“Now then; you’re going to take me to the dissection labs and so help me if they’re dead then I’m going to make you wish that you’d never been born!” Sarah hissed angrily in the man’s ear.

“I… O-okay,” the man replied, a slight stutter in his voice, though the woman couldn’t tell if it was from the fall or the fact that she’d brought her shotgun down to point directly at his face.

“Slowly,” she whispered icily, “And one word to anyone on the way about this and I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

The man stared at the gun for a long moment before nodding his brown haired head. “You have my word that I’ll see you to the dissection labs,” he said solemnly, his green eyes looking honestly into hers.

“Excellent initiative soldier, additionally I’d like you to escort her and her entourage to my office as soon as that’s done. This is a top level priority assignment,” the voice of President Eden spoke from the wall behind them. The man looked up at the speaker in confusion for a moment before nodding.

“Of course Mr. President, you have my word,” he replied

“Good man, I’ll see you commended for this,” Eden said before the light went dead. Sarah looked down at the man and pulled him to his feet with a single hard pull.

“Right... let’s get going,” she stated flatly.

Luna let out an irritated growl at herself. She’d been rather stupid and wasted her time attempting to cut through the straps rather than using her magic to unbuckle them. The process had gone much faster once she’d figured that out, and to be honest Luna felt as if she was deserving of a good glare from her father for such idiocy.

She chalked it up to the fact that her mind felt like it was made of semi-molten fudge, the thought of which made her mouth water. How long had it been since she’d had fudge? She blinked twice and shook her head as she slid off of the lab table. The room she was in was steel walled, and floored, even the ceiling was steel.

What a lot of metal... Luna thought to herself slowly as she sent her magic out to collect a few of the scalpels she saw lying around. She had no idea where Daybreaker was so the small knives would have to do. The mare’s eyes closed for a long moment as a wave of exhaustion washed over her but she shook her head, she had to remain awake. She had to get out. She had to find Sarah and Fawkes.

The mare wandered into the hallway and dimly heard a group of people shouting. She glanced in their direction, her scalpels at the ready, but none of the white garbed scientists tried to stop her. They were too busy running in the opposite direction.

That’s... odd, Luna mused to herself, her thoughts muddled.

“I WILL NOT BE TRAPPED AGAIN!” a loud, and familiar voice roared. Luna’s lips slipped into a smile, it sounded like she knew where someone was.

“So... what do you plan to do once we get to the lab?” the officer asked Sarah as he marched her along towards the lab, plasma pistol with a completely drained energy cell pointing directly at the small of her back. The woman’s hands had been put in an unfastened pair of handcuffs and she had her .44 within easy reach.

“Save my friends, then get the hell out of here as fast as humanly possible,” Sarah replied with a frown. “Why the hell do you care?”

“I’m just curious,” the man replied, a bit of a drawl leaking into his voice. “Not much new happens around here. Or it didn’t until a week ago.”

“Yeah, then you bastards showed up and killed my father and stole his dream,” Sarah stated bitterly.

“Oh... sorry,” the man replied, his voice suddenly awkward. “I didn’t know anything about that. All I was told was that we were securing an American Asset,” he added, his voice full of patriotic pride .

Sarah’s scowled darkened. “Look asshole, I don’t know who you are, and I don’t really want to. All I want to is save my friend and the one I love from being vivisected.”

“Wait... you’re in love with the super mutant?” the officer asked, a shocked expression on his face. “I thought they were gender-less.”

“No, not Fawkes,” Sarah replied with a shake of her head. “Luna, the alicorn.”

“The horse thing?” he asked, even more flabbergasted. “I knew that you Wastelanders had fallen pretty far, but I didn’t know you were into beastiality.”

“She’s an alicorn and it’s not beastiality,” Sarah said with a roll of her eyes, almost unable to believe that she was having this conversation with this man here. “She can speak, do magic, and is the most amazing person I’ve ever met. She’s not an ‘animal’ or a ‘beast’.”

Truly, how many times must you explain this? Nim scoffed mentally. Is it truly that difficult of a concept to grasp?

“Huh, weird,” the man said in response to Sarah. “You poor people out there will tell yourselves anything to justify your life won’t you?”

Sarah’s right hand clenched into a fist and she was about to turn around and deck the man again when a group of Enclave soldiers walked by. One of them turned his head and looked at the pair, stopping in place as the rest of the group carried on without him.

“Spencer, what’s that prisoner doing outside of her cell?” the man asked, clearly confused. “Isn’t she supposed to be there until Colonel Autumn is finished with her?”

