• Published 16th Aug 2017
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The Rock in the Gulch - Tatsurou



Maud is raised by Church and Blue Team, in Blood Gulch and beyond.

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Hands on Hips

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.

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