“TELL ME EVERYTHING!” Rarity was on top of Garrus with a manic smile within seconds, looking between him and Tali as the turian reared back while the unicorn regained her composure. “Uhm, I mean, I'm sure you have some very juicy stories to tell us.”
“H-hey, It's not been that long!” Rainbow blushed as she shuffled closer to Tali and rubbed up against her, the quarian brushing a hand through Dash's hair.
“Never thought ya would find a special someone before mahself,” Applejack smirked, poking Rainbow in the side. From the other end of the room they could hear gagging sounds and Scootaloo pretending to be sick.
“You'll understand when it happens, squirt,” Dash chuckled.
“You know you can take off the helmet here, right? We're all friendly here,” Spike mentioned as he passed drinks to all the ponies, both Garrus and Tali declining the offer.
“It is not that simple. The immune system of my people has been compromised by living on starships almost all our lives.” Tali told the little dragon. “If I take my helmet off I'll have infections and allergic reactions to the environment within the hour and would be dead by the end of the day.”
“Oh...” Was the only thing Spike was able to say after that, the other ponies that weren’t in the know looking shocked.
“Don't worry about it, we make do,” Tali chuckled, Rarity turning her attention to Garrus.
“Soo, Darling, how did you catch the eye of Fluttershy here?” she said with a melodic voice, but before Garrus could answer the door was knocked on.
“Royal Guard, open up!”
“It's a public library, the door is open!” Spike shouted back, his mood immediately souring as the guards entered. They in turn tensed up as they saw Garrus and Tali.
“We're under orders to take those… things, into custody,” the sergeant of the small group of guards announced, as the others in his squad held the two aliens at spearpoint.
“And if we refuse ta let ya take 'em?” Applejack asked bluntly, straightening her Stetson while glaring down the guard. Rarity nodded in agreement and got up next to AJ.
“You'd be taken in along with them for obstructing our duties. We are to bring them in dead or alive. Unless you want to finally admit to be on the side of that traitor friend, stand… where did that yellow pega-”
The sergeant was hit by something blunt on the side of his helmet which knocked him clean across the floor. Rainbow simultaneously didn't waste any time on biotically charging one of the two guards pointing their spear at Tali and sending him flying into a bookshelf. The second one tried to turn his spear only to be helplessly floated into the air in an aura before being smashed into the ground and held there.
The guards that had focussed on Garrus simultaneously found their spears severed by glowing orange blades from a ghostly form of a pegasus before being floored as well. Appearing in sight again Fluttershy picked up the sergeant and pinned him to the wall. Tali and Garrus calmly watched on as their respective girlfriends disarmed and knocked down the guards.
“I don't know what you did but you clearly have history with my friends here, sergeant, and I would like you to not threaten my boyfriend. Leave.” Fluttershy glared the pony down, dropping him in a heap before her. The guards looked at Fluttershy in fear before scrambling out the door, taking the few intact spears with them.
“That. was. Awesome!” Scootaloo exclaimed, jumping around in awe. “Shows the bastards who really rule!”
“Scootaloo, language!” Rarity gasped.
“She ain't wrong.” Applejack growled, “Ah’m very interested in how ya can do magic but y'all should go, they sure as hay are gonna come back with more of them.”
“We weren't going to be able to stay long anyway, we have some serious business to take care of on this world,” Garrus mentioned, standing up to get ready to leave.
“You have to leave?” Pinkie asked saddened, her hair deflating more from the state what it had already been in.
“There's a race of machines that landed on the planet a couple of days ago, we need to stop them before they infect another part of their species with a virus,” Rainbow told them flatly before wrapping a wing around the earthpony, “We’ll be around, Pinkie, we have work to do and monsters to stop. And after we’re done we’ll make sure the mess with Twilight gets dealt with, maybe you can throw a party after.”
Pinkie brightened up again after hearing that, her hair inflating up to a point where it was almost fully inflated. “Yepperoonies! It’ll be the biggest party ever! And Twilight and the Princess will both be happy again!”
Applejack meanwhile was thinking over what Rainbow had said. “Hey Dash, do them things look like metal minotaurs with a glowy lamp thing in their head? Couse Ah’ve seen those peak out of the Everfree on several occasions.”
“That’s exactly right...” Tali said slowly said, Garrus opening his omni-tool to contact Shepard while Fluttershy pulled up a hologram of a geth. “We only thought they’d be at a place called the Badlands according to Luna.”
“Ah know what Ah saw, and that-” Applejack pointed at the hologram on Shy’s omni-tool, “-is exactly what Ah saw in the forest.”
“Shy, if they’re really in the forest we can’t leave them there,” Rainbow said sounding really worried. “If they’re spreading across the planet no-one would be ready if the Heretics attacked everyone at once... it’d be a bloodbath.”
“Well… Then we just have to do something about that, won’t we?” Rarity said, Pinkie and Applejack agreeing. “It wouldn’t be our first time in the forest.”
