The Elements of Gaming 10
Mass Effect 2
By Ryden, Xephfyre and Krimzon_Flygon
--
“I’m telling ya, Twilight, you’ve gotta see this! I swear, it’s the coolest thing I’ve ever laid eyes on since Modern Warmare 2 came out!”
Letting out a tired sigh, Twilight Sparkle, protege of the Sun Princess and librarian of Ponyville, could only hang her head in silent exasperation; recalling an all-too familiar conversation she had about the latest hit game in the revolutionary Call of Cutie series that had taken Equestria’s gaming scene by storm ever since the release of its first title.
“Please, Rainbow,” Twilight rolled her eyes with a hefty sigh, “you said that about the entire Modern Warmare series! And don’t even get me started on that whole Ramirez bit either; I swear I would’ve gone CRAZY if they asked me to do anything else.”
Shuddering, the young unicorn’s eyes glazed over as the memories of the voices returned, pummeling her ears with orders to do... well, just about everything.
“Ramirez! Come to the alley!”
“Ramirez! Cover me!”
“Ramirez! We’re at the crash site! Get over here!”
“Ramirez! Get the buck off the roof!”
“Ramirez! Defend the Burger Barn!”
“Ramirez! Get on that Javelin!”
“Ramirez! Use your laser designator-”
“Ramirez!”
“Ramirez!”
“Awww c’mon, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash’s voice suddenly cut through through haze of imaginary voices barraging her ears, the cyan pegasus lazily flying barrel rolls around her far more serious counterpart. “I really mean it this time!”
“The same way Rarity does?”
“Well, that’s an exception...” mumbled Rainbow Dash, rolling her eyes sideways to avoid Twilight’s scrying gaze. “I couldn’t do that even if I tried.”
Try as she might, Twilight couldn’t help but chuckle a little at her rainbow-maned friend’s joke. Rainbow could give quite the witty quip when she needed to.
“Laughs aside, Rainbow,” chuckled the lavender unicorn, gracefully raising a hoof to stifle the reaction, “what’s this new... sensation you’re bringing me to see?”
“Oh- OH, RIGHT!” Rainbow Dash’s energy level seemed to zip from zero to nine thousand and one as her eyes shot open and her ears immediately perked up, and she excitedly hovered in front of Twilight, her wings beating about restlessly. “You remember Mass Effect, right?”
“How could I ever forget?”
Of all the games that had come out over the past six months, few had garnered such praise as Mass Effect, a gigantic Space Opera-type game. Everypony, even schoolfillies who frankly had no right to play such a violent, mature game, had been sucked in by the exploits of Commander Shepard, as he and his valiant crew had battled their way through armies of robots, giant reptilian ‘Krogans’ and a truly massive LIVING starship that called itself ‘Sovereign’. The customization options for the characters had been the main selling point: Rarity had spent an hour, literally an HOUR trying to make the perfect player character before Rainbow Dash had yelled at her to get started already.
Twilight smirked as she rolled her eyes good-naturedly, remembering the... oh-so-fun times they had had attempting to clear everything the truly epicly massive game had to offer them; inclusive of Rainbow Dash’s insistence on conquering the highest mountain the game had to offer, and her bullheaded refusal to flee from anything: Twilight was still seeing images of Garrus single-handedly charging and getting mauled by Thresher Maws in her nightmares.
“Rainbow Dash, we spent no less than two months trying to clear that game on Insanity because you insisted. And as awesome as you think Garrus is, he still isn’t a one-turian army. I lost count of how many times we had to restart because you always chose to shoot first and ask questions later!” The lavender unicorn paused for a moment though, as though considering something, and then giggled slightly. “Still, it was pretty funny seeing Applejack slugging out that reporter!”
Rainbow Dash almost erupted into uproarious laughter upon revisiting that particular memory, but the pegasus nevertheless broke out into uncontrollable sniggering. “Yeah, and remember the expression on Spike’s face when we left his Kaidan on Virmire? Poor little guy couldn’t take part in any more of our sessions after that!”
“And Pinkie constantly getting us to call the Council, only to hang up on them!” Twilight was practically in stitches by now, laughing alongside Rainbow Dash as they trotted to GameHoof. “Ohh, I can see why she loved to pick Wrex during our missions - that Krogan is such a riot.”
“Ha! You see what I mean?” Rainbow Dash pointed a hoof at Twilight, still grinning widely. “That game was one of the best games ever! And guess what? There’s more for us to enjoy now...”
“New content? I enjoyed Bring Down the Sky!”
“Even better.” The cyan pegasus leaned in to whisper almost conspiratorially into Twilight’s ear, and the unicorn had to lean in just to hear what her friend was whispering. “I just got word from Encode...Mass Effect Two is out!”
“No way!” yelled Twilight, jaw agape as her eyes widened in surprise before quickly shrinking into thin slits, the lavender unicorn now eyeing her winged friend with a look of pure suspicion. “This isn’t another one of your little pranks, right Rainbow?”
“A prank?” chirped Rainbow, clasping her hooves together and rolling her eyes in unison, glancing away from Twilight in a vaguely innocent manner. “Oh no no no no, of course not!”
If anything else, Twilight could practically see the prankster’s smile almost painted over her rainbow-maned friend’s supposedly innocent expression; baiting her forward...
“RAINBOW....” hissed Twilight, her voice now so threateningly low that Rainbow Dash could almost swear her blood snap-froze for a few quick seconds. “There’s some sort of prank waiting for me at Gamehoof, isn’t there?”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding, Twilight!” laughed the cyan pegasus as she fluttered over to her friend’s right flank, putting both hooves up in a gesture of surrender. “I was just jerkin’ your chain, if you get what I mean.”
“Ha, Ha, Rainbow Dash,” huffed the librarian, turning her snout up in indignation. “You see how pranks affect everypony’s trust in you?”
“I wasn’t lying about Mass Effect Two being out, though.” That got Twilight’s attention, and almost immediately the mare was tuned in again, listening intently. “You didn’t really think that they’d just leave the story where it was, did you? The Reapers are still out there.”
Twilight suppressed a shudder. Sovereign, the sentient spaceship the evil Saren had piloted throughout most of the game, turned out to be a Reaper, one of millions that had wiped out all sentient life in the galaxy over 50,000 years ago, before vanishing again as quickly as they had come. On their journey to Virmire, the motley crew had spoken with Sovereign. His voice... the booming, emotionless, mechanical bass of his voice had thundered through the tiny room...even now Twilight could still hear even the tiniest echo of his voice, reverberating through her head.
“YOU EXIST BECAUSE WE ALLOW IT... AND YOU WILL END BECAUSE WE DEMAND IT.”
Not to say Rainbow Dash had been disturbed by it, and through a gloriously epic gunfight at the end, Saren had been killed and Sovereign had been blown into a zillion pieces by the Alliance Fleet. Commander Shepard had been lauded as a hero, and Captain Anderson had been elevated to the position of the Pony Councilor, joining the ranks of the three other councilors they had saved with the Destiny Ascension.
“Go on...”
“Well it’s flank-kickin’ awesome, that’s what it is!” Rainbow Dash whooped in excitement as she barrel-rolled in the air once again. “Picture this: Pony colonies are going missing - entire colonies, planets at a time! So, they send Commander Shepard on a quest to find out the truth, and now we’re recruiting criminals, assassins and soldiers from all around the galaxy to fight back and kick some Reaper flank!”
“Sounds like fun,” Twilight responded almost automatically - the moment Rainbow Dash had started her little ‘rant of awesome’, the lavender unicorn had tuned out, her mind more preoccupied with other things; namely, the thrill of getting to explore the reaches of the galaxy once more, broadening horizons and pushing forward frontiers! While the rest of the game had been pretty entertaining on its own, the young scholar had glossed over most of it, having been quite taken with a more unexpected feature: the game’s codex entries.
The first few games, Burnout, Halo, even Gears and Command and Conquer, Twilight had always taken them at face value. The storylines were easy enough to comprehend, the characters on either side easily identified.
But Mass Effect...Celestia above, the in-game universe was ENORMOUS! So many species, planets, weapons and terminology, all of it described in great detail in the codex. Twilight easily spent hours with her own copy simply browsing through the codex and learning all she could about the different races that inhabited the game.
