Texas held Maud firmly yet gently in her hands, one hand supporting her under her barrel while the other gently gripped her tail. Maud supported the grip by wrapping her hind legs around Texas' arm and her forelegs around her hand. While Texas was a little concerned about how comfortable or supportive this was for Maud - much to her own surprise - Maud seemed perfectly happy with the position. She decided to distract herself by trying to get answers. "So, Caboose..."
"Yes, Mommy?" Caboose asked excitedly.
Texas felt herself tense...and felt Maud's hind legs tighten in response. "Okay," Texas began carefully, "first directive is that you only call me that if it's just the three of us, understand? If anyone else is present, you call me Agent Texas. Understand?"
"Not really, but I can do that!" Caboose agreed eagerly.
Texas decided she would take what she could get without finding out if Maud's boasts of her strength were idle or not. "What can you tell me about the situation here? Other than taking care of Maud, what's the objective?"
Caboose was silent for a few moments. "Hmm..."
"Mom wants to know what we do here," Maud translated.
"Oh!" Caboose declared happily. "Well, by the time I got here, Blues and Reds only fought once a month to decide which base Maud would stay at. Once a week the other three, there were cookouts between the two bases. I don't really understand why."
"How can you fight once a month and no one's dead?" Texas demanded. Remembering why she was called in, she clarified, "Well, no one else."
"We use training rounds!" Caboose declared happily. "They cover us in sticky paint so we can't move! It's kinda fun being locked up like a statue."
"How did you get the training rounds?" Texas demanded incisively. Those were definitely the ones used in the training room for Freelancers, and those weren't issued to Sim Troopers.
"Captain Flowers ordered them for both teams, but told Sarge that Doc did," Maud clarified.
Texas frowned as she heard that name. Something about it was familiar... She decided to push past that until later. "Why would the Red Team agree to that?"
"Sarge is convinced I'm a super weapon and the entire purpose of the conflict in this canyon is to gain control of me," Maud explained flatly.
"Given what I've seen, I can't fault him for that deduction," Texas allowed, "but I'm surprised he hasn't gotten any orders to the contrary." I'm also surprised Freelancer command hasn't sent anyone else, she thought to herself.
"He called into Red Command once," Maud allowed. "They just told him to keep up the good work."
Texas frowned thoughtfully at that. That did not sound like how Sim Troopers were normally handled. Something fishy was going on here... She would have to investigate when she could. For now, she needed to know what she was expected to do, and for that she needed to know what all was going on. "The message I got said you were undermanned?" she pressed. "How many Blues to how many Reds...not counting Maud, since she's apparently the focus of the conflict.
"Two Blues, Four Reds," Caboose answered readily. "But we've got a tank! ...though that didn't work so well. I tried to make the tank work, and Sheila was nice and helpful...but then I killed Dad..." Caboose hung his head, sniffling sadly as he walked.
"Friendly fire happens sometimes," Texas offered firmly. "Just get past it. Am I going to be fighting with the Blues during the once a month battles?"
"I dunno," Caboose allowed. "Pretty sure Tucker's in charge now, unless Maud is. Guess Tucker will talk it over with Sarge."
Reds and Blues talking things out before fighting things out, Texas thought silently. How...strange... "Then lead the way-"
"Caboose!" A red armored soldier ran up towards the group. "You're going to miss-oh, new person?"
"Hey Cinnamon!" Caboose greeted warmly.
The addressed soldier winced. "That's Simmons," he corrected morosely, in the tone of one who fully expected the nearby pony would latch onto it as a hilarious nickname he would never escape and be taunted with for the rest of his military career.
"Oh, okay," Caboose allowed uncertainly. "This is Maud and my New Mommy, Agent Texas! But I'm not supposed to call her Mommy if other people are around, so I have to call her Texas now!"
Texas turned to point Maud towards Caboose, only for Maud's tail to wrap around her hand in a stranglehold that left her feeling the metal of her armor starting to bend. Texas frowned down at Maud. "Can I at least swat him upside the back of the head for that?" she demanded angrily.
"No," Maud stated flatly.
Texas promptly kicked Caboose in the shin.
"My ovaries!" Caboose cried out as he collapsed to the ground.
Simmons stared at Caboose in confusion. "...sometimes I can't tell if he's really that stupid and childish, or if he just acts that way because it makes Maud happy and gets the rest of us to underestimate him," he observed mildly. He then turned back to Texas. "So you're Agent Texas, then. Maud's Mom. Tucker said he called you in to take care of her."
"Right," Texas replied slowly. "And...where can I find this...Tucker?"
"Oh, he's sparring with Grif right now!" Simmons stated eagerly. "That's why I came to get Maud and Caboose! You definitely don't want to miss this!" Turning, he raced back in the other direction. Curiously, Texas followed.
