Pistol - M-6 Carnifex. 35%
"Well... I guess I'll take this one?" Twilight levitated the heavy pistol out of the bag and looked at it with some fascination.
“Don't let the size fool you, it's a very powerful weapon,” Fluttershy closed up her bag again, taking the pistol back from Twilight as they'd have to arrange permits for her to carry it around first. “You know, this was the first weapon that was given to me. Garrus gave it to me on Ferros.”
Twilight looked over the pistol again. “So... Did you, you know...”
“Kill with it?” Fluttershy asked, Twilight giving a nod in confirmation. “Yes. On Ferros in defence of Garrus after I was given it.”
“Oh...”
“I'm not expecting you to do so, Twilight, we'll just be shooting at a fake target for practice,” Fluttershy reassured her friend as they arrived at the range. Soon they were checked in and after a quick safety instruction and application of ear protection, Twilight was ready to shoot. Levitating the gun in front of her she waited for further instructions from Fluttershy.
“So, I pull the trigger, right?”
“Yes, though make sure to brace for the kick of the gun. It's better to overcompensate on the first shots than have the pistol fly out of your grip.” Fluttershy instructed, moving the levitating pistol a bit so its sights lined up better for the unicorn. “Go ahead, try it.”
Bang!
Twilight flinched at the loud crack, losing concentration and dropping her magic. Fluttershy quickly snatched the pistol from the air so it didn't drop onto the ground.
“Maybe hold it with your hooves if you're going to lose concentration like that,” Fluttershy smirked.
“N-No, no, I'll get it,” Twilight stammered, getting the gun back from Fluttershy and floating it in front of her again. Letting out a breath she pulled the trigger again... and again, and again.
Wait, hold on...
Fluttershy's eyes perked as she observed the pistol staying nearly perfectly levelled even though Twilight was firing fairly rapidly.
click, click
Twilight looked at the gun for a moment as it stopped firing before realising it needed a reload.
“Hold there, let's first see your hits before we continue.” Pulling in the target close with the rail system it was attached to, Fluttershy went and inspected the hits. The shots, though not having hit anyplace too impressive, were grouped incredibly tightly. "That's..."
"Terrible?" Twilight filled in, her ears flat as she saw that her shots hadn't even gotten close to the centre of the target.
"Remarkable," Fluttershy corrected her.
"I'm pretty sure that if I'd gone a little more to the left then I wouldn't have hit the thing at all," Twilight interrupted again. "You don't have to spare my feelings you know..." she added in a mumble.
"I'm not. Twilight, look at the places you hit again and tell me what you see." Fluttershy asked again.
"They're at the side of the paper," Twilight bluntly pointed out again, not seeing what point Fluttershy was trying to get to.
"They're also so close together that if they were any closer the shots would have formed a single large hole," Fluttershy provided. "Now imagine that instead of hitting the side here, you'd hit the centre of the target. Would you still say they were bad shots?"
Fluttershy could see Twilight light up as she finally made the connection, a smile creeping onto her face as she realised she hadn't done half bad. "Can I go again?"
The pegasus chuckled as she hung up a new target and sent it down the range. "We came here so you could put some rounds down range after all. I had expected to have to give more instructions but your magic makes a lot of things irrelevant. Go ahead, send a few clips into it to get used to the thing. We'll get to a few drills later."
Loading a new thermal clip Twilight went at it again, getting closer to the centre on the second attempt and pretty much hitting dead centre on the third attempt. Twilight's proficiency with her magic showed as every single successive clip just got her shooting at the same spot in the centre of the target. The two of them continued to shoot at the range for a while longer, Fluttershy making use of a long distance simulator present at the range to get some long distance practice. By the end of the day, and a few broken range records, the two ponies headed back home, planning a few more times that week to head out and practice.
Fluttershy was humming a tune as she went through her apartment and cleaned up some of the mess they'd created over the previous week. She and Twilight hade gone back to the range on three more occasions, each successive time Fluttershy had been putting pressure on Twilight as she shot to get her more used to firing while under stress. A feed with some of the local news played on the background to break the silence of the apartment while she worked.
"Then there-... Breaking News, Earth has been attacked by an unknown force. There has been no contact with the Alliance after receiving this footage and feeds from Earth went dark."
Fluttershy's head snapped towards the video feed as she saw video of a human city right as a reaper broke through the clouds and smash down into a skyscraper. A pit formed in her stomach as the sound of a deep blaring horn signalled the arrival of a dozen more of them before the video cut out.
