Hammer and Cross are in the maintenance wing for the transportation vehicles as Hammer sits on her haunches with her forelegs crossed over her chest and a grumpy expression across her face. Snake and Mouse, in their combat biohazard suits, stand off to the side playing a game of checkers on an ammo crate as Cross keeps telling Hammer ‘no’.

“Why though? What’s the big deal? It’s not like it’s not allowed; we’re not in the same chain of command. And never will be. I’m maintenance and repair, and he’s not,” Hammer grumps.

Cross frowns as she says, “Because you trying to shellac him could quite literally throw off everything else. He’s got enough to worry about, besides satisfying your libido!”

Hammer throws her forehooves around as she says, “Oh like that would be a problem with him! It’s like nature forgot to install the brakes on that buck!” She shrugs as she says, “He’s cute, smart, and the strongest fucking buck I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” Cross opens her mouth to say something, but Hammer cuts her off loudly, “And! He’s like the only available flyer I ever run into. I mean, come on, I’m stuck down here more than any of you and a mare’s got needs dammit!”

Cross opens her mouth again and, again, Hammer cuts her off, “And Mouse doesn’t count! He prefers to trawl the bars up top looking like a mare and getting ploughed that way.”

One of the ponies in the biohazard suits starts laughing and nodding while the other one turns into a tan mare with a platinum blonde mane and an exceptionally wide hip ratio. She gives her flanks a slow swish one way, than the other, before she says in a soft sweet voice, “Hey, don’t get jealous. It’s not hard to get a train going when you can be exactly what each and every one of them wants in a mare.” They shake their rear a bit more and giggle as they say, “And when you got a caboose like this.”

Hammer throws a hoof at the changeling as she says, “How the hell am I supposed to compete with that! I mean, damn, even I want to do her! And I’m straight!” She looks off to the side as she puts a hoof to her chin. “I think? Maybe? Damn these hormones!”

The tan mare looks back and forth before she puts a hoof to her muzzle and asks, “Well, what about Skip? If you’re into fliers I mean?”

Hammer looks off to the side and puts a hoof to her chest as she says, “I have standards: I’m not a homewrecker, and I’m not into poaching buck, especially from friends.”

The tan mare looks at the remaining pony in the biohazard suit and raises an eyebrow as they say, “I thought he was single?”

The other biohazard suit wearing pony turns into a griffin before she turns her head to face the side and puts a claw to her chest. “Don’t look at me like that; I’m not the one hopping on that particular pony pogo stick.”

A rattle noise crops up and, out from behind the big pile of weapons crates nearby, one box raises up in the air behind all of the others, then starts moving around apparently of its own volition. After it gets away from the stack, it rises higher in the air and gets set on top of the rest of them.

And a moment later Gearing, in his custom flight suit and nothing else, walks around the side of the depot pile as he twitches his ears and looks around. “Alright, alright. I’m coming, Skip. Geez. You tell me to hide as part of an exercise then you never come and find me…” He looks over at the group around Cross as he’s passing them and says, “Hey, if you need help working on whatever train that is, I’d love to learn about their inner workings. The different types seem neat!”

They all stare at him with their mouth agape as he walks towards the door back to the main central area.

Hammer, flushing furiously, has her forehooves almost in her mouth as she practically squeals, “There’s no way something so innocent and wholesome exists in the world!”

“And. I. Want. To. Keep. It. That. Way!” Cross says as she punctuates each individual word with a swat from her phantasmal folded paper fan spell on top of Hammer’s head. But it does nothing to break Hammer’s focus from staring at Gearing as he’s walking away.

The griffin looks at the tan mare next to her and nods towards Hammer as she says while shaking her head, “Ohhh she’s got it bad!” The tan mare reverts to their standard biohazard suit wearing pony look, with the considerably more humble buttocks, and nods sympathetically.

It takes Gearing nearly half an hour to run his spiral route around the plaza and surrounding office complexes. It’s not hard to avoid somepony when they aren’t expecting you and you can see them before they can even sense you. One of the biggest concerns he had with all of this was the possibility of there being prisoners. The buck is a lunatic with a habit of raping his captives. So there is that possibility.

However, his various snaking routes around the buildings, and the open plaza area, indicate to him that there are no such innocent parties in this area. The closest thing that came to it is the brahmin pens that are attached to the mostly intact office building. Apparently the office building had a covered party area, where the building itself acted like a gazebo roof, and had many tables and such built into the concrete. Now that area has been enclosed with various sheets of wood and metal, with random bits of barb and razor wire around it for good measure. But, sure enough, in one of those back areas is a pen for the brahmin. Kept safe from the rest of the wasteland by the poorly put together walls and a herd of insane bandits. Though he can’t tell which one of the brahmin is the fabled ‘Queenie’ that he’d been informed of. He has a guess that it’s probably the one in its own pen. Next to a delivery wagon that’s been converted into living quarters. That brahmin has the least number of marks on it and their fur actually looks well taken care of. Like the bovine has actually seen a bath, and knows of such things as soap.

Unlike many ponies he’s run into recently.

After getting a quick head count he sneaks back around and returns to Dandy. This time, realizing the seriousness of the situation, he does the courteous thing and announces himself gently with a couple knocks on a discarded tin can as he whispers, “Hey, Dandy.”

But, intentional or not, he startles her anyway, and ends up with three different magically floating pistols pointed at his head simultaneously.

He looks at her as he frowns and asks, “So, mind if we go take care of these bandits, or would your trigger happy ass like to warm up by putting a few rounds in my ass first?”

She chuckles and pulls the pistols away as she says softly, “Oh you teaaaase.” She looks out across the plaza as she asks, “Well?”

He breaks down the general layout of the place, and how the outer plaza actually has two stories, where parties and such were held going from raised platform to raised platform. And how it leads up to the front of the main building, where there’s a large staircase that leads up to the second floor. They talk a bit more, and decide to try and take out the others that are scattered in the adjoining buildings first. The more they take out that way, away from everyone else, the less they’ll have to worry about when the bigger fight comes. And they both know there will be a big fight before this is all said and done.

The smaller they can make the bigger fight, the better.

They head out and immediately sneak into the office building on the far right. This one has the least number of red bars, and it’s not hard to see why from the inside. The entire place is like a dump. A multistory dump. And not the kind where scavengers could crawl through to find hidden gems to be traded. No, this was garbage through and through. And a lot of it, far more than it should sanely be, is rotting carcasses that have been mostly burnt. Then there are other forms of trash and things that aren’t even identifiable as they have practically liquefied into some syrupy mess of waterlogged origin. But, as they are sneaking through the few occupied levels of the building, they find out that not all of the red dots are real threats. Quite a few of them are simply radroaches who are dining on fine cuisine of the bovine and equine variety. Burnt to a crisp, raw, or cooked to perfection. Makes no matter. It’s all equally edible to a radroach.

Gearing is more than happy to remove a few of the scurrying little monsters from his EFS with a heavy hoof and a smile. Each one makes a delightful popping sound, along with a high pitched squeal or squeak. Though the more of them he runs into, the more he wonders how he had such a problem with them back in Stable 68. Granted he hasn’t had a swarm of them all over him biting at every bit of exposed hide they could find, but still.

And, just like that, they quickly lower on his threat level chart for the current task at hoof.

They quickly zip through the building, going floor by floor, through the refuse, as they make their way up to the top. Each floor is much like the one below it. Full of garbage and waste. The smell is oppressive and only getting worse the deeper in they go. Even with his own dulled senses, in terms of reaction to smells in general, he can practically feel the miasma of disgust marinating them through the very air. He’s not even really sure how Dandy can breathe in this, and debates on having her to go ahead and go back outside. But when he turns to make the suggestion to her is when he notices the mask she has pulled up and over her muzzle.