There were Ponies, of course, the relative newcomers to the Intergalactic Citadel. There were the militaristic Turians and honorable, warlike Krogan, the super-intelligent Salarians and nigh-immortal Asari, and the mysterious, masked technology experts known as the Quarians. There were the shrewd Volus, the vicious, robotic Geth, the ruthless Batarian exiles living in the Terminus systems, the extinct Protheans, and of course the ones who MADE them extinct, the Reapers.
So much to learn... so many planets to visit and explore. It was amazing how much had been packed into the game: Applejack had thrown up her hooves once the map had REALLY opened up, the straightforward, bread-and-butter pony unable to handle the sheer number of choices the game had presented.
And if Rainbow Dash was right, she would get to experience it again... except this time, WITH EVEN MORE. Who knew what other secrets the galaxy harbored, just waiting to be discovered?
Her hooves were already tingling in anticipation, and Twilight spent the rest of the walk to GameHoof in a day-dreamy haze, oblivious to Rainbow Dash’s incessant chattering as the pegasus zipped excitedly about her, rattling on about the newest, ‘awesomest‘ abilities Shepard’s classes had gained in the sequel, and garnering none of Twilight’s attention at all.
“Well, let’s see if the game can put its money where your mouth is, Rainbow Dash.”
--
“Well...” Twilight said matter-of-factly as they stepped through the Gamehoof doors. “THAT took long enough. That line was insane...”
“Hey, I told you it was a hot game!” Rainbow Dash grinned. “Everypony who’s played the first one’s gonna be clambering for the sequel! Just be glad I pre-ordered it: we’d be lucky if we got one at all if I didn’t!”
Though, glancing down the cover of the game, even Rainbow Dash had to admit it didn’t seem nearly as epic as the first in the series, which had Shepard, Garrus and Ashley standing triumphantly before an army of Geth; an orange pillar of Prothean language illuminating the inky black of space as the Normandy zoomed by and Saren’s cold, hollow eyes loomed over the three heroes.
Instead, Mass Effect 2 merely depicted Shepard leading the charge in his trademark N7 armor, an unidentified mare and a bipedal, green-skinned alien looking on in steely determination as both species set their sights to the front, pistols poised and ready to strike.
But in all truthfulness, it didn’t matter to Rainbow Dash in the slightest bit. As long as Bioware had delivered on awesome, blazing gunfights, and the heart-pounding, high-speed action, she didn’t care WHAT the cover looked like. The pegasus was so anxious to get started, she only noticed that she was at the library when she nearly crashed into the door, and she quickly turned back to face Twilight, bouncing on her hooves with excitement.
“Come on, Twilight! Let’s get this staaaa...oh. Er...oops. Heheh...”
Rainbow Dash’s eyes traveled up the trail of multicolored flames that stretched up the street back to where she had been: she could feel her friend’s annoyed glare from all the way back at Gamehoof.
“Awwww-RIIIIIIIIIIGHT!” Rainbow Dash whooped, pulling loop-the-loops in the air as the others filed into the room. “Everypony’s present and accounted for, so let’s get it started in here!”
Rarity sat down on the couch, eyes trailing after the blue Pegasus with a barely-hidden, condescending smirk. “Can we be certain you won’t pitch a controller through the TV like the first time you met a Thresher Maw and ended up getting Garrus eaten? Or should I let somepony else go first while you calm down? Somepony who doesn’t look like she injected straight coffee into her veins: Pinkie Pie, for instance.”
“Errrr, ya certain that there’s a good idea, Rarity?” questioned Applejack, raising a blonde eyebrow in a show of skepticism. “Pinkie tried ta, errr, what was that there... ‘drift’ with that Mako o’ ours. Pretty sure it wasn’t designed ta do that.”
“I was trying out some dry humor, Applejack.” sniffed Rarity, her tone of voice becoming noticeably deadpan. “Though I did expect you to say something like that.”
Scrunching up her forehead in thought, Applejack’s eyes narrowed as she began to realize just what she’d been taken for.
“Well, not everypony here’s got a taste fer ya fancy-shmancy humor, Rarity.” shot the apple farmer, cheeks flushed red from embarrassment. “So why don’tcha-”
“....aaaand that’s not the point!” interjected Twilight, quickly stepping in between the two before the argument could escalate into anything more heated. “We’re here to save the galaxy! Save the fight for the Geth, not your best friends!”
Twilight’s words hit with the force of a sledgehammer; the two could do little more than stare at their forehooves in shame, heads bowed low.
“A-Ahm sorry, Twi. I just thought, y’know...”
“Apology accepted, Applejack.” smiled Twilight, now turning her attention to the purple-maned designer right behind her. “I believe you’ve got something to say too, don’t you, Rarity?”
“I...” stammered Rarity, still ashamed. “I’m sorry, Applejack; you didn’t deserve that.”
Beaming with pride at yet another problem resolved, Twilight was just about ready to wrap up with a nice little coda for the two, a nice little something she’d actually just made up on the spot; right before a certain pegasus happened, of course.
“Yeah, yeah, happy endings and all that jazz!” said Rainbow Dash, lazily drifting overhead. “How about we get down to some flank kickin’ sometime this century, guys?”
Twilight shot the pegasus an annoyed glare, which was effortlessly deflected off Rainbow Dash’s impenetrable armor of indifference, but relented anyway, trotting over to the Xbox 360 and picking up a controller while levitating the rest to the waiting hooves of her gathered friends.
“Well, no sense in dallying about - let’s get this game started!”
---
Electronic Arts presents...
A BioWare production...
“Ohh boy ohh boy ohh boy, it’s starting!!!” Rainbow Dash practically squealed, her wings flaring up in excitement, only to be quickly shushed with annoyed glances from Twilight and Rarity, who were trying to concentrate on what was happening on the screen.
The roiling, twisting surface of a crimson star greeted them, its outer edges tinged by the slightest sapphire hue of blue flames. As breathtaking as the view was to Twilight, it lasted only a few seconds, the camera suddenly cutting to a panoramic shot of the star’s surface, giving them a full view of its diameter and the star-studded void that curtained out from behind it... and also shedding light on the fact that the image of the entire star was nothing but a hologram.
A hologram that stretched out as far as the eye could see - the inky blackness beyond the star stretched out to every visible corner of now what appeared to be some sort of room, but even the floor was nothing but a surface reflecting the empty darkness of space.
Translucent, orange holographs dotted the air at random intervals, displaying walls of indecipherable, encrypted text as two ponies stood silhouetted by the star: a standing svelte, shapely mare clad in a white jumpsuit; sporting a lustrous black mane that would have had Rarity swooning in envy.
Flanking her right, a lone stallion dressed cleanly in a crisp, brown business suit rested comfortably in his personal chair, one of his hooves crossed lazily over the other as he calmly surveyed the veritable torrent of data before him; information flowing like running water over hologram after hologram.
“Shepard did everything right. More than we could’ve hoped for.” A smooth, feminine voice spoke in a rich Applestralian accent, catching the ears of everypony assembled in the room - she was referencing events that had happened in the previous game! “Saving the Citadel - even saving the Council! Equestrians now have the trust of the entire galaxy... and still, it’s not enough.”
Twirling a lit cigar, the seated stallion traced wispy circles of smoke in the inky darkness, seemingly nonchalant as he answered the svelte mare in a perfect businesspony’s voice.
“Our sacrifices have earned us the council’s gratitude, but Shepard remains our best hope.”
“But they’re sending her to fight Geth!” The mare protested, turning away from the star to face the camera, and revealing a strikingly beautiful visage that now actually elicited a jealous gasp from Rarity. “GETH! We both know they’re not the real threat! The Reapers are still out there.”
Taking in a long drag of his cigar, the suited stallion let it out in an even longer exhalation, breathing out a large billow of smoke, utterly nonplussed by his female compatriot’s worries.
“...And it’s up to us to stop them.” declared the stallion, a hint of finality in his crisp, curt tone, giving his cigar a few light taps over his personal ashtray, smouldering embers billowing with thick, gray smoke.
“The Council will never trust Cerberus.” The mare stated bluntly. “They’ll never accept OUR help...even after everything Equestrians have accomplished... but Shepard...”
The mare turned around, pivoting to face the star behind her. “They’ll follow her. She’s a hero. A bloody icon. But she’s just one pony. If we lose Shepard, ponykind might well follow.”
