Cross trots through the assembly area of the Stormfront primary compound as she floats a clipboard in front of herself. As she’s passing one of the full combat biosuit wearing members of her unit, who’s lounging across a crate, she asks, “Have you seen Nitro? I wanted to go over a couple spell matrix formulas with him before he has to go in for that Stable-Tec test.”

They turn into a copy of Gearing with a flash of green flame, oversized flight suit, goggles, and all, and then start doing a bunch of wingups on the floor in front of Cross as he says with Gearing’s rebreatherly modulated voice, “Yeah, he’s in the transport maintenance wing getting some exercise. Hammer’s helping him with his Stable-Tec homework and cramming for the technical part of the test.”

Cross nods and smiles as she heads towards the maintenance bay. “Thanks, Mouse!”

He hops up and waves a hoof at her as he angrily yells, “I’m not Mouse, I’m Snake!”

Cross rolls her eyes as she says without even looking, “No you’re not, I can actually tell you two apart you know.”

The Gearing doppelganger practically deflates as he says, “Aaawww nuts… You just got lucky this time, that’s all!” Then shakes his hoof at her, and continues to do so even after returning to their normal full biosuit wearing form with another flash of green flame.

Cross walks in through the door to the transport maintenance wing as she continues to flip through the papers on the clipboard. As she’s walking over towards where a piece of equipment would be getting worked on, if it needed it, she blindly zeros in on their location as she hears the voices of who she’s searching for.

“So the max load of pumps is a function involving the amount of water, or throughput, and the length and diameter of the pipes, which causes a loss over distance?” Gearing asks thoughtfully.

“That’s right, and you never want to overtax them. Make sure whatever pumps you’re wanting to use are not only designed and rated to handle the throughput, but can handle the extra energy loss that happens along the way by pipe friction, etc.,” Hammer replies happily.

“Would doing calculations factoring it at eighty percent of the max capacity as the baseline for the pump be a good rule, or? Like with electronics’ recommended maximum verses technical maximum?”

Hammer shrugs. “That entirely depends on the scenario. With a government contract and a Canterlot blank check? Sure, buy whatever you need as long as you can afford upkeep. Others would prefer more tighter controls because pumps get practically exponentially more expensive at a certain point.”

Cross walks up to the platform and lowers the clipboard blocking her view as she has a question of her own, but says nothing as her eyes go wide and take in the scene in the center of the vertibuck landing pad.

Gearing looks at her sideways, catching movement out of the corner of his eye, and grins as he waves a forehoof at her, while continuing to do one steady wingup after another. Though now the flight suit he’s wearing has been tailored to better fit him, removing the need for all of the previous straps that were on him, and he’s not bothering with any of the headgear anymore as he has several books, notebooks, and diagrams in front of, and under, his muzzle. “Hiya, Cross! What’s up?”

Hammer looks over at her from her seated position and the grin across her muzzle just grows wider as the two maintain hard eye contact.

From her position on top of Gearing’s back, facing backwards with her flank planted right on his shoulders, her hind legs stretched across the length of his back, and her forehooves on his lower back. Or, more accurately, on the upper part of his rear as her forehooves have been slowly sliding further away from her until she is, quite blatantly, groping the endlessly exercising little pegasus under her.

Cross’s eyes stay locked on Hammer’s, and thus jump up and down as Hammer is lifted and lowered with each one of Gearing’s cycles. After a few more cycles, where Hammer silently giggles, Cross asks, “What’s going on here?”

Gearing shrugs as he says, “Hammer’s helping me cram for my Stable-Tec tests. Most of it’s pretty straight forward, but I wanna make sure they aren’t going to throw any trick questions at me just because I’m a ‘distance learner’.”

“And the wingups?” Cross asks as she stares at Hammer, who just plasters a wider grin across her muzzle as she’s obviously enjoying the ride.

Gearing shrugs. “Even I need exercise. I know it doesn’t make sense given my… constitution?’ He looks over at Cross as he says, “I figure if I stress test myself enough I can force some growth, like how muscles are grown by damaging them repeatedly and letting them heal back stronger.”

“Sounds like you’ve been reading Tower’s fitness magazines,” Hammer comments as she holds herself in place while looking at Cross.

Gearing bops his head around as he goes back to looking at the book under his face. “That’s where I got the idea for the added weight.” He points behind himself with a hoof as he says, “Hammer said me starting off with a cargo container was too much, and I’d needed to work myself up to that, so she volunteered to sit on my back and help me with my studies at the same time.” He looks over at Cross and grins. “It’s a real time saving solution! I get so much more done this way!”

Hammer stretches out just a bit further, with a flat hoof on each of Gearing’s flanks as she mouths at Cross, ‘I just love fliers!’ and lets her tongue hang out a bit rather obscenely.

Cross’s eyes flare wide open and her horn glows with an even brighter overglow as a whitish blue apparition of a large folded up paper fan appears above Hammer and starts swatting Hammer on the top of her head as she says, “No! Bad!” Hammer starts laughing as she partially closes her eyes and jumps up and off of Gearing as she giggles and waves her hooves to try and ward off the phantasmal folded paper.

Gearing looks up at the ceiling and asks, “Hey, Cross… is it raining outside?”

Cross looks over at him as she pauses swatting Hammer. “Uhm… no, I don’t think so… Why?”

Gearing tilts his head as he looks up at the dark ceiling high above. “I think we got a ceiling leak… My shoulders feel like their damp all of a sudden.”

Cross jerks her focus to look over at Hammer, who quickly clamps her hindlegs together and flushes as she tilts her head and gives a sheepish smile before she mouths ‘Maybe?’ The two start running around the maintenance bay as Cross chases after Hammer with her phantom folded paper as she yells, “Bad! No! He’s not a washing machine! Bad, bad, bad!”

Gearing watches them run around before he rolls his eyes and goes back to his homework. “Mares are weird…”

The next morning is signaled by a sudden burst of traffic within Megamart as ponies begin their day of shopping, bartering, and hawking one type of good or another. Before the new day’s light is even noticeable from the inside of the shopping center at that. Though the clouds probably have a lot to do with that side of things. Gearing meets with Handy and Swift to put together a plan for the day and discovers things, for once, seem to be starting to go in their favor. Swift had managed to sell or barter off all of the excess they had, including the mountain of weaponry that Gearing had brought in, over the course of the previous day. In the process of all of that, they’d made a few inquiries and connections, and are planning on spending the day sorting out what they need to do to get the remaining parts. Unfortunately they have to wait until one of the vendor’s friends gets back before they can get the information on the largest chunks of needed equipment. But they’re going to be busy enough with shopping and such it shouldn’t be a problem. They’ve already paid for another night in the Megamart ‘hotel’, which was little more than a couple rows of cots.

EDF barracks chic at it’s finest. The little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head quips.

