Now:

“I understand where you are coming from with your request but it seems as though this would jeopardize the safety of the Collective.” One of the council members said after hearing our request to test fire the PCDM.

“At this point our safety is already compromised.” Venture said, walking along in front of the group. I sat back with Crackshot and let him do his thing. He was a pro at public speaking and talking ponies into things. He was a nerd just like me, rather bury himself in computer work than go out and talk to others, but he had no problem doing it, he was an 'extroverted introvert' our mother used to say. “The Enclave knows where we are, what we're doing, our power structure...They have Ruby Star, if pressed she would likely tell them everything she can. She has endured terrible hardship at the hooves of the Enclave and she would do anything she could to mitigate the possibility of enduring that again. Test firing the Cloud Disperser would show them we have it, definitively, and they would hopefully then be open to negotiation and releasing Ruby back to us.”

“But from what you've said, this could be turned into a weapon that could destroy the Wasteland.”

“There are still Balefire bombs around the Wasteland, but yes, the Cloud Disperser could be recalibrated to punch holes in the ground instead of in the clouds.”

“How does that work?”

“We're still not totally sure. Dawn Star was an amazing engineer, the PCDM is a masterful hybridization of Pony and Zebra technology. It uses a Zebra focusing gemerald with an air elemental alignment, which causes it to only have an effect on things like clouds, if the gem were replaced with an Earth aligned gemerald they could tear open the ground with it. Imagine an earthquake generator essentially.”

“So we're still waiting for a proper reason to green light your request, because giving up a doomsday device hardly sounds inconsequential.”

“We're going to work out the specifics of how to deal with the Enclave with more militarily qualified ponies than us.”

“I already have Brute Force and Lilith consulting with some of the security experts and engineers to see what we can do about that.” Crackshot said.

“So you see, by the time we have to go and meet with the Enclave for the trade we'll have a plan in place to deal with it and hopefully get Ruby back at the same time.”

The council looked back and forth at each other, talking quietly for a few minutes before turning back to us. “Very well, you may test fire the Cloud Disperser, but only after the weapon techs have presented us a solution for keeping it from the Enclave.”

“We'll do the best we can.” Venture said, nodding to them as they got up. “Thank you.”

//////////

“What do you mean that's the best you can come up with?” I groaned, looking at the group of ponies in the armoury.

“Well these are weird circumstances, this is a strange machine that we're not totally sure how to use...” Tack said, looking up from the PCDM and the open journals sitting on the desk. “So the best we can say is that we can try faking it.”

“Which is what I said.” Venture nodded.

“But what if they want to see it work up close? Then we're fucked.”

“Can't we rig up one that'd only work once?” CB asked.

“Hey yeah, that's a good idea...” Tack nodded, looking at the journals. “Most of the stuff that goes into the machine are parts we either have in storage from the Pyro base or they're in other machines we can just slag and harvest from. The really sensitive parts of the machine are the crystals, and we'd just use those as the catalyst for overload...” He paused, looking up and grinning wickedly, “We could make it a fucking bomb.”

“What do you mean?”

“The way the PCDM works is that it shunts the energy through the crystals, and it focuses out of the top of the machine through the dish and it projects the cone of energy that pushes back the clouds, boom clear skies. All we would need to do would be to make one with a cable that would only work once...”

“Use tin wire instead of copper.” One of the other engineers said.

“Yeah...” Tack started scribbling on a blank sheet of paper. “It would overheat, melt, poof, no more connection, the gemerald would overheat and explode.”

“I believe I may have something else that could help.” Another pony said, Quartermaster, the head of the armoury and weapons department. He dug into a drawer and pulled out a pair of slave collars. He pulled one open and yanked out a long white gem with blue swirls in it, then the other and removed the other.

“Here.” He set them down. “These are air aligned gemerald shards. Slave collars have them to push back toxic air to allow the slaves to work without respirators or in deep mines or what have you, doesn't keep all the poisons back but it does the job. They're unstable because they're fractured....”

“So it would help ensure the fake disperser goes boom when the time comes.” Tack nodded.

“Not only are the wires fried there's now a current running between two unstable gems.” Venture said to himself.

“I think it's our best bet...” Tack said, looking up at me again.

“Well...We take it to the council and see what they say I guess.” I shrugged. “I mean unless anypony else has any suggestions?”

I was met with shrugs and head shakes.