A decorative kerchief of some kind. But much larger than normal and tied around her head to hold it in place as they walk around. Even so, her eyes are showing visible signs of watering. Probably from the filth in the very air stinging them.

“Certainly that can’t be enough to hold this stink off for you?” Gearing asks as he points a hoof at the cloth on her face.

Dandy looks at him and tilts her head for a moment before she says, “My bandana?” She chuckles lightly before she whispers back, “Of course not! I just put an air freshener spell on it. Works well enough for crap like this.”

Gearing bobs his head around as he carries on. “That sounds like it’d be pretty useful. Sorry I didn’t ask before. This place is rank.”

She nods and follows along before she asks, “Oh, shit, I didn’t think to ask you, considering what you are, but do you need it too?” She looks him over as she says in an unsure tone, “You don’t really seem to be reacting to it so I figured not?”

Gearing stops walking then slowly turns his head to look at her. He pulls back the cowl completely again as he asks, “What do you mean ‘considering what you are’?”

I swear if she says ‘protectapony’ that’s gonna put a damper on a budding friendship, the little blue pegasus in his head grumps.

Dandy side steps and waves a hoof defensively. “I didn’t mean anything rude by it… but… you’re like... a cyberpony, right?” She points at her own face and he can see her sheepish smile in her eyes as she says softly, “It’s kind of hard… to not notice. Strength aside.”

Gearing scowls and opens his mouth to say something snarky, but stops when his mind space crashes as the little blue pegasus zips out of its steam chest and bucks him upside the head. Hey! She’s not wrong, you know! Technically, she’s right… or did somepony forget about their implants?

That’s not what she means… he mentally replies to: himself.

She’s not being mean about it, his mind-space pegasus retorts.

“I mean, you’ve got a bit too much umm…” She looks him over before she grins and says, “Personality… to just be some protectapony…”

Gearing lets out a sigh as he looks her over.

Okay, she technically used the word, but said you’re not… that’s gotta count for something! Give a mare a chance! the little blue pegasus quips as he sits back and patiently waits for Dandy to work through verbalizing her thought process.

She steps a bit closer to Gearing as she whispers, “If you don’t wanna talk about it, I’ll understand…”

Gearing shakes his head lightly and says, “It’s fine… You’re asking about my enhancement upgrades?”

She nods slowly, cautiously, obviously not wanting to offend but painfully curious about it nonetheless.

“I got the implants during the war-” Gearing starts but gets interrupted.

“‘The war’? Which war?” Dandy blurts out. “You mean the War?” Her eyes go wide as she rambles with her mouth hanging open. “The megaspell-detonating bale-fire-bomb-dropping scorched-earth-leaving War?!”

Gearing looks at her and lets out a slight snort of amusement as he says, “Yeah… That war… it’s the only real war I know of.”

She looks around quickly as she says, more to herself than anything, “Holy crap that means you were around before…” Her voice trails off as her mind races through that line of logic. She looks him over. “I guess it’s the cyberpony bit that’s let you live so long. That’s amazing!” She trots over and smiles as she asks excitedly, “What was it like?!”

Gearing narrows his eyes and folds back his ears as he asks, “What? The war?”

She scrunches up her muzzle to one side before shaking her head. “No. Fuck the war. I don’t care about that. Just look around us and it’s pretty easy to see what kind of a mess that was…” She leans in closer as she grins at him face to face with such enthusiasm it’s plainly evident even with the kerchief covering her muzzle. “No, Equestria! What was it like?” She waves a hoof back towards the windows while still looking at him. “Before somepony got the bright idea of blasting it all into an irradiated mess, I mean.”

Gearing slowly looks her over as he gets a wide, yet crooked, smile growing across his muzzle. He leans over and pats her on the shoulder as he says, “Know what… I think I like you.”

Her cheeks start glowing pinkish as she stammers, “H-hey! Don’t get fresh! This is no place for that!”

Gearing smirks and looks around as he says, “Tell ya what, after this, we’ll talk it over and I’ll answer as much as I can.” He looks at her sideways. “Sound fair enough?”

“Sure!” She trots on ahead as she looks back at him, grinning at the possibilities.

The first actual pony, living anyways, that they run into in here is a buck that seems to be trying to hide among the corpses. Each of his legs have been scorched, but, as he charges at them with a squeal and madness in his eyes, it’s quite clear that they are still functional. What’s also clear is the amount of Med-X he must have doped himself up with to not care that one of his cutie marks seems to have been burnt off with a hot frying pan.

As Dandy is jumping back and away from the charging buck, who’s having to scramble over a pile of rotting corpses, she throws a couple of her little boxes in the air as she pulls out her pistols. The little boxes float in mid air, then get caught in her magical glow before they fly at full speed towards the buck from various angles. She puts a round through each of the front knees with her pistols, causing him to fall onto his face on the next stride as they get blown out, but he’s still coming at her. She hops and springs to the side as he slides by her, and, before she’s even landed on all four hooves, she’s fired two more times with a pair of single shot boxes, both into the back of his head.

The final shots stop the manic hooting and hollering, and make his hind legs collapse as well, as the momentum carries him the rest of the way to settle in and become just a newer, fresher, corpse among the others.

Gearing walks over to her as she’s reloading and storing her pistols and single shots again as he says quietly, “We’re gonna need to be careful. I’m not sure if he was intending on ambushing us, or if that was just dumb luck.”

She nods agreement and they continue going through the building they have dubbed Hoofington’s Dump. Which, considering the state of the rest of Hoofington, is actually saying something. Given Gearing atypically keeps his EFS active the entire time, they don’t really run into any more surprises. Except for the regular ‘surprise’ of expecting to find a pony waiting in ambush, only to find the red chevron is just a radroach doing its part to clean up the mess one bite at a time. A couple of which seem to be so full they appear to be in a food coma and don’t so much as move when the pair invade their territory.

Despite their expectations, they only found a trio of ponies in the dump building. Each one isolated and away from the others and appearing to be hiding from everyone and everything. Maybe it was a form of punishment, or they were trying to avoid punishment for something they’d done or failed to do. Gearing’s not sure and if Dandy has any ideas she’s kept them to herself.

Or, maybe, they’re in here hiding because it’s their turn for the flamer enema and they are trying to avoid it as long as possible? the little blue pegasus in his head chimes in with disgust.

Even Gearing quickly clinches his rear at the thought of it. If this Cookie is willing to do this to his own people, imagine what he’d be willing to do to others ‘not on board’ with the plan.

He can’t help but having a quick mental image of a fat yellow filly pop through his mind, rolling like a bulbous fleshy tumbleweed through his think space, as he wonders if Charity is similar. The kids looked healthy enough, but maybe that’s just a ruse. Or maybe they hadn’t been in her clutches long enough to suffer enough abuse for it to be visible. Or maybe she was an expert at doing it covertly. Either way, she’s still on his ‘to do’ list as soon as he gets the chance. But he’s got a few obligations to get out of the way first before he goes hunting down loan sharks. He wants to make sure that Stable 68 will get what it needs before he starts causing an even bigger ruckus. Because if he’s already having ponies try and take him out for eliminating one or two scumbags, he knows he’s going to be on the defensive and stuck on the move if it’s discovered he’s the one that took down or screwed over one of the big players in Equestria.

Hell, Security’s bounty got doubled by Usury just because Security said she’d wreck slavers. Imagine what she’d be willing to do if she found out what you got planned for her ass? the little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head comments. Then he rubs his chin as he smirks. New largest bounty ever… Wonder if we could break seven digits.

