//------------------------------// // Chapter 30 // Story: Mobile Suit Gundam: Alicorn - Volume 2 // by Alines Reinhard //------------------------------// “What... Do you really want to do with that MS?” Flash asked calmly. “Uh... Oh right, sorry for the sudden demand!” Gromar said calmly, then sighed and continued, “I know you have been going through some crazy shit out there. So... Do you bother to tell me what is going on with you?” “Don’t. Tell. Him. A. Thing.” Warned Rainbow Dash. “Nah, I think it’s harmless to tell some of your stories!” Pinkie Pie argued. “But... just don’t mention us, any of us!” Spike added. “I don’t know what he means by ‘an invincible weapon for war is waiting for us to exploit’, but yeah, don’t mention us!” Starlight agreed. Flash proceeded to report everything he had gone through after he has captured by Black Wine, from his attempt to force Flash to become one of his pilots, to the “mock battles” that let Flash understand what his MS can be capable of: “So... you don’t really know what caused it to be so powerful?” “No Sir.” “Ha! I doubt even those Equestrian swine understand what territory they just touched. Proceed!” The next thing Gromar knows is that the battle involves him, his comrades on the Canterlot, the ship that, along with the Cloudsdale, almost everybody who fought in the war in the general public knows about their existence, yet no one really understands what their crew really do. Flash really does give them a glimpse of the life on board both ships, as he served on one and was captured and, in his own words, “served” on another. This confirms Gromar’s suspicion that one of the ships have captured the mysterious MS that flew on the kingdom’s sky half a year ago and one of them is conducting experiments on them for use in combat. But what shocked him is that another unit was developed alongside it, a sister unit, to utilize and apply the knowledge from the development of the Alicorn Gundam. “Truth DID stranger than fiction sometimes!” he commented, emphasizing on the word “did”. “So… according to your words, you are actually from our side?” Gromar asked. “Yes Sir, absolutely!” “And you are Black Wine’s POW?” “Yes Sir!” “Great! I know I can trust you!” he said with another sigh. “You don’t even have a chance to escape us anyway. You humans only have weapons to defend yourselves. We have magic AND weapons…” Flash, seemingly getting reminded by something, not even his friends who were stuck in the Psycho MkII, asked, “But… I have a question.” “Yeah?” said Gromar “I thought you knew about my MS when you said I brought you a mobile suit that is ‘an invincible weapon to war’ waiting for you to exploit?” “That’s the HGA’s High Command order! I thought they only talked about mobile suits in general!” He paused for a few seconds, looking around with his sharp eyes, and looked back to Flash, with his beak touching Flash’s nose. “So... the MS you bring is one of those top-secret machines?” “It’s an extremely dangerous MS. I advise you to NOT pilot it!” ... “What the... I thought you understood the taboo we make. Do. Not. Mention. Us!” Rainbow Dash raised her voice and brought her face as close to Flash as possible. “Chill, sugarcube. At least he hasn’t mentioned any of our names!” Applejack touches her and tries to chill her down. She then proceed to ask Flash with her signature Appleloosa twang “So... did they treat ya about those terrible rotten-apple-like burns?” “Yes, they did, ma’am!” Flash answer. Not even him canbelieve their pills can help him ease the pain so fast, to the point if not because of all the bandages, he can barely realize he is a severely injured second to third-degree burn victim at worst. ... “Woah, I don’t realize you guys can talk to me all the way from here...” Flash was surprised when he saw the MkII Gundam, while it did sustained damages from the left Alicorn wing’s blast, still fairly intact. The hangar where it was stored was several hundred meters from the sick bay, where Flash was to have his burns treated. “Hello, Flash, long time no see!” Greetings Fluttershy. “Fluttershy, you are back!” exclaimed Flash. “What happened to you!” “Oh… just a little concussion! Don’t worry about it!” the yellow pegasus shrugged. “We found some kind of a hard drive located somewhere in the remains of the left… what is that called again?” “Alicorn wing” Flash reminded the engineer. “Alicorn wing… whatever. It was stored in a shock box made from a kind of alloy I don’t really know yet. Thanks to that shock box, it was perfectly preserved. I really wanted to meet whoever was behind that box’s technology.” “Oh! So… is that how our consciousness is stored?” asked Starlight, causing everyone but Flash and the