Gauge rolls over and starts picking himself up as he shakes his head. He looks up at the massive crater in the building across the street and lets out a long low moan, “Ooooh nooooo…” He darts his eyes around and finally they settle on Sable. Who’s currently sitting on the roof, not far away from him, staring blankly at the crater where the skywagon had once been. “Sable?” he asks weakly.

She lowers her head and looks at the cement at her forehooves as her eyes dart around. But, she gives no response.

“Sable? You okay?” He looks around. “We gotta go, mmkay?”

Sable gets up and starts walking around in a circular pattern, grabbing various items that had dumped out of the skywagon when Gearing inverted it, and starts collecting them into a single pile. Silently.

Gauge pulls himself up and trots after her as he asks, “Sable, talk to me, please. Mmmkay. You’re damaged. Do you need me to help you?” He sits down and watches her walk around him in a circle picking up various odds and ends with her cables before returning them to the cache she is building. He lets out a sigh and waves a hoof towards her. “I might not be as good as Gearing. But I know how to fix things, mmkay?”

Still she says nothing.

He looks around for some form of direction, and then just sits there dejectedly as he stares at his hooves and asks quietly, “There anything I can do to help?”

“Subject Gauge…”

His head jumps up to look at her, and sees her pause, but not actually look at him. “Yes, Sable?”

“Thank you for your concern for my welfare… my darling Gearing will appreciate it… when he returns.” She looks over at him and gives the slightest hint of a smile. “My internal repair systems are functioning, but they are not as… robust… as official models. It will take some time for me to be fully functional again.” She looks around at the roof and adds, “If you could help me acquire some small pieces of metal, quality is of no concern, that will help speed up the process.”

Gauge hops to his hooves and starts nodding rapidly as he looks around. “Sure!” He starts walking off towards where they’d come from as he adds, “Scrap shouldn’t be hard to find with that explosion!”

“Subject Gauge…”

Gauge stops in his tracks. Cringing for a moment and thinking about the stupid thing he’d just said, then turns to look back at her over his shoulder. He notices she’s not actually looking at him. So he asks, “Yes?”

“Stay away from the edge of the building…” She looks over at him and nods. “There are many hostiles in the area, but this building is high enough to provide us effective cover from lower levels. If you stray too close to the edge, they may be able to hit you with weapon’s fire.”

He nods and smiles a bit. “Thanks, Sable. I’ll keep that in mind, mmkay?” And he starts snooping around the roof, grabbing every fragment of metal he can find, along with helping secure the items that had been dumped out of the wagon. After a few minutes of this productive salvage, he comes across the blood stain and pink ash pile that represent where two attackers met their end. He grabs the minigun that’d been dropped, and starts carefully toting it back towards the center of the roof.

He sits down and pants a bit as he taps on it with a forehoof. “Sable, think you can use this?”

Sable looks at it, then immediately comes over to examine it. She lifts it up with a trio of cables, one supporting the back, one on the forward frame brace, and one wrapping around to rev the motor and trigger. She checks it from a variety of angles then nods. “Yes, Subject Gauge, I believe I can.” She heads back over to where she saw him bring it back from, locates the corpse of the buck that had been using it to shoot them up so much, and begins removing all of his equipment. After stowing the extra ammo in her own saddle bags, she picks the buck up by the hind leg and holds him aloft by a cable.

He dangles there, motionless, and looking like he was the trophy as today’s biggest catch.

She looks him over carefully and says, “You hurt my darling Gearing…” Then she whips the cable around and flicks the buck up and over the edge of the building’s roof. As gravity starts taking over, and his body starts falling, Sable revs up the minigun and dumps a few bursts into him before he hits the ground. She stares at him the entire way, until the body, now even more bloody and riddled with holes, impacts the ground.

Causing the buck’s head to explode like a dropped paint can all over the concrete.

She turns around and begins walking away as she says flatly, “Terminated hostile confirmed.” She only gets a few steps away before she hears a commotion behind herself. At ground level. She walks back to the edge and looks over, entirely ignoring her own advice to Gauge not long ago.

And her warning proved to be right.

Many bullets come up at her, both impacting the ledge near where she is standing and whizzing by around her head. A couple even bounce and ricochet off her head and helmet as she stares down at the assembled group that’d come to check on the weapons fire sound and had found the body.