It didn't take long for the group to reach the other soldiers, only to find one in familiar aqua armor fighting another in orange armor. At present, they were both rapidly exchanging punches and kicks that failed to hit their targets. The aqua armored soldier evaded or deflected incoming strikes, while the orange armored one blocked them.
"The aqua armored one..." Texas began as she addressed Maud.
"That's Uncle Tucker," Maud responded readily. "The armor used to be Captain Flowers'."
Well that answers that, Texas thought to herself. That's Agent Florida's armor. So this is a long-running Freelancer project...which means 'Dad' really is-
Her thoughts were cut off as the orange soldier - Grif, presumably - caught an incoming kick from Tucker and flipped him over his shoulder. Tucker spun through the air, pulling his gun out as he landed on his feet and was already opening fire as he landed. Grif pulled out a metal pole and caught each paint round on one end as he spun it until the paint formed a large club-end around the pole. Rushing forward, he brought the makeshift club down towards Tucker, only for the aqua soldier to leap into the air in a flip, coming down on the pole as it impacted into the ground, bringing his gun up towards Grif's face. Grif, for his part, was already bringing one fist up in an uppercut, sending the barrel towards Tucker's face and forcing him to backflip as the gun went off to keep from shooting himself in the face. As Tucker came down on his feet, Grif had forced the pole deeper into the ground and spun around it to launch himself in a flying kick at Tucker, who rolled all the way onto his back to go under it...only to have his gun knocked out of his hands by Grif's fist as he spun to land on his feet and prevent getting shot on his way by.
"So did anyone else in your family take up pole dancing?" Tucker called out tauntingly as he flipped to his feet. "Bow-chicka-bow-wow!"
"Figured shoving one in your mouth was the only time it would stay shut," Grif taunted back as he landed in a combat stance. "Bow-chicka-"
"Get your own catchphrase!" Tucker snapped as he charged in for further combat.
Texas could only stare in shock at the display. While not quite as fast paced as the fights she was used to, it was still quite impressive for relatively untrained combatants... So how were these idiots not in the Freelancer Program instead of being stuck as Sim Troopers?
Overall, a nice little chapter. And it's interesting how Tex feels about all this, for the battles, and to their growing levels of competence.
Ask your daughter. She started this.
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...
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Reds and Blues (after Maud) vs The Meta...and Washington....MAKE IT HAPPEN! BAD @SS TO THE MAX
I love this story. XD Usually I wait till a fic is complete to read it (my Favorites list is actually a list of fics that looked promising but weren’t finished yet, so I could keep track of them). This one is just too much fun to wait for!!! Drop everything I’m doing the moment I spot an update! Keep it up!!!
Good question, Tex. Besides Tucker and Grif, the others have luck that would make the devil jealous! Like really, it's like everyone of them has seasons worth of Plot Armor!
You can thank your 'daughter' on that. She is one of the best motivation therapy out there.
Tex the answer is that they are all very unprofessional and wouldn’t cut it in the program. The problem is that they use a great form of obscuring stupidity to keep anyone who doesn’t know them personally from knowing just how smart they are.
Because when you act like an idiot there are about equal chances that: A) you will be underestimated. B) you will be ignored. Or C) both.
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Never lowball the motivation stirred by a young girl. Who wouldn't improve themselves if it meant protecting a little princess of any kind?
I am strangley addicted to this story
......................what the crap?
THAT'S WHAT I WANT TO KNOW!
Good question. Let’s ask Agent Florida—
Nevermind.
Surprised Caboose even knows the word ovaries.
At this point I'm just waiting for one smartass comment telling Grif and Tucker to get a room
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D) despite any other skills they may have, they are still crazy idiots.
I could SO EASILY see this being animated in the style of the later parts of the series in my head. it's not quite to the ludicrous levels of 'This one goes to eleven,' but it is a wonderful bit of descriptive choreography.
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I can understand not wanting to read a fic until it's complete, but there's already the "Read It Later" bookshelf. Why use your favorites for that?
Thank Maud for incentive
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Pinkie Pie has a bit of Chaos Magic in her, that explains most of the bizarre stuff she gets away with. Not too much, as she isn't an immortal god, but enough for her alter reality as it pertains to her personally. (i.e., she can't make really do anything to other ponies, but she can warp reality to let he do things other ponies simply can't)
Seems that Tucker feels shafted that Grif tried to steal his catchphrase.
man... this story is great- my two fav things... red vs blue and mlp.... awesome!
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Griff makes being lazy into a martial art bar none, Tucker is kind of a sexist asshole, and took a few years to get to where he was in canon but basically did become a freelancer-lite.