Sarah’s breath caught in her throat and she tensed, ready to grab her .44 from its concealed place the second that ‘her’ man betrayed her, or the new soldier saw through their little ruse.

“Change of plans, Jeremy, the President himself wants to talk to her,” Spencer, said with a shake of his head. “Don’t ask me why, I wasn’t told.”

“Pretty weird if you ask me,” Jeremy said before glancing at Sarah who had her gaze resolutely turned downwards. “Kind of cute for a waster, well, except for the ears... those are kind of strange.”

What’s bad about my ears? Sarah asked Nim in confusion. They were fine last time I saw them.

Err... no idea, Nim replied as the two men continued talking.

“Yeah, I noticed it too,” Spencer replied. “but you know the rules; no fraternization with the Wastelanders.”

“Yeah yeah, I know,” Jeremy replied, shaking his head. “I’m just surprised that she’s not ugly and covered in scabs or something.” Then the man glanced away from at Spencer. “I’ve got to go get ready for my deployment, apparently we’re working on some experimental turret project.”

“See you later then,” Spencer said, giving the armoured man a friendly smile as he continued down the hallway. Sarah’s breathing returned to normal and she frowned.

“You... didn’t give me away,” she said, astounded. “I was expecting you to tell him.”

“Well, I did give both you and the President my word that I’d get you to him,” the man replied simply. “I’m a man of my word.”

Sarah glanced at him warily.

Is this guy for real? she asked Nim skeptically as the two began to walk again.

He seems to be, Nim replied with a small mental shrug. Otherwise he would have turned us in, no?

Sarah nodded to herself before turning her neck to look at the man again. “So... what’s wrong with my ears?” she asked him frowning. “Because last time I looked they were fine.”

“Hmm?” Spencer asked, apparently he’d been too lost in thought to hear what she said. “What?”

“I asked; what’s wrong with my ears,” she repeated.

“Oh, they’re kind of pointed,” Spencer replied with a small shrug. “I thought you would have known.”

“Pointed?” Sarah asked, not sure what he meant.

“Yeah... they’re narrower than the normal ear,” he told her with another shrug. “You know, now that I look at them, they kind of remind me of elf ears from those old stories.”

Sarah stopped dead in her tracks and the man ran into her causing her to stumble forwards slightly. “I... have elf ears?” Sarah asked, turning to stare at him, unsettled.

“Yeah, did you never notice before?” he asked with a frown. “I figured it was an old mutation.”

Nim... Sarah thought to to the alicorn. Why do I feel like this is your doing?

It’s unintentional... Nim replied. I swear that I didn’t know it would happen... my presence has always been a bit chaotic but I didn’t realize that it would actually reshape you.

Sarah shivered slightly and brought a hand up to explore her ears. They were indeed much more narrow and pointed. She took in a long breath and then let it out slowly, then she took another. Now was not the time to have a breakdown because her body had been changed without her permission... okay, well, she would have been perfectly within her rights to do that now, and she did want to... but Nim hadn’t meant to and she had to focus on getting to Luna and Fawkes.

“You alright?” Spencer asked, placing a hand on her shoulder. Sarah tensed out of reflex and almost shoved him away but calmed herself as she came back to reality.

“Yes, yes I’m fine,” she said, stepping away from him. “Let’s just get going alright?”

“Sure,” Spencer replied, a worried frown on his face. He’d been brought up by his parents to always take care of women who looked troubled, sure, some might have called it chauvinistic, but hell, he hated seeing them hurt. Even though she’d slammed him in the stomach with her shotgun and technically taken him prisoner, Spencer was inclined to help her, it was the American way after all. “Are you sure there’s-”

“I’m fine,” Sarah snapped with a hard glare. “It’s not like you really give a fuck.”

Spencer let out a sigh and simply continued walking after the woman, it wouldn’t do to let her get too far ahead of him.

After a few more minutes of walking they heard screaming coming from up ahead. Sarah frowned and glanced back at Spencer who was frowning as well. He nodded her forwards, this was the way they needed to go. Sarah started off down the hallway again and as she got to a doorway marked ‘labs’ it flew open and a disgruntled white garbed man ran into her. Sarah was knocked onto her back, not having expected the sudden impact but Spencer caught the white garbed man on the shoulder.

“What’s going on in there?” Spencer demanded.

“The-the mutant and the horse have escaped!” the scientist explained in a panicked tone. “Th-they killed four of us! Run for your lives!”

With that, the man escaped from Spencer’s grasp and sprinted off down the corridor. Spencer helped Sarah to her feet, the perfect gentlemen and then gave her a hard stare.

