//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Attack Of The Clones // Story: Fallout Equestria: Sisterhood // by Crowseph Crowstar //------------------------------// I only need three people in my life. Me, Myself and I. *** There was shouting, hoof stomps, the occasional plea to calm down, but none of that was going to change as the weight of what we were meant to do here bore down on us. My sister and her fellow clones were all upset at the prospect of murdering over two hundred ponies. Granted the murdering part wasn’t what got them angry. It was the fact there were only seven of us and over two hundred Jellybean clones to clear out. Clearly we’d underestimated how many hostile, animalistic clones could be down here and to be fair to my many selves...this was not what we signed up for. I mean yeah we signed up with the express intent to murder things we didn’t really consider ponies, but this was a whole different ball park. It was overwhelming, monumental even! I guess the real issue was the fear of not having enough bullets and health potions to kill them all. Kinda morbid to think about, but I couldn’t care less. And if that was my outlook on things I could only assume my sisters felt the same way. So as they shouted up at the brain in the glass dome named Helix Twist, I was busy checking out my own Pipbuck. I think Helix said something about a 3000 model with some letter attached to the number, but I already forgot what it was. “Hey wait a minute…why does the perk list say I’m unlikable?! Everypony quiet! This is serious!” I pushed past my sisters as they grew quiet, my words entering their ears and bringing about a new sense of anger and confusion among them. We all looked to the brain for answers. Her blue mono eye stared down at me with an expressionless glow. After a moment, she spoke. “Curious. Have you identified the S.P.E.C.I.A.L statistics as of yet? You may find a source to your troubles there.” My sister, the one who I held a personal bond with amongst the rest, looked to the rest of the new clones who eyed her back with visible anticipation. That alone made her flinch as she raised her PipBuck and began to scroll through it. “Can you tell me what that special statistic is supposed to mean?” “Couldn’t be special talents. We’re all still blank flanks.” “Yeah, it kinda sucks. I don’t feel special.” “But sis, we never feel special. We’re just background ponies. Always have been.” “Don’t let the PipBuck weigh you down. We like being out of the spotlight, remember?” A loud ‘AHEM’ roused the Muddy Waters from their collective conversation and brought the attention back to the brain in the dome. “The Special Statistic is what makes you special. The Stable was equipped with visual presentations that could explain it all, but the short version is it represents your strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility and luck. Not sure how luck is measured, but I'll chalk it up to Stable-tec having something up their sleeve with that.” “Oooooooh! Clever!” Seven Muddy Waters were all equally impressed with the clever use of the word special. Just wish we weren’t so in tune with each other that we kept speaking in unison.  “Now go ahead and read what makes you special, class. Since you’re all the same you should all have the same scores. Strange that you all came out without cutie marks. Usually those carry over in the cloning process.” Her eye turned to me now. Probably expecting an answer, so I checked the screen and looked at the slide that had a happy stable mare with five bars all filled. I wasn’t going to comment on the fact I didn’t have a cutie mark. Bleh! One over each limb so I guess that meant I was healthy. Still trying to get used to all the different things in here on the screen and in my vision, like the new compass and strange detection thing that showed a dot where each sister stood. I made it to the screen that showed me my special numbers or whatever and looked at each one to figure out what made me special. Ugh, saying it like that left a bad taste in my mouth. Like the words cutie mark, or moist. “It says here we all have a six in strength. Good hustle girls, we’re not wimps!” That got a good laugh out of everypony except Helix. Feeling good about things, I continued. “Seven in Perception. Good eyes, I guess. Five in endurance. I think that's good…..oh…..one in charisma. Explains a lot. Five in intelligence. Two in agility and one in luck.” Wow. As much as I wanted to debate the results of the scores, they made too much sense. I wasn’t very agile and couldn’t sneak well. Every step I took was obvious, but I could trek across the wetlands with packs full of useful crap and not break a sweat. The charisma score was the most damning though. It was clear as day, but it still left me speechless as I thought hard about why I had such a low score there and what it meant going forward. Luck was also low, but what has luck done for anypony? Couldn't care less about luck. “.................well then! Now that everypony is educated on who they are, why don’t we return to the plan in motion.” It was a round of ‘yes ma’am’ from the clones and myself. Respecting the elders was just what we did, even if they were a two hundred year old unicorn brain. When she had our attention, her eye began to glow before shutting off suddenly. “No, how about I use my magic. I’ve waited and plotted for over a century. I can show off a tad…” I was silently wondering if that unicorn horn sticking through the glass dome was usable or not. Sure enough the little bastard began to glow as a magical projection formed over the floor. Some of my new clones saw they were in the way and swiftly moved to make room without saying a word. From the looks of it, the projection showed a floor plan for the entire science level of the Stable. “What’s the plan looking like, boss? You got our hooves, so what do we need to be doing here?” “The plan won’t be easy, but you've taken care of the hard part…well the hard part for me. Weapons. Eventually the Jellybean clones will return down here to create more of themselves, so the first step will be to annihilate any clones who respond to my first alarm system.” The area leading towards the stairwell was highlighted in red. “Jellybean has been essential in maintaining the Stable. The fact his clones overran the Stable initially has been a small boon for the complex. He will respond if warning sirens go off and seek out the problem that needs fixing. Do you understand what needs to be done when he arrives?” Yeah, we knew. Each one of us shook our heads as my bond sister began to pass out the various pipe weapons and ammo. There was