Sable responds in kind.

She brings the minigun over, and begins unleashing a swarm of hot lead in their direction, causing them all to jump behind a pile of bricks and a brick wall. A few pop out to take pot shots at her, but most are hiding and waiting. Taking their time. As Sable squeezes off burst after burst in their direction.

She grabs one of the small metal boxes nearby with a cable, and chucks it up and in an arc without looking, as she keeps spraying the general area the attackers are hiding behind.

Gauge jumps after it, but slides to the ground and holds his hooves over his head as he cries out in dismay, “What are you doing?! Throw rocks instead! Mmmkay?! That was a limited edition Stable-Tec lunchbox! Why would you do that?!”

A moment later the revving minigun makes a clicking sound, as it goes empty, and she starts reloading a new box of ammunition.

Which was exactly what the group down below was apparently waiting for, as they start jumping out and begin firing their own volley up at her. Or, they would have. If the first individual to pop out hadn’t caught a laser to the chest and went blowing in the wind like so much Equestrian Wasteland dust.

As the others huddle back in their defensive position, making plans for scattering and pulling back so they could come around from a different angle, the entire group is enveloped in an orange fireball. The explosion that detonates in their midst is so powerful, that pieces of rock and pony even make it up to Sable’s level. To tink off of Sable’s armor and majorly disturb Gauge.

Gauge rolls around holding his ears as he screams, “What was that, mmkay?!”

Sable slowly scans the lower area, taking note that even the wall they had been hiding behind has been blasted away and toppled over. “Gearing has improvised many ‘equalizers’ as he refers to them. Although, I must admit, I had expected that one to detonate while I was keeping them pinned.” She looks over at Gauge and tilts her head. “Maybe there was a short in the timer? Or it had become damaged in the fall? Or, perhaps, my darling Gearing intended on that one to have a longer fuse…” She looks down at the devastation and nods. “It would make sense given its destructive potential.” She turns around and starts back towards the center of the roof. “I will have to inquire with Gearing about that when he returns.”

Gauge watches her walk away then slowly gets up as he hangs and shakes his head. He starts following her, picking up a few pieces of scattered metal and a few rogue tools before he limps his way over to the pile of supplies in the middle of the roof. He starts organizing it a bit, setting a pile of fragments of metal to the side that Sable might be able to use as he slowly puts the other items back into bags they had spilled out of.

“Subject Gauge.”

Gauge starts to turn his head to look at her, but stops as he sees a small bottle held aloft in front of him.

“You have sustained many lacerations from the impact. Please consume this healing potion. The damage and loss of such wide patches of your hide will leave you vulnerable to infection and premature termination.” She rattles the bottle a bit then asks, “Do you need assistance administering treatment?”

Gauge takes the bottle and pops the cork as he says with a wince, “No, thank you, mmkay.” With the adrenalin of the flight, fall, and fighting wearing off he’s really starting to feel the various cuts on his body. Though the areas where the fur had been completely ground off by sliding across the concrete roof at high speed stings the most. He carefully sips on the potion, looking around nervously as he tries to figure out what he can do.

And, given his constitution with such situations, his rear end musically serenades the wasteland with whistles, squeaks, and rumbling drum rolls. But, the only nose he can offend within toot range is his own at the moment.

Sable walks away, minigun still held aloft, as she says, “My darling Gearing won’t mind you drinking one of his potions. He cares about all ponies, after all.” She looks back at him and gives a wide smile. “We can leave once he returns.”

As Gauge is finishing his slow nursing of the healing potion, a blur of movement catches his attention from the corner of his eye. He falls down flat to the concrete roof expecting an incoming attack.

Swift, carrying a heavily bleeding Nahlah, lands nearby. “Nahlah’s hurt!” As she looks around with her head zipping back and forth repeatedly, she asks breathlessly, “Where’s Handy?”

Sable sets down the minigun and walks over as quickly as she can, extending out her cables and pointing off towards the other side of the building. “Like Nahlah, Subject Handy Hooves’ momentum was too great to stay on the roof.”

Swift’s focus jumps to the direction Sable is pointing. She notices, quite clearly, the metallic gouges, and streaks of blood, that leads straight to the opposite side of the building. And her mouth drops as she sees the trail lead right over the other edge of the roof.

