Three Guys in a Stryker Return to Equestria

by Citrus Solutions

Weapons

Roar grunted as another piece of glass was pulled from his back, he didn't bleed too much though, much to the nurse's pleasure. He laid on his chest, both his teammates in his vision with his head laying on his right cheek. Splash, who lay in another bed in the middle of the three men, turned his head over to him and grinned reassuringly. Splash then turned his head to the final member of the team, who lay flat on the bed. Raptor had just woken up a few minutes ago, he caught Splash's gaze and sighed.

"I'm going to start loosing brain cells with all these head injuries that i'm suffering here." He said.

"After I dragged your ass out of the fire, I think you could stand to lose a few pounds too."

Splash laughed as a thrown tissue box bounced off of his head.

The room door clicked open, both princesses Celestia and Luna stepped into the room, smiling kindly at the men. Luna bore three small blue paper-wrapped boxes with red ribbons.

"Presents? For us?" Raptor asked, grinning.

"But of course." Luna said heartily.

Celestia spoke after. "Consider them gifts, a wish for you to get better."

"But you can't open them until you're considered healthy enough to walk out of here on your own two hooves." Luna said with a wink.

Splash hummed, setting the box beside him on the bed. "So what would you think of our first public visit? Went pretty well I'd think."

"I wish I shared you enthusiasm." Celestia nodded. "Did you catch any details of your attackers?"

"Nothing." Splash shook his head. "The guard you sent might've, but we don't know where he went off to."

"The guard... I sent?"

"Yeah."

"I did no such thing." The confused alicorn said. "Are you okay?"

"No, hold on." Roar cut in. "You did, there was a written document before we left and everything."

A piece of hardened wax floated over to the men, grasped in Celestia's aura.

"This is the Royal Seal," She explained. "Your document had no such thing did it?"

"Shit." Splash sighed while putting a palm to his face. "I fell for an stupid old trick."

"It's all right," Raptor reassured him. "We should confirmed with someone. We wouldn't have known the Royal Seal when we saw it anyway."

"And yet thy mouth pronounced no need for your teeth." Luna chuckled.

Roar scoffed. "Didn't seem like the kind of town that'd barrage one of their own buildings with some sort of magical cannon."

"Magical cannon?" Celestia asked. Roar only shrugged and directed the mare's attention to Splash.

"I didn't get a good look at it." He admitted. "It was like a never ending barrage of weapon's fire."

"We saw the damage, but we haven't a clue what could've put out so much magical power in such a fashion."

"It felt like I was under machine gun supp-... You don't have anything like that?"

...

"God damn it!" Splash slammed his fist on the top of the Stryker's turret.

"They fucking took it!" He screamed. "They fucking took the Two-Forty Charlie!"

The coaxial mount that usually held the Stryker's secondary weapon was currently unoccupied, the burnt wiring and metal making it appear as if it'd been cut off with a torch. The crew, not concerned with recovery time, had rushed back to Canterlot to confirm Splash's fears. The men's own weapon had been turned against them, not only that, but several trap wards had been discovered across the Stryker's outer hull. The wards had to be dismantled by the princesses and the magical pony equivalent of Explosive Ordnance Disposal before the crew were permitted to investigate for any further disturbance. The vehicle was locked up tight however, and no further disturbances were discovered.

Now several hours later as the sun began to set, Echo and the Royal Sisters sat in the cafe Raptor encountered, which they had come to know was named "Arsaga's." The group had their preference of beverage and pastry. There was no conversation, Splash was still brooding over the loss of the Mike Two-Forty Charlie, his snack partners were individually wondering how this latest development would affect the situation.

"This weapon, it's slightly less devastating than that of your main armament, but can be quickly deployed anywhere?" Celestia finally inquired.

"Yes." Raptor answered.

"And," Splash answered with a sigh. "If any sort of ballistics from our realm has carried over, the seven-six-two by fifty-four millimeter cartridge is enough to penetrate certain places in the Stryker's hull. I doubt they'd know that, but if we directly confront confront them directly with the Stryker they might be desperate enough to try and use it against us. Then again, they didn't use the penetration effect on the bar so... Maybe not. I don't know."

Raptor spoke up and pointed at his fellow crew members. "Each box only carries a hundred rounds, they probably expended most of that in the attack yesterday."

"Mhm." Roar mumbled. "Except one of the ammo boxes that normally sit by the MG was missing as well."

"So they have a little over a hundred rounds to send downrange at us, with some way to ramp up the rounds per minute if the later stages of the attack are any indication." Splash concluded.

"What do you mean?" Celestia asked.

"Our weapons, the Mike-Sixty-Eight one-oh-five millimeter cannon and Mike-Two-Forty-Charlie have a certain rate of launching projectiles, this is called "rounds per minute," for each round the cartridge containing the bullet is chambere-" Splash was stopped by a elbow bump from Roar, he sheepishly cleared his throat before speaking again. "Raptor here was knocked out, and I don't know how much Roar noticed after getting hurt like he did, but as the building began to catch fire the gun seemed to exceed that rate, which actually is making me worry about any heat damage that may have came to it."

Raptor put his hand to his chin in thought. "To manipulate the moving parts like that they'd need to have known it pretty well i'd think, magic or not."

