The chapter starts with another flashback where Shining finds Twilight arguing with another solider if the Sass Squash exists or not. The teenager is as sceptical as always while Shining is able to argue with her that the absence of evidence for his existence doesn’t automatically mean that he doesn’t exist. Especially considering all the very strange life forms on this world this Sass Squash could actually exist. Eventually she runs off when her brother points out that she is late to her class. Both soldiers seem to get along just fine and it turns out that it was Thunderchild who got trapped in an argument with Twilight and even back then he was a Casanova. The next location is Bangalla, an ally of the Hooviets and the locals are mostly nomads but what the Hooviets really interests about this country is its resources. Their relationship to Maasailand is also rather difficult considering that Maasailand did try to be altruistic and selfless in the name of peace but came across as threatening and controlling. On the bright side their bad reputation seems to be a good repellent against Hooviet influence. The choices of Cadence’s group inside this land are rather limited and they do know that the Hooviets spy on them.
However they do meet Dima again who shaved off his own antlers and used Mother Deer’s blessings to disguise himself as a zebra. Now that is dedication to the mission but unlike unicorn horns, the antlers will grow back. The idea is still rather unnerving for the unicorn. It turns out that the wreck of the Defiant apparently still exists and it is strange that the Hooviets didn’t remove the evidence by simply taking the ship apart and melting down its individual parts. Then again many of Makarov’s plans were overall very sloppy and lacked attention to detail, which is a good thing otherwise Shining would be already dead two times. The Hooviets who did change sides were able to reveal the location of the Defiant but have no idea what Makarov’s real plan is. Considering that he does kill everybody who knows anything, it does make sense that nobody has any real idea what he is doing. Bond is still struggling with the fact that he learns where his parents died. Unlike Shining, the secret agent keeps his pain for himself but then again there is more then one way to recovery and not every time speaking about it is the best solution.
They do make the mistake of going undercover into a play about Equestria which turns out to be a horribly written propaganda piece created to insult Equestria and to be Makarov’s wish fulfilment. Celestia troll tendencies are turned up to eleven (and she is also fat), Cadence is a total moron and Luna is obviously evil. The hilarious thing is of course that if she would only be slightly evil, she would make sure that whoever wrote this mess would find a horrible death. There is bullying a dragon and there is bullying a GOD. In the play Makarov is a perfect, boring and invincible hero while Shining is the main villain and powerful enough to come back to life again. Then again the only reason that the unicorn was given this competency was to make Makarov look better when he kills him twice but at least the writers put more effort into their villain then the rest of the shallow parodies.
But in this case Cadence has the last laugh as she orders her group to remove the disguises and teleports them away to make it look like the actors completely missed who was in the audience the whole time. Then she walks up to the actors and congratulates them for this wonderful parody. Now the actors are basically screwed since they could either correct her and embarrass themselves doing so or they could agree with her to save face but then the propaganda could get ruined. They do take the latter option and Cadence finishes off her grand role by giving her stage version some singing advice.
Then they have some good normal fun with the rest of the fair as Shining takes the chance to ask Dima if he is still phrasing his thoughts like a Hooviet to hide better from Makarov and he does. They also run into a fortuneteller with mixed results. Apparently it is impossible to tell the fortune of an Alicorn as only the card of her concept turns up three times (despite the fact that there is only one Temperance card). Minuette gets a more interesting fortune with a dark past, secrets in the present and change in the future. Dima gets being controlled in the past, a hard struggle in the present and a sacrifice in the future. Shining is a bit unnerved how accepting the deer is to his own sacrifice but he himself did also chose to sacrifice himself for the needs of the many. The unicorn himself gets a similar deck to Cadence: three identical cards but they are all blanks. No past, no present and no future.
Then we have another flashback dream were Shining does get an award from stopping a deer inside a tank with his shield. He was however hesitant to accept it but his uncle surely wouldn’t want Shining to reject something like this because of his death. He was a soldier, he knew that he could die. Just like him Shining could have died but did manage to accomplish his task without sacrificing his life and that is well worth a celebration. But again the unicorn has no idea that this did happen to him. The next location is Jumanji and Shining reflects that he didn’t defend a village against Makarov but those who needed help. He doesn’t care about somebody’s race, species or birth place, which is the total opposite of the racist Hooviet ideology. Makarov also subverts the Hooviet ideology but in a different way by seeing everybody including members of the noble caste as disposable pawns.
This country is another desert state but they surely like to play their board games not just for fun but also to settle their disagreements. They are also refreshingly open about their reasons to join the Hooviet side. They did it for power, for the power the Hooviet forces hold. But the irony is of course that there is no power to be gained by allying with the Hooviets who - even before Makarov came - did view other nations more as tools then as allies. Even if Makarov’s demise would take the entire empire with him, nobody would miss them, quite literally since nobody would even remember the old timeline.
