"Listen up you idiots!" bellowed a very loud and gruff voice from the intercom. "We have four intruders in the base, on the second level. They're tearing this place apart! Capture them if you can, but kill them if you must!"

"Damn it," muttered Marcus, who hefted a minigun off of his back and, without a word to Twilight, rushed out of the prison block.

Which left a Twilight sitting in her cell, uncertain what to do.

If there is someone attacking this base, she thought to herself, then this is my chance to escape! I could force the door open, but that would likely be my doom if I accidently bump into a group of these mutants!

Suddenly, she heard the sound of a pressure release and saw the door to the prison block open.

In stepped three figures in power armor.

Before Twilight could get ahold of herself and say anything, one holding a minigun spoke.

"What the hell?" said the voice of a man, his voice altered by the helmet he was wearing. "Isn't that the purple unicorn thing that was making all that weird voodoo shit in medical?"

"Might not be," remarked another of the men, holding a gatling laser. "It could be another one created at this place. We've seen some pretty weird shit here."

"You're the Brotherhood of Steel!" cried Twilight.

"... Yeah, that's the medical subject alright," said the minigun wielding soldier. "How the hell did you wind up here? The security feed just shows that you vanished into thin air!"

"... I'm sorry, what?"

"She doesn't remember about that, dumbass," said the soldier with the rocket launcher. "She was out like a light the whole time!"

"Oh yeah."

"What are you talking about?" asked Twilight.

"Well, apparently the new guy brought you into the base while you were unconscious, and..." The soldier hesitated. "Well, there was some weird shit going on. Shit flying through the air, stuff being transformed into other stuff, and then you finally vanished into thin air."

"All of that really happened?"

"I wouldn't have believed it myself if I hadn't seen it, but I did."

"Well, let's get her outta there. Can you use that thing to shoot the lock off?" said the rocket launcher carrier, nudging the man with the gatling laser.

"You're shittin' me, right?" replied the man.

Suddenly, there was the sound of metal being ripped.

"No need," said Twilight, letting the jail door fall to the floor with a bang.

"Well, that's convenient," said the soldier with the gatling laser.

"Hold on for a minute, I need to get my rifle."

Twilight lit up her horn and the locker opposite of her cell burst open with a snap. Twilight withdrew a long sniper rifle from inside as well as her carrying bag.

"That's scary," muttered the minigun soldier. "Hey," he continued. "I don't suppose you know anything about computer security? These two are idiots," he finished, motioning towards his companions.

"You couldn't get into the system either," pointed out the man with the rocket launcher.

"Maybe?" said Twilight uncertainly. "I've read the procedures, and I have hacked a couple of surviving terminals in the wasteland, but I'm not so certain about military grade encrytion..."

"Listen," said the gatling laser soldier. "If you can get into the system and turn those damn robots against the mutants instead of firing at us, we just might make it out of here alive. Not to mention, maybe we can figure out what the heck happened to John while we're at it."

"John?" cried Twilight.

"Oh, duh," said the man with the minigun. "The guy who brought you to Vree, he's leading the strike team here. Or at least, he was. Lost track of him a ways back. Friend of yours?"

"Get me to that terminal, now!"

"Now what do we have here? I've been told you wish to divulge information of the utmost importance. I do hope so."

John considered the super mutant in front of him carefully. The mutant obviously had numerous implants, and was apparently the 'Lieutenant' of the base. He was hideous.

So, when he had found himself cut off from the others and been forced to surrender...

Why the hell was he now face to face with the leader of the base fully armed?

"I might have some information," John began. "But not for someone as ugly as you."

"What a splendid sense of humor. Pity I don't have one. So ... the location of your Vault, if you please."

John looked around. The room was full of super mutants. With weapons. Big weapons.

There was no way he was getting out of this alive.

He looked back toward the Lieutenant.

"On one condition, pal."

"Conditions? How delightful. Go ahead, amuse me with your... condition."

"Put a bag over your head so I can stand being in your presence."

"An insult. How droll. I'd define that word for you, but that would be a waste, wouldn't it. Let's get to your two choices: You can tell me what I want to know. Or I can do it... my way."

"Well... Too bad. You won't get it."

The next thing John knew, the ugly super mutant's fist collided with his head.

"Hey! What you do?" cried the voice of a mutant.

Twilight whirled away from the terminal and looked at the mutant.

"I gonna-"

The mutant collapsed head-first.

"I don't have time to deal with you right now!" cried Twilight nervously, turning back to the terminal.

The force of Lieutenant's blow sent John reeling back.

But it didn't actually hurt.

