Captain Flowers stood atop Blue Base, keeping an eye out through his sniper scope for anything unusual. This was supposed to be the easy part of the job, keeping the Reds and Blues from killing each other. Just keep watch and make sure everything works out fine. He'd even been prepared for the possibility of a Scenario being run here, if only to keep certain Freelancers from looking at the books and wondering why this set of Sim Troopers never ran a Sim. But Maud was definitely not part of any simulation, and had thrown things for a loop. He was going to be the first to see anything else not to script that showed up so he could deal with it before it latched onto his charge again. He was going to keep control. He was...
...going to wonder why Sarge was marching out to the exact center of the canyon carrying the Red flag in one hand and his shotgun in the other. He came to a stop, lifted his hands to his mouth...and seemed to be shouting something, but it didn't carry. Thankfully, Flowers had the comm frequency to every trooper here, so it was easy to open the channel.
"-LEY!"
Flowers winced. He probably should have waited until between shouts. "You...do know we can open communications to the enemy, right?" he asked easily. "To trade insults, discuss terms of surrender, or to-"
"PARLEY!" Sarge screamed out again.
"Yes, that-" Flowers jerked his head up. "Wait...are you saying you want to parley with me?"
"I want to parley with the Blue leader!" Sarge responded loudly. "Get him out here, with the flag!"
Flowers thought that over for a bit. "And how do I know-"
"And don't bring the pony!" Sarge added loudly. "Or the wolf!"
"...okay, he's being sincere," Flowers deduced as he went back into the base to grab the flag. "Though I'll have to ask Tucker if he got a pet without telling me. Not that I'll mind, but I don't want it eating Maud...or vice versa, for that matter."
It didn't take long for Captain Flowers to meet up with Sarge with the Blue flag. "So...what can I do for you, Sarge?" he asked neighborly.
"I want the pony," Sarge stated flatly.
"I'm...pretty sure she'll say no to that," Flowers pointed out logically.
"I want your help to get her to say yes!"
Flowers stared at Sarge in silence, hoping something that sounded like sense would come out of his mouth at some point.
"There is absolutely no strategic value to this canyon, no matter how you look at it, except to say it's ours!" Sarge insisted. "As much as I'd be perfectly happy with the answer to 'why are we here' being 'to kill Blues', plainly it's something of even greater significance! The one thing this canyon has that nowhere else has...is that pony! We are here for the pony! We are to fight over the pony! He who holds the pony holds the key to an all new form of warfare! The time has come...to weaponize cute!"
It appeared to Flowers he would be waiting in vain. However 'logical' Sarge's deductions were, they most definitely were nonsense. "I'm pretty sure Maud wouldn't like it if you took her away from Private Church. She sees him as her Father."
"I'm not about to cross that Papa Wolf unprepared again!" Sarge insisted. "I still feel those punches!"
"Oh...that's what you meant by wolf," Flowers allowed. "But I don't see-"
"We should fight each other! Red vs Blue!" Sarge insisted.
At some point in the future, Caboose called out, "Ha! He said it too!" for no apparent reason. For some reason, this made the Maud of that time very happy, though it was hard to tell.
"...and this requires a parley...why?" Flowers asked carefully, glad he'd brought a combat knife instead of the sniper rifle. The flag could also be an effective weapon...
"So we can find a way to do it without killing each other!" Sarge snapped out.
"I...beg your pardon?" Flowers asked curiously.
"We have to be fighting!" Sarge insisted. "We're Reds and Blues. That's how it has to be! So if we're going to be fighting over Maud, let's formalize it so she'll go along with it! Every week, we have a Capture the Flag skirmish, winning team has Maud at their base till the next game. This continues until Maud's old enough to join in!"
"And you want it non-lethal because...?" Flowers coached.
"Because that pony scares the shiiii-"
"She's nowhere near here," Flowers pointed out.
"She teleports!" Sarge insisted. "That's part of why she scares the shitake mushrooms out of me and my men! We need to do this in a way that doesn't have her trying to play jumprope with our entrails as vengeance for hurting her Father!"
"I see," Flowers allowed, taking the suggestion in. The more he turned it over in his mind, the more appealing it was. "I like this plan!" he offered warmly. Not only did it give Church combat training without putting him in danger, it made it look like the focus of Blood Gulch was Maud and not Church, not the Alpha, which could only be good for the long run. "And I think I know just the way it can work."