There was a close-up shot of the businesspony tapping more of his cigarette’s ashes into the ashtray on his armrest, grinding out the cigarette butt... before it panned up to his face, and this time Twilight was the one who gasped out loud, startled and unnerved by the turquoise, unnatural pattern of the stallion’s obviously artificial eyes.
“Then see to it...” He said simply. “That we don’t lose her.”
And with that, the screen faded to black.
“Eeeww...” Pinkie was the first to speak. “Who WAS that guy? He gave me the willies something bad! Talk about a pair of creepy peepers!”
“Well, he was talking about beating the Reapers and protecting Equestrians, so he can’t be all THAT bad.” Rainbow Dash piped up. “And that one mare seemed to think pretty highly of us: not that I blame her!” She grinned, casting her mind back to the heroic deeds the team had done back in the first game.
“Oh my stars, did you see her mane?” Rarity sighed. “I simply MUST find out what kind of conditioner she uses...”
“Girls!” Babbled Twilight. “A-am I the only one who READ the Codex in the last game?”
Rainbow Dash gave the unicorn a weird look. “Yeah... why?”
“Cerberus is a group of TERRORISTS! They’re a supremacist group that advocate Equestrian dominance of the known galactic arm, and they HATE aliens! That guy we just saw was The Illusive Pony: he’s the leader of the whole thing!” Twilight suppressed a shudder. “Don’t you remember those genetic experiments they were running, and when we found Admiral Kahoku’s body in one of their bases? These ponies are bad news, and the fact we’re seeing them right off the bat probably means they’re gonna have a big role...”
Rainbow Dash actually didn’t remember - she had hardly paid any attention to the side quests that Twilight had dragged the entire party along for, tagging along only for the sake of killing aliens and blowing stuff up; but now that she thought about it, a small frown began to form on her face.
She was an Equestrian and VERY proud to be one, thank you very much. But after fighting alongside Tali’zorah nar Rayya the Quarian, Urdnot Wrex the Krogan, and her personal favorite, Garrus Vakarian the Turian, it was impossible not to respect the different races. That was harmony, the flagship ideology of her kind. The idea of a group of her own species built around xenophobia left a sour taste in her mouth, and her expression twisted into a distasteful grimace.
A hoof rested lightly on her shoulder as Twilight leaned into view. “Hey come on, Dash...” She said kindly. “We’re playing Paragon! We’re the good guys, not Cerberus!”
Rainbow Dash nodded, a grin back on her face. “Yeah, you’re right! Heck, we may just get the chance to blow these Cerberus losers up ourselves!”
“Ahem...girls?” Rarity tittered, pointing a hoof at a long passage of text that was beginning to appear on the screen.
“One month after the devastating Geth attack on the Citadel, the galactic community struggles to rebuild.
The Alliance fleet made a tremendous sacrifice to save the Citadel Council and earned ponykind membership in their prestigious group. Now the Council is forced to acknowledge evidence that the Reapers - enormous machines that eradicate all organic civilisation every 50,000 years - have returned. To quell the rumors, the Council has sent Commander Shepard and the Normandy to wipe out the last pockets of Geth resistance. Officially, they blame the invasion on the Geth and their leader, a rogue Spectre.
But for those who know the truth, the search for answers is just beginning...”
The next thing the six friends knew, they were staring at the blackness of space, dotted by the stars as three unidentified planets floated through the void - a picturesque scene that Twilight could no doubt appreciate, and the rendering of the artwork left her breathless in admiration.
And then, with a strange cross between a ‘whoosh’ and a ‘boom’, the Normandy, their beloved spacecraft, warped into view, soaring by the camera and giving them a triumphant view of its title.
“WOOO!” Rainbow Dash whooped at the sight of the vessel. “We’re HOME, girls!”
The camera was panning through the familiar interior of the Normandy, staffed to the brim by numerous uniformed ponies all busy with their tasks, whether at futuristic computer monitors or scurrying from room to room in frantic gallop. It was all familiar, all as the six remembered it, waiting for them to take the helm and explore the galaxy once more.
“We’re wasting our time.” Grumbled a balding Pegasus with a short gray beard. “Four days searching up and down this sector and we haven’t found any sign of Geth activity.”
“I see Pressly is still cheerful as ever.” Quipped Twilight.
“Three ships went missing here in the past month; somethin’ happened to ‘em.”
“AW YEAH!” hoofpumped Rainbow Dash, now practically glued to the screen in raucous glee as she eyed the casually dressed pilotpony toting his signature Manehatten baseball cap and loafer shirt, standing in sharp contrast to the prim and proper navy blue uniforms sported by the crew. “Joker’s BACK!”
“My money’s on slavers.” Pressly deadpanned, seemingly more serious than ever, if that was even possible. “The Terminus systems are crawling with them.”
Before Joker could even halfway begin with his usual “witty” replies, as Twilight loved to call them, one of the adjacent ensigns began shifting her hoof across the radar scanner, something apparently having caught the astute mare’s attention.
“Something’s coming up on scanners... unidentified vessel... looks like a cruiser.”
Straining her eyes to get a closer look at the vessel’s information, the ensign found herself flabbergasted over and over, at each and every conclusion. A ship like this wasn’t mere slaver technology; that much was certain.
"... doesn't match any known signatures." Joker replied after a moment, looking over the ensign’s data feed. His brow furrowed in confusion... and then his expression spiralled right down into outright dread at the ensign’s next words.
"Cruiser is changing course... Now on intercept trajectory."
"Can’t be!" Pressly exclaimed disbelievingly, whirling around to face the ensign. "Stealth systems are engaged, there's no way the Geth could possibly-"
"It's not the Geth." Joker abruptly cut Pressly off, his usually jovial and light-hearted expression suddenly turning grave in realization as the ball finally dropped. "Brace for evasive maneuvers!"
Bearing down on the Normandy, the vessel’s massive size became apparent to everypony assembled before the screen. Vaguely insectoid, the vessel’s jagged outline resembled little more than an enormous, hollowed cocoon; a massive, concentric ring encircling enormous spires protruding from within an enormous, cylindrical cavity within the massive craft.
And from that cylindrical cavity, a burning, hellish orange glow began to slowly build, until it was almost blindingly bright... and then a lance of energy suddenly seared outwards, flashing so brightly and suddenly that Fluttershy actually jumped with a squeak and immediately darted behind Pinkie Pie, crouching behind her and shivering in fear.
The beam lanced out through the darkness, coming within a hairsbreadths of skewering the Normandy cleanly from stem to stern. Only Joker’s expert piloting skills kept his beloved frigate from getting struck...
But then he slipped; on a swing to starboard, the laser glanced off the port engine with such force that the Normandy was actually flung to the side, thrown badly off course.
“GAAAH!” Pressly’s panel exploded into flames, tossing him back against his seat. A second later, he slumped forward and toppled to the ground, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. The red-maned ensign who had first discovered the cruiser got up to help him, shouting his name... and then she too was thrown to the ground as the ship lurched violently, completely set alight a second later from a second explosion.
Rainbow Dash blinked dully. “...W-what?” She stammered.
The six watched, unbelieving as Joker rattled off a damage report: kinetic barrers disabled, multiple hull breaches, dead weapons systems... all while their ship, their beloved Normandy was ripped apart around them.
“R-rainbow Dash, don’t just sit there staring! DO SOMETHING!” Rarity shrieked.
“I CAN’T! IT’S A CUTSCENE!”
The unidentified cruiser powered up its laser again, hosing the Normandy at least three more times with its horribly destructive lance of energy - and its final burst made a direct hit that detonated against the Normandy’s starboard side, shoving it violently to the side and leaving it drifting helplessly as its engines died out.
“HEY!” Rainbow Dash cried out in protest as she shook a hoof angrily at the screen, her expression livid at the sight of such a massive ship blasting the living hay out of one that much tinier than itself like an oversized bully - never mind the fact that it was the Normandy of all ships that it was attacking! “Why don’t you go pick on somepony your own size, ya big lug!?”
As they watched, another explosion ripped through the Normandy’s mess hall, sending another unfortunate ensign’s body hurtling to the floor, bloodied and burnt. Fires raged as far as the eye could see, and everywhere, uniformed bodies rushed about helter-skelter, struggling to find a way out of the deathtrap that was slowly closing in around them.
