Texas blinked in shock as the Manticore Prime came shooting over a dune at high speeds, only to halt in midair before gently landing lightly in front of her with two tubes to either side of its primary gun glowing brightly. Polka music was blasting out of its speakers, somehow not reaching more than a couple feet beyond the jeep so Texas only heard it once it landed in front of her. On top of that, despite it remaining the same size as before, it somehow comfortably seated six adult men in power armor and a pony without anyone sitting in anyone else's lap...except for Maud, who was sitting in Caboose's lap until the vehicle came to a complete stop, at which point she was on Texas' head without seeming to have moved through the intervening distance. Chuckling, Texas reached up and stroked the little filly's mane. "It's been sixty-two minutes," she pointed out dryly. "What took you so long?"
"The comments about overshooting inspired me to create kinetic energy cannons that charged themselves by acting as emergency brakes to slow us down by absorbing the potential energy of our high speed movement so we could stop immediately if we wanted to," Simmons explained as he hopped off from the gun turret. "I have no idea how it works anymore since the high-speed transit sobered me up, but it plainly works since we stopped when we wanted to and the launchers are glowing instead of exploding."
"Don't suppose that also will absorb the kinetic energy of explosions in the jeep's vicinity to power it as well?" Texas joked facetiously.
"Umm...if I'm reading these blueprints I drew right, in theory?" Simmons offered carefully, turning a projected data file this way and that as he tried - futilely - to make sense of it.
Texas stared from Simmons to where 'Manticore Prime' had been painted in bright gold letters across either side of the jeep, the jeep itself having been painted a brilliant bronze, the grill a blazing fire red and the gun a deep night blue. Texas almost asked 'What next, making it turn into a giant combat robot?' but stopped herself. The only two answers she could imagine receiving to that - 'Already finished those upgrades' and 'It's on my to-do list' - were objectively terrifying to consider.
"So what'd you find, Tex?" Sarge asked intently.
Glad to have something that made sense to focus on, Texas began her report. "Omega's holed up in this fortress, now controlling Doc with Lopez working for him," she explained, gesturing to the fortress in question. "He's been fortifying his defenses for days now. And he's got some help. One of those religious nuts you guys dealt with before-"
"The ones who wouldn't die, so Caboose and I took our time proving to them that ponies were awesome?" Sarge interpreted.
"Yeah," Texas confirmed. "But...something's off about him, too. He apparently came here on some sort of pilgrimage in search of...the magical powers of friendship in crystalline form. I don't know why, but I think that's significant. It caused a reaction in the part of my new body's programming connected to the pony forms, anyway."
"Oh, I remember those guys!" Caboose declared excitedly. "I liked them. They were funny, and had funny names. I wonder if the one here is Mr. Ball."
"He seemed pretty insistent on being called 'Klein'," Simmons pointed out.
"Oh, right, first name Calvin," Caboose concluded. "I bet he makes up his own rules."
"So what's the plan, Tex?" Sarge pressed, not wanting to deal with his allies' insanity until it was useful in combat.
"Well, first we need to breach the-"
"No taking action until the entire plan's explained," Maud stated firmly to Tucker and Grif, both of whom had been moving for the gun turret and kinetic missile launchers.
"I love breaching!" Caboose declared happily.
"Do you even know what that is?" Tucker demanded irritably.
"That's when you make big holes in things!" Caboose explained excitedly.
"...fair enough," Tucker allowed.
Texas stared at them all for a time, then continued. "-outer wall. Then we need to get past another wall, which has a guard tower and an enormous razor sharp spinning blade. It's moving rather slowly, so it shouldn't be too hard to get past. After that, we have to get past the gun turrets to get into the building." She turned to where a dark brown ball was set on a platform. "I've managed to scrounge some...unique materials, and built a bomb we can plant, unless some of you have better ideas. I somehow doubt it, but you've all surprised me before."
"How about we blast a big hole with the kinetic missiles, then launch the Manticore Prime off a ramp to go over both walls as a distraction?" Tucker insisted excitedly. "Sarge, Grif, Donut, and Caboose man the Manticore Prime and blast anyone manning the turrets. Once they land, they hold attention with the musical while Grif wanders off and opens the front door. Meanwhile, you, me, Simmons, and Maud charge in through the hole made, get past the blades, and go in through the open front door and take them out."
Texas stared at Tucker in surprise. "That's...not a bad plan, actually," she admitted. "Let's see what happens with it. I guess it's better than having Maud carry the bomb to the big X I marked on the floor inside the base to blow it up."
"If you marked an X, why didn't you carry it?" Simmons asked curiously.
Texas frowned under her helmet, glancing away. "It's...it's too heavy for me. It exceeds this body's stress tolerances for the limbs in any form. I even tried turning into the shape with a horn and generating an energy field to lift it, and it wouldn't budge. I figured I'd wait for Maud or Caboose to pick it up...or until Simmons could redesign it to move itself or something."
