And Li'lpip now has a place to call her home. In exchange for giving up her rights to the vault as payment for killing Deadeyes, a reward she never sought, and upon learning what it was, didn't want anyway, Gawd will give her her old outpost as Li'lpip's own, while she moves into the prison and begins fortifying it. Giving her personal promise that no ponies would loot it or mess with it while Li'lpip and crew were gone, and if not wanting to piss off the new boss isn't enough reason, she points out most of the ponies are grateful to her for what she did, taking out the raiders, giving them a chance to be normal ponies and make a real community, AND the few that aren't happy about it, aren't exactly going to be eager to piss off a pony that just killed a freaking dragon. And she eagerly accepts the deal, walking around, planning what need to be done, how they could fix it up.
Talking thing over with Gawd, we learn she plans to reform the ponies of Shattered Hoof, wipe out any past things they may have done raiding for Deadeyes and give them all a new chance, no more raiding, no more banditry, no more killing innocent ponies. Past sins will be forgiven, but any new raiding will not be tolerated. using the gemstone stockpile of Mister Topaz to start opening up trade, as well as some plans involving the memory orbs in the vault she refuses to share with Li'lpip.
While walking around the compound she overhears DJ-Pon3 on the radio, letting the Wastelands know that The Stable Dweller is in fact alive, and giving out the details on what happened with Silver Bell, while Li'lpip starts to get embarrassed and a bit upset that no mention as made of Velvet or Calamity, though neither seemed to mind. And while considering the two of them, she realizes that none of them are ready to settle down. Yes having a place to call their own, to come back to, means a lot to all of them, and they could use the rest. But once they'd recovered from their latest ordeals they would all want to be moving on. Though glad they had somewhere to return to.
And within a week they are ready to head out, though Velvet delays, toying with the memory orb they found in Ditzy's crashed delivery wagon back in the Cloudsdale wreckage, wanting to view it, but scared of what it might contain, till finally she asks Li'lpip to view it first, which she agrees to.
And we get out first trip into a memory orb, something that will become standard fair quickly, and after a bit of internal dialog as Li'lpip tries to describe the feeling, being inside another ponies head, seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, having all the senses they do, but no control, only able to observe, we get to the actual recording and it's of Fluttershy addressing a large audience, all giving her their full and undivided attention, despite her, well acting like Flutterhsy, barely speaking above a whisper, and just plain being her nervous self. as Li'lpip puts it
The ponies in the crowd didn’t listen out of obedience, much less fear, of the mare on the stage. No, in fact, this wasn’t even respect that I was seeing. This was love.
Which, it's Fluttershy, of course that's the only way she could run a Ministry. She is announcing a new project, though being very vague about what it is, only saying it was important and that it was something that would help end the war, get both sides back to the negotiating table and settle things peacefully.
Okay, I'm going to avoid spoilers as best I can but, well, this is pure Midnight On The Firing Line material. Our very first memory orb, seems to be a quaint, innocuous little speech, just something minor, a taste of how they work before building up to the major things, and yet, we'll come to learn how the entire fate of Equestria was altered by that one event.
Coming out of the orb she passes it to Velvet, telling her there is nothing in it to worry about. Oh if only she knew...
They head out, Li'lpip wanting to follow through on an idea she had had while talking to Deadeyes, which was used just to bullshit him, but she actually liked the plan once she thought about it. Get Velvet to DJ-PON-3 so she can record new songs for the ponies of the Wastes to enjoy. While traveling they come across a traveling sales-pony, camping out in a ruined building her Pipbuck labels "Trixie's Cottage"
Well haggling with the merchant over their trade, we find out that Velvet seems to be putting a lot of ranks in her barter skill, effortlessly wrapping the trader around her hoof and getting everything they wanted for a good bargain. And while that was going on, Li'lpip was working on a recording device she found in the wreckage, trying to get it to work, part of her instantly trying to talk her into taking a PTM to help out, but she does her best to ignore it, eventually getting the recording to play. It was from Trixie, letting a friend know she was going into Manehatten to discuss an offer made to her by Twilight about a position in the Ministry of Magic. Confirming what everyone already knew, Twi was the Mare of the MAS
The trader gives them a few warnings about manticores and ghosts in the ruins of the city as they head off. As they trek through the suburbs of Manehatten, the going's fairly easy, a few decent caches of loot still hiding in the rubble, and no fighting anything bigger then a radroach or other mutated critter. While Calamity tries to talk them into setting up for the night in a more or less intact bus, despite it still being filled with the remain of the ponies that were inside when the bomb went off, Li'lpip wanders off, spying a Sparkle Cola machine around a corner, and walks right into a manticore. Not having any weapons ready, she tries to buck it, only to be sent flying by it. Saved from it's charge by Calamity blasting it. The three of them trying to finish it off, Velvet using her TK to wrap a blindfold around it while the other two worked on shooting it. Eventually it flies up and knocks Calamity out of the sky, while at Velvet's recommendation, Li'lpip sends a bunch of saw blades telekineticly hurtling at it, ending the fight.
After the fight Li'lpip decides to grill up some manticore steaks, while Calamity checks out the sky wagon he was trying to get them to make camp in, declaring that with a single part, he could fix it up and use it to pull all of them and their equipment through the sky, no longer having to walk everywhere. The other two are less then thrilled at the idea, given Calamity's record with vehicles, but don't make a fuss since they'd have to find the part first.
Though Velvet does insist Calamity take off his battle saddle and barding so she can give him a full check up, make sure he wasn't to badly injured from the fight, and we learn that he doesn't have a cutie mark. Or rather he had one, but it was branded off, being replaced with a brand shaped like Rainbow Dash's CM. Turns out that when the pegasi closed up the sky and sealed themselves off from the rest of Equestria at the end of the war, RD was furious, leaving them, never to be heard from by the pegasi again. Any pegasus that questions the wisdom of hiding above the clouds to harshly, or tries to go below is labeled a Dashite and branded with her cutie mark, declared a traitor.
The irony here is just, almost perfect. The pegasi abandon Equestria, and any that feel that as wrong are deemed traitors, and branded with the element of Loyalty's cutie mark. For being more loyal to Equestria and all ponies, then simply the ones who abandoned the rest.
We also learn a lot about RD, she was a front line fighter, training the pegasi into Equestria's best troops, leading them into battle. And her Ministry, was dubbed "the Ministry of Awesome" which as far as anypony knows, did nothing. That, is just pure RD.
Moving on the next day, they come across a shack, which her Pipbuck labels as "Steelhooves' Shack" which shows signs of a pony living there still, as well as being fairly well defended by turrets and mines. And as they are working this out, they get surrounded by THREE alicorns, who apparently can turn invisible. They gloat as they surround the group, speaking in "we" and saying they remember her from Appleloosa, though Li'lpip notices they all have slightly different features then the one she killed, so it wasn't that one come back to life.
Perk-all enemies suffer a minor lose to combat abilities due to her ability to dodge and maneuver agilely. Decent perk.
Thoughts. Overall this comes off as a breather chapter some exposition, a little light action, but mostly just story progression, letting things start to build up after that massive fight with the dragon. And yet, this is also as I said above, a Midnight On The Firing Line type deal, several little things that we thought at first were just little fun one shots, or little tidbits that weren't all the important, come back to be MASSIVELY vital to the story, despite them being added without any hint to it. And it ends on one hell of a cliffhanger. showing that not only are there more Alicorns, but they all seem to be rather bloodthirsty, and share some form of hive mind.
Really well done and just adds to what I said last time, this is where the story really hit's it's stride and take off.
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