In a smaller closed off cavern from the rest of the Stormfront complex is a section designated for a variety of purposes. Mainly target practicing, spell testing, and the testing and application of explosive ordinance. In short, the room was designed to be destroyed.

Repeatedly.

And the reason why can be exemplified in no better way than the two individuals who are currently sitting in it’s very center, surrounded by a variety of makeshift tables and wood. And, beyond those, is a large stack of concrete, set in a semicircle, with random and alternating rings of sandbags and other physical defenses against blasts and ricochets.

As Gearing sits in his tailored flight suit, minus the cloth wing covers, he carefully works on a collection of wires sticking out of a little device between his hooves. Tower, in a simple Equestria BDU, likewise sits nearby working on his own little collected mass of electronics and chemicals.

He taps on Gearing’s shoulder to get his attention. Once he does he looks at Gearing and says with the mirth of a small child on Hearth’s Warming Day, “Okay… now watch this carefully… You see these two tubes?”

Gearing looks the strange gizmo over and notices that the two plastic or polymer tubes running parallel next to each other are almost completely full of clear liquids. But, from what he can tell, they are being kept separate by a collection of smaller connecting tubes and valves between them. And, from Gearing’s recent experiences, he knows this is for a very good reason.

Tower taps a couple buttons on the gizmo with a hoof and holds the item very still between them. As he does, a soft hum comes from the device as the valves open, and slowly, very slowly, one chemical is pumped into the other, with an overflow, now open, at the top allowing the other chemical to circulate even faster through that way as it’s pushed up into it. The design creates a small current through which the two fluids gently become introduced to each other. As the two clear chemicals come in contact with each other, a streamer of color appears in the center as the chemicals react. Slowly, like a small nebula forming before their very eyes, the vivid pinks and oranges take shape. It alternates from a morning’s sunlight, bright and full of promise, to a more evening shade like the last light of a dying day. And, before the colors have entirely changed, Tower chucks the little device as far as he can into the ‘no pony’s land’ area of the cavern, and hits a button set into the ground next to them.

A moment later the other side of their fortification lights up with a magnificent shower of sparks and flashes of color as the device finally reaches critical mass and explodes. They sit and watch with wonder as the multicolored fire back washes over the various physical barriers, straight for them, then curls up and over the shield that appeared a moment after Tower hit the button. Through the magical barrier they can see the fire at work clawing and climbing everywhere in front of them. Then, almost as quickly, it recedes back and disappears into simple smoke and scorch marks. The stone and defensive structures have been through so much similar treatment that this set of scorch marks gets lost with those already covering everywhere. A moment later they hear motors rev up as air is pumped into the cavern, and the fumes from the blast are directed over and out through ventilation grates. A few moments after the air becomes clear again, the shield drops, and the residual heat of the blast hits both of them. Not a dangerous level of heat, but warm enough to make the entire cavern uncomfortable for anyone that stayed in for an extended period of time.

Tower, still looking at the flash point, reaches over and taps on Gearing’s shoulder as he says, “See… there’s so many different chemicals that, when they interact with each other, they can release a great deal of energy as they react with one another. Some do so quickly and violently, others it takes a bit more time. Then, still others, just sit there after being mixed… and just wait for somepony in the world to have a dirty thought it doesn’t like before spontaneously blowing.” He chuckles before he actually looks at Gearing. “The trick is to find which mix you need, to do what you are wanting to do… then do it properly… Because if you don’t… well… you won’t be around long to explain and apologize for your mistakes.”

Gearing looks down at the device he’s working on as he asks, “Then… why are you having me do that?” He looks up at Tower and says softly, “If I screw this up I could end up getting you hurt… or killed.”