"Yes, even with a ward being placed upon it, whoever created the ward to manipulate all the moving parts would had to have familiarized themselves with said parts." Luna said simply, Echo had forgotten she was there.

He hummed, looking down for a moment before looking back at the alicorns at the table. "Do you have any armorers that're fascinated by things with moving parts? Some sort of pioneer in war-time technology?"

The princesses looked at each other for a moment, then to Raptor.

"We know just the one." Celestia grinned.

Once again the three were lead through winding corridors and long halls. Some of them of course clearly showing where a large fighting vehicle clipped the wall, or simply slammed through it. Any loose marble chunks or dust had been removed though, to the credit of the cleanup crews. Celestia didn't show much reaction as they took shortcuts through the breaches, but the crew caught a glance from Luna, to which they replied to by sheepishly rubbing the back of their neck or looking the other way. Over time the three found themselves coming closer to the portion of the castle reserved for guard business. They were led down a winding marble stair case, wherein the walls and steps gradually became charred and covered in soot.

"I feel like I should be wearing a gas mask right now." Roar mumbled, observing the change.

Finally they came to the bottom, the room was lit by furnace and torch. Ponies worked and tables with molten metals, sounds of metal hitting metal reverberated throughout the room. As it so happened ponies were covering their mouth and nose with scarves wrapped around their snout, some wore goggles.

"I've got some health concerns for this workshop, Celestia." Raptor told the mare.

"I do as well, however that's neither here or now, i'm afraid."

They stopped at a secluded corner of the workshop, a relatively small beige unicorn sat there, his mane was a orange color but darkened with the soot. He wore on his face what looked like muffle attached to a short tin can stuffed with coffee filters. Echo wasn't concerned about that, they were more interested in the rudimentary open bolt mechanism he was tinkering with, the one he tried to cover inconspicuously when he noticed the group standing in front of him.

"O-oh!" He started, genuine surprise showing on his face. "Wow uh, h-hello. Princesses, and uh, stallions?"

"Hello." Raptor said, smiling politely. "We're here to inquire about a pony about a weapons system with several moving parts."

The stallion looked at the man for a moment with his big blue eyes before tilting his head innocently. "A weapon s-system with... Moving parts? If you need something to do with a crossbow there's another smit-"

"I'm more interested in what you do."

"I... I've attempted to develop small weapons using explosive propulsion to launch projectiles in rapid succession. But my research has gotten me nowhere."

"What about the research of others?"

"Of others? I believe i'm the only-"

At this point, Splash of course lost his patience. He slammed his palms down on the desk as he leaned against it, startling the pony and causing him to reveal the bolt as he drew his hooves back. Splash grabbed the bolt and stepped back, examining it.

"This is similar to the bolt mechanisms used in machine guns like the two-forty. Why, how, and where did you get this?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, that's property of the Equestrian Royalty, p-princesses!"

The two alicorns only watched as Splash carelessly tossed the bolt into a cauldron of molten metal. Their eyes then turned to the unicorn.

"I believe it's best you answer his questions. Honestly." Celestia said with the heart-stopping tone of disappointed mother.

The small unicorn slumped his back and sighed. "T-they came to me because I truly am the only person working on the subject. I wasn't sure q-quite what I was looking at until I took it apart and spent a few hours analyzing the parts. I told them how they could possibly make it fire faster, then asked if I could analyze it further but they demanded I put it back together and then just left. T-that bolt was all I got out of the deal, and I made it just from memory."

"Who's 'they'?" Raptor asked.

"T-they tried to hide it, b-but they were definitely nobles. They way they talked, walked. That slicked-back hair with their nose in the air."

"Did you recognize them?"

"No." The smith shook his head. "T-they wore cloaks... I couldn't have seen their cutie mark either. That's all I know, honest."

"Come," Celestia gestured to the men. "He cannot tell what he does not know."

Raptor sighed and turned away, following the princesses. His men eyed the tech for a few more moments before doing the same. As they ascended the blackened stairs they did not notice the unicorn crawl out from under the tech's desk and dust himself off.

"Ugh, disgusting." The posh stallion grumbled.

"Cry me a river." The tech grumbled, any trace of the nervousness he'd been showing a moment ago was gone. "I'll need to remake that bolt, gimme those specifications."

Author's Note:

This chapter partially fueled by a delicious iced mocha I had at a nice little cafe in my local library by the name of "Arsaga's".

Comments

[jmlop0]

...... Who the fuck is that Noble? Fucking Snake? Sam Fisher?

[mistthealicorn]

I have a feeling that a noble that is in the castle whom seen the striker before and could bypass the guards with no trouble at all I'm taking about royalty witch in this case I declare its prince blueballs

[Dustchu]

Another well done chapter Hahahah, nice job!
And some ponies stole one of their weapons... lordy lordy, they about to get owned! Dx

Nice job!

[Ink_25]

He lay on his chest,

*laid?

"No hold on." Roar cut in. "You did, there was a written document before we left and everything."

*Now

I wasn't sure q-quite was I was looking at until I took it apart and spent a few hours analyzing the parts.

*what
And wow, what a douche.
Hmm, who could this noble be... I bet it's Blueblood.
Nice chapter, moving on to the next one!

6469682 Dude... spoilers!