Chapter 15:

Now:

Venture and I spent the next few hours going over the data in the computer. While I understood the basics of how the machine did what it did the math that went into it was so far beyond me that it boggled my mind.

Tack and two other engineers were studying the data from the test firing, learning how to replicate it, correlating data to information in the journals, talking to themselves in terms I couldn't hope to understand.

“Well this is different isn't it?” Venture asked, sitting down in the chair beside mine.

“What's different?”

“We're sitting here waiting for ponies smarter than us to explain the situation and where we go from here. Normally it's the other way around.”

“I don't know if you realize this, but I HAVE lived with you most of my life. Most days are like this for me.” I smirked.

“Oh come on, I'm not that bad.”

“Well you WERE that bad, you've gotten much better. You've also come to realize that I'm smarter than you.”

“Smart AS.” He corrected.

“I took you down didn't I?”

“Touche.”

The panel in front of me lit up, informing me of an incoming encrypted signal.

“Shit this is it.” I said, jumping up and moving the camera down so the caller would only be able to see me and Venture and the little bit of space directly behind us, cutting out the peripheral and the ponies working on the side. “Everypony quiet.”

The room got quiet and after a moment I accepted the communication request, the familiar and blood boiling face of Scourge Cloud appearing.

“Hello again Doctors Cane.” He said, looking between the two of us.

“Colonel.” Venture said simply, nodding his head.

“I take it from the massive hole in the sky above your hospital that you have successfully located the PCDM?”

“You are correct.”

“Excellent, then we need only to arrange a time for exchange.”

“I want to talk to Ruby,” I demanded, “I want to know she's okay!”

“Ahh, well unfortunately she is not being kept at the same site as I am transmitting from, so that will not be possible.”

“You bastard.”

“Come now Doctor Cane, where is that courtesy we had established?”

“Eat me.”

Venture shoved me to the side. “Where do you want to meet?”

“Three days, noon, at the location you so elegantly pulled from my computers earlier, I would so hate for that information to go to waste.”

“Three days?!” I cried but Venture shoved me to the back of the room with his magic.

“Fine, three days.”

“Since I know it would be pointless to tell you to come alone, I will say, if you show up with an army I won't show up at all.”

“We'll keep the party small.” Venture said, nodding, “but know that if anything happens to Ruby you will not be pleased with the outcome of the transaction.”

“Ahh, see now that is a much nicer threat. Still a threat, but at least it's not simply one of bodily harm and murder.”

“I can offer those if you want.” Venture said, smirking a little.

The cobalt blue pegasus chuckled and slightly shook his head. “I appreciate the effort Doctor Cane but I'll respectfully decline.”

“Pity.”

“Three days, at the coordinates, noon, no more than one sky wagon, Ms. Star will not be harmed as long as I get the Cloud Disperser.”

“Deal.” The screen blinked out.

“WHAT?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!” I screamed at Venture as the data popped back up on the screen.

“Dude! Calm your teats!” Venture snapped, “we have no bargaining chips! What are we going to do besides antagonize him and jeopardize Ruby? I did what I had to do, and we'll see it through.”

“Yeah, yeah I know.” I sighed, slumping in the chair.

“Guys...” Tack said, looking at us, “I don't know that we'll have this thing operational in three days.”

“WHAT?” I cried again. “Are you kidding?”

“No, this machine is complex as fuck, we have to rig it to work once, and then to explode without giving away the fact that it'll explode.”

“Cane, chill, seriously.” Venture said, putting a hoof to my shoulder.

“I know, I know.” I sighed, shaking my head, “I'm just...I'm freaking out, you know...”

“Yeah I know.”

“Uhh, listen, we can go.” Tack said, getting up from the station he'd been working at. “We have everything we need to start building the replica and we really need to get to it too.” The other engineer that had been working with him just got up and nodded in agreement.

“Yeah good idea.” Venture said. “Cane, why don't you stay here and relax for a few minutes? Compose yourself and we'll figure out where to go from here?”

“Yeah okay.” I nodded.

“Come on, I'll walk you guys back to the engineering bay.” Venture said and the three of them left me alone.

I sat quietly for a few moments, then looked up at the computer screens. I pulled up the Geo-location data and overlaid it onto a map of the Wasteland. The coordinates we had were for a large area of nothingness Northeast of Manehatten.

The screen dinged, putting place markers on the map. A few hours south and a little further east of the location was the Fillydelphia Crater, which is where Red Eye's slavers had been operating until the failed Enclave attack a year ago had done massive damage to them. I had heard tell that they were still running, but as a shadow of what they used to be. Another was the Red Racer facilities, the Pony of Friendship by the ocean, which I was amazed was still intact enough to count as a location, but who knows what kind of shape it might be in? A number of other facilities came up on the map as it downloaded data from my Pipbuck's backups, as well as pulling data from the Pyro archives and The Collective's database. Most importantly though, was the indicator that appeared in the Manehatten area.

“Tenpony Tower...” I looked at the marker and grinned. At least I had somepony out there, who could hopefully help me.

//////////

“So there you have it.” I said, having just finished catching Homage up on everything that had happened.

