Expect bigger and better things in this fic, folks. The only way to go from here is up.

Damn...also it's gourd not goard >> <<

Yay! Work won't suck tonight!!

If I haven't already mentioned it in every format I have access to, I love this series. And this is a beautiful first chapter. The part with Jack and Dash makes my heart melt. It's so perfectly in character, and so touching at the same time. And the Spike and Rarity part is so awkward and sweet. Darn you guys, taking an awesome action fic and giving it an equally awesome heart!

And by "darn you" I mean "write faster!"

*stoked*

This was well worth the wait you guys. I had a small amount of worry that it might suffer from sequel-itis but you did not disappoint. Keep up the good work. Also,

Coffee, ham omelets and a side of sausage.

Unless I'm reading that wrong, shouldn't that be ham, omelets?

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You can put ham inside your omelette for maximum southern-american breakfast.

Heck, it's almost as south as biscuits 'n' gravy, I tell you what.

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Could be, if they're having both ham AND omelets. But pretty sure Merc meant they're having 'ham omelets'. As in, an omelet with ham in in it.

Yay, sequel! I really like the intro to this new mission thing, and how the characters don't seem to have immediately bounced back, completely unscathed from their previous foray into law breaking. I actually laughed when Spike walked in on Dash and AJ, and later when he fell into the pool. Poor guy can't catch a break (or maybe he can, considering he got rescued by naked Rarity. You win some, you lose some ) Anywho, loving this, and I'm super excited for the next bit, whenever its ready

D'awww dat AppleDash!

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I tried my best on it, coach.

Wait, only four thousand words? This is a multichapter, right? I haven't read it yet, but I'm seriously gonna be disappointed if this is less than ten thousand words long.

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Someone either forgot about or didn't read my blog saying that the sequel had become longer than the first...quite a few weeks ago.

Also, the great big Incomplete at the bottom there, heh.

Don't you worry. The phrase 'Be careful what you wish for' comes to mind, heh.

Ah, alright. This is a multichapter. Disregard my previous objection.
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Ah. No I didn't read that. Woops.

So, how do you guys handle collabing? I know when I did it, we divided the characters between the two of us, and wrote it in gdocs with one of us handling the POV character, and the other handling their characters reactions. How did you guys go about writing this? Was it in a shared gdoc, or did you trade documents back and forth?

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For the most part, it's a back and forth between characters on a Gdoc, yeah. But on occasion, we all divided sections in the doc, and had free reign. In the first one, I was a sorta pseudo-DM, doing scene transitions, events and the like. In this one, PC's running the show and so me and JJ are more of the reactionary force, since the big guy's got the thing planned out already.

Awesome! It's finally here!
This was worth the wait!

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As Merc said, we each had primary control of a pair of characters. That sort of came about more accidentally, really. And there's a little back and forth. Merc had primary control of the first one--it was his idea, he added the actual plot, and JJ and I just played our characters' responses. (In all honesty, the first one was, excluding the flashbacks, almost 100% reactionary. We just kind of kept going, throwing things in as we went along.) And this one was my turn (and JJ has the next one!), though again, I tried not to plan too much, because I felt the mostly reactionary way we wrote the first one was our biggest strength. Of course, as for the larger narrative overarching the stories and, especially, the 'verse we're making, that's just us kind of bringing up our ideas and discussing them.

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Few people take a look at a just published story with 40K+ words and say, "Yeah, I'll read that right now." And, honestly, if you give up on this story just because it'll be chaptered...you'll be missing out on a pretty fan-bloody-tastic story, friend.

FINALLY!

You know, I really like how you guys do your synopses for these stories. Interested to see where this goes, and to learn the details about why exactly they have such a strong vendetta against Celestia.

You bloody bogans better make this a good story or I will hunt you down with my jarate and bushwacka!
Nah I'm kidding, loved your last story, had some good detail and context.
Also I'm not sorry for shooting jack last story, sorry Sheila it was just business.

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Hey Sniper. Spy called, he wanted his knife back--he thinks he left it in your spine.

2119369>>2119390

This seemed somewhat relevant.

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*looks at his back, sees knife protruding out*
Would ya look at that.
Graaaaaaaahhhhhhh!
Stupid bloody spies!

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"Gah! Hear me, man? Gah!"

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Considering I've done both synopses so far, that means a lot. Thanks, man. Hope you enjoy.

He heard a slightly frustrated noise. “Now, Spike, I know you’re a gentleman, so go ahead. I trust you, of course.”

There's no emoticon for the face I'm making right now. The general impression is one of being dumbfounded, or perhaps more accurately "my mouth is open but I cannot form words." Rarity you can't just do that to somebody. It can't be okay to look and not okay to look at the same time. You're going to give the boy a complex.
I have to believe she means something other than what she's saying because otherwise this is nuts.

So yeah. Who could have possibly predicted that disaster?

When he was gone, Rarity threw the towel back on shore, frustrated. She’d known about his little crush for a long time--it was sweet, it really was--but she had hoped he would have grown out of it by now.

Hey Rarity, there's this new technique for learning things like this. You might want to try it. It's called looking.

Also hmm. So Celestia isn't the tyrant? I have to admit, that's not what I expected, especially since this whole ordeal kicked off with a fire... I guess that would make the baddie Nightmare Moon?

It's neat how this relatively short set of scenes incorporates all the named characters we've seen so far. True, Chylene's part is fairly small, but I think that suits her- she's definitely a more subtle type, which leads me to pay about twice as much attention to everything she does... and if there's hinting going on there, I suspect I know what it's about.

Pinkie and Jack's scene at the end is great- some very nice interplay between their personalities and how they each reflect that earth pony ideal of consistency and dependability even in the worst of circumstances. Even the rock of the group needs someone to lean on sometimes, and it's nice to see them admitting that and sharing with each other.

Onward!

Shouldn't their underground base be called Discovery Family now? I kid. On a more serious note, I really like the whole Applejack PTSD angle. And with everyone for that matter. Nobody was walking away from that bank without some serious emotional baggage. Good on you for incorporating it.

Ah Spike. My dear bro Spike. You'll have your day, I'm sure of it. At least you've got an image to keep you company on those lonely nights. In the meantime, don't let yourself become lecherous. Rarity will never be won over that way. Speaking of, she'll come around. I just know it.

“Uh... Guess Rarity’s next. Gonna have to hoof it to get to the grotto in time.”

I love this by the way. It's always the little things that get me. Reading this again, I love how you were able to use this expression and it also coincidentally being related to the mainstream subject matter.