Amidst the cacophony of explosions, twisting metal and shrieks of soldiers in their final death throes, a lone figure clad in a suit of white, pristine combat armor sprinted for whatever remained of the Commander’s helm; the now-charred remains of the once-proud control centre of what may have been the Alliance’s finest vessel.
“Shepard!” The distinct sound of Liara’s usually subdued voice cut through the noise like a scalpel, her voice quavering in obvious panic as she sought the counsel of her Commander. As they watched, the Asari ran up the corridor where a distinct silhouette of a figure clad in grey armor stood - a figure that they recognized all too well.
“Distress beacon is ready for launch.” Shepard spoke in a tone that was all business and betrayed not even the slightest bit of anxiousness despite the fact that her ship was burning down all around her - Rainbow Dash actually felt a shiver pass down her spine in admiration at just how awesome the Commander was!
“Will the Alliance get here in time?”
Immediately cutting back to Shepard, the characteristic visage of the Commander’s N7 helmet filled the screen as everypony present once more came face-to-face with Mass Effect’s signature feature: the all-powerful conversation wheel.
Standing stock-still in front of the TV screen, Twilight narrowed her eyes and strained with all her might as she examined both her options, weighing them carefully in case one of them ended up putting all of Ponykind in mortal jeopardy... again.
“...Uh, Twilight...” said Rainbow Dash, dragging the last few words of her sentence with a deliberate drawl, slowly and painfully slurring out each and every last “i’ she could find in Twilight. “You might wanna speed it up a little? YOUR SHIP’S BURNING DOWN AROUND YOU!”
“Hush, Rainbow!” huffed the lavender unicorn, silencing the overactive pegasus with a single wave of her hoof; Shepard continuing to stand stone-still as if her brain had somehow de-powered itself. “This is a very important-”
“Uh, ‘Twi, I know you’re concerned and all,” snickered Applejack, suppressing the laugh as best she could, “ but from where I’m standin’, it looks like Shepard don’t give a hoot whether or not she’s goin’ down with the ship.”
“But the very fate of the galaxy might rest upon the very next words that I say!” Twilight protested, unwilling to give in. “I’m not going to gamble on the fate of the very galaxy simply because Rainbow Dash was impatient!”
As the argument went back and forth, Rarity took a sideways glance at the screen, and noted with a small giggle that as Twilight was debating with Rainbow Dash on the finer points of the fate of the galaxy, Shepard was simply standing there, blankly staring at Liara, even as the fires raged around them.
“Twilight, dear,” The fashionista finally began after watching Shepard stand there and do nothing for several minutes. “I do believe there really is no importance regarding this choice - it’s just the beginning of the story after all!”
Frowning, Twilight finally relented, and gave her analog stick a slight tap, selecting the obviously “good,” or rather, as the game chose to dub it, “Paragon” response to the question.
“Awwwww Twilight,” moaned Pinkie Pie, reclining upside-down over the arch of Twilight’s sofa, her eyebrows arched in a look of complete boredom. “Everyone knows ‘They’ll be here’ is the boring old Paragon response!”
Paying no heed to her pink-coated friend save for a quick, icy look of disappoval, Twilight turned her attention back to the scene before her; watching with bated breath as Shepard tried valiantly to fight off the licking flames.
"The Alliance won't abandon us. We just need to hold on. Get everyone onto the escape shuttles!”
“Joker’s still in the cockpit! He won’t evacuate.” Liara said as she grabbed the nearest fire extinguisher to let a blast of frozen CO2 have a futile attempt at quelling the roiling blaze in front of her, before turning to Shepard, a steely determination underlying her next words.
“I’m not leaving either.”
Snapping back to the Commander’s helmeted face once again, the all-too-recognizable conversation wheel opened up on-screen yet again, presenting Twilight with yet another crossroads which, hopefully, wouldn’t end with her spending two whole hours thinking it through.
“Ohhhh...” moaned Twilight, clearly once more completely at a loss. “What to do, what to do...”
“UUUUUGH!” bellowed Rainbow Dash, zipping over Twilight’s head in a multi-hued streak of speed, snatching the controller and locking in the purple unicorn’s response before she even knew it.
“Hey!” yelled Twilight, turning her head to face the streak of Rainbow now lazily drifting in circles over her head. “I was still thinking about that!”
“Too late, slowpoke!” Rainbow Dash stuck out her tongue at Twilight, obviously satisfied at having finally gotten something done - and she’d gotten Shepard to do the infinitely-more-awesome Renegade response “I gave you an order!” too!
“Get the crew onto the evac shuttles!” Shepard abruptly yelled as she turned to Liara, rudely yanking the fire extinguisher out of her hands and turning it on the nearest blazing console as Twilight stared in horror at sight of her Paragon Shepard’s personality being so thoroughly derailed. “I’ll haul Joker’s crippled flank outta here!
Shepard quickly moved on to dousing another fire with the extinguisher clutched in her grip, but a gentle, yet firm grip closing around her hoof turned her attention the the grief-stricken Asari beside her, unwilling to let her go.
“Shepard...”
“What the hay are you doing!?” Commander Shepard practically erupted in Liara’s face, and she shook the Asari’s hand off, pointing down the corridor to the way out to the evac shuttles. “Get the hay out of here!!!”
“RAINBOW!” Twilight shrieked. “We’re playing PARAGON! For all we know, you just doomed us to being one of Cerberus’s drones!”
“Twilight...” Rarity said soothingly, placing a hoof on her friend’s shoulder. “Mountains and molehills, remember? This is the very beginning of the game, and besides we have an ENTIRE game’s worth of good deeds imported. I doubt snapping at Liara in a stressful situation will doom the galaxy to Cerberus rule.”
Twilight’s expression spoke volumes about how much she disagreed with that, but the young scholar gave a non-committal grunt nonetheless, visibly miffed at Rainbow Dash having forced her choice of the Renegade path down her throat instead of letting her drive the story her way - this was her playthrough after all, and she was in the driver’s seat!
Back on the screen, Liara had long since ran off to comply with Shepard’s orders, shepherding what remained of the crew into the escape pods and jettisoning themselves from the deathtrap the Normandy had become.
With Liara and the rest of the crew now gone, the female commander was now standing in the midst of a blazing corridor, fires raging all around her... and the camera was in the distinct third-person position that plainly said that Shepard was under Twilight’s control now.
“Mayday! Mayday! This is SSV Normandy! We’re under attack from an unknown enemy! We’ve suffered heavy damage and need immediate evac!” Joker’s voice could be heard clearly over the comms, his voice frantic and urgent. Swiveling her analog sticks around, Twilight’s adventures alongside the spacefaring spectre came back to her in a flood; how every action, decision, and even every movement became the very things that would herald the fate of the galaxy.
“Ugh...” grunted Twilight, straining to see through both the amber glow of the crackling fires and the suffocating black smokescreen above. “How on earth am I supposed to save anypony if I can’t even see three feet ahead!”
“Oh, give it here, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash sighed again exasperatedly as she grabbed the controller out of the purple unicorn’s hooves, and this time Twilight didn’t resist - after all, it wasn’t as though she could do any better than her pegasus friend, could she? “Seriously, you’d think after spending the whole of Mass Effect running Shepard around the Normandy that you’d remember the way around, right? I’m gonna get Shepard there in ten seconds flat!”
Moving Shepard around as though she still remembered the Normandy’s layout like the back of her hoof, Rainbow Dash smoothly maneuvered the armored commander around and about the fires still raging in the Normandy’s mess hall, swiftly running up the stairs that led up to the control deck where the Galaxy Map was normally located.
“There we go!” The cyan pegasus proclaimed proudly as Shepard reached the doors leading up to the control deck, already triggering their automatic opening mechanisms. “What’d I tell ya? Ten-”
Abruptly, there was the sound of hissing, rushing air that signalled rapid decompression, right before the doors opened before Shepard, and Rainbow Dash’s words died in her throat as she beheld the sight before her.
“... seconds... flat...”
The ominous orchestral music that had been playing in the background had faded out. The sounds of the fires and the explosions around them had faded out. Hay, everything had faded out.
No gunfire, no explosions, no screams of agony. All that permeated the room were the slow, labored breaths of Shepard’s respirator as she stepped forth into the Normandy’s control centre... or what was left of it.