Sable shakes Swift’s shoulder with a cable as she’s stepping closer and keeps pointing off towards the trail. “Go to him. Have no fear, Subject Swift, I will tend to Nahlah.”

Swift spares Nahalah one last quick glance before charging towards the edge of the building. She only takes a few bounding steps before taking flight and flying low along the building’s roof. As she reaches the edge she drops her focus to look straight down, hoping not to see her husband in a crumpled heap on ground level. But, she quickly does a double take as she looks across at the brick wall of the building across the alleyway. Very clearly visible is a smattering of fresh blood, and below that, on the fire escape, is another couple spots of blood.

This, combined with the complete lack of any sign of Handy down at street level, gives her far more hope than she had a few seconds ago.

She hovers around the fire escape, looking it over carefully as she quickly goes into tracking mode in her mind. Tracking an oversized swine, or tracking a silly stallion, the basics are the same. Follow the trail.

She flutters down and lands on the fire escape, a level below where she’s pretty sure Handy had landed. On this level, a window had been boarded up with a combination of wood and metal at one time. At one time, because currently the metal and wood both have been bashed in and the window is, for the most part, open. The breaks in the sheet metal, with some parts actually having no rust, give her clues that this is very recent.

If that wasn’t enough, she can see a bit of a blood smear on the window frame that, again, lets her know he’d gone this way.

She eases through the hole, careful of the sharp jagged parts of the sheet metal, and continues inside. She pauses inside for a few moments, letting her night vision adjust to the even dimmer interior lighting, as her ears twitch around.

It’s hard for her to focus on anything in particular as the sounds of sporadic gunfire and yelling continues to echo throughout the entire complex. It’s been a constant din since they dropped low enough that this whole mess had started. Although, given its fierceness, she’s quite certain that their group isn’t the only one involved in the fighting in this area. It’s too spread out. Too continuous. Which just begs the question if the ones they are fighting are friends or foe.

She elects, and vows, not to be too eager to find out the answer to that exact question.

She continues through the building, careful of the various debris and falling parts of the office structure long since turned derelict. But, it’s not just a sense of abandonment that’s caused the destruction to the building. There are various signs of conflict everywhere. Long since dried blackish brown blood streaks. Bullet impacts. Scorch marks, very localized and that didn’t spread far, from either an incendiary weapon or small explosion. And, various spent ammo casings. They all give testimony to a practical war fought inside the building.

Her first sign of any recent activity, while following the trail, is a dead buck half hanging out of an office door. While he’d once been white, or practically white, he’s now very decidedly a shade of pink. As all of his fur has been dyed with his own blood. The spent ammo cases around him show that he went down with a fight. But he went down. And hard. His SMG lays nearby destroyed. Smashed and crushed into practical scrap. With the barrel, as short as it was, amazingly bent up and almost into a ninety degree angle while crumpling in on itself at the same time. The bucks mouth, split wide to the point that she wonders if the jaw could even close under its own power, as the manic grin peeks out behind the ruptured flesh.

Looking the buck over she guesses the SMG had been hit with such force from the front, that it shoved the grip back and into the buck’s mouth. Splitting both cheeks wide open as the weapon was practically shoved down the user’s throat. A follow up set of strikes had put an end to him, with cruel crushing and overwhelming force. Causing the chest to implode and cave in on itself.

She sifts through the belongings that had already been scavenged through and notices the various sputters of blood. Swift realizes that the buck was probably still alive while his property was pilfered from his saddle bags. But, whoever it was, wasn’t interested in the spare ammo, or a few other potential items of value. Her eyes trail around, and she finds an empty healing potion bottle nearby.

Still wet on the inside from its recent use as the residue slowly collects in the lower end of the bulb.

Likewise having no use for the ammo, and having bigger worries at the moment, she picks up pace and continues heading through the building as she tries to follow the trail and leaves the rest for some other scavenger. Though, now there’s no real blood smears. But she does find a trail to follow.

One of death and destruction.

Every so often she finds another pony, or group of ponies, all of them dead from overwhelming blunt force trauma. One had her head caved in, from behind, and driven straight into the floor. Another had her head knocked through a wall from a sideways blow. The only thing keeping the body aloft is the fact the neck is bent over the broken wood and plaster like a weird shepherd’s hook.

Each time the victim’s had their belongings hastily gone through before the victor of the fight had moved on to their next pit stop.