Tower looks him over as he takes in a deep breath, as he obviously sees the young buck’s priority list of worries did, in fact, not include Gearing’s own safety. He taps on the device that Gearing is making as he continues in that same deep rich voice of his that always seems to put those around him at ease, regardless of the situation, “Well, first off, we’re not messing with the chemicals yet… That’ll be for another time. Once I’m sure you have a firm enough grasp of the chemistry… Until then, it’s strictly premade items.” He laughs a big booming laugh before he taps Gearing on the back. “And even then, only in smaller doses… Learn how to use the stuff that’s already properly made, and safe to handle, before you try to learn how to make your own concoctions… It’s like we are cooks…” He puts a hoof to himself as he grins. “I’m the head chef… I have enough experience to know how and where to make tweaks and substitutions to maximize the… punch.” He grins even wider before he taps on Gearing’s chest. “And you’re a cook. You’re still learning the ropes and, until you know better, you stick to following the recipes I give you.”

“Okay then,” Gearing begins before holding up the devices he’s working on. “That doesn’t really explain why you’re having me making these for you though? I mean, you’re adding the mixes and such yourself… But what’s this for?”

Tower leans over and wraps his right foreleg around Gearing’s shoulders, as he grabs the half completed device with his left fetlock and begins looking it over. “This, my wee force of nature, is a very important lesson. Probably one of the most important ones I can ever impart to you.”

Gearing looks at it a moment before he looks up at Tower and asks, “Making sure all of the electronics are correctly timed and synced to prevent improper or premature detonation?”

Tower laughs heartily before he shakes his head. “No, my friend. That should be a given! That’s not some life altering epiphany, like I am about to grant you. For if you screw that up, it’s likely a mistake you’re only going to get to make once.”

“Because it’ll blow up in your face and kill you?”

“Very likely so, yes!” Tower laughs again before waving the device around again. He leans in close to Gearing as he holds up the device so Gearing can see it clearly. “No, Nitro, the important lesson I have for you is this: If you’re really good at something… never do it for free…”

Gearing raises an eyebrow and frowns at him as he obviously instantly doesn’t like this train of thought. “That sounds pretty greedy, Tower… What about helping ponies? Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?”

Tower bobs his head around before nodding. “Well, yes. But, then, ‘No’.” He passes the device back to Gearing as he sits down in front of the much smaller member of his unit. “You see… if you do things for free for others… all the time… you’re going to cause problems. For everyone. And especially yourself.” He waves a hoof and shakes his head. “I don’t mean money. That’s besides the point.”

Gearing tilts his head. “Then... what?”

Tower leans down and looks him face to face as he grins. “Honestly? It doesn’t really matter, as long as it’s some form of composition… Favors, even exchange, materials, etcetera.” He straightens up as he waves a hoof broadly. “You see… If they are willing to give you something for it to be done, it does a few things… even more so if they actually do. First, they have some skin in the fight, so to speak. They’re invested in it. If things go bad, they actually lose something. So, they actually care that it, whatever it is, takes place. So they’re likely to even help make sure it happens. If you don’t charge, they’ll have literally lost nothing if you fail. So to them, it’ll be nothing, except they’ll simply be where they already were to start out with. Whereas for you, Nitro, the cost of failure could be your very life.” He rocks his head around as he says, “There’s also the problem that, if you don’t charge, you’re going to have everyone coming to you for even the most trivial of things… And this can probably be the worst of all… Because they might have, or could have, simply done it themselves. Or, at the very least, found someone else to do it that was just skilled enough to do it. But, no, they’d choose you… because you are free.”

Tower pats Gearing on the back as he says with a smile. “Think of it this way… If you get to be known as the best repair pony of the world, top tier technician… and that you don’t charge for your services… you’ll have people swarming you with stupid shit…” He waves a hoof around in a circle as he rattles off, “Toasters, mixers, lamps, shavers, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera… And if you are too busy dealing with that nonsense… you won’t be available to take care of the really important stuff… Like… medical pods… maintenance bots that can go off to do even more work… vertibuck medivacs… shield generators… you know… Things that, if they fail, can cost countless lives as a result.”