a spare bolt action pipe pistol that was left in the bag, as even amongst the desperate those kinds of weapons went unused. Like how even the most thirsty of ponies here refused to drink tea that wasn’t sweetened, at least in Wayward. “We got all the understanding right here. Kinda confused on the part where we kill two hundred savage clones in a small hallway though.” Another clone spoke up after the first. “That’s going to be a big pile up. They’re not going to keep climbing over each other like ferals are they?” “I’m not sure what you’re referring to as feral, but I can assure you I’ve already thought of this and planned around it. Observe.” The projection on the floor changed to the next level of the Stable, which was far wider and more spread out than the science level here. This Stable wasn’t built as deep as I thought a Stable would go, but instead built with width in mind rather than depth. “The engineering level is where most of the fighting will take place. As soon as enough clones perish in the chokepoint down here, you seven will advance to the next one I’ve set up. I can control the doors and their locks, which will be essential in creating chokepoints and kill zones for you. After each one is deemed unusable, I’ll guide you to the next location where more clones will funnel in your direction with mechanical failure alarms.” I can only imagine how much effort it took to detail each and every path the hostile clones could come from and where we should go to perform the best. I didn’t help that I was there on that level when I first awoke down here. Helix did say she controls the doors and their locks which would explain a lot. Might also explain how I managed to sneak past various rooms full of clones. Without her locking the doors I might have been found and beaten to death. I also might not have met my bond sister and friend had she not locked her out of the closet. I’d need to address that at some point. Also need to address the fact I’m calling my first clone my bond sister. I liked the sound of it, but also I had nothing else to call her beyond saying my own name. Another thing for another time. “The plans solid, we got the guns and ammo and we got the guts. Only thing now is…when do we start?” One clone spoke up, not sure if she was one of the more talkative ones but she was eager to finish this. If she was, then I was too. Helix just responded by opening the doors leading out of the clone control room and giggling softly with her electronic, feminine voice. “Why, right away of course. Assume your positions and the alarm will sound. I advise you all to only fire at intervals of two ponies while the rest prepare and reload. Conserve your fighting strength as best you can and pick targets accordingly.” Just as we were about to leave I looked back at all of my clones, my sisters, and eyed each of them. They returned the stare with confusion, but said nothing. “Girls, I love you all to death. So don’t actually die out there. You’re special to me, but not because you are me! Don’t uh…don’t take that the wrong way. Look, just play it safe, like mom said. And don’t worry about any of that life stuff. We’re gonna figure this all out later. Probably.” The speech was obviously not the best, but it was enough for my selves to understand what I was trying to say. There wasn’t much of a possibility of misunderstanding yourself was there? Eh, I assume not. “Look, I…we got a one in charisma! Don’t expect too much from me. I’m doing my best up here.” “Do we always sound like this?” “I just realized I sound different when I hear my own voice.” “We really did linguistically stunt ourselves. I blame you, Muddy Waters.” “Who’s side are you Muddy’s on? We can’t kick ourself like this…even though it’s true. Sorry original, it’s gotta be said.” I spied my bond sister looking at me with apologetic eyes, but she didn’t need to say anything. Anything my clones said to me was just self reflection at this point. The feeling was coming on that I was going to learn a lot about myself in the coming storm, and some of those things might not be all that tolerable. Hell, I might even annoy myself with some of my own habits at this rate. *** It was time. Together we gathered as many chairs and piles of crap we could find to form a makeshift barricade near the base of the stairs. It was kind of strange how the stairwell was open to the rest of what was supposedly meant to be a secure area. Anypony could just waltz in like I did initially. Come to think of it, maybe I was led here since Helix had plans in motion before I was ever brought into them. Eh, another time. With chairs, desks and trash cans we did as best we could. The trap was set and our guns were loaded. “Alright Helix! Let’s see what these one trick ponies can do in a firefight.” Four of us were on the barricade, with two behind ready to take action. The last sister was in the back reloading mags as we passed them back to her. If we needed her, she’d be ready to assist.  “I did mention Jellybean was a combat engineer and saw active service in the war, did I not?” For the briefest of moments I could have heard a feather hit the floor because of how deathly silent it had become. We didn’t even get a chance to react to the sudden realization before the quietest ‘oops’ could be heard over the speaker system before the alarm sounded. “Stable structural integrity failing. All non essential personnel evacuate immediately. Maintenance crews report to science sectors immediately. Alarm. Alarm. Stable structural integrity failing…” The lights went red and the automated message repeated again and again as we braced ourselves for the coming fight. “Girls…..I don’t think I like Helix Twist very much.” *** BANG The gunshot echoed through the corridor as the first of what would be many Jellybean clones tumbled down the stairs with a bullet lodged in his forehead. The tools he’d been carrying smashed down each step with clangs that were almost as loud as the gunshot, at least to me. When his friends noticed they’d lost a member of their party, they too dropped their tool boxes and charged with their telltale language. “Jelly! J-Jellybean!” “Ho! Did ya see that? What a shot!” One sister was happy to see this wouldn’t be as dangerous as she thought as she readied her gun again and fired another .38 round at the approaching hostile force. My vision was lit up with red dots snaking their way over my display. It didn’t take a high intelligence to realize red was bad. “I got the one on the left. Somepony get the fucks down center. Keep ‘em away!” I shouted over the screech of Jellybeans roaring in anger and charging us headfirst, which we responded