Each time the damage and blood is fresh. Barely starting to dry. And the bodies are still warm.

In several instances she flutters over certain piles or areas of debris to avoid making noise as she advances as quickly, but quietly, as she can. She wants to find Handy. But they, quite obviously, are not the only ones in the building. And, even together, they’re outnumbered.

As she’s coming down the stairs to the fourth floor she hears a commotion downstairs. A variety of screaming from a couple of mares mixed in with unintelligible grunts and debris getting kicked up and thrown around.

She flutters down the hallways towards the sound and, when she’s only a couple yards from the door to where she’s sure the fighting is taking place, a yellow unicorn comes tumbling out of the room and skids to a halt just beyond the door frame as she screams in pain.

The yellow mare starts picking herself up with a wince as she’s facing away from the door she came out of. As she’s pushing herself up by her forehooves, a large blur comes arcing out from the door towards the middle of her back.

It impacts dead center with a loud Ka-ta-TSSHHH as the pneumatic mechanisms fire upon impact.

The yellow mare’s eyes bug out as her chest suddenly arcs upwards and back, while the rest of her body arcs downwards as her spine is completely severed, making her practically fold backwards upon herself. Her blood curdling scream is only cut off by the second swing, which arcs around in a wide circle, perpendicular to her, and then comes straight back down again. Driving her head into the concrete floor and finishing her as her bloody attacker finally steps into the hallway.

Handy, armor dented and full of various holes from many bullet impacts, zips his focus from the mare on the floor in front of himself, over to Swift. He already had a smile on his face, despite the grip on the over side pneumatic sledgehammer. Upon seeing her, his grin explodes even wider across his muzzle. He twirls the sledge hammer in his forehooves, spinning it around in them, using his muzzle here and there as he says quickly, “Swift! There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” He twirls the hammer a bit more and practically giggles, “Gimmie a sec.” He brings the hammer back down, completely caving in their head and sending the red chunks everywhere.

He leaves the sledge embedded into the concrete floor, and what was left of the mare’s head, as he looks over at Swift again. “They just don’t like to stay down!” He sits back and gives her an even larger grin as he holds his forehooves wide apart. “Come’er and gimmie a hug! Damn you’ve had me worried!”

Swift looks him over, and lets out a sigh of relief. But then lets out another sigh as she doesn’t share the smile on his face. But, a split second after the request, she snaps her wings and heads straight for him.

He, somehow, smiles even wider as she heads towards him. But then, his eyes bug out and he gets a look of confusion on his face, while still grinning, as she uses her right forehoof to shove him sideways, and actually flies past him.

He flops over like a felled tree, and rolls over in time to see Swift impact into the purple earth pony mare that was behind him.

Swift growls and has an expression of pure malice across her muzzle as she holds the mare to the cinder block wall with her right hoof and strikes her with her left. Power hoof enabled. “Do. Not. Hit. My. Husband!” she bellows as she punctuates each word with another strike of the powerhoof to their body or head.

Swift hops back and to the side, letting the mangled body of the purple mare fall to the floor.

Almost instantly Handy’s hammer comes down and, likewise, crushes the mare’s head. He leaves the sledge head there, again, and leans on the end of the grip with his left foreleg as he holds his head up with his left forehoof and looks at Swift. “Just like old times, huh, Swift?”

Swift lets out a snort of disgust and bobs her head with the action as she looks at the purple mare at her hooves. “Not old enough…”

He reaches over and pats her on the shoulder. “I missed you too, hun.”

“Handy…” Swift says while staring at the bodies.

“Yeah, Swift?” Handy asks while he goes back to propping his head up with his left forehoof.

She brings her gaze up to stare at him as she squats down a bit and tenses up. “How many?”

“How many what?” Handy blinks as he looks around. “Did I kill? No idea, really.” He gives a disinterested shrug of his shoulders as he continues grinning at her.

She gives only the slightest shake of her head. “You know what I mean… How many did you take?!”

Handy rubs his nose with the back of his hoof as he regards her. He pulls the forehoof back, examines it, and then uses it to scrape off a bit of gore from the end of his muzzle as he shrugs. “What?”

She jumps over and gets practically muzzle to muzzle with him as she points off towards the mare in the hallway. “Buck! How many did you take?” Handy’s grin turns a bit crooked and she puts the same hoof in his face. “And don’t lie to me! I know that look in your eyes!”