Gearing looks down at the device in his hooves as he asks softly, “So… charge not because I’m greedy… but in order to make sure that what I’m doing is worth it and my time is being spent well?”

Tower reaches over and taps him on the back, hard, a few times as he lets out a few of his deep toned chuckles. “You are a swift learner.”

Gearing looks at the device in his hooves, then up at Tower as he says, “And you’ve been having me make these, as compensation for teaching me about explosives?”

Tower clicks his tongue as he closes an eye and points a hoof at Gearing’s nose. “Now you’re getting it!” He grins even wider as he says, “And since you’re doing that, which we both know you can, it lets me focus on making the proper mixes at the same time, so we get the work done faster overall.”

Gearing’s ears jump up in recognition as he grins up at Tower and blurts out, “Like the chef thingy you said earlier!”

“Exactly!” Tower says with a cheerful booming laugh as he pats Gearing on the back a few more times with increasing force each time.

Once inside the first floor of the primary office building Cookie’s gang has been using as a hideout, Dandy finds the place eerily quiet. The radio has even been turned off. Given all of the noise that’d been around the entire plaza, she starts getting unnerved by the silence as she takes one slow step after another. But, given the soppy disgusting material over her hooves, she can’t help the noise her own hoof falls are making. She eventually grabs a couple bottles and tin cans from a trash can, and hurls them with her magic up and in an arc into the atrium where Cookie’s dinner party just was. They clang and clatter and the bottles actually break, scattering over the corpse of some purple mare that looks like she had a run in with a fork lift.

She stops and listens. But, still, nothing happens. She continues snooping around as she starts getting jealous of Gearing’s PipBuck, and can’t help but wonder how much he’d want for it.

She walks along the side corridor leading away from the main atrium, and finds an office door wide open. As she’s getting close she can feel a marked uptick in heat, and wonders if there’s another bonfire in there. As she’s stepping up to the door she hears a groaning voice yell out at her.

“Stay away!”

She pauses, and tilts her head as she asks, “Gearing? Is that you?”

“Don’t come near me!”

She lets out a sigh as she looks around and her ears fall down as she thinks of what he’d just been through. She pokes her head around the doorframe and peeks in as she says softly, “I’m not going to hurt you… You’re safe now… Are you okay?”

Gearing is sitting on a concrete block by his haunches, with his hind legs splayed out wide as he holds onto two limestone blocks on either side of himself with his forehooves. He glares at her as he grumbles, “That’s not it… Stay back.”

She pauses as she quickly glances around. She whips her pistols out and starts looking around with narrowed eyes as she asks, “What’s wrong?”

Gearing groans and leans forward. “This.” He taps his forehoof onto the stone wall near him, over one of the prewar posters about stopping espionage and reporting suspected changelings. Instantly the paper begins to smoke in a hoof shape and, as he starts pulling his hoof away, the paper actually starts to burn with a slow flame.

Her eyes go wide as she says, “Holy shit, we gotta cool you down!” She looks around as she says, “Hold on, I’ll go get some water!”

He shakes his head and yells out “Don’t! That’s bad!” She turns back to look at him as she raises an eyebrow and he adds, “You know anything about properties of metal? Super heated metal does not react well to rapid cooling.”

She looks around as she asks softly, “So… what do we need to do? Do you need a healing potion?”

Gearing shakes his head. “That won’t help right now, It’ll just burn off before it actually did any use….” He hangs his head and lets out a sigh as he says, “I need to cool down as evenly as possible. But not too quickly. I’m basically a one ton mass heater right now… If I step out in the rain it’s likely my wings’ll shatter and my gears will lock up from uneven warping.”

“Anything I can do to help?” she asks quietly as she slowly starts walking into the room.

Gearing shrugs as he says, “If you happen to know any ice related magic, that can drop a cold block in here and help lower the ambient temperature of the room, that’d be helpful. Beyond that, I don’t think so. It’ll just take a bit of time.” He leans over and groans as he says, “Sorry about this.”