Debris littered the air before the armored commander, floating serenely about in the suspension of zero gravity. More than half the deck had been ripped apart by the relentless savagery of their assailant’s assault, the once-proud heart of the Normandy reduced to little more than unrecognizable scrap metal and blackened servos.
Even Rainbow Dash couldn’t help it; the normally unfazable pegasus could only take in a sharp, choked breath as she surveyed the spectacle before her - not that she had much trouble looking at it all, that’s for sure.
Looming over the once-pristine Galaxy Map, the cold, deep oceans of the world beneath reflected the life-giving light of the system’s nearest sun, dyeing the room an eerie, chilling blue. The armored hull and ceiling appeared to have been blasted off entirely, exposing the entirety of the deck to the cold, harsh vacuum of outer space. Far above them, the surface of the Normandy’s planetary anchor loomed ominously above; the planet’s blood-red surface signifying a portent of doom for the beleaguered spacefarers.
“... That... is one hay of an image.” Applejack finally said after a moment of awestruck silence. “BioWare sure knows how ta make an impression.”
“Y-You can say that again, Applejack.” stammered the normally-energetic Pinkie Pie, now rooted to the spot with her eyes as big as saucerplates. “Ho-ly horseapples...”
“Dear Celestia...” stammered Twilight, slowly inching the Commander forward to the bridge, the normally lightning-fast soldier anchored to the floor by the confines of her N7 armor.
Edging towards the cockpit at a snail’s pace, Twilight and Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but wonder: a force destructive enough to catch the Normandy completely off guard and split it from stem to stern was something the Equestrian Alliance couldn’t risk ignoring - even with the might of Celestia behind them.
After what seemed like an eternity later, Shepard finally arrived at the Normandy’s cockpit - Joker’s regular station, and where the wisecracking pilot now sat behind a protective force bubble, a similar hood wrapped over his face to protect himself from the unforgiving vacuum of space.
“Come on, Joker,” Shepard spoke as the music suddenly returned with a vengeance, startling Fluttershy once more and sending the timid pegasus back behind Pinkie Pie just as she’d mustered the courage to peek her head out again. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
“NO!” Joker vehemently denied, his hooves still working frantically at the controls of his beloved ship. “I won’t abandon the Normandy! I can still save her!!!”
The conversation wheel popped up again, and this time, Twilight wasted no time - she’d be sent to the moon before she let Rainbow Dash pick the Renegade option for her again!
“The Normandy’s lost - going down with the ship won’t change that.” Shepard spoke in a firm yet understanding tone - a complete reversal from the unbridled fury that had been directed against Liara not more than a few moments ago, and Applejack briefly thought that if Commander Shepard had been real, she’d probably have had one hay of a bipolar disorder issue.
“Yeah, you’re right.” Joker was silent for a brief moment before finally relenting, and he reached his foreleg out. “Help me up.”
Straining to haul his hind legs out of the pilot’s seat as Shepard draped his foreleg over her shoulders, Joker barely had time to perceive the warning lights on his panel - his eyes widened as he took in the data, and he started hammering a hoof on Shepard’s back in a panic, trying to get her to hurry up.
“They’re coming around for another attack!”
In the deep of space, the massive, hulking cocoon slowly drifted towards the now-hapless Normandy, the signature blinding glow of its particle beam slowly building up to another deadly crescendo, one that would no doubt spell the end for the Alliance frigate.
As Rainbow Dash watched uselessly with her hooves clenching in outrage at how helpless she, and by extension, Shepard, was to change any of this, the unidentified cruiser’s particle beam ripped into the Normandy’s torn remains once again, tearing apart what little was left untouched by its savage assault.
Realizing how little time they had left, Shepard violently grabbed a hold of Joker’s foreleg as she hauled him out of his seat double-time, amidst the pilot’s protests.
“Ow! Watch the foreleg!”
Hauling the pilot out of his station like a limp sack of potatoes, Shepard dragged Joker over to the pilot’s personal escape pod, the one that had been installed directly next to his station. Just as she had placed her comrade into the relative safety of the escape shuttle, a backward glance rewarded her with the sight of the cruiser’s particle beam ripping through the Normandy’s deck mere metres in front of her... and it was inching closer towards her with every passing second.
Twilight could only look on in abject horror as the yellow beam of pure destructive energy split its way down the entire cockpit, tearing a rift in the hardened metal as bright lances of death cut off all avenues of escape for Shepard, forcing the Commander towards the proverbial end as she made her final, and hardest, decision.
Rainbow Dash’s blood ran cold as she realized what was about to happen. “No...oh, no. No! NO! SHEPARD, DON’T YOU DARE-!”
Too late.
Jamming her hoof down on the emergency locks, Shepard sealed Joker in the final escape pod as the Normandy prepared to save one last life.
In the cold, hollow monochrome of space, Joker’s cries would not be heard; nor would the hoof he reached for ever come - both Ponies knew one of them would have to make the hardest of decisions, but neither ever expected it to come to this.
“SHEPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD!”
Cutting a rift between the two, the golden lance of light bisected the Normandy’s cockpit from port to starboard, a massive gout of flame separating the two... and hurling Shepard into the nearest adjacent wall with enough force to leave a visible indent as the escape shuttle’s door closed in the face of a massive explosion.
All around her, the Normandy crumbled, blasted to pieces by their unknown attacker, and explosions went off around her, sounding like nothing but dull thumps in the vacuum of space. Her labored, steady breathing was all she could hear as she floated in the non-existent grip of zero gravity, and Shepard began to look around, attempting to find a way out.
“Okay... At least her suit will keep her alive!” Pinkie Pie piped up optimistically, trying to find a silver lining in the massive thundercloud that was looming over everypony’s heads as they realized just how bad things were, and the game had only just started! “She’ll be fine, guys, all she has to do is float around and wait for a res... cue...”
The pink earth pony’s words died halfway out of her mouth as there was a sudden hissing sound, and Shepard began to flail around in panic on the screen as gouts of gas began to spout from her combat hardsuit, her hooves attempting to stop leakages that were far too many in number for her to stop on her own.
She was floating around with no atmosphere, and her suit was venting air.
The struggle didn’t even last a minute - mere seconds later, Shepard’s body went horribly still as air stopped hissing from her suit, and as a lonely piano piece played in the background, she continued drifting aimlessly through the void, towards the planet that loomed directly beneath her... and to her inevitable orbital descent.
The scene faded to black, and the Mass Effect 2 logo suddenly appeared on the screen with a dull thud, with not even a fading effect to ease its introduction - a reminder of the sheer gravity of the events that had just transpired.
Rainbow Dash had gone totally silent at this point - while she had been railing and ranting in anger at their assailants during the entire duration of the attack, swearing vengeance for the Normandy’s fallen crewmates, she now just stared at the screen, her pupils shrunk to pinpricks in horror as her jaw hung slack.
The game had only just started, and Shepard had just died.
Twilight sat, staring blankly at the screen, absolutely gobsmacked at what they had just witnessed. With her healthy appetite for books she had run across a number of rather depressing endings. But this was the first time she had ever seen a downer beginning. They hadn’t had more than a minute of actual gameplay before Shepard, the main character, who they had painstakingly built through the entirety of the previous game, had been sent to her end, to burn up in the atmosphere of some unknown planet.
And yet... something seemed... off.
“Girls... s-something’s not right here.”
“BUCKING RIGHT SOMETHING’S ‘NOT RIGHT’, TWILIGHT!” Rainbow Dash shrieked over Rarity’s hysterical sobs. “SHEPARD! IS! DEAD! We haven’t even played the game yet and she’s already a smouldering pile of charcoal on some backwater... plaaa...
Her voice trailed off as her eyes narrowed at the screen, which had suddenly brightened again to show...
Well, Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure WHAT she was looking at. A brownish-gray wet landscape of some kind? With tendrils of the same color and texture? It looked vaguely like the inside of an ice cave or something... until something suddenly approached the... whatever it was: three machines, drill-like apparatuses, hovering over the charred-looking landscape.
“Commander Shepard has been recovered.”
The smooth, silken voice emanating through the speakers sounded eerily familiar to the six ponies... and what was it saying about their beloved Commander? Recovered? From where?
“... The Lazarus project will proceed as planned.”