engineer to turn their head to her. “So… where did you  guys put it now?” Flash asked. “We stored the thing in the main ammo store in the base. Don’t worry, I won’t harm it!” Flash was then given permissions to access the cockpit, as Gromar said, “it is your thing, use it as you want.” “Long time no see…” Flash exclaimed the same sentence again once he got to relaunch the pilot OS and saw the cardiograph of his new friends still beeping peacefully. “We don’t really know why there are live heartbeat readings in that. I have to double check my eyes once I see it.” the engineer, which is a hippogriff who remind Flash of Seashell Blue back on the Canterlot, “You’ll be more shocked once you know it's’ full secrets,” Flash mumbled. “What?” “Nothing!” Flash answered curtly whilst looking into his screen. “Anyway, I figured out there is an identical hard drive stored inside its head, also with an identical shock box, of course!” “What do you mean by ‘shock box’?” Gromar asked. “Well… it’s a term I made up to describe a small enclosed space, size of a box, that can store stuff and make sure it is intact even in the hardest conditions, such as battles and accidents. The ‘shock box’ here was all made from an alloy I don’t know yet, but extremely extremely strong and rigid!”  Now it’s Flash’s turn of being surprised: “Really?” “Yeah, six of them! Not to mention free spaces for seven others. I mean… What the heck, 13? Why do they want that much space? What do they want?” “I don’t know… Maybe that number has a meaning in the human world that we don’t know yet?” questioned  Gromar. Flash was then asked to take some new uniforms, replacing the one that was bastardized to absolutely trash-level, thanks to more than a year of no proper maintenance and the hellfire Flash had gone through in the previous battle. It was a uniform with a coffee brown long sleeve shirt, brown trousers and a belt that had the original Equestrian Armed Force logo on the face. “Looks generic, unlike Black Wine’s Army uniform. Look how stylish it is!” Although he can see it himself, Flash could still feel the burns that everyone else’s side eye directed towards her. Flash eventually can only see Spike face palmed himself. “Well… that’s why their uniform looks evil…” she scratched her head in correction. But the most surprising part is that Flash was get to receive what Gromar called a “pilot suit”: it is just a fighter pilot hat with no breathing mask and a bullet resistance Kevlar shirt. “This isn't a normal pilot suit!” exclaimed Flash. “They are! You can see the Federation ensign on the hat. We don’t need a complex bodysuit with a literal astronaut helmet to fight here on the land. Plus, we are fighting in guerrilla style combat. We need things to be as simple as possible!” “So why do he still want our MS then?” asked Rainbow Dash with one of her eyebrows raised. … Compared to what Captain Cealano had told months ago (the 269 and the S.M.I.L.E are the only ones who know how to operate mobile suits), the “guerrilla army” that Gromar mentioned was getting stronger and stronger. Now the battalion commander himself was get to pilot mobile suits, too! It was a newly fixed Jeagan. “Wait, where did they got this thing?” Applejack confused “Ask them, Flash!” He made the exact question to Gromar and was left surprised “It was one of the MS salvages from Kludgetown. It was one of the battles the Canterlot fought. It was just a few months ago!” “Oh wow, I don’t know about that!” Flash said in a surprising manner. But it triggers in him the memory of why he was captured and all of the deaths he saw on board the Cloudsdale. Thanks to his friends, Flash was able to snap himself back to reality fast enough before Gromar ever noticed any strange reaction on Flash. “I wanted to defend my homeland from them, too. It’s a good thing they haven’t touched Griffonstone yet, but Black Wine ís an unpredictable and delusional guy. I won’t trust him being sane enough to not invade Griffonstone.” He then proceeds to pan his eyes towards his soldiers, who are still doing their job, while some just take a break and have chit chat with each other. “I consider us, Equusian, to be more friend-dependent than the average human. Friendship is absolutely a necessity, just like food, drinks and the air we breathe.” “Thank you Captain Obvious...” Spike the purple dragon said sarcastically, causing Twilight and some of her friends to giggle. Just after that, the alarm siren rang, signaling there was something urgent happening (Spike also wanted to repeat the “Captain Obvious” line at that thought again, but Twilight quickly stopped him). The announcer in the changing room speaker said “Crew members and mechanics are ready at the