Part 1: Why you shouldn't leave the space bridge open
Going through the air vents typically would have been suicide to someone trying to sneak around. Trying to gain a foot or hand hold in the cramped surroundings was difficult as is and risked making an extremely loud racket that would surely spoil any infiltration attempt. It took the best type of professional with the best equipment, not some random joe who watched a few too many action or spy movies, to pull it off. Fortunately there was a joe of a different variety doing just that. Trained EOD and saboteur Nicholas Lee wasn’t quite the figure most would expect of a G.I. Joe, let alone a member of the high ranked Sigma group under the name Tunnel Rat. The Chinese-Irish American was tall and wiry in build, bordering on scrawny, pale skinned with spiny red hair who wouldn’t look very intimidating if he tried, despite how much his dark stealth and sapper body suit and the gray bandana around his head attempted. Still, the sometimes cocky and sometimes jokester Joe had his own way of unnerving people; namely by going in on a mission with several grenades strapped to his chest or by scarfing down a live bug he’d come across.
It was effective enough for his partner on this operation to be a bit relieved to get Tunnel Rat off his front seat when they arrived.
Tunnel Rat tapped the microphone in his earpiece and whispered barely a hint of noise under his breath, “Remind me again what Prime and General Hawk want us to look for in this shindig?”
Far outside the base, said partner was on the other end of the line as they hid behind a concrete wall a quarter mile from the seemingly innocuous complex in the desert. It just so happened Rat’s accomplice was currently in the form of a white and green Lancia sports car with a red trim, a light on its dashboard blinking in tandem with the voice spoken as Tunnel Rat’s vitals were filtered through readouts on the center console.
Several million years ago, an age of decline and social unrest spurred the ancient civilization of sapient, transforming mechanical life on the planet Cybertron to fall into a civil war. Those who assembled under the banner of a revolutionary military leader by the name of Megatron christened themselves Decepticons, seeking to remake Cybertron and dominate the galaxy. Those who wished to reformat the old order but not do so by tearing it down and subjugating other worlds pledged their loyalty to the latest Prime, Optimus, as the Autobots. With the war ravaging their world, both groups sought out a new world to wait and gather energy until Cybertron healed itself, the Autobot capital ship pursuing its Decepticon counterpart to a prehistoric Earth where they both crashed and went into dormancy.
Millennia later with the rise of humanity, a new battle was waged across decades. At first the enemy was unknown, seeming to change source and behavior with each action it took to the point that it all looked entirely unconnected. It was only later that a US-led task force discovered that all the backroom deals, political strong arming, mass arms dealing, insurgencies, and weapons development under the politically impune M.A.R.S. group could be traced back to a single, directive source. Named for the snake that stuck its fangs into its prey before killing it from the inside out, COBRA necessitated a response by the best of the best in law enforcement, special forces, and espionage. Named for its proposal’s founder, an aged war hero by the name of Joseph Colton, G.I. Joe was formed and had been battling COBRA ever since.
The situation for both groups only grew more dire when the Decepticon and Autobot ships reactivated in the modern day, all sides quickly becoming aware of each other. Knowing it was best to avoid conflict and that the humans were at great risk with Megatron about on top of their own problems, the Autobots formed an alliance with a receptive G.I Joe to better organize and combat the new threats. Unfortunately with enemies and conquerors from two worlds to deal with, COBRA’s ability to hide and strike when least expected, and Decepticon strength of arms and greater numbers than their altruistic rivals, many joint ventures were needed. Such as this endeavor Tunnel Rat found himself in alongside his Autobot aid, Wheeljack.
“Blaster and Breaker found evidence that Shockwave and the Decepticons started talking to Destro and his COBRA goonies after Megatron got interest in the terrorist’s nifty railgun Ironhide and Scarlett blew up last month. The Cons have great toys but lack places and hands to build much more of them. COBRA might lag behind in tech specs but given how many business ventures and back deals they have, their resources are enormous. So mix Con tech with COBRA manufacturing capabilities and it doesn’t bode well.”
