Chapter 18:
Prototype

I'd arrived in Baltimare not more than two weeks earlier, having left Ponyville a day after our conversation as the little village did not have the facilities for prototyping. It wasn't the greatest of places to place our efforts as it was located right across the Celestial sea to Griffinstone but the industry here had seemed to be the ones that we'd need for our development of a rifle.

Rainbow had assured me that she'd be okay on her own back in Ponyville with the rest of her friends while I was away. I'd been a little reluctant but Twilight promised to keep an eye on her to see if she was okay or wouldn't do something reckless. That gave me the peace of mind to actually start prototyping. We of course were simply copying the griffins' rifle outright with some minor improvements to get at least something to the troops in the field along with simply heavier, thicker, armour but that wasn't what my main focus was on more advanced designs.

The Princesses had pretty much given total free rein on the project as they mobilised the guard. I'd had the large amount of gunpowder from the failed attack on Canterlot moved over to a few depots in the city for us to use in our R&D efforts, having explained its composition and how to create it there were a few plants within the city now replicating it and trying to make larger quantities as well.

The first step had been to get the production of casings and bullets underway and since brass was a metal the ponies actually knew about and used it hadn't taken long for a functioning casing was being produced. After that, I and the team of alchemists had put our heads together to create a primer to actually complete the bullet.

It took them a week. A God damned week to figure out a good primer solution... I guess the magic portion of their 'alchemy' really helped fine tune the sensitivity of the compound.

I shook my head in astonishment at the ability of ponies to innovate when pressured, it did ring the question though, if the ponies were this innovative with a little boost from me, how innovative would the griffons be?

I looked at the now complete bullet in my talons, it was thicker than my rifle's five-five-six, closer to my Glock's nine-millimetre rounds though longer. I'd been considering designing a shotgun of some sorts too but hadn't made a final decision on that, buckshot would be ridiculously effective but if the griffins were going to replicate it, it would have horrendous results.

The firing setup we'd created to test the thing was nothing more than a set of thick steel tubes with hammers attached but that'd be enough for the proof of concept. "Alright everyone, take cover! I don't want anyone getting hurt if this blows up in our face!" I called out as I put the bullet in the tube, cocking the firing mechanism. "Loaded!" Retreating behind a row of sandbags with one of the other ponies I took hold of the string that would loosen the hammer and strike the primer. "Firing in three, two, one..."

Bang!

"That sounded good," I smirked as I peaked my head over the cover and looked to see the results. We'd set up a large paper target in front of a heap of sand to see if the bullet was any good, the hole close enough to the centre that it could be classified as a success.

"Well we didn't blow ourselves up, laddie," Ignis Rock, an earthpony stallion on the alchemy team laughed as he too peaked to see the results. "Better than that first experiment with that primer compound!"

"Good thing you ponies don't have f-claws, losing one of these in an explosion would suck particularly badly," I waved my claws at him as I walked up to the test rig and extracted the casing for inspection. It looked unharmed.

Now we have something to fire I can lay out a rifle to put around it.

"Did it hold up?" another pony, Almond Tinkerer, asked. The unicorn mare was working with the few metallurgic shops that were creating the casings and was going to have to figure out a way to mass-produce them.

"Looks like it, but I want to fire a few hundred of these to see if they're consistent to any degree," I told her, passing the casing to her levitation.

"Then I will get word to my people to get the bullet components we have down here so we can assemble more of them." She turned to leave but was stopped by me.

"It might be an idea for you to stick around, I will be briefing a few new members of the team that will be designing the actual rifle with me. Might be useful for you to be around since that'll mainly be metalwork too."

She nodded in agreement. "I'll be there, I'll just send one of my ponies to check up on the casings then."

"Ah'm going ta see how much gunpowder my people have concocted up 'till now, that stuff from the griffins is good but we need ta use our own stuff if we're going ta do this," Ignis also spoke up. "We can handle these bullets of yours jus' fine, you go see them clockwork ponies about building the actual rifle."

"Thanks Ignis, I'll see you tomorrow then," I chuckled as the earthpony barged off to check up on the progress of his alchemy team. The clockwork ponies he'd mentioned were just that, a small group of mechanically minded ponies, a pair of which built clocks and were drafted in case we'd have to come up with some precision mechanisms for the trigger.

Walking out of the hangar where our test setup was located I went over to one of the neighbouring buildings where the offices were. The compound didn't really give away what we were doing here and the Princesses had specifically gotten a walled-off area for us to work in without being spotted. I didn't really leave the compound at all to prevent word from getting out that I was in the city, there weren't a lot of griffins in Equestria and we could be sure if they got a chance to put a musket ball into me they'd take the shot.