Although the delaying predicament does give Gearing plenty of time to try and track down his own leads while the others stay around Megamart chasing and waiting on information. Gearing spends a while walking around the inside of Megamart, trying to see if he sees that mare with the white coat from the day before. He doesn’t really need the help, but from what she’d been talking about, she knows the area pretty well. And that could mean getting this over faster.

But, after circumventing the entire shopping area and not seeing hide nor hair of the black-maned mare, he heads for the entrance. He’s not sure if she’d still be hanging around, or has already moved on after learning that the huge bounty was on Security, but he figures he might as well check around the mob out front.

By the time he’s through with all of his searching and conversing inside of Megamart, it’s already past mid-morning by the time he makes it to the front entrance.

But, just inside the doors, a pair of bucks jump at him and scream as they see the mottled blanket wearing form emerge through the crowd.

“That’s him! That’s the murderer!” the brown buck screams as he looks back at the Megamart security watching the front door.

“He shot him dead in cold blood!” chimes in the black buck in the duster jacket.

Looks like their two friends weren’t stupid enough to come back. The little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head says with a sigh as it floats around belly side up with it’s forehooves lazily folded behind his head.

That, or they’re waiting outside to ambush us…

He shrugs his blue shoulders while still floating in the same position. Swift just off loaded what she had, might be able to use some more crap to swap…

The tan mare with the twin rifles on her battle saddle turns and looks at them as she points a hoof at Gearing. “Wait… Him?!”

The black buck spins around and yells, “Yes him! Shot him right in the head as he was sitting and minding his own business!”

“Kept us pinned down all night under a bunch of concrete so we wouldn’t get our heads blown off too!” the brown buck adds.

The tan mare raises an eyebrow then looks between them as she shakes her head. “Kept you pinned down all night? No. No way. That’s not possible.”

The brown buck rolls his eyes as he says, “Yes it’s possible! He even said he’d do it yesterday! Right to his face!”

“Said he’d get him in 24 hours!” the black buck nods as he tries to remind security of the fight they had to break up the day before. “Don’t you remember?”

The brown buck scrunches up his face and looks down as he says, “Didn’t even last the night… I knew we shoulda kept moving…”

“What I remember… was you being told to leave and go about your business… And he stayed behind and tended to his own business here,” the mottled green mare says as she walks over from her side of the security line.

The black buck looks at her and drops his jaw. “You’re still going to do nothing, after he killed him, after he said he was going to kill him?!”

The tan mare looks over at Keystone and shakes her head. “There’s no way it was him. I saw him several times in Patches’ booth working on armor while on patrol.”

The black buck looks over at her and his eyes go wide as he practically screeches, “You’re gonna cover for him!?”

The tan mare looks over at the black buck and scowls. “I’m not covering, just telling the truth. I don’t see how he could have shot your friend, if he was too busy working on some kind of a helmet.”

“But-” the brown buck starts but gets cut off by the green and brown hided mare.

“Know what, I don’t give a shit if he did it!” They all look at her in surprise. “We’re not covering for anyone. Maybe he did it. Maybe he didn’t. I don’t give a shit. What I do care about, is what happens here, in Megamart… And since I don’t see a body, it happened elsewhere. So if you got a problem with him, it’s between you and him and we’re not involved… but keep your shit out of here or you’re going to have a problem with me.”

“This is fucking bullshit, Megamart is supposed to be neutral ground,” the brown buck says with a sneer.

“And it is… That’s why I’m telling you to keep your hostilities outside,” Keystone quips.

The black buck points at Gearing and frowns as he says, “Oh, I get it, you’re protecting him. Going to just let him stay here forever until he can hunt down the rest of us?”

Gearing starts walking forward as he says, “If it will help resolve the situation quicker. I’ll be more than glad to step outside with you…” He tilts his head as he glares out at them from under the cloak. “I’m pretty sure convincing you won’t take up too much of my day…”

Before he gets too far to the door the green and brown mare puts a hoof out and puts it to his chest, holding him back, which he respectfully complies and comes to a halt, as she says, “You two need to get out of here before I let him mop the floor with you. You’ve started enough trouble already, but I’m really not wanting a mess to clean up. So go on.” She kicks her battle saddle, chambering new rounds as she scowls and yells, “Get!”

The pair hurry up and leave as they mutter and look over their shoulder every so often to see if they’re being followed. But they do make good on getting out of sight quickly.

Gearing looks at Keystone as he says, “Thanks, but I didn’t need your protection… I can take care of myself.”

The tan mare frowns as she says, “Yeah, but you shouldn’t have to deal with shit because someone else got whacked while you weren’t even around. Right, Keystone?”

“Yeah… about that…” the green and brown mare says as she looks Gearing over. “So… we’d walked by on patrol when you were working in Patches’ booth…” She looks over at the tan mare for a moment before looking back at Gearing. “I had to use the bathroom, and took a shortcut back not long after… funnily enough… You weren’t there that time. Even though we just passed you. And not long after that I found the roof access door propped open with a bit of wire just thick enough to keep it from latching…” She looks over at the tan mare, and sees the growing disbelief on her face before she adds, “But when we swung by during our next round… you were back and hard at work. Like nothing had changed…”

She reaches up and scratches the side of her muzzle as she says with a chuckle, “A lotta earth ponies keep forgetting roof access is as good of a road as any for a pegasus… Don’t they?” She glances over at the tan security mare and grins before she looks back at Gearing.

Gearing looks over at the tan mare and shakes his head. “Thank you for speaking up. About what you’d seen I mean. But, Keystone’s right.” He shrugs then stretches out his right wing enough to draw her attention to his wing fluttering at his side. “Yeah. I did it.” He reaches up with a hoof and taps himself on the forehead as he says, “Right where I marked the spot even. I’m not going to lie about it… Hell, I told him it was going to happen.”

The tan mare’s eyes go wide as she asks, “Why’d you just murder him?”

“Security,” Keystone says as she looks at Gearing sideways. “Right? Bottlecap told me what the sick fuck had in mind.”

Gearing points at Keystone and says flatly, “And the mare wins the prize.” He nods as he looks around. “So… gonna ban me too?”

Keystone takes in a deep breath before shaking her head. “No… I happen to like Security. Can’t wait until our next card game, actually. So I can’t blame you there.” She reaches over and puts a hoof to his cloaked nose as she says, “But, like Bottlecap said, stop threatening folks inside of Megamart… You wanna run around wasting trash, your business… But don’t bring any trouble here, got it?”

Gearing nods as he says, “Noted and no problem.”

Keystone grins then waves her hoof around dismissively. “Great, then we don’t have a problem… Now… Stop blocking the door, would ya? They look like they’ve already hightailed it, so in or out, but not in the way.”

Gearing looks around and sees that traffic has actually stopped because of the commotion involving him, again, and quickly slips through the crowd and back outside.

Once he’s through the mob of ponies that are busy with their own dealings with Megamart, he sees the camp across the road and notices that it’s depressingly about the same size. But, one thing he does notice is that there are a lot of new faces among the crowds. So maybe his outlandish declarations did stir a few hearts and move them along their way to greener, less evil, pastures.

