Happy Campers

by Okhlahoma Beat-Down

Camper-Tram

Engineer remained absolutely silent as he set up a sentry in the hallway as fast as he could. Sniper had gone the other way down the hall, and refused to speak to Engineer without shouting orders at him, there was a tank judged to be headed towards the Palace Well, and there was also the fact that he had built a sentry before a dispenser. Mentally slapping himself, he upgraded the small, Level 1 sentry with the seventy pieces of metal he had available, before looking around quickly for a new source of metal. That's when he noticed the metal statue of Blueblood's head behind him, and grinned. "Waste a' good metal, otherwise!" laughed the Texan, before violently swinging his wrench at the statue and breaking it into pieces. He received a few handfuls of metal, which, if he were to bother counting the scraps, would have added up to about 70.
Back where he'd started.
Damn.
The tank could be heard rumbling down the hall from a distance, the sound of an SMG firing away also ringing out loudly as the Sniper yelled. They were running out of time! There was only so much that Sniper's SMG, rifle, and machete could do to a 5 tonne hunk of mobilised metal containing a large, high-yield explosive device. A Level 1 sentry was also only so much better than the Sniper's SMG, so the fact that the tank was still relatively far from the sentry would give him enough time to go and remove the helmet from a nearby guard that was looking at the Texan, waiting for him to make an error. He didn't care about the statue, but the fact that he was approaching the guard was worrying indeed.
"Emergency, Mister, I need y'all t' hand over yer helmet!" Engineer said quickly, looking back down the hall at the approaching tank. Sniper was now in view, riding on top of it and stabbing at the bolts on top to try and remove the cover on the vehicle. The Guard, not knowing what else to do, nodded, and levitated off his beloved helmet. Engineer smiled, and chucked it over to his sentry. "Much obliged, pardner! Y'all'd best be goin' off and warnin' everybody in the palace about this, and send whatever y'all have to help us stop it! Get goin'!" The guard saluted, and immediately galloped away to the Guest chambers. Meanwhile, Engineer was running back to his Sentry, grabbing another statue of some other Noble and smashing that. It issued him with a slight more metal than the Blueblood statue, allowing him to build a dispenser. Quickly, he pulled out his PDA, clacked out the usual combination, and let the toolbox hit the floor where it landed. A dispenser began to build, Engineer alternating between sweeping up the remaining metal from the broken statue and helmet, and use that to upgrade his sentry and hit his dispenser, causing the build systems to glitch temporarily to speed up the build process.
By the time his Sentry had reached Level 2, the Tank was within range, and the deafening sound of double gatling guns rang out, echoing down the hall as ponies ran for their lives from the approaching metal beast. They'd seen the Tanks roaming the halls of Canterlot, almost calmly stopping when somepony was in the way and patiently allowing them to move as they trundled along, but this one seemed...intent. So intent, in fact, that the whole castle was being evacuated for a bomb threat. Of course, that meant that Sniper and Engineer, the two least damaging classes at close range, were going to have to attempt to destroy the tank by themselves, but what would the consequences be for failure?
Execution? Imprisonment? Exile? Sniper would like the last one. Would never have to come back to Equestria.
Engineer'd hate it, especially when he and Celestia...hmm.
He'd just have to try twice as hard.

Sniper was yelling at the top of his lungs as he battered the small, moving screen at the top of the Tank. The vehicle was showing signs of damage now; with the continual bombardment of the sentry's missiles, machine guns, rifle bullets, Sub-machine gun bullets, and Kukri impacts had knocked off one of the tread covers and removed most of the paint. However, the chimney was still smoking, and if that was still smoking, the tank was still moving, and if the tank was still moving, they had a problem. It'd been determined that the bomb would drop in the Palace Well, sealed off years ago with a security glass cover to make sure nobody fell in. It led to the caves beneath the palace and the city, meaning one detonation of the bomb could destroy the entire city. And that also mean that if Sniper and Engineer were unable to stop the bomb, they were in a whole piss-jar of trouble. Sniper put more force into all of the swings he was taking than he ever had done when he was attacking BLU Spy, and the most recent of his swings had removed the glass shield from the sensor on the top of the vehicle. Taking one final swing at the sensor casing, the blue line moving along the screen beginning to glitch, he yelled loudly and plunged his machete directly into the camera on board, having immediate effects.
The Tank emitted a loud siren noise, a strange addition made by whoever built it, and began to swerve around the hall, picking up speed. Sniper found it a sudden struggle to keep his grip, grabbing onto one of the many holes and lacerations he had made in the vehicle to stop himself from falling under the wheels. The damaged metal was threatening to rip through his fingers if he didn't make his way back up. Putting his Kukri inbetween his teeth, he growled and grabbed onto the edge of the vehicle and gave a sharp tug. It dug into his left fingers, blood beginning to seep from his hands onto the Tank's damaged blue paint, until he was finally able to yank himself back onto the top of the metal beast. It was still veering erratically, moving at a much higher pace than it had been originally. To ensure himself that he wouldn't fall off, he took his weapon from his mouth, and plunged the blade into a patch of damaged steel. From there he clutched it with both hands, sliding about the top of the vehicle but never letting go, until he turned to Engineer, rapidly moving into the distant corridor. He was already packing up his equipment and beginning to run after the Tank, Dispenser carried on his shoulder as he ran at speed after the tank.
"Engie!" Sniper called urgently. "Move your nest into the gardens! Get movin'!" Without question, the Texan nodded and halted , backpedalling slightly to a door nearby that Sniper knew headed to the gardens. In the middle was the well: effectively, the bomb site. A whole city was in their hands now, and Sniper now had to destroy the tank as much as possible until it reached the gardens.