I entered the other building through a side door, going up to the still empty conference room where I'd left my notes and rough drawings of what I wanted to have constructed. The new ponies were probably being brought up to speed by the plainclothes guards we had walking around the facility.

Fine by me, gives me some time to get my rifle set up.

Opening a crate in the room I retrieved my sniper rifle, automatic fire is useful in some ways but a single fire rifle would be better with accuracy. Besides, I already had an idea floating through my mind on that topic.

Direct blowback should be simple enough to pull off... first let's get a functioning bolt action rifle first though.

The door swung open as I set aside my rifle, two of the plainclothes guards leading in the new group of ponies along with Almond Tinkerer. The four ponies that were unfamiliar with me eyed me suspiciously, the conflict was definitely having an effect on me due to my current species.

"Good afternoon all, it's good to see another group of fine ponies," I said with a smile, "My name's Jack, I'm the project lead around here. My colleague here, Almond Tinkerer, is already part of the team, I'm sure you will all get acquainted with her as you work here. Now, a round of introductions are in order."

Each of the ponies quickly gave their name and occupation, two clockmakers and two metalworkers that could design machining for production reasons. Oak Chisel, one of the clockmakers spoke up after the introductions. "Apologies, but we have not really been informed what we're here to do."

"Yeah, better be good because I was gunna sign up for the guard when they pulled me to the side." Steel Hoof, the bigger of the two metalworkers grumbled. The stallion definitely beat Big Mac in size and completely overshadowed me.

"That is the purpose of this meeting, and I assure you, this work is much more critical than any guard job you could have gotten." Steel Hoof grumbled as if to say 'I'll believe it when I see it'. "As you probably know by now the griffins have designed a new weapon with which they have used to devastating effect. We here are in the process of creating a weapon of our own, similar in the design of the one they use but a factor more advanced."

I deployed the bipod and placed the AWM on the table, the four ponies that hadn't seen it leaning forward to study the rifle.

"So you're a defector?" Oak Chisel asked as he looked up from the rifle.

"No. Don't bother prying further, I have my secrets," I replied Pulling out one of the new bullets we were creating, the particular one without powder so it wasn't an explosive hazard in case of a production error. "This is what we have created up 'till now. It is a brass case with an explosive charge in it that propels a steel tip. But to use this we are going to need to design a rifle that can actually fire it, our test tubes aren't exactly the most practical."

"So if we are to design one of these 'rifles' then why do you already have what I assume one to be standing on the table?" Chisel pushed.

"Secrets, secrets," I smirked, "I'm afraid you Equestrian do not have the capability to create exact replicas of this thing, but the mechanics by which it works are something we can replicate." I pushed in a magazine with a single .338 round of ammunition. "The idea is not immensely complicated, on the bottom here you have a magazine that can store a certain amount of bullets so you can quickly cycle the weapon to fire again. To cycle it, you grab this handle here, unlock the bolt, and pull it back, you can already see the bullet from the magazine feeding up into the chamber. Then you simply push it back forward and into place, relocking the bolt so it is ready to fire. Then after you have done so you repeat the motion, the casing that remains inside should be extracted so the next bullet in the magazine is able to be pushed in."

Every pony, even Tinkerer, watched in fascination. Though the unicorn had already had the privilege of seeing the rifle, even observing the rifle fire once, it still was an object of fascination for her. I hadn't told anyone around here about my actual origins, of course these ponies weren't stupid but keeping everyone focussed on the task at hand over taking with the interdimensional alien with advanced weapons was preferable.

"Will we have access to this in the designing phase?" Chisel again was the first to ask.

"I will disassemble it so you can study each part and I will be present to give pointers and tell what those parts are responsible for," I answered. "If there are any machines or materials you need they will be provided to you, we're very loose with budgeting here."

"Well, what we waiting on? We got plenty work to do," Steel Hoof grinned, "And you were right, this is gonna be more important."

I yawned as I walked into my room on the compound's housing, slinging my rifle off of my back and placing it on the table of the small living room.

"Finally, you're here!" I spun around at the sudden voice, Rainbow standing in the doorway. Her hair was tussled in the same way it was after taking a nap, which was probably exactly what she had done. "The guards wouldn't allow me into the research parts of this place, threatened to toss me in a cell if I went snooping."

"And you actually listened?" I said with a surprised chuckle.

"Well... shut up. I did actually learn about not just following you blindly," she grumbled, I smiled as I pulled her in for a quick kiss.

"So how did you even find me? I didn't exactly know what address this was when I went here and I didn't say in my letters," I asked as we separated, me returning to storing away my rifle.