Rarity wiped the tears from her eyes as she watched a machine drill a metallic panel into the landscape, before seeming to activate with a bright light. “Lazarus...?”
Twilight cast her mind back. “He was this mythological pony who was said to have cheated death, and was resurrected by Princess Celestia. I asked her about it, though, and she said that it was all a bunch of horseapp... wait. Wait...” She stared in awe as the screen shifted to show a charred, wrecked-looking heart, its muscles still and lifeless, and the scholar’s mind whirled at the implications of just what they were looking at.
“They COULDN’T be...”
The six stared in disbelief as the Lazarus project went to work: hypodermic needles pierced what they realized now was the Commander’s charred flesh, injecting a bluish fluid into her veins: almost instantly, gray, dead-looking blood cells detached themselves from equally dead-looking walls, everything slowly turning a healthy shade of red. Simultaneously, groups of precise, multi-purpose artificial limbs prowled over the commander’s body, making their way over the skeletal system before eventually arriving at the spinal cord, transplanting sleek devices of purest chrome over chunks of shattered spine, restoring the dead neural connectors.
The machines poked and prodded at the insides of the corpse all over, attaching metal panels all over the pony’s skeleton, as scans showed that the annihilated bones, once fractured into dozens of separated fragments, had been repaired, and the heart, now healthy and red, had once more began to beat.
“I... don’t... believe it.” Fluttershy whispered.
“It’s a darned miracle...!” Applejack wore a grin that stretched from ear to ear.
Pinkie’s hair had re-inflated back to its poofy norm, and she was dancing and cartwheeling wildly around the room. “She’s alive! SHEPARD’S ALIVE! I knew she wouldn’t die so easily!”
As the gathered six mares watched in morbid fascination, the cinematic continued, chrome and metallic robotic arms poking and prodding away at Shepard’s body, injecting her with Celestia-knows-what kind of substances and implanting all sorts of foreign materials to revive, repair and reinforce her devastated remains.
Twilight, ever the scholar, was not much of a biology student, but she found herself nevertheless morbidly intrigued by what was going on on the screen, even as bloody needles and scalpels were disposed of into bowls of a clear blue fluid, being replaced with freshly sterilized ones before going right back to work - it was nothing short of an act of Celestia, to bring a pony back from the dead!
As the digital readouts continued to spiral across the display, showing images of Shepard’s brain, followed by an X-ray of her entire skull, the screen suddenly entered the distinct stillness of a loading screen, with slightly repeating images of Shepard’s heart rate and DNA molecules being the only things left moving.
“I knew Shepard wouldn’t die so easily - she’s too awesome to take down just like that!” Rainbow Dash was already rubbing her hooves together excitedly, practically bobbing about in the air as her wings beat about in excitement, and she looked just about ready to just dart forward and grab the controller out of Twilight’s grip. “Oh man, I SO cannot wait to get this started!”
“Keep your saddle on, Rainbow Dash.” The lavender unicorn reminded her boisterous friend sharply the moment she caught sight of the expression on the cyan pegasus’ face. “Remember who’s in the driver’s seat this time?”
“Yeah, yeah, your playthrough, Twilight, I get it.” Rainbow Dash said with a twinge of a sour note in her voice, but she continued beating about her wings anxiously, staring impatiently at the screen. “Just give me control over Garrus any day and lemme at those Geth!”
“All in good time, Rainbow, my dear - all in good time.” Rarity tried to placate her friend as soothingly as she could before taking a look at the screen - just in time to see the image of Shepard’s skull being overlaid with a grid image, right before resolving itself into the all-too-familiar visage of the equine heroine they had spent the whole of Mass Effect 1 with saving the galaxy. “Oh, look! It’s Shepard!”
“DARN RIGHT IT IS!!!” Pinkie Pie suddenly erupted in all her high-pitched glory, and she burst forward, pointing excitedly at the screen with a hoof. “COME ON, TWILIGHT, LET’S GET THIS PARTY STARTED!!!”
“Uhhhh... I dunno, girls...” Twilight muttered hesitantly as her hoof hovered over the A button, realizing what decision she was faced with, and reluctant to commit herself to something that would last throughout the entire game so rapidly. “I mean, Shepard’s appearance...”
Rainbow Dash and Applejack took one look at the menu screen, and immediately facehoofed.
“Accept Imported Face
Default Appearance
Custom Appearance”
“Fer land’s sakes, Twilight, yer imported face is the right one ta go with!” Applejack groaned frustratedly, apparently reaching the limit of even her own patience with Twilight’s hesitance at decision-making here - really, she could appreciate that sometimes the decisions that lay in Shepard’s hooves really were of a galaxy-shaking magnitude, but Twilight just took it too far. “That’s tha same face that Shepard spent the whole’o ME1 with!”
“Well, if you ask me, she could definitely use a little touchup-”
“NO!!!!” Five unified voices quickly cut Rarity off before she could get any further - they all knew what would happen if the fashionista were allowed to continue down that train of thought. They wouldn’t be spending hours at the customization screen; they would be spending days!
Twilight quickly selected Accept Imported Face before Rarity could even begin to protest, and the fashionista huffed in annoyance as the image of Shepard’s visage zoomed out to encompass her entire body, before switching to what seemed like a in-depth scanned image of Shepard’s insides - and no doubt whatever implants Cerberus had just placed inside of her body.
“What to do... what to do...?” was all Twilight managed to blurt out, confused by the plethora of options before her, bringing back rather... unpleasant memories of a painstaking hour’s worth of choices in Mass Effect.
“Whoa...!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash, eyes now widening with excitement. “Ooh, ooh! Pick the Vanguard, Twilight! Pick the Vanguard”
In contrast to her rainbow-maned friend, now literally bouncing back and forth off Twilight’s shoulders in excitement, the lavender unicorn took her time to read each and every description there was, all the way from Soldier to Engineer.
“...Operatives are outfitted with an ocular synaptic processor that allows them to focus on targets with lethal accuracy...” muttered Twilight, scanning the class description in front of her with the fervor only a seasoned bookworm could afford. “Sounds like something up your alley, Fluttershy!”
“Nah! Everyone knows Vanguards are where it’s at!” proclaimed Rainbow Dash, knocking Twilight aside with a quick flankbump, eliciting a short “hey!” from her unicorn friend. “Right into the fight planting a shotgun in their-!”
“Really, Rainbow?” huffed Rarity, tossing her mane back with a light flick, almost as if her cyan friend had committed an unforgivable social faux pas. “I’d have gone with the Infiltrator myself, so much more finesse involved... but I do suppose the Vanguard does somewhat suit your more... brutish demeanor.”
“Hey! Who ya callin’ bru- briti- uh... words I don’t know!” yelled Rainbow, her cheeks now flushed red in an almost comedic mixture of embarrassment and frustration.
“She means that ya’ ain’t got no class, Rainbow.” said Applejack, cutting in before things got anywhere near out of hand. “Besides, ain’t nothin’ better than a Soldier if you wanna get tha job done. None a’ them fancy-shmancy powers and whatnot - just pure, good ol’-fashioned firepower and the stayin’ power ta back it up.”
“Just a boring old soldier?” Pinkie Pie suddenly piped up incredulously, as though Applejack had grown a second head. “You loco in the coco, AJ? Engineers are waaaaaay more fun, just think of all the stuff they could do with combat drones! Combat! Drones!”
“I personally prefer Sentinels...” piped up Fluttershy, her voice almost swept away by the cacophony of opinions flying left and right; everypony was almost literally up in arms over the perceived “superiority” of one class over the other. “They’re so... passive.”
“VANGUARDS ARE BEST!”
“NO, INFILTRATORS!”
“COMBAT. DRONES. YOU GUYS!”
“Y’ALL DON’T KNOW-”
“QUIEEET!”
Resounding throughout the room like a bone-shaking clap of thunder, Twilight’s magically amplified voice utterly overpowered the relentless banter permeating the room; even Rainbow Dash knew stepping on a ticked-off Twilight’s proverbial toes could only spell trouble.
“Adept, everypony. Adept is what we used to save the galaxy last time, and it will work just as well saving the galaxy THIS time.” Twilight said simply, smoothing her mane back. “I’m sure there’ll be plenty of squadmates for everypony to play as, so please... PLEASE... let’s just take a deep breath and start playing. I’m sure it all work out in the end.”
