Final Chapter Recap · 11:20pm Feb 13th, 2016
Yep. We're finally here. Tomorrow, it ends.
Incidentally, the RWBY finale has me in a state of emotional shock.
Anyway, here's the final recap of I Against I, Me Against You:
Celestia looked down, suddenly unable to meet her student’s eyes. “That’s why I’ve been working so hard to keep all of this secret. If word of my involvement was to get out, ponies would lose faith in me. I know of many who would even clamor for my removal from office. And if word reaches the UNSC that I helped the Director commit a war crime of this magnitude… I don’t know what will happen.”
Twilight looked at Celestia with disbelief. “But… you didn’t do anything wrong! You didn’t know!”
“The UNSC Oversight Sub-Committee might not see it that way. While I didn’t know the damage my information would cause, that doesn’t change the fact that I still caused it. Just the same, Sunset Shimmer may have gone against the spirit of what I asked her when she helped them split Alpha, but she was following my orders to the letter when she did so. At the end of the day, the commander must take responsibility for the actions of their troops.”
Sarge took out his shotgun and held it proudly. “Friendship ain’t perfect, and it ain’t easy to understand. But it’s what separates people like us from people like the Director. Friendship is wonderful, and friendship is terrible. But above all, friendship is an enigmatic force impossible for anyone to truly understand.
“Friendship… is magic.”
The collective breaths of everyone in the orchard were sucked out of them and thrown to the wind. The stunned silence was finally broken by the sound of a lone man clapping.
“Yaaaaaaaaay!” Caboose cheered as he clapped.
“Wow…” Grif said as he struggled to find adequate words. “I never in a million years… thought I would ever hear you say something so fruity.”
“Yeah… I’m so proud of you, Sarge!” Donut sniffed.
“Fuck it. Let’s go help some ponies,” Tucker said.
“That’s the spirit!” Sarge exclaimed.
Gilda looked up at Rainbow Dash, and finally the madness was gone. The fire in her eyes was replaced by water. Rainbow was looking at her foalhood friend again.
“I know…” Gilda whimpered. “We were gonna… we were finally gonna be a family again.”
“I’m sorry,” Rainbow said, putting a burning hoof on her shoulder.
“Was it really Sunset Shimmer that... did it?”
Rainbow nodded. “She gave the order, and that Freelancer guy—Donovan—pulled the trigger.”
Gilda sighed and sniffed. “Why?”
Rainbow grappled with telling her the truth for a moment. “Because your dad loved you, Gilda. He put your happiness before his mission. He didn’t want you to be hurt.”
Through the tears, Gilda gave a bitter laugh. “He sure succeeded there, huh?”
The two of them were quiet for a few moments longer. “I’m sorry, Dash. I messed up.”
Rainbow shrugged. “Stuff happens.”
“I just… want things to go back to the way they were, y’know? The way they were in Flight Camp.”
“Me too…” Rainbow thought about it. She longed for the time when she and Gilda were better friends. She thought about all the good memories they made together. But now she had new friends that she’d made new memories with. Between her and Gilda... it just felt like too much had happened. “But you can’t always get what you want. Like I said, sometimes it’s best to just let things go.”
Washington gave a disappointed sigh as he looked around at the mercenary corpses strewn about the engine room. “C’mon, Maine. We’re done here.”
But evidently, Maine was not. The big soldier crouched beside Silversteel’s body and turned him over. Grabbing a spot on the back of the dead mercenary’s neck, Maine pulled hard.
“Maine, what are you doing?” Washington asked, a tone of worry entering his voice.
With a hard yank, Maine pulled something out from the back of Silversteel’s neck.
“Oh no….”
Applejack took a closer look, and saw that Maine was holding Silversteel’s M.I. implant. Maine looked at Washington and let out an animalistic growl.
“Maine don’t!”
Maine lifted his helmet and shoved the chip into the back of his neck, letting out a feral roar. Whether it was one of pain or ecstasy, Applejack couldn’t say. But in a few short seconds, Maine rose to his feet, the projection of a tiny blue unicorn now at his side. He looked down at his hands as they were enveloped in a blue glow.
“What’s goin’ on?!” Applejack shouted as she ran to Washington and tried to help him to his feet.