Or they could have left to go after her. The little blue pegasus in his head says before getting swatted back into his steam chest for his unnecessary comments.

Either way, that’d mean the new faces were new, and either don’t care or haven’t heard about the bounty hunter hunter. It doesn’t take long for the weight of the near futility of the situation to land on Gearing. Greed is just one of those forces that’s hard to move and sway. But, it doesn’t mean he’s going to stop. He slowly starts walking towards the group as he debates on giving them all a verbal assault, just to make sure those still there knows that he is too, and for those new arrivals to know just what the true score is.

But he gets stopped not far after crossing the road by a familiar voice.

“Yeah, you know what? I don’t think it’d be a good idea for you to go over there right now.”

Gearing turns his head and sees the mare in the long white coat as she’s walking up to him from the side. “Oh, hey, Dandy.”

She strolls over to him as she keeps her focus on the mob of bounty hunters not far away. “The rumor mill’s going full speed. All kinds of talk about some super psycho zebra commando getting hired by Security to track down and kill everypony that’s after the bounty on her…” She returns to look at him as she raises an eyebrow and says softly, “Apparently another would-be-hunter died when he got his head blown off last night?” She arcs her other eyebrow as she asks, “Was that you?”

Gearing lets out a sigh as he looks over at her. “Yes, but it’s not like I’m targeting them all… That guy just needed to be introduced to a special place in Tartarus already reserved for him.”

“Uh huh…” she says with a huff as she eyeballs him. “So, you coming over to try and convince the rest of them to give it up? I gotta warn ya, there’s more of them willing to fight this time, so that’d probably be a very bad idea for you to do that.”

Gearing looks at her out of the corner of his eye and points a hoof sideways at her. “Well, let them fight among themselves then. Saves others the hassle… but I was hoping to find you actually.”

She smirks as she tilts her head. “Ohhh? What’d you have in mind?”

Gearing turns his head towards her as he says, “You hear of a buck named Cookie?”

Her eyes go wide as she replies, “Oh… wow… When you said you’d go after other bounties, you weren’t talking about chumps, were you?”

He turns completely and gives her his undivided attention as he says, “I take it that you do know about him?”

She looks around as she frowns. “Yeah… he’s on my company’s list too. I’ve been thinking about it... but…” She shivers. “That guy’s a monster…”

Gearing tilts his head and actually grins as he says, “Well… maybe we can use one to take one down… hmm?”

She looks at him and smirks as she says, “Buck, you’ve got some brass to be looking to take down Cookie… even with help.”

He stares at her and says flatly, “You have no idea…”

She giggles and rolls her eyes. “Well, okay… Here’s what I know.” She takes in a deep breath, practically puffing up, before she says, “There’s quite a few rumors about him. But the one thing that’s universally understood is that he’s a sadistic rapist. He will rape anyone and anything. And I do mean anything… I was talking to this one mare that managed to escape a caravan attack, and from where she’d hid she said she saw him just go down the line. Fucking everything from one end of the caravan to the other. Bucks. Mares. The brahmin. Living, or dead, he didn’t care. Hell, she swore on Celestia, Luna, the stars, and the next forty generations of her kids that she watched him rape the wagon they were pulling!” She cringes as she arcs an eyebrow. “And then he apparently burnt it with his massive flamethrower for ‘biting his dick’ when he probably got a splinter in it or something.”

She lets out the rest of the air in her lungs in a sigh before she says, “And he’s a tough bastard to boot. A few that have managed to crawl away from him always have burns and, from them, it’s pretty well known that he’s got a scorching kink or something… He likes to burn his victims. Before, during, after? All of the above? I don’t know if it’s the smell, the screams, or what, but that just seems to get him harder.”

She looks Gearing over as she smiles. “So… you into a little butt play or something?”

Gearing snickers as he says, “I’m a bit sensitive about who plays with my ass…”

She starts laughing as she nods. “Yeah. Me too! And as a mare I can tell ya, I’m not interested in any of my holes getting plugged by that lunatic.”

Gearing looks her over for a moment before he asks, “Well… you got any idea where they’re hiding out at?”

She bobs her head around as she says, “Yeah, he’s not exactly hard to track… just follow the smell and burnt corpses.” She looks him over as she asks, “Why? You thinking about going alone?”

Gearing shrugs as he says, “Well, he’s someone that needs to be taken down… I’m probably the best buck for the job. So might as well.”

She starts walking over as she asks, “Ouuu… So confident… But… What makes you think I’m going to let you do it alone?” She strolls over and leans sideways looking at him as she grins. “He’s one of the bigger bounties in the area… and if you’re that sure… maybe we can do it… I was going to get a group to hunt him down, but with just two it’s only a two way split.”

Gearing shrugs as he looks around. “Works for me. You got the info. I can handle it. Sounds like a good team.”

She pulls back and looks at him with a raised eyebrow, looking more than a little offended by the statement. “Excuse me? What, you think I’m going to just stand by while you march in there and take care of everything yourself?” She leans in and yells into the side of his cowl, “I’m not some tender hoof here!”

Gearing turns his head to face her again and her over as he asks, “So, when are you ready to go?”

She stamps a hoof into the ground as she says, “Right this damn instant if you want!”

Gearing turns and starts heading back to Megamart. “Great. I’ll be right back. If we’re risking getting roasted, I gotta put something away.” He runs off, leaving her to sit in the road staring at him in disbelief as she contemplates exactly what he meant. When he gets back he asks, “Which way?”

She blinks a few times then points back at Megamart. “You’re worried about your shit getting burned? I’d be worried about my ass if I were you!”

Gearing nods as he says, “Yes, as has been pointed out before, my toosh is sensitive to getting scorched as well… But sensitive equipment will get absolutely destroyed.”

She shakes her head and turns off to the side as she points back nearly straight north. “If we head that way, there’s a few of the business districts. It’s not terribly far, but we can make it there and back in the same day.” She shrugs. “Just a matter if getting there and back is going to be an information gathering expedition, because we can’t handle it, or a victory lap because we did.”

Gearing starts walking in the direction indicated as he says, “I’ll be planning on the latter… I need some caps to get my armor fixed.”

Dandy trots along next to him as she asks, “Well, as long as it holds up to this we should be fine. You bring any potions?” Gearing shakes his head and she scowls as she asks, “Well why the hell not?”

Gearing keeps looking forward as he says, “If I get hit with a flamer, it’s going to ruin them anyway. Break the glass. Spill them out. Shatter them. So it’d just be a waste.”

She raises an eyebrow as she asks, “Don’t you think you’d have bigger concerns with being on fire and all?”

Gearing waves a hoof as he says, “Eh… there’s worse things that could happen.”

She starts snickering as she says, “Yeah, okay… if you say so…” She points off a bit at an angle as she says, “There’s a Pony Joes further up that way, let’s avoid it…” She looks around as she adds, “Security already cleared it out of the raiders that were there, but those places have a tendency of attracting them. And I’d rather not walk into a raider nest if I’m not getting paid for it.”

