In the middle of the kitchen of their humble cloud home, Gearing sits with his head hanging back and to the side as he hears the mobile voice of his mother as she stomps through the house and berates him.

“You know how dangerous it is out there. For everypony in general. And especially for us! How could you just take off like that for so long without telling me!?”

Gearing rolls his head around and flops it over to rest on the table, made of cloud like pretty much everything else around him, as he replies evenly, “I had to go for the admission tests. I keep telling you that…”

“Uh huh… for Stable-Tec University, huh?” comes her voice from another room as she’s apparently walking around him by going from adjacent room to adjacent room.

“That’s what I saaaaid,” Gearing replies with an annoyed voice as he rolls his eyes. “That’s how University works… You have to take tests as part of the selection process.”

“And why didn’t I hear about it before you traipsed off in the middle of the night?” she asks from the room to his right.

Gearing rolls his head back and forth on the fluffy table as he says in an annoyed groaning voice, “Because the tests were early in the morning, it was a long way to go, and I didn’t need my mother embarrassing the hell out of me by chasing after all the young jocks exercising out in the track and field.”

“Ohhh I’m not that bad! It isn’t even that time of the year yet, you’d know that if you’d actually bother to-“

“MOM!” Gearing yells as he lifts his head and looks out of the kitchen into the room to his left. “I don’t wanna hear about that ceremony junk! I’m talking about school here. You know, stuff that ACTUALLY matters!”

A silver clockwork pegasus walks in through the door on the left as she regards him. Her golden mane made of many filaments glitters in the light, and matches her eyes, as she strolls right up to Gearing and looks down at him while he keeps his position at the table in the middle of the rarely used kitchen. She ruffles her wings in irritation, sending out sparkles of silvery white and pale yellow in a variety of directions before she says, “The ceremony is important, Gearing. I know you’re not all that interested in it now, but trust me…” She reaches over and ruffles his mane with her silvery wing as she practically giggles, “Once you get that stick out of your ass, and you drop those brass balls, you’ll be thinking entirely differently!”

Gearing lets out a groan and covers his face with his forehooves as he says, “See… it’s things like this that made me decide not to tell you until I knew for sure.” He looks up at her and frowns. “You’re always so damn embarrassing.”

She smiles at him and trails her caressing touch down to his shoulder where she gives him a loving pat. “You’ll understand better when you’re older… I promise.” She smirks at him as she shakes her head. “However, if you’ve already figured that part of life out… you know you don’t have to lie to me about running off to spend time with some filly right? No reason to come up with such ridiculous stuff.” She grins at him as she asks, “So when do I get to meet your little marefriend?”

The house chimes with the sound of the doorbell ringing and Gearing springs up, kicking his legs in midair as he squeals with delight, “Saved by the bell!” He starts bounding towards the front door as he yells, “I’ll get it, it’s probably more books for me anyway!”

“Yeah, yeah…” His mother waves a hoof dismissively as she starts rummaging through the kitchen cabinets, and pulling out a variety of fabric from where food stuffs would normally be found.

Gearing throws open the front door, and looks up at a gray pegasus delivery pony. They trail their eyes down to look at him, and the pair stare at each other for a few moments as they try to process exactly what to say.

Gearing, feeling a series of familiar and insulting questions coming on, narrows his eyes and asks sharply, “You got a package for us or you just darkening our clouds for some other reason?”

They shake their head, and look around at the nearly barren undeveloped section of cloud before he asks, “Umm, I have a certified delivery from Stable-Tec University…” He holds up a large envelope with one hoof as he looks at the clipboard in his wing. “For one… Gearing Greenwing?”

Gearing’s scowl slowly morphs into a smirk as he nods. “Yeah… I’m Gearing.” He waves his crystalline green wing at him as he chuckles. “I’ll sign for it… but, hold on a second…”

As the buck is trying to give Gearing the clipboard to sign, Gearing turns around and yells, “Mooooooom! It’s for yoouuuuu!”

His mother trots over quickly and peeks out at the grey buck on their doorstep as she asks, “What in the world?”

Gearing nods towards her as he grabs the clipboard and starts signing. “Hand it to her to open.” He looks up at them and grins as he asks, “Wanna see something funny?” They raise an eyebrow in response so Gearing nods towards his mom as he says, “Just wait a minute, this is gonna be good.” He hands the signed clipboard back and sits down primly as he looks up at his mother while she examines the oversized envelope.

She looks at him and waves the envelope as she looks back and forth. “This is addressed to you, not me.”

Gearing waves a forehoof towards her as he nods a solid single affirmative. “Oh, I know… open it… It’s more for you anyway.”

She raises an eyebrow and looks back and forth between the delivery buck and Gearing before using a wing tip and deftly slicing the envelope open. She pulls out the stack of papers and marketing material, and rummages through it a bit before she returns to the cover letter sitting on top. Her eyes continue to grow in size the further down she gets, and her lips start moving along as she’s reading, until she’s actually verbalizing and reading aloud what’s written.

“… and with the new semester starting soon, please find enclosed your orientation packet and pre-orientation to-do list. We look forward to seeing you soon. Once again, congratulations on your acceptance and welcome to Stable-Tec University!” she finishes with a near scream as her eyes bug out. She quickly rereads it over before she looks up at the buck that’d delivered it and asks, “Is… is this for real?”

The delivery pony shrugs and looks at the clipboard. “Well, given the lengths they’ve gone to confirm timely delivery, I’d think so.”

She slowly lowers the papers as she asks, in rapid succession as quickly as they pop into her head, “How? How’s this possible? How’d you get in? How are we even going to afford this?! How’d they even find out about you?”

Gearing raises a hoof to stop her, then leans up and closes her mouth for her with the same hoof before he says with a smirk, “I’m getting in on a scholarship.” He bobs his head around. “A combination of scholarship, and work study. I’ll be proving my worth while working off the course fees. All while learning. On the job training at it’s best. I’ve already proven how good I am, and how much I already know, and they’re interested in seeing what I can do.

He waves a hoof dismissively as he says, “And as far as how I actually got in, I heard about the tryouts through a few publications… and once there it was just a matter of crushing the tests, which I did…”

She looks back and forth with just her eyes before she asks softly, “So my baby’s really going to Stable-Tec U? So early?”

Gearing gives her a rather smug grin as he blows on his hoof, and proceeds to casually rub it on his chest. As he’s giving his hoof an unnecessary polish he says, “Face it, mom… Your son? He’s a genius…” He shrugs. “Your ‘baby’ is a genius and, just like you told me to do…” He steps out onto the porch, and spreads his wings, bending and focusing the late morning unfiltered direct sunlight onto himself, causing himself to shine and glow with a blinding light that makes the poor gray delivery buck step back and shield his own eyes with a wing as Gearing bellows, “I’m gonna outshine them all!” He pumps his forehooves in the air as he screams, “My future’s so bright, the rest of ya gonna need shades!”

His mother tosses the papers to the side in the house, haphazardly on a desk nearby, and leaps out the door towards him. She scoops him up with both her forelegs and wings as she nuzzles him and spins around quickly. “Ohhhhh I’m so proud of you!” She jumps and hops around on her hind legs as she looks over at the grey stallion. “You see this? You see him? My little baby’s a genius and he’s already gotten into Stable-Tec University! He’s gonna be all big and famous and I’m his MOMMA!” She swings around and shakes her flank at the delivery buck, showing off her mark of a mare cradling a bundled foal and gently nuzzling it.

The delivery buck smirks, but can’t help but noticing and giving a slight nod as he can see the correlation. A moment later she shakes her flanks a bit more and shimmies her shoulders. He looks up at her eyes while she’s giving him a coy grin as she says softly, “Well, aren’t you staring a bit longer than necessary…”

His eyes bug out and he starts stammering. She reaches over and puts a hoof to his lips as she giggles, “That’s okay… I don’t mind…”

Gearing pulls away from his mother’s grasp enough to look at the delivery buck and yell at him with his eyes open to their widest, “Fly, you fool, FLY! Save yourself while you can!”