In Buranda they get closer to the position of the Defiant but Bond seems to fall apart more and more. Apparently he isn’t the type that would overcome trauma by himself. The pro-Hooviet government did cut down the rainforest and the house-trees in the name of progress. Even Shining who gets normally exited about all technology is rather disappointed by these changes and sees them as a means to get more resources out of this country. But Shining doesn’t like the way they are invited to look for the lost airship. In another flashback dream Shining finds himself giving directions to the two earth ponies that Makarov turned into cyborgs. Only in this version of the events the two are tourists and still ponies and the unicorn realises that this did never happen.
Soon enough he finds himself together with his dead uncle who makes it very clear that he doesn’t blame his death on Shining and would never stop loving him. But if the wolf would get the unicorn now then Makarov would become an almost unstoppable tyrant that would cause a war that would kill Shining’s uncle, his daughter, Captive Audience, Thunderchild and countless others in the altered timeline. While the end of the war isn’t revealed, Makarov might win it or get destroyed once one of the Elder Gods decide that he went too far against their children. In worst case scenario reality is too corrupted and Entropy erases everything. The mentioned daughter - Athena - arrives in person and points out that they will never coexist in a timeline together. She doesn’t mind not existing in this timeline since at this point her life would only end in a horrible death in a devastating war. In the end both spirits desire the timeline where the world is peaceful and the Hooviets did implode after their futile war against the dragons. And the only way to reach this timeline is to let the wolf erase Makarov.
Minuette is still feeling unwell but now she is able to pinpoint the feeling better. She feels that there is something wrong with the very world they live in. Shining does of course know what she is talking about but can’t reveal the truth to her right now. But he can tell her friends about her feelings. The search operation is difficult even with the narrowed down region. The heroes do suspect that it is likely just a trap for them anyway. They do find the location surprisingly easily and decide that Cadence will only enter it after they made sure that it is safe. It is very suspicious that the anti-boarding wards are still active but it quickly turns out that the seal was placed here to hold poison gas inside. But again the unicorn is able to use his shields to protect those around him. Then he does the sensible thing and suggests an immediate retreat. It is so obviously a trap.
But now Cadence and Bond do make the poor decision of still searching the ship. They argue that they do own the fallen closure and that in this situation they can see every attack from the outside coming. Makarov did already show that he is willing to sacrifice everybody to reach his goals so even if you don’t know about his true nature as an imagination thing, then you could still suspect him of having planted a bomb inside the ship that is too strong for Shining’s shield and that would simply kill all of them. It is not worth the risk.
Their scan shows that the gas contains Dragon's Bane which means that this trap was not set for this group specifically since they have no dragons with them, so this trap might be a bit older then it seems. Apparently this mix is intended to be deadly to everybody, not just ponies but the real deadly gas is actually colorless and odorless, the visible gas is just there to impede vision. This has Makarov written all over it since it sounds impressive but under closer inspection is very impractical. Without the visible gas, the surprise effect of the invisible gas would have been much bigger and the gas could have actually killed somebody. A closer inspection shows unsurprisingly that the ponies inside are all dead and the unicorn corpses were defiled for their horns. Apparently most ponies did die on impact and the rest were killed by the Hooviets. Eventually in the captain’s chair they find both of Bond’s parents dead, apparently embracing themselves in their final moments. They do find the canisters that emit the gas but these are obviously not as old as the crash side itself.
Shining does realise that both the loss of this ship and the weapons of mass destruction on board only happen because history was changed by Makarov. Most Hooviets would likely prefer to be dead then to be his expendable pawns. They also find his plans to kill every single dragon of this world – including Spike – with this gas. There is of course a reason that Makarov just let notes of his genocide plan laying around: It is a trap.
Apparently he got powerful enough to get past their scans and Cadence’s defences. He orders them to had over Shining and his squad and the rest of them will stay alive. And then he will marry Cadence. Cadence would of course rather die then to breathe the same air this lunatic does but Shining would be willing to give up himself to save the others. But Makarov makes it clear that he wants his entire squad so that Shining will suffer even more. A few of them did trouble him in the past but it is pretty clear that it is about hurting Shining by hurting his friends. Eventually the unicorn agrees in the hope that he could still lead the wolf to Makarov.
Now all the group can do is to wait for their torture. They muse that not too long ago a group of the same size did save the world but they would likely be a group of six Elements of Loyalty. Then Makarov arrives and while he has a few new additions to his cutie marks, he still sucks completely to come up with anything witty. Seriously, write your speech before you corner the heroes and let somebody proofread it first. It is embarrassing if your enemies have to point out your mistakes. All he can do is to hurt them physically. For an imagination thing, he really has a poor imagination, then again this might be one of the reasons that he was deemed a failure by Pandora. If he was smarter then he would have found a way to coexist with the established characters instead of eroding the very stories he wants to take over.