I looked over at CB after a moment, sitting beside Venture and rocking a sleeping Candy. “Why're you in on this meeting?” The other ponies started to break up, heading out of the room or over to the back room to start work on building the fake PCDM

“They asked for the weapons experts.” She said, gesturing to her flank with her head. “I don't know if you realize this, but I'm kind of the foremost expert on explosives nowadays.” She smirked.

“Well...I know you were learning...foremost expert I'm not so sure of. I think Lily would argue it pretty strongly in fact.”

“Well I don't just study history in school all day. I do have classes with security guards and I have spent a lot of time talking with Bullet Storm and his caravan guards. Not to mention all the knowledge Quartermaster is imparting.”

“You're making me sound like I'm a negligent parent.” I sighed, “not knowing enough about you.”

“Nah it's fine,” she laughed, “you're worried about Ruby, that's understandable, if I need you I know you'll be there in a heartbeat.”

“Exactly.”

“Well we need to go talk to the council and see if they'll green light our test now.” Venture said, standing up.

“Here's hoping.”

“Also, once all this is done, I expect you to spend some time with Candy, cuz this last 16 odd hours have been surprisingly trying.” She said, looking at the sleeping infant.

“That's children for you.”

“Well I think this is a good sign that I'm not ready for kids yet.” She smirked.

“Oh my glob, your children will be adorable.” Lily giggled, coming up behind CB. “Little Zony babies, they'll be so cute, and they'll have little stripes!” She squeed and danced in place.

“Who said anything about Zony babies?” CB asked, blushing brightly.

“Oh come on.” Lily rolled her eyes, “you're not gonna meet somepony else and be all 'OMC, he so the hotness! I want to has his babehs! Bai Xemnas!'” She had started off with a silly ditzy voice but broke down into a fit of laughter, trailing off towards the end.

CB blushed all the worse, muttering to herself.

“And how do you know we might not adopt?” Xem asked.

“Seriously? Where did you come from? Why is everypony here? Was this not a professional meeting?” I asked, looking at the group.

“I'm just here for the free food.” Crackshot smirked.

“I gotta go.” I sighed, starting for the door. “Come on Ven, we got a meeting.”

“Yes sir.” He nodded, falling into step with me as we headed outside.

///////////

“Alright is everypony ready?” Venture asked, sitting the PCDM on the hill a short way from the hospital. Once we presented our plan to the council, and with some excellent smooth talk from Venture, they had agreed to let us proceed with our plan, and after Lily had transformed into a small bug and reconned above the clouds to make sure there was nothing in the way we were ready to go. We now sat outside behind the hospital, almost four dozen ponies sitting in a big group in the hopes of seeing the sky, lots of others watching out the windows. We had picked the perfect time for it. The sun would be visible through the hole we made without being directly overhead and blinding everypony.

The two of us had set it up on a table with a computer to run it and watch what it did as it ran. CB, Xem, Brutus, Crackshot, Lily and Candy all sat just behind us with the Council, everyone else down by the hospital still, nodding excitedly.

“Then here. We. Go.” Venture said, firing up the machine. The PCDM whined to life and data started copying over into the computer. The dish on top shifted and oriented around slowly, finally locking and whining to life. A beam of blue energy fired out of the dish and up into the sky. After a moment the machine chirped and the beam broke apart into ten separate beams that slid to the edges of the dish, then it repeated the process, a single beam in the middle that broke apart and slid to the side. It did this three times until there was a solid beam of energy coming from the edges of the dish. Finally the dish started to spin, or at least the lights in it did. Slowly the sky above us started to shift and swirl, the clouds flowing into each other and slowly forming into a spinning ring of cloud.

“It's not going to pull down a tornado is it?” Crackshot asked.

“No clue.” Venture said without looking away from the sky.

Finally the clouds started to thin and push back, creating a gap we could see blue sky through. The PCDM whined loudly and a blue beam shot out of the middle. The ring of light twisted and bent backwards, forcing the gap wide open, creating a massive hole in the sky that stretched for at least two miles in every direction from the middle, the sun coming into view, the light filling the whole area, making everything look brighter, and somehow less miserable.

The group down below broke into massive cheers and yelling, ponies running out into the sunshine, laughing and celebrating.

“This is amazing...” One of the council members said, looking up at the sky.

“You're telling me.” Crackshot agreed, “sweet Celestia I missed sunshine.” She sighed.