with shouts of our own as we fired our guns into the group. I counted the dots, six in total. After the one on the stairs died, five. BANG BANG. BANG I fired my revolver, striking a Jellybean twice and dropping him. Four. The third shot went wide and bounced off the bulkhead of the Stable walls. My first sister fired her shotgun at one she’d let get close. He was about to jump the barricade before a slug round found its new home in his sternum. Like a light, his red dot flickered out and vanished on my compass hovering atop my vision. I guess that meant he was a goner. Three left. We got this. For being a combat engineer, Jellybean didn’t seem to mind he was being peppered by .38 rounds from my newest sisters. Nor did he bother attempting to take cover, opting to simply beeline straight for us as four sisters blasted the runners again and again. Another clone made it to the barricade, but with a few more shots and a round from my revolver he dropped dead against a trash can. The last two never made it down the hall. They died after the dozen or so rounds brought them down early. “Je…..lly.” Another red dot faded to nothing. Six clones were put out of their misery with only two hundred more to go. It was grim work and our hearts were pounding against our chests like mad, but we survived! “Good……good work Waters! Proud of you all. Nothing we…it’s nothing…we can’t handle.” Out of breath so early into a job was a bad sign. I wanted to take a break already, but there was still the daunting task ahead and we’d only just started. Maybe it was the killing that made me like this. I’d never killed so many things before besides the odd group of feral ghouls and roaches. “I wanna know something. Do these guys have guns too? Ms. Helix? I want answers, please…” My bond sister was the one finally stepping back into the spotlight. She looked to the ceiling for any signs of the brain, but all we got was the voice over the speakers.  “No, there are currently no guns or weapons within the Stable other than the occasional kitchen knife in the obvious locations and a baton left behind here and there. The residents took what they could before they rushed to leave during the evacuation. You are free to keep your distance from these clones without worry of them returning fire.” That was oddly insightful and answered another question itching the back of my mind. So the residents aren’t dead, they left. Interesting. “Thanks Twist, appreciate ya.” “Such manners. I’m surprised they still exist after the world ended. Anywho, prepare for the next wave. The alarms are still sounding and the next door will be unlocked. More will come.” With that, the speakers crackled and popped before shutting down and leaving us to the shrill sirens of more alarms.  True to her word, more red dots appeared in my vision. “Sis, you got the mags loaded back there? I’m counting eight this time with my PipBuck vision.” I turned to look back and check on her and all I got was a speed loader for my revolver shoved in my face with six bullets ready to go. “This would be easier if I wasn’t shaking so damn much and had, I don’t know, magic to shove bullets in faster. I’m gonna get calluses on my tongue from this.” Right, because us earth ponies had to load things by hoof or mouth. Wasn’t fun. But neither was the thought of one of the Jellybeans closing the distance and getting their hooves on us. We were all familiar with how that would end if they got close. Despite their obvious lackluster intelligence and below average stamina, Jellybean clones were brutally direct when it came to hoof combat. No amount of overweight flab was going to slow down those hooves when it came to an ass beating. As I looked over the carnage and awaited the second wave, I couldn’t help but notice the bodies of our adversaries. Some were older, much older. Fattened by years of no physically significant activities and worn down by age, some of the clones looked like they’ve been down here a long long time. A couple were the exact opposite, looking young and still fit. Granted, the signs of age and laziness were beginning to show. Dots appeared in my compass, indicating the next battle was underway as I thought about the future we were trying to steal. Could we become something like this? Mares old and young wearing each other's faces, living in a quasi harmony down in a Stable… “Jelly! Noooo Jellybean.” A small laugh emerged from my throat as the thoughts formed a new excitement in my soul. I raised my revolver and fired, the gunshot’s echo bouncing around the thick metal corridor like the bullet bounced around in the skull of the first Jellybean clone I attacked. He spasmed before falling to the floor as another group ran past his lifeless body and charged. Second verse, same as the first. “Fire in sequence. Keep a steady stream of fire upon them until they are defeated.” Helix’s voice sounded above us, but I paid it no mind. I followed the directive as my other selves opened up with their weapons.  This time eight clones charged our firing line. Seven still stood until my sisters shot the rest down again and again with sporadic bursts of bullets and shotgun shells. Seven, six, five, two. They dropped like stones in the river one after another. One sister flicked a selector switch on her weapon before unleashing a volley of .38 bullets into the last two clones who managed to nearly reach the barricade together. The fully automatic weapon tore them to shreds and put them out of their misery rather quickly.  “I need a hat and some clothes, cuz when I get the chance I’m giving Rough the biggest hug ever!!!” The sister with the auto pipe rifle shouted with a happiness I wish I was feeling. Oh, that’s jealousy I’m feeling right now. Well hot damn ain’t that something.  