Tomorrow is Always a New Day

by Wheller

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Twilight was glad to finally be heading back home. Her only regret was not being able to actually accomplish the goal they had been sent out to achieve.

Six kangaroo light tanks with bulldozers attached to them had unburied the headquarters building at the gryphon camp, and Twilight found the proof that she needed. Ambassador Lightdew and the pegasi guards that went after her were all dead. The ambassador’s chariot had been shot up by the autocannon team, there weren’t enough pieces left to recover. Twilight was glad she’d insisted on walking, otherwise they would have suffered the same fate.

Now they were lying on the back of a Kangaroo M3 Light tank, (whatever that meant,) driving down the mountain towards the St. Germain River, chatting with the tank’s commander, Sergeant Tebbs. Rainbow Dash was flying above them leading the way, the tank’s driver, a kangaroo called Corporal McNair couldn’t see Rainbow Dash from inside the tank, so occasionally, when Rainbow changed direction, Tebbs would pop back inside and give McNair a new heading.

As it turned out, they had Tebbs’ crew to thank for more than just giving them a ride. The tank they were riding on had been the one that had cut down Razorwing; it was also the same one that had sent the autocannon to shoot off wildly.

The road ended at where the Bridge they had crossed over from Equestria was. Twilight had forgotten that the gryphons had destroyed it. Rainbow Dash stopped moving, landing on the ground next to the tank.

Sergeant Tebbs looked over at the bridge, “Well damn! Gryphons went and blew that bridge to pieces... good riddance if I do say so myself.”

Twilight and Vinyl were more than a little confused, causing Tebbs to back up and explain. Unlike Razorwing, Sergeant Tebbs was genuinely kind, rather than just pretending to be to extract information. “When we put this road in, that bridge was already there. Every time the work crew got close to it, someone would start panicking, and have to be taken back to camp. Something was really weird about it. It was almost like it was trying to keep anybody from using it... but it was a ruddy bridge! Why put it up if you didn’t want anybody using it?”

Twilight and Vinyl shrugged. The bridge hadn’t been like that with them.

“Hold on a moment!” Tebbs said cheerfully, he popped his head back inside, only to come out a few seconds later. “Hold on tight!”

The M3 light tank accelerated to full throttle, ramping down the embankment, and up and over the other side in 10 seconds flat, the ice had cracked under the weight, but didn’t break up until after they were already across. The St. Germain had been about 30 metres wide, so it was quite the accomplishment. Twilight understood now why Rainbow Dash liked going fast. It was fun.

The tank continued onward, Sergeant Tebbs had made it perfectly clear that he was going to drive them back to Ponyville, saying that it didn’t feel right for him to let them walk all the way back in the freezing cold weather. Twilight had tried to explain to him that it wasn’t as cold on the Equestrian side of the St. Germain, but he didn’t believe them, saying it didn’t make sense. Twilight didn’t argue with him on that, because it truly didn’t make sense.

Tebbs noticed the difference in the temperature instantly. He looked at Twilight to explain, but she merely shrugged at him. She didn’t understand it either.

Twilight was actually kind of glad that Sergeant Tebbs had insisted on driving them back, instead of taking several weeks, it would be almost a day and a half before they got back to Ponyville. They drove on, stopping for the night in the spot they had stopped at just before making their way into Manehattan. Taking care to bypass the city all together, the last thing Twilight wanted was to cause a panic for the ponies of Manehattan, Twilight had personally thought that the kangaroo tank had been somewhat scary looking when she’d first seen it, Tebbs explained that this was a light tank, and really wasn’t all that scary in the terms of capability.

“Now, you want to see something scary, have a run in with a heavy tank battalion,” Tebbs said around the campfire.

Twilight, Vinyl, and Rainbow Dash had since become introduced to the Kangaroo crew of the tank they were riding on; Sergeant Tebbs was the one in charge, obviously, and Corporal McNair was the driver, Lance-Corporal Vickers was the gunner, and Trooper Willoughby had the job description of co-driver, but in actuality, he spent most of his time working the radio.

“Sergeant Tebbs? May I ask you a question?” Twilight asked him.

“You can, on one condition, you have to stop with this ‘Sergeant Tebbs’ nonsense. You, Twilight Spackle, can call me Percy.”

