The girls all sat rather quiet aboard the bus. They had long since left the IHOP, and long since stopped their mad yelling over their luggage. The General assured each and every Ho that if the luggage did not turn up that he would of course acquire them new clothes. That meant shopping! Many a Ho was appeased by that notion.

"I can't believe you just let them drive off," Kymira sulked. Robin sat up from the seat in front of the moping Ho and glared at her.

"How many times do I have to apologize! I mean, we've been over this, and I thought we were past it! I mean you can't really blame me. If you had been on the empty bus with the General..." Kymira gazed off, pondering her words as JenJen and Branwyn sat eager, thinking 'if it had only been THEM on the bus with the General' like she said.

"Oh, you're right. That would be quite a distraction." Ky smiled and Robin grinned back. All the other Ho's snapped out of their reverie and went back to their card games and 'I spy'.

"Hey, girls, how about another song." Ellie sat up in her seat excitedly. She looked to her friend Kendra and stopped short. There was an unmistakable do-it-and-I'll-tell-everyone-about-you-Hot-Hockey-Hunk-in-a-closet-look. "Or maybe we could just play spades." She sat back down and dealt the cards. She sat across from JenJen and Kymira from Branwyn.

***Somewhere on the road***

Dande sat aboard the red and black bus feeding a big bulk of a man grapes and faintly remembering something about her loveable Ho's and luggage.

***Later that day on the HSU bus***

"Hey, I saw that," Branwyn exclaimed.

"What are you talking about?" Ellie asked in wonderment.

"Ky, they're cheating us! They been trading cards under the seat!" Branwyn's face was full of shock at the thought of her fellow Ho's pulling one over on them.

"Oh, don't be silly! We'd never do that!" Jen smiled a sly grin at Ellie and they erupted in laughter. "Oh, all right we can start over if you want."

The girls started to redeal when the busdriver pulled to a stop and announced loudly.

"We're here!"

** Back at HSU **

Dorotea sat with her Emperor and pondered something, "You know, the General will be gone for a while. You could probably come out of that armor for a little while. That is if you wanted to." Armor squeaked as the Rat Bastard turned his head to attention at her words.

** At another part of campus **

A certain grey side Offworld CEO and a mischievous Nurse had not yet emerged from the dark depths of the mine.

** On the rugby field **

The Other General looked up from his reclining position on Lynne's lap and his attempt at getting fed grapes from her hands and listened. Lynne thankfully stood up. Boy, she sure like the OG but she was not a wench and only wenches fed grapes to big strong men. Speaking of strong, she ran her eyes down his large frame.

"There are strange sounds coming from the mine." The OG stated but Lynne barely heard.

"Hmm? Oh, don't worry about it, it's probably just Darry. Now where were we?" Maybe one grape wouldn't hurt, the Ho reasoned.

** On the bus **

A hush fell over the Ho's as they awaited the news.

"Well, you're killing us. Where are we?" Kendra demanded. A few of the Ho's tried peeking out the curtained windows, curious of their fate.

"All right!" The General commanded. "We're in...Texas!"

A few girls stared, a few gasped, a few even cheered. But one little Ho groaned, "Oh, no!" and fainted.

*****

Ellie awoke, lying in the aisle, staring into the eyes of a worried Obi-Wan.

"Are you alright?" It was flattering so see him so concerned. Ellie smiled and the General kissed her cheek. "She's alright, give her some room." He helped the Ho to her feet and she relaxed into a seat.

Kendra leaned over her friend. "Hey El, you okay? What was that about?"

Elle responded slowly, "I guess I never told you that exciting little tidbit about my past. I was born here." Kendra groaned at Ellie's words.

"Tough luck, huh?" Kendra offered and patted her on the shoulder and followed the stream of girls getting of the bus.

Ellie finally made her way off the bus and placed her sunglasses protectively over her eyes. She knew how ruthless the Texas sun was. She looked up and almost fainted again at the sight she saw.

Six Flags! Oh, gods, what had he General gotten them into?

The majority of the girls squealed in delight.

They made their way to the ticket booth passing through the parking lot and making their way past a horse tie, lined up with horses.

"Hey, Ellie, I don't get it." Kendra questioned her friend who had somehow become the official Texas tour guide now that they all knew she had grown up here.

"Well," Ellie began, gathering some other girls attention as well, "you know that joke people say about Texans? That they ride horses and drive wagons to work and so on?" The girls nodded. "Well, sometimes it's not so much of a joke." The girls stared in disbelief as one of the horses whinnied. Ellie stopped to caress the nose of a cinnamon thoroughbred and then trotted to catch up.

***
Once inside, the girls beelined to the refreshment stand to quench their thirst. Ellie braved to order a beer and a few followed suit, including the General.

"This is pretty good," Jen remarked.

"Yeah, well, Texans like their beer, and believe me they can drink a lot of it. Y'all would love the country bars around here. Course y'all would probably cause too much trouble."

The girls sipped their beers and perused the park, following their unwitting leader, Ellie. The General walking proudly amongst his Ho's. The light fabric he'd chosen for the journey had been a well thought out plan. He looked delicious, walking his walk, little beads of sweat perched on his upper lip, waiting to be licked off.

Robin glanced over and thought of their sneaky acts on the bus. Yes, she did like sneaky General.

"Alright! We're here." Ellie announced. Everyone glanced up and up and up. "The Texas Giant! Fourteen story drop." Jen screeched in glee, she loved roller coasters, and Bran kind of whimpered, not sure she was up to this.

"Good thing Dande isn't here cause she'd never ride this thing, it would mess up her hair," Kendra joked.

The girls all took a deep breath and followed their General faithfully up the steps of the Texas Giant.

"Don't worry girls, if you can survive this I'll take you all out to a club later, and we can learn to country dance." That elicited some groans of horror, but also some realizations of how sexy he could look out on the dance floor. Well, they had to make it through the amusement park first.