“Sorry, my ass…” Dandy says with a scowl.

Gearing looks down and closes his eyes as he regularly sucks in air, then blows out a much hotter exhale that creates a visible distortion in front of his mouth. He blinks a few times as he starts feeling a breeze blowing across his face and looks up to try and find the source of the air disturbance.

Dandy has sat down not far from him, and is using her telekinetic magic on a large piece of metal, likely an old stop sign at one point based on its shape, to fan him by swishing it back and forth in front of him. She looks him over and gives a sheepish smile as she says, “Sorry… it’s the best I can do right now.”

Gearing smiles at her and chuckles as he slowly fans out his wings and lets the circulating air pass over him. “Nah… that’s helping.” Given their recent activities the sweat he can see and smell from her would make sense. The exertion she just delivered upon herself from the fight. But he’s glad she doesn’t try to get even closer, regardless of her desire to help, since the sweat output had jumped up to the point that it’s dripping off her face and muzzle. She wants to help, and he knows he doesn’t need to point out the obvious to her. So he simply allows her to help him, while being kind enough not to draw attention to how hot and miserable she must be feeling at the moment. He gives her a wide grin as he says, “Like you said, you’re not helpless.”

She smiles as she looks him over. As she continues fanning him she asks, “That was fucking crazy… Did we really just do that?”

Gearing grins at her as he nods. “Yeah… we did…” He puts extra emphasis on the ‘we’, verbally acknowledging the team effort. Earning an even wider smile from her in return.

She watches carefully as several pieces of blackened char actually float away from him, revealing the shining golden colored brass underneath. “You know, it’s a good thing you don’t have skin, or I’m sure he’d have burnt all of that off too.”

Gearing bobs his head around. “It’s why I dropped everything in a trash can before coming down. Didn’t want to risk it getting burnt and ruined.”

She laughs as she asks, “You really are more worried about your stuff getting burned than your own hide aren’t you?”

Gearing grins at her as he retorts, “If you haven’t noticed, my hide is a bit more fire resistant than your average buck’s.”

“Touché.”

“Besides, even if my skin got burnt off, it’d just recover me quickly at the first opportunity,” Gearing adds.

Dandy looks him over before she asks, “Then… why isn’t it already? Why have you been walking around like that?”

Gearing shrugs as he says, “I got hit with some kind of weird ass weapon. It jumbled up my implants. The one that controls my skin hasn’t come online yet. I don’t know what’s wrong with it.”

She looks him over as she says quietly, “Well… fuck… that’s gotta suck.”

Gearing frowns at her as he says,” You have no idea..”

Her ears perk up as she asks, “Have you tried talking to the Collegiate?”

Gearing tilts his head as he looks at her. Then, after a few moments of confusion, shakes his head. “Uh… I’m going to guess… ‘No’? Given that I have no idea who they are.”

Dandy grins as she starts pointing off towards the east. “They’re a bunch of eggheads that run a hospital of sorts over at the college. If anyone can help you with your implants, it’d be them.”

Gearing looks at her for a moment, giving it careful consideration, before he hangs his head and shakes it slowly. “Nah… that’s not an option… Thanks for the information though.”

Dandy looks him over as she asks, “Well, why not? If your systems are getting screwed up, you need to get them fixed as soon as possible or they’re going to cause a buncha problems, aren’t they?”

Gearing looks over at her and waves a hoof slowly. “I’m not allowed. The equipment installed in me is highly classified… Just to even try and access them takes a level of skill, and clearance, that you don’t just stumble across.” He shakes his head. “Besides, nearly everything in me is custom tailored to me. And even opening me up just to look at them would cause massive problems.”

Dandy looks him over as she asks softly, “How so?”

