“I thank you once again for your assistance, Joseph,” Luna told the boy as he stepped away from the terminal, dusting his hands off.

“Oh... thank you, your Majesty,” the boy replied, an embarrassed flush on his cheeks. “It was nothing really.”

“Still, thanks,” Sarah reinforced as she stepped up to the computer and began to type. “From what MacCready said, going through someplace called ‘Murder Pass’ would be a real pain in the ass.”

“You’re welcome,” the boy, almost teenager, said with a small shrug before saying. “I should get going. I’ve got a class to teach soon.”

“Fare thee well then,” Luna told him before turning back to Sarah. “How long do you expect this to take you Sarah?”

Not long, Nim replied smugly for the woman. With our- My additional aid the process is much easier.

“Yeah, that,” Sarah replied as her eyes continued to enter and scan letters of the password, attempting to find the right match. Nim was right, having her within Sarah’s mind to look over them and throw away definite negatives was very helpful indeed.

There it is, Nim stated as she turned Sarah’s eyes to focus on the word ‘REMEMBER’. It matches the specifications for the required password.

Sarah quickly brought the cursor to the word and hit the enter button. The computer whirred for a moment before the screen flashed and the words ‘unlock door’ and ‘lock door’ appeared on them.

Thanks Nim, Sarah told her as she smiled and pressed the ‘unlock door’ option.

“Well done,” Luna echoed aloud and gave the woman a nuzzle as the door began to open. Her smile turned into a frown as a simply ghastly odor assaulted the pair. Sarah coughed as the foul green mist washed over them.

“Oh God, that’s awful,” the woman grunted as she placed a hand over her mouth and nose.

“Yes, yes it is,” Luna agreed with a distasteful frown as she stepped forwards into the room. Sarah suppressed a mental sigh, the Wasteland was a nasty place, she already knew that, she shouldn’t complain.

That line of thinking ended as the door closed behind them and she heard the bolt slide into place. Then the woman’s eyes widened and she gagged as the source of the gaseous air became completely visible. The floor of the room was covered in rotting viscera and decaying corpses. Luna who was a few feet in front of her froze in place as the blood juices squelched around her hooves and stained her blue fur.

Do not scream, Nim instructed them both, keeping her thoughts level for the pair. There is a door not far away from us and hopefully it will be unlocked. Make your way there now.

Luna gave a stiff nod and began to travel the squelching squishing floor, its grisly contents leaking blood with every step. Sarah was right behind her, her face green as she stepped over a female corpse whose torso was split down the middle, the limp bags of her breasts falling into the cavity.

Thankfully, they passed the room without any real trouble... until they reached the door that is. Just as she was about to hit the open button a powerful tendril launched out and wrapped around Sarah’s leg, pulling her power armoured bulk down into the disgusting muck.

Sarah let out a shriek of surprise as she fell face first into what was had once probably been a kidney. The woman’s battle senses took over the second she hit the ground and she reached for her .44 while pivoting so that she was lying on her back, facing whatever it was that had ahold of her.

The macabre face that greeted her was that of a monster, twisted and deformed beyond all comparison as it waddled over on a pair of stubby... hand/feet. To her eternal disgust, the cord tendril wrapped around her leg was one of its three tongues and it was trying to pull her closer.

Kill it! Nim exclaimed within her head as she helped Sarah bring her arm across to aim at the monstrosities head.

Way ahead of you! Sarah replied, pulling the trigger. The monster’s head split open like a ripe melon, sending pieces of spoiled ‘fruit’ splattering across Sarah’s armour. The woman swept to her feet, admittedly less gracefully than she would have without the bulky armour, and found Luna engaged with three of the centaurs, all of whom were missing at least one of their tongues.

The beasts seemed to be attempting to keep Luna on the defensive, one attacking the moment she tried to deflect the other and Daybreaker could only be so many places at once. Which was why Luna decided to draw the Super Sledge as well.

Sarah fired a shot from her magnum into one of the monsters just as Luna brought her sledge into another’s torso, shattering it and sending it bouncing backwards. Sarah’s monster turned on her, she’d only hit it in the torso and it seemed to have survived from that, and charged at her. Of course, ‘charge’ is a relative term when something is wadling at you. Sarah shot it in the head before it got another inch just as Luna finished the last one with a diagonal sweep of Daybreaker separating one half from the other.

The woman let out a sigh as she reached up to wipe the sticky red blood away from her face.

“You okay?” she asked Luna as she walked up to the door once again.

“Indeed, are you unharmed as well?” Luna asked as she flicked blood off of Daybreaker and resheathed the super sledge.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Sarah replied, pushing the ‘open’ button. The door lifted up to reveal a hulking mutant with a nailboard clutched in its green fingers.

“YOU KILLED SPRINKLES!” It shouted at her and swung the board directly at her skull. Sarah’s eyes widened in surprise and it was only thanks to Nim’s intervention that the jagged nails didn’t smash into her jaw.