Tunnel Rat flinched, “Classic bad guy team up, guess we should have expected that karma after us Joes helped you Autobots get settled, thanks for the reminder. No, what I meant was what exactly in this house of R&D nightmares am I looking for exactly? Passed three rooms full of attack drones and a big ass tank on my way through here, Wheeljack!”
Wheeljack pondered for a moment, looking through the schematics a drone gave of the complex, “Hmmm, Cons would probably want to recreate their ground and space bridge technology to link further and further places together to make travel much easier, especially maybe go all the way to Cybertron and call in reinforcements. Go right when you get to another fork, you’re making good time.”
“And COBRA love to get their claws on tech that could warp them anywhere in the world they want to go. Fort Knox would be like a trip to the candy store… or they could drive a tank right through the Pentagon…”
Tunnel Rat inched his way through, being extremely careful to well distribute and shift his body weight as not to crinkle or flap the metal panels holding them up in a motion that amounted to a snail’s pace, “You know if it’s this dire it’d go by a lot quicker if you could cause a ruckus and I could just sprint through. We already know this is a COBRA base so I think PR wouldn’t be much of a problem.”
“Yes but we haven’t a clue what is in here. It could be a trap like what’s happened before. With your skills and my technological knowledge to guide you, you can hopefully sneak through without stirring much attention, find out what’s here, and get an idea of what COBRA and the Decepticons are up to,” Wheeljack noted as he added more of the glimpses he got of the base through Tunnel Rat’s reconnaissance to the database to transfer back to the joint Autobot-Joe homebase. With a hint of awkwardness the Autobot inventor quickly added, “Besides, I’m not much of a fighter.”
Tunnel Rat knew when he’d been partnered with the Autobot scientist and inventor, he wasn’t bound for the same level of action Scarlett and Ironhide or Duke and Bumblebee got, but he couldn’t help but grumble when he expected a little bit more from the two-story tall robot; “Jack, you’re twenty-five feet tall and immune to bullets, that’s most of the criteria of half the 50s Sci-Fi I know. And I’ve only seen drones and eggheads so far. I think you could handle yourself just fine here, bud.”
“Drones who fire ionized plasma bursts and depleted shells that managed to bite into Ironhide after they shot him enough. I had to help Rachet pull them out of him for two hours! Not to mention, didn’t you say something about a tank earlier?”
“Smartass,” Tunnel Rat muttered, “Okaaay okay, was mostly joking. I do the recon, you tell me what to blow up with you then evac-ing me out. Smart enough to know best chance of success says we don’t get into a shootout. Still, don’t put yourself down, G.I. Joe wouldn’t team up with the ARK’s autobot crew if you all weren’t awesome.”
“Heh, thanks Sergeant Lee. Calculations just say that unless we get a code red, best stay the course,” Wheeljack quipped, “Right at this next turn by the way. Hopefully this is all just a close call and they haven’t developed a space or ground bridge yet.”
“And what would I need to be looking for if they did?”
“Well aside from looking forward to a bad day for all of us if they manage to make a high-functioning one, you’d be looking for a wide-open room with a metallic holding zone about ten meters across in an octagon shape with the stabilizing prongs on either side to hold the warp gate for the bridge up.”
“So like a Stargate?”
“Huh,” Wheeljack paused as he remembered a movie collection one of the Joes brought in when he and the Autobot medic Rachet had requested some more human media to get better acclimated to Earth. Naturally as a ‘geek’, he was partial to science fiction, if anything to inspire a wealth of ideas for future inventions, “Yes I would say that description isn’t too far off.”
Tunnel Rat’s signal paused for a moment as he moved into position before it came back through the feed, “Would it have a big green swirly thing?”
“Mmhm, yep! That sounds about right.”
