And this one opens with Li'lpip in the midst of some fever dreams, that give me a Teminator2 vibe. (the scene of Sara's dreams where shes trying to warn a group of parents and kids on the playground, only to watch them get nuked). Waking up to hear the other two taking about her, worried about her health, the stress, and the drugs she's been taking. And, okay so we DO get an idea of how much older then her Velvet is, she says shes about a decade more mature.
Overall I really like this scene, it shows what really happens when a person, errr pony, pushes themselves as hard as Li'lpip is pushing herself, physicaly, mentally, emotionally, add in the ping pong highs and lows of constant drug use, and the shear stress of learning to deal with the Wastelands after a life in the Stable, eventually the body just collapses. And we get a few pages of Li'lpip's feverish, weakened, and half delusional mind jumping around, examining her fears, her worries, a few half formed guesses or thoughts, all tings she normally tries to hide even from herself but is just to tired to now. Mostly fear that the others would leave her.
Waking from another dream, to find Velvet asleep beside her, her head having fallen almost onto Li'lpip's side, we get something that seems to come right out of nowhere, overcome with horniness, Li'lpip turns away from Velvet, and starts to clop, trying to think of a mare to think of, but by the end, simply ending up not pleasured, but throwing up.
Given the suddenness, the randomness and just how, well, not quite right it is to do something like that with someone RIGHT next to you, and the general way Li'lpip was acting, this wasn't her. Well at least not her in her right mind, she was sick, exhausted, feverish, on a massive PTM withdraw, worried, and partially delusional. I really doubt she was able to think clearly enough to consider what she was doing here. And the foremost though on her mind was loneliness, the thought that the others would abandon her, leave her, and even they stay part of her group, that they would become an item, excluding her somehow, making her a third wing, and just overall fear of never having a pony that loved her. Really i can see how something like that could happen to someone or pony. Still a bit sick, but like I said, right then she WAS pretty damn sick.
Her fever finally breaks, and she awakens, now lucid,and overhears Steelhooves and Calamity arguing over her, Steelhooves refusing to believe the story she's just an ordinary mare from a stable, nothing special sure that she's lying, suggesting that her Stable wasn't a normal one, but perhaps a Ministry of Awesome black ops center, full of trained infiltration and combat ponies. Something to explain her skills at hacking and lockpicking, which Li'lpip knows are just the result of her own hard work, and happening to be a Pipbuck repair pony in the Stable. Generally showing how the group looks from the outside, to a pony that hasn't been there to see the close calls, know just how much luck played a part, only seeing the results, somethings nopony ever would believe a single pony or three could do. Calamity doesn't buy it, but neither does he convince Steelhooves it's not true
Once she was awake and ready to move on, Steelhooves insists on accompanying them to Tenpony tower, in exchange for saving him. While they talk, Li'lpip notices a picture of AJ, and another statuette of her, like the one he had found Appleloosa. All but confirming he was the pony from the memory orb, somehow.
Her deliberation is interrupted by a report from DJ about the FOE version of the FO 3 quest involving ghouls and Tenpenny tower. though instead of Li'lpip playing a part, it was taken care of already, with the head of Tenpony security hiring mercenaries to kill all the ghoul-ponies, much to DJ's disgust, reminding the listeners that Ghouls and zombies are not the same thing. Steelhooves misinterprets the disgust on Li'lpip's face as disgust against ghouls, instead of the killing, and she tells him about the wisest, kindest pony she'd met so far being a ghoul, which seems to placate Steelhooves.
As they packed up, we get a truly heartwarming scene between Li'lpip and Calamity, as she starts to worry the what Steelhooves said might turn hm against her.
“Ah’ve seen yer heart, Li’lpip. Y’all genuinely want t’ help folk, an’ ya put yer own life at risk t’ do so, even when some of ‘em don’t deserve it. I ain’t gonna start questionin’ what I know ‘bout ya just cuz somepony who don’t know what he’s yappin’ ‘bout can get it twisted all up.”
And that, almost perfectly sums up both Li'lpip, and the bond between the two of them.
And before leaving, Steelhooves gives Li'lpip the okay to view a memory orb he had on display in a case, saying that some pony should be allowed to remember it.
She's inside Steelhooves, (okay we don't get it confirmed in that memory it's him, but it's him.) talking to AJ as she's nervous about unveiling something big, the two of them flirt a bit, and Li'lpip stats feeling a bit odd as the body she's in spends some time eying AJ's flanks.
She starts he speech, talking about Big Mac, and how bad his sacrifice hurt, how his armor wasn't enough to stop the Zebra bullet. How since that day she's been working to find a better way to protect Equestria's troops in battle. The memory ends with her unveiling the fruits of the passion, of giving to Equestria, the first of the Steel Rangers.
they head out, not having any issues bigger then a rad-hog (mutated pig), which prompts a little quip about Li'lpip's and Calamity's carnivorous qualities, to which, we get this positively amazing rebuttal by Calamity
“Y’see, now that’s why y’all are a vegetarian,” Calamity laughed. “Y’ ain’t never had bacon. Trust me, if ponies were meant t’ only eat fruits, oats an’ grasses, then the existence of bacon would be the proof in the pie that the world was just cruel and evil.”