The delivery buck stumbles backwards, turns, and jumps away, quickly diving down through the cloud just passed their porch and disappearing.

His mother frowns and lets out a sigh. “Awww… you spoil sport, he looked like he could be fun.”

Gearing goes limp as he hangs there in the grip of her forelegs. “Mom… you’re so embarrassing.”

She giggles and tosses him up in the air, before she turns around and trots back into the house as she says, “It’s a mother’s prerogative to embarrass their children… And now I gotta go through this paperwork and see what we need to buy to get ready for you to go!”

Gearing flips and fans out his wings as he glides around under his own power after she tossed him in the air and then slowly hovers up towards the roof of the house as he yells down at her, “Most of that’s taken care of, I just need to show up on time.”

“Well, I wanna read it all anyway! It’s not every day a mare’s baby gets into university so young!”

“Have fun with that!” Gearing yells in through a window before flying up and landing on the peak of the house. He stretches out along the crest of the cloud roof and smiles as he looks in the direction of Cloudsdale in the distance. After giggling incessantly for a few minutes he sits straight up and gives a salute in the direction of the ministry hub where he’s supposed to report to soon. As he’s breaking the salute he says quietly, “It’s time to be awesome!”

Having to worry about nopony but themselves, Swift and Handy made great time on the way to Megamart despite their respective loads. They could have made it the whole way before dawn, but they didn’t dare risk it. From a barely standing two story office building, on the other side of the highway and a distance away, they could make out a small army in front of the large square building. Even in the dark, and from this distance, they can make out all of the shapes moving about. Some mingling, others moving on to the roads in one direction or another along the respective highways. Traffic towards the Manehatten direction seems particularly heavy.

Given this is their first time here, and the number of unknown ponies between them and Megamart, they opted to stay in the office building until dawn so they can see who’s really out there. After all, if Megamart is currently under siege by that many raiders they would really not want to walk into the middle of that.

That was the argument that Handy had made anyway, as he pointed at an old calendar, two hundred years out of date, that, judging by the pile spilling out of a torn cardboard shipping box, doubled as advertisement for Tally’s Accounting Services, and joked that he’s sure Tally wouldn’t mind them resting there for a bit. But, given the long trip already, and the loads they were carrying, Swift had agreed.

What neither of them counted on was members of those unknown shambling masses around Megamart to not only find them, but take enough interest in them that they woke up in the corner of one of the offices at the cusp of dawn surrounded by a variety of firearms, all pointed at them.

Pistols. Hunting rifles. SMGs. Varmint rifles. Shotguns of various gauges, one of which looks like an early blunderbuss model. All politely give them their undivided attention with their ends pointed right at the pair. Some on battle saddles, others wielded individually.

Although, the stalemate seems to be just as tense for the nearly dozen ponies as it does for Swift and Handy, even though they have the unquestionable advantage with numbers, weaponry, and positioning.

Even among themselves, as they argue about what they should do with them.

“She’s traveling with a pegasus mare and a blue earth pony buck, right? That’s what they said, right?” a terracotta unicorn mare, with a varmint rifle held above her head in her magic’s glow, pointed right at Handy, demands of her cohorts.

“So they’ve said,” agrees a gray earth pony mare with a battle saddle, sporting duel hunting rifles, pointed at Swift. “But there’s been a lot of talk too.”

“The bounty’s for the PipBuck, and they’ve both got PipBucks!” retorts the terracotta mare. “This can’t just be a coincidence, she’s gotta be around here somewhere!”

“Well if she’s not here, she’s obviously gone. I wouldn’t have expected to find her this close to the mart if she’d made it out anyway. The bounty’s for her and her PipBuck, not her friends,” a pink stallion with a yellow mane says casually as he sways and motions with the end of his battle saddle’s barrels towards Megamart.

“If we got the drop on them, maybe she’ll come back for them when they don’t show up wherever she was supposed to meet them at? Or we could just hold onto them until she shows her face?” the terracotta mare suggests.

“Well, shoot, they got PipBucks, how about we just take one of them back and say we got her? One PipBuck’s as good as the next, ain’t it?” a green earth pony buck holding a double barrel shotgun towards Swift comments.

The pink stallion shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “Clay, that’s basically kidnapping and that can lead us down a road I really don’t want to tread on. Especially if they aren’t her friends. If they’re just innocent traders that was just taking a break before moving on, we’re not only wasting our time but theirs.” He shoots a scathing look at the green buck and adds, “And you, hay for brains, they want her because she’s pissed off Deus… And for that PipBuck. I bet you bits to bacon that it’s either a special PipBuck, or got something on it that they want… and if you try to pull that shit with a fake you’ll end up in pieces decorating the fence around Paradise.”

“Well, what were they doing sneaking around here in the middle of the night then!? If they were just going to trade with the Finders, they could have just walked right in. But they stayed here and spied on everyone from the second floor. They’re up to something!” the terracotta mare retorts as she looks at the pink stallion.

“We’ve traveled a long way, and decided to stay in here until morning when we saw the crowd outside. We didn’t know what was going on and didn’t want to end up in the middle of whatever it was,” Swift says as her eyes jump from barrel to barrel and pony to pony as she continuously sizes them all up and tries to figure out what to do.

“We weren’t sure if the group outside was raiders or what. So we were going to park it until we could see better and find out for ourselves… And given that you’re running around trying to kidnap and rob any ponies you find, seems we were right to be suspicious of the whole lot of you…” Handy adds sourly.

The terracotta mare glares over at him and scowls, obviously not liking the comparison, but, not having much else to say in her defense, snaps, “Oooooh, who asked you!?”

The pink stallion nods his chin over towards Handy as he looks at the terracotta mare and smirks. “You did, Clay. Buck’s gotta point…”

A loud metallic crunch, followed by glass breaking, as a metal storage box is buckled in and nearly flattened, with its contents smashed and shattering in the process, abruptly stops the conversation.

“There you guys are!” Gearing says cheerfully as he takes his forehoof off of the box and continues walking forward as if he didn’t even notice the catastrophic damage he’d just unleashed. “Thanks for waiting for me, but you guys could have went inside ya know?” He continues forward towards Swift as he looks around at the semi circle of armed ponies that are hedging Handy and Swift in. “Or is this some kind of staging ground before going in?” He leans towards the green buck as he’s getting even closer. “Sorry, I’m new to this whole area.” He looks over at the pink stallion and shakes his head. “I’ve had one long hellish night, I’ll tell ya that. I’m looking forward to offloading some of this crap.”

To drive his point home, he tilts to the side and drops the massive bundle from his back to the side next to him. Despite being carefully bound up, it sounds like a miniature avalanche as if an entire collection of shelves have been knocked over in an earthquake. And, just as noticeable, is the micro earth vibration that travels across the floor to everyone’s hooves, causing some dust and debris to fall down from the ceiling over head.

The bundle that he had been carrying looks like someone had taken a patchwork tent, made from whatever fabric they could find, then filled it up with enough random salvage that it would nearly bury a Brahmin. But that was just what was held on his back. On top of everything else. His cloak covers him entirely as he looks around from the cover of his cowl. But, under the cloak, it’s easy to see his other bags as they are still bulging out at the sides with their own burdens. And more than a couple weapons poke out and make their presence known as he casually flops down on his haunches and looks over at Swift.

“What the fuck are you doing here? The bounty’s ours, fuck off!” Clay says as she spins her rifle around and points it at Gearing’s head.