Damn. I really wished I knew that it was an auto gun. I wanted to use it too! “Focus sis, focus. We’re still neck deep in this crap.” “Heh heh, any other clones get the odd desire to just….I don’t know…say your own name repeatedly and go nuts?” The entirety of our group turned to face the sister who’d just made that joke. The Muddy Waters reloading the magazines suddenly turned very red as the well deserved embarrassment set in. Good, you deserve to be embarrassed. I was embarrassed purely by association as I'm sure every Muddy Waters was. “O-oh calm down y’all! For Celestia's sake it was a joke.” The more she tried to avoid eye contact the more red her face became. Before she turned into a tato or something I grabbed her with two hooves and swapped positions with her. You don’t get to make terrible jokes and avoid consequences. “Congratulations, you just earned front line duties for that. I thought I’d learn my lesson with making poorly timed jokes.” It wasn’t like I was forcing her to fight, she happily volunteered the moment she tried her hoof at a little light hearted comedy. I’m just glad I was able to learn from my mistakes and by that I mean from my clones. Truth be told I just needed to keep my damn mouth shut and everything would be fine. Again the red dots came. I could see them dance across the compass in my vision before suddenly vanishing again. Turning my head I could somewhat track the dots, but only in the direction I was facing currently. There they were! The dots returned, but no sooner had I spotted them they blinked out of existence. Turning back towards the stairs I spotted them again, only this time they weren’t disappearing. My best guess was that the next batch of attackers was directly above me and heading straight for the stairs. “Heads up Muddies, I’m counting five on the compass. Put 'em down again. Check those guns first though.” They were doing their part with nods of acknowledgement. Now it was time for me to do mine. I’d reload the mags, they shot the Jellybean clones dead, any clone of mine who needed their rest would get it as we swapped who had to put bullets into the magazines. At this rate we’d have the Stable taken within the day. I just wish Rough had bought extra magazines with the bullets. This was annoying to deal with. *** Three hours. It’d been three hours of nonstop fighting. Well it wasn’t much of a fight, but a slaughter. Again and again the alarms sounded, Helix would unlock a door someplace above us and a steady stream of angry clones would rush our position. I learned some valuable lessons in those three hours. The first is death stinks. The corridor was awash with the smell and sight of blood, its pungent odor mixing with the stench of gunpowder and vomit to create something I didn’t think possible. A smell worse than mildly irradiated fish. Things had deteriorated so horribly and so rapidly that Helix shut off the alarm to give us a break from the adrenaline rush. We were all shaking pretty badly, with me and my bond sister having emptied our stomachs already while the rest dry heaved. The second thing I learned was that we didn’t know when enough was enough and kept using the same corridor as a kill zone much to Helix’s annoyance. I see what she meant now when she said this area would become unusable. The bodies caked the floor to the point there wasn’t any space devoid of the new crimson river we’d made here. We’d got far too lost in the moment to understand Helix’s reasoning for moving on, but now it was too late. Each of us was going to have to wade through the viscera and up the stairs. The third thing I learned was that I did not have the stomach for this. I didn’t have it when I killed my very first clones in the clinic, so why did I think I could stomach the sight of our deeds now? It made me wonder how trappers could do the things they do and not lose sleep at night. Or regular raiders for that matter. My ears rang constantly after all the abuse from firing guns in an enclosed space for so long. We’d made cloth ear plugs after the first hour from rags, but the help they offered was miniscule. Kind of wished we’d made some kind of hoof wrappings instead as we left the kill zone and advanced upwards. It was worse than anything my worst nightmares could have cooked up, but I don’t think it's very hard to imagine just what we were going through. “Helix. Helix we’re at the top of the stairs and moving inwards to the next spot.” “Understood. I’ve activated emergency lighting to guide you. Please remain vigilant.” That brain’s voice was starting to scrape away the tolerance I had left in me. My head hurt, I was nauseous from the smell of death, our hooves were caked in gore from wading through the grizzly scene. I dared not look back down the stairs at the trail we’d left behind. Forward, there was only forward towards the next area and the next group of clones that needed dying. “Pssst, sister. Look at this.” I turned to look at whichever Muddy clone was asking for me. To my elation it was my favorite clone, my true sister. She was eyeing her PipBuck again while walking alongside me. “Yeah? You find something new on that thing?” “It’s not the PipBuck I’m looking at. It’s the mission thing. I don’t know how it can count all the Jelly clones down here, but the numbers don’t add up. Trust me, I counted.” That was strange. Sure enough the number had gone down significantly since we started, but it was still at one hundred and thirty nine clones remaining. That was massive, but a far cry from the number from before. “So what's the problem?” “We only shot fifty five clones down there. Come on Muddy, do the math. There’s more clones gone than the ones we killed. Who else is killing down here?” This was no longer strange. Now it was just plain creepy. My head was on a swivel now as I checked behind us, down every hallway we passed, any place I thought an attack could come from. For all I knew there was an army of Jellybean clones behind every wall and locked door waiting to get out. Or maybe something else was down here. Something worse. “Uuuuuh…H-Helix? We might have a problem.” I didn’t have to wait at all before Helix was poking through the ceiling. Being as skittish as I was at the moment, I may have jumped upon hearing the noise her open hatch made. Luckily we were in the back of the formation so none of my new sisters saw that. The blue glow of the mono eye illuminated the dark not already illuminated by the red flood lights and exit signs. “Yes? Something you need? We have no time for hold ups so let's be quick about it.” I coughed with more than a little trepidation. “So we were looking at the numbers and saw there's more dead Jellybeans than confirmed kills. Know anything about that?” For all her worth she looked like she wanted to respond, but simply didn’t. Or ya know, as much as a brain in a jar could look like anything other than a brain in a jar. Her eye tiled to one side to simulate confusion before finally she responded. “Well…I didn’t want to bring this up before, but I guess I should tell you. Jellybean has been down here a long long time with no food sources available to him. He was a pony who solved practical problems and didn’t care much for farming. So when the denizens all evacuated, Jellybean was left with an immediate problem. Who would grow the food in the hydroponics bays?” …Oh no. “So the only real solution the Jellybean horde had at its disposal was…cannibalism. His clones have been relentlessly cloning and eating new generations of himself for over a century. The process has been unending since the day the door opened.” By now the group had come back for us since Helix Twist’s jar couldn’t leave the spot she emerged from. Of course they turned around and returned only to hear the enemy we’d been brought to face were a bunch of pony-eaters. What’s one more detail to leave out after the first couple? “You’re shitting me” one sister exclaimed. “That’s such bull shit” said another.  