“So you want to run this operation out of Tenpony Tower? I don't exactly have that kind of clout.”

“No no no, I just want to be able to start out from somewhere closer than the base and be able to return to somewhere closer than the base. We can fly out to you guys the night before, stay the night and then go out and meet with Scourge Cloud and be able to come back with Ruby afterwards so that she can get any needed medical attention right away. I have money and technical expertise I'm more than willing to use to pay for services rendered as well as equipment and such we could probably trade.”

“Well ever since the Enclave attacks we've been hurting for some things. Food stocks are shaky...”

“I have food. When we took out the Pyro army we seized massive stores of frozen food, not just that preserved crap, things like frozen pizza, stacks of hay bales, bags and bags of frozen veggies and fruit.”

“How much can we buy?” She asked, going wide eyed.

“That's not a call for me to make. I'll go to the council and ask, but I doubt it would be a ton if we're just exchanging it for Tenpony Tower's help and basic use of their services.”

“Oh no no, we have money, we'll pay for supplies and then you can just use the money to pay for whatever you need while you're here.”

“Should we tentatively say 500 pounds of various foods as a starting point? Then maybe we can set up a permanent exchange program between us and Tenpony.”

“Yeah, I think that would be more than enough to get us through these lean months.”

“Well then I guess I'll talk to the council and I'll call you back.”

“I'll do the same. Talk to you soon Cane.” Homage turned off the connection as she turned back to her turn tables, the current song coming to an end.

//////////

10 months ago:

I woke some time the next morning to Ruby kissing my cheek. “You're the best Sugar.”

“Shut up baby I know it.” I smirked without opening my eyes.

“Well aren't we Mr. Ego.” She laughed, pushing herself out of bed slowly. “Well listen, I'm going to go have a shower then I have to go meet with Tack about upgrading the armour on the Sky Wagons. Seems we secured some Diamondium plating and he's looking at which wagons need the most work.”

“Mmhm, have fun.” I nodded, rolling over to take up residence in the middle of the bed and snuggling my face down between two pillows.

“Hey, come on now, don't leave me to shower alone.” She said, tugging on my tail. “I always love your big strong legs cuddling me in the nice hot water.”

“MY big strong what now?” I asked, looking at her tiredly.

“Well...Your legs such as they are.” She shrugged, stretching out and laying on my back, “come on sweetie, I want company.” She whined, hugging me tightly.

“Yeah, yeah, I suppose.” I sighed, pushing up and sliding backwards out of the bed.

“Thanks.” She grinned, kissing my cutie mark and heading towards the bathroom.

I was so tired, yawned a good two or three times before I even reached the bathroom door.

“Come on, you stink like sex and I don't want anypony thinking anything inappropriate goes on behind closed doors.” She said from the shower.

“You're kidding right?” I asked, coming over and sliding happily under the water, letting it wake me up.

“Why would I be kidding?” She looked at me seriously.

“You think anyone here doesn't know what we do behind closed doors?”

“Well I don't want to advertise...” I cut her off by reaching out and putting a hoof on her slowly growing belly.

“I hate to tell you this, but it's a little late for that, I can't think of a more obvious give away than a baby.”

“Well better a baby than sex stink.” She said, sticking her tongue out at me and crossing her hooves across her chest. So taking a page from her book I shot forward and grabbed her tongue with my teeth and pressed against her and kissed her, pulling her tongue into my mouth as I did and holding the kiss for a good long moment before breaking it again.

“You bastard...” She grumbled, panting softly, looking a little flush.

“I'm sorry, hormones still out of whack? If you want to skip your meeting I'm sure I can help balance them out again.” I offered, pressing against her flank and smirking.

“No I'll be fine thanks.” She said, moving back and getting out of the shower. “I think I'll be good from here. You just finish getting cleaned up.”

“Why do I need to worry about getting cleaned up? I'm not doing anything the rest of the day.”

“Just do as I say.” She said, grabbing a towel and tossing it over her back.

I rolled my eyes and turned back to the shower, just sitting and enjoying the hot water for a few more minutes before turning it off and getting out, grabbing a towel with my magic and dropping it on my head, towelling off my mane and face first.

“GET HIM!” I heard someone yell and before I could react I was tackled backwards into the shower stall, strong legs wrapping around me before I could react and then a ZAP as I was teleported away.

As soon as we reappeared, somewhere REALLY cold compared to the nice warm shower, I lashed out, bucking wildly to throw off whomever was on my back, hearing them impact against a nearby wall, and turning and firing a magical shot from my horn, the towel shooting off my head and actually striking a second target I hadn't even been aware of.

I whipped around in confusion, finding myself standing towards the front of a sky wagon that was already in flight. Seeing a pony pushing up from the ground, the towel on them now, I leapt and tackled him before he could recover himself, kicking him in the chest and yanking the towel hard from either side against his face so he couldn't remove it to attack me easily.

At the same time I grabbed a storage chest that was strapped to the wall and hurled it at the first pony I had kicked, who still lay on the floor out of my sight between a bench and the wall he'd hit, but as the chest flew across the ship a voice cried out “STOP!” And the chest halted in mid air, wrapped in a green magic field.