“I should’ve known…” Washington sighed as he he climbed to his feet and Maine roared triumphantly. “Even now that he’s gone, Sigma’s hold on him is too strong.”
Applejack looked again at the towering creature as it tossed aside the zebra’s corpse with a shimmer of magic. She knew in that moment that she wasn’t looking at Agent Maine, Washington’s old friend. That man was gone.
There was only the Meta.
“You guys go,” Washington said with grim determination, raising his rifle. “Get back to Twilight and get her out of here! If the Meta gets her….”
“But what about you?” Applejack asked as crates and a dozen loose objects circled the Meta, surrounded by a blue and green glow.
“I can keep it busy long enough for you all to escape.”
Applejack took a step toward him. “But there’s no way you’ll be able to beat that thing!” When Washington gave no response, Applejack felt her ears wilt. “If yer doin’ this to prove yerself to us, you don’ have to!”
“And I’m not,” Washington said, turning to look at the two ponies one last time. “I’m doing this because I want to. Because… that’s what friends do for each other.”
As Washington turned back around to face the Meta, Pinkie’s face lit up and she gasped. “Did you see that?!” Pinkie looked at Applejack with the biggest grin on her face as she said, “He smiled!”
Finally, the M.I. chip popped out with an agonized scream from Sunny Side. A bit of blood came out with it, and more started slowly seeping out of the tiny hole in the back of Sunny’s neck. Fortunately, they were in a medical bay, and it didn’t take Fluttershy long to find bandages and some disinfectant. She got to work patching up the tiny wound, and Sunny finally started to appear more relaxed.
It was a couple of minutes before Sunny was breathing normally, and she finally managed to sit up with Fluttershy and Rarity’s help.
“Oh, Sunny dear,” Rarity said. “What happened? What in Equestria are you even doing here?”
“I-I don’t know…” Sunny whimpered. “I thought I was here to infiltrate Whitewater and investigate Project Freelancer. But I’m just in way over my head…” she sighed. “I just… I just needed some way to distract myself, I guess.”
The two mares gave her concerned looks. “If something’s happening in your life, you can always talk to us about it, dear,” Rarity reassured.
Fluttershy nodded. “We’re your friends, and friends help each other.”
“Okay, so can we set this right?” Rarity asked, looking at her unconscious friend Twilight with a worried frown. “How do we restore her memories?”
“If they’ve broken her this much, that can only mean she’s fragmented them,” Washington said, struggling to regain some of his trademark stoicism as he reached for his helmet. “If we can find the memory fragment, it should be able to restore her memories just like how Epsilon did for Alpha."
Tex’s avatar appeared in the air beside Fluttershy and Sometimes Sinks. “Ask it about Twilight and their experiments.”
Before Fluttershy could answer, the huragok turned to face Tex and started signing with its tentacles, and Church realized that the thing likely understood what they were saying just fine.
“He says… they broke her. Over and over again. Just like they did to the last one,” Fluttershy said, her small voice breaking as she translated for the alien. “They made him… he tried to fix her, but he couldn’t. Just like before. So he helped her separate the pieces that were broken, and fixed them so they’d work by themselves,” Fluttershy sniffed. “He says it gave him bad memories. He knew there was something wrong with what they were doing, but he couldn’t stop.”
“Bad memories…” Washington mused, before suddenly exclaiming, “That’s it! Everything they did to Twilight, and even Alpha, the huragok has it all in its own memory banks! We don’t need to use Twilight’s memory fragment to convict the Director. All the evidence we need is right here in the huragok!”
“Perfect. I’ll gather what data I can and put together a little message for the Chairman,” Church said as he dispatched a few subroutines to do exactly that. “You guys find Twilight’s memory fragment and bring it back here.”
Slowly, the pony that was Twilight Sparkle sat up on the operating table, and looked at each of the people gathered around her. Finally, Twilight’s eyes rested on the baby dragon at her side.
“Twilight?” he asked. “Are you back?”
She studied Spike a little longer before whispering, “Spike…?”
All at once the little drake’s face lit up, and hopeful smiles filled each of the faces present.
“Hey, you remember!” Spike exclaimed.