After clearing the building of anypony else, they peek out of the windows on the upper floors as they try to figure out the best way to go about attacking the main building at the head of the open plaza.

“Any ideas?” Dandy asks as she trails her eyes over the multi level building catty corner to this one. The thought of the number of ambushes possible in it isn’t a pleasant one, especially when one of the ones that might be doing the ambushing is Cookie. Literal flaming surprise butt sex is not on the agenda today. Not if they can help it anyway.

Gearing lets his own eyes trail around the building, then to the sky walk that used to function as a reception area for the companies back when the ‘barbeque pit’ in the center was an actual functioning fountain. “Well… if we cause enough of a ruckus, we could get them to come out to us…” He looks over at her and grins as he says, “A bit of poking the ol’ hornet’s nest as it were…”

She leans over and bumps his shoulder with hers as she says, “Oh, I’m liking you more and more already…” She looks back out the window as she asks, “So, who’s going to be doing the poking?”

“Not Cookie if I have anything to say about it,” Gearing quips.

Both of their rears clinch in response, along with Dandy’s legs clamping together so quickly they make an audible smack before she shivers. She flushes as she looks around and mutters, “Uh… yeah… there’s that…”

Gearing looks over at her as he nods towards the window. “I’ll go make the ruckus, and draw them out.”

She looks at him and scowls as she says, “You’re not trying that self-sacrificing shit on me again, are you? I keep telling you I can take care of myself!”

Gearing leans in and grins as he says, “Yeah… I know… otherwise I’d make you tag along with me so I could keep an eye on you.” He reaches up and taps on her brow with the back of a hoof as he says, “I need you with all of your guns picking them off as they come after me. You don’t need to be holding your weapons to shoot them, I do. And, little miss ‘I can handle myself’ I’m going to expect you to be doing your fair share in this. Got it?!”

She looks up at him and grins as she says sweetly, “Well… where do you want me?”

“Over that table,” Gearing replies as he points through the window.

Dandy flushes down to her shoulders as she whips out a pistol and puts it to his head. “Hey! What’d I say about getting fresh, this ain’t the time for that! I’ll shoot your ass if you try and screw mine!”

Gearing narrows his eyes and points out the window with a hoof again as he says flatly, but with a slightly annoyed tone to it, “I’m not talking about sexing you up… I wanted to you take position over by that concrete table… There’s a dumpster on top of that ruble next to it. From there you’d have a pretty good line of sight around the plaza; just scatter your guns around like you did before and let ‘em have it.”

She flushes more as she pulls the pistol back and leans over to look out the window. She turns a delightful shade of red as she quickly looks around. “Oh… yeah… okay… Yeah that makes sense.”

Gearing turns and they start heading back down as he asks, “You want me to toss around a few of those guns while I’m going in to stir up some trouble?”

She shakes her head. “Nah. I need to know exactly where they are. It makes it far easier to focus so I can use them. Once I get a hold of them, I can feel them out and know how to orient them the way I want, but I need to know where and how they’re sitting first to be able to reliably do that.”

Gearing sneaks out and leads the way near the plaza. He hides over by a section of collapsed concrete, from one of the sky walk reception areas above partially collapsing down, as Dandy runs around, depositing her little toys here and there, before she, as well, sneaks over and hops into the dumpster indicated earlier. Instantly she springs back up, and looks over at him with a scowl of disgust as she holds up a hoof covered in sticky decaying material. The unhappy mare is unhappy and stares at him with a frown that clearly telegraphs ‘Mistakes were made!’

After she’s in place, Gearing slinks out and starts stalking the perimeter again. But, again, even together they aren’t finding any real opposition. Which puts both of them on edge as he is approaching the larger building that must function as the group’s primary base. Gearing looks around, and hops up onto a few rubble piles, before jumping and flying the short distance up and onto one of the concrete skywalk areas. He walks very carefully, looking at all of the varied debris that is covering the once pristine reception area. Lots of garbage and trash, the vast majority of it looks recent compared to most areas.

Scattered along the various lengths of the reception area are many flower beds that are set up as dual purpose seating areas with extra thick concrete poured towards the sides of the path for those wishing to have a seat among the flowers to do so. Although, most of the actual vegetation that remains is twisted into nearly unidentifiable messes. Whatever had been living in the containers, and probably more identifiable, has long since been eaten. A fact evident by stems chewed to the ground here and there. Though, compared to what he’s sure it looked like pre war during the height of the consumerist times, the current growth is sparse, and that’s putting it mildly.

And that’s not even mentioning the other forms of defilement the once grandiose flower beds have been made to endure. Trash, bones, corpse pieces. All of it scattered among the raised beds like a field of filth in full bloom.

However, it makes for excellent cover as he zips along the raised walkway towards the main door. He finds an area where somepony, somewhat recently, set up a camp out in the open with a ratty tarp strung up with an old bent street sign in a half-assed lean-to. Gearing snuggles into the area, carefully pushing the pieces of trash around as he looks at the building’s front face that is only a couple dozen yards away.

Gearing keeps snooping around the little area he’s in, as he’s trying to keep an eye on the front door, and it slowly dawns on him that this is not simply an abandoned camp. This little beat down improvised sleeping area had been used, and recently. Poking out from under the pile of rags that apparently function as either bedding, sleeping bag, or both, is a small sack. He gently grabs the bag under the filthy sleeping nest and tugs it out. He spares enough attention to it to find a mouth gripped pipe pistol of some kind, one that’s functionality is questionable at best. But it is loaded, and apparently has an extra couple of rounds in the bag with it. The dirty blue cooler, covered in either tar, or dried blood, stowed behind the nest, and tucked next to the tarp, holds a couple other goodies in it. While most would associate a food cooler to have, well, food in it, this one had a food byproduct.

In the form of a pair of hoof made molotovs.

He quickly grabs them and stows them as his original idea for causing a bit of a ruckus quickly morphs into something new. He runs along the length of the skywalk, towards the opening that represents the stairs down, and jumps over it as he glides over to the second story entryway that, according to the burning fire barrels near it, must still be in use. He quickly looks through the glass, trying to get a bead on someone, but nothing catches his eye. So he cracks the door open.

Instantly he finds out why there’s nopony outside.

Apparently everyone’s inside of the main building, having a grand ole time. By the laughing and shouting and the radio playing some machine-like heavy music, it’s not hard to imagine the party that’s going on somewhere within the first few floors of the building. And, by the smell of things burning, he can only cringe as he wonders exactly what is on the menu at the moment.

He props the door open, and carefully looks side to side, following the noise as he progresses in. The second floor mostly has tiled segments over concrete as far as the walk area is concerned. Though many of the tiles have been broken and popped off through either use, abuse, or outright age. When he comes around the corner, and finds the building’s main atrium, the scene below makes him take a step back for a variety of reasons. A railing separates the walkway he’s currently standing on, marking a path on the second floor that transverses the perimeter of the atrium, from the wide openness of the atrium that goes straight to ground level. Over the side of the railing is a clear view of a very busy crowd. And clear views work both ways. So he backs up and thinks about what he’s already seen.

Yes, it’s pretty much as he’d guessed from the noise when he first entered the building. There’s a huge party going on on the first floor, with dozens of ponies shambling about as they yell and scream at each other, but otherwise seem to be enjoying themselves. There’s a long table set up with what must be the only clean surface area in the entire building. As he watches, one pony after another goes over and grabs a few items off of one serving plate or another, and walks away. Notably all of them are being exceedingly careful not to spill anything. With the extreme care and concentration being clearly evident with the expressions on their faces and slow movements. Even from the second floor.