Reality caught up to Wheeljack and his tone shifted from casual to dead serious when he didn’t hear a snarky remark from his partner, “Tunnel Rat, hit the switch on the goggles I made for you, left side. It’ll patch what you’re seeing to me and the base.”
Tunnel Rat did so and whispered as the feed began the come through while he peeked through the vent into a very large chamber, “Well, I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news. The good news is, I think I found what we’re looking for. The bad news is...”
He adjusted his goggles to focus better and remove the blur, “I think I found what we’re looking for. And it’s running.”
The feed on both Wheeljack’s display and one of a similar nature miles away within an old missile silo outside of Jasper Nevada showed a room packed full of COBRA personnel and workers standing by a massive gateway of sorts. Attack drones, man sized combat machinery that varied from spider-like with mounted turrets to hover capable humanoids perched against the walls, lined every entrance like a horde of army ants; necessitating Tunnel Rat to lurch back and hide out of view several times. But, plainly visible, on account of illuminating the entire room, was an enormous curtain of green energy spiraling within the gateway. A link between two points in space that could be massive distances apart, a shortcut bridge of sorts between spaces. Tunnel Rat noted the numerous engineers and scientist taking notes and recording data.
“Wheeljack’s the science guy, but as a betting man I’d say it seems like they’re doing a test run of some sort.”
Wheeljack was trying to both hide his excitement at seeing an Earth-built device of such technological magnitude, as well as the sheer terror he was feeling at knowing who was building it and who was helping them; “Aaaah scrap! That is definitely a space bridge matrix and gateway, first one I’ve seen since we left Cybertron. Kaon’s pit, I’d say it’s the first one built in several million years since the ARK and Con’s ship crashed here. In fact I’d-”
“Focus Wheeljack.” Tunnel Rat muttered under his breath as he tried his absolute hardest not to swear at the situation.
“R-Right. Much as I’d love to swipe the specs so we could do it ourselves, we can’t let them keep it going if they’re already about to start pulling stuff through it! Space bridge technology is highly dangerous and can be catastrophic if done improperly. Prime, General Hawk, have you been getting all of this?”
Thankfully after a momentary pause in communications, the screen on Wheeljack’s display and Tunnel Rat’s goggles flickered and revealed a humanoid face wearing a blue, ‘eared’ helmet with a pointed face mask protruding under wise blue eyes. The calm but worried tone of a being older than the hills, the Autobot leader Optimus Prime, came across the secured line.
“We have, Wheeljack. Sergeant Lee’s transmission of the footage and your assessment of it is coming in crystal-clear, as did the dire nature of the situation. General, your agent is the one on the grounds. What do you make of it?”
Beside Optimus’ image emerged one of an aged, weathered and tanned face, but mounted on a strongly-built man in a classic military uniform and a buzz cut blonde hairdo peeking out from beyond the old style beret one would expect from decades prior sitting atop his head. General Clayton M. Abernathy, better known as ‘General Hawk’ within the task force organization he commanded, furrowed his brow at the situation after checking some information on a data pad.
“Wheeljack, you’re more familiar with Cybertronian construction; what do you make of the base’s defenses and the durability of the bridge?”
The inventor looked over the information Tunnel Rat gleaned, “Hmm, COBRA is having to walk a thin line here. The base must have defenses but they can’t have too many or they risk notice; which could lead to a leak tipping us off to here even earlier. Same token though, they wouldn’t park the heavy arms so far away they couldn’t be mobilized.”
“Which could lead to a large scale firefight and blood bath with a civilian population center not far away,” Optimus continued.
General Hawk nodded, “Not something acceptable. Besides if COBRA is anything, it’s mobile. Everything they build is customized to break down and be relocated within a few hours. Something tells me even if the Cons passed them the original schematics and helped them build it for them, changes have been made to do just that. By the time we mobilized and had heavy armaments inbound, most of it and the schematics might be gone. It has to go now, while we have the element of surprise. Wheeljack, can Tunnel Rat’s armament do it if you show him the right places to sap?”
