//------------------------------//
// ...Then Tripping Over the Gas Can 
// Story: Interdimensional Transfusion 
// by The card holder 
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The Spy was about to backstab a Medic- and Heavy-bot when Hale landed. He was still disguised as a Spy-bot, so his hesitation didn't attract any attention from his targets. First, the robots show up, then Hale... What was next, a team of Pyros?

As if summoned by the Spy's inner thoughts, at that moment a group of nine RED Pyros, each adorned with a different hat, made their presence known by bellowing out muffled battle cries. This broke the robots out of their stupor, as the Heavy-bot began spinning up his barrel. Before a shot was fired, however, he was stabbed in the back, not even a second after the Medic-bot suffered the same fate. Picking up the cash they dropped, the Spy watched as what appeared to be the lead Pyro gave a thumbs up to the Frenchman before leading the others farther into town. 

"Les choses que j'ai mis en place avec le travail..."



"So, mind tellin' me why you're 'ere, Scout?"

This wasn't the best situation to be in, truth be told. The Scout was hired to defend Mann Co. facilities from robots, and here he was, not at a Mann Co. facility. "Well, uh, ya see... I... um..." He looked to the remains of the Spy-bot. "...Robots! Yep, I knew dat the robots were 'ere, and I decided to come here t' crack some metal skulls! Yeah, that's it."

Hale looked closely at the Scout's face, trying to see if he was lying. The Scout was giving the worst pokerface in the history of faces, though that would be expected, given who he was lying to. Despite this, Hale didn't see anything wrong with the young man's story (or more likely, chose not to). "Alright then! I suppose I'll give you a hand, then." He turned to Celestia. "You just keep those ponies calm, Tia, and I'll handle the rest." He cracked his knuckles, before leaping towards the carrier tank with a mighty shout of his name. Now that she was out of Hale's natural mannly musk (Only $59.99 with any purchase of a Mann Co. licensed product!), Celestia was able to think just a little more clearly about the situation. Her subjects were under attack (though not exactly directly), so she needed to address that. She turned to tell Twilight to do something, but she was still out cold from sheer disbelief, so that just left the Scout, who was checking all his gear. 

"Scout, could you do a favor for me?" she asked.

"Depends. What kinda favor?"

"Can you go around town and tell the ponies not to worry? I'd hate for them to cause a panic and make this situation worse than it already is."

"Gotcha." The Scout double jumped and pulled himself onto a rooftop-

-only to be bowled over by a rainbow blur. The both of them fall to the ground, reeling in pain. The pegasus is the first to recover, immediately going to the princess. "Princess! You would not believe what I just went through!"

"Calm down, Rainbow Dash. What happened?"

"Well, I was clearing some clouds, doing my job, then someone just shoots something into my flank and knocks me out! Then when I wake up, I see these two other humans, and one of them is looking at my heart, and did I mention I was freaking cut open?!"

Celestia's eyes went wide. "Who would do such a thing? And how did you escape?"

"Well, one of them had this funny accent- well, both of them did, but this one's was really weird, and he asked where he could get a faust gland after he cut mine out, then he left, and when he came back he... put me back together, I guess, and let me go."

"Sounds like Medic, alright," the Scout said as he was getting back up. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta be a messenger boy." He took off running down the street as Dash kept telling Celestia about what had happened to her. 



"*beep boop*  Sir? We have a situation here."

"What is it now?"

"*boop beep* Hale has been spotted in the other dimension."

"What?! Really? This is troubling... Wait, I have an idea. You know the tank that's about to be deployed?"

"*badda boop* Yes sir?"

"Delay it and make some modifications to it."

"*beep beep boop, eh?* Yes sir."



With his message delivered to the townsponies, the Scout charged back into the fray. Not that he needed to; now that Hale was here, he was single-handedly destroying all of the robots. All that was left for the Scout to do was pick up the money that spilled onto the ground. He ran into the odd cloned Pyro, but they seemed to be friendly now, so he didn't pay them much mind, apart from the occasional "Thanks" when they airburst the fire off of him. 

As Hale scrapped the last giant Soldier-bot in the area, the Scout looked around, not seeing any more robots that weren't in pieces. "Issat it?" he asked. "Dat all they got?"

As if in answer, a low fog horn could be heard in the distance. Coming from the carrier vessel was a tank, one of the more formidable of the robot units. Which was ironic, as it did absolutely nothing to protect itself.  

Seeing the new arrival, Hale prepared to leap into the air. But before he lifted off, he got a good look at the incoming tank.

It had crude koala bears painted on the sides. Seeing this, Hale's fist wavered. The tank even stopped, as if unsure about what was happening. 

For the first time in recorded history, Saxton Hale backed up.

"I- I can't harm a koala, even if it is just a bad drawing!" he yelled. "They're so cute and cuddly, yet at the same time incredibly vicious! And they're Australian, too!" With very sluggish movements, he sat down in front of a nearby wall, his national pride overriding his common sense. Seeing this, Celestia gasped: In all the time that she knew him, Hale was never one to back down from a fight (though he did mention he loved koalas at one point, but she thought nothing of it at the time). 

The Scout was equally surprised, but he quickly shook it off. Just because Hale couldn't hurt a koala doesn't mean he couldn't. With the Pyros at his side, he charged towards the tank, scattergun at the ready.

Then a mecha-Engineer jumped on top of it, holding a toolbox. It set it down, and a level three sentry popped out, ready for action. The ten humans were gunned down with little fanfare. The robotic Texan let out an evil laugh as it slapped its knee.