“Girls, Shepard wants to assault the Badlands as soon as possible,” Garrus interrupted. “He wants to know what we’re going to do. Investigate the sightings here or head over to the Normandy to join in on the Badlands raid.”
“We won’t know if we really find something here, Legion’s geth do really need the help,” Tali argued, Rainbow nervously tapping the ground and looking at her other friends.
“Tali’s right girls, there’s a bigger picture here...” Rainbow said, agreeing with her girlfriend to the surprise of the ponies in the room.
Fluttershy bit her lower lip, she saw Dash’s point but she didn’t want to leave Ponyville essentially defenseless…
Does Shepard really need me with him for this one? The rest of the team is real solid and Samara can take over as heavy Biotic support...
1. The Badlands needs to be taken care of first.
2. AJ, Rarity, Pinkie, and me can take care of this.
3. I’ll check the forest out solo.
Ouch, now thats a rough set of options. Given the behaviour of the Guard, either tehy are working isolated from the Castle, or in her distress at Luna leaving and Twilight going Twilight, Celestia ahs been affected by the Indoctrination?
If they leave the Geth in the forest alone or to any non ME interacting civilians, then Geth Snipers can cripple anyone truely dangerous, get them to hole up somewhere safe like the Town Hall, the set up heavy charges to keep them as hostages, amongst many others, such as Ponyville indoctrination. Thereby trashing the Elements.
Pretty sure even if the Normandy had Heavy Warheads, between the Geth and the Changelings, there would be magic, biotic defenses capable of screwing with teh targeting etc enough to effectively make them useless except in cooking large parts of the surface. But noone even knows the Throne exists so Normandy cant Main gun shoot it.
Looks like Im going to have to sit this vote out, as I havent been given the option to hit these guys before they hit my freinds. Even without being allowed to Erase a couple major problems at the same time instead.
Hey, Twilight. these Heritics are all linked together through the Galaxy by Instant communication. You think you can keep their link from dropping while you ram as much magical solar power through this one into the network to melt all the others?
Fluttershy has to go check on them solo.
Leaving them be is extremely dangerous for Poniville, plus the fact that they must be in the forest for a reason so disabling that will help, even if they don't know yet exactly why.
But allowing AJ and Rarity go is suicidal, the geth have guns. Without seeing them coming and some serious magical shields, the ponies are walking targets on this one. Let them get armor and tech and their physical and magical abilities will make them the best army of the galaxy, but the technology gap is too big right now for any fight to be more than a one-sided massacre.
Unless the Geth can find her...Flutters can go solo to check things out while cloaked; get in, see what they're doing, get out. Besides...isn't the forest close to her home?
I'll either edit this or make a new comment for jokes later.
EDIT
Was either going to be gossiping Rarity or fainting Rarity...who should ask FlutterGarrus for stories. ;P As for Applejack's comment...least it wasn't a bet/competition. XD
It was at that moment they should've known...they bucked up.
Lucky them, she didn't go full power Stare on their plots; course, if they had files on her before she left...and now this? ...I couldn't blame them for wanting to run away. ...why do I want her to go hoof-to-hoof with Celestia?
Cap would be proud; Tony would be mocking her. ...but yeah, it gonna be interesting to see how Celestia's been ruling as of late.
Suddenly I'm worried that said party is exactly when the ship will be attacked...
I so want to see the lawful evil of the Heretics, confronted with the chaotic good of Pinkie Pie, and friends.
10383937
You make a solid argument, and one I normally agree with. However, these aren't one-off NPCs here. This is a party including four of the Mane Six, one of which being a Reality Warper. They are going to come out of this with psychological trauma and some lite scars at worst, or make the situation easier at best.
I don't know, on one hand sending civilians into the forest is going to be annoying babysitting mission. Sheppard is right, Badlands is a priority.
Fluttershy should escort her friends to stop the Heretics because otherwise her friends will try to follow her and get hurt or worse cause that's what they do, try to stop bad things.
10384613
This. Also, it does seem like Shepard and Co. are not going to have a welcome reception with Celestia and the Equestrian government whatever their stance with the heretic geth is at the moment -- the more friends they have pony-side the better.
Man I would love to see what AJ, Rarity, Pinkie, Spike, and Twi would do if they ever joined up with the Normandy (though I definitely understand if CommanderApplejack doesn't want to pursue that explicitly here - would be a ton of writing and work and likely bog down the story's pacing).
2
2. Alone is a bad idea and Shepard has enough Crew with him.
Royal Guards getting there ass kicked.
What are the odds?
I am pretty sure noone knows why Twilight went roughe ... Typical Celestia.
10384431
Unless they all die... A singel bullet to the face can do that...
10384613
Yep, Aj Rarity and Pinkie are Fluttershy and Rainbowdash before the Conduit jump.
No idea what danger is ahead of them and when things go south it will leave a mark or worse...
I would regret to say 2. again. Unfortunately of all bad options this is the most agreeable