Truer words were never spoken.
of course all this does is make Li'lpip crave trying some bacon. So they start with the cookin'.
Talking with Steelhooves later Li'lpip finds out the name of AJ's ministry finally. the Ministry of Wartime Technology, though AJ preferred to just call it the Ministry of Technology, wanting her ministries efforts to be use to improve all ponies lives, not just focus on warfare.
While Steelhooves exposists on how great AJ's ministry was, she spies something off in the distance, though the thick fog and tells the rest to stay put, wandering off, leaving Steelhooves to ask the others if she did this a lot.
“Do what?” Calamity snickered. “Wander off? Break travel to explore random ruins? All the time.”
Again one of her greatest traits, flaws, and virtues, is her curiosity.
Though this time it was to meet up with a sprite bot she had spied and talk to Watcher. She asks him about the Ministry of Awesome, asking what they did, since Calamity said nothing, and Steelhooves made it sound like they were Equestria's black ops group. And Watcher says that RD really didn't do much, only a small hooffull of projects, the only notable one being the Single Pony Project, though he doesn't explain what it was.
Then moves on to explain about the figurines Li'lpip has been finding. Turns out they were a limited series of statuettes, 42 in all, 7 sets of the mane 6, one for each of them and one for Luna. With some of them being given to various relatives and other close friends.
Watcher comments that Steelhooves voice reminds him of somepony, but we don't here the name he tells her before he cuts out and the sprite-bot drifts away. Though a bit later we hear Li'lpip mention it.
Flutterguy
Talking to Watcher had brought Li'lpip to a train station for an elevated monorail that ran throughout the city, and they decide to try walking along the elevated tracks, avoiding the raiders, beasts and general hazards of the ruins on their way to Tenpony.
After Calamity routes through all the garbage cans to find anying even remotely valuable
Beofre heading up to the train tracks, Li'lpip wants to investigate the headquarters building for the system, mostly simply do to the fact the door was locked and taunting her by being so. And promptly nearly gets killed by automatic defenses, saved by Steelhooves blowing the Luna loving hell out of the turrets. Inside the lobby they find the corpses of other Steel Rangers, and Steelhooves takes issue with Calamity looting the bodies, only stopping, reluctantly, when Calamity points out that the high explosive ammo he prefers isn't cheap or easy to find, so they need to collect what they can.
The fact that the defenses were designed, and powerful enough, to take out a company of Steel Rangers, simply peaks Li'lpip's interest, and they investigate the building. Finding a notice everywhere that is just plain creepy. Requiring all employees to carry firearms, and to defend all management employees in the event of government forces attacking. yeah they weren't up to something.....
Further reinforced by just the sheer amount of high caliber, explosive, and armor piercing ammo left around, as well as other little hints. like a friendly security robot ordering the "federal pigs" to surrender and be annihilated. Which Li'lpip manages to take out be shooting an AP round into it's missile storage, detonating them inside the bot.
She finds the presidents office, and apparently Four Stars had built their own Stable under their headquarters, fully provisioned to last the entire length of time it would take to out wait a Megaspell detonation, yup a whole 12 weeks worth of food and water... Not enough facehooves in the world.
She also finds a rather exotic peace of armor seemingly made for a mare, as well as a very impressive looking assault rifle, which she takes both of. The armored dress for Velvet. only after she had put it on, does Steelhooves catch up to them and lets them know that it was a Zebra Legionnaire's armor. Just as the door to the Four Star Stable opens up, and seems that the ponies that hid in it were still moving around, even 200 years after the 12 weeks of food that would last them the whole megaspell cleanup ran out. Since this Stable was obviously not up to Stable-Tec code and let in enough radiation to ghoulify them, and 200 years trapped in the Stable lead to full on zombifictaion. End chapter.
Perk time, yet MORE SATS boosting. Good uase she still uses it for EVERYTHING!
Thoughts. nothing really I haven't covered already. Li'lpip masturbating right next to a sleeping Velvet is the biggest point of possible debate, and like I said, she was tired, sick, feverish, exhausted, on a drug withdrawal kick, delusional, and just plain messed up as fully as a pony could be and still be even remotely functional. The Four Star bits were nice, showing us that. 1. some ponies were indeed helping the Zebras, and 2. the ponies in that place were IDIOTS! We also get some pretty solid evidence of Watchers identity, since only 7 beings new about "Flutterguy" and only one of them would be likely to refer to her like that AND be alive after all this time. really, as much as I love foreshadowing, and giving people enough info to figure stuff out themselves, to see the patterns in hindsight, this was a bit much, there really no one that didn't figure out who Watcher was after that.
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