The sentiment was, yet again, one of anger. Now it was my turn. “You could have told us that before we took the job. So happy to know if we get killed here we’re gonna get eaten by a bunch of out of shape pre war clones!” “Hush! I’ll hear none of it from the filthy mouths of you, Muddy. I’m surprised you are this upset over a smaller detail. Do ponies or whatever else that inhabits the hellscape above ground not eat each other like the Jellybeans do? I would have thought cannibalism would be commonplace after the apocalypse.” Well I couldn’t argue against that. “Well…I mean…sort of? Yeah we got cannies’ above ground. Just…Uuuuugh! Don’t leave any more details out! Wayward grown ponies respect straightforwardness, not this beating around the bush crap.” “Yeah! What she said.” “Give it to us straight, doc.” “Don’t lead us on no more, Helix!” Heh, that’ll show her. Muddy Waters doesn’t take that crap from anypony. “Alright sisters, let’s skedaddle. We got work to do!” And there she was, my bond sister, leading her various selves back into the abyss of the Stable to fight our rivals down here, our fated foes. Of course I followed behind. I left Helix without saying another word more. *** We had time as we prepared ourselves. We’d been led to a nice little hallway that ended at the restrooms of this floor. Somewhere there was a clinic around here that I’d woken up in, but I doubt I’d see it again while we still had work to do. So, while my sisters and I prepared and checked our weapons for faults and our magazines for fresh bullets, I counted. The numbers from before did not add up. We killed fifty five clones in the level below. Sixty eight were dead in total. That left…thirteen. Even if the other Jellybean clones were cannibalistic like Helix said, could they really murder and eat that many ponies in the span of a few hours? There’s no way they’d need that many corpses to feed themselves…right? I must have been pretty lost in thought, because when a clone of mine put her hoof on my shoulder I jumped like a scared filly. “Woah! You alright, Muddy?” Her, one of the new sisters created for this very mission. I looked into her eyes like I’d done so many times over. Sometimes I gazed into them looking for pieces of myself to see if I was really in these bodies. The answer always came back as a yes. “Y-yeah. Yeah I’m good. I’m golden, sis’. Just freaked out is all.” “We got your back, so long as you’ll have ours. The Waters family sticks together.” She smiled with a happy grin. I couldn't help but return it in kind. It felt good seeing myself so happy and inspired. “I love y’all, have I said that already?” I looked to each of my clones who returned the gaze with looks of understanding. I don’t know if any other ponies wildly cloned themselves in the past, but for what it was worth I enjoyed my time with my selves. This, the experiences we were having down here, would remain our closely guarded secret. Nopony else could ever learn of what we’d found, of what we were doing. “Alright…Let’s do this. Helix, ready when you are!” As if on queue, the alarms rang once again and somewhere nearby, a door was unlocked to the relief of the pony clones inside. The relief would be cut short as a quick investigation into the repeated alarm would bring a curtain call of death upon them. Another group of Jellybeans charged and again they met with the business end of Muddy Waters guns. This was just the process that had to be followed and maintained if success was to remain a reachable goal. We’d move on to various dark hallways and set up in places Helix instructed us to go. From there it was rinse and repeat with breaks in between to fix our weapons and reload our magazines. It wasn’t until the third section of the engineering level did problems begin to present themselves. “Where’s the .38 caliber rounds? I’m out…” “Here! It’s my last spare mag, don’t waste it!” “There’s a fuck ton coming our way, watch out!” “My…My gun jammed. I gotta get the casing out, fuck! Watch my back.’ We had hundreds of rounds for the pipe weapons, but the .38 bullet was proving to us why it was such an inexpensive round. It took six to ten bullets to kill Jellybean, which is way more than I expected to kill anything pony sized. We were down to nothing now and were hanging by the skin of our teeth against an unusually large group of Jellybean clones. So many poured out of a door down the hall that it was all hooves on deck for this fight. Even as we fired with almost wild fury, the attackers still advanced. It was here I realized Jellybean really was a soldier despite his age and the complacency of Stable life. I realized this when I saw him lift the hole filled corpse of his fellow clone up and use it as a meat shield while slowly advancing on us. More followed suit and even as some of them met with failure, the ones behind them picked up the trick and did the same thing until it worked. The only guns capable of shooting through a pony were my revolver and my bond sister’s single-shot shotgun. As if the problems weren’t bad enough, down another hallway behind us I could hear a door click with the sound of a lock disengaging.  “Muddy, the clones are aware they are under attack. Some of them are beginning to pick the locks on the doors with improvised tools. You must fall back to the previous section, now!” Helix’s voice echoed through the area over the sounds of gunfire, but it was too little too late. One sister shouted as another group of clones emerged behind us, effectively cutting us off from escape. It was…oh shit. This was it wasn’t it? “Four of you turn around and fight them off! One of you help out in the front, just keep it up. We can still win this!” My bond sister issued her orders and the rest followed them as I blasted through the body of a Jellybean and hit a still living one on the other side. With him dropping dead another leapt over the fresh body and charged, but he too met his end as my sister fired a shotgun shell into his chest. For the price he was paying, Jellybean was getting closer and closer. I swear I could see the wrinkles in a particularly old Jellybean’s face as he got dangerously close before a single .45 caliber round tore into his upper chest and another into his neck, dropping him.  