In fact, I think I’ll try the rest of my life without a sister!

Oh, I’m the one who’s ruining your life? Really? Have you looked around this place? I’m the one who would be better off…

Chapter 3: Plans

I watched, as if in slow motion, as the bot attacked Redbook, over and over. The young stallion’s head was split open, spilling brains and blood all over. I watch his face as it became blank and devoid of life. I watched his blood… there was so much blood. It seeped along the floor, pooling around what had once been a living and breathing pony.

I couldn’t pretend I had known Redbook all that well, He’d been a fine enough pony, and clever enough to break into this place, a task I hadn’t yet been able to do. However, nothing he’d done could deserve this. It was brutal, raw and utterly pointless. I didn’t know what Myclop was planning, but no plan could be worth what that pony had just suffered.

Rage filled me. Pure, unhindered rage. I forgot about my injury, and sprinted right into the mass of bots. My hooves were flashes of light as I punched and kicked them hard. Several fell and there was always one more to replace what I’d destroyed. That suited me just fine. Before ten seconds had passed, I’d recovered the revolver and I used it to cover my blindsides while I continued to attack in a fury.

Blam Blam!

“FUCK YOU!” I shouted, kicking another in the face. “Fuck you bastards! You can’t just take life from somepony like that.”

In the back of my mind, unhindered in my rage. I realized that these bots were not actually responsible for Redbook's death. Oh sure, they were covered in his blood, but they were Myclop's bots. This was Myclop's plan. It was Myclop who should pay.

Blam! Blam blam!

Not that I’d get the chance to make her pay at this rate. I knew I had to leave now, despite my rage and desire to dismantle these bots piece by piece. I turned and galloped to the lift, reloading the gun and firing behind me. I reached it, finally and stood there, hastily begging it to lift me up as I shot down more bots heading for me.

Click…

Click? No, click wasn’t good! I went to reload the gun again, and found that I had no more bullets. How in the hell could I be out of ammo? That wasn’t how this was supposed to go! I reached the lift! I was supposed to be able to get away! Damn Myclop for this!

As if reading my thoughts, the lift activated and I began to slowly fly through the air. After several moments, I realized something was wrong. This was not the system’s magic. The system didn’t feel like this when I was being lowered down. This was unicorn magic.

I looked up at the doorway and saw Myclop and several security ponies staring down at me. Myclop… that bitch.

“Oh Sherclop…” I heard her mutter softly. “What have you done?”

What had I done? What did I do?!

“YOU BITCH!” I screamed at her, feeling my hooves hit the ground again. “You utter bitch! What the hell were you doing down there? What the fuck was that?!”

“Sherclop? What’s got you so upset? We’ll get you fixed up, and then we can talk.”

“You killed him!” I shouted, striking out at my sister. “He’s dead because of you!”

Security ponies held me back.

“You mean Redbook?” she asked, then sighed. “That is unfortunate…”

“Unfortunate? You murdered a pony, Myclop! Does that mean anything to you?”

“He went where he should not have gone. Despite my telling you nopony should go there, he went and got himself killed, and messed up my project… Though, I suspect you had your own hoof in that.”

“Your project?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! Myclop truly did not care that she’d just committed murder. The guards weren’t reacting much either, meaning they knew! This must be a nightmare.

“Put him out. He’ll keep raising a fuss…”

“FUCK YOU!”

I felt a needle enter my neck, and the world slowly blacked out around me.

When I awoke, my hooves were secured to a bed. At first, I was pleased to find all my injuries were fully healed. However, it was let down when I remembered what had happened to bring me here.

I changed my focus. I was in a medical bed… the clinic most likely. Sadly, this was not a new sight for me. Once a wastelander had managed to bring some mint-als in. He told me they would help me think faster and I agreed to trade him information about a mare he liked for the pills.

He hadn’t lied. When I took those little tablets, my mind cleared up and I was able to think at lightspeed. It was like how Myclop must feel all the time. Sadly, I had only the one tin, and after I’d emptied it trying to break into Myclop's room, I’d become addicted to them. I’d been forced to lie on this bed and go through complete withdrawal… It had not been pleasant.

This time, I woke up and felt that my leg had been healed, and they’d showered all of my and Redbook's blood off my coat. All gone… as if it never happened. Maybe that’s what Myclop intended. To wash me clean of this event. However, that wasn’t what I intended. I was done with her. Using my magic, I undid my binding and head for the door, only to come face-to-face with my sister.

She used her magic to slam me against a bed.