Punch! Nim exclaimed in Sarah’s mind and the woman’s body reacted automatically, her left fist slamming into the mutant’s chest sending it tumbling backwards. The impact barely registered in Sarah’s mind as she brought up the magnum and fired. Unfortunately the bullet merely hit the mutant in the shoulder and it grunted in pain but swung the board at her again.

Sarah dodged to the side, giving Luna all the opening she needed. Daybreaker’s silver shaft buried itself in the mutant’s chest and she shoved it do the ground before withdrawing the blade.

“I don’t like this place,” Sarah muttered as she shook her head, still trying to get the sickeningly sweet smell of rotten flesh out of her nose.

“Nor do I,” Luna agreed as she glanced back and forth down the corridor. Luckily, there seemed to be no more mutants in the general area.

Your Pip-Boy knows the way to where we are going, correct? Nim asked Sarah as the woman began to lead them down the corridor, her combat shotgun out and her magnum riding her hip once again.

“Yeah, I know where we’re going, kind of,” Sarah said as she glanced down at her Pip-Boy which seemed to have picked up the signal of the G.E.C.K. She took a left and descended down a staircase and pushed another door open. A barrel obstructed their progress but the woman moved it aside and the pair continued forwards, the air around them tense as they awaited more horrors.

The room within was set up like a firing zone. Several filing cabinets and desks had been turned over in an obvious attempt to set up a protective barricade. The attempts at both a fire zone and a barricade had apparently failed as evidenced by the mutant large hole that had been punched through it. Strangely... the barricade was facing the opposite direction from where Sarah and Luna were standing, as if the residents had been trying to defend themselves from something that was attacking them from within.

“That is most peculiar,” Luna stated with a small frown as she surveyed the room.

“Yeah,” Sarah agreed quietly as she started forwards again, brittle bones turning to dust beneath her heavy metal boots and sticking to the blood wet surface. The Vault was reminding her all too much of what she’d probably caused to happen to 101.

Now is not the time for such thoughts, Nim interjected. Save them for later.

I know, Sarah replied with a frown as they entered a new room to find somewhere around ten radroaches eating several corpses. Blood stained almost everything in the room and the sickly sweet smell of rotting flesh rolled over the pair.

If the radroaches noticed them, they didn’t make any move to leave their current meals, though that didn’t keep Luna from eying them warningly as the pair moved through the door on the far side of the room.

They made it halfway up a flight of stairs before a pair of lumbering mutants with assault rifles appeared.

“WHO ARE YOU?!” one of them shouted before it pulled down on the trigger. The weapon jammed and the mutant let out a cry of rage before he threw it at Luna. The alicorn batted it out of the way with Daybreaker as Sarah blew the mutant’s face in with her combat shotgun, barely feeling the kick of the gun against her shoulder thanks to her armour.

“ARGARGGGGG!” the other mutant roared as it threw itself down the stairs at them, followed closely by another of its kind. Sarah jerked back, expecting to find traction on the floor but she was unable too and her armoured boots skidded off the blood wet metal sending her tumbling backwards down the stairs.

“Ooof,” Sarah grunted as the breath was knocked from her chest.

Be more careful! Nim reprimanded. You are not as agile while wearing this armour Sarah!

Sarah replied by mentally flipping her off as she struggled back to her feet.

Luna meanwhile had both Daybreaker and her Super Sledge out and was locked in the middle of a vicious combat with the two brutes who both armed with sledgehammers of their own. The mare grunted as she deflected a pair of blows with Daybreaker’s magic unbreakable blade and brought the Super Sledge splintering through one of the mutant’s undefended legs.

The mutant toppled over with a shout of dismay and Luna stepped aside as it rolled past her and ended up in front of Sarah, still alive and roaring with rage. Sarah’s combat shotgun kicked once and the mutant was missing a lot more then just his legs. Meanwhile, Luna’s guard wavered for just a moment as her eyes tracked the falling mutant and the other mutant swung his sledgehammer into her chest.

She let out a grunt of pain as the head of the hammer slammed into her armoured chest but she ignored the shockwave of blistering pain and instead brought Daybreaker swinging directly down and through the mutant’s skull.

Luna let out a pained breath as she sheathed her blade and put away her hammer before looking down at Sarah who had begun her way up the stairs again.

“Are you alright?” Luna asked worriedly.

“I’m fine, I just feel like an idiot,” Sarah replied sourly before glancing closer at Luna’s chest. “What about you, that last hit looked like it hurt?”

“No more then any other blow,” Luna replied, shaking her head slightly and letting out a sigh. “It is hardly the first and it assuredly not be the last.”

Sarah simply nodded and placed a hand on Luna’s neck. The pair stayed like that for a long moment before the alicorn shuffled her wings. “Let’s continue shall we?”

“Sure,” Sarah replied as she glanced at the door to their next destination, the Living Corridors.

Author's Notes:

Sorry for the wait (it was long by my standards) I'm getting ready to graduate and that means I have extra work to do and what not. There are probably going to be 3 more Vault 87 chapters so don't worry if this one was too short for your liking, there will be more.

Oh, and Speven wasn't up (as in he's asleep) to prereading so prepare for a lot of then and thans in the wrong place.