Gearing waves it away dismissively as he tilts his head in a different direction, blatantly giving her the broad side of his head, as he says, “That bounty nonsense? I don’t see why anyone would want to mess with that, it’s just a scam, I’m sure.” He points his hoof over toward Handy and adds, “I’m with them. We’re picking up some supplies… hopefully they have what we need.” He turns his head, and leans towards the terracotta mare a bit, pressing his cowl covered forehead against the end of the barrel as he keeps his face hidden and asks with a bit of annoyance in his voice, “Why, what’s it to you? We’re not cutting in line are we?”

“Gearing, I’m begging you here. I know you’re a master of getting under people’s skin, but this is not the time for that. I don’t wanna get shot today,” Handy comments with his eyes wide and a near whine in his voice as he stares flabbergasted at Gearing.

Swift smirks and adds, “Yeaaaah, might want to hold onto the ego a bit there, Gearing.”

Gearing waves a hoof towards the terracotta mare as he says, “All I did was ask a simple question…”

The pink stallion’s eyes trail over Gearing’s form, and a glint of gold catches his eye as he watches Gearing sling a rifle over his shoulder and practically ignore the terracotta mare’s threatening motions.

Clay pushes the barrel against Gearing’s forehead more, or tries to anyway, but it doesn’t go any further after a certain point. “Can you even see me? Do you even realize I have a gun pointed at your head?”

“You’re point?” Gearing asks flatly as he turns his head to look at her, and actually forces the rifle backwards as it was pressed to his head and her field isn’t strong enough to keep it in position.

“Gearing… come on…” Handy groans as he slaps a hoof over his face.

The pink stallion nods towards Gearing and asks, “Oh great… that your rifle?”

Gearing looks over and him and replies flatly, “Well, it ain’t Luna’s…”

He brushes his yellow mane back as he takes a long look at Gearing. “Ugh, yeah, it’s one of them…” He catches eye contact with the terracotta mare before he says evenly, “Look, Clay, don’t push it. I’d really rather not have a whole gang after us.” With a nod of his head towards Swift he asks Gearing, “You know these two?”

Gearing gives a slight nod. “Have for a few weeks.” He points a hoof over to Swift and says, “That’s the Reaper, Iron Hoof Swift. She won her place in the Reapers at the Freight Car’s Gauntlet. The killjoy buck next to her is her husband, Handy Hooves. They’re on the way to the arena after we do some trading at Megamart and offload some shit.” He waves vaguely in the direction where he’s sure the big pre-war dome still stands.

The green buck’s eyes bug out as he yells, “Reaper!?”

Gearing gives a slight nod again. “Yeah… speaking of which…” He looks over at Swift. “I think I get the jist of the situation… and, really, from the bottom of my heart,” he puts a hoof to his chest and gives a slight bow, “thanks for not just killing all of them… seriously.” He looks over at the pink stallion and pats on the large bundle that’d caused a micro earthquake not too long ago. “I’m already carrying so much shit already. I really don’t want to deal with any more. So please don’t piss her off… she has a habit of making brain omelets when she’s annoyed.”

Swift gives a slight smirk, tilts her head and demurely puts a hoof to her chest as she closes her eyes and says softly, “I prefer the term jam.”

Gearing snorts and replies, “Why, because you like ‘jamming’ their head through a solid brick wall?”

She opens an eye and looks at him as her smirk gets just a bit bigger, “Oh, like you’re the one to talk. At least I stop once I’m through their head.” She waves a hoof at him weakly. “You put your hoof through that train car too; I’m surprised they didn’t make you pay for repairs.”

The nearly dozen ponies shift about nervously as they look back and forth between them. A pair closer to the side door actually back away slowly a few steps as Gearing looks at the pink stallion and comments, “To be fair, given how hard headed he was I’d thought it’d take a bit more oomph, so she’s not wrong.”

The pink stallion looks over at Clay and shakes his head as he steps sideways, putting a bit of distance between him, Swift, and Gearing. “Clay, I’m not getting into this. Reapers? Gangers? That’s way too much to handle.”

The terracotta mare shakes her head. “They’re bluffing! I’ve never heard of an ‘Iron Hoof’ Swift Reaper!” She looks over at the pink stallion and repeats, “It can’t be a coincidence that a pegasus mare and a blue buck, this close to Megamart, have PipBucks.” She glares over at Gearing as she grumbles, “I’m not leaving here empty hoofed.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m a pegasus with a PipBuck too, so there’s two sitting right in front of you.” Gearing lifts his left wing just a bit, enough to make the cloak slide over and make his wing known as he waves it at her from under the cloak but takes care he doesn’t move the cloak too much and end up revealing his body. Then he folds it back and does the same with the other side. He waves a hoof at her as he says, “And if you’re after that bounty… it’s on a unicorn… not a pegasus or earth pony… and the only horn heads around here are in your group.” He points a hoof at the terracotta mare as he finishes with a scathing tone.

He leans towards her as his tone takes on a flat and nearly uninterested vibe to it. But, given the situation, it practically makes everyone’s mane crawl. Even Swift’s and Handy’s. “And before you try anything stupid, the last time someone tried to steal a PipBuck from me, it didn’t end well for them.”

“Uh… G- Gearing… remember what I’d asked earlier? Please?” Handy asks politely with a nervous chuckle as he looks around quickly.

Swift grins widely, and pounds her powerhoof into the ground. “Just say when, Gearing.”

The green buck steadily backs away, even pointing his shotgun in a decidedly different direction, as he says, “Clay, we really oughta think this over.”

The terracotta mare shakes her head as she steps closer to Gearing. “It’s a fucking bluff, I can’t believe you guys are falling for this.” She glares at Gearing. “And you, Mister Mysterious Pony wanna be, acting all big and tough, I’m tired of your vague threats from behind the cover of your cloak!” She uses the tip of the rifle and lifts the cowl as she gets closer to stare at him in the actual eyes. “Let’s see how brave you are when you’re revealed in the harsh light of da- Sweet Celestia, what the fuck is up with your face?!” She screeches and jumps back and away from him as the cowl falls back down, having only lifted it up enough to catch eye contact and see just a peek of his left profile.

“But- wha- What’s going on?!” she asks as she steps back flabbergasted and staring at the cowl before she starts looking at the others with her hoof waving frantically at Gearing.

Swift looks at her, then at Gearing, before her posture softens as she asks with a sigh, “Gearing, did you get another office complex dropped on your head?”

Handy looks him over as he asks, “That why you’re not flying? Need to get patched up again?”

Gearing shakes his head. “Nah, I’m good. Haven’t had that happen since the day before yesterday.”

The terracotta mare asks with a shaky voice, “He had a building dropped on his head the other day, and he’s still walking around?”

Handy nods as he points at him with a hoof. “He’s got one hell of a hard head, I’ll tell ya.”

Gearing rolls his head on his shoulder, giving a great indication of the massive eye roll he’s unleashing behind the cowl, as he says, “It wasn’t the whole building, just the eleventh floor-“

“Well, half of it anyway,” Handy and Swift chime in and repeat simultaneously in harmony with Gearing.

Gearing looks over at Swift and asks, “So you figure out when Megamart opens yet?”

“Nope, haven’t gotten that far,” Swift replies.

“You want to head over there now?” Gearing asks.

“Hey,” the terracotta mare says weakly.

“Sure, let me get dressed and pack up our stuff and I’ll be ready to go,” Swift says with a smile.

“…heeeey,” the terracotta mare says again as she waves a hoof at Swift.

Gearing nods as he looks down at the giant tent turned saddle bag laying next to him. “Yeah, it’s going to take me a minute to get this stacked properly and back on my back again. So no rush.”

“Hey!” the terracotta mare finally screams as she waves a forehoof and her rifle around randomly. “I’m still here, you know!”

Gearing looks over at her and nods. “Oh. Yes. You… how rude of me… sorry.” He waves a hoof dismissively in her direction, shooing her away, and says with the same condescending tone of a Canterlot noble, “You may go now.”

“Hang on a second here, what the hell just happened?!” she asks as she looks around at the others that have made a good show of moving back and carefully getting in position to quickly leave out of the various doors.