"The council has called for calm as they assess the situation and mobilise their fleet. We shall be covering this further as..."
Fluttershy didn't hear the rest of the emergency broadcast as she'd stormed out of the apartment, not even grabbing her rifle as she sprinted.
The need to assess what is going on?! They heard Shepard's warnings for years so they should know damn well what is going on and if they still don't get that I will make sure they finally do.
time for ME3 to start and Twilight really should learn how to fire them by hoof in case her magic gets disabled.
I've always suspected that since the Citadel was the first Reaper, the thing induces subtle Indoctrination on the galactic leadership, making sure they remain uncertain and dither in the face of mounting evidence they should take action.
It's a new treat for me to see this getting updates. Always wonder what's gonna happen, plus I never played ME3 so I'll enjoy this quite a bit.
10767843
Actually, I think Harbinger was supposedly the first one. The Citadel is a giant mass relay and the hub of the network. I think this is probably more of a case of denial and deliberate ignorance. Imagine a child telling you there's a monster in the closet, not believing them until it bursts out the door and is ripping out your throat. Even then... shock and denial can be a powerful thing. Their entire worldview is in turmoil.
10767939
Have you ever played the Leviathan DLC from ME3? They make it clear that the Citadel was their prototype AI built to resolve a war in their era. It's solution was draconian, and led to the current state of affairs. Personally, I think it's due to a programming glitch. They gave it a priority: "The Preservation of organic life at any cost." But the AI's orders don't take into account the fact that even if you do everything right, organic life dies. That was unacceptable, because organic death - even by natural causes - violated its prime directive. Everything that happened after that was a result of a faulty directive. While they don't explicitly say that in Leviathan, it's hinted strongly in that direction.
10767950
I played Leviathan, but I don't remember that part. My understanding was that the Citadel and the relays were built *after* the leviathans were subsumed into Harbinger. They were specifically built to make the harvest more efficient.
Mass Effect 3 already? What about the suicide mission?
Oh no, is Fluttershy going to go and slap some sense into the council? That could either be very good, or very bad.
So...ME3 about...a month out from the upcoming remaster? ...I'll admit, I'd laugh & be impressed if you got this finished or close to it in time.
In news relevant to this chapter...Fluttershy gonna show her assertive side next time, isn't she.
Time to start burning Reapers?
Rapid firing super accurate rounds from the weapon considered a handcannon.....oh she is going to cause some havoc as long as she got the ammo and isn't being pinned down by enemy fire.
And so... our story begins, MEEK3 starts now, and we shall see sadness, betrayal's, sacrifices, and destruction that seems to never stop... will the aid of Equestrian change the battle
and endingor is the MEEK going to have to repeat what its source's ending with a pony addition at the end10768182
it already happened, a few chapters ago Ch151-155
10767952 10767950
You two are talking past each other. Radiant Sparkle is including the Starchild AI, the creator of Harbinger, under the category of "Reaper".
10769528
Which is fair, I think. Since they made it pretty clear that the "Starchild" (don't get me started on the idiocy of EA's last-minute script change,) was created by the Leviathans to solve an out of control AI issue in their time. I can only figure that the reason the idiot child AI forced a three-flavors-of-ending on the player was because no one had made it that far, and didn't realize they had to cut its interference out of the Crucible's operating system. That's only a guess, of course. It's still a lame ending.
As for including him in the Reaper tag, it's worth pointing out that if you pick the Control ending, the moron kid tells you that you'll be replacing him in the Citadel as the new commander of the Reapers. That pretty much confirms the moron child as the First Reaper.
it took me a few hours and maybe a day but i just realized/ remembered that after the reapers attack earth they go after the turrian homeworld and planet, and the massive pony battle spaceship we have is there, meaning.... oh dear faust please tell me there all going to be safe
Well, here we go. The final lap.
I would have loved to see Detective Chellik the C-SEC officer losing his mind watching Twilight nail targets at the range.
He hastily leaves to make report, explaining the dangers of equines armed with levitating fire arms. Do not engage!
So it begins... The War to end it all...
Time to murder some metal squid and make calamari out of them...
10767835
It's like the equivalent of learning to shot with both hands on the lead.
10767856
Watch the Trilogy played on youtube. A completionist would be ideal, because the side mission actually effect the next game. Something no other game really has.
So is Fluttershy laying literally a smackdown now?
Also Fluttershy can detect indoctrination, better test the Counsel and politicians like Udina for it.
I wonder if Udina acted in canon the way he did because he was a speciesst or Cerberus actually use some kind of indoctrination on him.