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In my case, because Knighty took our Read Later folders away from us once before, and I never bothered to sort them back out.
...
Ok, more recently, I have been putting complete stories into Read Later and incomplete stories into Tracking, but I still have a huge backlog in Favorites that I haven't read yet.
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...alright, that's fair. Odd decision, though. It's a useful folder, so why take it out?
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Cause I started doing so YEARS ago, back in the first few months of this site. It wasn’t as well organized, the features weren’t clear, and I didn’t know better. Heck, not sure they HAD that feature then. Point is, at this point, I’ve got hundreds or maybe thousands of stories in there. Even if I switched, my Favorites folder would still be stuffed with old stories I may or may not have liked, making it kind of useless for the purpose it exists for. Cleaning it out, moving hundreds of stories I’m tracking to a new folder, then figuring out which fics to keep and which to delete from favorites? That’s days worth of work. And I’m a VERY lazy person. :P
It's the best you'll get.
Training rounds. And general not wanting the other dead because they're the only human contact they have and they're, kinda friends, so they'll take what they can get.
Sarge may be insane, but he DOES sometimes make SOME sense.
Considering that the few times we see Caboose serious he seems much smarter, or at least not as divorced from reality, I suspect a bit of both. He's a complete idiot, but I think he's aware of it on some level and plays it up for the sake of comedy. Much like how Yoda and Palpatine don't REALLY need their canes, but keep them around to make them look weaker than they are.
Amazing what proper motivation can do.
They only recently got good. They're also very unprofessional and wouldn't last very long in the Freelancer Program.
I admit to being disappointed at Florida and Church still getting killed, but I'll keep with seeing where this goes!
An awesome spar, plus Tex is impressed, so I hope everyone gets along better than in RvB canon. I can't wait to see how Tex fares amongst the Reds and Blues, but I can also totally see her finding brushing Maud's mane to be her favorite form of relaxation and brutally beating anyone who interrupts it without a good reason. Heaven help anything that tries to hurt her daughter, Tex will rip out its whole skeleton and beat it to death with it. I can see Wyoming scanning the gulch with his sniper rifle and pausing on Maud, only to suddenly find his rifle tied into a pretzel by Tex before she tosses him out as a live target dummy for the Reds and Blues, then beats him To the Pain after they're done with him.
They got skills... but ahmmm not mentally suited... sorta...
Because magic ponies seem to have that effect on those near them. They're like walking power ups of adorable.
8602634 Meh, details!
Maud is so adorably controlling
Grif's comeback, though
If Tex is surprised on how good these sim troopers are getting, imagine how shocked the arrogant Carolina will be. I hope that if we get to the point where she threatens them to be cannon fodder, instead of walking away after Wash defends them, they fight her and(with Wash's help) actually beat her. Then they walk away, leaving her ashamed and humiliated, the best of project freelancer beaten by sim troopers.
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griff kinda like sans, hes lazy but when you get him serious he can be really dangerous.
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eh i see what you did there, man you sure do have a Punchent for word play, all your jokes sure do have a strong PUNchline to them.
Maud’s tail has a good grip. So does Texas’s hand-
OK. No. I’m not messing with the name of TEXAS.
A good start so far. I'll be keeping my eye on this.
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Well... second best..
I can read this and hear all of their voices.
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I'm glad I've done a good job with that.
I love reading the Grif vs Tucker fights. It's well-described, and recalling how well they usually do when they try only makes it easier to visualize. How many season of that show were there? The last time I watched it, Epsilon and the freelancer he was with found The Director in that scene that was ultimately depressing rather than satisfying.
It's hard to not throw spoilers out there and still adequately describe something. I tried.
...I’m thinking back to the series to see if Caboose has said anything dumber...
Nope, got nothing.
Foreshadowing, at its finest. Wait that is foreshadowing, right...?
Becomes their the worse of the worst Tex; they're undisciplined, psychotic, idiotic, nutjobs... but when the time comes to fight, oh they'll fight
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Plus they're all doped up on Maud.
Tex gets her mind blown, careful of that rabbit hole, it's really deep!
I’m beginning to realize something I think the reason the reds and blues weren’t in the project... was because they weren’t... I mean that they were possible candidates, I mean we know that not all the freelancers were badasses, so not only are the sim troopers used for training, tests, and so on, but as possible candidates as freelancers... the only reason the Reds and Blues aren’t part of the project as they’re being used as a cover-up for Alpha and at the time of the series, project freelancer was start to fall apart
Because this is the result of spontaneous character buffing. A short time ago, these people were just dysfunctional soldiers.
Now they’re dysfunctional soldiers with reality warping around them because of magical energy.
Will we be seeing agent wash?