And after leaving Li'lpip and crew on a cliffhanger, surrounded by alicorns, we start off this chapter with a bang, literally, it starts with a massive explosion, Li'lpip gasping in pain, and then seeing that it was one of the alicorns that blew up, a second trying to put up a shield but being overwhelmed and killed as well. After which Li'lpip finally gets a look at what's killing these powerful foes. A Steel Ranger. (FOE equivalent to the Brotherhood of Steel, there had been posters and what not about them mentioned from before the end.) And lo we get our first look at the single biggest, and greatest badass in the entire Equestrian Wastes. Being thrown through the air by his own missiles as the remaining alicorn uses her TK to redirect them.... but I'm sure he did it in a rather badass fashion.
While the alicorn is busy gloating over the fallen Ranger, Li'lpip sees that Velvet took some rather nasty hits from shrapnel and just being to close to the explosions in general, frantically digging through her pack for supplies, finding a tin of PTM's.
That voice in my head roared. Velvet Remedy was counting on me. She’d die if I couldn’t help her. I needed to be smarter right now! I needed to be better right now! I needed those Mint-als!
And again, showing the Li'lpip has a huge issue with those things, and yet, it's not entirely wrong of her to use them, since they ARE giving her a massive boost and could help keep her friends alive, though we will find out something later that she couldn't possibly know which does change things a bit. But for now she downs one of them, instantly feeling better, smarter, and just as the alicorn was getting ready to finish off Calamity, she realizes how to defeat it, she carefully levitates the memory orb of Fluttershy over to the alicorn, keeping it out of sight till it gets close, then making sure she notices it, just out of the corner of her eye, turning on instinct to grab and toss away whatever item her enemy was trying to get close to her, and as soon as her magic grabbed the orb (Li'lpip was able to levitate it without triggering it by essentially moving a tiny bubble of air around it, not touching the orb itself) getting lost inside the recording, her shield dropping and becoming unable to move till the recording ends, but before it does Li'lpip finishes her of with her sniper rifle.
This, was really amazing. Showing both Steelhooves' insane badassery, showing he's NOT some god tier uber fighter and can be taken out, and showing some real ingenuity and thinking on Li'lpip's part in tricking the alicorn, it was overall just the perfect fight scene more or less.
Afterwards she uses what little medical supplies they have to help Velvet, downing a few more PTM's while doing so, till the awakened mare forcibly makes her stop. While Velvet checks on Calamity Li'lpip goes over to the fallen Ranger. He's awake, and in far better condition then she thinks he has any right to be after a hit like he took. But unable to move. his armor's spell-matrix crashed, and without any power he can't even move. (We learn later that Steel Ranger armor includes spells to increase the strength of the pony wearing it, making them able to move with the heavy armor on them. Though as seen, unable to do so without that spell.)
Steelhooves seems resigned to his fate, mentioning that he's glad his last act was aiding The Stable-Dweller, something that makes Li'lpip just feel very uncomfortable, not liking the thought of other ponies sacrificing themselves for her.
Steelhooves resists the idea of simply taking off the armor, saying he'll die if they do, and has Li'lpip open up a compartment. Li'lpip figures out a way to help him. She can use her Pipbuck to restart the armor, but she needs a certain tool that she didn't have on her when she left the stable. To which Steelhooves informs them she might be able to find it in a nearby Stable, number 29
They reach the Stable, finding out that it never opened, and Li'lpip instantly wanting another Mint-al to help her work out a way to open it.
and I considered munching a Mint-al (even the non-Party flavor would help), but I didn’t want Velvet Remedy or Calamity to think I needed them. I didn’t. They just made me a better me.
This, really as I said the addiction subplot was one of the most well done and believable things in the story, and Li'lpip is just written perfectly in it. She wants the drugs, needs them on one level, and yet can't admit it, wants to pretend everything's fine, that it's just the mental edge she needs, and that it's only because she couldn't function right without them, slowly getting more and more dependent. And while it is kind of a bit sped up, taking place over only a few weeks, it still makes sense given what we learn of PTM's later.
She manages without the boost to find an override into the computer, requiring three separate voices to unlock, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Applebloom's. (this is where I realized what the significance of the door code to Stable Two being CMC 3 BFF was, yeah not sure how I missed it the first time.) The first one comes from tuning into DJ-PON-3 till a song is played, hearing him extol on her killing a dragon, still a bit upset there was no mention of her friends. The other two from recording she had picked up already.
And as the door opens, a few exchanges make Li'lpip realize that Calamity might be falling for Velvet, and she struggles to suppress a wave of jealousy. She knows Velvet would never be interested in her, that way, "her barn door doesn't swing that way." as it were. But it doesn't stop her from getting jealous, of being upset Calamity might have a chance, though she does her best to bury those feelings deep and not let them effect her.
Entering the Stable, they find a single skeleton, and no sign of any life. eventually coming to the main atrium, and finding it filled with dead ponies, who seemed to have been killed by the stables own defenses. And upon noticing that there didn't seem to be an Overmare's office, she starts to get upset, Calamity mention to Velvet how badly she takes being in Stables, simply making Li'lpip a bit more pissed.
She leaves the two of them alone, getting off a few rather harsh snarks about them "liking" each other after Velvet remarks she'd rather keep Calamity with her if hey split up, simply to try and fix a broken leg he received in the fight with the alicorn, now that they were so close to the clinic. both of them responding with worry, and listing off issues they have with each other, not sure what she's talking about and she leaves to find the tool, hoping the rest of the Stable is laid out the way it should be.