Unlike us, Jellybean was climbing over the bodies of the fallen with ease. As I replaced my gun’s spent bullets another got close enough to earn a shotgun shell to the head, obliterating him like an abused watermelon. Now two of us were reloading, but another Muddy Waters had us covered as she sprayed down the remaining two hostile clones. Her bullets meant nothing to the last two clones who used the bodies of their comrades as cover, but their attack had stalled. That was good enough for me. About time they wisened up.  “We got this side, how’s things over there?” I could have smiled. We were winning again. That’s what mattered the most. At least I thought we were. “G-get off! Get him off me!” Panic filled me as I turned to see Jellybean grabbing a hold of a sister’s gun, by the barrel no less, and yank it from her teeth before turning it back and slamming the stock into her head like a club. As she went down he moved to crush her like a bug, raising both forehooves to beat her to a pulp like he had me.  I didn’t know what to do, my body wasn’t listening as the panic ate away at me. I raised my weapon, but time seemed to crawl painfully slow as I watched his hooves come down. “NO!!!”  Something clicked. My ears filled with the sound of a machine whirring to life before the world went from a slow crawl to an absolute stand still. The panic went into overdrive as I watched the still form of my foe just stand there frozen like a statue. Or a cockatrice victim, same thing. It was nothing I could have imagined I could do even in the wildest circumstances, but it was true. I’d frozen time! I could do some potentially dangerous things with this, like kill the fucker hurting my clone! His name appeared in my vision, along with a number beside it. Jellybean 812 was what the magic identified him as. Percentages lined his various body parts giving me an estimate on…I wasn’t sure to be honest, but there were five of them around his body highlighting the same body parts the PipBuck used. Wait, that must be it! It’s the freakin’ PipBuck. I moved my eyes to the rest of the room and saw a sorry sight before me.  The clones were failing to keep Jellybean away with their guns dry of ammunition. One sister was highlighted by the spell now with her name appearing at the top of my vision. Muddy Waters 03. Well that was helpful, but not who I wanted in my crosshairs. The other hostile clones, now numbering at eight, were fast approaching our wavering formation. I picked the closest one who was trying to murder my new sister naturally. And naturally I picked the chest with an 80% chance to hit twice and the head once. Only a 49% chance to hit him in the face, but that didn’t stop me from trying. That expression of hatred locked into his face was the last thing I saw before I tried everything to release the spell. I focused on the PipBuck and sure enough the spell was released. When it went down my body reflexively moved to fire twice into Jellybeans chest with a swiftness to make any gunslinger proud. His chest erupted like a blossoming flower made of blood pouring from him in slow motion while his head was removed from his body from the third bullet. “You can kiss. My. ASS!” Oh Celestia I was feeling it! I could do this, WE could do this. I fired my revolver’s final three bullets into the approaching crowd with two hitting, but not killing their marks and the third burying itself into the hide of a dead body shield. Damn it all they were coping the other side and using the dead as shields. I reloaded using my speed loader and fired again and again until I could feel the heat radiating from the cylinder of my revolver. Six more shots mixed with the plethora of gunfire and only three more Jellybeans died from our combined efforts.  We were running out of fighting strength and there wasn’t much else we could muster after the final bullets were exhausted. Now our guns became improvised clubs once Jellybean realized we weren’t firing anymore. He charged one final time with numbers on his side and raw strength to tear us apart with.  Maybe I spoke too soon. Maybe we weren’t gonna win this. In fact, we were about to die down here. Surrounded and alone…it couldn’t end like this… “Ha! Ha ha, Jelly!” “Jelly…..BEEEEAN!” “Jel-jellybea…ACK!” Another blip on the compass just appeared behind the attacking clones. Only this one wasn’t red, but blue. And whoever it was just made extremely short work of a Jellybean clone as only four red blips remained on this side. I saw them with the severed head of a clone between their hooves, its face permanently marred with the expression of terror.  Whatever or whoever they were, their clothes were that of patchwork leather covering them from mane to hooves like some sort of butcher's outfit. Even their face was covered, minus the eyes which were blue. No, I was wrong. Not a butcher, a hunter. A trapper!  Before Jellybean could even react the trapper was upon the group of clones, grabbing one from behind and bending his head back so far I saw his mane reach his flanks before a terrible snap filled the air. The trapper kept going with a fluid like motion, just drifting between targets with zero hesitation. The next Jellybean turned to deliver a powerful hoofstrike, but by the time he’d turned and swung the trapper was already beneath his swing and delivering a couple of their own. It was beautiful in a horrid kind of way watching Jellybeans ribs cave in and puncture his lungs, making his gasp of pain the last air to leave his ruptured organs. The fourth Jellybean could only watch as a speeding hoof slammed into his neck, crushing his windpipe so quickly he hadn’t realized he was done for. One step, two steps and like that he was on the floor scraping at his neck in a vain attempt to get the air flowing. I was surprised the last Jellybean even tried to fight, but he did a better job than the rest. He at least got a better chance to land a hit while the trapper was distracted on the fourth one. Still didn’t matter though as his swing was not only deflected by rapid hooves, but used against him as the trapper gripped tight and swung him over their shoulder and into the floor. After that it was a quick turn of the head and the trapper snapped Jellybean’s neck like a worn out rope. “H-H-Holy shit…” a sister raised her rifle to fire at the stranger, but all that came from the gun was the click of death. An empty mag’s final gift to the wielder before the end came. Luck must have been with us despite the odds, because the blue blip never turned red. Instead the trapper moved past us so fast I barely made it out of the way before they were dancing over the corpses like