Power armor is officially the best thing ever, thought John.

As soon as he had regained his balance, he looked back at the Lieutenant, who said, "Feel better now? Since torture is such a crass, yet oddly satisfying and effective technique, I'll ask you once more nicely. Where... is... the Vault!"

"Seriously? Is that the best you've got?"

The Lieutenant smashed his oversized fist into John's power helmet once more.

Once again, other than sending him reeling, this had almost no effect.

"How was that? In a more... chatty mood?" said the Lieutenant sinisterly. "Now where were we? Oh, of course... the Vault."

"Are you a freakin' idiot?" shouted John.

Suddenly, the robobrain bots at the far end of the room opened fire, filling the room with lasers.

"Shit!" screamed John, who immediately smashed his super sledge hammer (which inexplicably had not been confiscated) into the Lieutenant's chest, throwing him into the wall, before running for the door.

To his confusion, none of the other mutants payed him any mind.

Judging by the screams of pain and rage, the robots were attacking the mutants.

"John!"

John turned and, to his relief, saw that the soldiers from the Brotherhood were running down the hall.

"There you are! Where the hell did you disappear off to?" one asked.

"Just got a little lost," muttered John vaguely. "Did you guys sick the robots on the mutants?"

"Nah, that was your friend."

"My friend?" asked John in confusion.

"Oh, yeah, right. We found Twilight being held prisoner here. Once we busted her out, she got to the nearest terminal and worked some magic- in more ways than one- and figured out that you were down here with mutants crawling all over the damn place. So we figured you could use some help."

"Twilight's here?"

"GRAAAAH!"

Instinctively, John shot away from the sound of the super mutant who had wandered through the doorway and found itself behind him.

"Shit!" cried out the man with the rocket launcher, firing his weapon at the monster.

It exploded in a gorey paste.

"God DAMMIT!" screamed the man with the minigun. "Would you please refrain from firing that thing in narrow hallways! If it wasn't for our armor, we might be dead right now!"

"I didn't see anybody else doing anything!"

"You didn't give us a chance!" screamed the man with the gatling laser.

"It's not my fault that it takes time for those stupid thing's you two are lugging to rev up!"

"Alright, alright, shut up for a second!" screamed the man with the minigun. Thankfully, the others obliged.

"Alright, according to the layout that we have of this place in our data, the mainframe is on the next floor down. As much as it pains me to see our heritage destroyed, we have no choice but to try to reach it and activate the self destruct sequence. That's the only way that we can be sure to shut this place down for good!

"Now then, it sounds like we're missing a hell of a fight! Let's get in there and kick some mutant ass!"

"Jeffy?"

Twilight frantically turned away from the terminal again.

There was another super mutant in the room. It was bending over his fallen brethren, prodding him with a giant finger.

"Jeffy, what happen to you?"

The super mutant looked up and saw Twilight.

"Hey, you! What're you-"

The mutant collapsed on top of it's comrade.

"There's the mainframe!" cried the minigun wielding soldier.

"Whoa," said John. "That's a big computer."

"Let's hope we can get actually get into it..." said the soldier with the gatling laser.

John approached the controls.

"Oh, thank god!" he cried.

"You've cracked the code?"

"No, the last user left it logged in."

"Alright! So, what have we got?"

"Files, files, files..." said John, scanning through the contents of the giant computer.

"Wait a sec, actually, let me give it a try," said the man with the gatling gun.

"Well, okay," said John uncertainly.

A moment later, the soldier shouted out, "Damn it!"

"What now?" asked the soldier with the minigun in exasperation.

"I can't start the self destruct sequence. It requires special authorization, and I can't get past security!"

"Crap, we should have brought Twilight down here. But she's still on the third floor making the robots to shoot the shit out of these freakin' muties."

"I hope she can take care of herself," said John in a worried tone.

"She said it wouldn't be a problem," said the soldier with the gatling laser dismissively. "Oh, hey, what have we here?"

"What is it?" asked the man with the rocket launcher.

"Apparently, this mainframe can establish video communication with any other terminal in the building. If I can figure out which terminal Twilight is at, we can see if we can get her to help! I think it's this one right here!"

A monitor came to life and showed another room.

There was nobody on screen.

"Are you sure that's the right terminal?" asked the soldier with the minigun.

"I'm pretty sure?"

Twilight looked back toward the terminal in confusion. She was certain that there were voices coming from it. She stepped back in front of it and gasped.

Four men in power armor were gazing back at her.

"I told you!" said the soldier with the gatling laser.

"Twilight? Is that you?"

