William usually didn't spend much time within the confines of his own home. After all, in a world where there was no internet, what was the purpose? All the interesting and important stuff was outside. His whole reason for being here in this fantastical dimension, was outside. His house was meant to serve as a refuge from the insanity outside, he could lock himself away behind reinforced doors and walls and listen to music however loud he wanted, eat, disassemble and reassemble firearm's for experimentation and maintenance at his leisure. Though usually not the later, it seemed as though the magic which made his weapons and equipment appear out of nowhere also removed the need for maintenance. His guns never jammed, his sight's always held a prefect zero. And they would only malfunction if some outside factor made them. Filling the action with mud, loading magazines backwards, or with the wrong kind of ammunition, purposefully beating them into the ground until they fell apart, ect. William considered the last one a sin. He also loved reading, though, not to the level of Twilight.
His most recent indoors hobby in the past few months had been obsessing over Grogar the Necromancer. Locked behind the armored doors of his 'safe room.' Was everything relating to him which William could get his hands on. Most prominent of which being a set of three books regarding Gusty the Great, Grogar, and Grogar's Bell. Even though he had lost the book on Gorgar's bell. Well, more like let it get away, on account of principal. He still had the 2 others his possession. And with the help of a very troubled Chrysalis, he now had a bead on his location. It was somewhere in the, "Hayseed Swamps." A swath of marshland on Equestria's southeastern shore. From what he had heard of it, it was basically Equestrian Florida. He could take the trip there and start looking for Grogar's hideout at any time he wanted. But he had other things to do.
Currently he was reading a book about old Cold War weapon prototypes straight from the declassified archives of the the United States Department of Defense. On the hunt for something that would catch his eye and make him want one of his own. It was essentially a toy catalogue to him. He could pick whatever he wanted out of it and have it appear on the table in front of him whenever he wanted.
As he mindlessly flipped from page to page, looking over the faded typewritten documents and black and white photos. So far today, he hadn't found anything that was worth making. Most of the things in there were out of feasibility for him. As he flipped back over the pages he had already gone through, he came across something which mad him smile. It was a rather large recoiless rifle. There was one odd thing about it though, on it's end was a small warhead with a radiation warning label. Then, he read the name. " The M28 Davey Crockett." What was odder still, was that the manifest apparently listed this thing as nuclear ordinance.
" I am a but a simple operator, I see a shoulder fired nuclear weapon, I want one. " He murmured to himself, looking though the paragraph underneath, only 2,100 were ever made. And none were ever used in combat, go figure. Well, none have been used in combat up until now. After reading a bit further into it he decided that he would go on a try to summon it. Disregarding the fact that all of his previously attempts to summon nuclear weapons, regardless of their perceived size, had failed. Still, it wouldn't hurt to try.
William walked out behind his house, took a firm stance, then tried to summon it. There was a burst of emerald green sparks, but no M28 appeared. He tried again, and again, and again. And unlike with other pieces of equipment, the more he attempted to summon one, the tired he became. It wasn't long before sweat began dripping down his forehead and his arms began to ache. A few more time's and a headache began to form. But still, no tactical nuke.
"Hey, what's with the light show?" Joey landed on the roof behind William, and waved to him. "Oh, hello Joey. I'm trying to manifest a nuclear warhead, but not just any, a shoulder fired one!"
"Huh, no kidding, are you sure you're alright?" William winced, "Oh, no I'm not. But I want that nuke." The alicorn continued
watching William's struggle with a mixture of curiosity and horror. "Dude, you're going to hurt yourself." He reasoned, William froze and dropped to his knee. " Whew, nevermind, I'll try again later, you're right, I shouldn't push it."
"And besides, what do you need something that powerful for anyway? You can already summon a whole artillery piece when ever you want. " Joey said with a smirk. William wiped the sweat off his brow looked back up at Joey, who was still perched on his roof, ruffling his feathers. " I used that same argument with you and teleporting." Joey scowled and flew down beside him.
"That's different!" William grinned through the pain, " It's not and you know it. The only difference is that you already had an accident. Mine has the potential to be an accident. That's why there's a 300 yard minimum arming distance built into the weapon that I sure as #### ain't gonna remove unless I absolutely have to. Each warhead's equivalent to a couple dozen conventional 155 millimeter artillery shells. " Joey nodded his head without bothering to ask what William meant.
"Anyway," William pulled himself up to full height and moved to a lawn chair, " Anything interesting happen lately?" Joey picked at the ground with his hoof. " Hmm... Oh yes, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy went to Manehatten for the dat, Fluttershy got foalnaped by some ponies with Russian accents who were heading down south. And, Rainbow Dash teamed up with that author, Daring Do to go and try to save her!" William frowned, and rubbed his forehead.
"And if they were in Manehatten, how did you find out about this. It's not like they have radios." Joey smiled, " Ah, maybe not electric ones, Starlight Glimmer taught me a long distance communication spell. It's hard, but more feasible for me than teleporting. Though, I haven't given up my hopes on it yet." William stood up, having fully recovered. "All in the name of convenience, eh? I'm guessing you were wanting to tell me that in hopes that I would agree to go and help rescue her?" The alicorn nodded. "Ah what the hell, I'm bored anyway. And this isn't going anywhere anyway."
"Go find Twilight and see if she can teleport us there. We don't have time to go on and walk several hundred miles, or use a hot air balloon, or take the train, and we both know that me flying on your back is out of the question." William took off for Twilight's castle.
Roughly half an hour later...