stepping stones in the river and upon the Jellybean clones like a radigator on easy prey. These clones were better prepared to fight, however. The moment the trapper got close a body was chucked at the new fighter who deftly evaded it only to get a buck for their efforts. Even as they were sent sprawling, the Jellybeans never made it to their target before the trapped was back up and smashing a clone in the face so hard I saw teeth fly. The second Jellybean clone got a headbutt for his troubles, then a punch in the mouth that shattered everything from his nose to his upper jaw. “Luna be damned, look at ‘em go! Who is that?!” “Who cares?! Get your sister off the floor and carry her, we gotta move. Now…” We were just backing away at this point to give the trapper all the space they needed to brutally beat Jellybean to death. And that’s exactly what they did. The trapper moved from smashing one clone’s head against the metal wall until his skull cracked, to biting into the neck of the clone who’s nose they shattered and tearing it out with their teeth. Beneath the crimson liquid I could have sworn I saw a blue coat, a light blue coat. The blips were gone now, their owners dead. With them gone the trapper turned to us who were still conscious and glared before charging us this time. Without warning we were about to be the next victims! This was not how I wanted to die! “Hey hey hey, hold on we can talk about this!” Me scrambled like disorganized chickens and tried to avoid the newest addition to our attackers, but before I could glance to see if the blip had suddenly changed the trapper was already past us. If I had been paying attention I might have noticed the Jellybean with the smashed windpipe standing up behind us and preparing to crush me beneath rage filled hooves. Only he never got that chance. His hooves came down with equally strong hooves pushing back up against his own. I’d been knocked out of the way just for the trapper to take my place. From my new position on the floor I got the best seat to view the trappers hood and mask fall from their face. No, it was a mare with blood stained lips and a green mane. And let me tell you, those lips got a hell of a lot bloodier as she bit into the neck of the final Jellybean clone and ripped into him like a fucking feral ghoul.  Green mane, light blue coat. No. No way, it couldn’t be. I activated the PipBuck spell again to highlight the trapper, targeting her head and looking at what her name was. Maybe the device on my arm could alleviate my horror… It didn’t. In fact it only confirmed it. Vivid Grove, my mom, was tearing a stallion's throat out with her bare teeth. Let me tell you, as I released the spell without targeting anything I could have sworn I saw her not spit out the pony gore she’d bitten into, but swallow it raw.  Our eyes met. She looked at me with shock, I looked at her with uncontrollable fear. Then she spoke. “…S-Sugar. I can explain…please…don’t be scared…” BANG I don’t know who shot, but I saw who’d been hit. Mom’s eyes widened as blood poured from her shoulder, causing her to collapse where she stood. “Muddy, please forgive my lack of appearance. I’ve shut down any further attempts at Jellybeans, or anyponies, lockpicking the doors. Fortunately I arrived when I did.” Helix’s casing was hanging from the ceiling again with her horn glowing pink. At some point she’d arrived without us noticing and picked up the bolt action pistol we’d neglected to use. With telekinetic power she chambered another round. “I’m unaware of who this is, but I’ve taken care of the intruder for you.” “Helix you fucking moron! That’s…..that's our mom!” *** The next hour or so was tense. I’d even go as far to say it was more tense than the near death situation we were in prior to finding out my mom was a trapper. She’d survived, albeit barely. Fucking pistol was chambered in .308 caliber ammo. Who makes a bolt action pistol like this?! Gah, it didn't matter! What mattered was us getting mom and my sisters to the clinic on this level. Helix showed us the way through the maze of hallways and rooms to find it. From there it was a process of getting the bullet out of mom and getting a healing potion into everypony. Not sure what kind of armor mom was wearing, but it was tough leather for sure. Didn’t stop the bullet from tearing her shoulder open, but it kept her from dying at least. Helix helped too, using her magic and knowledge of…whatever it was called, to get the bullet out. I think she said biology?  “Alright girls, how are we looking? Who’s still good?” I asked the room. Two sisters looked down at purple bruises and swollen injuries. Another sister nursed her bruised face from when she got her own gun used against her. “Four of us are good to go. Some ponies got hit hard though.” “Yeah. I think I lost a tooth…” “I think my leg is cracked. It hurts to stand on it.” “Mom got fucking shot.” That was a revelation we were all still coming to terms with. Mom, the mare I thought was a plain housewife who’s special talent was cooking meals, was actually a trapper. Now I wondered if the meat she’d practiced with in the past was a creature’s or a pony’s. There wasn’t any room for doubt in my mind when I watched her bite into those clone's necks. She’d swallowed the chunks she bit out of Jelly’s cloned flesh without any hesitation or reservations. At least mom didn’t bite off more than she could chew. Okay that was bad to think about. Way too soon to be joking about this. “Alright then. Let’s focus, get ourselves together. Myselves? No, we’re focusing. Right now!” Phew, it got hot in here. Frazzled nerves and crashing adrenaline was kicking my flanks up and down. At least I wasn’t the only Muddy Water’s to feel the strain return after the fighting was done. Exhaustion and fear were in great supply unlike our ammo and food. With depleted fighting strength I highly doubt our mission can continue like it has been. Just then, my sister, or at least one of the new ones, clopped her hooves together and coughed loud enough to get our attention. Once she had our collective eyes on her, she spoke. “I think I got a plan, but we need to figure some things out. Since Jellybean was the pony responsible for keeping the Stable together, who’s gonna do that once he’s gone? I’ve been asking myself that since we started.” Another sister raised her hoof and meekly said ‘us’ but we quickly returned to a smaller stance when we all shook our heads. We were all in agreement that keeping anything beyond a knot together was well beyond us. “Why kill them all anyway? Feels like we could get away with locking some of them up to do fixing jobs and stuff.” I’ll admit, I