Several subdued murmurs from Rainbow Dash aside, quite a few of which vaguely sounded like something along the lines of “Adept Shmadept,” everypony seemed to more or less get the fact that this argument was long over.
“So!” beamed Twilight, her eyes twinkling with excitement, “Let’s see what we’ve got here!”
Looking over the new and “improved” Adept Shepard, multiple enhancements made the lavender unicorn’s eyes almost twinkle with delight as her now-widening eyes moved along the rather... verbose description.
“L5x implants... Pull... Shockwave... Singularity! Look girls, they kept Singularity in here!” buzzed Twilight, her turn to almost bound off the edge of her seat in excitement. “This is gonna be GREAT!”
“Yeah, yeah...” muttered Rainbow Dash, lazily waving a hoof about as she rolled her magenta irises about, almost yawning. “If by ‘GREAT’ you mean ‘slow’, then I can’t say I disagree.”
Sending a sharp, irritated glare right by Rainbow’s way, Twilight turned her attention back to the screen before her, preparing herself for the next step in recreating the once-dead Equestrian heroine.
Up next: Review Personnel Records.
It was just a brief, cursory check - with a character imported from the previous game, Twilight knew exactly how her Shepard was going to be, but as obsessive-compulsive as the young scholar was with her checklists, she just couldn’t help but go over a mental one a final time as she ticked off the details in her head.
“Let’s see... Name: Twilight Shepard, check!” The lavender unicorn made a ticking motion with a hoof, completely oblivious as everypony gathered in the room simultaneously groaned in frustration and slammed their hooves into their foreheads.
Twilight ignored them though - this was more than just simple character creation! Indeed, to Twilight Sparkle, scholar and student, this was the chance to glimpse the revival of nopony any less than Commander Shepard herself, savior of Equestria and heroine of the Citadel! “Origin: Spacer, check! Reputation: War Hero... check! And most importantly, Class... Adept! Check!”
“Oookay Twilight,” she told herself, taking long, deep breaths in and out, trying to calm the cogs spinning and whirring in her overactive cranium. “You’ve got this... just- hey!”
Zipping past her in a flash of pink, the veritable sugar reactor that was Pinkie Pie snatched the controller out of Twilight’s hooves, maneuvering around the room in a spectacular series of dizzifying turns and eye-rolling drifts before landing safely in the comfort of Twilight’s couch.
“All right, finally! Now it’s time to save the galaxy... PINKIE PIE STYL-”
The look Twlight gave her made even the normally-fearless Element of Laughter give pause, the pink earth pony’s smile sliding off her face to make room for a sheepish grin as she gingerly held the controller in one hoof, struggling with futility to hide it beneath her flank.
“The controller, Pinkie.” deadpanned Twilight, her eyes narrowed with absolutely bone-chilling intent.
The screen was still on the character selection chart, and Pinkie’s hoof had been but inches away from pressing down on the A button - a nervous sweatdrop began to descend down the pink earth pony’s temple, and she let out a laugh laced with generous amounts of trepidation, before finally relenting and handing the controller back to Twilight.
“Eh-heheheh... Whoops?” Pinkie Pie let out a short, sheepish giggle as Twilight snatched the controller out of her grip with a quick telekinetic burst, reasserting control over her playthrough. For even as she watched, a brief cutscene was playing, Shepard was already beginning to regain consciousness on the screen, and... was that the sound of explosions going off in the background?
The scholar could only groan as she facehooved in exasperation, and prepared herself for yet another fight for Shepard’s life, despite having just been literally brought back from the dead.
Well, for Shepard, it was simply all in a day’s work, and Twilight set about the very first level of the game, directing Shepard through corridors of murderous robots and mercilessly blasting her way through them, leaving naught but scrap metal in her wake.
Well, it might have been a long time since she’d played Mass Effect, but it felt good to be back behind the driver’s seat.
Several weeks later...
“Here ya go, Tank!”
Rainbow Dash placed a carrot under the tortoise's nose. The reptile blinked balefully before reaching out and picking it up in its beak, biting off a chunk and chewing it slowly. Satisfied, Rainbow ran over the mental checklist in her head.
“Today’s training, done. Weather, done. Feed Tank, done...and now...”
Swooping through the halls of her home, Dash flopped down on the couch, seizing the controller and booting up the console, glancing nervously at the clock.
“Shoot, it’s Four already...hope they’re not in some firefight without me...”
A glance at her messages revealed that Twilight wasn’t online yet, but she had a number of notes from everypony else: AppleSt0rm? No, it wasn’t an invite: Applebuck season had rolled around and it was a note that she’d be busy all week.
PinkiePinkieZootZoot? Nah... ever since a visit to Tuchanka had revealed a Varren fighting pit, Pinkie had spent her entire time racking in credits hoof over fist. All fine and dandy if she planned to leave at some point and actually spend them on something, but apparently that wasn’t her plan.
Glamor_Incarnate? Like heck.
She decided to enter single player. Unlock some new gear and impress them all when the six of them were together. But then there was a small bleep-bloop, and a message appeared on the bottom of her screen.
(Fluttershy gamertag) invites you to play Mass Effect 2.
“(Fluttershy gamertag)? Oh, FLUTTERSHY!” Rainbow Dash grinned. “Sweet, she finally got Live hooked-”
‘Bleep-bloop.’ (Fluttershy gamertag) invites you to play Mass Effect 2.
Rainbow blinked as the message appeared a second time.
‘Bleep-bloop.’ (Fluttershy gamertag) invites you to play Mass Effect 2.
‘Bleep-bloop.’ (Fluttershy gamertag) invites you to play Mass Effect 2.
‘Bleep-bloop.’ (Fluttershy gamertag) invites you...
“Okay, OKAY!” Rainbow cried, plugging her microphone in and accepting one of the invites. “I’m coming, Fluttershy, jeez!”
The Main Menu’s multiplayer option: Rainbow Dash selected her Infiltrator file - out of the five others that were maxed out files of all the different classes - and immediately picked Garrus as her character, watching the game load and sync with Fluttershy’s, as all the while the invites continued to pile up.
Rainbow rolled her eyes: Husks, most likely: the mechanical zombies had terrified her friend in the first game, before AJ had shown her how easily they went down. Even then, Fluttershy continued to shriek and flee every time one came after her, groaning hellishly.
“RAINBOW! RAINBOW DASH, GET DOWN!”
Fluttershy’s shriek over the headset snapped Rainbow Dash out of her thoughts, and she slammed on the ‘A’ button as bullets whizzed overhead, sending Garrus into a sprint. The turian skidded across the ground, sliding into cover next to Fluttershy’s Sentinel Shepard.
“Rainbow, thank Celestia! I-I need your help!” Fluttershy babbled. “It’s the Geth, they’re everywhere, and they’ve got Tali!”
Rainbow rolled her eyes, popping up from behind cover and giving the Right Bumper a quick tap: a nearby Geth Trooper exploded into blue lightning, falling to the ground twitching as Garrus’ Heavy Overload ravaged its systems. “Geth, Fluttershy? You brought me here to fight GETH? With all those invites you sent me I thought you were fighting a Reaper or something!”
Fluttershy popped up from behind cover, hitting a second Geth with another Overload. “I-it’s not just the Geth troopers, it’s...oh, no! It’s up again!” Immediately, she ducked back down.
Rainbow popped up to get a closer look, and her blood ran cold. Now that she had a chance to steady herself, she could survey her surroundings and figure out exactly where she was.
She knew this place: they were on Tali’s recruitment mission, which could only mean one thing...
A massive, almost turtle-like Geth had appeared near the back of the map, its ocular sensor glowing an ominous blue.
Oh, buck me.
Fluttershy was facing the Colossus.
The azure pegasus swallowed nervously, trying to ignore the niggling feeling of dread that was pooling at the back of her skull, and immediately cranked her bravado all the way up to eleven.
“Oh, you mean that big old thing?” Rainbow Dash tried to answer as flippantly as she could, and completely failing to hide the small wavering in her voice.” That hunk-a-junk’s NOTHING!“
“Nothing?!?” Fluttershy squeaked as the Colossus’ plasma blast thudded loudly against their cover. “Every time I shoot that thing, it just heals itself! And those blasts it shoots at me just rip through my shields, and that Quarian over there is dying and Tali’s in there and I don’tknowifshe’ssafeandthoseGethkeepcomingand...!”