Twilight giggled slightly, from her point of view, “Percy Tebbs” was a funny sounding name. Though she figured she probably shouldn’t be laughing, their accents made her name sound funny too.

“How do you know how to speak Equestrian?” Twilight asked.

Tebbs looked at her funny. “Equestrian? I just thought you knew how to speak Wallish. I mean, we’re speaking Wallish right now! Nobody in South Island has spoken anything but Wallish in nearly two hundred years... Well I take that back, the Wallabies are still speaking wallaroo, but that’s it.”

That couldn’t be a coincidence... or maybe it could? The ponies of Equestria and the gryphons of the Twin Gryphon Kingdoms spoke languages that were similar with each other, the written language was different, but maybe the Kangaroo’s Wallish language was the same way.

Tebb’s ears twitched in thought, he hopped up from his seat and climbed into the tank, returning later with a rather large book that Twilight had never seen before.

“A Complete History of the Kingdom of United Welara, 1170 SE Edition.” Twilight said reading the cover. She had certainly never heard of this book.

“You can have it, that book is dime-a-dozen back home. That edition is thirty years old at this point, but there really isn’t much of a difference between the 1170 edition and the 1200 edition,” Tebbs said.

Twilight thanked the kangaroo for his generosity, tucking it into her bag; she would make time to read it later. Fortunately with this one, it was actually printed in a language she was able to read. Clearly there was some kind of connection between Equestrian and Wallish. This book would explain it, but it was rather lengthy, and she didn’t want to seem rude to try and go off and read it right now.

Soon afterwards, the group turned in. Tomorrow would finish their trip to Ponyville.

...

They only stopped occasionally, the kangaroos had come prepared. Strapped to the side of the tank were six large cans of fuel, or “petrol” as they preferred to call it. Willoughby had just emptied the third can into the fuel tank, the last one they’d need to get to Ponyville, leaving another three for the drive back, and an hour afterwards, the tank had finally pulled into Ponyville, stopping in the centre of town and killing the engine, and causing a huge commotion among the towns ponies, They had never seen anything like the tank before, and were naturally afraid of it. Twilight figured that considering what she had seen the tank do, it had the capability to be very dangerous, but fortunately, the kangaroo crew were friends.

“Calm down everypony!” Rainbow Dash said as she landed next to the tank.

Twilight and Vinyl hopped off, and from the crew compartment hatch, Sergeant Tebbs waved at them. “It was a pleasure driving you home!” he said.

Twilight and Vinyl waved back, thanking the Kangaroo crew for all they had done for them.

Tebbs smiled. “Start her up McNair!”

The tank’s engine, rather than making the normal idling sound they had gotten used to, made a new one.

Crunch! Sputter Sputter Sputter.

“Shut it off! Shut it off!” Tebbs called out. “Oh bloody hell!”

Tebbs hopped out and opened up the engine compartment, black smoke billowed out from the engine, causing Tebbs to yell out several of his more... colourful expletives.

“Moronic grease monkies!” Tebbs yelled out in frustration. He had previously explained that “Grease Monkey” was slang for a mechanic who kept their tanks running. “Bastards! When I find the idiot who was supposed to do preventative maintenance on this thing...”

Tebbs turned around and explained. “Our tanks were built to operate in a warmer climate, so they need a lot of work on them to make sure they don’t break down at the worst times.” Tebbs unstrapped the third can of fuel. “Not to mention that this ain’t even the right fuel for this model! We need 65 grade, this is 54... It CAN run on 54, but it builds up this sort of gunk that clogs the engine, it sits for even a minute in cold weather and it hardens. I’m going to have to rip out the engine block, take it apart and build it again from the ground up!”

Tebbs gave a polite smile to the ponies of Ponyville. “Well, looks like you’re stuck with us a while.”

“It could have been worse,” Twilight added with a small chuckle. “We could have gotten a ride home from gryphons...”

Comments

Interesting; the kangaroos and ponies use the same alphabet to write what might as well be called Basic or Standard or the like. Twi might find it hard to swallow what the people outside Equine Tokugawa-era Japan think of her civilization but at least she can find out what that thing is.