“No!” she said, angrily. “No words. Not from you.”

I glowered at her.

“You snuck into my room with Redbook,” she said. “And dismantled a good chunk of my bots, Sherclop.”

“Oh yes,” I said, pissed off. “How dare I damage your robot army?!”

“Did you happen to deduce exactly what those bots were for, brother dear?”

“Yes!” I shouted. “As they were stomping in Redbook’s head!”

“Calm yourself. Yes, I designed them to attack ponies. Here’s the thing, bother dear. This stable… this place… It’s not meant to house us forever. We both know in another few generations we’re going to be in danger of inbreeding. This is not a proper fix.”

I relaxed. Myclop still pissed me off, but she had me listening.

“You’re right so far,” I said.

“So, we have to get ponies ready to leave this place, and go out into the wasteland. But we both understand it’s an unforgiving place. So, I had to get them right to fight… to kill if need be.”

“And so you built a robot army?”

“I built something they could overcome. If the entire stable had fought they would’ve won and there wouldn’t be so much as an injury. We were supposed to go to the surface and build a city… a society we could all live and thrive in while growing larger… maybe enough to have a proper country someday… but you just went and fucked that up for me…”

I… I didn’t know… I couldn’t have known… Myclop's plan may have been monstrous but it was something that would prepare ponies to make a go of it in the wasteland… at least a little.

“You didn’t tell me…”

“And you can see why I didn’t? You destroyed almost all the bots! Do you know how long that took Sherclop? We couldn’t divert too much energy from the stable! It took a decade and a half of work, and you just destroyed it! I don’t know how I’m going to get them all out now… That was going to be our wake up call…”

“I didn’t know! You didn’t tell me anything!”

“Well listen to what I’m telling you now, because now I have no choice. I have to exercise a law you didn’t even know existed in this stable. Sherclop Pones, you are guilty of a plot that has endangered the continued existence of the ponies within stable 221. You are hereby exiled. I do not want to see you within ten miles of this stable after two hours…”

What? What? I was being exiled? Was that even possible?

“But I…”

“Here are your things,” she said, throwing my saddlebags at me. “Follow.”

I put on the saddlebags and my coat, before following Myclop dully. I couldn’t believe I was actually being exiled from stable 221. I wasn’t usually given to great shows of emotion, but this was still the only home I’d truly known. However, now I had little choice in the matter.

Still, it could’ve been worse. After all, it wasn’t as if I hadn’t toyed with the idea of leaving the stable on my own anyway… Not that this is how I wanted that to go. I idly checked my pipbuck on our walk through stable 221, checking what Myclop had gotten for me. To my embarrassment, I saw she’d found my second stash of mint-als. However, she never said anything about them, either because she was furious or had other things on her mind.

She’d even left me the .32 revolver… though no ammo for it. I would just have to pray I didn’t come up against anything I couldn’t tackle with my hooves. Before long I was in front of the large stable door, reading STABLE 221 in bright yellow letters. When it was created, such a thing may have looked inviting… now it looked horrifying. It was a testimony to life down here.

Myclop turned around, eying me carefully.

“Do you have anything to say before you leave this stable?” she asked professionally.

No, she wasn’t going to get that. She wasn’t going to be able to act as though it was just business between us, as though this wasn’t all her fault for keeping me in the dark. She didn’t get to be dignified during this.

“Fuck off, you bitch.”

With that, Myclop nodded to the two security ponies, and they slowly pressed the buttons to have to doors opened. I went through before the door was even fully done, just wanting out of that horrid place. I saw another door, though not nearly as extravagant at the end of the hallways and pushed it open with my magic.

I saw that I had come up into a sort of station. Sure enough I could make out what must’ve once been a ticket booth and resting areas for people who were waiting. Judging from the area, this was likely a train station, though it was unlikely many trains in Equestria still ran, even if they were in working order.

I checked around and found very little of use. Some bullets that my pipbuck helpfully informed me were 5mm rounds, though what guns used them I wasn’t sure of. For what I’d been expecting, the wasteland wasn’t much… Honestly it wasn’t all that different from being in the stable… Maybe a lot dirtier.

I opened the entrance doors and swore, backpedaling. Somepony had killed the ceiling out there! It was miles and miles away, and all puffy and wrong and shifty. I may be a genius but when your whole world gets turned upside-down logic isn’t what flies through your brain.

I hastily shut the door to the station, determined that what that was out there it wasn’t going to get in here. I waited for several long minutes… Then several more… After 15 minutes I cautiously opened the door. It was getting dark out there now, but I could still see the… I think the histories called it the sky. I did NOT like it one bit.