“It sounds like your friends aren’t the ones needing a rescue,” he said coldly, chivalrous or not, he didn’t like the sound of people killing innocent scientists and doctors.

“I’m guessing it was self defense,” Sarah replied with a scowl before she nodded towards the door. “Let’s go in and put a stop to whatever is going on. I’m sure once I talk to them they’ll calm down.”

“They’d better,” Spencer said pointedly before he pushed her slightly through the door. The sight that confronted him caught him by surprise.

The scientists and doctors were huddled in a corner as a pair of creatures, one a giant super mutant and one very large horse like being stood in the middle. The horse was armed with an impressive number of scalpels, all of which were floating in around her head while the mutant was holding what appeared to have once been a solid steel table leg loosely in one hand.

“I don’t know, we’ve searched this entire place and the only thing that we’ve found are these wretches,” Luna was saying, glancing at the scientist and causing several to scream in fear.

“We will find her and your sword!” Fawkes replied before he glanced over to the door, a wide smile suddenly crossing his face. “Well that was easy!”

Luna looked over and a grin even bigger than Fawkes’ erupted across her lips. “SARAH!” the alicorn cried, throwing the scalpels aside, most of which only barely avoided the scientists. She then ran up to the woman and all but tackled her as she pulled the woman against her chest with her wings.

“I was so worried about you! Are you unharmed?” Luna demanded worriedly as her muzzle traveled over Sarah’s face and chest.

“I’m fine, Luna,” Sarah said, her voice soft and quiet.

And what? Am I unimportant by comparison? Nim demanded. I’ll have you know that I was in just as much danger as she was.

True, but if she is fine then you obviously were as well, Luna replied, still nuzzling Sarah, looking for any hidden injuries. Tis not because I think of you less, Nim.

With a quiet sigh of relief at having made it back to Luna, Sarah leaned her forehead against the mare’s neck and the rest of the world fell away from them. They spent a long moment like that until Spencer finally said.

“You’re all under arrest!” he snapped, pointing the useless plasma pistol at the three. “You will fall into line and remain silent as I escort you to the President for sentencing!”

The room was silent for a long moment before Luna simply turned her head up to stare at him, several thousand years of ancient and powerful life flowing through them. “Put the gun down before I snap your neck,” she said coldly. “Had I not just been reunited with my love after considerable worries it already would be.”

Spencer stared at her for a long moment before glancing down at Sarah.

The woman let out a sigh and stepped away from Luna and glanced at Fawkes as well. “We’re going to have a ‘meeting’ with the President. He’s our ‘escort’,” the woman said slowly.

“AH! An ‘escort’ you say?” Fawkes asked with a small frown as he glanced at the man, lifting the metal bar from its resting place on his palm and then settling it back down. “I see!”

Luna bit back a rude remark and glanced down at Sarah. “Are you sure of this Sarah?”

“Only way that I can see,” Sarah replied, bringing up her ‘bound’ hands to softly run along Luna’s neck. “Well, only way other than shooting our way through them all but I don’t think that the three of us can do that by ourselves.”

Luna scowled but nodded. “Fair enough,” she said before glancing at Spencer. “Very well... we give ourselves into your custody.”

“Good-”

“Attention all staff. The Prisoner from Vault 101 is to be shot on sight,” Autumn's voice suddenly said over the loudspeakers. “Additionally, so are the horse, the mutant, and the traitor Spencer Matthews.”

Well... so much for that plan, Nim noted dourly.

“Traitor? But... I was just doing what the president requested!” Spencer exclaimed in outrage

“It seems we are together in this escape then,” Fawkes said as he lumbered over and then glanced down at Spencer, the man experiencing the full disdain of the mutant’s expression. “See that you stay in front of us.”

Sarah ignored the three of them and glanced up at Luna. “Are you ready for this?”

“Indeed,” Luna replied, nodding her head. “This will not be the first time we have faced an army... though it will be the first time without an actual sword.”

Sarah smiled and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Well then... let’s make this a night of firsts eh?” she asked confidently, though her voice shook as she spoke.

It’s actually early morning, Nim corrected helpfully from within her mind as the woman turned towards the door they’d come in from and prepared to face the Enclave. But I’m sure we shall face the dawn victoriously.

Author's Notes:

I have a new computer! Wooo!

As good as that is, it means that the keys are just a little bit off from what I'm used to so if you find any words with letters that shouldn't be in them, now you know why.

Also, another round of applause for BlackWindinSocks and SwirlingBlade for editing my chicken scratch