But, the large food spread aside, the buffet’s not really where the strongest smell is coming from

In the center of the atrium is a pair of ponies, splayed out, and bound to a variety of wire and mesh. One vertically, and one horizontally. All while they are turned and twisted over a large fire as if some form of macabre version of wind art. Though, from what he can see at least, the ponies aren’t exactly on the menu. The grotesque scene is simply there to add to the atmosphere.

An atmosphere that Gearing very quickly wants to put an end to.

He looks around from his hiding place, side to side, as he tries to figure out the best way to ruffle their feathers the most and get the real party started. Then his eyes settle on the buffet table, and a mischievous grin slowly crosses his muzzle.

If they’re taking that much care to keep it clean and tidy, I bet messing it up would thoroughly piss them off! The little blue pegasus in his head cackles with glee.

And Gearing agrees. He steps back carefully, and lights the two molotovs he’d recently found in that cooler using one of the burning barrels near the door. He comes back at a run, with a flaming molotov held with each wing, and, as he’s approaching the corner near the railing, a purple mare comes around the corner from the other way holding a plate in one hoof.

Her muzzle is grotesquely full of some kind of chunky casserole, with a good portion of the mostly cream colored meal smearing her mouth and demonstrating her horrendous table manners. She turns her head to the side, seeing the movement out of the corner of her eye, and starts to scream, or tries to as he rapidly approaches her.

In mid gallop, with all four hooves off the ground, Gearing activates SATS.

Time comes to a near standstill as his vision changes. While staring at her he quickly starts taking in the environment. The red bar that indicates her, he’d thought was further away, and on the lower level. But, obviously not. He double checks the rest of the red chevrons across his vision, and compares them to where he was sure they were a moment before. Those, are most definitely further in front of him, which means below or, at the worst of it, on the same level but across the entry atrium on the other side of the building. Which just leaves the mare with a mouthful of casserole in front of him as a hitch to his plans.

With time stopped, and him only a couple strides away, he can see clearly what she’s eating with reckless abandon. Creamy with a variety of vegetables in it. Little cubes of carrots poking out here and there. And peas. Plenty of cheese it seems, and a sauce that can’t really be identified. Although, the little brownish red pieces of meat he hopes beyond hope aren’t equine in origin. But, given everything else he’s encountered recently, he wouldn’t be surprised if they were.

That looks like some grade ‘A’ chow! The little blue pegasus in his head chimes in as he mentally flutters around the plate. The last time I’d seen anything even close to this was at that uppity restaurant in Manehatten that we got dragged to!

But the mare is an obstacle to what he’s trying to do. Her clothes are ratty, and pockmarked with a few scatterings of burns. And besides being absolutely filthy, her armor is a bit better than most. In that it’s not simply rubber and leather to try and look intimidating, but actually being composed of quite a few pieces of metal. Entirely improvisational, but could definitely stop, or at least slow, a few rounds. Her mane’s been mostly scorched off, and currently looks likes a short crop top. But with coiled curly melted black ends. Adorning her head is a welding mask of some kind. One of the cheap ones that was basically a sheet of steel, formed on a press to roughly fight the shape of a pony face, and had a few pieces of tinted glass where the eyes could peek out at what they were working on.

And, as the spell is about to run out of juice, Gearing makes the decision that this dirty purple mare, regardless of why she’s here at this present moment, is an obstacle that needs to be removed. Her red bar on the edge of his vision just makes the decision that much easier.

>> Target Select:

>> Select Attack Point:

>> Ninety-Five percent chance of success.

>> Confirm. Confirm.

The spell ends and the world resumes normal speed as SATS takes over.

The purple mare’s violet eyes shrink to pinpricks as she sees the unknown cloaked pegasus with two flaming molotovs barrel right towards her. Her mouth opens and she begins to scream, spraying the coveted casserole out in an explosion of air as she shouts in surprise and fear.

But that doesn’t last long.

The moment Gearing’s forehooves touch down on the ceramic tile of the walkway, he spins around and, with the full assistance of his targeting spell and the weight of his mass, hits her full on in the sides with both hindhooves in a devastating applebuck. A strike made even worse by the fact that his inertia was so great that his forehooves continued to slide and grind across the tiles allowing even more force to be directed into her body.

The armor plating on her sides does little to nothing to even slow the blow as Gearing’s hindhooves both hit her and simply press form the metal around his hooves like it were thin sheets of aluminum foil. Both points of impact dent in considerably, causing her body to cave in around the strikes simultaneously. One of which completely shatters the ribs on the sides of her chest, in a perfect hoof shape, but larger, and continues on inwards. Sending fragments of ribs tearing through her chest cavity like so much shrapnel. The other hoof lands further along her abdomen, and likewise bucks the metal straight into and through her soft tissues.

Despite her body almost being pierced by the strikes, there’s more than enough kinetic energy to send her flying backwards up and over the railing as if she’d been hit by a wrecking ball. And, arguably, she might as well have been as that was a magnitude of force measured in metric tons applied to her. The purple mare hits one of the tables down below, where others had sat down to enjoy their meal, and spurts out blood all over the table’s occupants as her impact sends all of their plates and dishes scattering in a chaotic maelstrom of food and gore.

But as effective as the quick surprise attack had been, Gearing didn’t get away with it entirely scot-free and without consequence.

At the point of impact with the purple mare his entire body jolted with a spark that started at his hindhooves, traveled up his back, and to the tip of his muzzle. His vision jerks and explodes in a white statically collage of broken images as he grunts in shock and pain. He stumbles away from the railing a bit more as he holds his head with a forehoof and groans, “Wha- what the hell?!”

The screaming and yelling turns from joy to confusion and anger as everyone down below tries to figure out exactly what just happened.

The little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head nibbles on his forehooves as his zips around and tries to get Gearing to pay attention. This isn’t the time for this! Pull yourself together!

A raspy buck’s voice screams out over everything, silencing them all, as he bellows, “Who the fuck is trying to ruin my cookout?! You know the rules, no fighting at dinner! Who the fuck was it?! I’ll fucking skin ya, then fuck ya again!”

That must be Cookie! The little blue pegasus says with glee as he taps his forehooves together rapidly. Then his shoulders sag as he comments, Too bad we can’t see him… He gets a devilish grin on his muzzle as he says, Time to poke the hornet’s nest!

Gearing agrees as he spins around and pauses just long enough to stop stumbling before he lobs the first Molotov up and over at the buffet table area where all of the primo food is laid out so carefully in an almost alter like precision. It hits the ground just short of the table with a crash, smashing and splashing the liquid contents causing an instant inferno around the table. He curses his aim as his eyes are still having a problem shifting everything into a single crisp image.

“Not the foooooddd!” Cookie screams from below in dismay.

Several of the occupants down on the first floor actually run over and try to save the table from the fire, despite the liquid burning around it.

His vision finally clears into a single image, but one that looks like it’s underwater as it waves and ripples across his vision. He decides it’s good enough, and launches the molotov aiming for the far side of the table, hoping to completely encircle it if nothing else. But this one manages to hit the table square on one of the earthenware pans that were set out for serving the food, shattering the glass and covering the actual table portion of it with the burning liquid. Whether getting burnt or not, all of the food is obviously ruined by the splattering of burning chemicals all over it. After all, he hasn’t met many ponies who actually like the taste of motor oil. Despite what he may have lead a certain salvage dealer to believe.

“They burnt the food!” Cookie screams out, in a tone that quickly turns to rage. “Get that motherfucker! His ass is mine!”

The little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head quickly clamps his forehooves over his rear as he says, That’s Cookie alright.

“Get down here you little fucking hors d'oeuvre! I’m going to serve it to you nice and raw!” Cookie screams.

Gearing leans back and away as a massive column of fire shoots up and past him, spraying liquid burning fuel all around him as the attack came straight up at him from near the edge of the walkway. Gearing steps back, stumbling a bit more, as he tries to get his footing under himself.