William tumbled out onto the other side of a portal into the humid jungle air, and looked back at Twilight, who waved at his as it closed. With the words, " I'll reopen it when you find them." Joey looked over at him." So... Where to now?" William sighed, and pointed off to their right, directly in front of them was a massive overgrown pyramid. " You. stay here, or go, I don't care." William began his ascent up the ancient stone structure. Joey flew parallel to him. But he froze in mid air when he looked back down. Just in time to find a massive blue and purple, cat thing? Looking down at Daring Do and Rainbow Dash. " Hey, William!?"
"Yeah, I see it!" Came a response from about halfway up the structure. About a half second later, the worried alicorn heard the sharp crack of a gunshot. Which William had purposely placed right off to the side of the creature. It jumped as the round hit. " Back away from the pegasi or the next one goes in your skull is that understood!?" The cat stopped and blinked, "I'm sorry, who are you?" William scrambled down from the grand stone staircase. Joey, knowing his friend all to well, decided to stay far above in the air where he was less likely to get hurt. But as soon has he reached the second to last one, Daring broke free and took Rainbow with her. The cat- thing swung it's claws down, and William brought his gun to his shoulder, and fired.
He put a .308 AP round center mass in the creature. But all that did was make it stumble backwards and start cursing at him. "Hey William, I see Fluttershy, she and the other's are disappearing into the pyramid. You better finish it up fast down there!" William fumbled with an M67 fragmentation grenade, and tossed under the menace which he had just shot. He then proceeded to franticly sprint back up the pyramid as fast as he could.
The top was, to say the least quite a bit larger that it appeared to be from ground level. Hell, there was even a decently sized grove of trees. At it's center was an array of stone pillars of various sizes, all bearing engravings of some sort. At very center was a massive stone door leading down to a staircase which seemed to be rapidly closing. He just stood there and let it shut all the way. He wasn't worried. Why should he have been, it obviously wasn't magically reinforced, just more of your usual jungle temple crap. Though, it was still an impressive feat of engineering to be sure. Though nothing a few packs of C4 and a Carl Gustav antitank gun couldn't deal with. William jumped down into the darkness and looked around with his flashlight, shinning it right into Joey's eyes in the process.
"Ow! Easy there, watch it with that thing I swear, it hurts less looking into the sun that that thing!" William rolled an eye and looked around at the room they had found themselves in. On the far side or the room arranged in a half circle were 5 unmarked stone doors. " Uh, you pick?" Joey asked sheepishly. William walked up to the center door and banged on it, "It's hollow." He blew the door open with yet another C4 block. And leisurely strolled down the long dark hallway. Until he cam to an opening.
The scene was like something straight out of an Indiana Jones movie. At the center of a deep pit filled with lava was a bejeweled glowing necklace. Made entirely from gold. Torches lined the walls of the chamber, alongside 4 other entryways. Likely leading to the other 4 doors. Whoever designed this place clearly didn't know jack about traps. Just in front of him were 5 ponies. Fluttershy, and her captors, who didn't yet know he was there. He looked back down the hallway and signaled for Joey to stop. The sound of hooves would back them look back. So instead, William crept up behind a grey earth pony with sunglasses and tapped him on the shoulder. " Hello there, now, lemme lay out the two choices you 4 have. You can either surrender and come quietly, or you throw yourselves into yonder lava pit and we call it a day- Fluttershy no!" He watched helplessly as Fluttershy took the necklace from the pedestal and placed it around the head pony's neck. His eyes, and the amulet on the necklace began to glow green. "Eh, sure we might have originally brought her along to help us steal this necklace, but over time my henchponies and I came to value her friendship and kindness!" The earth ponies nodded behind him, William groaned, " Ok, I have to ask, what does that amulet do?"
"It makes me tell the truth!" William deadpanned back to Joey, who trotted out from the darkness. "What's your name?"
"Dr. Caballeron. " William groaned, " Alright, now we just got wait for the other idiot's to show up-" He glanced behind himself to find Rainbow and Daring trotting on through another doorway next to the one he was standing by. " Y'all can stop freaking out, I found Fluttershy. Do whatever you want with the others. Before they could speak up her heard a rumbling, and a piece of the far wall broke away to reveal that same massive cat thing from before. The bullet wound on it's chest and been cauterized by some means, and the grenade didn't seem to have done much damage. "Gah! More intruders!?" And you dare to steal-"
"First of all, I'm not an intruder, I'm here to extract these idiot's fully of my own accord, I was bored this morning, now, I am not." William brought an AR-10 to his shoulder, and prepared to gun the creature down. Permanently, this time. The creature laughed, and an assortment of clay pony statues flew down from the ceiling. William snapped his fingers, and the AR-10 became an AA-12. He then nonchalantly stared at the cat as he held the trigger down and sprayed buckshot into the swarm of statues. Making it rain clay for a few moments, when he was certain they were all gone. He dropped the spend drum magazine and inserted a fresh one. " Try me. Actually, don't." What happened next was likely the oddest thing he had seen all day. The cat things tail unfurled it's end into another claw and picked Caballeron up by his tail. The doctor threw the talisman to Daring, who caught it around her neck. " Here's a question, why do you even want this thing? Aside from the fact that it would likely fetch a fortune on the black market. Equestria does have a black market, right?" William took the amulet by a glove and looked back at Daring, who shrugged." I dunno."
" Well, you see, I'm the protector of this jungle, if another artifact goes missing under my watch. Well, let's just say I'm going to be in a lot of trouble with the other guardian creatures." William wasn't convinced, " And who are these other, 'guardian creatures?" The room was lit up by a bright flash of orange and green light, which upon dissipating revealed a certain magical deer. " Hey, William, Joey! What are you 2 doing here?" William blinked, " Uh, I'm here because I'm bored, still not sorry about the hole in your chest," The cat frowned, "And I don't care about that amulet, you can have it."
William held up his finger and looked down at his watch, " Oh, whatdya know? It's lunch time, y'all wanna come back to Ponyville?