was impressed with myself. As the room filled with the slow agreements of my sisters, I looked to the one I was closest to and scanned for any sort of reaction or hint of what she was thinking. When her eyes turned to meet mine, she smiled and huffed at me. “Don’t get a big head because we can come up with good ideas from time to time. There’s only about fifty or so left. What’s stopping us from locking them in the important areas and making them fix things when we need it?” “Would you like me to identify all the probable outcomes to this and why it won’t work?” Oh yeah, Helix was still hanging from the ceiling as per usual. I swear she must have some kind of little train tracks in the vents given how she follows us. Not that it was a bad thing, I appreciate her helping mom. “You’re going to tell us anyway so go ahead. Don’t let us stop you…” “I thought it sounded like a great plan. Why should we have to take care of the Stable when he’s been doing it over and over again for centuries?” There was this hint of frustration from the static that bubbled from her speakers. Maybe it was the twitching of her brain inside the glass dome, but I swear I could see the gears turning in her head as she tried to formulate her various responses. Now I wondered if she did this when she was still a pony. “Do NOT be fooled by his clear disabilities and cognitive decay. Jellybean is a clever creature. When he first emerged from the tubes in his current state I did all I could to prevent him from escaping. When he managed to hack his way through and threaten the populace I did my best to prevent his return to the labs and keep him contained in maintenance. I’m sure you noticed the stairs lead straight into the labs despite this being a secure area, yes?” We nodded, completely engrossed in her story. “He took the arc welders and cut away the bulkhead of the Stable! There’s supposed to be walls blocking the stairwell from the rest of the Stable, but that clearly isn’t the case! I’ve tried everything and every time that clever clone finds a way around me. So unless you can achieve what I could not, I suggest another strategy.” She was telling the truth about that, for sure. Those clones were unlocking doors and swarming us by the end. Had mom not followed us down here and intervened, we wouldn’t have survived that. However, there were plenty of them still remaining and hadn’t yet escaped Helix’s lockdown. This plan could work, but we’d need time to think of every possible way to contain the rampant Jellybean clones. “What about food? I’m getting kinda hungry…” “We can’t even feed ourselves. How are we gonna feed the beans?” A laugh from behind drew our attention. At first I thought it was Helix laughing at us, but when I turned I saw mom trying to contain herself while laying on the bed we’d placed her in. “I think I may be of help here.” “MOM!” The seven of us rushed to her side and surrounded her in hugs. I didn’t know if she’d make it, but thank Celestia she had. “Mom, what are you doing here? How did you find this place?” She just scoffed and patted my head. “Did you really think me and your father would allow you to wander into danger? I may have helped out indirectly, but I would never allow my baby to go into such a dangerous place alone. So I put some old tricks to use and tracked you here.” Now it was her turn to ask questions. As she looked at my new sisters I could tell what she was going to ask about. “So, Muddy…when were you going to tell me you were playing with dangerous technology and…making new siblings? I hope you realize just how badly grounded you all are.” “When were you going to tell your family you’re a trapper! Does dad know?!” I practically shouted, barely able to contain myself. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling, but it bordered on anger and sadness.  For Vivid Grove’s usually sunny demeanor, her eyes fell as she spoke. “He does. We first met when I tried to kill him and his friends. Wasn’t the best day of my life. I wanted to hide that from you all, Rough, Clear, yourself. Selves…that’s why I planned to never speak of it.” “W-what…” “That’s not the story you told us as fillies!” “Yeah! You said you met dad after he saved you from falling over the guard rails in the market.” “Everypony calm yourselves. This is no time for division in the ranks.” Helix was quick to step in before the Muddy clones got antsy. Her eye turned to the mare at the center of all the attention and huffed in her electronic voice. “I for one am very very impressed with how you handled yourself madame…” Mom answered the hanging question. “Vivid. Vivid Grove.” “Yes, Vivid. Are you perhaps a surgeon of some form? The way you smashed the third and fourth ribs was nothing short of surgical precision. Your destruction of the jugular tissue and crushing of wind pipes was also very inspiring. I was awestruck at how well you know pony anatomy to the point you could use such precise strikes to cause the most damage. Even the headbutt was masterful. You took almost no injury and dealt a hefty blow to the Jellybean clone.” For all that said, mom took it surprisingly well. A faint blush formed around her cheeks as she shied away slightly. “M-my my, I’ve never been complimented on how well I fight before. No…no I’m no doctor. We were taught at a young age to take down beasts and ponies. It’s hard living when you’re the smallest predator on the food chain, but we hold our own…I’ve also seen the insides of both enough to know where to hit the hardest. Special trapper technique I learned as a filly to pop another pony's lungs.” Well fuck me, mom really was a trapper to her core. That meant I was the daughter of a trapper, a pony who could smash ribs and eat ponies throats like a radigator. It would have been cool to know if it wasn’t so shockingly terrible. So I had to ask the obvious. After all, Wayward ponies enjoy straightforwardness. “Um, mom? Did you ever eat another pony?” Nervous anticipation filled my voice as I asked. She smiled, rubbed my cheek and sighed. A mother who wanted the best for her children is all I saw as I searched her eyes for some kind of answer. “No. I haven’t eaten any ponies….” Luna be praised! Sweet relief. “The things I ate threw away what made them ponies a long time ago. Slavers, raiders, mutants. Those aren’t ponies. Those are monsters no different from the beasts we trap and hunt. And we don’t let any meat go to waste~.” …oh. Well shit. I’m the daughter of a pony eater after all. *** Level up: Level 4 Perk added: Adrenaline- feel the rush! You gain +6% damage increase for each kill up to a maximum of 36% for 30 seconds. Timer refreshes with each kill.