She jumps and spins her rifle around, pointing it right in the face of the pink stallion as he rests his forehoof on her shoulder. “Come on, Clay. It’s over. These aren’t the folks we’re after… we’ve already wasted enough of everypony’s time and…” he looks over at Gearing and notices that Gearing is paying careful attention to him, with his head tilted just enough to glare out at them from the darkness of his cowl. “And we don’t want their kind of trouble anyway.”

She looks at him and shakes her head as she stutters, “We… we need that money! I can’t just give up, not when we’re this close! No! I won’t let us fail like this!” She spins around with her rifle and points it back at Gearing’s head.

A bunch of guns spin around as many voices shout out simultaneously.

“Whoa!”

“Hey!”

“The hell!?”

“Stop!”

The terracotta mare crosses her eyes and looks up as she sees the end of a barrel pointed right at her head. Close enough that it’s disappeared in the bangs of her mane over her eyes. She looks down the length into Gearings eyes as he’d whipped out the rifle and pointed it at her with such speed that the little golden charm of a broken heart continues swaying in front of her eyes. She has her own gun pointed at, and pressing into, the area of Gearing’s temple as she stutters, “I… I have a gun to your head.”

“Your point?” Gearing asks flatly.

“I’ll do it!” she insists, though her knees begin visibly shaking as the rifle barrel end at her brow hasn’t wavered a millimeter.

“You’ll try. But, if you succeed, we’ll just go together… I’ll let you choose.” Gearing replies as he stares at her from under his cowl that’s been lifted just enough to look her in the eyes.

She stares into the slight reflections of light visible under the cowl, like glinting stars looking back at her as she says weakly, “I... I mean it.”

“Me too.”

The pink stallion gently reaches over and starts pushing the end of the barrel of the rifle up and away from Gearing’s head, very slowly and with Gearing not visibly reacting in the slightest, as he says, “Easy there, Clay. When it comes to death games, those Halfhearts never bluff.”

She looks at him and says quietly with a choke, “I can’t fail, Taf…”

“We all fail, eventually,” Gearing murmurs and draws a look from both Swift and Clay.

Clay closes her eyes and the glow encompassing her rifle dissipates as the pink stallion grabs it with his fetlock and pulls it away. Gearing casually pulls his rifle back and rests against it with the stock on the ground as the pink stallion guides Clay around and out of the room.

After they cross the threshold, and being the last holdouts of their group, Gearing looks at Swift and Handy as he comments, “I knew it… That bounty’s got a bunch of trigger happy dumb asses swarming all over the whole place. This isn’t going to end well for a lot of ponies.”

Handy shakes his head and looks Gearing over as he asks with a raised eyebrow, and slightly raised tone of voice, “I thought you were going to watch them get to the stable? Why are you here?!”

Gearing exchanges glances with Swift, who slaps a hoof over her eyes and groans, before he replies evenly, “Handy, they didn’t need my help… Whatever song they used on me? Yeah… Well, they got another one. And apparently it makes everyone and everything run from them in terror just being able to hear it… Creature or pony… radroaches… raiders… doesn’t matter. They all run for the hills in as quick and straight of a line as they possibly can.”

Swift pauses getting her saddle bags on as she looks at Gearing. “Raiders? You saw raiders on the road?”

Gearing nods and tilts his head back to allow his grinning muzzle to poke out from under the cowl at her. “Yup!” He starts rummaging through his saddle bag under his cloak. “Anyone hungry? I got Sugar Apple Bombs, some cans of corn… A few of these cans I don’t know what’s in them since the label’s gone, but they still slosh around, and not distended, so they should still be good to eat.” He holds a label-less can up and gives it a shake as he grins. “Just think of it as a chow mystery grab bag!”

He starts pulling out and piling up various items from his saddle bag and Handy eventually waves a hoof to get his attention as he asks, “Why are you bringing all this out? I thought you don’t even eat? Why’d you bring it with you?”

Gearing looks up at him and tilts his head as he pauses fiddling with his bag. “I… didn’t… the raiders had it.” There’s a long pause of silence between them as they stare at each other in mutual confusion.

Tick. Tick. CLICK.

Gearing’s ears perk up, the action noticeable even under the cowl, before he continues, “Oh! You mean you thought…?” He starts giggling. “You’d think I’d actually let ponies like that live?!” He waves a hoof at him weakly. “Oh, you are funny, aren’t you?” He starts stacking up the cans in front of himself as he looks them over while he’s trying to keep it all organized the best he can. “Nope. They’re radroach food.” He raises his head up from staring at the cans and catches Handy’s deep stare before he lays his ears back and grumbles, “Do not tell me you expect me to go back and bury those pieces of trash?” He shakes his head violently. “I’m not doing it.”

The silence returns as Handy’s trying to process the situation and Gearing’s awaiting some kind of reply. After nothing starts filling the air for a while, Gearing volunteers, “What? You guys weren’t even expecting me back for a while yet, so I decided to get rid of a problem I found along the way before someone else became their next victims…” He looks over at Handy and asks with a deep frown, and rather quietly, “Or should I have asked for permission about this too?”

Handy is about to say something, practically out of reflex, but clamps his mouth shut for a moment, then sighs and says, “No. Raiders are always a problem. Good job on taking them out. Glad to have you back.” He gives Gearing a gentle pat on the shoulder and walks off to check out a pile of debris on the other side of the room.

Gearing watches Handy closely, especially his hoof, both of them actually, as Handy taps him on the shoulder. After Handy’s withdrawn he pushes the cowl back, and clear of his face, as he looks at Handy with a raised eyebrow. The action distorting the golden spiderweb-like pattern covering the left side of his face and ear. Though the cracks in his dark facade seem to be getting bigger since the last time Swift saw them, with the lines spreading further, and other parts seem to be lightening up as if they’ve been exposed to a lot of wear and friction.

Swift leans towards him and offers quietly, “I’ve asked him to try and remember you’re a person, not some machine to be ordered around.”

Gearing glances at her sideways, then nods. He looks over at Handy and yells, “Hey, Handy!” Handy turns to look at him and raises an eyebrow in return. Gearing tosses him a can and grins as he arcs it. “Peaches. Only can they had. Enjoy!”

Handy’s eyes go wide and he zips back and forth as he gets under the can and catches it in a cradling action. After grabbing it and rubbing a bit of grime from the torn label his eyes somehow get even wider. “I love peaches!” He looks up at Gearing with a near twinkle in his eye as he yells, “Thanks, Gearing!”

Gearing nods his head as he grins and continues going about sorting the other supplies. He holds up an elongated can as he says, “I’ll save these sardines for Nahlah, I don’t know anyone else that’d enjoy them more… and given what she’s been through lately she deserves something nice.”

Swift grins at him and nods towards it as she says, “Better be careful with those surprise gifts, Sable might start thinking something’s up.”

Gearing rolls his eyes as he starts fiddling in his bag again. “Sable knows I’m not going to run around on her. Not interested in that.”

Swift leans over and whispers at him conspiratorially, “You? Maybe not… Nahlah might just love the excuse though.”

Handy lets out a loud groan as he’s opening up the can at his hooves. He shakes his head as he grabs the can and wanders off up the stairs to enjoy the rare snack while getting a day lit look at what’s actually between them and Megamart: a perfect place for him to be away from wherever this ridiculous conversation is heading.

Gearing’s ears jump up and his eyes go wide as he actually thinks that line of thought through. He looks over at her and sees her scrunching her mouth up and trying not to laugh before he lowers his ears and asks, “You’re just fucking with me?”

Swift snickers and waves a hoof at him. “No, that’s Sable’s area of expertise… I’m just messing with you.” She snickers again, even louder at his eye rolling response, and then asks as she watches him carefully pull a package out of the edge of his saddle bag. “What ya got there?”