hangar. Daydream 1 and Butterfly 2 are going to arrive.” “Ah! That’s my comrade call sign. I’ll show you once they arrive.” ... Before him are the two identical MSA-003 Nemo, with just a little difference that one of them has a high-output beam cannon placed on the back. “They are just come back from a battle!” a mechanic said to Flash. “Those Black Wine’s Army infantry must have pissed themself in the pants seeing these things kick their tanks!” “Tanks? Why have tanks on Equus already?” Flash thought. “T-125 Axe. A formidable tank, I have to say.” Rainbow Dash said. Then she goes on to describe proudly about how it is her idea and her supervision behind the project, and how pissed she is seeing her “creation” being use for “evil” cause. “Ha, can’t blame her. I still remember being a servant for her when she dedicated herself to it, along with Twilight, Starlight and Sunburst of course!” Applejack leaned in and whispered into Flash’s ear. But that is just an insignificant story. “There they are!” Gromar said, also with a proud tone like Rainbow Dash previously. It was two other griffons like him that walked out of the cockpit. The introduction is somewhat rushed because of the fact that... They are “super hungry”. One of them named Green Belly, a changeling, a brave yet shy aviator who just loves flying, and another named Griselda the 2nd, nicknamed Gilly. “Hey, isn’t that Griselda's sister?” Pinkie Pie jumped up and gasped dramatically “Flash, Flash, come talk to her, quick!” A mysterious force pushes the blue haired guy towards her which caught everyone by surprise, including Flash himself. Standing before the bright brown, sweeping head feather griffon is an awkward blue haired human. “Pinkie, what am I going to do? Introduce myself?” But Gromar quickly did just that for him by saying “Here is our new pilot, Mr. Brandon Cultrich. He is the pilot of the newly captured... What is that thing called again?” “Psy... Psycho MkII Gundam, Sir!” That name ruined any attempt for Flash to properly befriend the new pilots by making almost the whole hanger terrified. “I... Isn’t that the dark ‘boss’ MS?” one of them cried. “The war crime machine is here!” “The racist devil...” “Isn’t that the thing that has nearly melted an entire valley?” The horrified face of Gilly made both Flash and Gromar realize how messed up they have gone. Reports on the Psycho MkII, although only numbered, are terrifyingly true and that’s enough for the general public to manufacture countless conspiracies and rumors about it’s background, although none of the accusation Gromar heard from his own crew are false information (may be except “the war crime machine”, since it has not participate in any violation of Canterlot’s Code of Conduct in Wars). “Calm down, creatures! Calm the heck down!” he yelled at them “This is THAT boss MS that everyone has heard, yes. But let’s look on the bright side: it is here, harmless, powerless. It has been heavily damaged by our valiant pilots on the Canterlot. Not to mention this guy here, Brandon Cultrich, is actually one of us. He has been captured and brutally tortured by Black Wine and hís evil minions. We can absolutely trust that he is honest!” “But... what if he is Black Wine’s spy?” a mechanic asked in suspicion. “He absolutely never turned in a weapon so powerful to us, as a sane commander should be!” the hippogriff mechanic that checked on the Psycho MkII for him to speak up, whilst flying himself down the dusty ground “I have first hand account: it’s not a decoy either.” ... Thanks to him, everything was settled. Flash was genuinely surprised by how quickly they trusted Manatee, the hippogriff that helped clear the fog between him, Gromar and the crew. “Hey, thank you!” Flash shook her claw in gratitude. “No problem. I just... stated the truth.” she said with a little giggle. A small thought of “she’s cute” flew over Flash's head. Suddenly, he could feel a little jealousy by someone somewhere around him and a sigh of dissatisfaction blew into his ear, and a feeling of someone making a pout on their face. “She's the one with the most reputation of being trustworthy in my unit, maybe even more than me. Her sharp eyes have found flaws and errors in places that we are least expected with.” Then, it was for Gromar’s pilot to get used to Flash in that dinner. First is the shy but kind Green Belly the changeling, who nearly attempted to hide his shy face behind a dirty dish which his meal just finished, and the energetic Gilly the griffon, whom Pinkie said was Griselda's sister. Flash did mention the black griffon friend to her, who is also her twin sister. “I’m absolutely devastated to hear that she’s gone...” Gilly said. Flash calmed the nearly -break - to - tears griffon by stating that “she’s out there protecting our sky and fighting against Black Wine and his evil legion”. “Hopefully. She is a brave griffon, just like her friends. She, Luster Dawn and her friends have saved Equestria and this world several times. I don’t think you humans would understand...” “Hey... don’t ‘humans’ have superhero comic books?” Spike added, and along with Starlight, proceeded to control Flash to say that humans have dreamt about heroes like them forever. “Not all heroes wear capes” is a common saying, after all. After the meal, Flash decides to retreat into the MkII cockpit. The Council have asked him to have a meeting that they say as “planning for our next offensive”. “So... the battle at Evergreen forest is still ongoing?” Flash questioned. “I don’t have a detailed report on what is happening there, as you would expect. But I could say the situation there is absolutely dire for the Everfree reindeers.” Starlight answered. “If I’m not wrong, there’s a Ponehenge inside the siege area that can free us AND your friends out of these MS, isn’t it?” Applejack questioned. “Yes, absolutely!” Flash said “She even said the only way to actually save you guys and them is to collect stuff that you guys hold deer, place each one on their respective stone and do a ritual...” “Wow, this is the first time I’ve ever heard that!” Starlight exclaimed. “Yep, that’s my best protege right there!” Twilight said proudly “I know we did save a pony there once, but I didn’t expect her to think of that method as it can save all of us!” “How did she find it?” Twilight proceeded to turn to Flash and asked curiously. “I... I really don’t know... your Majesty...” “Hmm... so... what of it?” Rainbow Dash hovered above the friends and questioned “Should we find her and ask her about it and proceed to say ‘Oh... Luster, I love you so much and I’m so proud of you’?” The rainbow mane pegasus proceeds to pretend to hug an imaginary teddy bear lovingly in a sarcastic manner. “Yep, exactly!” The tall alicorn leaned on to her chair and crossed the front hooves behind her head. “I mean... I’m probably THE best teacher in Equestria, no?” “Huh, I thought that’s you Fluttershy?” Starlight smug and turned to the shy pegasus to ask. Fluttershy then untied her unusually long mane, making it fall down the floor and forcing her to pick it up and wrap it around her face. “Uh... Um... Yeah... I... I'm kinda surprised they still love me after all those years... Maybe because you guys are hyping it up?” “Awe c’mon, everypony knows it is me!” Rarity contest “The students love the fashion class I brought them!” “Nope, your fashionista class is boring. You just make them do nothing but boring sewing and using your confusing sewing machine... Mine is the best. Athletics help you develop your bones, your muscles, and countless benefits that just sitting in a closed room all day with no activities!” “Yeah, but then your race discourages our students. You always dusted them!” Pinkie Pie argued. “What did you just say?” Rainbow Dash rapidly launched herself towards Pinkie Pie’s face. The pink, fluffy mane earth pony fights back by... sticking her own snout into Rainbow’s. With her frowned eyebrows, she said: “I said your athletes class is boring! You always discourage competition by always using your superb speed!” “Uh huh! Thanks for your compliment!” Rainbow Dash said proudly. “But you once used your Rainbooms in one of those races, making the younglings cry out!” Applejack commented. That’s when the rainbow mane pegasus returned to her wife with the same look Pinkie Pie just gave her. “Mine was the best because I also pay equal care for my students. They always get to create what they want with my assistant. Baking is freedom!” “Then that’s not much from you, eh?” Applejack jumped in “Because I even help the students try to meet the criteria because farming class requires even MORE effort than baking. Heck, I don’t think you can’t even go without an injury in this class, PP!” “What?” PP screamed. Starlight and Spike sighed and shrugged their shoulders off. Suddenly, Twilight turned her face to the yellow pegasus, who was standing awkwardly before the fighting friends, and questioned him in a way he can’t understand: “Flash, which one of us is the best?” “Huh?” Flash raised his voice in confusion. “Why... Why do you ask me?” “They sometimes want to hear some ‘outsider idea’, Flash!” Starlight leaned into the table. “Yup, true that!” Pinkie Pie added. He then has to face the arguably most powerful ponies look at him with a serious face. Seemingly don’t want to dissatisfied anyone, he just scratched his head and make nervous smile.: “I... I don’t know... Maybe you guys are all good?”