An Update/3-11 Recap · 10:25pm Dec 27th, 2015
I haven't finished writing the next chapter!
Why is this good news, you ask? Because the chapter is long enough and I have enough written already that I was able to split it in half and upload the first part, which essentially means ya'll get an extra chapter of IAIMAY before it ends (this one was supposed to be the climax)!
Anyways, recap time!
“Go. I’ll watch your back from up here!” Washington said.
Nodding, Church held the unconscious Twilight tightly before he jumped and slid down the icy ledge, landing roughly on the slope at the bottom. He then ran into the trees, focused on his sprint and wary of his surroundings. Church was so busy looking for enemies in his immediate vicinity, he failed to check his six. He didn’t notice when Washington adjusted his sights to put him in the center of his targeting reticle. He didn’t expect the sudden BR burst that entered his back, sending him and Twilight tumbling to the snow.
As Washington lowered his smoking rifle, a dozen Freelancer soldiers reached the summit and the circling Falcon came down for a landing. The soldiers all surrounded the Freelancer, weapons raised and shouting at him to drop his weapon and show them his hands.
“All of you stand down!” a voice shouted over the rotors of the Falcon as a fiery unicorn mare and a Recovery Agent hopped out.
“He’s with us!” Captain Donovan barked, and with a few exchanged glances, the gray soldiers all lowered their weapons.
“Nice work, Recovery One. You played your part well,” Sunset Shimmer said as she and Donovan approached Washington. “I guess the Director was wrong not to trust you with this after all.”
Fluttershy’s baleful stare was broken by the water building in her eyes. “H-how could you?! We trusted you! Twilight trusted you!”
With a rueful sigh, Washington said, “I know. But let me make one thing perfectly clear: My first priority is and always has been to ensure that Director Church is caught and brought to justice.”
“Oh really?” Shining Armor said, trembling with barely contained fury, the placating look of his wife beside him likely the only thing keeping him from tearing Washington apart right then and there. “Is that why you sent my baby sister off to be be tortured?!”
Washington nodded. “Yes.”
When the looks of confusion remained firmly plastered to the ponies’ faces, Washington elaborated. “It had been my hope—as it had been yours, Princess—that Project Freelancer would be unable to reacquire the location of the Forerunner site until we’ve found everything we need there. But I was also prepared for the possibility that they would have found it first.”
With nothing short of pure horror, Celestia looked at Washington as she started to understand. “You can’t mean to say….”
“I knew that if Project Freelancer found the ruins first, they’ll have cleared out everything there that could link back to them. We would have no evidence to use against them. That’s why I needed a way to make new evidence.”
Celestia shook her head. “No, Washington. You can’t….”
“The Director is likely fragmenting Ancora as we speak, and if he’s still as thorough as I remember, he’ll be keeping it all documented.”
“Okay…” Luna said, momentarily pausing in an attempt to rub the stress from her face. “Assuming we did agree to go along with your plan, what’s the next step?”
“At your word, I’ll call the Mother of Invention and inform them that my cover within your ranks has been blown, at which point Project Freelancer will arrange for my immediate extraction,” Washington explained. “Once I’m aboard, it should be a relatively simple matter of extracting Twilight myself after using their own communications array to transmit every last bit of data from their experiments on her, along with our coordinates, to the Chairman of the Oversight Sub-Committee. All you have to do is say the word.”
Celestia looked around the throne room and found that all eyes were on her. Realizing the decision was ultimately up to her, she sighed and stepped down from her throne, approaching the Freelancer and looking him in her best approximation of where his eyes were behind his helmet’s visor.
“I want to trust you, Agent Washington. I really do.” Celestia closed her eyes. “Why couldn’t you just tell me?”
“I knew you wouldn’t approve, and took a calculated risk,” he answered stoically. “Because I knew that once you saw the fruits of my plan, you would understand that I was only trying to do what was best.”
Internally, Celestia winced. Those words sounded awfully familiar. For a moment, she almost imagined that when she opened her eyes, she would be standing in her own throne room looking down at a fiery young unicorn mare.
“I’m sorry Washington, but we’ll find another way to save Twilight and stop the Director ourselves.” Celestia opened her eyes and, glancing at the guards watching the Freelancer carefully, said, “You’re free to go, but our collaboration is at an end.”
“Despite all of their talk about the ‘magic of friendship,’ them ponies ain’t our friends. We ain’t part of their world.” Sarge picked up his tool case and the white helmet beside it. “We were lucky to have gotten outta this one alive, but how long do ya reckon our luck will hold?.”
Grif and Tucker exchanged a look as Sarge started walking back towards the castle, only stopping to say a few last words. “I don’ know ‘bout either of you, but I don’ fancy dyin’ for a world that I got no stake in.”