Gearing shrugs and starts carefully moving around a few wires that are trailing around the edge of it. “A shaped charge. I had it primed to go off away from me incase they proved to be unreasonable.”

Her eyes go wide as she asks in a loud whisper. “You had an explosive in your bag and were going to blow yourself up if they started fighting?!”

Gearing shakes his head. “No… I had two.” He pulls an identical one out of his other side’s bag and carefully resets it before laying it on the ground. “And I wouldn’t have blown up. The blasts would have been focused outwards… along my sides, with me in the middle.” He looks at her and sees the horror on her face. “Typically a pony would have their insides pretty much liquefied being this close to the detonation, even with the actual blast being directed away. Concussive force alone can be lethal.” He waves a hoof around nonchalantly. “Equal and opposite reaction and all that… especially with one on each side… But,” He raises a wingtip for emphasis as he smirks, “I don’t have any squishy vitals… Don’t get me wrong, it’d hurt like hell, but all of the shrapnel would have effectively killed anyone in a cone roughly eighty degrees wide within twenty meters. But, potentially lethal out to one hundred meters… Being inside of a building would have limited any possible collateral damage to ricochets bouncing back and hitting one of us. So the risks were minimal.” They stare at each other for a few moments in silence before he says, “That’s why I kept my front facing you, and stood in the middle of them…”

She looks him over, and then down at the explosives at their hooves as she asks, “Why would you do something like that? Be willing to kill so many so readily?”

Gearing shakes his head. “It was just a contingency plan. I really hoped, and am happy beyond belief, that I didn’t have to do it… But greed has cost millions of lives already. My goal was to convince them to move on… but I had to be ready incase their greed got the better of them.” He shakes his head. “The lives of ten greedy ponies, who were so blinded by gold lust that they’d intentionally kill uninvolved parties… verses two uninvolved parties… the math was pretty clear… and that was before adding in I actually knew the two involved.”

Yeah, greedy fucks aren’t worth the lead it takes to drop them, like this bitch right here, the little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head comments as he flutters and flies around a comically fat yellow mare in Gearing’s headspace. The mental image Gearing has of Charity warps and moves around as he tries to picture exactly who this foal exploiting loan shark is. Being absurdly fat may make sense, but probably isn’t as likely. Her gut zips in and out rapidly as it goes from so big that it drags on the ground, to up to normal nearly fit sized. But, the shrink in gut accompanies a few facial scars as the face morphs from one raider or bandit he’s recently met to another. Because maybe she’s of the ‘might makes right’ mentality, and, like No-Shoes, will learn sooner than later what happens when Gearing finds out someone’s a threat to foals.

The mental image of her shifts to being decorated in a variety of gems and jewels, that continues growing in number comically until there would be no way she’d be able to still stand under so much gold if it were true. Then all of the jewelry disappears as the necklaces and adornments take on the shapes of literal gold bits.

That’s not right either… here…, the little blue pegasus offers before flying over and jack-slapping the mental image of Charity with a hoof repeatedly at high speed, sending gold and jewels flying in every which way before he steps back. All of the jewelry has switched to being made of bottle caps. Connected in such a way that she looks like she’s wearing an armor suit or cap dress. Don’t forget they’re using this trash as money now…

The little blue pegasus hops around with a giant grin as it blurts out an idea, Hey! Let’s go find one of the bottling plants… if we find one of the stamping machines, we can just stamp out a few thousand… or hundred thousand of the Sparkle Cola caps… Then we can CRUSH THE BITCH with her own avarice! He lifts his hooves high in the world, grabbing a giant metal crate that says ‘Sparkle Cola’ on the side before slamming it down on top of the image of Charity, causing a giant yellow explosion to splat out under it like a packet of mustard that’s been stepped on. Would serve her right!

It’s not a bad idea, would be an amusing poetic justice, but there’s no time for all of that. Not with everything else that needs to be done… Business before pleasure…

The little blue pegasus in his head gives a snap and folds its forelegs grumpily as he mutters, Ahh nuts…

Don’t worry, she’ll die…

She better after what she’s done…

In the real world, outside of his own headspace, Gearing takes in a deep breath and lets it out in a sigh before he smiles at Swift with a warm, beaming, toothy grin. “I’m glad I could convince them to do the right thing without anypony getting hurt.”

She looks him over for a moment before she asks, “And her gun to your head? What’d the math say about that? All part of your scheming?”

He shakes his head and waves a hoof away dismissively. “Judging by the rifle she was using, it wasn’t likely to cause me much harm. Not with a single shot. Even at point blank. The odds of her having access to kinetic rounds, ‘Dragon Slayers’, or other types of high impact rounds that would have worked with that gun were slim to none. Their equipment, especially armor, should have been leagues better quality if they had the kind of resources required to have access to that kind of ammunition.”

Swift blinks a few times rapidly then shakes her head. “But what if she did have the right ammo? She might not have the resources, but if she found that ammo somewhere and just happened to have it on her? You can’t rule out the pony factor.” She waves her hoof towards his head as she actually frowns. “And what if she fired more than once? Did you even think about that?”

Gearing tilts his head and gives a slight nod. “If she knew what those rounds were, she wouldn’t have had them loaded to deal with typical pony targets. They are too valuable. If she didn’t know, then that would be dumb luck… still, given positioning it’d take more then one round-”

“And what if she fired twice?! Or however many rounds it’d take to get through that hard head of yours?” Swift interrupts as her voice seems to be edging towards panic at how he seems so nonchalant about the whole thing.

Gearing shrugs. “She couldn’t have fired twice… Because if she fired, I would have fired simultaneously. And, regardless of what might have happened to me, she would have been dead before she hit the ground.” He waves a hoof towards the ground. “Simultaneously, I would have detonated my shaped charges, removing most if not all of the remaining opposition.” He points at his own head. “In the unlikely event that I was killed, the charges would have detonated via an interface with my PipBuck triggered by the death alert… If I was simply incapacitated, I could still detonate the charges via my SATS system… In either event, you and Handy would be free to engage, mop up the remaining, and begin giving me medical treatment. After you treated yourself for ear drum damage from the sound of the blast, that is.” He grins at her as he says, “In any way things would have turned out, I would have won…”

Gearing waves a wingtip around in a loop as he says, “With a normal round from her rifle I had around an eighty-nine point seven percent chance of simply getting injured, and not even severely, nor enough to remove me from the fight, nor keep me from detonating the charges…” He nods with a hard affirmative as he finishes, “Worst case scenario was her having a Dragon Slayer in the chamber, shooting me in the head just right, and dropping me… resulting in the chain of events I already said would happen… The chance of it actually being fatal for me, even with that worst case coming true, was roughly two point three.”

Swift’s jaw drops as her eyes bug out. “You had a two percent chance of dying and you still strolled in like you owned the place?!”

Gearing nods. “It was within acceptable risk parameters.”

Swift shakes her head. “How do you even figure that out? How does that even compute?!”

Gearing grins widely and pulls out a piece of packing paper from a wad he has in his bag and then starts writing on it as he says, “Oh! The math’s pretty easy. Here, let me show you.”

Swift slaps a hoof over her eyes as she groans. “Gearing… we don’t have time for you to sit here and write out whatever form of statistical calculus wizardry you’re going to pull out from under your tail… let alone the time it’d take for you to explain it to me…”

Gearing waves a wingtip at her dismissively as he says, “This won’t take long, really.”

“Gearing, we don’t-” Swift starts before she’s interrupted.

“Done! Here ya go.” Gearing sets the piece of paper on the ground near her hoof as he cuts her off.

She looks down and picks it up with a wing looking at it side to side, then rotating it over as she realizes the weird long lines aren’t individual calculations, but instead rather large letters. Though they are written in a way that it takes holding it at a steep angle to read it clearly.

She lowers the paper as she narrows her eyes at him. “Really, Gearing?”

