Rainbow Dash was beside herself with anger as she landed in front of Twilight's front door. Knocking on it, she waited impatiently. As she raised her hoof to knock harder, the door was opened by Facet. "Where's Twilight?"
"Why do you seem so angry, Rainbow Dash?" Facet asked as he stood in the doorway, denying her entry. "If you're mad at Twilight, tell me why."
Rainbow shoved past the stallion and started looking around. "Twilight! Where are you?!" Ear twitching, she went to the door that led down to Twilight's laboratory and opened it, going down the stairs.
"Rainbow wait!" Facet called as he followed after her. "Twilight isn't taking visitors right now!"
Rainbow ignored him as she approached the lab, hearing yelps of pain.
"Be gentle, would you?!" Twilight demanded as mechanical arms tried with thus far limited success to remove her beaten and battered suit.
"Ma'am, the more you struggle, the more this is going to hurt," Dusk Shine calmly responded as he kept attempting to remove the armor.
"I designed this to come off!" Twilight snapped back as a piece of her suit was removed. "Progress!" She exclaimed triumphantly before the door burst open. Looking to it, she saw Rainbow Dash and Facet in the mare's wake.
"I'm sorry, Twilight. I tried to stop her," Facet said apologetically.
Twilight stared at Rainbow in silence for several seconds. "Let's face it. This is not the worst thing you've caught me doing."
After the suit was finally removed and Twilight was at her desk with some ice packs, Rainbow was still furious even as Twilight was designing a new suit. "Rainbow, what's this about?"
"You know damn well what this is about!" Rainbow shouted. "What the hay were you thinking pulling a stunt like that?! You do not send civilian equipment into my active war zone!"
"That was not a piece of equipment, it was a suit!" Twilight corrected with a glare as she turned away from her computer and telekinetically grabbed the pictures Ditzy had given her, shoving them into her friend's face. "Somepony in my company is still selling weapons to terrorists. I will not abide that technology being in the hooves of such evil!"
"Then do something about it within your company!" Rainbow snapped back. "You have to go through the proper channels for something like this!"
"The proper channels won't get anything done!" Twilight shouted. "This is a personal mission for me, Rainbow! Those weapons were what killed my father! He died in my hooves! I have to do this Rainbow! It has to be me! Somepony else might get it wrong!" Tears streamed down Twilight's face as she relived the painful memory of watching her father die. "The terrorists that held me captive... When Dad died I... I just snapped." She looked into her friend's magenta eyes. "I killed them. Every single one of them. Not just at their hideout, but the ones that were in Coltmira too."
Rainbow was struck silent at Twilight's outburst. She could see just how important this was to her friend. She knew she should bring it to the attention of her superiors, but she was torn between that loyalty and her loyalty to her friend. Ultimately, the Pinkie Promise she had made was the deciding factor. "Alright. I'll try to keep the skies clear whenever you go out. Just... Be careful Twilight." She eyed the bullet holes and scorch marks on Twilight's suit with apprehension.
"I will," Twilight said. "I won't be using the Mark III anymore though. For the foreseeable future, the Mark IV will be my suit of choice." She turned back to her designing. "Dusk, make note that we need to improve the integrity of the suit's armor against ballistic impacts."
"Of course, ma'am," Dusk replied as Twilight sipped a glass of an odd green concoction.
Rainbow sighed. "Regardless. Your little stunt is all over the news." Grabbing the remote to the lab's TV, she flipped it to the news channel.
"In other news. Authorities are still baffled by the surprise appearance of a mysterious armored pony that liberated the town of Coltmira from terrorist occupation," The anchormare, Hot News gestured to cycling images of Twilight in her suit as she fought the terrorists. "The military's official statement is that they were uninvolved in the strike, and that they are investigating the pony in question."
The broadcast then cut to another news pony interviewing a civilian from Coltmira. "The armored pony was a mare," she said. "She saved my husband and son from being shot, destroyed their weapons, and brought the leader to us. She said he was all ours. He will not trouble us again. Whoever this mare is, we are forever in her debt and will never forget what she did for us."
The news pony brought his microphone to his mouth as the camera focused on him. "Well this mysterious savior is certainly popular with the ponies of Coltmira."
Rainbow turned off the TV and pulled up a Snoutbook feed on one of the computer screens Twilight wasn't using. "You're all over Snoutbook too."
