//------------------------------// // Chapter 14: I'll Be Mother // Story: Fallout Equestria: Deductions in New Pegas! // by Hugo Reed //------------------------------// Mom! I need you and dad and the sisters to come in. Quick! Chapter 14: I’ll Be Mother “Myclop and father are still in the stable. I left due to… extenuating circumstances.” Mother eyed me carefully. “What kind of circumstances?” she asked. There was a genetic component to our intellect after all. “Myclop was… Your daughter is a psychopath… No… that’s not fair. She had an idea to prepare the stable for this place, so maybe they could build a city.” “I see, but there’s so much fighting up here… all the time. Surely, they’d be safer in the stable?” “They would be but before another generation or two, inbreeding was going to take over and we wouldn’t be able to have any more foals.” “Ah, I see. I take it you objected to Myclop’s plan then?” “I might’ve, if I’d known anything about it. I was looking into another issue. A young pony, Redbook, had vanished and taken off his pipbuck, so I couldn’t track him with mine. I followed him and found a secret room Myclop had been building a small robot army in. If I faced them now they’d be pushovers.” “But you weren’t used to fighting.” “None of us were. As I say, the plan wasn’t a bad one, not truly. However, Redbook didn’t have any help for an hour or so before I found him and I couldn’t save him… He died while I tried to get him out of that place.” “And that’s when you and Myclop faught… I see, well I never wanted you or your sister to have to see me like this…” I stared at her, and found the response was automatic. “You’re beautiful, mom.” She smiled at me, the knowing look in her eyes. “Such a good boy Sherclop. If that solider over there is any indication, I can see you do alright in friends.” “That’s John,” I said. “He’s probably my only friend, but he’s a good one. He’s hearty, strong, and a fair bit more settled emotionally than I am. He saved my life.” “Well then,” she said, as John came trotting over to us. “It appears I am in your debt for saving my son’s life, captain.” “Ex-captain,” John said, his ever-present smile intact. I looked at them, their happiness… and it infected me. We spent hours just talking, so long that I’d almost forgotten what had brought us here in the first place… almost. “Now that you’re here, Sherclop,” said Jason, apparently having waited long enough. “Will you help us complete our great journey?” “Mom? What’s the great journey?” My mother whispered in my ear, so that I could hear without Jason listening in. “It’s something Jason came up with. He believes we can ascend to some type of holy land using the missiles here. Honestly, I’m not all that keen on it, but traveling with a pack of my own kind was a better idea than moving on my own.” I nodded. “I owe you for keeping my mother safe,” I said. “So yes, I’ll help you.” Jason smiled brightly at my words. “Once again, Princess Celestia sends us a pony to assist us in our great travels! Is she not merciful?” “Not particularly,” I hissed under my breath, and turned to Jason directly. “Speaking of ponies. What’s the deal with Chester? Does he think he’s a ghoul pony?” “Oh yes. It is most unfortunate that he is stuck in such a delusion. I would not wish it upon him, but it is Celestia’s desire.” I shook my head. I may not believe in the goddesses, but everything I knew about the princess suggested that she would never have wanted anypony duped or deluded into helping any cause. However, I knew I wasn’t going to convince anypony here of what I knew was right. “Alright, what do you need me to do?” “Those beings who attacked you on your way in, they’re hauled up in the basement. I have to ask you to clear them out. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t vital for our journey.” “Starting to feel more like a clean-up pony than a detective,” I said, sighing. “Oh well. John, you good to head out?” My friend trotted over, nodded eagerly. I couldn’t help but smile at his simple approach to life. It was as if he needed to analyze nothing. He just chose to take everything in stride and let his heart make judgments. I envied that. After all, his heart told him to trust my lead, and he did… I couldn’t ever just follow somepony without question. I had to think, to question, to analyze. It was who I was. To my shock, my mother insisted on joining us. I opened my muzzle to protest. “Don’t you even start,” she warned me. “I’ve been away from my boy for years… for a lot of years. I’m not getting away from you unless I have no other choice.” “But I… Alright, but if I tell you to hide, you hide. If I tell you run, you run. Ok?” She eyed me for a while and John finally chimed in. “Sherclop and I are both good fighters and he’s quick on his hooves, but we’re not good enough to have to keep an eye on somepony as well. If he says to hide, it’s for your safety as much as his.” Mother nodded and I breathed a sigh of relief. We opened the entrance door back up, and I immediately checked EFS. It was blank. Whatever had struck me before wasn’t here anymore. We carefully moved down the staircase and into the basement and I felt an odd sensation of familiarity wash over me. For all the dark, small and linear hallways this was the first time I’d felt like I could’ve been in Stable 221 again… or at least in its catwalks. We rounded the nearest corner and I saw it opened into a large room. Behind the desk, my attention was immediately drawn to a huge hulking creature who sat behind the desk. Its body was black, outlined by my night vision spell. It’s eyes were green and sunken. I expected it would charge me the second we entered, but instead it didn’t. “Hello there, pony.” Its voice was rougher than I expected, and suddenly my brain terminal flashed up a name for these creatures. The book I’d read about Canterlot hadn’t covered them in any great detail, but I was pretty sure about what these things were, and why the ghouls had been having so much trouble with them. “Hello, changeling,” I said. “My name