Fallout Equestria:
Deductions in New Pegas:

By: Hugo Reed

It’s the middle of night, why are you pacing like this?

Frankly, I don’t know how you can sleep at a time like this.

Three A.M?

Chapter 1: The Pones Siblings

I opened my eyes dismally as I heard a steady tapping of somepony’s hoof on the door to my room. Myclop, no doubt. The blasted mare just couldn’t let me rest. Of course, Myclop didn’t yet know how I was spending my nights. Never had I been so glad for her dedication to her work as the Overmare.

I threw my blanket up over my head angrily, trying to drown out the sound of the steady tap, tap, tap. No such luck. The thin and scratchy cloth that passed for sheets down here did nothing for the pounding sound. Why didn’t she just force the door? She had the authority after all, even if I had locked it with my own personal lock.

“Sherclop,” she said, her voice dripping with false sweetness. “I need you, brother dear.”

“Fuck off!” I muttered, rolling over.

Now, Myclop did throw open the door, her horn bathed in its usual golden glow. I have wondered on more than one occasion if she personally changed the color just to be more flashy. That would be her style.

“Do you intend to become a corpse? All this laying around may well turn you into a ghoul.”

“Don’t joke,” I said, sourly.

Myclop should’ve known better than to mention ghouls around me… She did know better. There was no way she didn’t with how intelligent we both were. Myclop was pushing my buttons, trying to rope me into interacting with her. I didn’t want to play.

“I need you, brother dear.”

“And you sum up our entire relationship in a lone statement.”

“What has you being such a prissy little filly? Someone make fun of you? Did little Sherclop cry?”

I used my telekinesis to hurl my baseball at her, which was the only reason I’d kept it around, to be honest. She had been expecting me to do that, and caught it, placing it neatly on my desk… too neatly. I couldn’t see it, but I knew she would put it exactly in the center where she always did.

I grabbed it again and moved it, just an inch off to the side. Undeterred, Myclop tore the blanket off my body, sending an unpleasant rush of cool air over me.

“What?!” I snapped, angry with her.

I normally wouldn’t be so upset with an offered job, but it just had to be Myclop. She was just as smart as I was, though I would never admit it. There was nothing I did that she couldn’t do herself if she got herself out of our room once a year or so. But she wouldn’t, and I’d long since given up asking her about it.

There was always some excuse. There was too much work to do, or things were too tense, or there was an important class of new stable ponies who were graduating this year. It was always a lie, of course. Oh, no doubt Myclop had to do those things, but no task she’d ever had took her more than a few hours to work out. Similarly, no interrogation of mine ever took more than a day.

For those were our lots in life you see, determined by the marks on our flanks. Myclop had a glowing crown, which she gained the first time she’d been the leader of a class project. Ever since then it was clear that she, not I, would be in charge of the stable.

Not that I wanted the job. After all, if I had taken it, there would be the endless jokes about me being overmare, despite being a stallion. No, my duty was something… more me. My cutie mark was a magnifying glass… which of course meant Myclop had several jokes about my destiny being bad eyesight. I can say with certainty that I do not like my sister.

My destiny in life is to find answers. I don’t know exactly how far that goes, but anything I’ve wanted to know about, I can just find out… It’s hard to properly explain. I’m certainly no scholar. However, like my namesake, I am blessed with extreme intellect and perception. I see things faster and in greater detail than most anypony I’ve ever met… with the exceptions of father and Myclop.

So, when Myclop burst into my room demanding my help… there was little wonder as to what it would be about.

“Well let’s have it then,” I said, rolling onto the floor and getting to my hooves.

“I can clearly see you’ve been out all night again.”

“You’ve seen nothing,” I replied, noting the greasy condition of my sister’s mane. “You’ve been up all night. Even a filly on guard would’ve noticed I didn’t come home.”

“So where is it you’re going at night?”

“None of your business.”

“Sherclop, dear,” she said, voice heavy with more false affection. “I am the overmare. All that happens in this stable is my business.”

“Oh yes,” I responded, sarcastically. “All that happens within this stable and the land of Equestria is your business. Luna and Celestia continue to raise and lower the sun and moon outside only at your command, and with merely a word from you, the crystal empire would rise again and the war between ponies and zebras would be but a shadow of a memory.”