Gearing grins widely at her then shrugs. “The only surprising part of that should be you not seeing that coming already…” She scowls even harder at him. But, in return, he stretches out a forehoof and pats her shoulder. “I already told you once… you’re worth protecting. Worth the risk of dying for if necessary.” He pulls back and shrugs as he waves it away dismissively. “How’d you forget that already?”

Swift’s eyes go wide and she flushes lightly as she stares him in his eyes. A few seconds later she shakes her head and turns to look in another direction as she starts getting up and raises her head high in the air as she says, “That’s it… I’m telling Sable…”

Gearing raises an eyebrow as he asks, “Telling her what?”

“That you’re an insufferable flirt.”

Gearing waves a hoof around as he taps his chin with a wingtip and comments, “I wonder why I keep hearing everypony say that?”

“Probably ‘cuz it’s true,” Swift quips as she looks over her shoulder at him with a grin.

Gearing snickers as he looks over at Swift and waves a hoof around at the bounty before him. “Anything you’d like before I stow it?”

She smiles and shakes her head lightly as she’s walking towards the stairwell up. “No thanks. Save it for later. The kids will enjoy it when we get back.”

He bobs his head around then nods. “Sure.” As he’s shoving everything back into his saddle bags, and loading himself back up while keeping an eye on the exits, Swift calls Handy down from upstairs to join them so they can go. When Handy walks back into the room, Gearing asks, “So, we’re going straight there or going to skirt around the mob? Want to give me a bit of direction and I’ll do some more forward scouting?”

Handy looks over at him as he’s slowly pouring and tapping one piece of peach after another into his mouth. Savoring each and every piece before even thinking about getting another. He munches up the savory syrupy goodness before he says, “Well… That’s what you seem to be good at. We’re headed that way. I haven’t been there myself yet, so I’m not sure of the best route.” He points with the same hoof holding the can through the buildings where he knows Megamart sits with a camp of countless bounty hunters in front of it.

Gearing looks that way, then starts trotting off through the rear door as he says, “Guess we’ll just try the straight route this time then… I’ll stay in touch. If you change direction or run into trouble, let me know, and I’ll adjust as needed or meet up with you again.” As he’s walking through the back office storage room that leads to the rear exit he flips his cloak’s hood on before he turns the corner and vanishes from sight.

Swift walks over to Handy and can’t help but smile as Handy’s trying to fish out a few stubborn pieces from the can with his tongue while trying to not cut himself on the can. “See… he’s not such a bad buck. He got you peaches!”

Handy looks at the can as he pulls it back and wonders aloud, “How’d he know I liked peaches?”

Swift sits down next to him and shrugs. “Well, he asked… so.”

Handy’s eyes jump to their widest and he leans towards her as he stammers, “You- you don’t think they’re p-poisoned, do you!?”

She reaches over and lightly bops him on the head. “No, idiot. First, how would he close the can back up? Secondly…” her voice drops as she looks around and says with a sigh, “If he wanted you dead he could put a round through your head and you’d be dead before any of us heard the shot.”

Handy huffs and goes back to eating the last holdouts of peaches. “You say that like he’s some kind of super soldier badass… He’s just a technician for Stable-Tec.”

Swift looks at him sideways then leans towards him as she asks, “I’ve seen him shoot, into a melee, and only hit his targets…” She reaches over and gently taps the back side of the can, causing the rest of the peaches to slide out into Handy’s mouth. “Tell me… just how many raiders you think he had to kill to get those peaches for you?”

Handy looks at her and shrugs as he chews. “Two? Three?”

Swift waves over towards where Gearing had been sitting. “With that pile he brought back? Unless they just happened to hit a merchant caravan, I highly doubt it was that few.”

Handy rolls his eyes. “Then, what?”

Swift sighs and reminds Handy, “Are you forgetting what he did to those Gunners? To No-Shoes? He’s ruthless when it calls for it. And always efficient. And, you, Mister Hooves, really should stop antagonizing him. He’s a good one. Give him the chance he deserves.”

Handy scowls at her and lowers the can as he says with a grumble, “I’m trying, alright? But I don’t see why you keep defending him. What’s going on here?”

Swift leans over and runs a hoof along his cheek as she says softly, “He gave me my husband back. He made sure I wasn’t going to be a widow and our children would still have a father.” She leans over and gives him a kiss, and ends up licking his lips free of the peach syrup that still clung there. She partially closes her eyes as she looks into his. “And that’s to say nothing of defending and fixing the stable.” She gives his neck a light massage with a fetlock as she says ever so softly, “And the only thing… the only thing he’s asked for in return… is a little civility. To be treated with the same respect and consideration of anypony else. That’s not too much to ask for, is it?”

Handy lets out a sigh and looks around. He’s not enthused with her so blatantly taking Gearing’s side in this. Whatever happened to love, honor, and OBEY? pops into his head for a moment in frustration. But, she does have a bit of a point in his opinion. While he’d previously felt having the mindset of ‘just give Gearing what he wants and nopony gets hurt’ seemed a bit extortiony. Thinking about it in the other way, of Gearing wanting some basic level of consideration, and some damn respect. Well, he can completely understand that. Especially given how he’s been feeling so disrespected recently. He puts his hooves up slightly and admits, “You got a point.” He stands up and kicks the can off into a rubble pile and out of sight. “Speaking of which, we shouldn’t fall too far behind. He’s got a pretty good lead, so that should give us some fair warning of attack or more over ambitious bounty hunters.”

Swift stands up and grins at him. “Seeee. He’s helpful.” She leans over and gives him a lick on the cheek. “You got some peach on you.”

He looks at her sideways. “Oooh?” He grins and starts turning his head around in various directions while looking at her. “Anywhere else?” Swift giggles and gives him a few kisses and licks on various parts of his cheek and neck. After this continues for a few moments longer, Handy asks softly, “Should we uh… let him know we’re going to be late?”

She rolls her eyes and gives him one more neck kiss before grabbing the rest of her bags and heading out of the accounting office. They meander through the wreckage of buildings and wagons as they make their way back to the main road. They know they have a vanguard, and possibly an eye in the sky keeping watch over them and the surrounding areas, but they still remain wary as they go. They’d already been caught unawares once that day and don’t intend on letting it happen again. They don’t speak a whole lot as they don’t want to draw any more unwanted attention to themselves.

Nearing the end of a small cluster of collapsed buildings, Gearing partially lands on top of a skywagon wreck, just enough to cut some speed from coming down an embankment of rubble, before bounding off of it near them at a trot. As he’s shaking his wings, and folding them near himself again after adjusting the balance of the load on his back, he points further up the path towards the road. “There’s Megamart, looks like it’s practically some kind of town now. The area between here and there’s not exactly empty if we take the road. But everypony seems to be more interested in their own affairs than each other. Probably too much activity for a random ambush now as well. The camp of bounty hunters seems to be being kept at bay by some guardsponys at the front gate. Short of another group of idiots picking random ponies as The One They’re After I don’t see any troubles getting there, so that part should be fine.”

They step out of the relative cover of the rubble and onto the main road, instantly turning and making a straight line for the front gate of Megamart.

Though, as the others are keeping a wary eye on the mob of bounty hunters and other wastelanders that are traveling the same roads, Gearing’s attention is on their destination. He’s pretty sure he’s been to this store before. Back when it was known for its deals on consumer delights and long checkout lines. Unlike now. Where he’s pretty sure it would be known pretty well for the large defensive turrets sitting on each of its four corners. Despite the widespread defensive capabilities covering Equestria during the war, and especially Hoofington, these are definitely new additions since his last time here. At least to him. Though it has been over two hundred years he reminds himself.