Gearing looks at her sideways as he grins. “But raider nests are great for filling the saddle bags, ya know?”

She shakes her head and rolls her eyes as she leads him through one neighborhood of demolished buildings after another. As they turn down a stretch that’s leading to a warehouse, Gearing’s ears jump up in alarm before he jumps to the side, grabs Dandy, and tumbles behind a pile of rubble. A moment later the report from a rifle washes down the roadway as Gearing screams, “Sniper!”

Gearing scoots in closer to the rubble pile, keeping it between them and the shooter as he curves over and around Dandy.

She lets out a groan and asks, “How’d the hell you know?!”

Gearing tilts his head and whispers, but it’s directed more at her neck because of the positions they are in, “I saw the muzzle flash. They’re in the attic window of that warehouse at the end of the street…”

“Think they’re Halfhearts?” Dandy asks as she tries to reorient herself while flat on her back. Her eyes go a bit wider as she looks down while she starts squirming around. “W- watch the leg,” she mutters softly.

“Highly doubt it, nah. This has gotta be someone else,” Gearing responds as he leans forward a bit more to try and see down the road.

“Oh, well, shit-” Her eyes go wide as she says, “H-Hey!” She scowls as she starts flushing, “Watch where you’re putting your hindleg!”

“Oh, sorry,” he says as he straightens out his hindleg more to avoid invading her extra-personal personal space anymore.

“Better be sorry, try getting fresh like that again and I’ll shoot you!” she yells as her cream colored face continues reddening by the moment.

He looks around as he says, “Shit, I think I’m going to have to make a hole over here to get us out.”

She looks at him and raises an eyebrow. “What, we’re safe here aren’t we- Shit!”

Gearing looks to the side in time to see a lit stick of dynamite sail through the air, arced over the pile of rubble they are hiding behind, and headed straight towards them.

Dandy’s horn glows, and a moment later the dynamite stick glows with the same aura before it gets flicked off to fly back towards where it came from

A couple shouts of surprise greet their ears before the dynamite detonates in mid air as it was in route back to sender.

Gearing grabs Dandy as he’s getting up, yanking her up and onto her hooves, before he starts running across the street and screaming, “Over here!” She follows behind and is about to yell at him to stop, before he jumps and crashes through a door boarded up with plywood. It strikes her as odd, to say the least, but any opening to get out of this death trap is a good opening, and she follows him straight through. The only way of immediate exit is an empty doorframe to the left, which they both bolt through and are already heading into the warehouse next door before another stick of dynamite explodes in the building they had just left.

Gearing looks over his shoulder at her as they are running and asks, “You know this area at all?!”

She nods. “A little!”

Gearing moves over and lets her pass him as he nods ahead. “Well, that’s better than me. You lead the way.”

She quickly gets in the front and leads him on a two horse stampede through one building after another. Outside, every now and then, their attackers catch a glimpse of movement, and shoot into the building at them blindly. The bullets punch through the walls and smash out glass to end up hitting nothing more than trash and debris, but it’s still problematic. It only takes one well placed lucky shot to put an end to a pony. And in this instance they don’t really have much to do in the way of defensive actions except to try to get into a position where they might be able to launch a counterattack.

Dandy runs around a bit inside of a storage room as she waits on Gearing to catch up. As he’s entering she points off to the right as she says, “Several places have been blocked up in here because of collapses or some shit. If we head through here we should be able to head out through the welcome foyer.” She leads off back the way they’d come and turns to take a new hallway. As they are entering the foyer area, just past where segments of wall poke in from both sides of the hallway to mark where a set of large double doors used to be, Dandy tosses a few small blocks of metal at various points inside the foyer as she levitates out a pair of small pistols from inside of her white coat.

She looks around as she says softly, “I don’t know about you… but I’ve been getting the feeling like we’re being herded… and I don’t like it.”

Gearing looks around as he nods. “Yeah… some of their shots seemed to be just a tad too inaccurate… If you know what I mean…”

She slowly spins around with her pistols at the ready, looking at the three closed doors along the room’s perimeter as she says softly, “I smell trouble… of the unwashed rat eating kind…”

She slowly starts walking towards one of the side doors with both of her pistols focused on it before she gets tapped on her shoulder. She looks over to see Gearing grabbing her with a hoof and gently pulling her back.

Had anyone else that had practically just met her tried that, they might have gotten shot. Repeatedly. But the lovely little device he’s showing her more than makes up for it to the point of putting a smile on her face.

Gearing lowers his PipBuck laden leg and slowly looks around as he kicks on his Eyes Forward Sparkle.

Sure enough. Behind the set of doors on the left and right side are both two side by side pairs of red bars. Outside the front door, evenly spaced out and not moving, are another four. Gearing leans in and whispers into her ear, relaying this information as he pulls out his rifle and aims at the door to the left, with her getting next to him and aiming at the door on the right.

After a few minutes longer of nothing happening, a buck’s voice yells from the door on the right, “They’re onto us. They’ve got guns pointed at both side doors.”

Gearing quickly looks around with his EFS as he watches the red bars shift around a bit, but not really move otherwise. So Gearing gets a smirk on his face as he yells out, “Yeah. I can see all of your buddies just fine… Hell of an ambush, great job… But how about you guys give this up and go fuck yourself another day, hmm?”

Dandy snickers as she says, “Ya know… I’ve heard of aggressive negotiations, and backhoofed compliments, but never the two combined…”

A voice from the front door yells in, “The hell we will! I’m not spending the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. I’m taking your ass out now, and pay you back for what you did last night.”

Gearing looks over at the door, then at Dandy before he yells out, “This about that whiny ass white buck I gave the lobotomy to this morning?”

“Son of a bitch I knew it was you!” another familiar voice comes from behind the front door.

“Well, anyway I can convince you to just go away? I mean, I wasn’t after you all, just him,” Gearing asks.

“The hell we’ll believe that. Besides. You already said you’ll hunt down any bounty hunter that claims Security’s bounty. So we’re at a bit of an impasse on those grounds if nothing else.”

Well, we wanted to draw agro… Agro confirmed. The little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head says with a scowl.

“I’ll tell ya what,” comes the second voice. “You throw down your weapons, and surrender… and the mare in the white coat can go… We’ve got no business with her anyway. Just you.”

Dandy looks over at Gearing and raises an eyebrow, but both jump up in alarm as he asks, “If I drop my weapons, you’ll let her go, right?”

“Sure, I’ll agree to that. She just has to back out the way ya’ll came, nice and easy like. We don’t want to hurt her, but we will if we have to.”

Dandy scoffs as she says, “The hell they’ll actually do that.”

Gearing nods as he says, “Alright. You got a deal.”

Dandy turns her head around and looks at him as her jaws practically on the floor.

“I’ll drop my rifle, and she gets to go. What’s between us is between us right?”