The little blue pegasus nods rapidly as he points down below them. That’s definitely Cookie! He’s under us! Run you fool!

Gearing didn’t need to tell himself twice and is already turning to run towards the doors outside before a pair of molotovs come up and over the edge. As the bottles are coming back down towards his general location, Gearing springs down the hall at an angle with his hind legs, leaping away from the bottles before they smash against the ground where he had just been standing.

But the controlled leap he’d attempted was anything but controlled as he practically ended up accidentally throwing himself down the hallway, crashing into one of the stone walls as he’s sent tumbling down the hall. After a few more tumbles he ends up crashing over and bouncing down onto one of the fire barrels, by the second floor entry door before he comes to rest on the ground in a tangled heap.

The little blue pegasus in his head starts zipping around and screaming in his head space as he says, Of all the fucked up times for something like this to happen!

Gearing starts picking himself up as he shakes his head. He looks over at the metal wire mesh burn barrel, with all of its burning contents scattered across the ground, and comments softly, “Huh… I didn’t crush it. That’s odd…” He shakes his head a bit more before he starts flexing and feeling his wings. He does a quick wing up, lifting himself up onto his hooves in the process.

Tick.

Tick.

CLICK.

His eyes go wide as it dawns on him. “Oh fucking really?! Really fucking funny, Celestia! Are you getting a good clop from this? Well I hope you chafe, you bitch! Of all the fucked up times to decide to do this, you pick now?! No warning. No request of permission, not that you’d ever be decent enough to ask before doing anything anyway. Nothing! Not even a damned alert to let me know what the hell’s going on!”

An icon of a floating feather pops up in the corner of his vision, blinking a few times before fading away as text scrolls across his vision.

>> Mass Augmentation Matrix Online

>> Current Status: Active

Gearing clinches his teeth together hard as he snorts before looking out the glass windows and up at the cloudy sky while screaming, “Fuck you!”

He bolts out of the front door and, as soon as he’s outside, he starts running across the skywalk towards where he’d found the fire bombs in the first place. His strides are a collection of asynchronous movements as some of his gaits are shorter than others as he tries to readjust to the active matrix’s attempts to help him. As he starts ducking behind the raised concrete flower beds he screams out, “That did it! I’m pretty sure they’re angry now!”

Dandy yells over from her hiding place in the dumpster with a slight giggle, “Oooooh? How angry are they?” as if it was some kind of joke set up.

“Mad enough that I’m already concerned for my ass!” Gearing retorts.

Yeah, if Cookie wants a turn he’s going to have to convince Celestia to remove her horn first! the little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head grumps.

Dandy laughs as she asks, “The hell did you do? You were gone long enough!”

“I firebombed their dinner party!”

“What the fuck?”

Glass smashes and ponies come pouring out of both sets of front doors as they try to find where the one who had ruined their meal went. Several of them have to jump and tumble out of the way as streams of fire come out of the second floor door as Cookie screams, “Get out there and don’t you dare come back without them! Or I’ll roast you instead!”

A few come running up the stairs that lead up to the sky walk, as the others start spreading out around the plaza. Gearing hides behind the planters and concrete, watching as the red chevrons zip around and spread out, paying particular attention to those that seem to be zipping side to side quicker than the others: an indication that they are a lot closer than the rest. Figuring it’d be better to use something better for close quarters, and loud enough to keep drawing attention to himself, he pulls out and slips the short pistol he found into his mouth.

He peeks out a bit through the debris in the flower bed looking for any movement, then, as he hears their hoof steps close by on the concrete skywalk, he leans out sideways and unloads with the crappy pistol. The two bucks had been so busy running around searching, with their heads up looking into the distance, that they didn’t see him poke out so low to the ground. The weapon, as inaccurate and crappy as it was, still packed enough punch to get the job done. At least when the bullets are coming from so low to the ground and travel up under their improvised helmets and throat area.

As they are falling to the ground, a mare on the skywalk a distance away looks his way and screams as she points a hoof in Gearing’s direction. “They’re on the second floor!”

Gearing hops up and over the flower bed, jumping straight to the ground level as a red bar walks underneath him.

Mid fall he toggles the recently annoying alert.

>> Mass Augmentation Matrix: Deactivated

The mare under the skywalk had stopped to see who was yelling, and started to look in the direction the other mare was pointing, just in time to catch a clockwork pegasus right in the middle of her back. Though Gearing lands on her with his chest, instead of his hooves, as he simply takes over the space she was occupying with the help of gravity and his far superior mass. She barely has time to scream from various broken bones from being crammed down to half her size under him so suddenly, before Gearing fires the last couple rounds from the makeshift pipe pistol into the back of her head, point blank.

Gearing spits the now worthless gun off to the side as he starts running, and various weapon’s fire starts trailing him across the plaza. Now that he’s so visible, everyone starts converging on his position as he’s running away. Which leads to a practical volley of flaming bottles getting thrown at him. All while random bullets bounce off the ground and concrete around him as those with firearms try to bring him down themselves from a distance. But as far as moving targets go, he’s not playing fair for them.

Every now and then one of his pursuers suddenly falls over and stops chasing him, and in all of the gunfire and ruckus it takes them a while to realize their unfortunate mistake.

They’d thought they were only dealing with one crazy pony, not two.

But after the fifth one fell down, while not even near Gearing, they started wising up and screaming about the fact that there are others to be roasted and brought to Cookie.

Gearing runs across the plaza, crossing on the opposite side of the skywalk pillar from where Dandy is hiding in the dumpster, to keep them out of direct line of sight with her and her strange hidden form of sniping position. As they are pursuing Gearing, and actually gaining on him, with a variety of blades and melee weapons, three of Dandy’s little toys spring up into the air from the ground, each one popping one of Gearing’s pursuers in the head, before falling back to the ground in quick succession.

Over in the dumpster, Dandy slowly turns a small mirror shard wonder glued onto a stick as she tries to keep an eye on her surroundings without giving her position away too much.

Gearing runs over to some crumbling debris, and scrambles up it as quickly as he can. Several bullets impact Gearing along his haunchers and back, and a flaming bottle just barely misses him as it sails past and smashes back at ground level on the other side, before he manages to get back up to the second floor. Gearing leans over the concrete side walls of the skywalk and yells out, without actually looking in her direction, “Get the ones with the guns first, I can handle the fire, but the bullets are going to be a problem!”

He quickly ducks down to avoid the incoming fire, both lead and literal, mostly being successful except for a pair of round ricocheting off his right foreleg and right cheek, before he turns and scoots along the low concrete walls as quickly as he can. He pops up a distance away, with his rifle at the ready, and fires down into a cluster of the raiders that were setting up another round of molotovs to throw. The fighting picks up all around the plaza as others start running around to get into better positions, and a few even start poking out of the windows from the primary office building and start shooting at him with rifles of their own.

Gearing starts zipping around, poking up here and there to get shots at those in the windows. But they don’t want to play by the rules, nor be kind enough to simply sit still and let themselves be shot. They keep ducking and popping in and out of the window as they try to avoid being shot themselves while shooting at him. But, his aim is a bit better than theirs, his weapon is in far superior condition, and he knows he can take a round much better than they can, so he’s willing to risk more to exchange blows. Especially since there’s not an anti-material rifle among them.

That would change things a bit.

One of the mares hiding behind a sheet of metal that’s acting as a wall screams out, “There’s at least one unicorn with them! I just saw a gun float up and shoot somepony!”

Well… we wanted to poke the hornet’s nest, the little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head grumbles.

