Paladin Danse. Everybody likes Danse. Hell, if Danse was a synth I bet even Maxson would show him mercy out of respect for everything he did in the name of the Brotherhood. If the recommendation came from anybody else, they would think I was a new type of super mutant and shoot me on sight.”

“Well, I’m glad you left ‘em behind instead of blindly acceptin’ the bullcrap they were sellin’. What are you going to do next?”

“I was thinking, maybe I could join you. You know, two old pals trekking across the Commonwealth kicking ass and taking names!”

“Well, y’see…” Applejack scratched the back of her head. “I was sorta thinkin’, now that the Minutemen are makin’ a comeback they could use all the help they can get, and a lot of good folks workin’ together to make the Commonwealth a better place is better than a bunch of people doin’ the same thing on their own.”

“You’re gonna join them?”

“Eeyup! You with me?” She extended her hand. “Two gals with magic are better than one!”

Rainbow Dash did not move, only stared at the extended hand her friend was offering. She eventually sighed and looked away, resting her elbows on her knees so her hands could support her head as she stared at the horizon.

“I’m… not really sure.”

Applejack lowered her hand. “Why not?”

“I don’t know if it would be right for me to join the Minutemen. Not after what I did.”

“What did ya do?” Rainbow Dash didn’t respond, she simply stared in the distance. “Rainbow Dash, what did you do?”

The speedster finally let out a sigh of defeat and removed her dirty army helmet, placing it on the empty spot between herself and Applejack. “The Brotherhood wasn’t the first group I joined up with; when the portal dropped me in this world with nothing but the clothes on my back, I was lost, disoriented and… afraid. I was very, very afraid. Afraid of this place, afraid of dying in this place, afraid that I was the only one of us that ended up here and, above all else, afraid that I wasn’t the only one of us that ended up here and that something terrible had happened to you or the others. So after wandering around the wasteland for a few days, not knowing what to do or where to go and getting shot at whenever I approached someone, I clung to the only group that seemed to have any order or structure.”

Dash parted her bangs, exposing the left side of her forehead right above her eyepatch; Applejack’s eyes widened in shock upon spotting the B+ tattooed there.

“You were runnin’ with the Gunners?” Applejack asked, raising her voice a little; one would expect her tone to be of anger or disgust, but she sounded surprised and concerned instead.

She nodded, hanging her head in shame. “That was long before I found you and Strong, before I came across Paladin Danse’s squad, before I even knew Diamond City was a thing. I had no food or water, no guns and no place to stay, until I came across a caravan that was kind enough to spare some supplies. They were being escorted by Gunners, and I was told that they were a tough band of mercenaries that never turned down a job. At the time I thought they meant that the Gunners would take dangerous jobs, like killing giant monsters or exploring places everybody else was too afraid to go near — I know better now.

“I tagged along for a while, even helped them out of a jam or two with my super speed. I guess they were impressed enough, because they asked me if I was interested in joining; I said ‘yes’ without a second thought. They gave me food, new clothes,” she patted her chest, bringing attention to her dirty army fatigues “a gun, and a job. A few weeks after I was initiated and got my blood type tattooed on my head, I was assigned to the base in Vault 95; since I was a newcomer I started small: caravan escort, patroller, personal bodyguard… It lacked the excitement I craved, but it kept me fed. And since I was stationed in one of their more isolated bases, I was none the wiser to the other things they were willing to do for caps or for power. Nearly two years in the dark.

“Then one day me and a few others were ordered to join up with a squad that had been sent to scout a spot that could potentially be turned into a new outpost not that far from our location – they were sending a few more soldiers their way in case they got into trouble; I wasn’t told much, so I imagined we could run into anything from an army of raiders to a gang of super mutant behemoths – I was excited!

“When we got there, they were already in the middle of a firefight; I had no idea what was going on, so I did what I was told to do: fire back. We were at a serious disadvantage when a new group showed up and attacked us from behind, and after a few casualties on our side we were ordered to retreat. I was bothered by that because when we got into shootouts with raiders they would taunt and hurl insults, all that raider stuff, but all I heard was screaming.