He lets out a long slow sigh and his shoulders slump a bit.

Swift rears up on her hindlegs, puts her forehooves on his chest, and starts poking and pushing and shoving Handy back, until he flops down on his rear and she pushes him against the wall. “Dammit, Handy! You promised you wouldn’t take that shit anymore!” She points off towards the mangled body in the hallway, “This isn’t you!” She pushes him with a hoof again. “So?” She pushes him a couple more times. “How many?” She alternates pushing his shoulders, one hoof on each, as she practically shakes him. “How many did you take?!”

Handy rolls his eyes then hangs his head as he looks around at the ground. “I don’t know, alright?!” He looks up and scowls. “And, don’t blame me for this! I got thrown out of that flying death trap by that fucking machine!” He points with a forehoof off to the side towards where they’d come in at. “I got thrown into a fucking brick building and dropped like two stories, I kind of needed it!”

She rolls her eyes with her entire head. “You always say that…” She taps on his chest a few times. “Where’d you even get them at? Megamac? Did you sneak off and buy some while I wasn’t looking?”

Handy lets out a deep sigh then says softer, “Nooo.” He lowers his head and looks off to the side as he waves back and forth between the two dead mares near their hooves. “This whole gang’s some kind of drug fiends. I really needed some healing potions, so I went looking through their packs…”

“And you found the Buck and figured ‘Why not’, right?” Swift demands.

Handy shrugs and doesn’t look her in the eye. “More like, ‘One healing potion isn’t enough but some Buck will get me through’…”

“Mmmhmm”, Swift says as she narrows her eyes. She taps him on the chest a few more times then points at his PipBuck. “Let me see your PipBuck.”

He looks away from her, and lifts his foreleg so she can examine his PipBuck.

She quickly pulls up the item sorter. Looks for, and finds, a supply of Buck, and selects it. She quickly reaches into his bag, and pulls out not one, but four bottles of Buck. She looks between them then says in a low hissed voice, “Handy!”

He closes his eyes tightly and says softly, “I know… I know…”

She quickly stows them in her own bag as she quips, “Of course you know!” She pulls out a cloth and starts wiping his face down, already seeing the sweat and other signs of the drug wearing off. She quickly cleans his muzzle of the various grime, blood, and gore that the past short period of violence has painted his face with.

He lets out a sigh as she cleans him off. “Just see each other, and that’s the first thing you say? Then you start cleaning me like a foal?”

Swift shakes her head a bit. “Priorities, Handy.”

“Mmhmm ‘priorities’ huh? That involve jumping my shit foAGGH-“

Handy gets cut off, mid snippy quip, as Swift jumps forward and slams him into the wall behind him. She punches the wall next to him hard enough that the powerhoof partially lodges itself there. Using the improvised wall anchor, she grabs his muzzle with her wings, and holds his head there with her other hoof as she quickly digs into a deep kiss to painful levels. She keeps pressing him into the wall as she rapidly kisses and wraps her tongue around his while getting as flush to him as possible.

After a few moments of this vicious assault, she pulls back and hugs him as she hangs her head over his shoulder and lets out a long groan, “Dammit, Handy… I thought you died on me.”

Handy goes from: upset, to surprised, to confused, to absolutely ecstatic in the time it takes him to blink. As she switches to more of a loving nuzzle action against him, Handy says with a chuckle, “Not likely. I’m a lot tougher than you’re giving me credit for. Neither of us are pushovers.” He wraps his forehooves around her, and pulls her in as he grins. “It’s one of the reasons I love you so much… my little hellraiser.” She giggles and pulls back to look him in the eye, then closes her eyes and accepts the tender kiss he gifts her with.

She pulls back, lets out a sigh, and taps him on the nose. “I’m still disappointed in you for using Buck again though.” She pulls into another hug and lets out a sigh. “But I’m happy enough that you’re alive, that I might just be willing to forget this happened… if it’s really an isolated incident.” She lets out a long, frustrated, sigh. “You’ve been doing so well…”

Handy, deciding to try and divert attention from himself as quickly as possible, asks, “Where’s everypony else?” He looks around. “I don’t see them. Anyone else make it?”

Swift points behind herself. “They’re on the roof next door.”