Tunnel Rat, sensing what was needed, chanced a peek through the vents to make sure Wheeljack could get a good look at the bridge’s set up. The autobot inventor hummed as he looked through the options.
“Weeeell, it’s different in some ways from the ones of Cybertron; General Hawk. Can’t tell if that’s Con or COBRA flair or them making do with that they have. Still, even the strongest structure is only as sturdy as its weakest point. If he planted a big enough sapper charge on the feedback loops and hit the cold plasma generator at the same time-”
Optimus grunted as he interrupted, conscious of the situation and its dangers, “Time for brevity Wheeljack.”
“Right! Well I think the gizmos I cooked up for him might just do it! Tunnel Rat, please tell me you didn’t drop them!”
Tunnel Rat smirked as he ducked back, flicking up and catching one of the improved grenades he actually was pretty eager to see in action, “I only drop what I soon catch. ‘Sides, with you and Hi-Tech spending all night on these and your track record, it’ll explode even if it does go wrong.”
Wheeljack shrugged, “For once I’m glad half the things I make explode anyways.”
“Only one problem,” Tunnel Rat griped as he glanced about the room literally covered wall to wall with guns, “I don’t think I’d get more than one chance to test my pitching arm before half the base in my general direction gets turned into swiss cheese.”
“Negative on that scenario anyway. This job requires precision and simultaneous detonations or else it might not work,“ Wheeljack shrugged as he fed through some schematic information over to Tunnel Rat’s goggles, “Or you know, exploded in a way we really didn’t want it to.”
Tunnel Rat winced when he saw all the points he had to sap with charges to pull it off, “Well I can’t exactly waltz in and expect not to be seen! Snake Eyes is the ninja, not me, and I think even he’d have issues with this. I’ll need a distraction.”
Wheeljack’s end went quiet for a moment, but before General Hawk and Optimus Prime could begin to discuss strategy, the eccentric inventor chimed back in with the radar showing he’d moved location.
“On it!”
Tunnel Rat blinked in confusion as he watched the little blip on his goggles’ location display showed his partner in anti-crime moving around to another side of the base. “Um, Wheels?... Doc? Jack? What are you doing?”
Suddenly the base shook with a reverberating rumble and multiple alarms worked through the air in a wail of sirens. Wheeljack’s voice, both frantic and elated, cackled through the microphone; “HA! I always wanted to see what it would be like to be a wrecker!”
“What the hell did you just do?!” Tunnel Rat yipped as he hung on to the inside of the ventilation pipes as the whole building rocked again.
Across the complex and just a few moments earlier, several COBRA security cameras locked on to the image of an approaching sports car that blew past several trespassing signs belonging to their front organizations. One of the watch crews flipped the image on his monitor onto the central display and pulled up his microphone, “Leader, intruder in Sector III, what is the response?”
The subject of his question was COBRA Commander’s right hand man, or in this case an athletic, shrewd, glasses wearing, long and dark haired femme fatale wearing a suit that might have looked lean with black colorations across a majority of it with red gloves and forearm guards contrasted to red boots; but masked the fact she was armed and armored. In truth, she was likely one of the most dangerous ‘humans’ in history, if she could still be called that. COBRA’s logistics and subterfuge commander; Anastasia Cisarovna, or outside of the immediate inner circle, The Baroness.
On the viewing screen the car seemed to leap off the ground as its tires roared and an iconic sound of shifting, whirling metal cried out before the top of the car became a chestplate, the front extending out into feet, and a pair of arms emerging from the rotating back of the car that flanked a mouthless face with two glowing panels on either side of the now-formed robot’s head. After sliding across the ground in a shower of sparks, the being pulled out what looked like, for lack of better descriptors, a pair of giant wrenches and clobbered the front gate down. The Baroness was quick to notice the red face-like emblem on the automaton’s sternal region.