"Asked Twi who then asked the Princess. Said that you might want to see a friendly face," Rainbow summed up as I locked the crate with my weapons, the only one not in there my pistol as that had gotten a permanent place on my thigh. I shook my head, letting the subject drop.

"I'm not doing anything too exciting here you know. I don't really get to leave the walls to prevent the griffins from getting word of me being here and regardless, I have to review the guards current battle tactics and strategy before tomorrow." I waved a handbook provided to me by the guard. "You can review it with me but it's not exactly Daring Do."

"Nahh, I'm good," Dash said sheepishly as I took a seat on the couch with the manual, the pegasus joining me there and snuggling up to me as I flipped through the pages and read the important parts. The manual was pretty complete, going over maintenance, drills, equipment, and most importantly tactics and strategy.

No way in hell. If they really did this when they tried retaking Trottingham...

"What's wrong?" Dash asked as my gaze was fixed on the book. "You're looking at that book as if you want to set it on fire."

"It's fucking retarded!" I exclaimed, not being able to believe what I saw. After seeing their intelligence operation I'd at least considered the ponies competent but that didn't seem to translate into your battle tactics."

"It can't be that bad, right?" Dash asked.

"Doctrine states that unicorns and earthponies charge as a fairly closely packed group with pegasi screening from above. The unicorns put up shields while the earthponies make up the front ranks of the charge... Fine, maybe it was a decent tactic before but the game has changed." I admitted. "Charging into a dug-in gun line has devastating effects, something the royal guard figured out the hard way at Trottingham."

"So what should we do then?"

"Squad based tactics. With the repeating rifles it'll be the most effective way of organising the guard. It'll be a bit harder without radios but it's not like those were widely available in world war one either.”

That got Rainbow to shoot up and stare at me with eyes as large as saucers. “Your entire world was at war?!”

“Twice... Well, you can probably count the Napoleonic wars as world wars too, though casualty wise that one wasn't as large as the first and second world wars,” I stated in reply.

“A-and how bad was that?”

I stayed silent for a moment as I thought of the casualty numbers that went into the millions. “How many creatures live on this world, Dash?”

She raised an eyebrow. “I don't actually know? Millions?”

“In the first world war about five thousand people died per day, worse in the second,” I answered her first question.

“Five thousand?!” she exclaimed. “That's like... a Ponyville every day! That couldn't have lasted long, can it?”

“Four years. Four years for the first and about five the second world war.”

Rainbow paled, her breathing speeding up significantly. “That's...”

“Millions,” I confirmed for her. “get why I'm a little apprehensive of kick-starting your arms industry?”

“Y-Yeah...”

“Anyway, how about we do something less morbid than talking about casualties of war. I still need to eat something, want something yourself?" I asked as I placed the manual on the little table in the living room and made for the kitchen.

"No, I'm good," Dash replied, remaining seated on the couch, her apatite undoubtedly having been completely removed. Quickly throwing a sandwich together in the kitchen I rejoined the pegasus in the living room.

"Dash, what are you really doing here?"

"I..." Dash's eyes shifted around as if to think up an excuse. "...was having nightmares," she sighed in admission. Taking a seat again, I pulled her close. "W-When you're not there I..."

"Shhh, it's alright." Rainbow pressed her muzzle into me and went about gently stroking her mane.

“I-I just feel so h-helpless... S-seeing you lay there with all t-those arrows sticking out of you...”

Rainbow let out another chocked cry as she admitted that. She'd told me about only a select few other Nightmares but that was a new one she'd not informed me about.

“How long have you been having this one, Rainbow?” I softly asked as her sobbing subsided a bit.

“Right after we got back to Manehattan,” she replied in a whisper. “I was so useless... You were bleeding so much and there was NOTHING I COULD DO!” She roared, having jumped off the couch to face me, her entire body trembling. “I-I've never seen a friend get hurt that badly... I never want to feel that helpless again!”

I stood up too, pulling her close into a hug again. Her entire body was tensed up as her breathing too was sped up. “I'm sorry...”

“Why?” Rainbow asked, her voice even raspier than usual. “You did everything right. Everything to keep me and Twilight safe.”

“I can teach you you know.”

That got Dash to perk her head up. “What?”

“I can teach you all I know, from medical skills, to the intricacies of handling and maintaining a rifle.” I offered. “Including the ones we've been working on once they're done.”

“You mean that?”

“Yes. I hope you'll never have to apply those skills but it'll give you the ability to act if it comes down to it... But don't be expecting me going easy on you.”

A smile finally found its way back onto Rainbow Dash's face. “So when do we start?”

Author's Note

Ponies are extremely innovative when pushed by necessity in my headcannon, plus dun kill me.

Remember that comments are like authors' food, we gain energy from them. Constructive criticism is welcome.