The Spy, meanwhile, was getting into position to sap the new development. Just before he could, though, he felt a tap on his back. Turning around, he saw three Pyro-bots staring soullessly at him, flamethrowers at the ready.

"...fu-"

And then the Frenchman fried.

Celestia was at a loss for what to do. Hale was knocked too out of his spirits to fight, and both mercenaries (and the nine others that she had no clue about) were killed. This monstrosity was free to do whatever it was going to do.

"...What is it going to do, exactly?" Rainbow Dash asked from beside the princess.

"I'm not sure, but it can't be anything good..."

The tank drove to the middle of town, escorted by three Pyro-bots, and stopped. Then...

...nothing happened.



"*bleep bloop* Uh... sir?"

"What is it this time?"

"...There's no bomb hole here. *blarpa barp*"

"What do you mean, no bomb hole? If there are mercenaries defending it, then it must be a Mann Co. facility of some sort, and all Mann Co. facilities have a self-destruct bomb hole at the middle of them!"

"*bedeep* But there is none here, sir. They must have become smarter."

"Bah. Just... Set the bomb down, or something. Set it on a timer, I don't know. Just do something."



Now that it appeared to know what to do, the tank opened a hatch near the front and lifted a device out. It placed it above the ground, unscrewed it to mess with something inside, then resealed it and dropped it on the ground with a thud. A display on the side flicked to life, showing the numbers 5:00. It then began counting down. 

Now Celestia was worried. Whatever that device was, it couldn't have been good. She'd more than likely have to get the Elements of Harmony in order to combat this threat, and if things got really bad, maybe she could even release Discord, if she's really desperate, or-

"EYAAAAAH!!"

Startled by the battle cry, the princess looked to the source of the noise. Standing in the middle of the road were two figures, one of which was holding a whirring device that was nearly half its size, and the other one holding a strange contraption that fed a red beam into the other figure. They got into range of the tank's sentry, but just as it began to fire, both figures were enveloped in a bright red glow, and the large one's weapon sparked and glowed bright purple. The sentry fired at the large human, but all the shots seemed to bounce off harmlessly. The human returned fire, reducing the sentry to scrap in an instant. The Engi- and Pyro-bots soon followed, leaving only the tank to take the full force of the charged bullets. Metal plating was quickly being ripped away, and soon the entire thing went up in a massive explosion. The bomb landed a few yards away, its timer just now reaching the 4:00 mark.

With his job done, and the ubercharge wearing off, the Heavy wiped his brow while slinging his minigun onto his back. Turning to the Medic behind him, he said "New charge is good."

"I thought it vould be," he replied, inspecting his newly-upgraded medigun. A glass chamber with tubes coming out of it had been added, which housed the faust gland he had somewhat-illegally acquired. It was rather shriveled up now, but it ever so slightly expanded as the gun kept healing the Russian.

Celestia approached the two humans, who turned at the sound of her hoofsteps. "Are you the one that dissected one of my subjects?" she asked sternly. 

The Medic chuckled nervously. "Vell, you see, it vas all in ze name of science..."

"Did you ask them if they would be okay with it? Or did you just kidnap them and begin operating?"

"Now, 'kidnap' is such a strong vord..."

"Doctor and princess pony should stop arguing," the Heavy interrupted, pointing to the bomb, which had now ticked down to three and a half minutes. "Bomb will not solve self."

Both of them knew that he was right. Walking over to it, they tried to figure out how to deactivate it. The Heavy tried moving it, but it was too heavy even for him to budge it. The Medic tried cutting it open, to get at its inner workings, but the casing was too sturdy. And Celestia's attempt at magically teleporting it away only chopped a minute off the clock for some reason.

With only a minute left, Celestia was beginning to think of alternate plans. "We need to evacuate the town, now. Can either of you get the ponies to move?"

Before she got an answer, a mighty voice bellowed a battle cry before Hale jumped out of nowhere and punted the bomb out of town, into the middle of a wide, empty field. 

"Saxton?" Celestia said in disbelief. "You're better now?"

"Yep! I regained me confidence, and now I'm ready to kick some tin cans!"

"...you do know ze carrier tank vas ze ozzer vay, right?"

"I know." At that moment, the bomb went off, creating a giant crater in the middle of the field. Not paying any mind to Celestia's gawking, Hale pulled out a cell phone and dialed a number. After it rang a few times, he got an answer.

"It's your boss, Bidwell. Are the mercs inside the building?... Well, sorry to wake you, then, but I don't pay you to sleep. You remember that prototype teleporter, and how it has that 'entire building' setting?... I do mean it, Bidwell. Just set it to teleport to where my phone is." With that, he threw his phone with great force into the center of the new crater (which was quite a feat, since it was nearly a hundred yards away). At first, nothing happened, but then a light began shining above the crater. It grew brighter and brighter, until a large building suddenly appeared and plopped down into place inside the crater. Pulling out yet another phone, Hale dialed the exact same number before putting it up to his ear.

"Nice work, Bidwell. Now, those guns I told you to install are there now, right?... And you see the robot tank, correct?... Then I shouldn't have to tell you what to do."

On the building, a large number of hatches opened up, where large cannons emerged. They all pointed to the carrier tank on the other side of Ponyville, then opened fire. 

Shot after shot landed on the tank, until it was nothing but a huge flaming pile of scrap. 

"Hey, what did I miss, cause I accidentally got lost on mah way here," the Scout said, walking up to the assembled humans and pony. "Hey, is that the-" 

He was cut off by a piece of the tank landing on him, crushing him.

Hale gave a hearty laugh. "Oh, and I should 'f told ya, Tia. I decided to move the Mann Co. headquarters to here, in Equestria."

Celestia followed her student's example and fainted.