As she makes her way down to maintenance, she tries to convince herself it's not right, she shouldn't feel this way, trying to bring her jealous feelings under control, all the time a small part of her trying to convince her another PTM would make it feel better. Yes she's gone off the deep end with her addiction, it's no longer just about the mental boost being needed to help solve issues, she simply needs the high from them.
We find that unlike her Stable, this one seems to have a rather large amounts of robots, even a stall just for maintaining them...which she promptly loots of anything useful..and comes across two burned skeletons, that seemed to have died in an accident while working on a medical bot, getting caught in its.....sanitary flamethrower....really!? Who the buck puts a Celesta damn FLAMETHROWER on a medical bot!? She also finds another recording, about a pony who apparently died when his house cleaning bot replaced his morning coffee with industrial acid, and a blurb about this Stable being run from Stable Tecs home office, not from in the Stable.
Heading back to the clinic, she finds that they are now overfull with medical supplies, and after a bit of searching, finds everything she needs to make some of her own Party Time Mint-als, which she promptly does, running out to save her friends when the defense turrets in the place come to life, shooting at them, wounding Pip before she can take them out. And despite being bleeding and full of holes, the instant the danger is over, she tries to get back to her PTM's having to make sure they don't burn.
And while trying to work out how to get out of the Stable, they find a poster, advertising a "3rd month survival party" from Vinyl Scratch. Letting us know she was inside the Stable when it closed, and possibly when all the ponies died, as they are finding more and more evidence of ponies being killed by the Stable itself.
They head up to security, looking for a way out. While searching they find Vinyls room, and add a few records to the stash, as well as a couple more memory orbs. And then in the next room a recording from Scootaloo explaining the purpose of this Stable.
After ranting about how the world got to this place, how much she hates the idea, the ponies that brought the end, and generally just being emotional, we learn this stable was an experiment to remove emotion and fallible pony judgment from the equation, it was being run by an AI, called a Crusader mainframe, the most advanced supercomputer ever, of which only three exist, one on Stable 29, and one each being used by the Ministries of Awesome, and Magic. And true to Stable-Tec making sure the Ponies came first, there was a backup, one pony who knew the truth and had the ability to turn off the mainframe if it came to that, though we already learned he was killed trying to do just that. And poking around the computers she learns what went wrong.
A pony had taken his kid down to the bowels of the Stable and let him shoot off a BB gun, damaging the Stables water talisman in the process, though nopony knew this. The Mainframe analyzed the damage and determined that the Stable could not support it's current population with the damaged talisman, slowly killing off ponies in and attempt to preserve the whole as the water supply lowered. Till finally there were none left. Upon learning this Li'lpip fishes out on of the new memory orbs, needing to lose herself in it, to escape the horror for awhile.
It was labeled in the case "Pinkie Pie's Last Party" And upon entering it she finds herself inside Vinyl Scratch as she DJ's a party, meeting RD and Applejack, with RD being more then a little tipsy. AJ asking her if she's tried any of the "harder" stuff, with Dash's saying no, much to AJ's relief, though she does exposit about how her taking some Dash, would not just break Equestrian Law, but having RD get a drug to boost her speed, would probably break the laws of physics......at least..more so then she already does on a daily basis.
And then after a brief bit where RD teases AJ about the two of them having some "fun" together (it seems it was a running joke between them) we're introduced to AJ's coltfriend Sergeant "Steelhooves" Applesnack. To which both Li'lpip and RD's only response is "No way!" Though RD's for the fact that Applejack, is dating a pony named Applesnack, and Li'pip's over, well having just met Steelhooves 200 odd years after this took place.
Though that is broken up by a loud argument between Twi and Pinkie, where we learn that apparently Pinkie is also addicted to PTM's and Twi was calling her out on it, telling her the rest of them were tired of covering for her, that she wasn't the Pinkie they knew, and that she when she was ready to admit she has an issue, to want help, Twi would be waiting, but till then they were done.
Upon leaving the memory Li'pips only response
“But I have to be careful with you,” I said to the Party-Time Mint-als in my saddlebags. “I can’t let Calamity or Velvet Remedy get to thinking I have a problem with you. I don’t want to lose my friends because they think I’m addicted.”
not admitting to herself she has a problem, more worried about her friends finding out then that she might actually HAVE a problem, which by now it's more then clear she does.
Perk time-Extra damage resistance, given how often she gets shot up, god choice.
Thoughts-another excellent chapter, the introduction of Steelhooves is just perfect, making clear just how big a badass he can be, while making sure he's not invincible. Stable 29 is another great one, still has the "What the fuck went wrong" feeling of a Vault, though not quite as protracted a mystery as the last one. And the reason it failed, again, is something nopony saw coming, and thought they had adequate safeguards in place for. And it wasn't A.I. Is a Crapshoot the mainframe was doing what it was programmed to do, preserve "pony Life" though any means necessary with no emotion, regard, remorse, or feelings, just dolc hard logic.
And then, we have the addiction subplot kicking into high gear. which I've already gone on about. Yes it is both the best and worst subplot in the story, best for how much it feels real, how much you can understand Li'lpip's point, how much it all makes sense and yet, is still wrong. Bad, for just how much it sucks seeing anyone go through this, it's never pretty, and, being able to look from outside, see the issues they are blind to, can get frustrating. If this was a major part of the story, her acting this way, for the majority of it, yeah it would have been to much and probably made the fic a bit worse, but it's for a short enough time (though never truly forgotten) that it simply adds more layers ti both Li'lpip and the story As much as I HATED seeing Li'lpip acting like the addict she is at this point, it's only because I cared about her, and don't want to see her hurting herself and her friends like that.
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