is Sherclop Pones.” “We know who you are. Our queen has told us you would be coming here for months now.” “Your queen was… Chrysalis, yes? I’ve met some of her legion that reside around these parts.” “Ah yes, the ponies that are true to our cause. I take it you are not among their ranks?” “I am not,” I said. Honestly, I was a bit scared. After all, I was talking to something that was much larger, faster and stronger than I was, but I was determined not to show it my fear. “What to do with it, hm… Antler! What does I do with it?” The changeling ranted to himself for a short bit, and I felt very uneasy. Mother leaned over and whispered to me. “He’s talking to that skull?” I looked and sure enough, there was a skull sitting on a stack of books. Whatever poor creature had died years ago certainly wasn’t speaking to us. “Antler is wise!” said the changeling. “Antler says you can help us!” “You’re taking instructions from a skull!” I said, in spite of myself. The changeling roared horribly. “Careful pony! We shall not warn you again!” “Oh, I see,” I said. “So then you really care about… Antler?” John hissed at me. “Maybe we don’t piss off this guy!” he said, but I wasn’t listening. “Antler leads us! Stupid pony!” Stupid pony… Yeah, that did it. “I see,” I said, taking out my pistol. “So if were to… Oh I don’t know… do this…” I shot Antler… and for a long time afterwards, I would regret doing that. The changeling gave out an awful war-call and charged. I got two shots off before he reached me. Both hit, but didn’t even faze him. However, now he was in hoof-to-hoof range and nopony can beat me like that. Smack! He broke my guard so hard I felt bones break. I was forced to remind myself this was no pony! I found the ground again when my body hit it and a skid several feet. I found which leg he’d broken and stumbled to my feet. John and mother alike were taking potshots at this beast of a battle, but it was as if they didn’t affect him at all. “Take this!” I shouted, pulling out a shotgun and taking aim. Right as I hit S.A.T.S. he turned invisible. Again, my pipbuck registered him, and again it showed a 0% chance to hit. Despite being in the adrenaline induced state that S.A.T.S. implements, I could hear his voice, or his thoughts, as he spoke to me. “Your puny toys and tricks don’t work here pony!” I snarled and canceled the spell, manually shooting the gun. Blam! I missed… badly. I’d forgotten to hold my breath and take proper aim and merely fired out of panic. Stupid, I berated myself. Stupid, stupid pony! I took proper aim and held my breath, taking aim and firing again. Blam! This time, my blow hit, and his head was sent sprawling in several different directions. I breathed a loud sigh of relief before resting on my hunches to give my broken leg a rest. “Sherclop!” shouted mother, running towards me with her horn glowing. I took the moment to note how calming the green glow of her horn was. She cast what must’ve been a healing spell on me and my leg mended itself. A pleasant calm washed through my mind and I shook myself to try and clear it as I straightened myself. I’d just discovered something important… but I couldn’t remember what it was… Why was that? I couldn’t remember…. It was very important. Something to do with fighting the changelings… “My head’s gone all fuzzy…” I said blankly. “It’s an effects of changeling blood,” mother explained. “It dulls the thought process.” “Yeah… wait… no… I never read that in my… books…” “It’s one of the effects of the megaspells. They tainted everything up here… Are you ok?” I shook myself slightly. That didn’t seem quite right to me, but very little did right now. They didn’t used to be able to go invisible either. But this… this was… what was what now? “We have to move!” John said, looking around. “It’s dark here and no doubt the rest of those things heard that scuffle.” Oh yeah… there were more out there… why hadn’t I thought of that? And why did John think it was dark? It wasn’t dark… Green maybe, but not dark… Oh right, I have night vision… My brain was really fuzzy. I decided to take a Mint-al and that helped clear my head some, but not completely. Right as I finished swallowing the little tablet, another creature slithered in through the doorway. I took aim with the shotgun, but found I was staring at John… wait, no another John. Two Johns? Good. I had two good teammates now… Wait, no that wasn’t possible. Clearly the mint-als weren’t helping much. “But I don’t…” I started. Bang bang! The first John who had come in the room with us blasted the second one’s brain to smithereens. I shook myself, confused. “They’re changelings, remember? They can change shape to look like one of us.” “But how can we tell who’s who?” I asked slowly. John pondered this for a long moment, then took out a small knife and nicked himself, mother, and I across the face. It was a shallow cut, but enough that I could see the fresh blood. “Fight any of them that look like yourself and use your pipbuck’s EFS. Other than that just rely on those cuts to tell us apart.” “Oh yeah,” I said, realizing something I should’ve remembered ages ago. “John I got… Give me your hoof for a moment.” I took Redbook’s old pipbuck out of my saddlebags and placed it carefully around his forehoof. John blinked in surprise. “Where did you get this? Woah! That’s… insane.” “What?!” I asked, spinning around searching for a new foe. “No, it’s the interface… It’s different… Is this what you see all the time? “Yeah,” I responded. “It takes a little getting used to, but right now… the EPS… EFS will help you out… Just don’t use the S.H.I.T.S. Wait… I mean S.A.T.S.” “What’s that?” “It stands for… something acquired… It’s an aiming spell. Makes it seem like time stops for you and aims for you. You aim better than it, but the sorting and tracking will be good for you. It’s really scary at first. I can teach you to use it when we… aren’t… When we’re out.” “Sherclop?” asked mother, “Maybe you should rest for a bit.” “Watch out!” shouted John and I heard both Cloudchaser and Flitter go off.