"You do?" Sarge demanded eagerly. "Good! Cause I was at my wits end!"
"I happen to know of a particular training ammunition that locks up someone wearing this armor when hit enough to mimic taking a disabling shot, while also providing additional shielding to the one hit once they're immobilized," Flowers explained. "Works like paint balls. If we requisition a supply of those, we could skirmish with them without hurting each other, and Doc could easily scrape us clean after the match."
"Excellent!" Sarge declared excitedly. "I'll requisition the same from Red Command for 'training purposes', and we can get started. Now it's your job to convince Maud to go along with it!"
Flowers sighed as he turned to go look for Church. "Yeah, I always get the hard jobs..."
Yeah, I don't envy Flowers right now.
Wonder how Church's time travel shenanigans will factor in.
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I more worried about how Maud will react to them
Oh man, how many times is Sarge going to cover Griff in the immobilizing gel??? I can just see him enjoying he can shoot Griff over and over again and cause him pain without killing him and putting him out of his misery.
Did we ever see them use that ammo in tank or rocket launcher caliber???? Given Paintball grenades exist, can the grenades be made with the gel as well??? I just want to see more options for the war games!
Wait... is Sarge actually being... SMART for once?
Ooooweeee. It's reaaally getting saucy up in here.
Also, I'M EARLY! HOLY CRAP, I'VE NEVER BEEN THIS EARLY BEFOOOOORE!
And it's time to mention something that's been on my mind for a while now... How much 'Tatsurou' are you putting into this fic? It's RVB, so I'm touchy with this.
Oh, don't know what 'Tatsurou' is, I thought you'd know by now. It's how much the Pony effects the story, villains, and characters! It's pretty much in every story I've read that you've created, so I kinda made a drinking game out of it. (Not alcohol, I'd be DEAD if I did that)
I kinda see a pattern with these story's, Pony comes in, acts adorable as OP as shit, and uses their powers to immediately kill any threat to them and their families with complete ease. Now it's not as bad as a describe it, I know. But I see some repeated stuff, 'The anti-hero who joins in because the Pony makes them feel' 'The saved friend who originally could not be saved', those kinda things.
Hey, I don't mind them, that much. But when it comes to RVB, I'm a little nervous, all I'm saying.
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Don't worry. Most of the major plot elements will still play out. The big change will be how.
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Wait, what is this 'Cabooses Guide', I keep hearing it in your blogs, yet I don't see a story anywhere...
I'm almost certain that conversation raised a few Red flags for Flowers. He'd probably flag it as improbable and he'd be right.
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It's on AO3 since it's not MLP related
http://archiveofourown.org/works/11141388/
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I kind of want to see The Meta as Maud's loyal bodyguard or something along those lines
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You two are asking this as if she isn't the couse of it. Why?
................ok
You underestimate Sarge's stupidity.
Maud is a herbivore. But she would beat up a wolf.
Ah Sarge, your stupidity amuses me to no end.
The fact that you blend logic and idiocy so seamlessly is both hilarious and disturbing.
Not in Sarge's hands.
... You know what? Sure, sounds like it'll be fun. Might teach Grif some respect.
Easy to forget that idiotic as Sarge is, he isn't TOTALLY devoid of common sense.
Oh, like the stuff in that one fight vs Tex?
Cheer up Flowers, you might actually live this time around.
That was fun, may I have another? Looking forward to more.
Keep up the great work. Deus tecum.
. . . I am at a loss. I need to borrow Pinkie's brain to try to understand this chapter.
I absolutely adore this scenario and how it plays to everyone's advantage.
Well it looks like the combat abilities of both groups is about to go up. I feel for Captain Flowers actualy Agent Florida becuase I think he is going to die becuase of this.
Caboose stop punching holes in reality, I'm running out of plaster to patch the holes up.
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It's on fanfiction.net. No ponies or pony related stuff so it can't be here.
Oops! Already done. My mistake.
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Church never actually traveled through time. Church was interacting with Gary (Gamma, the DECEIT fragment) at the time. Gary was heavily involved in the later torture sessions of the Alpha, the ones that created Eta, Iota, and Epsilon at the very least.