This was the best way to distract Myclop, by overplaying her hoof in the world. Of course, we realized that there was more than instant death in the world beyond stable 221. After all, every once in a while, we got somepony from the outside world who wanted to become part of our stable. Even Myclop and myself weren’t born in the stable. Outsiders could be let in (after being thoroughly decontaminated) without a problem… but nopony was allowed to leave… ever.

It made little sense to me. After all, ponies were clearly living in the outside world, but Myclop kept insisting she had very good reasons for keeping as many ponies as possible within the walls of the stable, whatever those reasons may just end up being.

Myclop hadn’t noticed my change in thought and was still addressing my latest hyperbole.

“I know I don’t command everypony, brother! But I do command the ponies in this stable! I am the overmare.”

“You are a whiny little mare who has never been told no by anypony in your life.”

“You tell me no all the time.”

“Because I am your humility. I am the part that reminds the overmare that she are not an all-powerful alicorn princess.”

“…You’ve been reading the history files again.”

“We both know I don’t have to be in front of a file to read it again.”

I had a photographic memory, which made it a piece of cake to remember pages and pages of information, by merely glancing at a book. I could literally recall anything I’d seen in my life, ever since I was a young colt. It helped immensely in getting answers too. So, when I’d come across the books that covered some of Equestria’s history before the war, Myclop hastily deleted them from the computer, only to find out I could remember them as often as I wished.

This was one of the few joys I had in our relationship, because Myclop, for all her brilliance, would have to pour over files for hours when I could remember them in mere seconds. It has always been a contest between her and I, which means that any trick we have in our arsenal, we use. Myclop still didn’t know I’d placed a bug on her terminal that was going to reset her files to the way they were 24 hours ago… let her see how far her job got her with that.

“So,” I said, drinking out of the sink near my bed. “You want to tell me about this job or not?”

“Of course,” said Myclop, returning to business. “Well it would seem that the earth pony, Redbook, got lost in some of the lower level tunnels, or so he says.”

“And you think he’s lying?”

“I’m not sure… but if he is…”

“He’ll discover whatever it is you’ve got hidden down there… What is it you’re hiding, sister dear?”

“Naughty, naughty Sherclop. You mustn’t peek before the present is ready. You and everypony will really like it.”

I rolled my eyes. Of course Myclop wouldn’t tell me. She thinks she’s infallible.

The pony fillyosopher, Socrates once taught that he was wise enough to know that he knew nothing. It was a lesson I tried to take to heart: Never assume you know everything about anything.

Myclop on the other hoof was so used to being the smartest pony around that she’d grown ignorant, and neglectful. This was the reason she already didn’t know what I was doing with my nights, and why she wasn’t telling father about my exploration. Whatever project Myclop was working on down in the lower levels, it was heavily protected. It was to the point that even I couldn’t hack the door through my terminal, and the lock was far beyond my skill to pick.

Not that it mattered in the end. I was just going to let Myclop think whatever she wanted about my attempts to get her to tell me what she was doing. I was just going to break in as soon as I was sure I could escape safely.

Oh sure, it was dangerous, but that was part of the fun for me. Living in a stable had been boring before I’d even gotten my cutie mark. I can’t speak for most of the other ponies in the stable… actually I probably could… but I was never meant to be stuck dealing with a meager task day in and day out.

So, deciding to get out of the room before Myclop wanted to continue prattling on, I shook myself to finish getting the sleep out of my eyes, double-checked that my Pipbuck was in good standing, and head out the door… almost.

In the way was one of the largest bastards I’ve come to know in my years underground.

“Hello father,” I said, evenly, trying not to give my sleepiness away.

“Sherclop, why are you still here? Surely Myclop has given you your orders for the day?”

“Just finished, actually,” said Myclop.

Myclop and I have always had an odd relationship. As much trouble as she gives me, and as often as I am irritated by her, I do not hate her. I am irritated by her, yes. I do not like her very often, but I certainly do not hate her. However, she does understand that father singles me out and often attacks me… physically as often as verbally. As such, she will occasionally interject when he begins rounding on me… if only it helped.

“Well then,” said the oversized stallion. “You really have no further reason to be here, do you? Did you thank your sister for the job she let you have?”

“No.”

“Well… what are you waiting for?”

“I will not thank her for letting me do her legwork.”

