Fallout Equestria: Hell

Bright white light flashed into my vision as I opened my eyes. I was used to this by now, but it was still annoying. Life in a stable was less than monotonous, it was downright deathly, but it was safe. Grudgingly I flopped out of bed and headed to the bathroom to clean myself. After a quick shower, I was feeling fresh and clean. I looked into the mirror and patted down my mane. One of the many rules for Stable 46, was that every pony must appear presentable and in a professional manner at all times. I don’t know why this was a rule, I thought that most ponies would look better if they weren’t so worried about how good they looked, but it was our overmare’s decision in the end, and she wanted us to be all finicky with our appearance.

I headed to the cafeteria for a quick breakfast of off-yellow dandelion sandwiches and the worst tasting milk in the universe. Every stable had some form of a farm in it. It could range from an apple orchard to a full blown livestock farm, the idea of this was to have a sustainable future for all ponykind, although most stables just ended up eating what was on their farm. And we were no exception.

I cleaned up after breakfast, putting plate and cutlery back in their drawers, and headed down to the recreation hall for my weekly swimming lesson, as per my norm. What was not normal, was the body I found in the water. My swimming instructor, Mr Waves, had been bashed over the head and dumped in the pool, probably left to rot. In ran to the security wing as fast as my legs could take me. Busting through the door, I shouted at the head officer.
“SOMEPONY’S BEEN MURDERED!”

This heralded an immediate reaction from all ponies present in the room. Some panicked, some screamed, some just stared in shock. But the one pony who did anything different from the rest of the ponies, was the chief security officer, Blazing Guns. He calmly got up from his desk, looked me in the eye, and asked me to take him to the scene of the crime. Not wanting to piss off such a huge pony, I complied immediately; running straight through the stable and into the recreation hall.

Almost too calmly, Blazing looked around the massive hall, taking in every piece of his surroundings that he could before getting a pole to retrieve the body from the water.
“Appledrop, come over here for a second,” he said sternly. I walked over next to him and looked where he was pointing; to the blood already on the large rod.
“I think I found the murder weapon…”

We cut off the end of the pole with the blood on it and shipped it off to the security wing. After fetching a new pole and getting the body out of the water, we closer inspected the point of impact.

“Looks like a blunt force trauma, so the pole was definitely used. What I don’t get is why anypony would want to whack him over the head with it. Appledrop, do you know why anyone would want to do this?”

“I have no idea” I replied, “but I think we should check the camera footage, they should give us a good look at who did done do’d it!”

“Good thinking Appledrop, but first let’s take a look around and see if we can find any other evidence.”

We looked for a solid three hours, and not a single other piece of evidence was found.
I wanted to see the camera footage badly, but unfortunately the security wing’s video room was strictly off limits to all except security staff. After about half an hour, Blazing Guns came out of the room with a stern look on his face.

“Appledrop, come with me.”

This could not be good. I followed him into one of the stable’s interview rooms, usually used for job prospecting, now used as an interrogation chamber. Blazing Guns sat down at the table across from me, and motioned for me to sit down.

“Appledrop, what do you remember of last night?” he asked. I had to wonder why he would ask this, but I also had to answer, and right now, answering was more important.

“Well, I had a dinner of black bean rolls and apple juice, then I went back to my dorm, brushed my teeth and went to bed. Why?”

“Right now Appledrop, you are our prime suspect. The video showed you and Mr Waves together in the recreation hall together, and only you came out. Are you absolutely sure you went straight to your dorm after dinner?”

This was a shocking revelation to me. As far as I knew I had gone straight to bed. Unless…no, that couldn’t be it--could it?

“I…I’m sure I did. I know I went straight home, how could I not remember what I did last night?”
“Well, unless you can prove it wasn’t you, I’m afraid we’re going to have to arrest you until further notice.”

This was bad, this was very bad. Not only was it my 6th birthday, but I was under arrest for murdering possibly my favourite pony in the whole stable! I had a gut feeling that this was going to be the worst birthday ever.

3 days after I was taken into custody for the murder of Mr Waves, I finally decided to speak up about my secret hobby.

“Um, Blazing Guns?” I asked timidly, “I have something to tell you…”

“What is it Appledrop?”

I could tell Blazing was irritated, possibly even angry with me for the apparent murder, but I had to speak up.

“I have a confession…I like the arcane arts. I even have a secret little space to practise, I think..I think it may have something to do with why I can’t remember what happened”

“Really? Where is this place? Take me there. Now.”

I led Blazing through hallways and corridors, passages and paths, until eventually we came across a rocky outcrop of the stable, a room which was not finished, but was now full of books about the arcane sciences, dark magics and even a miniature megaspell chamber in the centre.
“What is this place?” Blazing asked, looking at me with a questioning yet still stern and angry look.

“This is my secret place, my lab. This is where I come when I have free time, to study the arcane arts…”

“No, what is this!?” He said, this time motioning towards my own private megaspell chamber. I knew it was a bad idea to have one, but I didn’t know just how bad an idea it was.

“It’s my…um…megaspell chamber?” I said, practically shaking in my boots, if I had boots.

“Your WHAT!? Do you have any idea what these things are capable of!? Do you know why we’re down here instead of up on the surface, surrounded by fields of green grass and apple orchards? It’s because of these!”

“It’s not a bad megaspell! It’s a good one! It’s supposed to help ponies! It’s designed to make ponies stronger and smarter!”

“Okay, so what could this have to do with the murder of Mr Waves? Are there any side effects? Repercussions? Why would this make such a huge difference in who’s guilty?”

“There is one side effect, the book said it could give the pony it was used on a different personality, but there was such a small chance I didn’t think it would be such a huge deal! I must’ve gotten another personality! A different me! I think that me is the one who killed Mr Waves, not me!”

“Appledrop, if that is the case, I’m afraid we’re going to have to involve the overmare. Having a megaspell chamber is a serious offense in itself, let alone using it. And on yourself? What were you thinking? It could’ve backfired! And it did!”

By now I was adamant that there must’ve been some other pony in the rec hall with us, but I couldn’t see the security footage, and even if I could I wouldn’t know what to make of it. It looked like I was the guilty one, but I was seriously hoping that I wasn’t.