“Now what?” CB asked without looking away from the blue sky.

“Now...we don't know.” I sighed. “We wait for Scourge Cloud to call us and see what he says, for the time being the PCDM is stable so we can leave it running to let everypony here enjoy the sunshine for now. We'll shut it down at sunset and bring it back inside.”

“We'll put extra guards on it.”

“I'll guard it!” Lily, CB and Brutus all said quickly, clearly wanting to stay in the sunshine.

“There you go, extra guards.” Crackshot laughed.

“We'll get a few more than that, but it's a good start.”

“Should we move it to the roof of the hospital?”

“It's probably not a bad idea.” Venture said. “More easily defensible from there.”

So after some brief discussion we moved it up to the roof, using our magic and three pegasus guards we moved it without needing to shut it down. We unhooked the computer from the PCDM and took it inside to study the data and wait for Scourge Cloud to call.

///////////

10 months ago:

“So now all three of them are in my lab, conspiring and doing Celestia knows what!” I finished, having just ranted all my paranoid worry about what the others were doing in my lab at Crackshot.

“Well don't you have security or cameras or something in there?”

“Yeah, but Venture disabled all of it this morning when he and Brutus first got there.” I sighed, dropping into the seat across from her at the table.

“Did you try just ASKING them?”

“Yeah they gave me a look like a Brahmin in headlights and ushered me out of the office.”

“Well...shit, I don't know what to tell you. Venture I can't really speak for, but Brutus can carry a secret to his grave if he puts his mind to it.”

“We worked for the government, we kept lots of secrets from lots of ponies for long periods of time.”

“Yeah I suppose so.”

“What do you think I should do?”

“If they're not going to tell you? Not much you can do. Just relax and hope for the best.”

“Yeah RELAX...that's something I do so well...They're in my lab! I can't even get any work done...they also have all my video games in there...”

“Poor thing.” She chuckled.

“Excuse me Doctor Cane?” A technician walked up to the table, a clipboard under his foreleg.

“Yes...Tack right?”

“Yes sir.” He nodded, “we're having some technical issues with our computers in the repair bay. The server keeps disconnecting and booting everypony out of their workstations, we were hoping you might be able to take a look at it.”

“Sure. I need something to distract me for a while anyway.” I said, standing up slowly. “I'll talk to you later Crackshot.”

“Yeah of course.” She nodded. “I'm going to go file away some paper work I did on my trip.” She said, heading out into the hall with us.

“So, I heard Ruby is going to have a baby?” Tack asked while we walked through the hospital towards the old ambulance/supply delivery area that had been converted into a wagon repair bay.

“Yeah, she's around five weeks right now.”

“That's great, she always seemed so excited to play with foals, I bet she'll be a great mother.”

“I hope so because I'm not sure how I'll do as a father.” I sighed, shaking my head. “I have a bad tendency to get lost in my work so I'm worried about my children falling by the wayside.”

“Nah, I'm sure you'll do fine. CB has done really well since her mother died. You've obviously done well in that regard.”

“Yeah...yeah I guess that's true.”

“That and a baby's cry commands attention, you'd have to be deaf to be able to work through it.”

“You have kids?”

“A son and a daughter.” He nodded, “both grown now.”

“Really? You don't seem much older than I am.”

“I'm coming up on a half century actually.”

“Really? You don't show it that's for sure.”

“Yeah I've always been told I looked young, it's always worked well for me.” We walked into the repair bay and he took me back into the offices. The computers all sat with the monitors off and some very annoyed ponies sat around a table going through paperwork with pens, giving me dirty looks, like it was somehow my fault the system had crapped out.

“Alright, well I guess I'll leave you to it.” Tack said.

“Yeah, thanks...” I nodded, looking at the first computer and booting it up.

The next five hours I spent going through the computers one at a time. It seemed a nasty looking computer virus had wormed it's way into the system, which only made me worry worse because we were on a closed network. Only my lab was connected to the M.A.S. Network, everything else was just an intranet collection for accessing data and storing work to get at from different terminals. The only external connections it had were with computers in Maneville where some of the Collective workers lived now, and with the computer network at Venture's old base. Venture and I had experimented with Computer viruses of course, but we'd never be stupid enough to store them on a computer with network access...it would risk letting them loose and damaging things badly.