Church folded his holographic arms, looking at Tucker with uncertainty. “You want to go back to our planet? Back to our canyon?”
“Yeah!” Tucker said, standing up. “Or, at least back to our planet. What’s wrong with that?”
“Uh, how about the fact that we’re not finished here? Project Freelancer is still going forward with their plans and are experimenting on another innocent person right now? You know, that whole problem?”
“So what? It’s not our problem!” Tucker said, and all of a sudden, Church noted it had gotten very quiet over in the kitchen.
“Think about it, we’ve spent the past week and a half risking our lives for this world and what are we getting out of it?” Tucker gestured to his arm in its sling. “Nothing but broken bones!”
“I was apparently copied from the Director—from Church’s mind, but Tex wasn’t copied from Allison’s. At least, not directly. She was copied from the Director’s mind just like me.” Seeing Twilight’s confused head tilt, Church continued. “The Director’s memory of Allison was strong, she was… she was his whole world. When she died, the memory of her stuck with him. It was so strong, that when they used his mind as the base for Alpha, they didn’t just end up with one A.I. They ended up with two. One was me, and the other….”
“The other was Allison!” Twilight exclaimed.
“The other was the Director’s memory of Allison: Tex,” Church said. “But there’s more. It was the memory of Allison’s death that stuck so strongly with the Director; her failure to save so many lives. Do you know what that means?” Twilight shook her head. “Each of the A.I. fragments were based on one of Alpha’s—and by extension the Director’s—traits. Omega was rage, Delta was logic, and so on.
“But Tex? Her trait was failure. That’s what she is, and that’s what she’s destined to be: a living representation of another person’s failure.”
“Does… does she know?”
“Hard to say. Tex had the data chip for years.” Church tapped a finger on his helmet. “But she didn’t have what I have.”
Before Twilight could teleport them all away, the Leader and a few of his men approached them, taking a tight hold of the Forerunner construct. His demeanor was as cold and grim as when they first met.
“Whatever your plan is when you reach your homeworld, I suggest you do it fast,” the man who called himself CT warned. “As soon as we’re ready, I’m coming after the Director with everything I have. You won’t want to be in the way when that happens.”
Twilight teleported herself and the others to Equestria, and CT and his men turned to leave. None of them noticed the large, growling figure hiding in the shadows.
With a bright flash of light, another ship suddenly appeared among the stars in the distance outside the viewport. It was somewhat bulkier than the Mother of Invention, sporting a sleeker pointed design. Even from this great distance, several holes and scorch marks from past battles could be seen on the ship’s hull. Dr. Church recognized it immediately as a UNSC Halberd-class destroyer; exactly what he was expecting.
“I was wondering when you’d finally show up again…” the Director mused as he studied the distant vessel. The Mother of Invention’s IFF program wasn’t showing the other ship’s name or serial number, indicating they must have configured her to wartime steaming. Nevertheless, Dr. Church knew he was looking at the UNSC Staff of Charon; the flagship of the Insurrection that had been a thorn in his side for so very long.
But no longer. The destroyer had vastly superior firepower capabilities to the Director’s own frigate, which was one of a few contributing factors leading to the Mother of Invention’s crippling defeat during their last encounter. But this time, they were ready, and Dr. Church had made a few upgrades to the Mother of invention over the years.
The Director adjusted his glasses as he looked up to address the ship as a whole. “FILSS?”
“Target locked.” The shipboard A.I. almost sounded gleeful as she replied, “Firing main cannon.”
A distant bang echoed through the sky above like a clap of thunder. What was weird was that there wasn’t any lightning. Rainbow Dash even said when they returned that tonight was only supposed to be overcast. There wasn’t a proper thunderstorm scheduled for at least another week.
“Great galloping goombas! What was that?” Sarge asked.
A second echoing clap drew the three Reds and the pair of ponies out from the thick apple trees onto the hill overlooking the orchard. It was dark, but the moon was bright enough to illuminate the night sky through the layer of clouds covering it. It wasn’t long before Fluttershy realized the ground beneath them was shaking before a deafening whine filled the sky. The sight that followed sucked the collective breaths out of every individual that saw it.
A metal behemoth burst through the layer of clouds in the sky, wreathed in flames and black smoke. The ship was as big as Canterlot, maybe bigger. It was easy to make the comparison as the massive vessel flew right past the mountainside capital. Whatever objects each of the Reds were holding dropped to the ground. Applejack’s jaw hung open, and Fluttershy’s eyes grew wide as she shook like a tree in the wind. All of them watched in awed silence as the burning ship sailed a bit longer before hitting the ground with a deep bang that seemed to shake the world.
MORE CLIFFHANGERS!!
3646560 I never have a shortage of those!