Mission accomplished, Gearing mentally groans as he sights in and shoots a mare that was running from one concrete pillar to the next with some kind of bladed polearm made out of a street sign pole and a wagon fender. And, worryingly, quite a few of them aren’t simply going down with a single shot.

“Gotcha, bitch!” a voice screams from a skywalk to Gearing’s left.

Gearing turns to look in the direction of the scream of glee, to see an earth pony with a Molotov in his fetlock getting pulled back and preparing to throw it.

Gearing activates SATS again.

He quickly looks the buck over, and notices that the buck’s eyes aren’t looking at him, or even remotely in his direction. The dirty yellow buck is focused down at the ground level. And it only takes that epiphany to make the connection that he’s actually looking in the general area where Dandy is hiding inside of the dumpster.

Can’t have that now, can we? the little blue pegasus in his head grumps

>> Target Select:

>> Select Attack Point:

>> Ninety percent chance of success.

>> Select Attack Point:

>> Ninety-Five percent chance of success.

>> Confirm. Confirm. Confirm.

Double tap, for when you absolutely positively want to make sure it’s going to get done correctly. The little blue pegasus says with a nod of approval.

While still under the effects of the time slowing spell, Gearing’s rifle swings around and fires a round at his chosen target.

As the buck is bringing his foreleg forward to throw the bottle, the bullet intercepts it first. Hitting the bottle, and breaking it while he’s still holding it. With the chosen target being destroyed in the first strike, the spell ends prematurely, bringing Gearing back to normal time. The yellow buck continues with the follow through motion, though it’s entirely worthless as the liquid is already in the process of scattering out around and all over him. Instantly the dirty yellow buck is enveloped in a massive fireball, as the fluid combusts mid air, that, even after it recedes, is still covering him as he’s thrashing around and screaming while on fire. Gearing notices the sticky burning substance on the concrete in front of the buck, where his foreleg had flicked some of the liquid during his flailing around, and screams directly at Dandy, “They’re throwing napalm mixes! Get out of there; they know where you are!”

Dandy pops out, then starts running away from the dumpster as she screams, “Shit!” A moment later another Molotov comes from another direction, and hits the dumpster that she was just in, followed by another pair of them that causes the entire thing and surrounding area to be set ablaze. As she’s already making good on putting distance between her and the sticky inferno she screams, “Damn! Thanks for the heads up!”

A few chase after her with a variety of melee weapons held in their jaws, and as she’s getting close to the street, since she was heading back towards the bakery across the intersection, a pair of mares step out from around the side of the concrete pillars holding up the skywalk and start whipping burning bottles at her. She pulls out several single shot boxes from her jacket, and fires a volley in their direction. One of the bottles gets hit, and bursts into a flaming fireball that starts scattering out instead of continuing on. Several of the bullets hit the mares that’d thrown the molotovs. One of which was hit just right with a random bullet to the eye and she simply flops over. But the other mare shies away from the bullets and backs around the pillar again as she screams and curses at Dandy for ‘poking her like that’.

The one flaming bottle that didn’t get hit, however, lands right in front of Dandy and makes her jump back and over a trash can to avoid the fireball that was seeking out her, as of yet, unmarred flesh. But, it still managed to catch the tip of her tail and causes her to rollover away from the fire and stomp on her own tail to keep it from burning the whole way up as she yells, “Oww! Hot hot hot hot hot!”

Gearing yells from somewhere above her, “Keep them distracted, I need a minute. And take out any of the fuckers with guns you see!”

She looks around, and doesn’t see him as she screams, “And just what the hell are you going to do in the meantime?!” She doesn’t get an answer, and instead her eyes go wide as another group of molotovs get arced over in her general direction, sending her scrambling back and towards the primary building where they had all poured out of.

As she’s hoofing it, trying to literally out run the stream of fire after her, Dandy screams, “How many of these fuckers are there?!” She’s already panting and having trouble catching her breath as sweat starts dripping down her face from the continued exertion.

A buck steps out with a pool cue in his teeth, and swings it at her head, trying to catch her in the throat by surprise and knock her down. Instead she folds her legs, and her horn flashes as she actually pushes herself down toward the ground with her levitation magic, sliding under the swung pool cue in the process. She tumbles with the momentum and comes up with a pair of single shot boxes, firing them both simultaneously, one for each eye of the very confused and startled buck, before she drops them and continues running away from the rain of fire around her.

And, as if the situation didn’t suck enough, for all involved, Hoofington decided to rain on everyone’s party, with a slowly increasing cold rain.

As she’s nearing the outside set of steps that lead up to the skywalk and second floor reception area, a massive plume of fire erupts from the top of the stairs down towards where she is running. She skids to a halt and jumps to the side as the plume of fire randomly spurts in one direction then another.

“What’s taking so damn long?! Get that fucker over here! It can’t be that hard, not as hard as I am! They got my dick a twitchin’ and Queenie’s trying to sleep! So somepony’s ass is on the menu very soon! Theirs or yours; you choose!” He spurts the flame in a few different directions as he yells with glee from the top of the stairs, “I’m getting an all I can fuck buffet one way or another!”

A Molotov comes arcing from above, and goes right past Dandy, hitting the concrete and smashing not far from her, but splashing far enough that she had to roll away from the pillar she was hiding behind to avoid getting caught by the scattering flaming blobs. She looks up from the ground where she’d landed and her pupils shoot to pin pricks as she sees the only pony in all of this area that could possibly be the infamous Cookie.

The brown earth pony stallion stands on the stairs with a massive flamer on one side that’s dripping flaming liquid in little dribbles, oozing out like overexcited precum. Over most of his body is one hell of a set of metal armor. If it wasn’t for how improvised and jacked up it looks, it could be confused for a set of power armor. How he’s moving around with so much steel over his body is a wonder in and of itself. But, over that, and adding a bit of ridiculousness to it, is a ‘Kiss the Cook’ white apron over his front. At least, it was white at one point. Now it’s covered in stains and a variety of blood smears, some looking far fresher than they should given the situation. But, instead of a chef’s hat, as might be understood with his whole getup and interests, or a power helmet, as would match his actual armor, is an arc welder’s helmet flipped down over his face. The outside of which has a variety of dings and gouges in it from uses that it was quite obviously not designed for. But, regardless, it seems well-suited for it.

Dandy quickly whips out several of her single shot boxes and shoots at him, all well aimed and precise shots, but they do nothing more than spark and plink off of his armor as she slowly backs up.

Cookie looks down at her, and his grin can practically be heard as he laughs, “Ohhh helloooo there darlin’! Myyyy, aren’t you a pretty thang! Ohhh yeah… I feel in the mood for some rump roast alright!” He shoots the flamer off in a couple random directions as he laughs, “That’s right, fight me some. I like ’em fiery!”

She starts scooting back as she yells, “Oh hell no!”

Cookie starts coming down the stairs as he says, “Well I’m hungry… and if you aren’t gonna give me some of that sugar and spice and everything nice, then I’ll just roast your ass and settle for some flash grilled fun!” He aims the flamer to her left, and spurts out a stream of fire that sticks along the ground and makes a rather solid line of burning bluish flame, causing her to jump to her right. Only to have to retreat more towards the middle as he fires off to her right side as well. The quick bursts end up creating a burning tunnel of pure inferno with blue at the base that grows like hellfire weeds on either side of her. Leaving her with nowhere to go except straight forward, towards him and his raging flamer hard-on, or straight backward, where she’d just run from and already knows it’s not safe either.

But, given the apparent choices, getting further away from that flamer seems the most acceptable to Dandy.

She rocks side to side as she slowly backs up and glares at him. “Burn in hell you fucker!”

Cookie stops and stares at her as he starts huffing inside of his arc helmet. “I’m so sick of you bitches not listening to what you’re told!”

