We open to a rather, deep philosophical mussing on the meaning of memory, and the ability to alter it, to add others memories to your own, wondering if the orbs had anything more then just data, simply nothing more then reading a book would do, if very detailed, and just what it would mean to be able to hear other's thoughts, relive their memories, not just as a passive viewer, but able to hear their thoughts, know how it effected them, and, okay this is weird since, it ties into what happens at the end of the chapter, yet, has no real place IN the chapter, just, random musings from Li'lpip. Though it never breaks the narrative, since the whole thing IS Li'lpip talking, this is where she just decided to go off on a tangent. Just, feel weird since it's one of the few times she just stops the story to talk about something unrelated to what was going on right there and then.
And the proper story resumes with hellhounds swarming at the building from everywhere, though none come out of the hospital. Calamity opens up the only sealed crate, and picks up a bundle of clouds in his teeth, nearly causing the left side of Li'lpip's brain to have an aneurysm at the sight.
Though it's quickly to business as hellhounds climb over the roof, the group taking them out as best they can while Calamity unfurls the cloud bundle and it forms a bridge between the tower and the roof of the hospital, though before they could escape over it Velvet gets aught by a claw, one of her forelegs getting amputated, muttering "I can fix this" before passing out. Xenith shatters a potion, using it to seal the wound before she can bleed to death, as Calamity throws Li'lpip onto his back, telling her to levitate the rest of them as he walks across the cloud bridge.
Once on the roof, much to Li'lpip's distaste they are forced to split up, the wounded Velvet staying with Calamity as he works to fix the flying machine (Note, it wasn't till a flash back later that I realized, despite all the blatant hints, it was the same type of machine Pinkie was using in Griffon the Brushoff) While Li'lpip and Xenith raid the place for medical supplies. And to further add issues, Calamity had left his helmet on the tower, and couldn't fire the built in weapon on his armor without it, so was down to only Spitfire's Thunder, and that was running out of ammo. Li'lpip's one hope was the fact that no hellhounds had come out of the building, and one had even seemed to be trying to avoid it, which, she should be Genre Savvy enough by now to know, that ain't a good sign.
And sure enough, the instant she goes down her EFS starts lighting up with hostiles, though she figures they might just be bloatsprites or radroaches....suuuuuurrrreeeeee.....and they happen to stumble on an active radio, JUST in time to hear Homage extolling the virtues of The Stable Dweller and telling about the fight for Stable 2, how so many came to her aid in her time of need, holding it up as an example of the good she was doing, and, well it IS, THAT is the real reason Li'lpip is so important to the Wastes, not just because of what she does, but because of what she inspires, by showing the ponies there IS something better, there IS a better way, there is...hope. She then goes on to talk about the schism in the Steel Rangers, urging any Wastelander to aid the Outcasts any way they can, even if only with a word of thanks. And we get word of them doing, what the Steel Rangers were CREATED to do, what they should have been doing for the last two centuries, protecting ponies, helping those in need, crushing not innocent who get in their way, but raiders, bandits, thieves. Protecting the innocent.
This gives Li'lpip a small pause, as she wonders just what would happen to the pegasi once they learned the truth, how they could schism and turn on each other. Though her wonder is interrupted by a very heartfelt letter to her from DJ's assistant, and even then she slips a little teasing in, making her squeak and blush. After recovering they make with the looting, Finding a good cache of supplies, but only minor things, none of the real supplies they need. while raiding a locked cabinet marked "CONFISCATED" she finds a large amount of drugs, as well as a few other odd items, and toss them all into her bag, only afterwards noticing there was a tin of Mint-als in the mix, and fighting with herself to toss them away, coming up with perfectly legitimate reasons to keep them, but realizing it was just part of her WANTING to keep them. Finally just leaving them in due to taking far to long thinking about it, and something approaching on her EFS.
And then is frozen in shock as she see, what is by far the most disgusting, vile and just plain sickening creature in the Wastes, a ponified version of Fallout's centaurs. And like I said, these are far and away the creepiest and most EWWWW things in the story. And, Kkat has manged to to make them even CREEPIER then the Fallout version. Giving them a paralyzing gaze, and just, well, Li'lpip just barely escapes her story possibly turning into tentacle hentai and getting something much worse then a Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong.