With a sad smile, Twilight shook her head. “Sorry, but no. I don’t recognize you… but I recognize your voice. That was you, right? Telling me the story of the purple unicorn and her friends? It was about me, wasn’t it? Somehow, I knew it was my story.”
Twilight looked to each of her friends next. “I think… I know who each of you are. Yes… I know you’re my friends, but… I’m sorry, I just don’t remember you yet.”
The massive metal monster slowly turned until the front was lined up with the Blue Thunder. Luna wasn’t sure why it would do that. At least, until an unsettling thought occurred to her.
“Sister!” Luna called out, but when she looked to Celestia, she saw that her big sister had noticed the Mother of Invention’s movement as well.
Before Luna could ask whether it was possible for them to regain control of their weapons from Alpha, Celestia dove between the Blue Thunder and the Freelancer flagship. Luna suddenly realized what was going on, and her breath escaped her body. In a fraction of a second, a mighty blast shot forth from the Mother of Invention. At the same time, Celestia unleashed a powerful burst of pure, uncontrolled magical energy. The two forces collided mere meters away from Celestia, and the regal white alicorn was consumed in a fiery explosion.
“TIA!” Luna cried out, her breaths quickening as a deep rooted fear she hadn’t felt in a millennium began to take hold.
She watched in horror as her sister’s limp, charred body fell through the sky, disappearing beneath the layer of cloud-like ash below. The whole world went silent and all Luna could hear was her own heartbeat. For a fleeting moment, she thought she heard a familiar dark voice whispering things within her own mind. Felt a phantom tingle in the back of her mind. She pushed the feelings away as she glanced over towards the Blue Thunder. The airship had cleared the Mother of Invention’s range and disappeared into the clouds behind a nearby mountain. The starships were returning to the human warship.
Without a second thought, Luna shot down below the cloudy ash, hoping beyond hope it wasn’t already too late.
“It looks like we have a confirmed hit, sir,” the Counselor stated as the Director watched Celestia’s limp body fall through the sky and disappear. “She must really value the lives of her people to sacrifice herself for them like that. It’s almost inspiring.”
The Director just looked down at his inexplicably trembling hands, only half listening to his subordinate. Celestia, you fool! You damned fool!
Suddenly his thoughts were consumed by memories of her. Of their discussions, of their sharing of cultures, and pain. Of the things she had said about Allison.
“Counselor, take over,” Dr. Church said, turning away from the viewport.
“Sir?” the Counselor asked.
“I must… I’m going to my office,” Dr. Church said, continuing to the bridge’s exit. “There are… matters I must think on.”
Summoning a pocket watch from her pocket dimension, Sunset Shimmer checked the time. “If my calculations are correct, we should have about seven minutes before the engine room goes up. Then however long it takes the ship to crash.”
Putting the watch back into her pocket dimension, Sunset looked at Twilight with a serene smile. “After that, I just have to come crying back to Celestia, saying ‘oh, I’m sorry! I never thought the Director would go so far!’ Or something along those lines.” Sunset’s smile became deranged as her eyes widened furiously. “Then when Celestia sees that it was my experiment that saved the day, she will finally see the truth! She will finally see that I was right!!!”
One thing was clear to Twilight in that moment. “You’re insane!”
Her whole face sore, Twilight could feel what she could only imagine to be blood dripping from what she deduced was a broken nose and forehead. Finally, Sunset stopped, allowing Twilight to catch a breath before her horn glowed with another cyan spell. Slowly and deliberately, Sunset lowered her horn to Twilight’s forehead, and it took her only a moment to identify what spell she was about to use.
Unfortunately it was a moment too much, and Sunset Shimmer cast the memory spell on Twilight.
All at once, the buried memories started rushing back to the surface, and Twilight was overwhelmed by understanding. Suddenly, each of the images in her mind had context. Her whole life played out in mere moments, from the early days of her foalhood as Celestia’s student to her recent expedition to the Frozen North as she sought the Forerunner ruins and a way to beat Project Freelancer.
As darkness closed in around her, Twilight thought of an idea. If she was based on the pony in front of her, that meant they shared more things in common than one might expect.
“Please, there’s still a chance to make this right!” Twilight implored. “You can still stop!”
Sunset gave Twilight a curious look at that moment, like she was a puzzle she just couldn’t figure out.