“I learned too late that we were not attacking a raider gang, but a town full of civilians named Quincy, and the people who showed up later were Minutemen; there were so many different emotions rushing through my head that I nearly passed out right then and there. Over the next few days I overheard my superior officers discussing the situation; they were planning a large scale invasion that night and a Minuteman who had joined us was feeding them information about their strategies and weaknesses, so victory was all but guaranteed.

“At that moment I finally realized that all I knew about the Gunners was just the tip of the iceberg, so I snuck out of our camp and ran straight to Quincy, hoping to warn them about what was coming and get them to evacuate. On my way there I came across a Minuteman named Clint; I told him everything I knew about the upcoming invasion, hoping he would warn his comrades in time – I was a Gunner, I doubted I would be able to convince them in time before the attack, I hoped being warned by one of their own would have more immediate results.

“Turns out that bastard Clint was the defector they were talking about; he wanted to silence me, so he picked up his laser rifle while I was distracted and fired. I managed to dodge fast enough to survive, but…” Rainbow Dash tapped her left cheek, right below the burn under the eyepatch. “It’s how I got this. I ran, but he kept firing; even with super speed, it’s hard to dodge shots that travel at the speed of light.” She lifted her jacket, exposing a nasty burn on her midriff. “Managed to inject a stimpak before blacking out – didn’t fix the problem, but kept me alive long enough to run away from Clint.

“I woke up two days later in an old abandoned house north of Quincy. A traveling doctor named Anderson found me on the brink of death and patched me up – I’d be dead if it wasn’t for her. I tried going back to Quincy, but it was too late; the Gunners had already occupied the place and everybody was dead. After that I worked as Doc Anderson’s bodyguard for a while to pay her back for saving my life, until she decided I had worked off my debt and dismissed me. Not long after that I met Paladin Danse and his squad and helped them when they were being mobbed by ferals outside the Cambridge police station. You know the rest.”

After she was finished telling her story, Rainbow Dash once again looked at Applejack, expecting a response. The brawler didn’t say anything, simply wrapped one arm around her friend and pulled her into a side hug. No words were exchanged for a while; they just sat there watching the ocean waves crashing.

“I am a bad person, AJ.” Rainbow finally spoke, fighting back sobs. “First I help a bunch of mass murdering psychopaths, and immediately after that I join up with people that blindly follow a genocidal maniac. I helped them retake the Castle to atone for what I did in Quincy, but what will people think of the Minutemen if they accept someone like me? I caused their downfall the first time, I don’t want to do it again!”

Applejack pulled Rainbow Dash closer, this time hugging Dash's head to her chest with both arms. “Yer not a bad person, sugarcube. Ya said it yerself, they were hidin’ the truth from ya, so when you learned what was goin’ on ya snuck away and were on yer way to warn ‘em about what was comin’. Doesn’t sound to me like sumthin’ a bad person would do.”

“What does it matter what I wanted to do? In the end I couldn’t do it and they are all dead. Because of me!”

“Not because of ya, because of yer bosses. They were the ones who ordered y’all to kill everybody, and ya didn’t do it. If you had stuck with yer Gunner buddies and attacked the town with ‘em, that would make ya a bad person. But you didn’t.”

“But—”

“No more buts! You still feel bad ‘bout what happened, don’tcha?” Rainbow Dash nodded. “Then repent by doin’ today what you couldn’t do it back then: offer help to folks who need it. Every day in the Commonwealth there are settlements bein’ raided, folks bein’ killed, settlers bein’ kidnapped. Wouldn’t ya want to help ‘em if you could?” Rainbow Dash nodded again. “Then there’s yer answer! Helpin’ people is what the Minutemen are all about, except they do it together instead of by themselves. If everybody in the Commonwealth is workin’ together we can make the wastes safer, if only a wee smidge. Besides, with this many people lookin’, we’ll find the rest o’ our friends in no time! So, whaddya say?”

She mumbled something.

“Can’t her ya, RD.”

“I said I wanna join the Minutemen with you.”

With a smile on her face, Applejack finally released Rainbow Dash from her hug and stood up. She offered a hand to help her friend up, which she took. They walked back to the courtyard side by side so they could speak to the General about becoming members of her faction.

Author's Note

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