They make it to the pharmacy, Pip letting Xenith choose what is worth taking, having to take out another creature as they leave. Getting the hang of killing them quickly, as long as they avoided their gaze they were safe. As they move on, they hear a robot moving around tending to the long dead patients, and, well it's nice to have a little comedy in this place, since it is THE creepiest and most just plain viscerally revolting part of the story, even if it is rather dark comedy like
“Misses Tulip, I’m afraid you’ve come down with a serious case of death. I’m afraid this is beyond my meager skills, but I do recommend plenty of bed rest and I will alert the next available doctor to your condition.”
But they manage to find the supplies they were searching for as well as some parts that Li'lpip would be able to use to reprogram the malfunctioning medical robot and make it work even better then before. So she promptly hacks it, turning it off so they could get it to the roof safely. Stopping as she sees an active terminal, unlocking a door to a room where the ponies had been studying and dissecting one of the horrors, this one, unmistakably a mutated pony, and she finds a recording explaining what created them. And also, the secret behind what Taint is. Impelled Metamorphosis Potion, the FOE version of the Forced Evolutionary Virus. The potion that Twilight had created to turn ordinary ponies, into alicorns. The "Magical byproducts" that had been stored under Maripony and everypony know were the cause of taint, were in fact rejected or sub-par batches of IMP, and while trying to move some of the barrels, one of the ponies became saturated in it, turning into the first of the creatures.
And while this revelation does seem to cast Twi in a very bad light, Li'lpip instantly sees the truth, and the other factors. She had taken every precaution she thought was needed to contain it, and as soon as those were proved inadequate by that accident, created a spell that would thoroughly and totally purge it. And IMP WAS a success, as Twilight said in the recording of the first test, the only variable was dosage, the pony that was turned into the monster was dosed with an entire barrel of it, versus the single flask intended.
Li'lpip takes one last look at the chamber, putting several things together and seeing where the rest of the horrors came from and it it is purest Body Horror, so, yeah read it yourself, not even coming close to talking about it. Again, creepiest and most disturbing part in the entire story.
They get back to the roof, the hellhounds surrounding the building though not entering for obvious reasons, yelling at the ponies to surrender. Finally just collapsing the whole building from underneath as the group boards the flying machine and takes off.
They make it back to Maripony, the alicorns ignoring them as they guard against other hellhound attacks, and they get to work on their injuries, between the robot she had found and got working, and Xenith's brews they manage to get Velvet's leg reattached, and mend Calamity's wing. Though Li'lpip feels a pang of regret that the needed brew from Xenith would augment her, knowing it made sense, but saddened at making Velvet a little less the pony she was before
(okay I can see where she's coming from, but, eh not something I see any issues with, but its standard enough she could, though the whole Ghost concept would be in play to my mind.)
And now that they are safe, she peaks into another memory orb that she had found in the hospital
This one is Rarity (okay a lot of the orbs I can see how they got where they did, but this one? How the hell!?) And we see her comforting a crying Fluttershy (okay this is just to weird, I have my pony music playing as I do this, and during the uber creepy hospital part it played Rainbow Factory, and now it's playing Fluttershys (the Butterflies parody)) This is during another orb from earlier, the one of AB telling Sweetie about AJ's 'accident' and Fluttershy was confessing that she had given megaspell tech to the Zebra's. Her reasoning was that given the Zebra's healing potions, they could make their troops basically invulnerable in battle, while with her already developed healing megaspell, and by amping up Twi's shield spell with the megaspell matrix, the ponies could likewise become unable to be harmed, resulting in neither side able to hurt the other. And, for all the "Fluttershy killed us all" "She's a traitor who gave megaspells to the Zebras" Stuff, this was, pure in character for her, wanting to spare anyone pain and hurt, wanting to end the war and stop the death, she can't be blamed for how others perverted her gifts, even if she should have seen it, but again this is Fluttershy, something like that, she would never even consider possible.
It ends with Rarity running to the bathroom to break down, taking out a picture of the Mane 6 and Spike, regretting how they are being torn apart from each other, and calling her office, telling them that she WOULD be going forward with that 'special project' and knowing now what that is, oh sweet goddesses, Element of Generosity indeed.
And while flying back, they exchange a little banter, some playful teasing each other, when a chance remark makes Li'lpip realize something, that, is painfully obvious once you know it, but, even i missed the first time through, and it doesn't tell you the revelation yet either, simply jumping to the next scene.