I looked up and saw Lily standing in the cockpit door. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” She yelled at me, using her magic and yanking me off the pony I had pinned, revealing a stunned and terrified Venture, at the same time she stepped over and lifted Brutus from the floor, sitting him on the bench and looking at a nasty cut he had on his forehead just below his horn.

“What...what the FUCK is going on?!” I demanded, backing away from all of them into the opposite corner.

“Ugh...Happy bachelor party?” Venture groaned, flopping back on the ground.

“A-Are you kidding me right now?!”

“Well we thought it would be funny to whisk you away without your knowledge...” Brutus said softly, waving off Lily and digging a small vile of healing healing potion out of a first aid kit, tossing it to Venture before grabbing another for himself. They were about 1/10th of a healing potion, but perfect for scrapes and cuts and other such non emergency injuries.

“You. Thought. It. Would. Be. Funny...” I said slowly, emphasizing each word as if it were it's own statement. “In a world full of slavers and murderous Alicorns and bandits and Celestia only knows what else you thought it would be a goodideatosnatchmeupandwhiskmeaway?!” I screamed, getting louder and louder, talking faster and faster until all the words were running together.

“Well we...” Venture started.

“WELL NOTHING! I HAVE SPENT THE LAST 26 HOURS TERRIFIED THAT YOU HAD DONE SOMETHING TO BRUTUS AND WERE PLANNING ON BETRAYING US!”

“What why?”

“You were in the lab! Being all secretive, not telling me what was going on! Changing the door locks, meeting with strange ponies with weird torture cutie marks.”

“It's a pole.”

I looked up and saw Crystalline sitting in the cockpit entrance where Lily had originally been before she'd moved to help Brutus. “And shackles.”

“She's the...Entertainment.” Brutus said, drinking the healing potion and pouring the last few drops right onto the wound.

“Stripper, dominatrix, hoof to hoof weapons specialist, I speak three languages and I'm a hell of an accountant.” She smirked, “girl's gotta have options in a world like this.”

“She came in with a caravan yesterday and wanted to meet with us so we could vet her and make sure she was aware of everything we wanted done.”

“Sorry Cane, we didn't realize you were so worried. Even Ruby thought it would be funny...”

“We all thought it would be funny.” Lily said.

“Yeah well think next time before you do something like that. You're lucky I didn't have my guns.”

“Why do you think Ruby lured you to the shower?”

“Of course.” I shook my head and smirked. “So I just get to be without my armour, guns or pipbuck for the duration of this?” I asked, looking between the group.

“They're in the crate.” Brutus said, pointing to the case Lily had caught before.

“Ahh, thanks...” I said, blushing brightly and feeling like an idiot.

“Yeah, didn't really think this through obviously.” Venture pushed himself up onto a bench.

I dug into the crate and pulled on my barding, tucked my guns away and then sat down and screwed the pipbuck back into place, watching the HUD boot up into my vision, it was weird, I almost missed having the extra information displayed in my vision, like I wasn't seeing things properly, then watched the non essential information fade out, leaving me with the compass and the small health indicator in the corner.

I realized after a moment I didn't remember taking my Pipbuck off the night before but it wouldn't have been the first time Ruby had fished the tools out of my pack and removed it herself because it was digging into her uncomfortably, I just usually woke up when she did it.

I looked up at Brutus, then Lily, and back. “Who brings their marefriend to a bachelor party?”

“I'm not along for the party, I'm just flying back to town moron.” Lily rolled her eyes and punched my shoulder. “I do have a job and a life outside of you ponies and Brutus' big strong forelegs.”

He smiled but rolled his eyes at the comment. “Thanks sweetie.”

“You ponies are just a means to an end for me. A free and quick trip home.” She said.

“Aww that's too bad, I was hoping you were sticking around. Changelings are SO much fun to play with.” Crystalline said, pouting a little.

“Oh don't worry my dear, I might not be into simple strippers, but I'm sure Brutus and I could make use of some of your OTHER services.” Lily winked, actually brushing against the Earth pony as she walked into the cockpit again, as though she were cuddling against her without actually breaking stride.

I looked at Brutus and he looked a mix of ashamed and embarrassed. “She's kidding.” He said when he saw the look on my face.

“Hey Crystal, can you come finish showing me the rest of these gags you have in your pack?” Lily called.

“Oh, of course, you have to see these dental gags I have, force the mouth open, you can put all kinds of things into the wearers mouth and they can't stop you.” She said, walking back into the cockpit, the door sliding shut behind her.

“She's kidding! She's kidding!” Brutus cried as Venture and I both cracked up.

“I'm sure she is buddy.” I sighed, sitting back against the wall.

'This'll be a great night I just know it.' I remember thinking. 'One of the most memorable of my life.'

And boy was I ever right...

Footnote: 20% to next level

Author's Notes:

WHAT'S THIS?! A NEW CHAPTER?! WHAT STRANGE WORLD IS THIS?! MADNESS I SAY! MADNESS! Anyway...I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things now that I've got my shit sorted out...we'll see how it goes