"I've got it Mom," Maud stated calmly as she held the bomb with one hoof, still gripping onto Texas' head with the other three.
"...at this point, I'm not even surprised anymore," Texas admitted calmly.
Gonna be honest, I'm surprised you hadn't reached this point sooner, Tex.
....................... calling it now!! when they meat the alien it'll try to eat maud causing both her & caboose go into a murder frenzy witch will lead into some sort of crazy stuff that still ends up with tucker pregnant with an alien baby. oh. also tex gets the energy sword.
Manticore prime is going to get Lopez salivating when they meet, he just needs to wait for Simmons to create an AI before he falls in love with it
I'm going to take you at your word.
And it is amazing.
Is that an SAO Abridged reference?
At this point, just accept that Maud can do basically whatever she needs according to Rule Of Funny.
I wonder how Maud will react to seeing her grandfather... A surely interesting experience, if not only for the sadistic rage she might go into because of what he's done to her family.
Autobots, roll out!
...I just had to
The real reason the bomb (Andy for those in the know) isn't as heavy is because Maude would make it feel pain if it tried to hurt her mama.
That upgraded Manticore definitely opened up some doors for them.
8908772
Well, the energy sword is right next to Tex in the cover art.
Probably calls his weapon "Hobbes"...
The Pies is the master of surprise movements.
8908967
Only rule of Calvinball!
(I am SO glad someone else caught that reference, too. Kudos, Tats, kudos.
8908967
8909272 I like how it's not only a Calvin and Hobbes reference, but a Calvin Klein reference.
Obsession. Calvin Klein...
8908807
Now I transformer PWNY
8909535
Please, I've been wanting a Transformer Pony ever since finding my old Darth Vader Transformer during Spring Cleaning a few years back. Seriously, all those Beast Wars molds, and not one horse based alt mode.
You know, with Pony's around, Caboose could easily have given the idea of wearing breeches. Or that Omega is getting to big for his breeches and they need to atomic wedgie him.
Nice chapter, can't wait to see how the plan goes. But I can totally see Klein screaming in horror after seeing Sarge and Caboose.
8909535
How would that work?
Glad to see we're speeding through my least favorite season. Although my suggestion for a crossover with Spriggs could still be worked in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAg83sOZBxM&list=PLE7ED63EF2BA8FB9A
Is that Andy the Bomb?! I’m not sure if I can trust him. He might explode before reaching the front door!
Bow Chicka Bow Wow
That promises SO much pain and suffering to those that oppose Maud. Wait until these guys Meet up with Pinkie and her Dad and join forces. Oh, the GLORIOUS suffering they shall cause.
Sorry, but I love how Maud breaks physics. She is on Texas right now holding the too heavy bomb. I love it!
8909807
Well, I don't think equines would've matched the era it was set in. Considering it's millions of years before Gen 1 starts.
8910278
...You think Hasbro cared? Pretty sure a lot of the beast modes didn't exist in that era.
8910278
What 8910480 said. They were all using modern day animals for there alt modes, with the exception of a few Predicons scanning fossils to make dino alts. A horse or zebra wasn't going to break suspension of disbelief at that point.
8910508
8910278
Indeed. They could have scanned a 'proto-horse', cross-referenced it from historical data of 'Earth', and generated a modern horse as animal form.
8910578 8910508 8910480
Okay, okay. I get it...
8908925
well I'm calling it!!!!!!
8910578
You'd have to be a Minicon at least to scan one of the ancient horses. From what I recall, Hyracotherium was an ungulate that only grew 8 inches tall, roughly the same height as Kirby.
8908772
Fixed that for you.
So...who is getting pregnant with the alien?
8912247
Tucker, of course, otherwise we would never have the best character yet, Tucker Jr.
8908807
Job well down. TIL ALL ARE ONE!!!!!!
8912334
But it looks like Maud may yet get the Sword!
8911732
............. really?
8913255
You know it's gonna happen, come on.
8913520
We can hope against it, at least.
8913520
....................... (sighs) yeah. that is true.
This chapter is even better with the music. XD Just sets the absurd tone of the whole chapter.
8911541
That was 48 million years ago. The Arc landed 4 million years ago. By then, there were relatively few differences between modern horses and the ones from the time period.
Plus, the Hominids shown were from between 500,000 BCE and 2 million BCE. Most of the animals shown were at least close to their modern forms by 500,000 BCE, with the Big Cats being the major exception. Therefor, the Beast Wars series was probably set well under a million years ago, and any modern animal would have been fair game.
8920394
This entire debate is anecdotal anyways since there WAS A Horse-based Beast-wars era Transfomer. Their name was Mach Kick, they were featured in the japanese-exclusive Beast Wars Neo. But unlike a number of the other figures from beast Wars 2/Neo that got imported to accent the Beast wars Classic season 2/3 toylines, Mach Kick wasn't among them.
https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Mach_Kick
What, no Andy the talking bomb?
8921919
This entire discussion represents the internet to a T - simple comment turns into detailed discussion, you just gotta love these moments