However, a small voice in the back of my mind reminded me that I was limited on how long I was permitted to hang at this station. Surely it was safe to walk around out there… after all hadn’t ponies before the war, and some after, be able to run around and do things out there safely? I walked out, keeping ready to gallop back into the station. However, for a long moment, nothing happened. I breathed a sigh of relief.

I allowed myself another ten minutes outside to slowly get acclimated to the sheer never-ending ceiling out here… and how little light there really was. It made the darkness in the stable seem petty, for even at night there were soft lights in most rooms. This was different. I called upon my magic and cast a night vision spell.

To my delight, the world lit up around me… albeit with an odd greenish hue. I’d never managed to cast that spell properly before. Maybe being out in the world had helped me break through some sort of mental barrier. I had no real time to find out.

I looked around the building for some way to use the tracks that still seemed intact. Maybe no train ran on them, but with any luck I could find a train car that I could move… or maybe…

I searched for the better part of an hour both in the station and a large storage shed out back. After a few moments, my pipbuck informed it had found a radio station and had lost the one from stable 221. This excited me momentarily. Not only did I no longer need to listen to Myclop’s voice, but there was possibly music out here I could listen to while I thought to myself. Music was magical for such things.

Hurriedly, I flipped on the radio station.

“One last thing, and this is to the stable dweller herself. Another message from my assistant… but don’t worry, children. I read it this time and it’s perfectly chaste…”

I shrugged, kicking open a footlocker. Apparently I wasn't the first pony to get kick out of their stable. That actually made me feel a little bit better. I didn’t know who this deep-voiced pony was, but he seemed to be enjoying himself greatly if the tone of this voice was any indication.

“She says: Wherever you are right now, I’m thinking of you. Look up at the darkness of the night sky, and know that I am looking up into the same darkness with you. We are never apart, no matter how far your drive to help us all takes you from this place, For you are here in my heart, always. I love you Littlepip.”

I grimaced. Love? Was that what ponies up here were really banging on about all the time? I hoped not. I may not have known many things in my life, but I come to accept romance as a feeling that was needed by ponies who had no purpose in their lives…

“Aw… now ain’t that just romantic? Don’t that just tug at your heartstrings?”

“Not really,” I mumbled to the radio.

“When did my assistant get so cheesy? Oh and there’s a P.S… Thirty-one. Huh? What’s thirty-one mean?”

I turned, confused by the odd message as some music finally came from the pipbuck speaker. Thirty-one…

It didn’t seem as if it could be the answer to a riddle or some sort of code, not given the rest of the message… Not to mention the tone of the writing was all wrong for that type of clue. More likely it was something that bore some sort of message specific to their relationship… and I didn’t know what it meant, which meant I needed to work it out.

It wasn’t likely to be a marker of any sort of time… That sounded like something they’d been keeping track of, but it was something this Littlepip had either forgotten or lost track of… What could one so easily lose track of?

A nasty idea crawled through my mind… If it was sexual orgasm, it would certainly explain the loss of concentration… but surely nopony could have that much sex…

“When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth…” I muttered, thinking of the phrase my namesake was credited with.

Stupid.

Stupid ponies and their orgasms and radio announcements. I turned my focus back to my scavenging.

I found loads of useful things in there. There were plenty of bullets for my revolver, an old zebra blade, several mint-als and health potions, and a pile of a couple hundred bottle caps. These, I stared at for a long time.

I let my mind figure out what was happening here. This had to be some sort of hoard a wasteland pony had gathered up. The ammo and health potions fit that idea… but why bottle caps? Was it a weird compulsion by this specific pony? Somehow that didn’t strike me as very likely.

More likely they were used as some sort of weapon or crafting tool. Whatever they were, I figured I’d better save them, and slid them into my saddlebags. My pipbuck helpfully told me I’d taken 210 caps.

Then I came across what I’d really wanted to find: a hoofcar. It was very, very old but still seemed to be in working condition, at least enough to get me out of this place. So I pushed it to the tracks with my telekinesis and placed it on the tracks. Hopping onto it, I started to pump the bar rhythmically up and down, and to my astonishment, it seemed to work perfectly fine.

Within moments, I was speeding away from stable 221, never to look back…

Notes: Level up!
Perk: Night Vision spell – You no longer need to use your pipbuck light to see into the dark corners of buildings or across the wastelands at night. Just a simple flick of your horn and you can see into even the darkest halls.