Late Recap · 1:13am Jul 4th, 2015
I know, this chapter's way later than usual, but I was surprisingly busy this afternoon. Anyway, recap time!
Previously on Dragonball IAIMAY
Twilight Velvet’s eyes drifted over to the photos on the mantle, and she took a sip of her wine before giving a sad sigh. “Don’t you think we ought to tell her, Night?”
“Of course not! She’s still way too young, Velvet. She won’t understand.”
“She’s a smart filly,” her mom said, glancing up at the ceiling where she assumed her baby was sleeping upstairs. “If we don’t tell her soon she’ll probably figure it out herself!”
“I hope not,” Twilight's dad said, taking a sip of his drink and staring ahead at the flames in the hearth. “Honestly, I hope she never finds out she’s adopted.”
Fluttershy swallowed nervously. “Well… when I went back home today to feed the animals, many of them were - understandably - a little bit agitated that I wasn’t there to feed them breakfast this morning… or give them their midnight snack the night before. I tried to explain the alien attack and the lockdown, but most of them still wouldn’t cooperate with me.
“As you can imagine, I found myself with no choice but to use my last resort…”
Rainbow nodded, “The Stare?”
“Yes, but… it didn’t work.” Fluttershy took a deep breath and tried to calm herself, but she could already feel her throat tighten, “That’s never happened before! I don’t like using it, but the Stare always makes even the most rebellious critters behave! Now I’ve got a bunch of animals that are mad at me and won’t listen and I don’t know what to do….”
Fluttershy’s rant became rapid sniffling that was dangerously close to tears. Seeing this, Rainbow quickly put a hoof on her shoulder and gave it a reassuring rub.
“Hey, it’s okay Fluttershy. We can figure this out!” Rainbow said, though without much confidence. Rainbow Dash didn’t know anything about Fluttershy’s trade, so she wasn’t exactly sure how they’d figure it out, but they would!
Rainbow scratched her chin, “When was the last time you used it?”
Fluttershy repeated the action herself. When was the last time she used the Stare? She knew it was recently… very recently in fact. Wasn’t it during the fight with the…?
“Arcane Star was trying to find a book called Recolta Bogada that he believed would lead him straight to the temple,” Twilight finally explained. “But even after searching the Old Kingdoms over the course of years, he never found it, and now I know why. It was made by earth ponies that he thought was a subsidiary tribe, when in actuality it was its own independent nation. A small empire even! He couldn’t have found Recolta Bogada because until earlier this year, that book didn’t exist anymore!”
“I’m not quite sure I understand what you mean, Twilight darling,” Rarity said.
“I’m saying as far as we know, there’s only one direct reference material to the Forerunner ruins, and only one place it could be,” Twilight turned to Rarity, Washington, and Church and smiled. “Let’s gather the rest of the group. We need to plan a trip to the Crystal Empire!”
“We’ll be dividing our group into two teams," Twilight continued. "Team A will consist of Donut, Simmons, Church, Caboose, Washington, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and myself. We’ll go to the Crystal Empire and track down those ruins.”
“Um… Twilight? I have a question,” Fluttershy declared timidly. “If your team is going to the Crystal Empire to find the ruins… what’s the other team going to do?”
“Team B is going to Canterlot,” Twilight said boldly. “They’re going to sneak into the castle and stop Project Freelancer from destroying it.”
“Last I checked, all of Canterlot is locked down, Twilight dear,” Rarity pointed out. “How are we getting into the city?”
“You guys will be going through the Crystal Caverns in the mountain,” Twilight said. “I’ll find you a decent map before we all move out. Just be careful. I remember reading about something ancient living in those caves….”
Carefully, Sunny reached a hoof under the table and felt a bag. Her heart stopped when she felt a familiar cold metal object inside. Pulling it out of the bag, Sunny made sure to keep it under the table as she looked at it. Her eyes went wide and the breath left her body when she got a good look at the familiar object in her hooves.
It was only from previously sharing a mind with Tex that she recognized it as an M6G recoil-operated, magazine-fed magnum: the favored sidearm of the UNSC’s finest. Sunny felt the gun slowly, examining its every detail. It had no trigger guard, she discerned, and a few other tiny variations in the design made her realize it was custom-built to be used by ponies.
“Pretty impressive, right?” Silversteel asked, thankfully misinterpreting her shock for that of someone seeing something new and strange. “Of course, what you’re holding right now is just a taste of what our employer is giving us. This stuff outclasses every weapon we’ve come to know. Swords, crossbows, everything we trained with is gonna be made obsolete by these… ‘guns!’ I wonder who made them….”
Sunny had a pretty good idea. The magnum had no markings to indicate its make, but the whole thing had Project Freelancer written all over it. What could they be up to now? Whatever it was, it couldn’t be anything good. Sunny remembered what she’d said to her companions. What she’d promised to her aunt and uncle. She swore she was going to stay home and focus on her recovery, but her every instinct was telling her what needed to be done.
Putting the magnum back in Silversteel’s saddle bag, Sunny leaned on one foreleg and tried to imitate one of her friend’s easy smiles. “Northern Equestria, you said?” she asked. “How far north are we talking, exactly?”
Silversteel grinned. “As north as it gets.”
