So, I'm on a roll today, so I'm gonna liveblog chapter 24! As I read it! Well, admittedly not right as, as I already started. But anyway,
We start with a memory orb. Last chapter I was thinking "we have too many of these damn things," but this one's quite interesting. It's from the perspective of a dying soldier who witnesses Fluttershy using the megaspell to heal everyone on the battlefield. Rainbow Dash then yells at her for starting the battle all over again as the zebras go right back to attacking, because that's totally believable and shit.
Interesting, even if it does treat the subject of non-violence about as well as it's been treating it throughout the rest of the story: insultingly badly.
Moving on, the group heads to Stable-Tec headquarters, where the Steel Rangers are situated. Velvet gets all sentimental at the fountain and has a... silent conversation with the statue. Is the deal that she's going insane or something and is having hallucinations?
Calamity goes to comfort her and
Oh wait, no, this is where we get the "Enclave armor is for intimidation" thing. Whoops.
So Calamity and SteelHooves chat, with Calamity devising how, exactly, the armor works, with strength enchantments and stuff. Um, if the idea is that the technology and stuff is made via earth pony innovations, doesn't that kinda get undermined when it uses magic that I'd assume comes from unicorns?
In a bit of actual character-based humor, SteelHooves is slightly weirded-out by Calamity's knowledge of it. Also, Calamity apparently gets to keep the fancy anti-machine gun they found before the rangers attacked. Calamity really likes his new gun and wants to go on a firing range with it. Velvet makes a crack about it that I assume to imply masturbation, and Littlepip "facehoofs" again (stop using that word it is not a real word).
Also, one of the rangers is named Poppyseed. I assume she'll be important. Guessing she's a zebra, based on her explanation of her name.
Then they enter the tower and are greeted by a message from Sweetie Belle and Littlepip sees a lot of propaganda for the Stable project.
This again? Really? Velvet, you were just swaying your ass at her the other day.
Anyway, the stable tour is actually a pretty nice bit of world-building. It's interesting to read about the advertisements contrasted with what we and the characters know of the real thing.
SteelHooves meets with Elder Blueberry Sabre (the best kind of sabre, clearly), and Littlepip contemplates the whole ordeal. She doesn't like the organization and she's a bit mixed on how much she trusts him in particular. She calls him her friend, though she mentions that she doesn't "envy his karma," which is pretty rich.
So while Littlepip is bored, she turns to the radio and listens to Red Eye, where we get that he really cares about kids and wants them to have proper childhoods and shit.
Then Littlepip gets called into Blueberry Sabre's office where the elder asks her to look into a memory orb. We just can't get enough of these damn things, can we?
Something about the ministry mares getting together, Rarity teasing Applejack, blah blah blah and now it's serious. Rarity needs deliver exposition on zebra magic. Specifically, soul jars. Wait... did the author actually lift that name from this wiki? Eh. Maybe not. That's more something I'd expect from The Unexpected Love Life of Dusk Shine anyway (and I will get back to that). And we get told about the Black Book of unpronounceable and stuff. Dark magic. Spooky stuff.
Rarity wants to use it to cut of tiny parts of ponies' souls to make indestructible dresses. Applejack isn't having any of it, and gets really pissed off when Rarity brings her brother's death into it.
I just realized that the memory orbs stopped being boring all of a sudden.
Anyway, she comes back and Blues and Steels ask her what she saw, which she doesn't really feel like telling, so she skirts around it. Mainly, she deduces that the memory was that of a zebra spy.
And now Blueberry is offering a quest. Even the narrator sighs in exasperation. Shtick is she's gonna dress up in rags to look like a slave and go into the Pit, where Red's got raiders working as slaves. She can get to Red Eye, and in return the rangers want the plans for his runs-on-radation machine and bypass spells.
And in a rare case of "I'm not manipulating my friends so I can play hero," Littlepip is actually going in alone. I'm impressed. Calamity can't go because he's a pegasus, Velvet can't go because she's pretty and going into a nest of raiders and slavers is a bad thing, and SteelHooves can't go because he's fused into his armor. Now for exposition on Canterlot Ghouls.
Forcefield, pink cloud, this story is really trying to make me hate the zebras, ain't it?
Anyway, plan plan plan, giving her companions the override so Homage can take over the airwaves in Fillydelphia, time to get ready for a battle and stuff.
Before she goes, SteelHooves gives us all one more memory orb. I swear, the guy's like a bubblegum ball machine, except instead of candy he gives exposition.
This is a thing with Applejack and Rainbow Dash and SteelHooves and Applebloom having an argument about their ministries and stuff, where Rainbow Dash doesn't get how she's able to construct a shitton of towers while Applejack has to sell her farm to her sister to make her armor. And Applebloom is gonna use the farm as the location of a stable.
And the perk has 20% in it.
Huh. Okay, that was a lot better than the last few chapters.
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