>I am not a smart pony.
Really? You keep on saying that over and over. Is that really what you ant your catchphrase to be? It's as embarrassing as "Who da man?". Blackjack then goes on for more Heroic Self-Deprecation about how the other two in the trio are smarter than her and how dumb she is for getting the humongous bounty on her head.
Oh, another thing I noticed was that Morning Glory was an Expy of Velvet Remedy, but her main difference is that she wants to fight alongside Blackjack. So that's a plus.
Blackjack then goes on to think about the dragon, the crusader, and EC-1011. Standard opening rumination stuff.
The trio along with The Crusaders reach a school that as in lockdown and decide to take shelter there. Half-Undercover gets berate by a guard robot for breaking school rules. She immediately says she's Marigold and hugs P-21 and she really DOES want him to kill her.
>“I was just looking for some alone time with my buckfriend...”
Popcorn dot gif. Let's count the many seconds between the hug and Blackjack's death. One... Two... Three... Three! Three seconds. Ah ah ah!
So anyways, everyone gets sent to detention. I think that's a much better punishment than getting vaporized. It's Glory's first time in detention. so Blackjack gives her a lot of helpful tips in hat to do during that time. This is going to be a really great scene.
They do not report to detention.Instead, they go around looting everything they can get their hands on because they're all such wonderful students who always do what they're told and always get straight As all the time. Blackjack finds a convenient history lesson hanged next to a window and finds out that during the war, The Shadowbolts took down a zebra-aligned dragon. Those thoughts are interrupted by... something. Blackjack being paranoid, I guess. The others enter the room and Half-Paranoid is seeing things move.
Then, the Crusaders tell Blackjack about the Pecos. They're protection for slavers, which is odd, because Raiders usually did that for free in Murky Number Seven. And the slavers have to have a slaver license, which is weird, because those never existed in Murky Number Seven. Whatever floats your boat, Somber. Anyways, Blackjack asks P-21 to get her a Peco suit so she can infiltrate them and... this is really starting to sound like a ripoff of the original again. Both Jack and Pip have freed slaves and stopped slavers, defeated a dragon, and now, Blackjack's going to infiltrate a major slaver settlement. Just like Littlepip.
And where's my detention segment?
As P-21 goes to get the clothes, Blackjack gets accosted by a Zebra that calls himself Lancer. Is this the Xenith of the group? Whatever the case, Lancer want to kill Blackjack because he believes the war is still going on and the remnant exists. Yeah, and the black swallow sings at midnight. Lancer shows us he's badass as he gets distracted, has Blackjack eject the ammo out of his gun, and gets tripped by her... only to recover swiftly by flipping in the air and catching the ammo mid-drop, landing on all four hooves. Damn.
Still, Blackjack gets the upper hand by pressing her shotgun to his head. She tells him she doesn't want to fight. Most likely it'll send her into another Nuclear Angstbomb. Security and Lancer try and work something out. She succeeds when she says that she serves to do better.
P-21 returns and we find out that Lancer is the SteelHooves of the group with his stoicism and badassness. A lot of Expy around here. With Lancer on good terms with everyone, Blackjack puts on the disguise and heads over to the Pecos. The plan immediately gets put on hold by a giant radscorpion. PecoSecurity goes to immediately Leeroy Jenkins the thing. After they shoot it dead, Blackjack heals whoever was injured in the fight.
Also we were misinformed about the Pecos. The Pecos are supposed to protect the slavers who order the slaves, but the slavers think the Pecos get ordered by the slavers and the slavers hired a protection agency to protect the slavers and order the Pecos around. Which is making Blackjack's mane itch really, really badly.
She gets dragged into a bar and another poker game. We're treated to the backstories of members of the Pecos gang members that probably won't matter after the whole "freeing slaves" plan inevitably fails and everything erupts into flying lead and chaos.
They find out Blackjack's a stable pony and start getting suspicious of her, asking questions. One of them is even casting a spell which Securipecos believes to be a lie detection spell. The game eventually ends and they pass the leader of the ponies trying to huff brahmin Jenkem.
Security then asks one of the ponies she saved about what the Pecos could do if they didn't have to resort to slavery and reveals herself as... Security. This is basically when shit hits the fan. So yeah, general mayhem in Pecos City. With that done, Blackjack, P-21, Morning Glory, and Lancer then begin to infiltrate the slave portion of the city near the railroads.
The quartet free a slave and learn of what I suspect to be this section's Arc Villain, Gorgon.
>“So. Strong. Bulletproof. Turns ponies into stone. Anything else?”
>“He can fly?”
I suspect Gorgon to be a sentient giant cockatrice. Everyone gets looted up, Blackjack gets some keys, and they head out to the mine after unlocking the door. A bit of banter between P-21 and Blackjack happens about keys being really accurate lockpics and Gorgon having a tragic backstory that would make Blackjack have second thoughts about killing. Before those thoughts can go any forther, P-21 points out some statues. Ponies made into statues. CRISIS AVERTED, Blackjack now hates Gorgon again!
They kill some people and come across a big red button and Oh, Crap!. Now they HAVE to press it. Sometime before the chapter end, please?
They reach the mine proper and Gorgon isn't what I thought he was. Just an alicorn/cockatrice chimaera. And that is awesome. Please don't immediately kill Gorgon off. He immediately pots the group and they scatter for another fight scene. Not much of a fight scene if nobody helps Gorgon out. Or Gorgon might not need anyone helping him out given that Glory was just turned into stone. Things are going badly as Lancer and P-21 get turned to stone, too. This just leaves an undetonated and idiotic atomic angstnuke all alone.
Time for her to do something stupid. Blackjack brings up file EC-1011 on her PipBuck and tells Gorgon that if she gets turned to stone, so will the file. He charges Blackjack and both of them fall into the automate rock crusher. Blackjack then proceeds to use her magic to get Gorgon to stay groundbound. They have a fight on the conveyor belt slash slide and Gorgon' tail gets caught in the teeth of the rock crushing machine. He freaks out as he gets slowly crushed to death, thus ending the fight scene in a glorious fashion.
This causes all stone statues to turn back into ponies and allows Glory to save Blackjack from the same rock-crushing fate. To be honest, this felt like a fanfic I read before. Same type of abilities, but the thing that turned ponies into stone didn't die and was, in fact, given a much better life that she had before. An internet cookie goes to the first one to guess which one I'm talking about.
We never do find out what that button does. Screw you, Somber. The quartet exit the mines and see that a fight broke out between the slaves and slavers. The Pecos arrive to help out the slaves and soon the fight is over.
The chapter ends with Lancer coming out of nowhere to paralyze Blackjack and killing every zebra there that wasn't himself. What a lovely way to end but in needless, delusional bloodshed!
Also Gorgon was killed. Somber has a bad habit of introducing cool ideas but quickly throwing them into a garbage can right after it seems. How did Gorgon get that way? Were there others like him? What if chimaeric modification existed like people get piercings or tattoos or facial reconstruction surgery?
orry, even though this chapter had some goo parts, it was still disappointing.