“You exist because I made you…” Sunset said, her face hardening with resolve. “Now I’m unmaking you!”
With a sigh, Twilight closed her eyes as more of her was erased by Sunset’s spell. “I’m sorry for this….”
Twilight wasn’t even sure how she did what she did next. Regardless, she knew it was possible. Twilight separated herself from her physical body and materialized as a tiny incorporeal unicorn before Sunset Shimmer. She and Twilight’s friends gasped at the sight, their eyes glued to the being of pure magical energy floating in place. Then she lunged forward, joining her mind to Sunset’s.
All at once, Twilight was filled with memories that weren’t hers, grappling with the ones that were. When Twilight no longer felt the numbness eating away at her, she withdrew from Sunset’s mind and returned to her own body. As the destroyed mess hall came into focus, she noticed that Sunset’s shield was gone, and that her friends were all around her, helping her to her feet.
Sunset Shimmer was on the floor, curled into a trembling ball as she sobbed into her hooves.
“Oh Celestia…” she whimpered through the tears. “Celestia, what am I doing? What am I doing…?”
Slowly, Twilight approached her, and when Sunset looked up at her with a tear soaked face, Twilight reached towards her.
“Take my hoof,” she said.
Sunset gave her that look again. The look of complete incomprehension. “You should hate me,” she sniffed. “Don’t you hate me?”
“No,” Twilight answered. “I pity you.”
Twilight waited with her hoof extended, but Sunset just stared at it with that blank, confused face.
“I told you, you can still set things right.”
When Sunset made no move to take her hoof, Spike put a hand on her back. “Twilight, we have to go.”
A distant BOOM shook the ship, and as the overhead lights flickered, Twilight remembered they were out of time.
“C’mon,” Church implored. “She isn’t worth it.”
“Okay. Let’s go home.”
The group turned to the door and together they made their exit, leaving the broken shell of Sunset Shimmer on the floor behind them.
Another voice broadcasted itself over the crashed Pelican’s radio. “Church! Twilight! Does anyone read me?” Sunny Side asked. Twilight could hear the other Pelican flying overhead.
“Yeah, we’re all fine!” Church responded.
“That looked like a nasty crash, do you guys need assistance?”
“No, my scans are showing that everyone’s fine. Just get your wounded to the nearest base.”
“Okay…” There was a pause in Sunny’s response. “Captain Kicker is signaling Captain Spitfire on the Blue Thunder. She’ll swing around to get you guys.”
Church’s vision flashed red, indicators all over his HUD reporting the damage to his synthetic body. His legs refused to follow his commands with any consistency, and he couldn’t stand up right. So much red filled his vision that he didn’t even notice the single dot that appeared on his motion tracker. However, he did hear the sound of footsteps crunching on pebbles, and Church was suddenly overcome by fear as he turned and saw the figure approaching him.
Its once white armor was charred black, and it was coated in a layer of blood. Church couldn’t tell whether the blood was the creature’s own or that of those it had killed. Either way, the looming figure strode towards him, unflinching. A fist full of important looking wires dropped from its hand as it got closer. Church tried desperately to crawl away with his damaged body, but it was no use.
Church felt himself being lifted up, and before he knew it, he found himself looking into a reflective dome: the face of the monster that was the Meta.
Emotional shock, eh? Well, I won't be able to find out about the RWBY ep till tomorrow.
So, Flynt Coal, think that the next story you write might be about RWBY then?
3752163 Same here... I'm kinda worried after what happened to Yang.
Sigh its been one hell of a run, but all good things must come to an end, that goes double for amazing stories. I hope we get another crossover someday.
3752169 Probably not. As much as I love RWBY, the only reason I was able to make this RvB crossover work is because RvB's story (or at least the arc I covered) is already complete. RWBY's story is still being told, and as much as we've learned this past season, there's still a lot about the world of Remnant we just don't know yet. I don't see the point in weaving a story with as rich a history as I've given IAIMAY when anything I come up with for RWBY backstory-wise will most likely be refuted by canon next season.
3753234 that sucks.
I saw the RWBY Episode just now... I feel dead inside.
You are not the only one in shock. Yang is too after loosing so much blood.