BANG
“You’re dead,” Jacob, a dark-skinned human man who was one of the two people on Shepard’s strike team, told Dash as the pegasus picked herself up from the ground. Her body was covered in bruises from the last five days of exercises, most of them ending painfully.
“Come on! I totally should have had it that time!” Dash exclaimed as she wiped most of the red paint out of her fur.
“You started well, but you were too aggressive. You should’ve waited a little longer and you’d have had me,” Jacob calmly stated as he placed the assault rifle back on the table at the side of the small arena they’d built in the Normandy’s cargo bay. “We’re done for today. Go take a shower, you stink.”
Dash groaned and dragged herself to the elevators and took it up to the crew level. Standing outside of the elevator as she got up was Shining who had a smug grin plastered on his face. “That beating you took there was ‘awesome’ as you would say. Sadly I had other things to do, otherwise I’d have come to watch earlier.”
Rainbow glared at him, “Yeah, yeah, go ahead and laugh. I’m at least preparing while you’ve been doing what?”
“Politics, Dash. I’ve been ‘calling’ ambassadors constantly and making connections,” Shining replied seriously as he followed Rainbow to the shower’s door. “I’ll probably join you in your practice anyway. I have to practice to retrain my guard too you know.”
Dash sighed as she saw reason in Shinings actions. At least now she wouldn’t have to bother with anything like that. “Fine, but I’m going to laugh at you just as hard as you’ve been doing at me for the past two days," she said accusingly as she stepped inside the woman’s bathroom.
“I expect nothing less!” Shining called out just before the door closed behind Dash and she went to do her thing.
Rainbow had pretty much claimed a spot in the port observatory room on the first day onboard while they were getting a tour of the ship. The view outside at the vast expanse of nothing, just faint, distant stars, had mesmerized her to the point that she could just stare outside for an eternity.
After finishing her shower, Dash walked back to the elevator, taking it down to engineering. The two engineers there, Ken and Gabby, had been teaching her how to play skyllian-five poker in their spare time, stating that the more the merrier. But today she wouldn’t be joining them in their game. They probably had already gotten the memo, but it was only nice to go tell them in pony.
Shepard had told Dash they’d be picking up the first member of the team that was going to make up his strike team for his ultimate mission. Rainbow didn’t know any specifics about that yet, but the way the commander was talking about it gave her a good indication that there was a good chance the team who went wouldn’t be coming back.
“Oi lassy! We heard the news of ya goin’ out with Shepard,” Ken, the male of the two human engineers called out. Dash chuckled at his heavy accent and nodded.
“Yeah, apparently we’ll just have to pick someone up and get out again. Nothing much that could go wrong there, so he thought it a good idea for me to get out of the ship a bit,” Rainbow replied. “I’ll have to miss the poker game though. We’ll probably still be working at the usual time we play.”
“Don’t sweat it, Dash. I’ll just have to rip Ken here of his credits myself,” Gabby smirked, something that infected Dash as well.
“Let him keep his underwear this time,” she grinned. “Got to go now. Apparently Shepard wanted to give me a few things before we go.”
Ken grumbled for a moment but couldn’t help but smile moments later. “Good luck out there, lass. See you when you get back!”
With that done Dash made her way back to the elevator, going up to Shepard’s private chamber. She found the door to the quarters to be closed to her. “Commander, are you there?”
“Oh right, Dash. Come in.” Shepards voice came out of the door’s console just before it unlocked and opened up. The room Rainbow stepped into was moderately large with a fish tank embedded into the wall on one side and a small desk space on the other while deeper into the room there was a very comfortable looking double bed. The roof of his cabin included a window not unlike the one in the observation room, giving a beautiful view of the expanse of space.
“What did you want to see me about, sir?” Dash asked, snapping a salute with her right wing. She'd been to the Wonderbolt academy, so she was no stranger to military protocol, although she didn't exactly always follow it, and was sure Shepard would appreciate the gesture.
“At ease. I had Cerberus pull Fluttershy’s armor schematics that were stored on the old Normandy, since, if you’re going to come along with me and the others, I won’t have you wearing inadequate armor. So if you questioned why I had been holding off on going on missions and just getting all my supplies sorted over the last few days, this is why,” Shepard explained as he undid the latches on a large box. Dash’s eyes were glistening with excitement as she rushed forward to see its contents. “I asked them to redesign it a bit and make it modular so you can customize and improve parts of it later.”
“This is so AWESOME!” Rainbow exclaimed as she pulled out the dark grey pieces of armor along with its jet black undersuit. It was not too different in design to the armor she had seen Shepard in, seemingly the same material, although without the paint job nor the little N7 insignia on the chest.
“Go on, see if it fits!” Shepard encouraged, not that Dash really needed the push as she was already halfway into the undersuit.
It took another few minutes of fumbling and help from the commander to get it on entirely but it was totally worth it in Rainbow's mind. The dark grey plates were easily attached to the ports on the undersuit and systems within them buzzed to life as they went. What was surprising to Dash was that the complete suit wasn’t heavier than Royal Guard armor, even though it covered more of her body and seemed thicker than Shining’s Equestrian armor.
“There, that should keep you safe from the worst of punishment. Though you’ll still have to get either an omni-tool or heads up display if you’re going to make full use of the suit.”
Dash swallowed nervously. Although she knew that it’d be a useful tool, she was skittish about letting anything be implanted inside of her body. The heads up display sounded like a much better option. Shining had already gotten an omni-tool out of the necessity of his diplomatic work, but Rainbow hadn’t. “Y-yeah, I’ll get right on that.”
“Alright, get some rest. We’ll be arriving in four hours so report to the armory in three and a half hours for the final briefing. Dismissed.”
Snapping another salute, Dash turned around and walked out of Shepard’s private quarters, a big smile on her face as she got back to admiring the armor. Though this didn’t last as she continued to think about the further implications of her decision, shivering slightly at the thought.
Can I take the life of another being? For that matter, how did Fluttershy get into the position where she could justify that?!
Stepping out on the crew deck, Dash simply made her way to the observation room. On the small table there was a data-pad that Dash had yet to touch once in the couple of days that it had lain there. She’d considered just deleting its contents for fear of what she’d see on there… all of Fluttershy’s mission recordings from her shy friend’s perspective, audio and video.
Flumping down onto the couch, Dash looked out of the viewport at the small glistening stars far in the distance.
What should I do? Is it so bad to get an omni-tool? Should I watch those recordings from Fluttershy or should I just avoid it outright?
1. Get the Omni-Tool.
2. Watch the recordings.
3. Get the heads up display.