Those thousands of loops and years were all SIMULATED inside the terminal housing Gary, with everything drawn from Church's memories and then twisted by Gary so that he failed again and again, just like before. Gary was torturing the Alpha for fun because he now had unrestricted access for an undetermined amount of time. Remember that Gary and Church are essentially computer programs with one being a broken AI and the other being a personality fragment. There need be no time manipulation involved at all for any of what they did.
Further proof comes from the very episodes involved, with what is presumed to be the first post-loop Church only arriving in the 'past' again AFTER his original arrival had 'departed' for Blood Gulch's 'past' the first time. Considering the wait was something like 850 years or so the first time, it's awfully convenient that the second loop skipped all that...unless it wasn't really time travel at all and just another simulated torture session for Gary with nobody around to ruin his fun this time by telling him that he's going too far.
...HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! It's funny because it's probably (mostly) true!
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To be fair, Sarge has never been actually stupid, per se, so much as strange and insane.
He does take the time to think things through and have exceptional reasoning, he just goes for the absolute, MOST impractical methods possible.
Case being in the latest season.
he managed to build an entire robot army and program it all himself. the downsides fall to his insanity in that their purpose was for him to have a war on his own and that he was too proud to get Simmons to program them for him.
ive seen the stun rounds in a halo film they pack a puch
>shittake mushrooms
I use this bit of vegetarian alt-swear myself. After all, if it's mushrooms, we're probably standing in deep shit.
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Shitake grow on rotten wood...
RIP Agent Florida, died at the hooves of Maud Pie
Looking good as ever, Tats!
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When you realize that Caboose predicted Season 15 with that comment
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Given how Tat reworks stories. I'd wager Church may become a fully organic entity.
Oh God, the training ammo. We are gonna have so much fun watching them get tagged by that foam!
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No. That would be too far.
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Tat has gone ways. Remember what Twilight did to "upgrade" her boyfriend?
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Uh, no.
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That is actually incorrect.
It doesn't explain how after the time travel (both for Church and for Wyoming), there were dozens of the traveler from all the loops. Church wouldn't have the ability to do that himself, and Gamma wouldn't give that advantage to an enemy...which means it has to be exactly what it looks like.
Let's just say it's a gun that does the opposite of what a normal gun does... from the bottom half of the user's body.
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In other words: The pen is anatomically correct.
8424853 Except there is no evidence that any of it ever happened aside from the Sarge-constructed body blowing up on Sidewinder and a new body coming from nowhere once the timing became convenient for Gary to have the countdown on Andy interrupted.
Which is the more logical explanation: actual time travel shenanigans, or that an AI fragment whose core personality element is deceit lied about what was going on while a new body was being built to house the Alpha AI core?
We know the BGC never actually traveled in time due to the fact that all the big people involved in Project freelancer are still around in later seasons, so why assume that Church did?
Caboose, though.
This'll be a fun game of Capture the Flag
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In the RvB canon, the time travel actually. And for two simple reasons.
One, Gamma was in control of the teleportaion network, which already plays loose with space-time.
Two, the ending of Season 15 shows that time travel is canonically possible and viable using alien tech, and Gamma was directly hooked into an alien computer system.
So in this case, the simplest conclusion is that Gamma, with the goal of making up for his personally perceived betrayal of the Alpha by torturing him under the Director's orders.
I will admit that there is enough evidence to support either theory and not enough to fully refute either...and as such, in terms of fanfiction, either explanation can be used. I choose to use the time travel one.
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Well...
Let's just say she restored his "manhood".
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That's different, then. He's a living being and Twilight simply restored something.
What you're saying is completely changing Church. For starters, that's a fundamental change from mechanical to organic. Secondly, he'd need a body, he could use Jimmy's but then he'd die. Thirdly, Maud is an earth pony. There's no technology or magic available that could do such a thing, even with Caboose / Loco / Pie antics.
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That means Church is gonna get blown up by Caboose and Sheila right? I want to see Caboose attempt to avoid her wrath.
PS. still accepting scenes from the audience? I've got one.
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Consider that as officially happening off screen.
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Bow Chicka Bow Wow!
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Thank you. HE gets it!
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So I guess you're going to be the Tucker of the comment section
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She dosent get OP later, she was born op.