“An Autobot,” she plainly noted as Wheeljack started firing at the bases’ deployed sentry guns with a pair of shoulder mounted cannons.
Her lackey cringed, “Leader, what shall we do? Is it one of their elite?”
Privy to the Autobot ranks from the Decepticon scientist Shockwave providing her with a dossier, Baroness shook her head. “Negative, this is one of their support units. Deploy countermeasures.”
“Should we notify command and awaken the triple-”
“I shall tend to that, begin evacuation protocol for ejection of priority data to the core base and deploy countermeasures on base for the autobot,” her slight slavic accent coldly noted as her troops saluted and got to work, the map of the compound showing dozens of drones and troops rerouting position towards Wheeljack’s location. With that she departed from the room.
Back in the present and in the space bridge’s room, Wheeljack chimed in again with a gleeful shout.
“HA! I always wanted to see what it would be like to be a Wrecker!”
Tunnel Rat perked up after hearing what sounded like an explosion over the communications line and felt a rumble shake the building, repeating what he said earlier. “What the hell did you just do?!”
Across the compound, Wheeljack clubbed a sentry drone away with one of his oversized wrenches like he was hitting a baseball with a bat; the droid practically making a bowling sound when it went flying back and knocked away several response jeeps. “Recreating those old Sci-Fi films you mentioned!”
Just then a hail of plasma fire sizzled over his head and heavy impact rounds pinged off his body, sending sparks flying and pecking the autobot with pain he knew would be all the greater if the rounds didn’t hit one of his more heavily armored areas. A horde of COBRA drones reconfigured out of their wheeled forms and shifted into turret mode in a manner not unlike a Cybertronian, no doubt a product of decepticon co-ventures in engineering.
“Ah scrap!”, Wheeljack barked, jumping aside and reconfiguring to his car mode, the inventor sped around to try and shake off some of his attackers. Keeping mind to where everyone was on the compound, he deployed one of his cannons out of the roof of his car form and shot at the location not that far from the space bridge room.
“Drawing as much attention as I can, is it working? Are they leaving the room?”
Tunnel Rat looked down and smirked at the results, seeing the lab coats scramble to get out of the room with their guards and sentries following alongside; “Ha! Like rats on a ship! Nice job, egghead!”
Wheeljack shot himself up around a corner, reaching out with one of his arms while still in car mode to grab a wall and hook the corner better to try and shake off his pursuers, “Excellent! Now I’ve got all of five minutes before they notice the car frantically relocating outside and catch up so be ready to roll out! I’m patching you through the information on where you need to set the charges!”
Tunnel Rat saw the mentioned information flash up on his goggles, indicating several control panels and a spire he had to plant charges on. He flashed a toothy grin and kicked out the vent to get through, “Ten four!”
A quick use of extendable rope to rappel down and he was in, giving his surroundings a once over one last time to ensure he was alone.
-Typical COBRA, send overwhelming force to one area and leave no guards behind as you pull out everything not nailed down. Then again never was sure if it safer or not with their grunts armed given they never can hit anything worth a damn.-
On account of being better safe than sorry, Tunnel Rat ran over to the main access door and jammed the bolts shut before breaking the handle to keep it locked. When he looked to the swirling, glowing space bridge however, he was forced to quickly look away. A second glance confirmed to the first reaction, Tunnel Rat wincing as he covered his eyes.
“Ag, General, Prime. I can’t so much as look at the bridge, much less get near it with these things on. I gotta flip ‘em up and cut live feed to pull this off!”
“Request confirmed, just be sure to remember exactly where Wheeljack told you to put the charges,” General Hawk grunted as he held his breath.
“And make haste Sergeant,” Optimus noted, “I fear Wheeljack’s confidence in his combative ability might exceed his reality. We still don’t know what might be at that COBRA base.”
“Affirmative, Tunnel Rat out!”