Father glared at me. I knew it wasn’t smart to challenge him, but I find it hard to keep my muzzle shut when he’s being a donkey’s ass… which is all the time.

“Thank your sister, Sherclop.”

“No.”

“Father,” interrupted Myclop. “He doesn’t have to. It’s what he’s meant for, not a gift.”

“Yes,” said father, glaring at me all the harder. “Some destiny… finding answers. What good’s that to anyone in a stable? Yet your sister still found use for you. Thank her.”

I considered lashing out… that’s where this was going before the lights were turned off for the night. However, now wasn’t the time. I was still groggy, and I couldn’t deal with being addled if he hit my head. My intellect was one of the few things I could still claim pride in, and I wasn’t willing to let him put that at risk.

“Thanks Myclop,” I said through gritted teeth, and hastily trotted out.

I was around the next hallway when I brought up my pipbuck, flipping through several tags until I came up on Redbooks tag. He was supposedly in the clinic…

That was odd. Not only did nopony ever receive serious injury in the stable, but healthbots were so quick to bandage any pony who so much as stood on a tack that for anyone to be still in the clinic was so rare I couldn’t recall ever actually seeing it before.

“What are you doing Redbook?” I wondered aloud.

Well, I certainly wasn’t going to find any answers sitting around on my haunches. So to the clinic it was. I passed several security ponies and lab techs on my way. Most of them immediately hushed their voices when I passed by, or looked away from me, determined not to make eye contact.

Honestly, this pleased me, because it was one of the few things I could say Myclop hadn’t done for me. Nopony in stable 221 liked to look me in face because I could so clearly read their eyes and body language that it was like I could read their minds. In fact, just such a rumor was spreading among some of the younger fillies and colts.

It was ludicrous, of course, but it was nice to have that aura of power around me. Everypony thought I knew their innermost thoughts, and that meant they never wanted to try and hide things from me for fear that I would reveal their secrets. I came around another corner and saw three members of the Glowing Dragon blocking my path to the clinic.

The Glowing Dragon was a gang of some dozen odd young stallions (and maybe a mare or two) who tried to “run” the stable. They didn’t usually cause too much trouble, so security wouldn’t get involved, but they had a particular dislike of the Pones family. Myclop enjoyed blocking their efforts and advances, which I wouldn’t mind except that Myclop never leaves the room and therefore, never has to deal with the side-effects.

No, instead that’s my job too. They turned as I came up behind them.

“Hello there boys!” I said cheerily, as if they had been waiting for me.

“Well, well, well,” said the lead stallion, a yellow buck with a dark brown mane. “If it isn’t Sherclop pones? Did you take a break from being spoon-fed your apple pie just to come and see us?”

“Aww…” I said, as if flattered. “I’m all embarrassed. You seem to know my name, and I haven’t cared enough to remember any of yours. I’m actually not here for you lot, but I can spare a few minutes.”

“Let’s teach him how we play down this far,” said a large member on the right.

They lunged at me. Now, normally being outnumbered three to one can be a difficult challenge for a pony, but I am no mere pony. I am Sherclop Pones, and there isn’t a being, pony or otherwise that can match me in hoof-to-hoof combat. Part of it is having an abusive asshole for a father, but I studied up on several of the attacks zebra assassins would use during the war and combined it with the standard style of unarmed combat ponies used to create a deadly style, and no mere stable gang was going to be able to match up with it, even if I didn’t use S.A.T.S.

The two side ponies flanked me and I rolled forward, punching the leader in the face before spinning and delivering a powerful double-hoof kick to the one on my left. I’d dazed the leader and my pipbuck informed me I had given the other a fractured skull. However, the Glowing Dragons weren’t known for their brains and the third came at me anyway.

I dodged his wild swings and hit him hard in the chest, just in time to see the leader come forward. His attacks were sloppy and uncoordinated, and mere moments later I had the entire trio laid out with broken bones and a concussion. I would no doubt get hell from father and Myclop about this, but I didn’t care. It felt good to win at something, even if it was a fight.

I finally trotted into the clinic and looked around for Redbook… but I couldn’t see the pony. I checked my pipbuck again, and sure enough his tag was still in the room. I walked into the bed where the signal was coming from and pulled back the curtain. There was no Redbook.

But there was his abandoned pipbuck lying on the pillow with a note shining on its screen.

Hello Sherclop.