He’s not sure of the exact model or schematics of the four cannons. But, judging by the bore of their barrels, they are fully capable of presenting a very lethal problem to him. He’d rather have that terracotta mare’s gun pointed at him point blank again, than have one of these four cannons so much as look in his general direction. And each time they’ve swept in Gearing’s direction he’s tensed and got ready to jump if he saw a muzzle flash, but, each time, they simply swung back the other direction as they kept an ever watchful eye out for trouble on their master’s behalf.

Whoever that is.

As if that wasn’t deterrent enough for most of the denizens of the wastes, the entire building seems to be surrounded by piled corpses of wagons, cart husks, and other large pieces of industrial rubble. By their collective depressing might, they formed a levee circumventing the large square building, protecting it from any potential flood of raiders. With apparently a solitary entrance in the form of a gate built into it, before you even got to the actual front doors of the old shopping center.

Though the old shopping center still bears its old neon lights. Sure, they blink and look like they had seen better centuries as they flicker so regularly. But they still did their job, marking the building as Megamart.

The red paint brushed just below the blinking lights declaring ‘Finders Keepers’ is another new-ish addition that Gearing notes. Whether the moniker in red paint is their official economic policy regarding salvage, or if it’s the name of an individual, Gearing can’t tell. The only pony he really is expecting to be here is a mare named Bottlecap.

A dozen, maybe more, ponies at the gate keep watch of everyone moving around the gate. The traffic in and out seems to be annoying everyone, guard and patron alike, as Swift leads the way up to the front gate and joins the line to get in next to Handy as Gearing brings up the rear.

A green unicorn mare waves them over to her side of the guard formation as she yells, “Hey, you two. Come on over here and we’ll get you in quicker…” As Swift and Handy are walking in her direction she adds, “Don’t recognize you, so in case you didn’t know there’s an entrance fee to get in… five per head and ten for your Bessy.” She finishes with a nod behind them towards the mobile cloth mountain poking out behind them.

“An entrance fee?” Handy asks with his typical level of distrust and skepticism.

“Another place charging just to get in?!” Swift asks with her eyes widening.

“I ain’t no damn Bessy!” Gearing bellows. Swift and Handy step to the side, revealing Gearing standing behind them under the giant load he’s carrying. “I’m not that damn fat!” Swift and Handy stare at him, and Swift starts smirking as she starts having a hard time not saying something she finds incredibly funny at the moment. Gearing, feeling the jokes coming and wanting to cut some of the steam from them yells out, “Okay, I am that heavy! But no reason to be calling me a fat cow!”

Another guard next to the green one asks absolutely astounded, “Buck, how are you carrying that much?! Look like a damn Brahmin under all of that!”

Gearing chuckles as he waves a hoof. “Well I got a strong back… and I know how to pack gear for the long haul.”

Swift snickers but turns towards the green unicorn mare with the interesting patterns across her hide. “Still… that’s like fifteen caps… don’t you think-”

“Oh hell no!” Gearing interrupts as he pushes his way forward and puts a hoof in Swift’s face. “You’re bad at math! We’re not doing more work just to get into the place. If you wanna work it off, pay to get in, then get the work inside. You’ll be much further ahead!”

Swift puffs out her lower lip as she looks off to the side and practically pouts, “What’s the fun in that?”

Gearing looks over at the mottle green unicorn and asks, “Fifteen caps for all three of us, right?” She nods. “Fuck it, I’ll pay for it! I wanna get out from under this shit!” He rummages under his cloak as he has his sorter bring his caps to the top, then he slaps the caps down on the ground in front of the gatekeeper as he says, “There! Fifteen caps, can we go in now? Please?”

She scoops the caps up with her magic and passes them off to one of the guards as she says, “Sure, but because of some idiots starting fights in here the other day, we’re having to restrict weapons.” She looks down at Gearing’s cloak where she’s sure she’s seen a rifle poking out from under it as she says flatly, “You’re going to have to surrender your weapons before going in.”

“Lemme guess, more trigger happy dumb asses after that stupid bounty?” Gearing asks sourly.

The guards exchange glances and the green mare bobs her head around as she says, “It was related, yeah.” She narrows her eyes as she asks, “Why, looking to collect for yourself?”

Gearing shakes his head. “Fuck that noise. Not interested in some wild goose chase. I got enough work to deal with without having half of Equestria after my ass too.” As she’s giving him a rather appraising look he looks up at the pack on his back and back to her as he asks, “Is the no weapons thing really necessary? I mean half my load is weapons I’m hoping to trade for supplies.”

“I mean look at this!” He lowers himself down, then leans to the side as he lets the large bag slide off of himself. After untying a few strategic straps the side bursts open with a practical flood of firearms, knives, blades, machetes, pool cues, and a few makeshift pieces of armor and weapons.

The crowd that had been in line to enter stares in bewilderment and an older buck with a duster jacket yells, “Damn buck’s walking around with an arsenal on his back!”

One of the guards asks, “You wanting to join the Finders and start a weapons store? The license is only a thousand caps and it gets you free entry… You’ve got more than enough to cover it…”

Gearing shakes his head as he points at the pile. “Nope. Not interested in being a shopkeeper. I just need some spare supplies to get some equipment fixed.”

The green mare stares at him and asks, “So you brought a bunch of weapons to barter with?”

Gearing shakes his head. “Nah. I picked this up along the way…” He looks over at the gathering mass waiting to get in as he chuckles. “The one thing raiders seem to be good for… is filling the saddle bags.”

The mottle green unicorn blinks a few times as she looks back and forth between Gearing and the pile of salvage spilling out of its bag like a broken dam. “I’m sorry, but we really do need to restrict weapons inside… Please surrender your weapons.”

Gearing looks at her and his jaw drops as he asks, “What… like... all of them? Seriously?”

“Yes all of them! There’s no point in restricting any if you’re not turning them all over!” one of the other guards says in an annoyed huff.

Gearing’s shoulders sag as he says, “This… is going to take a while…” He looks around at the others and huffs. “Fine! You asked for it!” He reaches under his cloak and pulls the long rifle with the gold charm hanging from it, prompting the guards to point their weapons at him and a few of the crowd to step back. But, contrary to what they had thought, he clears the chamber, and carefully sets it on the cloth bundle he just dropped a few moments before as he says, “Need to be careful with this one…”

The other’s relax as they see that he’s actually complying and rummaging through his bags and cloak for items to set down.

As Gearing is setting out a sheet on the ground to make a place to lay his items, Swift nudges Handy in his side as she sits down and grins. “Something tells me this is going to be funny.”

Handy looks at her sideways and asks, “Why?”

Swift grins wider and motions towards Gearing with a wing. “Because despite how much he can obviously carry, I don’t really see him using much…”

After Gearing lays down the cloth, he sets a second rifle on top of it.

Then a combat shotgun next to that.

Butter Churn’s 10mm pistol from a shoulder holster.

A revolver from under his left saddle bag.

A hunting rifle that’s been cut down to pistol size from under his right saddle bag.

A pipe wrench.

Large double sided crescent wrench.

Screwdriver.

Combat knife.

Hunting knife.

Butterfly knife.

Pocket knife.

Equestrian army pocket multitool.

Craft knife in a box with an assortment of blades.

A few blades from various knives that don’t even have handles.

A claw hammer.

Ice pick.

Chisels.

Metal punches.

A hoofful of large nails.

A couple frag grenades.

Spark grenades.

Incendiary grenades.

The two shaped charges he had installed in his bags earlier.

A few tin cans with various wires sticking out of them that he carefully sets down.

A trio of missiles, sans launcher.

A couple pipe bombs of various sizes.

A six pack of molotovs made from whisky and beer bottles.

He looks up at the green unicorn and sticks his muzzle out of the cowl enough to grin at her.

She raises an eyebrow and gives a forced cough before she asks softly,” Is… that all?”

Swift giggles as she asks, “Yeah, Gearing, is that all?!”

Gearing looks over at her and purses his lips to the side as he stretches out the cloak with a wing over the pile.