“FLUTTERSHY!” Rainbow Dash cut her friend’s babbling off. “I’ve done this before! What difficulty are we playing on?”
“N-normal?”
Rainbow Dash grunted in affirmation. “Stay alive, Fluttershy. I’ll be riiiiiight back!”
And then as Fluttershy watched in horror from her cottage on the other side of Ponyville, Garrus popped up from behind cover, taking a storm of bullets as the AI took him over completely.
“Rainbow Dash?!? RAINBOW?!? D-don’t leave me here! Somepony! Anypony, help me!”
“I’m back!”
Fluttershy squeaked and jumped as Garrus suddenly faded out of existence, being replaced by the sight of a familiar armored zebra as Jacob Taylor took the turian’s place, and Rainbow Dash spoke suddenly into the microphone again, her voice filled with triumph.
“You didn’t think I’d abandon you, did you Fluttershy? I just needed to change my loadout a bit!”
Fluttershy’s eyes focused on the massive weapon clutched in the zebra’s hooves, and her blood ran cold.
“R-rainbow? Is that the-?”
“Hay yeah!” Rainbow proclaimed proudly, grinning ear to ear.
“B-b-but the LAST time you used that gun you-”
“Just keep those Geth off of me! I only have one shot!”
And with that, she popped up from behind cover, bringing the massive housing of the M-920 Cain ‘Nuke Launcher’ to bear and squeezing the trigger without an ounce of hesitation. Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, a yellow light built in the gun’s barrel as a high-pitched whine filled the air, streams of orange energy rotating around the front as an unbelievable amount of power began to condense.
Five...four...three...two...one...
Beepbeep...WHOMP!
A bolt of grayish-silver energy blasted out of the gun, the sheer kickback of the shot actually sending Jacob staggering backwards. It roared over the heads of the troopers, flying unimpeded along the entire length of the chasm toward the Colossus.
“Come on, Cain, mommy needs a bulls-eye...!” Rainbow growled.
KRRAAAACK-OOOOOM!
The sounds of combat seemed to warp as a humongous explosion completely erased the Colossus from sight, obscuring it from behind the massive smokescreen kicked up in the aftermath of the explosion. “YES!” Rainbow whooped, pumping a hoof into the air. “WHO’S your daddy, huh!? WHO!? Me, that’s who! Rainbow Dash, the fastest pegasus in all of Equestria! WOOOOOOOO!!!”
“R-r-rainbow, you could have KILLED us!” Fluttershy squeaked.
“Ah, don’t sweat it, Fluttershy.” The pegasus replied flippantly, waving a hoof lazily at the TV screen. “I had everything under contr-”
That was when yet another amethyst blast of superheated plasma slammed right into Jacob again, sending him staggering as his shields instantly crumbled under the assault, and Rainbow Dash spat out a particularly colorful curse that instantaneously set Fluttershy’s cheeks alight in a furious blush.
“What the- I thought he was supposed to be dead!”
“Umm... Don’t mind me pointing it out, Rainbow Dash, but... I think you might have missed him by just a teensy little bit...”
“Oh for...” The cyan pegasus suddenly cut Fluttershy off as her eyes narrowed in a combination of frustration and determination. “That was my only shot! Well, if the Cain didn’t work, then there’s only one thing left to do...”
As Fluttershy watched, Jacob’s avatar immediately holstered the massive nuke launcher over his back, and pulled out a slightly smaller, but no less intimidating gun - one whose large, stocky frame she immediately recognized.
The timid little pegasus let out a gasp of shock as her mind connected the dots, and she immediately scooted Shepard closer to Jacob, violently shaking her head. “Don’t do it, Rainbow Dash! You’ll die for sure out there!”
“Don’t sweat it, ‘Shy!” Rainbow Dash replied in a voice that was laced with huge amounts of confidence - perhaps too much! “I’ve done this a million times! Just keep your hoof on that Medi-Gel button!”
But despite all her bravado, up in the cocksure pegasus’ head, her own thoughts were a different story altogether.
All right, keep it together, Rainbow Dash... The cyan speedster thought to herself as she swallowed a nervous lump in her throat. You might have pulled this off only once on Insanity after a dozen tries, and that was a lucky fluke, but this is Normal mode! You can do this... Right!?
Taking in a sharp breath, Rainbow Dash tightened her grip on her controller as she imagined the M-300 Claymore’s heavy frame clutched within her hooves, and letting out a massive war cry, she slammed her hoof down on the Y button.
“RAINBOOOOOOW.....”
Suddenly enveloped in a deep blue aura, Jacob’s sturdy frame tensed beneath his armor as he dipped towards the ground and coiled his muscles as though preparing to pounce...
And before Fluttershy knew it, the zebra had blasted off in an azure explosion of biotic energy, streaking forward like a missile - right across the entirety of the arena, and straight at the
Colossus waiting for him at the other end.
“DAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSHHHHH!!!!!!!”
Squeaking in fright, Fluttershy immediately ducked Shepard back down behind cover, squeezing her eyes tightly shut as the din of ferocious combat blasted through her headphones and speakers, amidst the sounds of Jacob’s grunts of pain, Rainbow Dash’s incoherent yells, and the steady BOOM!-ing of Jacob’s Claymore shotgun and the Colossus’ cannons.
Abusing the Claymore’ reload trick until her ‘B’ button had been metaphorically bruised and beaten thoroughly, Rainbow Dash burned through almost her entire reserve of spare thermal clips as she attacked the Colossus again and again. Jacob hurtled towards the geth construct in a Biotic Charge at the completion of every cooldown, and constantly sent his barriers hurtling back to full. As long as she could keep this up, she was invincible...!
“SHOOT!” cursed Rainbow Dash as a sudden burst of plasma cannon fire cut off her fantasy of invincibility, and blasted Jacob clean off his hooves before he could replenish his barriers again with another charge, sending him sprawling as his portrait on Fluttershy’s HUD darkened to grey. “Fluttershy, Medi-Gel!”
“H...huh?” Fluttershy stammered. “OH! Uh...Unity, Unity, Unity...THERE!”
“Thanks!” Before Fluttershy even knew it, Jacob was up on his hooves again, firing his Claymore madly as Rainbow Dash screamed incoherently in fury. “Take that, you lousy hunk’a junk! And that! And that!”
Had Rainbow Dash’s cloud manor been situated inside of Ponyville rather than its outskirts, everypony for at least a block around would have heard her enraged cries and colorful curses as she hurled blast after insult at the gigantic geth tank analog, with nothing but her shotgun, her skills, and her guts to back her up.
“EEK!” Squealed Fluttershy as a Geth poked its optical sensor around the side of her barrier: it collapsed a second later, systems fried by a well-placed Overload. “Rainbow, hurry! I’ve only got two more Medi-Gels left!”
“I’ve almost got it...one more hit..! BOOM!”
With a whoop of jubilation, Rainbow rammed the Geth one last time, sending it crashing over and bursting into flames with a metallic groan. “YYYYYES! DOWN YOU GO, YOU HUNK OF JUNK! FINALLY!” She shouted, pumping a hoof. “See, Fluttershy? That wasn’t so hard!”
She turned to see Fluttershy mopping up the rest of the Geth with a series of Overloads. “That was...really intense...”
“Aw, come on, Fluttershy! I handled that Colossus single-player! You can’t just cower behind cover all the time!”
“R-right...” Fluttershy acknowleged, her Shepard stepping out from behind cover and running over to meet Rainbow, Mordin tailing behind. “I just hope Tali’s safe...”
That she was. To Fluttershy and Rainbow’s shared relief, the Quarian was fine, and more than willing to work with Shepard. Cerberus, on the other hand...she had shown a bit of hostility toward Jacob, stating quite plainly that she didn’t trust him. Jacob took it in stride, insisting he had nothing to do with a Cerberus attack on the Migrant Fleet and expressing a hope that they could get past their distrust of each other. Tali acknowledged the gesture curtly before she headed down to Engineering.
Then Jacob suggested that she should meet EDI, the Normandy SR2’s Artificial Intelligence.
“HAHAHAHAH!” Rainbow laughed uproariously as Tali stormed out of the room. “If looks could KILL...! I think you’ve got yourself some competition, Fluttershy!”