Dandy shakes her head as she says, “You gotta be out of your mind, they’ll fucking kill you!”

Gearing looks at her and says flatly, “We are at a tactical disadvantage. They have us in a crossfire. The moment they spring their trap this room’s getting full of lead.” He shakes his head. “This doesn’t involve you. Go ahead and go.”

She scowls as she says, “The hell I will! I’m not gonna just abandon you like that!”

Gearing rolls his eyes and says, “Just… go… please…”

She shakes her head. “Hell no!” Gearing lets out a sigh and starts slowly lowering his rifle and she hisses at him the whole way as she says, “No! Don’t! What are you doing! Pick that back up!”

Gearing lowers the rifle to the ground then slowly stands up as he says, “Alright, I put my rifle down. Now let her go!”

A voice from the right room confirms, “He’s dropped his rifle alright, but she’s still pointing her guns at our door.”

The front door slowly cracks open and the brown bucks voice calls in, “Show’s over… just back on out of there. We’ll do what we came to do, and you’ll get to live another day. Don’t be stupid.”

Gearing waves her away with a hoof as he says, “Please. Just go.” After a moment of not moving he says softly, “It’ll be alright. Really.”

She scowls and looks around, and the scowl only gets worse as she sees the other doors opening and the faces poking out at her. “God dammit…” She turns sideways and starts backing up and away from the front door as she keeps a gun pointed at each of the side doors. She looks at Gearing and keeps nodding with her head to follow her as she says softly, “You can’t just stand there and let them kill you… Not for my sake… Don’t you dare pull that shit.”

Gearing turns to wave at her dismissively as he says, “It’s just a matter of numbers. This way things work out for the best.”

She slowly backs up as she scowls but stops just inside the next set of doors to the foyer, where there’s a bit of wall on either side of the doorframe for her to duck behind if need be, as she stands there and keeps her weapons pointed straight ahead at the front door behind Gearing.

The front door opens and the group of four from outside slowly walk in as they look around, followed by the groups coming from the side doors.

Gearing turns around slowly to look at the brown buck and the black buck in the duster as he asks, “So, you’re really this far gone that you’d kill people simply for being an obstacle to doing something else horrible?”

The brown buck stomps up and gets in Gearing’s face, kicking away the rifle from him as he says, “Don’t give me that shit! You killed him like a fucking coward! How do you feel about it now, huh?! Now that you’re out in broad daylight, with nowhere to hide, not so tough now are you?”

Gearing looks around as he smirks and asks, “I don’t suppose you gentlestallions have enough honor to grant a request for single hoof to hoof combat?”

The black stallion laughs as he says, “Oh, hell no. I don’t think so.”

One of the bucks that’d come from the right room agrees, “No, I don’t think so either. Zebra commando or whatever the hell you are. You’re hooves are just as dangerous as that damn rifle. I was there when you splattered that old buck’s head across the ground.”

Gearing turns his head slowly looking at each of them in turn as he asks softly, “Is there no way I can convince you to give this up?”

The brown buck looks at the black stallion as he laughs, “You see this?! He was right! This little shit’s just a coward if you confront him! Begging for his life like that!”

Dandy scowls and her eyes dart from one of her floating pistols to the other as she grits her teeth and watches the situation. A stinging sensation develops in her eyes from a barrage of conflicting emotions.

The black buck looks past Gearing at her and says, “Hey… look darlin’… you did good staying by his side as long as you did… but he ain’t worth dying for… so…” He waves her away dismissively. “You just go ahead and go… You don’t need to see what’s coming to this fuck.”

Dandy glares at him as she growls through gritted teeth, “I could just blast your damn head off from here…”

The brown buck chuckles as he looks over Gearing at her and smiles. “Yeah… The problem with that…. Is you’ve only got two, and there’s eight of us.”

Her eyes dart around for a few moments before she closes them and takes in a deep breath. “So… you’re really going to kill him… just because he was trying to stop you from killing Security… Is that what’s going on?”

The brown buck waves at Gearing as he says, “Yeah, he killed our friend to stop him, so he’s probably going to be after us next.”

She lowers her head as she grits her teeth. “I see.”

“Good… so… do as the buck said.” The brown buck shoos her away with a forehoof as he gives her a malicious smile. “And get out of here… before something bad happens to you.”

She slowly looks up at him, and at the others, as her horn seems to glow just a bit more as she grits her teeth even harder. And, through her gritted teeth, she grumbles, “There’s just one problem with that.”

Her mouth melts from a pained angry gritted-into sneer, into an easy smile as she says with her eyes partially closed. “Your math? It’s a bit off.”

Every one of the eight ponies freeze and their eyes go wide as they feel something press into the sides of their respective heads.

Gearing looks around and sees that each of the ponies around him has a blocky bit of metal pressed into the side of their head. But, from his view, one of them seems to have a small lever on the back side of it as the front of the little blocks push into the skulls of the ponies surrounding him.

The brown buck’s wide eyes dart around, and after he sees the little blocks floating around he sneers as he says, “She’s bluffing! It’s just a damn horn head trick!”

She tilts her head and smiles as she says, “Well… Darlin’… if you think I’m bluffing, give it a try and I’ll show you just how serious I am.” She pops him in the head repeatedly with the little block as she keeps her cone of vision set up so she can see all of them simultaneously.

The black stallion yells, “Just fucking kill them both-” and starts shooting Gearing with the semi automatic rifle on his battle saddle. The brown buck also starts shooting his pump action shotgun, and the one to his left manages to get a few rounds off from a mouth gripped SMG.

But simultaneously, around the entire circle, the little boxes make a little popping noise, and the buck they were pressed into slumps to the ground. Gearing had held up his right foreleg to try and ward off the incoming rounds, but only managed to block a few of the tail ends of the combined burst from hitting his chest and face. As he’s sitting there, he looks around at the corpses around him, which are confirmed KIA by the complete lack of a reading on his EFS, before he looks up at the little boxes floating in the air by Dandy’s overglow.

Dandy walks out of the hallway, the two pistols she’d not even fired floating in front of her as she smiles at him. She saunters towards him as she tilts the pistols back, and blows across the end of the barrels, dispersing imaginary smoke, before she says softly, “I told ya, I’m not some dainty tender hoof.”

The little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head stares at her as he rubs his chin slowly. Okay… yeah… that, that was pretty kool. Remember to keep an eye out for whatever the hell those things are from now on… Cheaty horn head magic.

Gearing grabs the box that had been pressed into the brown buck’s head from the air, and carefully looks it over. He gives it a sniff, and smells the familiar scent of gun oil and recently fired ballistic ammunition. He looks over at her and holds it up as he asks, “The hell’s this?”

She trots over to him as she levitates all of the ones she’d used, plus several more she’d scattered around, and starts putting them away in various pockets. “Custom made single shot derringers…” She holds one up as she grins. “That’s why they call me Derringer Dandy.”