“If you’ve got any bright ideas, now would be the time!” Dandy yells as she quickly tries to back up as she whips out more of her tiny derringers and keeps them trained on Cookie. Though, at the end of this fiery channel, is a group of ponies standing back and watching. And waiting. And, obviously, not intending on letting her get past them. As to do so would mean their places would be swapped for Cookie’s Fun Time. And, really, no one has fun during Cookie’s Fun Time, except Cookie.

“Well done it is!” Cookie yells as he opens up with the flamer.

The plume of fire races towards her, in full hellfire wrath.

And when it’s about to wash over her and threatens to incinerate her out of existence, Gearing drops down in front of her by kicking off the concrete skywalk and landing with the added momentum of gravity and his kick boost. He jumps in front of her, yet almost on top of her, wearing absolutely nothing but his PipBuck, and immediately his wings slap down in front of himself, folded, overlapped, and curved. As he’s nearly sitting on her head, his wings act like the bow of a boat and cause the plume of fire to break and cascade over it, spilling out at an angle and leaving her in a small cone of unscorched area as he blocks the fire with his own wings and body. Even so the ambient heat from the passing flames is intense.

She looks up at him in shock as he arcs his neck to look at her between his legs and screams, “I’ll take care of Cookie, you get the grunts!”

Dandy nods quickly, then pulls back from being under him and quickly starts running away. She yanks over a wooden table, flipping it up and over with her telekinesis, to cause it to splat across the burning liquid on the right side and making a temporary bridge. A bridge that she takes advantage of before it’s even stopped moving, as she tries to pat out small smoking patches on her white coat.

Instantly the bandits at the end of the fire tunnel run after her, splitting up, as the two sides start shooting at each other again.

The fire plume dies down as Cookie lets off the trigger and asks, “Oh, what the hell is this?!”

Gearing peers at him through his semi-transparent wings, then starts straightening up as he flicks the liquid off of his green crystalline limbs. “A new dance partner, you rapist fuck.”

“Awww it ain’t rape, don’t be such a prude. They obviously want it or they wouldn’t come around my house! It’s just a struggle snuggle!” Cookie starts laughing as he says, “Oh, you think that armor will save you!? I’ll roast your ass in it. Then let’s see how much shit your going to be talking with my dick in your mouth!” He shoots another burst at Gearing, this one managing to get some through to hit Gearing on his chest before he can fold his wings and start blocking and diverting the rest of it.

Cookie slowly starts walking down the stairs towards Gearing as he keeps laughing. “I don’t care what those are made of, nothing hides from fire for long!”

Gearing groans and growls in response.

Once at the bottom of the stairs, Cookie cuts off the stream, then starts laughing again as he says, “Had enough?” He blasts Gearing again. “Huh? Have you?” Again he covers Gearing in flaming fluid. “I can hear your cries of pain from here, like fucking music to my ears!”

Gearing starts walking towards him then gets hit with another burst of flame and starts walking slower as the flamer’s inferno entirely envelopes him.

Cookie changes the flow on the flamer, turning it into a massive spurting cone of flame that Gearing entirely gets encompassed in, so much so that line of sight is entirely removed as he’s entirely lost in the blaze. But Cookie knows he’s still on target as he hears Gearing’s groans and snorts of pain even over the sound of his flamer. He changes the flow again as he yells, “How’s the armor treating you?! I’m going to make you a canned roast, you power armor having fuck!”

When he changes the flow, it changes into a single strong stream, most of the outer corona of fire disappearing as Gearing becomes fully visible again, with the liquid hitting him in the chest as he’s not far away. Gearing glares at him as he groans out with a half laugh, “Ohhh hooo hoo… That’s brisk!”

Cookie takes a step back as he yells, “How the hell are you still walking?! You should be steamed canned pony by now!”

Gearing jumps over, traveling the length of the burning fuel as he flares out his wings and rears up. “‘Struggle Snuggle’ this, you sick bastard!” As he’s rearing up, and with Cookie starting to do the same, he smacks the arc welding helmet blocking Cookie’s face upwards, almost knocking the helmet off entirely but at least flipping the faceguard up so he has a clear line of sight to Cookie’s face. And, it’s there and then that he can see the brown buck’s clear blue eyes. Currently the size of dinner plates with pupils shrunk in fear. However, he’s without the yellowed whites that Gearing had figured such a psychopath should have. Which at least removes one worry about the situation for Gearing. He hops forward with his hind legs, forcing Cookie back down with one foreleg around his neck as he screams, “Face hugs!”, and pulls Cookie’s bare exposed face into his articulated chest plates as he starts hugging Cookie with the smothering affections of an overbearing mother.

But Gearing has been under the concentrated fire of a flamer. Walked against its length, and embraced the fire itself. Before embracing Cookie. The result is a temperature so hot that the fur on Cookie’s face scorches away before it’s even touched by Gearing’s articulated chest plates. And the moment Gearing’s body actually does touch his bare skin, Cookie’s flesh instantly starts scorching and sizzling as it’s cooked on an improvised Gearing Griddle.

Cookie begins screaming, and, for once, it’s a pained panicked screeching as Gearing holds him in place and starts twisting and wrestling Cooking to the ground with his forelegs. Cookie unleashes the flamer point blank into Gearing’s underbelly, as that’s all he can reach at the moment as he’s firing blindly, and just keeps hold of the trigger as long as he can to try and get the scalding monstrosity off of him.

After dragging Cookie to the ground on his side, Gearing reaches over with his other fetlock and screams in a mixture of pain and a whole lot of anger, “When you see those two bitches, tell them who sent ya!” He grabs the large custom flamer fuel tank with a fetlock, bending and breaking off the entire section where the connectors and valves plug into it. The action causes the tank to rupture and the entire area to erupt into a massive fireball as the overpressurized tank of fuel rapidly oxidizes.

A buck and a mare that had been standing at the top of the stairs, watching the two wrestle with their mouth agape, are blown away and backwards by the blast. Both getting covered in the flaming liquid in the process and rolling around for a few moments as they too are cooked as reward for their gawking.

As the flames are receding, but the entire blast area is still covered in either small puddles of blue burning liquid or scorch marks, a very blackened Gearing stands hunched over with his hind legs spread very far apart from each other as he groans. He leans over and rubs his head on the ground a bit as he says, “Ohhh gods… ouuu ow…” He straightens up and starts walking away, around the stairs and towards the main building, as he says, “I’m pretty sure that’s not what they meant when they warned me about ‘fire crotch’ in basic… ow o wow… Ouuu ow.” He trots away as he sways his hind legs out wide to give himself as much moving air as possible. The rain coming down hits his brassy body and sizzles on contact. A few of the drops hit the crystals on his wings and instantly boil off, but a few of them doing so introduce a crack, or widen existing cracks, in the green crystalline structure in the process.

While Gearing is busy getting baptized in napalm, Dandy’s busy running around and dodging the incoming fire aimed at her as she’s making her escape. Some bullets. Some literally fire.

The six ponies chasing after her are relentless. The pair of unicorns in the group keep shooting at her, aiming for legs and other debilitating wounds as they all run. Apparently, they are rather keen to take her alive. At least if they can. The pair of party wreckers have angered Cookie to the point that they want to make sure she’ll last long enough for him to get all of his frustrations out. Instead of them getting stuck taking any of the abuse he has planned.