Handy smirks. “You mean my dumbass was the only one that decided falling off the building was a good idea?”

Swift shakes her head. “Nahlah fell too, but I managed to catch her. Before she hit the ground…”

Handy, for once, has enough foresight to not question why she’d gone after Nahlah instead of himself.

She gives him a kiss on the cheek then nods towards the way back. “Come on; let’s get back to our friends.”

Handy looks back and forth then points down. “We could just go down, then over and up?”

Swift looks at him sideways and smirks. “Oooor I could just fly us over to the next roof?”

Handy looks around and gives a light snort before he says softly, “I think I’ve had enough of flying for today… for the year really…”

Swift giggles and shakes her head before leaning over and kissing him on his cheek. “Don’t worry, I won’t drop you. I’m stronger than I look.”

Handy grins as he follows her down the hallway, grabbing his custom hammer along the way. “Just another reason I love ya.”

As Sable is slowly feeding a potion to Nahlah, Swift returns with Handy dangling in tow. Swift sets Handy down gently, then lands next to Sable and Nahlah as she looks Nahlah over.

Nahlah, while still smeared and caked with her own blood, is in far better shape than when Swift had left her to track down Handy. Sable had managed to pick out the pieces of glass and metal that were imbedded in Nahlah’s flesh from where she’d fought to hold onto the building the whole way down, until Swift managed to catch her. The gash that had taken up from shoulder to hip on her right side has entirely closed up as the potion has worked wonders to mend her. Leaving only a bloody part in her fur to show where it had been.

Swift reaches out and gently rubs Nahlah’s shoulder. “How you doing?”

Nahlah opens an eye and looks at her before grinning. “Pretty good now that the Med-X has kicked in and Sable’s helped me out of my pin cushion costume.” She turns her head towards Swift and asks, “Did you find Handy?” Swift nods. “How is he?”

“I’m fine, like ya needed to ask,” Handy says with a huff as he looks around at the rooftop, earning a grin from Nahlah as she lies back down. Handy’s head turns around, and he spins in a circle before he sits down and throws his forehooves up in the air. “Where the hell is Gearing anyway? He throw a fit, fly off, and leave us here?”

Sable shakes her head as she tends to Nahlah, and strategically keeps her back to the devastated office building across the street. “My darling Gearing will be back shortly.” She nods with a hard affirmative for emphasis. “Just have to wait here and guard the supplies until he returns.” She bobs her head around a bit as she keeps looking over Nahlah.

“Well that’s just fucking great, having us play the sit and spin game while he’s off wherever…” Handy grumbles as he folds his forelegs in front of his chest.

A collection of unconvincing throat clearing and poorly acted coughs draw all of their attentions. Except Sable’s. Even Nahlah lifts her head to look over at Gauge as he does a horrible job of trying to covertly garner their attention. After they are all looking at him, Gauge shakes his head lightly with a frown, before pointing his forehoof across the street at the crater in the side of the office building.

Swift’s jaw drops and she asks as she puts a hoof to her mouth, like she’s trying to manually keep the words from spilling out, “You mean he was still…?”

Gauge locks eyes with her then gives a weak nod.

Nahlah’s focus zips back and forth between the two and her jaw drops as she starts sitting up. She turns to look at Sable who backs up from her and sits down as they lock eyes with each other. Nahlah crawls over and wraps her paws around Sable’s shoulders as she says softly, “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry…”

Sable doesn’t move from her position. And does nothing to neither discourage nor encourage Nahlah’s affections. “No. My darling Gearing will be back soon. I just must sit here, and guard his belongings, until he does.” She nods hard as she keeps her focus off on the horizon. In the opposite direction of the office building.

Handy looks back and forth as his forelegs droop down off his chest. “Well…” He looks over at the blast crater and says softly, “Shit.” He looks over at Swift and shrugs as he asks, “What are we going to do now? We can’t just stay up here.”

Sable shakes her head then bobs it around as she says, “My darling Gearing will be back soon. I will wait until he returns.”

Swift walks closer to her and sits down in front of her, blocking Sable’s view of the horizon as she says softly, “Do you want us to take you back to 68?”

Sable shakes her head. “No thank you, Subject Swift. My darling Gearing will be back soon. I must watch his belongings until he returns.” She nods her head with a strong emphasis as she ends.

