//------------------------------// // Negotiations // Story: The Rock in the Gulch // by Tatsurou //------------------------------// Maud calmly approached Church, sitting back and watching as he continued to babble in Spanish. She waited calmly for a break in his babbling, but it did not stop. Sighing, she grabbed hold of him by his leg and began to drag him along behind her. <"Maud?"> he asked immediately, breaking out of his own distress as he felt her pulling him along. <"I'm so sorry. I was so distracted by my own-"> "Idiocy?" Maud asked thoughtfully. <"...well, I was going to say despair and grief, but if it makes you feel better let's go with that,"> Church allowed. <"But I completely forgot to tend to you. I'm so sorry, I know your Mom's death must have affected you greatly-"> "Like yours did?" Maud asked flatly. <"...okay, that's a valid point, you didn't grieve for me either,"> Church observed thoughtfully. <"But you knew I was still around and-"> Church's voice stopped completely. "Like I said," Maud pointed out with a slight quirk to her lips that almost qualified as a smirk. "Idiocy." <"Are you telling me Texas is a ghost now, too?"> Church demanded in shock. "No." <"...is that 'no, she isn't', or 'no, I'm not telling you anything'?"> "One of those." "That's my girl," Texas purred happily from Maud's shoulder, making sure only the filly could see or hear her as Church proceeded to make garbled sounds of frustration in Spanish. Maud came to a halt close enough to Red Base to be seen, but still far enough away that they couldn't come out after her if they happened to have a new weapon to use against her. She doubted if they actually had such a weapon, but she wasn't about to take chances. Her lights were all the same color, after all, so she doubted if she'd 'become a ghost' if she got killed. Beyond that, she really didn't want to cause her 'ghost' parents to go into a frenzied bloodbath to avenge her and decorate the landscape with the entrails of every living thing for a hundred miles while animating skeletons to sing horrendous dirges to lull her to her rest and/or call her 'ghost' back to the world. ...as entertaining as imagining it was. "Reds," she said into her communicator, formulating the signal to only connect to the Reds and not the Blues. "I have come for you." "Please don't kill us!" Simmons squealed out in terror. "It's not our fault! We didn't mean to-" "I care not for excuses, explanations, or blame," Maud growled out to silence Simmons. "I care only for reparations." "See?" Sarge declared to the other Reds. "The adorable Death that comes for us is that of an angry god, and we can buy her off with offerings to appease her! And you thought me sending Grif to his mine for those candy rocks was a stupid idea Donut!" "I think you're remembering that backwards, sir..." Donut began uncertainly. "Be quiet before the angry pony unleashes holy atomic fire on you so she can have a pillar of salt to lick!" "Do...do you really think she can do that, sir?" Simmons asked fearfully. "She's an adorable, talking, brightly colored - relatively speaking - pony that can shatter boulders and dig through mountains with her bare hooves, eat guns, spit bullets, and teleport!" Sarge countered hotly. "Unless and until we somehow manage to get her to be on our side, I'm going to be under the assumption that she can do anything unless or until she shows she can't...and even then I'm going to assume she's faking to lull us into a false sense of security!" "...can't really fault his logic there," Texas allowed thoughtfully. "I honestly wouldn't be surprised at this point if you could unleash holy atomic fire to turn someone into a pillar of salt. Suitably impressed, squealing in excitement, and inordinately proud of you...but not surprised." "And that's something else to experiment with, alongside flaying someone with their own spine before putting it back in so they feel what I did to them," Maud stated...her voice having just a hint of longing to it. "Simmons! Get Grif and my gutting knife!" Sarge yelled out. "Her vicious streak has been revealed, and if we are to buy her off there is only one way! Blood for the blood pone!" "...I like the sound of that," Maud and Texas murmured at the same time and in the same intonation. "But no," Maud spoke up firmly. "I did not come for blood. As entertaining as watching you butcher each other in an attempt to appease my wrath and thirst for blood while singing my praises would be...I have more use for you all alive, if you can give me what I want. What I want...is machines." "Uh...I'm not really sure how much we can do there," Sarge spoke up worriedly. "I mean...I can see from here that you've got Lopez. ...please don't break him, he's like a son to me..." "If you want him back and to have all of you be in one piece, you will build two more robots for me to my specifications," Maud instructed firmly. "What sort of specifications?" Grif asked curiously. "Sorry I wasn't here sooner, but I thought you'd want some candy rocks to feel better about what happened to your Mom until you either killed us all for vengeance or you found the gate to the Underworld and led us on an insane rampage against Hades or Hel or whichever God we found there to drag your parents back into the world of the living." "...that sounds so bad asp..." Sarge and Church said simultaneously, though Church said it in Spanish. "...let's call that Plan B," Maud allowed thoughtfully. "As for my specifications...I want two robots, one male and one female. They must be fully functional and anatomically correct under the armor." "I'm not sure-" Simmons began awkwardly. "Write it down for now, figure out if you can actually do it when you're drunk!" Sarge snapped out. "Go on, Maud. What else?" Maud tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Both need to have superhuman strength and reflexes, able to keep up with minds that aren't restricted to biological limits. Don't bother installing such minds, though. I'll take care of that. Make the female super hot by human definitions." <"So Tex is around and you're making that body for her?"> Church asked curiously. "Make the male bot look like a total dork," Texas whispered in Maud's ear eagerly. "Make the male bot look like a total dork," Maud supplied with a slight smirk. <"Hey!"> "Like Simmons on a bad day," she continued. "Now that's just mean..." Simmons whined. "This...seems like a lot to ask in exchange for getting one robot back," Grif pointed out thoughtfully. "Especially given 'Plan B' is the whole 'assault on the Underworld' instead of killing us all, from the sound of it." "Grif, stop making good points!" Sarge declared angrily. "It goes against the laws of narrative causality!" "If you don't, then I will use your base to bludgeon you all into submission until you do," Maud stated flatly. "...I am conflicted!" Sarge declared ruefully. "On the one hand, I am genuinely curious if Maud can pick the base up and use it as a bludgeon, and if we could survive such a beating. On the other hand, I don't want to find that out first hand!" "How about I trade Lopez for the male robot, and using the base to bludgeon Grif for the female?" Maud offered curiously. "DEAL!" Sarge declared eagerly. "Oh come on!" Grif whined angrily.