So, this chapter starts with breakfast, mainly revolving around Velvet Remedy being freaked out about the others eating meat. Admittedly this is somewhat funny.
Oh yeah, and I forgot that in last chapter we have Velvet talking about Preacher and foreshadowing the Goddess some more. Preacher apparently has a telepathic connection to the Goddess and is fixing to lose his penis sometime soon.
Anyway, Littlepip reads the thing she got, which reveals that Deadeyes has betrayed the ponies under his command to the slavers, who are going to attack. And thing either also reveals that he's the head of the same band of raiders that murdered Silver Bell's parents or Littlepip deduces this, but anyway, she gets OUTRAGED again.
Then Gawd offers to pay her to off Deadeyes, and Littlepip has another "what is the wasteland doing to me?" moment. However, she quickly gets over it and decides that she will carry it out, but not for the money. Nope, the only motivation she requires is her own sense of self-righteousness.
So she sneaks over to the place again - fuck, too much back-and-forth bullshit - and she stumbles across a stage area that's littered with a ton of skeletons behind it (in the post-apocalypse, people don't seem to bother cleaning up their living spaces), and she finds a newspaper thing that has a thing about Big Macintosh's funeral. Applejack is wearing a black hat and kerchief, which kinda seems silly. Ah well, at least Littlepip isn't ogling her.
She also overhears a couple of raiders, and one of them has sympathetic backstory and they reveal that they're actually waiting for the slavers and Deadeyes has rigged the place with traps. This makes Littlepip decide that she can't murder him right away, so she approaches him, pretends not to know who Gawd is again (wait, what?), and agrees to take Deadeyes's new assignment - kill off Gawd.
Littlepip forms a plan - get both of their forces together in the stage area, have Velvet Remedy perform a song, and then Littlepip will fire two shots: one in the table next to Deadeyes, and one into Gawd, making it look like it's a slaver who tried to knock them both.
She heads back to the mercenaries and informs Gawd of the plan - it turns out that she actually intends to do the plan in reverse, still intending to assassinate Deadeyes. Now she just needs to convince her friends. It goes something like this. Velvet obviously goes "this is murder," and Calamity agrees until Littlepip informs him that Deadeyes was the one responsible for killing Silver Bell's parents. Calamity instantly changes his tune, and Velvet voices something like two more sentences of dissent before she decides that she's more concerned about what she's wear for the outing. On the bright side, Littlepip decides not to burn the entire facility to the ground. Guess maybe she isn't a sociopath after all.
It really is comical how quickly Calamity changes his mind about the matter. But with Velvet it bothers me. If she's the one who thinks that it's murder and that it's wrong, why the fuck is she going along with it? She caves in way too easily, and y'know, this is another one of those "I think the characterization is inconsistent" things. But more importantly:
I can handle Littlepip playing the self-righteous public avenger, gunning down enemies. I can understand it when she steals from orphans because of her drug addiction. But here, she's cowing her violence-hating friend into helping her murder someone she doesn't like. That's just odious.
Anyway, we go to the concert, where Velvet is singing Get it Right from Glee. No, seriously, that's what she's singing. It just blows my fucking mind that this story has a reference to fucking Glee.
Anyway, Littlepip sets herself up and finds a notice from Deadeyes informing her that if she shoots anything other than Gawd and the table, the stage is rigged to explode.
Wait.
How the fuck does that even work?
Whatever, moving on, Littlepip expertly shoots out Gawd's glass and blows Deadeyes's head off, but she also uses her telekinesis to shove Velvet off the stage in time for the explosion.
It occurs to me that things must be really bad for performers in Equestria. All it takes is one asshole unicorn in the audience to ruin the whole show.
Anyway, Littlepip meets up with Velvet, who is taking the whole "I just helped murder someone and almost died in the process" thing very well, and profusely thanks Littlepip for saving her from the situation that she got her into in the first place. What a crock.
Then, Littlepip realizes something - the slavers have attacked! Everypony is scrambling! Confusion! Chaos! Disarray! An action sequence that actually isn't boring!
Since Calamity swiped Deadeyes's key, they're able to head to the secret lair, where we finally meet Mr. Topaz, who is a dragon. Calamity is an idiot and shoots at him and a chase scene goes underway. More scrambling, woundeding, our heroes are in deep shit now as the battle rages and now there's an evil dragon that wants to eat them.
Littlepip goes off and a frenzied raider attacks her. Littlepip tries to avoid it, but she's forced to mortally wound the raider, stabbing her with her horn. Must be really shitty armor if it can be breached by a young mare's horn. Seriously, look at the show, those things seem barely sharp enough to pop a balloon.
Anyway, the mortally wounded raider pleads that she doesn't want to die, and Littlepip finds she can't bring herself to perform a mercy kill. Because the wasteland hasn't done that to her yet. This moment might've held a bit more credibility if she hadn't just murdered someone earlier in the day. Man, this character is full of shit.
Anyway, she gets to the safe and finds that it's just tons and tons of memory orbs. Mr. Topaz corners her, gloats, talks about how he plans to eat all the ponies, and Littlepip gives some little thing about how ponies do have goodness and decency, and Mr. Topaz responds more or less exactly the same way I did.
Then Calamity saves her with that big magic cannon that they saw earlier, and we get another chase scene, which ends when Littlepip chucks a few grenades down his throat.
Well, that was exciting. Too bad I hate the protagonist more than ever now.
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