Gearing looks over the one he’d held onto as he asks, “Wouldn’t it be better to have a couple revolvers? Single shots are okay but not when you’re going up against groups.”

Dandy swishes her tail and gives him a rather smug smirk as she waves a hoof around them and asks, “You mean like eight rock heads?”

Gearing slowly looks around and can’t help but agree that she has a very valid point. “Um… yeah… I see... but... still... why… whatever these are?”

She takes the one he has away from him and puts it in a pocket as she says, “They’re cheap enough to make and easily enough to construct that I can put them together on my own. So if I have to drop them in the middle of a firefight I don’t have to really worry about coming back to find it later.” She shrugs. “Plus the design is so simple, and they weigh so little, I can handle far more of them simultaneously than I would be able to with normal firearms.”

Gearing looks around at the ground as he says, “Yeah. That’s a point I hadn’t considered.” He shrugs. “Magic’s always been my weakest subject.” He chuckles as he says, “Not like I have a horn to practice with, ya know.”

She leans down next to him as she asks, “Alright, enough of avoiding the conversation… How bad are ya?” She shakes her head. “You said you were tough, but even so I didn’t expect you to still be alive, let alone conscious, after that.”

Gearing looks at her and smirks as he says, “The no bullshit assessment is I could use a healing potion. But I’ll live, even without it.” He holds up the front right side of his improvised cloak as he frowns, “Bastards put some holes in this thing too…” He lets the cloak slide over and starts looking over his foreleg where a couple plates are dented and bent, and a cog near his fetlock looks like it’s nearly knocked off its central pen.

She starts rummaging through the ambushers’ belongings as she says, “Well, let’s see what they have… I’m sure they brought something if they were intending on starting a fight with a buck that could smash a pony’s skull with one hoof.” She rummages through one of the bags of the stallions that’d come in through the right door and says with a cheer, “Bingo!”

She spins around and holds the slightly faded potion to Gearing. “Here. Drink it up before it goes bad.”

Gearing grabs it and does as instructed, not even taking the time to question the statement in its entirety. He starts rubbing on his chest and, after a few moments, the lead and debris from the direct hits start falling to the ground as he helps work it out of his gears and plates under the cloak. After a few more moments the cog that had been barely holding on slides back into place on his leg as the pen that holds it there regrows out of the sheared off shaft. He works his foreleg, forcing the movements to take place despite the resistance until the various pieces of lead, steel, and copper bullet fragments fall through the gaps and his movement is no longer impeded.

While he’s doing that, Dandy looks around and stays busy herself. She reloads each one of her little toys, and stows each one into its individual holster along the inside lining of her jacket. She even takes care to store the brass that the single bullet weapons use. Afterwards, she makes Gearing’s tendency of salvaging proud as she takes everything from each corpse in the room that she’d shot. She pulls out some of the ammo, keeping the rounds relevant to herself and giving most of the rifle calibers to Gearing, before she starts stuffing everything into a large bag that one of the bucks had been carrying. Then she starts cramming the bag in a hidey hole under a partially collapsed stairwell.

As Gearing stares at her with a smile across his muzzle, she looks back at him and pauses for a moment as she has both of her forehooves on the bag and putting most of her weight into it. She starts flushing as she yells, “Hey, they tried to kill us! Their shit’s ours now!”

Gearing chuckles and waves it away as he says, “Hey, don’t look at me, I’m not going to disagree with you…”

She looks him over then lets out a slight pout as she says, “Oh… okay…” She turns her attention back to the items as she says, “Some ponies just wanna give you shit for it, calling you graverobbers or whatever.”

Gearing shrugs and says with a grin, “Looks more like spoils of war to me.”

She looks over at him and frowns as she asks, “Don’t you think this place has seen enough war already?”

Gearing tilts his head and shrugs as he says, “This place saw enough war over two hundred year ago, even before the bombs dropped… Shit ain’t stopped.”

She chuckles as she shakes her head. “Touché Mr. Philosophical… Touché.”

As she starts walking away Gearing points over to a debris pile and says, “Don’t forget to cover it in some trash, or some other scavenger is more likely to find it before we get back.”

She giggles and glances over her shoulder as her horn glows. A moment later she’s dumped the contents of a trash can over the general area where the bag has been stuffed, covering it in loose papers, dirt, and small bits of rock, before she tosses the can into an adjacent room and trots over to join Gearing.

As she’s walking up to him she asks sweetly, “Okay… next question…” She rears up and starts bopping him on the head with both forehooves as she yells, “Why the hell would you be so stupid to try and tell me to ‘run and save yourself’ when we just met?! Why the hell would you do that?! Who does that?! What the hell is wrong with you?! Why’d you just give up like that?!”

Gearing crouches down as he’s getting barraged with hooves and grumbles, “I wasn’t tryn’-” *Clang* “Hey, that was my ear!” *Clang Clang* “If you’d give me a damn minute! It wasn’t just about you!” *Clang* “Dammit listen to me!”

“What the fuck is wrong with you trying to sacrifice yourself like that!? I can take care of myself! The hell’s wrong with your head?!” she bellows out as she continues to rain down one ineffective hoof blow after another.

He finally catches her forehoof, grabs her foreleg, and twists to pull her forward and make her lose balance. She lands next to him and he tumbles with her as he rolls over onto her. But he makes sure that, even though he’s pinning her to the ground, he’s supporting the vast majority of his weight around her and not actually on her.

“Oof! Hey, what the hell, I just saved you!” she objects then eeps out, “Watch the leg…”

Gearing stays in the same position as he looks at her face to face. “I wanted you out of the way so you didn’t get hurt.”

“I can take care of myself… you don’t have to worry about me…” she replies lamely. She squirms a bit as she says, “Watch the leg…”

Gearing rolls his eyes as he gets closer to her as he demands her attention. “If the room was going to get filled with lead, you were eventually going to get hit. I can take a few more hits than most, as you saw. I just needed you out of the crossfire.”

“W-w- watch the leg,” she mumbles before she says, “I’m not useless, you know…” Followed by a slight groan.

Gearing shakes his head and leans in as he pulls back the cowl and smiles at her. “I didn’t say you were useless… Once you were in the hallway, and had room to maneuver, instead of just sitting in the middle of that kill zone? Sure. Fight to your heart’s content. But I needed room to move and not worry about you getting hit in the crossfire.” He leans in a bit more and asks softly as she has her eyes clamped shut and biting her lip. “You okay? You’re turning pretty red.”

“Y-your leg,” she groans. “Your leg!” She gasps, then clamps her hindlegs together, hard, entrapping one on Gearing’s in her fleshy vice.

Gearing’s eyes go wide as he snorts in surprise, “Oh, shit!” He starts lifting himself up, pulling away from her, but her hind end lifts a bit as she has such a hard grip on his leg with hers. “Shit, sorry! Are you okay!?”