Celestia and Luna galloped out of the palace under escort. Surrounding them was a small company of guards, and lagging behind were the five robots. The Sniper robot was the slowest, almost walking along as ponies screamed and ran past. The other robots were moving only a tad faster, trundling along and staring at everything they saw going past. Both Princesses had decided to bring them to the carriage, to ensure their safety and that they wouldn't do something foolish whilst left alone. "Sister, forget about them!" Celestia ushered Luna forward. "We can teleport them to the cart when we get there! Just keep going!" Luna was desperate to go back for Sniper and Engineer. It would have been so much easier to simply use magic and flip the tank upside down, but that wouldn't end well if the bomb would detonate when the vehicle flipped. So the best hope to not endanger anypony was to evacuate Canterlot. Guards lined up outside the carriage to ensure the Princesses were safe as they entered, and make sure the robots arrived too, but they had trouble with the second part.
The only robot to follow the Princesses all the way was the Sniper, who had clearly not noticed the other robots running back to Sniper and Engineer to help them. Luna panicked, and almost left the carriage to stop them, help even, but was stopped by Celestia's hoof. She looked at her sister in shock. "It's for the best, sister." Celestia sighed sadly, and guided Luna to the chair. She gave her sister a warm hug, both hoping their warriors could defend the city successfully now they had help.

Almost out of nowhere, there came a mechanical yell and the sound of a frying pan from in front of the tank, causing Sniper to look down at what was happening, and smiling when he realised what was happening. The robots that had followed he and Engineer around so aimlessly were helping to destroy one of their own. The Pyrobots were running alongside, spraying napalm all over the tank and causing massive, prolonged damage, the Demopan robot was crashing his mighty cooking utensil with as much force as possible into the grille of the tank smashing the vent inwards to cause an overheat of the engine, and the MeeMbot was following the Last Breath and Bill's Pyrobot, charging up an über with its until-then almost unused medigun. Morale boosted, Sniper stood on top of the tank, dropping down to the ground with a commando roll as it swerved around a corner, then grabbing some fallen pieces of metal and allowing the small gizmo Engineer made for the whole team get to work. The device, quite simply, smelted bits of metal from all sources and converted them into ammunition of all types, allowing easy ammunition refill on the battlefield. All of the team had one, making Heavy just that bit more deadly when he could pretty much never run out of bullets.
Loading the newly created rounds into his SMG and Sniper Rifle, Sniper whipped out the small machine pistol and began firing at the treads, just as the Tank ploughed through the doors to the garden. The robots clanked alongside the vehicle, spraying it with fire, healing the other damage-doers, and smashing it with pans, while Sniper tracked behind, attacking the engine to slow it down. The hatch was not even 100 metres away! Frantically, Sniper sprinted ahead of the tank, and looked for Engie's sentry nest. Thankfully, when he found the Texan not even a metre from the hole, his whole set up was level three, allowing it to dish out a whole new level of destruction. The tank came into range, and the mechanical opponent began to fire bullets and small rockets at the vehicle, clanging against the metal plating of the Tank. Demopan had moved to the top of the vehicle, smacking the hole where the sensor used to be very violently, so violently that the Tank began to emit blue sparks.
The Sentry was firing away loudly, until suddenly it turned away from the Tank. Confused and panicked, Engineer and Sniper turned to see their worst nightmare as non-Demos, Pyros, or Heavies.
Approaching from all directions and clutching all types of melee weapons was an army of Scouts, all randomly swinging and either causing collateral damage to themselves via the bleeding on the Boston Basher reproduction many carried, or each other, with the huge, whole-armed swings of the regular bat. However, no matter what was being hit, it was distracting the Sentry, and allowing the Tank to get ever closer. Engineer looked to Sniper. "Y'all get the tank, I'll deal with this little bastards!" he shouted over the hundreds of 'bonk' shouting Boston-Bots. Sniper nodded, and looked back to the tank.
It was slowing down as it got to the hatch, top compartment struggling to open due to massive dents, before finally scraping open. Inside was a perfectly untouched red-and-white checkered object, but Sniper already knew it was a bomb. Not knowing what else he could do, he whipped out his rifle, zoomed on the inside of the tank, and looked for the briefest moment for a weak-spot. The bomb was making a microwave sound, and R.
One shot, Desmond! Nail the wanker!
Sniper pulled the trigger as the bomb began to drop, and everything went black.
The last thing the Australian felt was him cartwheeling through the air and landing hard on the floor.