Twilight and Facet looked at the feed and saw all the comments about Twilight. "Iron Mare?" The former asked with an arched eyebrow. "Kind of a misnomer. The suit is made of a gold/titanium alloy. And those aren't lasers I was firing."
"Then what were they?" Rainbow asked with a tilt of her head.
"Repulsor blasts," Twilight replied after drinking more of her green concoction. "The repulsors draw power directly from the ARC reactor in my chest to fire high mass, negatively charged muons as a concussive energy attack."
"Once an egghead, always an egghead," Rainbow muttered. "Hey, Facet. Could you let me talk to Twilight alone for a bit?"
"Anything you want to ask her you can ask while I'm here," Facet replied with a frown as he stepped closer to his marefriend.
"It's alright, Facet. Give us a few minutes," Twilight said softly. "Maybe brew us some tea?"
Facet relented after several seconds of silence and pecked Twilight on the lips before heading upstairs. Only after he was gone did Rainbow speak again.
"Alright. Why are you suddenly drinking chlorophyll? I never pegged you for a health nut." Rainbow was giving Twilight an even more serious gaze than she had been before. Her anger was replaced by concern for what she saw as out of character behavior.
"A girl can't start taking better care of her body after a near death experience and months of captivity give her a healthy appreciation for life?" Twilight as she set Dusk to assembling her new suit.
"Taking care of your body is one thing, but out of all of our circle of friends, I'm the biggest health nut. Comes with the Wonderbolt territory, and chlorophyll is one of those things you don't start drinking unless you're paranoid about something affecting you. Now spill it, Twilight." Rainbow stared Twilight down without a single blink as she spoke.
"Ma'am, perhaps we should share the truth with Ms. Dash," Dusk suggested in what Rainbow could never mistake as anything other than concern.
Twilight sighed and drained her glass before turning to her friend. "This ARC reactor in my chest. It uses cores made from palladium. Palladium is a heavy metal, and this reactor is powering what amounts to a pacemaker. That palladium is getting leaked into my bloodstream little by little. Without proper management, it'll build up until it eventually hits a lethal dose. Hence the chlorophyll. It can bind and flush out the palladium."
"Then replace it with something else!" Rainbow snapped in alarm and worry. "If you know it's poisoning you then why are you still using it?!"
"Because I haven't found a replacement element yet," Twilight replied. "I've been trying ever since I got home."
"I have been running simulations of every known element," Dusk Shine chimed in. "Thus far none can serve as a viable replacement for the palladium core. As it stands, the device that is keeping Ms. Sparkle alive is also killing her."
"It'll be okay," Twilight insisted. "As long as I keep up the chlorophyll drinking I should be okay for at least six months. Plenty of time to figure this out."
"Does Facet know?" Rainbow asked.
"Yeah. I told him everything," Twilight confirmed with a small smile. "He's been so supportive. I'm so lucky to have him."
Rainbow couldn't help but share in her smile. "You really are, Twi."
In the deserts where Twilight and her father had been held captive, a secret meeting was being held in the camp of the terrorists that had been responsible. What was left of them anyway. Twilight had been extremely thorough in her purge of them, but a few had managed to elude her, and now hid in the shadows licking their wounds.
In the tent of the group's new leader, said leader was meeting with their benefactor, and was very unhappy. "You see what Sparkle did to me?!" He demanded as he gestured to his scarred face.
"Well if you had killed her and her father like you were told to, you'd still have half a face," his benefactor smugly replied as they took a sip of their tea. "So that... suit is how she escaped you?"
"Yes. Managed to construct it right under our noses. Though this was only her first crude effort. Sparkle has perfected her design and put it to use."
"Indeed. Your decimation is all over the news in Equestria."
"Still. The suit is potent. A stallion with ten could conquer most of the continent. So here's what I propose. I give you this suit, and in return you give a gift of iron soldiers."
His benefactor chuckled as they reached over and put a hoof on his shoulder, a faint piercing sound entering his ear and paralyzing him. "That will not be necessary," they replied as they closed the device making the sound and removed their protective ear plugs. Leaving the stallion paralyzed, they stepped outside, where the remains of the cell were held at gunpoint by the benefactor's own people. "Pack it all up. No witnesses." As they walked toward their airship, the sound of gunfire rent the air.