She slacks her grip, and slips away as she lets out a groan. Then she flushes hard as she turns bright red and starts hitting him on the top of the head with her hooves as she yells, “How many times do I gotta say ‘watch your leg’?! How dense are you?! How could you not tell where you were rubbing!? And pressing… And pushing…. And….” She turns even brighter red as she starts hitting him harder. “Why the hell would you do that?!”

Gearing shies away as he holds up his forelegs and groans. “I’m sorry, it was an accident!”

She bonks him on the head one more time, then shakes her hoof as she says, “I believe you’re that dense with how hard headed you are, that’s for sure!” She snorts and closes her eyes as she looks off to the side and says, “I can’t believe you’d do that to me after everything I’ve done for you.”

He gives her a sheepish smile as he says, “Sorry, I really wasn’t trying anything. Honest.”

She looks him over, and the answer just seems to piss her off more as she shakes her hoof at him. “Uh huh… well… Try that shit again and I’m gonna shoot you!”

After getting past the awkwardness and taking their leave of the fresh corpses, they continue out the front door of the warehouse’s office and back outside. Dandy takes over leading the way again as they walk along in silence for a few more blocks. After the color returns to normal along Dandy’s cheeks, Gearing asks, “Do you have any other information about Cookie? What I got was pretty sparse.”

Dandy looks over at him, and then rocks her head side to side as she goes back to watching the path they are taking. “Well, I’ve heard a few other things too. Some of it’s pretty much on par for the other shit he’s been doing. But, of it all, there’s probably one bit of…” She grimaces as she says, “Peculiar behavior?”

Gearing trots up next to her to look at her face and sees that she has a rather twisted look on her muzzle as she’s trying to wrap her head around trying to say what’s trying to work its way out of her muzzle.

Eventually she does manage to get the wording right and says, “Apparently he’s got a lover… of sorts…. Sorta…” She catches eye contact with Gearing and scrunches her muzzle to the side as she says, “It’s complicated… I think… though maybe not.” She shrugs.

Gearing looks at her and tilts his head as he asks, “How could it be complicated? And what’s with a ‘lover’? I mean, he’s a serial rapist, so that doesn’t normally go along with having a ‘lover’. Kinda seems mutually exclusive and weird.”

She lets out a sigh and hangs her head as she says, “Oh, you have no idea…” She takes in a deep breath then lifts her head and looks at Gearing with a plastered on fake grin across her muzzle as she says, “His lover’s name is apparently Queenie. And he apparently loves her more than anything in the whole wide world. And, apparently, people can hear their sexcapades from a block away. Apparently when he’s not out raping the general populace and inanimate objects, he’s cooking. And if he’s not doing that, he’s doing Queenie.”

Gearing smirks and starts wondering how many people would try to compare his and Sable’s escapades as such… but instead of rape and killing taking up most of his time, it’s repair and killing, with sex filling in as many gaps as Sable can get away with. But at least the ones he kills deserve it, right? That’s a difference.

The comparison starts disturbing both him and the little blue pegasus in his head. So he stops the mental train of thought.

“So, he’s a sex maniac… That’s nothing new, what else is there that makes this complicated?” Gearing asks as he trots along beside her.

That grin just gets even more plastered on and fake as she says, “Well, the thing is… Queenie?” She scrunches her muzzle to the side as she says softly, “Is a brahmin.”

Gearing missteps a few times as his brain nearly throws a cog at the sudden tom-fuckery. “Wait, what?! His ‘lover’ is a brahmin?!”

Dandy nods as she continues scrunching her mouth over to the side. “Weird, I know, right?” She looks forward as she continues, “And, here’s the weird thing… weirder even… apparently it’s consensual…” She looks at Gearing and nods. “Because she’s got her own area at his place. And nopony’s allowed to touch her…” She looks forward as her eyes go wide as she thinks about it. “Apparently one time someone was trying to clean up the area, one of his own people at that, and they tapped Queenie with a hoof to move to the side so they could get under her, and Cookie went ballistic! He cut off the hoof she used to touch Queenie, made her eat her own hoof, and then proceeded to rape every orifice on her body before throwing her out half-burnt for the wildlife to finish off.”

Gearing shakes his head as he says, “He’s even that fucked up to his own crew? Why the hell would anyone stay around that psychopath?!”

Dandy shrugs as she says, “Apparently he’s a really good cook, if you believe the rumors… and he’s got a shit load of chems… And as long as he doesn’t have an itch in his crotch he’s actually tolerable. Supposedly. But if he hasn’t tapped his kiwi’s in a while he goes even more sex crazy than normal.”

Gearing shakes his head as he has a hard time trying to figure someone like that out. Even with his vast personal experience with the general subject matter, he’s not qualified to try and diagnose this particular brand of crazy.

Dandy looks over at him as she asks, “So, what kinda plan you got for taking him out? Any ideas? You’ve gotta if you came looking for me just to find out where he is.”

Gearing looks around as he says, “Well, once I know who and where he is… just a matter of putting a bullet in his head… or dropping a bomb in a room with him… Hell, if he likes flamers so much, throwing in some explosives with short fuses on them would probably be just as effective as he’d end up lighting them up himself.”

Dandy frowns as she says, “No explosives, please. In order to get the full bounty, we need to bring back something intact enough that he can be identified properly. If we don’t we’re only going to get a fraction of the bounty. Might not even get half of it, depending on the situation.”

Gearing nods as he looks around. “Well. Let’s just wait until we get there, see what’s actually going on around it, and then go about taking care of it after we figure out what we can do versus what we want to do.”

Dandy nods as she turns and begins trotting along faster. “Sounds like a plan to me. Let’s get going. Those assholes made us lose some time, and I’d love to get back in time tonight to claim the bounty and get a nice night’s sleep on a cot.”

They continue weaving through paths and the crumbled down remnants of long forgotten buildings for a few hours without running into any other trouble. But, when she starts getting close to where she’s pretty sure they are only a few blocks away, they start traveling through buildings wherever possible to avoid being caught out in the open.

Again.

And this time the strategy works. Every so often Gearing kicks on his EFS just to look around and make sure they aren’t about to walk into another ambush. And, in doing so, they’re able to skirt around a few random red blips here and there. Maybe they are radroaches. Maybe they are raiders. Maybe they are angry bounty hunters looking for revenge. Or maybe they’re just an alicorn looking for the next pony to ream with their horn. Gearing doesn’t know. Gearing doesn’t care. As long as they aren’t in their path, and they can get away from them, he’s not going to go off and investigate, looking for trouble, when he’s already on a pretty important task.

They get to a building that looks like it’s been built to resemble an old-timey cowpoke tavern. Complete with a piano, now over on its side and smashed to pieces by something or someone giving it a very bad day, and a second floor balcony. They walk around, with Dandy leading the way and Gearing right behind. As she’s walking up the stairs, they creak and groan, and she gingerly continues up the stairs the rest of the way as Gearing watches from the first floor.