One of the barely functional rifles gets a lucky shot off as she’s entering the garbage dump building, hitting Dandy in her left hind leg as she’s jumping through the door. But, the sight of the fresh splatter of blood on the ajar door elicits a whoop of joy from her pursuers as they storm into the building behind her. As the door is thrown open, a storm of lead is unleashed from near the ground as a dozen single shot boxes fire up at the door in a neat grid. The buck unicorn and the mare earth pony in the lead catch every bit of it in the chest, neck, face, and head as they collapse into the doorway. The remaining four come in more cautiously, with the unicorn actually grabbing one of the bodies and hovering it in front of her as she enters, hoping to draw some fire with it or, at the worst of it, block some rounds meant for her with it..

With that being a bit too much to consistently hold up, she drops it and grabs a severed head of some unfortunate buck that had been on the pile, and starts hovering it in front of her by a few feet. She uses it to poke around corners and the like, as if it was someone looking around, before going ahead and entering the space herself.

A few bits of dust and stone falling down above, along with a dull thumping from heavy hoof falls, makes them all look up. The unicorn mare yells out as she tosses the head to the side, “She’s on the second floor!” Then they start running.

But, as they are going, the last one in the line falls down as bullets fire rapidly from a hole in the ceiling. Catching them in the back, back of the head, and opening up their throat to the world.

The others keep running, paying no mind to their dying comrade.

Upstairs they quickly go room by room. They know the place better than anyone. So they have the home field advantage. At least as much of a home field as can be had around a literal waste dump. They check the side rooms as they are going, knowing the one quick path up, and making sure she doesn’t have an opportunity to double back and sneak past them. They have her trapped, and they want to keep it that way.

They come to the room that had the hole in the floor, where their comrade had just been riddled by bullets, and slowly walk through the room. The pile of bodies in here is rotting and festering with disgust and disease. But, it doesn’t draw so much as a batted eye from them as they walk through familiar territory. They pause at the hole in the floor, and the unicorn looks down at their dead fellow gang member and comments, “She’s using a buncha one shots. She can’t have many of them.” She hovers one of the little boxes up and looks it over. She gives it a sniff before dropping it and looking around. “Not a very big caliber. She’s gotta be around here somewhere.”

One of the bucks bringing up the rear looks around at the bodies around them as he asks, “Think she knows it’s a dead end, and there’s only one way out?”

The mare shakes her head. “Doubt it. No one but us has gone all the way to the top.”

The other buck walks over and kicks a body as they say, “Hey… here’s Jaws… Cookie was looking for him; what’s he doing in here?”

The mare looks over and shrugs. “Probably trying to hide. Dumbass messed up and put the wrong leaves in Queenie’s dinner. Gave Queenie the shits, and Cookie was pissed at the mess it was making.”

The buck looks over at her and narrows his eyes as he says, “Like it’s that easy to tell the difference between dried parsley and dried cilantro.”

The mare shrugs. “Better his ass than mine.” She nods towards the door as she says, “Come on, let’s track this bitch down. I wanna be able to sleep tonight. And fresh ass burns aren’t going to let that happen.”

As she’s walking away, a metal can drops in the room they’d just passed through. They spin around and look at the direction of the noise as the unicorn raises her rifle and looks in the room. “What was that?” she asks with a hiss.

As they start walking as one towards the door they’d just walked through, the pistol boxes on the ground that had been discarded float up soundlessly behind them. Then they zip over and unleash their torrent of bullets into the back of the heads of all three of them with a cacophony blasting out from the simultaneous discharge of so many small calibers at once.

After they’ve fallen to the ground, the pistols likewise lose their magical support and go tumbling to the ground as gravity takes over. Instead the same aura wraps around the rifle, whipping it up in the air and pointing down at them as it cocks and chambers a new round. Then the large butcher knife, that one of the earth ponies had been holding, floats up and starts stabbing down into each one in turn. It makes sure they are dead via deep gouges before ending up jabbed in the unicorn mare’s back. The rifle also loses its magical glow and falls towards the ground an instant later.

Before the gun even hits the ground, a pair of corpses rises up from the pile in the corner as Dandy climbs out of the dead bodies. She gasps for breath as even the cloth mask she’s wearing didn’t help matters much once she was literally basting in rotting corpses.

She puts a hoof to her chest as she blurts out, “Oh my god, sweet Celestia I thought I was going to die in there! If I didn’t drink that potion before getting in there I’d probably already be dead from an infection!” She takes a few deep breaths and shivers as she looks at the fresh corpses. “Why the hell didn’t you just go on! I could have been out of here by now… Oh god, I think I’m gonna throw up.” She starts walking away, shivering and shaking as she’s flicking off one piece of viscera after another as she moans, “I need a shower so bad… Are the caps really worth this shit?”

She pauses, and looks behind her. A moment later her collection of pistols zip over to her and disappear in one of her large outer pockets as the butcher’s knife and rifle float in front of her menacingly. As she’s coming down the stairs to the first floor she screams, “I swear I’m going to go geld that motherfucker for this!”

A massive explosion echoes in the plaza, shattering glass and sending debris cascading down on her from the building shaking from the blast. Her eyes go wide as she yells, “What the hell was that?!”

She quickly runs out of the door, trailing various decaying bits after her as the slimy chunks fall off her once white coat. She slows to a trot as she takes in the devastation of the massive fire blast that took place at the base of the stairs.

The rapid explosion seemed to convert most of its fuel into a pressure blast, instead of a slow burn. Still, everything for a wide radius from the base of the stairs has been blackened and scorched. Although a few puddles of liquid are still left to burn. As she’s slowly walking through it, her eyes zip around. The water falling down from on high hits and sizzles off of the pony with the full suit of metal body armor. Likewise the two ponies not far beyond, who’d apparently been blasted off of the skywalk above, lay where they died, smoking and still sizzling as the rain steadily drizzles on their still hot burnt flesh.

Judging by the smears of partially cooked and heat coagulated blood, the pair lived a bit longer than they would have preferred. And died badly. But of all of the bodies she’s seeing in the plaza, the one she’s really looking for at the moment isn’t present.

She follows a few smears and drag marks in the liquidy burnt flesh towards the main building as she slowly reloads one of her pistols after another and puts them back in their holsters to be ready for use again.

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

Gravity Differential alignment at 87%

Gravity Differential alignment at 100%

Alignment of ‘Mass Augmentation Matrix’ complete, debugging in progress, please stand by. . .

‘Gravity Matrix’ Online. . .

Perk Unlocked: Gravity Defier Implant (Weight +/-) – Modified from the same principles that were used to lower the overall weight of the Shadowbolt power armor for the Equestrian Air Force, this talisman implant bestows the recipient with the ability to control their weight. While this does allow the user to be far lighter than they would be normally, this does NOT impart the Light Step perk. Furthermore, it does not affect the mass of the subject, it simply lowers the effects that gravity has on the mass of the user, and only the user not anything they carry, thus reducing applicable weight. While switched on this results in a passive increase in speed, general macro agility, and carry capacity as the user still retains their base strength, or enhanced strength if applicable, but don’t have to dedicate as much of it to carrying themselves or fight inertia. Unlike other perks that affect base stats, the beneficial effects of this talisman, in regards to skills, are limited to Sneak, and only situationally applicable where weight and encumbrance would be a factor.

This chapter marks the first of 2020, and the one year anniversary of starting this whole journey with all of you. It also continues a thread of connecting events of the past, to the present. Though some of the significance may not be fully apparent for some time. One strong commonality is that decisions, and decision making, matters.

In this chapter, a new challenge is overcome, and along the way a few of our resident clockwork's rather unique problems are beginning to be revealed.

Thanks to everyone that's helped me out along the way and have provided encouragement through their ongoing interest, which continues to drive me to keep going. My beta readers. My readers. Everyone who comments, interacts, discusses the story, kicks around ideas with me, or simply lets me use them as a sounding board for the story. You're all amazing, and thank you very much.

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

-Quillsy