A collection of razor blades, and obviously improvised sharp bits of metal, fall out onto the pile as he manipulates his wing and releases them from their hiding places within what makes up his stained glass feathers.

Then he does the same with the other wing.

And a bag of caltrops get added to the top a moment later.

Then a bag of marbles.

A bag of ball bearings.

Bag of broken glass.

A repair kit with a collection of screwdrivers neatly lined up and at the ready.

Followed up with a crowbar and a prybar.

The other guards stand agape at the practical mountain of weaponry, that just seemed to get even absurdly bigger after they thought he was already done. Even the green unicorn mare in front of him seems a bit put out by how much he’d managed to ‘hold out’ after thinking he was finally finished.

“Hey, Gearing!” Swift calls from her seat near Handy. After he looks over at her she waves at the pile and says, “They said all of it!”

Everyone looks over at him as he gives her an absolutely scathing stare. “Dammit, Swift!”

He pulls out a collection of spikes, like over-sized needles, from gaps in his armor and sets them on the pile.

Then some throwing knives from the long hair around the back of his head.

Then a flexible saw that had been wrapped around his leg and hidden under a band is revealed and added to the pile.

And another pistol, that he had to reach far back under the cloak to get and made everyone very uncomfortable as he produced it and set it with the rest.

Then he produces a rock, a bit bigger than a grenade, grayish in color and nondescript otherwise, and sets it carefully on the very top of everything as he maintains hard eye contact with the green unicorn in front of him. They maintain eye contact for a few moments before he says quietly, “Re-spect… the rock…” He gives it a soft tap and then sits back as he looks at them and awaits to see if they are satisfied.

“I don’t think that’s everything!” Swift chimes in from the side with a massive grin across her muzzle.

“What?! You expect me to give them my hooves too? Because they’re brass?! Fuck that, I’m attached to them!” Gearing retorts as he glares over at her.

One of the wastelanders that had lined up to get in behind them stares absolutely bewildered at the display as he asks, “What’s… what’s with the rock?”

Gearing turns to look at the unknown fellow and replies with quiet reverence, “One does not simply question the rock. Do not seek to understand the rock. For the rock is powerful and beyond your comprehension.”

He looks over at the mostly green unicorn guard, who seems to be lost staring into the mountain of weaponry, and takes in the view of the different colored splotches across her hide in grays and browns. He debates on asking if they are scars, or simply something she was born with. But he decides against being so rude to someone he just met and, instead, says with a grin as he pats on the pair of piles. “I’m going to need a receipt for each and every single thing you ‘restrict’ from entering.”

She looks up at him and her mouth hangs agape as Swift walks over to him giggling. Swift pops him on a shoulder and nods towards the pile he’d just pulled out of everywhere. “So why’d you try to keep anything hidden? Not like you actually need weapons…”

Gearing frowns at her and points at them as he replies, “I prefer to use weapons when I can… and stay at a distance when I’m able… It’s what everyPONY else does, right?” She stares at him for a few moments and he mutters as he goes back to looking at his stash pile, “And putting it all back is a bitch too…,” causing Swift to snicker and almost fall over as she tries not to laugh.

Gearing looks over at her and nods towards the pile he’d set down originally. “Once we’re inside, could you go about doing all of the trading? At least selling it off?”

Swift looks around and asks, “Why? You got somewhere to go?”

Gearing bobs his head around as he says, “Well, I’d like to get some more info about this bounty nonsense… It’s causing a lot of problems already, just like I said it would, and it’s not going to stop until it’s resolved one way or another.” He looks over at the pile of loot and groans. “And I also have no idea how much this shit’s worth with the current economy. So I don’t really have a price point to start bartering with.”

Swift points at his leg and shrugs as she comments flatly, “Just use your PipBuck.”

Gearing looks over at her and tilts his head. “What?”

Swift gets closer and grabs his foreleg, pulling it closer to herself, with him obviously letting her manipulate his leg, and points at it as she smirks. “Your PipBuck can tell you how much it’s worth… I don’t know how, but it even can factor things in via price in caps. See?” She holds up her PipBuck and goes through the item sorting menu. She selects a Sparkle Cola, and grabs it out of her bag to present it to him with a smile. “According to the PipBuck this is worth ten caps… so we can go from there.” She puts it back and purses her lips to the side as she smirks. “How is mister shameless flirt with the businessfilly ghoul suddenly getting shy about bartering?”

Gearing frowns and taps out a few commands on his screen. He shows the entry for a box of Sugar Apple Bombs that he still has in his bags as he says softly, “See for yourself.”

She glances at it, and takes in the various information. But then blinks and shakes her head. She looks up at him and asks softly, “Where’s the ‘value’ entry?”

“Mine doesn’t have one…” Gearing says quietly.

“What?” Swift asks as she shakes her head and tries to make the world make sense again.

“PipBucks aren’t magical do all devices… they have limits… And, if you haven’t noticed by now, mines not exactly standard.” He shrugs as he closes out of the interface and goes back to sitting normally. “Mine doesn’t have the economic package. So I have no idea how much everything’s worth, except what it’s worth to me.” He shrugs. “Which makes you and Handy the better option for figuring out what we can actually get for all of this.”

Swift lets out a long sigh as she hangs her head. She looks up at him with one eye as she asks, “You want me to start making a list for you?” Her tone is a bit snarky, but her eyes jump wide open as Gearing replies.

“Please do! Factor in relative condition too, after enough data points I’ll be able to sort out what things are roughly worth on my own… Unless you want to do my shopping for me from now on.”

She raises a hoof and quickly looks away. “Point taken. I’ll start working on it once we’re inside.”

Gearing nods as he looks behind them at the camp of bounty hunters still loitering around out front of Megamart. “While you’re doing that, I’ll go have a word with the numbskulls and see what’s really going on. If anything.” He looks around up and down the highway in both directions and says with a combination of annoyance and wonder, “It’s amazing there’s this many dumb asses still lingering around here. I guess greed really does blind the weak.”

“Excuse me, sir?” a mare’s voice distracts him from his moody ramblings. He looks over at the pony who’d been part of the gatekeepers, prompting her to flash a sheepish smile. “So, we’ve talked it over, and since there’s just so much, and you’re going to sell it anyway… and the party in question isn’t even on premises anymore… you may go in…” She cringes as she takes a step back. “With all of your property.”

Gearing gawks at the tan guardsmare as he waves a hoof at her. “You mean to tell me you made me strip down and dig everything out for nothing?!”

Swift starts snickering. Again.

The guard looks over at the mottled green unicorn and scowls, “Dammit, Keystone, you’re the one that did it, why do I have to be the bad pony here?”

Keystone steps to the side and makes a grand gesture of waving Gearing in. “You’ve already paid. Go on in.” She straightens up a bit as she points a hoof at him. “But, just a word of warning, if you plan on using those weapons inside… Fire a single shot, and you’ll bring the wrath of Gun down on you.”

“Who’s Gun?” Handy asks as he steps up next to Swift.

Keystone smirks and points a hoof up as she says, “When you get inside, look up, and you’ll see.” She looks over at Gearing and nods inside as she says, “While you’re in there, talk to the manager. I’m sure she’d like to talk with somepony who’s able to do so much trading at once.”

Gearing mutters and grumbles as he’s picking up his various personal effects. “Gonna take me forever to get this shit back in place… such a pain in the ass…” Swift starts visibly shaking and her eyes water as she watches him complain and scoop up his belongings into an awkward pile on the cloth.

Handy leans over and asks, “Uh… Gearing… where’d that last pistol come from, anyway?”

Gearing glares at him and Swift finally does fall over laughing.

---

Footnote: Mass Augmentation thresholds set, please stand by. . .

Gravity Differential alignment at 12%

Gravity Differential alignment at 25%

Gravity Differential alignment at 37%

Next Chapter: 49 A Little Heavy Hoofed Estimated time remaining: 34 Hours, 14 Minutes