Not one to wait, much less on his mission, Tunnel Rat quickly rushed over to set the charges in the proper places indicated by memory. He had just gotten all but the last one set when the bridge flashed, a pulse of energy fizzled out Prime and Hawk’s connection to him, and he heard something behind him.
Outside, Wheeljack was burning rubber doing a figure 8 to to whirl around and throw off the aim of the less precise drones while running some of the smaller machines down with his front bumper. At least, he was until Tunnel Rat’s yell nearly blasted out his audio receptors.
“AGH! HOLY (@*$!”
Perked by the call, Wheeljack sped forward while frantically dodging plasma fire that ripped the desert floor apart.
“Tunnel Rat! Are you okay?! Come in, Tunnel Rat?!”
There was a muffled sound of popping and sliding one would expect from somebody falling over and skidding back across the ground, Wheeljack almost thought he heard a distant voice say something like “Oopsie!” but he couldn’t quite be sure. Tunnel Rat was still breathing at least, but hard.
Wheeljack gunned it and rammed through several more drones and knocked a jeep out of his way with an extended backhand, “Tunnel Rat! Sound off, I’m on my way to you!”
Much to his relief, the saboteur’s voice bleeped out through the communications link after he frantically readjusted it on his ear, “I’m-okay I’m okay! Got knocked over. Jack, somethin’ came through the portal! I have visual on subject!”
“Ah scrap, is it Cybertronian?”
“I-I don’t think so!”
“Describe it, what is it doing?” he dodged another mortar blast but knew he couldn’t keep this up forever, “Head to south exit, I’ll be there in three minutes tops!”
Tunnel Rat’s eyes were wide and his mouth slack-jawed as he rose up with a pair of blue eyes upon him, “I’m looking right at it.. And it’s looking right at me! Subject is about meter and a half tall, bright coloration, fleshy and not metallic. And it’s… it’s-”
General Hawk managed to chime back in now that the interference caused by the bridge firing off was dying down, “Tunnel Rat! Flip your goggles down and patch the feed back there; stay on your guard soldier!”
“Right!”, he barked as he did so.
And when he did, Wheeljack, General Hawk, Optimus Prime, and a room full of Autobots and Joes back in the Ark all collectively leaned in closer as the live feed from Tunnel Rats goggles played through. Someone dropped more than their jaw when they saw what he did and showed what was staring him down, but the room was so quiet everyone heard the pen drop.
Wheeljack, honestly so stupefied he forgot for a moment he was being chased by multiple armored and armed vehicles, could only breathlessly mutter, “What... in the name… of Primus?...”
Tunnel Rat paused only to pull the confetti off his face and nose the creature had shot at him. He too had a similarly shocked, but different expression, “It’s adorable!”
The alien creature, a quadruped with a poofy pink mane and beaming blue eyes, bounced up and down beside some sort of pastel blue cannon that had coated Tunnel Rat in party utilities with an obviously gleeful smile on her face, “Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie and I threw this special surprise just for you! Were you surprised, were yah were yah wereyah, huhuhuhuhuh?”
Tunnel Rat was forgivably still wide eyed when the vaguely horse-like creature that called itself ‘Pinkie Pie’ bounced over closer to them. She stopped about a meter away, despite having an opportunity to pounce if she were aggressive and so inclined. She tilted her head at Tunnel Rat, like she was expecting a response. After a moment of awkwardly glancing around, Tunnel Rat swallowed and reached out. Though just to be careful he did it with the fully gloved, more reinforced and armored arm of his sigma suit as his other reached back to grip his shock knife, just in case.
“Um… Hi?”
“Hiya!”, Pinkie Pie squeaked.
-Well, works on dogs. Let em’ sniff you so they won’t be aggressive… PleaseDon’tBeAFreakyAlienPleaseDon’tBeAFreakyAlienPleaseDon’tBeAFreakyAli-
Tunnel Rat reached out half way as Pinkie closed the distance and curiously blinked her eyes before sniffling at his hand with her twitching nose. She perked up after a moment or two, “Oooooh you smell funny, can we be friends?”