But...where had the virus come from? It wasn't complex enough to do serious harm to the systems, but it was a pain in the flank to fix. It was coming up on 9PM by the time I got the computers all cleaned off and an anti-virus routine in place to hunt it down should it show up again, and hopefully track the origin point. Everypony else had long since left for the night.

“How much longer are you going to be?” Ruby's voice seemed to whisper right into my mind. I jumped and she fell back laughing. She had been floating in the air, silently sneaking up behind me.

“Come on! That's still not funny!”

“Of course it is.” She said, imitating my startled jump and cackling loudly. “You're a spaz!”

“I'll show you a spaz.” I replied stupidly, then stuck my tongue out at her.

Quick as a wink she shot forward and bit down on my tongue, pulling it into my mouth and kissing me deeply, coiling her tongue around mine and pressing me back against the chair I sat in.

She finally broke the kiss and exhaled softly. “I've been waiting almost three years for you to stick your tongue out like that so I could do that to you.” She laughed.

“You...wha...buh?” My brain had shorted out and I just looked at her vacantly.

“I used to just bite Brutus's tongue when he did that to me. I had hoped he'd be around when I did it to you, but I couldn't pass up on the opportunity right there. Come on, you can buy me dinner and I'll tell you about my dress shopping exploits.” She smirked, moving towards the door out to the bay.

“Uh-huh...” I nodded dumbly, moving after her.

“Oh come on, it wasn't that shocking was it?”

“It was weird.”

“Are you calling me weird?”

“Yes, yes I am.”

“Well at least you got a kiss out of it, Brutus just got his tongue bitten.” She laughed.

“You're a strange mare.”

“Well what does that say about you?”

“I'm a guy and I'm helpless to your feminine wiles.”

“Pft, feminine nothing.” She said as we made our way out of the repair bay.

“You just got back from wedding dress shopping. That sounds feminine to me.”

“Well okay, maybe just a little.” She nodded. She stopped for a moment and sighed softly, rubbing her stomach with her hoof.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing...just a little...ugh...upset stomach-y...”

“Do you want to just go back to our quarters instead?”

“Y-Yeah, probably best.” She said, moving to walk with me again, “stupid foal, depriving me of my dinner.”

“I'm sure she's very sorry.”

“Or he...”

“It'll be a she.” I said, nodding my head quickly, “just you wait and see.”

We got back to our quarters and Ruby flopped on the couch, groaning again and rubbing her stomach with her forelegs.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked, locking the door and sitting down on the floor in front of her.

“No...Ack...” She groaned and I heard her stomach groan loudly in kind.

“R-Ruby...” I started but she put a hoof up to silence me. After a tense moment she put the hoof to her mouth and I grabbed a vase filled with plastic flowers from it's spot on the table, pulling the flowers out so she could throw up, but instead she opened her mouth and belched, and I mean BELCHED, it lasted a solid 40 seconds at least, almost loud enough to echo off the walls.

I watched her in shock as she finally exhaled and sat panting softly for a moment. “Wow...Sweet Celestia that's much better.” She said finally, sitting up properly.

“Are you kidding me right now? All that upset stomach and can't eat and all you had was a massive gas bubble?”

“Sorry.” She shrugged, smiling sheepishly.

“I think we have just entered the Sexless part of our relationship and we aren't even married yet...”

“Oh, so I can get drunk and throw up on you, or start abusing drugs and try to kill you, but a big, and very impressive, burp is too much for you?”

“What can I say? I'm kinda picky about that sort of thing.” I said.

“Mmph...” She said simply, looking at me quietly while she fished a box of mints from her pack and chewed one up.

“What?”

“I want you.”

“You have me.” I replied, looking at her curiously.

“No no, I want you, physically, right now.”

“Well that escalated quickly.”

“I'm pregnant, my hormones are in mad flux, and right now they want mad fucks.”

“Yeah but...”

“No 'buts' get up here and kiss me.” She ordered.

“So really no qualms about physical intimacy anymore...”

“Here's what's going to happen...” She slid off the couch and sat in front of me, “you're going to get on the couch, I'm going to show you a few tricks with my tongue that'll make that kiss look like a punch in the mouth by comparison. Then we're going to go over to the bed and you're going to rut me so hard that we tear at least one bed sheet in the process. Is that understood?”

“Uhh, y-yes Ma'am...” I nodded, blushing darkly.

“Good boy, now up you get.” She said, pushing me towards the couch with a wing.

///////////

Footnote: Level up