They stop for the night, a trader happening across the group, giving us a sign that Li'lpip is already having a positive impact on the world, as trade routes are already being forged between Shattered Hoof and the rest of the Wastes, starting to bring back civilization and connecting the scattered refuges of ponykind. And Calamity take the chance to bring out his stock of junk to trade, amazing everyone with how much he had gathered, without them even seeing him doing it. So many great bits here, from Li'lpip's amazement at the fact they now had ammo and weapons that were to weak and useless to them to do anything but sell, to the Xenith and the other ponies reaction to Calamity's hoard.
This giving Li'lpip an idea, saying they needed to stop by and talk to Gawd before heading to Manehatten...and then Li'lpip goes and lampshades the very gripe I just made.
For the life of me, I couldn’t imagine how or why the Leaf Fall Lane spa memory had ended up locked in that cabinet. Most of the time, the locations of the memory orbs I found struck me as completely logical. This one did not.
They make their way to Shattered Hoof, and just as Li'lpip greets one of the Gryphons, we jump to her waking up in the clinic in Tenpony, Velvet yelling at her, and we find out she had taken another PTM, though claiming she needed it for the plan, and that she had only had one, and sought treatment immediately. Velvet still furious, demanding to see her inventory, and telling her she'd be checking on them, then asking the Doctor of the next procedure would hurt, being told if it did, she wouldn't remember any pain. ending on this rather ominous line.
As we walked away, I heard Velvet Remedy moan, “You’re going to destroy yourself trying to save the entire wasteland, Littlepip...”
Which again, shows exactly what her true virtue is.
And next she ends up in an odd room, with no idea how she got there. And we find out why the last few scenes had been so jumpy, they were all she remembered. She starts to panic before a familiar pony comes in to talk to her, followed by Homage who explain what had happened. She had had all other memories during that time removed and placed into orbs. Though without telling anypony why. Also mentioning that she had been purified of Taint, and that while some small mutation may have taken place, nothing major or that she would even notice.
A note in the box of orbs telling her that orb one was a table of contents, telling her what was in the other orbs, but that only 4, 6, and 8 were worth watching, the rest just boring hours of travel, and telling herself not to watch any of them until she had taken the Black Book to Maripony.
And, Li'lpip being Li'lpip, she can't resist looking into the orbs early, peeking into number 1 and it's of her, of course, talking to herself in a mirror. First saying that if the pony viewing this ISN'T her, to stop after this one and return the box to DJ-PON-3, and starts talking, then immediately, stopping and, well this is just to hilarious and one of my favorite parts in the story, she starts berating herself for looking into the orbs early, knowing that she would do so..
“Dammit, Littlepip!” I said, stomping. “I’m watching this before I told me to, aren’t I?”
Seriously, that is just, so so, perfectly HER and so hilarious. At least to me. Followed by an epic Li'lpip obscenity about her own lack of self control. Then apologizing on the very very tiny chance she was watching this when she was supposed to. Then explaining that she had come up with a plan to kill The Goddess, and had told everyone involved their part, and ONLY their part before purging all memory of it from herself, so The Goddess couldn't find out about it. Then telling her the basic details about why 4 6 and 8 were important, Four was her talking to Blackwing to set up one part, six was her talking to Redeye, and explaining she took a PTM to be sure she could convince him of her plan, and eight, was her being 'greeted' by Homage on her return.
Oh the running gag that Orb Number 8 becomes. Again, I like it.
Thoughts- Well this is where the story gets so so SO page grippingly interesting. I've only see one person actually complain about the Memory Gambit here, and that was just because they hate that trope in general. It, was excellent. And I know out of verse, it was mostly for suspense, while giving an in verse reason not to tell us. And, Well, it works. This has to be one of the best Memory Gambit's I've seen, or at least the most believable.
The hospital was like I said so so so creepy and disturbing, the signs that the Wastes ARE improving slowly thanks to her actions, setting up the epic gambit, and the utter CMOF that is Li'lpip berating herself for something she knew she would do despite knowing she shouldn't.
I'd say this was the point that hooked me and made me read nonstop but honestly I was as hooked as I could get by this point. But definitely my favorite chapter in a while.
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