Tunnel Rat stayed anxious and cautious but slowly nodded, if still a bit stupefied, “Ummm, sure?”
Pinkie Pie let out a heartwarming mewl and leaned forward to rub her head and nose against his hand. Tunnel Rat chuckled, stumbled awkwardly, but put on a calm smirk as he scratched at her chin like she was a cat. He couldn't fight a grin, she was a Kleenex made of kittens levels of soft! Pinkie Pie hummed happily, wagging her tail in obvious glee.
Seeing that he wasn’t suddenly thrust into a situation with a bloodthirsty yet adorable critter, Tunnel Rat finally relaxed.
“Pheeeew, no killer rabbits tonight!”, he grunted as he tapped his com-link.
“Tunnel Rat to base, the alien um-… Pinkie Pie was it?”
The pony nodded happily and bounced in place, “Righteo-y Ratatouille!”
“-Right, appears to be a friendly or at least non-hostile. Any mission changes?”
Optimus Prime glanced to General Hawk before looking back to the operative, “Wheeljack, do you copy?”
There was no response, though the radar indicated he was still on the move.
Prime sighed, “His signal is mobile so he's alive. Must have taken a hit to communications line or moved into a dark zone. Sergeant, can you encourage the entity to come with you? If it is not hostile and sapient it is a duty to extract it from harm’s way.”
Tunnel Rat nodded, “No arguments from me, wouldn’t want COBRA getting a new lab rat and just sending her back through might cause problems when I blow this thing to kingdom come. Any objections General, sir?”
Hawk shook his head, “If it’s do-able, none. If it came from wherever COBRA and the Cons checked in on, it must be a civilized world. Let them keep it and they might pull the operation off again and start colonizing somewhere to set up bases we can’t get to. All while they do god-knows-what to the inhabitants with their impunity. We might find out some things from her that could be useful so try to have her come along instead of sending her back if she complies. Wheeljack said he was coming in a quick ETA, blow up the bridge and head to the south to have her be extracted out with you.”
Tunnel Rat nodded, “Ten four General, Prime. Tunnel Rat out.”
Getting up while flipping up his last sapper charge, Tunnel Rat shrugged but chuckled. Certainly was a weird turn of events, but he always did like to be the hero. And compared to the Cons, he could get used to aliens like this one; “Well Pinks. Bad news is we’re in a place surrounded with really, really bad guys. Good news is Joes and Bots turned the tide and Sigma #6 is on your side! I’m gonna scram back to home but you just got invited to tag alon-”
The pony closed the distance with frightening speed and eagerly bounced up to his eye level, somehow hovering in the air as she grinned in a way he could swear he saw her eyeballs popping in and out, “Oh oh oooh! Sleepover at your place?”
She yipped and made Tunnel Rat cringe as his hairs stood up on end, half wondering if he should retract that last statement. This thing was not natural. He stepped back a bit before circling around to go plant the last charge.
“Suuuuuure! Bad neighborhood around here’s anywho-”
It was just then the locked and deadbolted door to the room was kicked in off its hinges so hard the locks snapped off and the metal door went flying back hard enough it dented the nearby wall it collided with.
A roaring, accented tone ripped through the air,
“What is going on in here?!”
Tunnel Rat’s eyes were taken off the bizarre alien as he and Pinkie Pie both looked to a very livid looking, dark haired woman stepping into the room. There was a protracted silence as Joe, Equestrian, and COBRA all looked to one another. But when the Baroness narrowed her eyes at the two, namely Tunnel Rat and adjusted her gleaming glasses, even General Hawk let his professionalism slip.
“Oh shit.”
Author's Note
Part 2: Why you shouldn't let ponies drive
Proofed by Xander, Lance-Omikron, and Faith-Wolff