Twilight gasped and stared at the monitor.

"John?"

"It's me Twilight! Holy hell, I never would have thought I would find you in a place like this!"

"Erm... Sorry if this is awkward, but... Which one of you are John? I can't tell who's who, and I can't tell who's speaking when, so..."

Twilight trailed off as one of the soldiers in power armor pulled his helmet off.

"John, it's so good to see your face again! I didn't think I would ever find myself in a place like this either. But if we don't hurry, we might never leave! The security is on red alert, and there are force fields up all over the place! I've been trying to turn them all off!"

"Is that what you were doing when we called you?" asked the soldier with the rocket launcher.

"Erm... sort of?" said Twilight vaguely, looking over her shoulder at the mountain of mutants piled up behind her, out of view of the camera.

"Look, Twilight, we need your help," said John. "We're here at the mainframe, but we can't start the self destruct sequence without the right credentials!"

"Oh! I might be able to help with that. I think that I can take remote control from here if you authorize it from your end."

There was a beep from the mainframe and a countdown timer appeared on all of the monitors.

"There, I think I did it!" cried Twilight's voice. "Did it work?"

"Oh, shit," remarked the soldier with the minigun.

"That's not very long," cried John. "Not at all. Twilight, get your ass the hell out of here!"

"But what about you!"

"We'll make it out, I swear! Go!"

Twilight let out a sigh of relief as she heard the metallic clomping of power armor approaching the front gate of the military base.

"Twilight!" cried John.

"You're all okay!"

"Twilight, you stupid fuck, we're not clear of the explosion radius yet! We have less than sixty seconds left!"

Before Twilight could react, John had thrown his arms around her and heaved her over his shoulder and took off running, intent on not stopping until the military base was a smoldering hole in the ground.

First, they saw it. The entire military base seemed to instantly be enveloped in rapidly expanding fire and smoke. And then they heard the enormous, earth shattering 'KABOOM'. And finally, they felt it as John was thrown to the ground by the force of the explosion.

Twilight watched in awe.

"Did... I do that?" she asked meekly.

"Yeah..."

"... Are the others okay?"

John struggled to his feet and looked around.

"There!" cried Twilight in relief, pointing as three more figures stood up a short distance away.

"Is it over?" wondered John aloud.

"No..." said Twilight sadly. "Not yet."

"I hope Marcus managed to get out okay..." Twilight whispered.

"What was that?" asked John.

"Nothing."

Three years later:

"This job sucks ass."

"Just be glad that you didn't accidently fall into that green crap like that other guy did. I heard that they took him back home for observation."

"Would you two shut up already? I know Mariposa is a shithole, but believe me, you have no idea how valuble the stuff here could be to our goals."

"Oh yeah? How's that?"

"It's classified."

"Pfff. Figures."

"Look, you walking cans, you do your job, I'll do mine."

"Yeah, yeah, escort douchy scientist through the remains and sit on our asses."

"Good boy."

"It's a good thing this search and sweep op is almost done. I'm going to be so glad to finally get back to Navarro instead of this irratiated shithole."

"Shut up, I hate it here too."

"This is the place. Terminal is on the fritz. Maybe you can beat it into submission with your oversized forehead."

"What did I say about letting me do my job?"

"Whatever."

"... There. Got it. Damn pre-war tech..."

"... Okay, What the fuck is that thing?"

"Another mutation subject, most likely. Curious that it was so well shielded. You two... do whatever, I'm going to see if I can get the terminal talking."

"Whatever."

"... God Damn! The fuckin' thing's still alive!"

"Are you freakin' kidding me?"

"No, I'm not 'freaking' kidding you, look at the damn thing! It's staring at me!"

"Huh. Well, imagine that."

"Why the hell would the mutants go to such trouble to keep this thing alive all this time?"

"Maybe they thought it looks kinda cute."

"You did not just say that word."

"Well, look at it. It's a tiny purple... baby unicorn thing. Suspended in a life support pod, granted, but still!"

"It's a fucking mutant, you idiot."

"Well, sorry for speaking my mind."

"That is not to say that this is not a remarkable find. I had better put together a report for Commander Patterson immediately."

Author's Note

Fear not, the next chapter will return back to the point immediately after Mariposa Military Base is destroyed. From here on, I will probably frequently write in 'flashforwards' into the ending portion of the chapters so that you don't have to wait for forever to get a taste of what happens with this newest development.
Apparently, it officially took seventy-four years for the Enclave to locate the remains of Mariposa Military Base after it's destruction. I have bumped it down to a mere three years. The rest of the timeline is unchanged.