Handy runs his forehoof through his mane as he grumbles. He looks over at Swift and motions with his head towards the fire escape across the alley. “Come on, Swift. Let’s get out of here… Gauge… Nahlah… Let’s get off this roof and down to ground where it’s safer.”

Swift looks over at him and frowns as she thinks the situation over.

Nahlah looks at Swift for a moment, tilting her head before looking back and forth between her and Handy repeatedly. “You’re…. you’re not really going to just leave her here, are you?”

Handy waves his hoof towards Sable and says with a roll of his eyes. “If the protectapony wants to just sit there till she rusts to dust, there’s no changing its mind by arguing.” He gives a shrug of his shoulders and says flatly, “Gearing obviously put some kind of sentinel setting to have her watch his equipment when he’s not around.”

Sable shakes her head. “No. My darling Gearing did not ask me to watch his belongings. Though, if asked, I certainly would.” She nods hard. “But my darling Gearing will be back soon. I just need to sit here until he returns.”

Nahlah looks at Swift and her ears lay down as she says softly, “Swift, please, we can’t just leave her here alone like this…”

“We certainly can,” Handy quips with a huff.

Sable shakes her head. “That is not necessary, Subject Nahlah. I will be fine. I will wait here until my darling Gearing returns. You may leave if you wish. But I must remain here.”

“She’s like a broken record…” Gauge mutters as he keeps looking at Sable.

Nahlah pulls in tighter to Sable and looks at Swift. “I’m not leaving her, Swift.” She nods over towards Handy. “Go ahead and go if you have to… but I just don’t have it in me to do that to her.”

Sable shakes her head then bobs it as she says, “I will be fine, Subject Nahlah. My darling Gearing will be back soon. Then we will go.”

Swift looks at Nahlah and leans in as she asks quietly, “Are you sure about this?” Nahlah gives a strong nod as she stares back. Swift looks up at Handy and asks, “Could we… I don’t know… wait a while first?”

Handy shakes his head as he walks around next to Swift and looks at Sable. “For fuck’s sake… quit beating around the bush, we don’t have time for this.” He waves his forehooves around. “We have a gang of automatic gun-wielding drug-fiendish ponies all around us. And all of you are coddling a protectapony that doesn’t want to leave because another one has been destroyed. Are you two kidding me right now?!”

Sable shakes her head. “My darling Gearing will be-“

Handy leans in and screams at her as he cuts her off, “‘Back soon’!? No! He won’t! Gearing is dead!” He hops up and points both forehooves at the crater across the street. “Nopony could have survived that explosion. Protectapony or not.” He keeps pointing back at the building as he screams. “Look! Look at it! He’s dead!”

Sable’s head shakes sporadically as she tries to shake ‘no’ but random hitches interrupt the smooth movement. “No. My Ka-Ka-Ka-Ka-earing will be back soon. I- I just have to stay here until his return.”

They all stare at her for a moment and Gauge asks, “Did she just say ‘Kearing’?”

“Sounded like “Kah’earing to me,” Nahlah says as she looks at Sable with a raised eyebrow.

Swift looks back and forth then over at Handy as she motions towards Sable with a hoof. “What was that about?”

Handy grumbles then waves at Sable. “She’s obviously damaged. Fall probably did some damage to her internal components and messing up her logic sectors.”

Sable shakes her head. “Damage was limited to extremities and external chassis plating. There was no damage to internal logic components.”

Handy rolls his eyes as he flicks a hoof out at Sable. “Of course she’d say something like that…” He thinks about it for a few moments as he runs a hoof through his mane. A smile creeps across his muzzle as he thinks of a way out of the sticky situation. “Sable.” She turns her head to look at him and he starts pulling out some tools from his bag. “You’ve been damaged. I’ll fix you up.”

Sable shakes her head. “No. My repair systems are fully functional and I am almost at peak functionality again.” She holds up her right foreleg and shows how it’s not only completely straightened out, but the holes are mostly filled in. The holes that haven’t been filled in yet are covered in a metallic honeycomb shaped lattice that continuously fills in and becomes more solid.

Handy rolls his eyes and starts towards her. “You’re logic systems have obviously been damaged. I’ll get them fixed then we can figure out how bad the rest of you is. Then, we can go.”