Gearing steps up with a forehoof, and slowly starts applying pressure to the second step. But, as soon as he puts any real weight on it, not even enough to start lifting himself up with, the plank snaps and his hoof goes right through it.

Dandy’s eyes go wide and she looks down at the planks under her own hooves as she says sheepishly, “Um… maybe you shouldn’t follow me… I’m a bit smaller anyway and I don’t think this place could handle two.”

Gearing shakes his head and steps back as he says, “Even if it could, it couldn’t handle my lard ass.” He waves her up the stairs as he says, “Go take a peek, I’ll be here.”

She quickly heads upstairs, and he can follow her movements by the squeaking and groaning of the wood that makes up both the second story’s floor and the ground floor’s ceiling. After a few moments of looking around she gingerly comes back, hopping over the broken stair and landing straight onto the floor as she says, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure he’s over there. You can almost smell the burning shit already.” She walks over to the back door of the tavern as she peeks out into the alleyway beyond and adds, “Looks like he’s taken over that plaza near those old office buildings… Turned the center where the fountain used to be into a damn barbeque pit or something.”

Gearing follows her out and around the corner as he asks, “So, we just going to go in and you toss your little toys around until they spring their trap for you to shoot them in the head point blank again?”

She looks back at him and grins as she says, “I prefer to do that when I’m behind cover… not looking down a flamer… He’s more likely to burn the tail hair off my ass, before even getting close enough for that to work.”

They start swinging around this way and that, as they snake their way towards the office complex plaza. It doesn’t take long, even with the ultra damp weather, before the smell of burnt everything starts greeting their noses. Plastic. Wood. Rubber. Flesh. Hair. It all greets them in a wave so clear they could almost see in the air.

Check that: after a bit of further travel they can actually see it in the air as various smokes rise up around the plaza. A few of them emanating from wire mesh trash cans. Others from in the engine compartments of industrial equipment. Still others are just sitting out on the ground, fancy free, in a way that would make any fire marshal have a stroke.

Gearing walks around next to Dandy as she’s stopped a block away from the plaza to take in the view from the relative safety of a boarded up window. “So… do any of the others have any bounties on them as well?”

She shrugs. “I don’t really know. They might. But there’s no way to tell for sure without getting the identification and checking. Why?” She looks over at him and smirks as she asks, “You planning on taking out more than just him?”

Gearing looks around the building they’ve found themselves in as he says, “Well, considering the fucked up shit he does, the others can’t be much better.” He looks at her as he nods towards the window and adds, “If they’re okay enough with it to stick around him, they’re not okay enough to be left hanging around after he’s gone.”

She looks around as she bobs her head. “Fair… I mean. I’m more interested in the bounty… but the others might be worth a bit too.” She grins as she puts a hoof to her muzzle. “Oouuuu I wonder if there’s a bonus for taking down the whole gang!” Her eyes practically sparkle at the thought. “There just might be!”

Gearing looks at her and grins as he says, “I think we know a way to find that out.”

She leans towards him and practically purrs as she says, “I love the way you think,” as she partially closes her eyes.

He smirks and asks, “So, how are we going to split this up?”

Dandy scrunches her mouth up to one side as she goes back to peeking through the slit next to the covered up window. “Well… Divide and conquer might be a valid tactic… Or, we could try and lure them away to pick them off a few at a time…” She looks over at him and frowns as she says, “Don’t just demo the whole damn area, in case you were thinking about it.”

Gearing waves her away with a hoof as he says, “Nah, would be a waste of explosives… They’d probably burn before they’d detonate anyway…” He scratches his chin a bit before he looks her over. “How many of those little pea shooters you have on you?”

Dandy bobs her head around a bit before she says, “Fifty… ten clusters of five each… Plus the ammo in my pockets… why?”

Gearing’s eyes bug out as he asks, “Fifty?!” He starts looking her over as he tries to figure out exactly where she’s hiding all of them, and can’t help but smirking as he realizes he’s had a few similar tricks revealed recently.

Well, that’d explain all the gun oil smell. The little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head comments as he keeps looking Dandy over.

She reaches over and pops Gearing on the head as she flushes and says, “Get your mind out of the gutter… They’re just in holsters I have sewn into the inside of my jacket.”

Gearing chuckles as he looks around. “Right… right… So…” He coughs into his hoof before he says, “How about we do a little of both.” He points over to the plaza as he says, “We sneak over, find a good place to hole up, and I run around real quick and get a head count, then meet back up with you and we go after them one group at a time?”

She narrows her eyes as she bops him on the head a couple more times. “I keep telling you I’m not helpless… My eyes are just as good as yours.”

Gearing looks at her and holds up his PipBuck as he asks, “Yeah, but do you have an EFS that lets you count them from a distance, and through walls?”

She opens her mouth to say something in retort, with her hoof still up in the air. Dandy goes a bit slack as she stares off into space and thinks it over. A moment later she bops herself on the head gently as she giggles. “Nah… you’re right… my bad.” And then she playfully sticks her tongue out at him with one of her eyes closed.

Gearing nods and kicks on his EFS, immediately he’s already seeing red indicators in a variety of directions. He motions her to follow with a hoof, and leads the way out of the building and down the last block between them and their target.

They sneak into a destroyed bakery on the corner across the street from the plaza, with the glass fronts that made up the two sides facing the intersection completely smashed, and start looking around the plaza area.

Gearing looks over at her and asks quietly, “Hey uh… is there a reason there doesn’t seem to be much hoof traffic in the middle of the day? This is their base, isn’t it?”

She shrugs as she says, “They might be more of night owls… But even that’s a bit off for this. They should be up and about now. Or somepony should at least… Guards? Scouts? Lookouts?” She looks at him and says softly, “Unless the dumbasses are just lounging around inside because they have nothing better to do?”

Gearing frowns as he looks around. “Don’t think they’re out hitting another caravan or whatever, do you?”

She shrugs, and then lets out a long moan. “I certainly hope not! I don’t want to wait for them to get back for us to take them out. That could take all day!”

Gearing nods as he starts slipping out a side door. “Wait here, I’ll go do a quick head count… Try not to draw too much attention to yourself… but remember… if you do…”

Dandy frowns hard and rolls her eyes. “I know… I know… Let me guess… Run away and wait to regroup with you before coming back?”

Gearing looks at her and tilts his head. “Uh… No… If you get discovered, make a hell of a lot of racket, and take down as many as you can, as quickly as you can. But stay safe and keep moving… That way you’ll pull more away from the base and maybe we can catch them in a pincer maneuver.”

Dandy’s eyes jump to their widest as she grins. “Ohhh I like that idea!” She pulls out a couple of her pistol boxes and starts tossing them around on the floor under the old rusting displays as she quickly counts out and places five of them. After she’s placed the fifth one she looks at Gearing and shrugs as she says, “Just in case.”

Gearing nods and slips out as quietly as he can.

---

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

Gravity Differential alignment at 62%

Gravity Differential alignment at 75%

Gravity Differential alignment at 87%

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