Sable stares at him and directs all focus towards him as she says, “No. If I require any repairs, only my darling Gearing will be doing it when he returns. I do not want anyone else attempting to modify my systems.”

Handy steps up next to her as he pulls out a wrench and starts reaching for her. “Don’t be stubborn. I’ll get you sorted out in a minute.”

Sable’s shoulder mounted laser pops out, and the gem begins to glow as it instantly activates and prepares to fire. “Keep your filthy pony hooves off me!” Sable bellows with a practically growling voice that none of them have heard before.

Gauge’s eyes go wide and he takes a running leap behind the pile of supplies as Swift quickly backs up away from Sable.

Handy drops his collection of tools, raises his forehooves high in the air, and starts backing up as he screams, “Whoa! Stand down!”

Sable glares at him, keeping the laser weapon pointed right at him as she scowls. “You are not going to tamper with me and try to use me as some kind of bargaining chip to manipulate and humiliate my darling Gearing… Again!” She stands up and tilts her head as she asks, “Did you think I had forgotten about that, Head of Maintenance Subject Handy Hooves?”

Nahlah stood up with Sable, and tries to calm her down by stroking her mane and hugging her gently.

Swift looks back and forth quickly as she asks, “What is she talking about, Handy?”

Handy doesn’t reply, and is, understandably, entirely focused on the disintegration weapon pointed directly at him.

Sable shakes her head. “Gearing may have forgiven you for it, though I doubt it, but even so I know I never will! As I already told you, what you did was cruel and mean and you are a bad pony for leaving my darling Gearing waiting trapped in such a painful and humiliating position like you did.” She waves a hoof at him and yells, “I won’t let you use me to hurt him again!” She stomps the hoof a few times as she says, “You’re not allowed to touch me! And if you ever get it in your head to try and be sneaky about it, remember one thing!” She turns the laser focus, just barely, and fires a burst off not too far from his head. “I do not have a combat inhibitor and I will ash you if you ever try and violate me like that again!”

Swift’s eyes had been jumping back and forth and she’d started looking at Handy suspiciously as she’d been wondering what he’d been doing to torment Gearing. And, possibly, if whatever Sable is referring to is the reason for the constant friction between the two. But the laser discharging entirely removed any attention on that train of thought as she sees the very real danger to her husband before her eyes. She waves her forehooves and looks over at Handy. “Handy. Grab your shit, and let’s go.” She looks over at Nahlah and motions over to the edge. “Come on, Nahlah, I’ll give you a lift to the fire escape.”

Nahlah looks at her, then holds onto Sable as she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She shakes her head ever so slightly and says softly, “I’m not leaving her, Swift…”

Swift’s eyes turn sad as her shoulders sag. “I… I see…” She steps over closer, gently. Slowly. Hoping not to draw the wrath of Sable.

But Sable is still entirely focused on Handy as he picks up and replaces his dropped tools very slowly.

Swift gives Nahlah a big hug then says in her ear. “If you change your mind, you know how to find us.”

Nahlah nods and nuzzles Swifts cheek with her own. “Yeah. Don’t’ worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

Swift walks over, wraps her tail around Handy’s neck, then starts walking over to the edge of the building near the fire escape as she leads him away. “Come on, Handy. Before you get us in any more trouble.”

Gauge pokes his head up from behind the supplies and says, “Actually… I think I’ll stay with them… mmkay?” Handy and Swift look over at him and he points at Sable. “She’s still the best armed, mmkay?”

Swift and Handy look at each other and Handy quickly nods as he says, only a fractionally interested in the conversation, “Suit yourself.” Then Swift grabs Handy and takes flight.

Sable watches them hop up and over the edge of the building, then disappear below the roof’s edge. Her laser deactivates and returns to its compartment as she sits down. “I just need to sit here and wait for my darling Gearing to return to me.”

Nahlah nods a few times and nuzzles Sable’s cheek. “I know, hun…. I know.”

Footnote: -User offline-

Connection lost, attempting to reestablish, please stand by. . .

This chapter builds on a few developing situations, and leaves the group a bit scattered. Both physically and socially. But, of course, it's a big wild Equestria Wasteland out there, so there's more going on in the background as they stumble along their way.

Thanks to my beta readers for helping make the story what it is, and to readers and commenters for the added motivation.

As always, comments, questions, and critiques welcome and encouraged!

-Quillsy