Gearing takes in a deep breath then shrugs as he says, “My body’s so integrated, that just opening me up to get access to them could kill me.” He shakes his head hard again, casting off the idea. “Even during the war, as they made the upgrades, they had to be extremely careful with how they went about each and every step. And it took an entire team of individuals, who all already knew exactly what they were doing, for them to even attempt to do anything… Without a similar set up, and knowledge base, the chances of success are pretty much nil.” He shrugs. “I’m pretty much stuck hoping they’ll come back online on their own, or I can find a functioning automatic center that’s capable of doing something to reboot them.”

Dandy slowly looks him over as she asks, “And… what if they are damaged beyond repair, and can’t be fixed? What if they actually need to be replaced?”

Gearing chuckles as he looks at the floor around their hooves “Yeah… I’ve already thought about that… It’s why I gave myself the chem treatment…” He points a hoof at himself. “If they don’t come online, I’m in some trouble. That’s for sure. But…” He shrugs as he gives her an easy smile. “I’ll make do… I always have.”

She nods as she looks around the room they are in, then looks back at him as she asks, “How’s the temperature now? Think you’re cool enough for a healing potion?”

Gearing nods a bit, and reaches over towards the wall. He taps on the remaining pieces of the anti espionage poster, and simply wipes soot on it instead of causing it to combust this time. He leans forward as he says, “Yeah. I think so, now I just need-”

He’s interrupted by a potion bulb practically appearing in front of his muzzle, open top towards his mouth. Held aloft with the overglow of Dandy’s levitation. He looks up over it at Dandy and finds her glaring at him like she’s expecting a challenge. Gearing smiles lightly and says, “Thanks,” and opens his mouth. As soon as his mouth is sufficiently open Dandy dutifully pours the potion in slowly. The first splashes of the liquid let out a slight sizzle sound, but beyond that it does seems to slowly be absorbed and slide down his throat as she continues to pour it in. After he’s sucked down the last of the potion, he stands there and lets out a sigh as the potion goes to work.

Dandy watches the cracks in the crystals of his outstretched wings rapidly seal up, like someone had rewound the video of the crystalline structures fracturing. They had already been slowly knitting themselves back together as the pair were talking, but with the potion the action jumps into a rapid pace. In other areas, small holes are filled in and over his whole body one piece of metal or another noticeably moves and shifts back into the correct shape. She slowly trails her eyes up to his as she asks, “So can you use potions as an energy source, to speed up healing, too or?”

Gearing shrugs. “One of my implants is able to increase magical healing’s effectiveness. It’s partially working… It’s definitely increasing my normal rate at knitting back together, and it might be fully functional already but I won’t really know until I put it through a few tests. And I’m not interested in getting that damaged just to test it… But, beyond that, no. Not really.”

She snickers as she looks him over. “Well… that’s still better than me. Without a potion I’m going to be in rough shape for a while.” She looks around as she says softly, “I really need to learn me one of those healing spells.”

Gearing leans over and taps her on the shoulder gently. “Hey… see… that’s better than me… The only ‘magic’ I’m capable of, is fixing or breaking things at record speed.”

She giggles as she looks around aimlessly. “Yeah. It does have its uses.” She glances down at herself and frowns as she says, “I need a bath so bad… This is ridiculous.”

Gearing points over towards the doorway, where they both can clearly see the lovely Hoofington torrential downpour taking place just outside of the building. “Well, a shower’s always an option.”

She glances at him and rolls her eyes as she says, “I’m not showering in the rain. I don’t know how quickly you got into here, but that shit’s unseasonably cold. And I’m not stupid enough to stay out in it and get sick.”

Gearing rubs a hoof over his muzzle as he says, “Well… I could probably rig up a water heater real quick…?” more to himself than anything as he thinks out loud.

She looks over at him with undivided attention and raises an eyebrow as she says, “Do what?”

Gearing nods as he gets up and starts walking past her. “I saw a still they had for cooking up hooch, I bet I can convert that into a decent enough water heater to do for now.”

Her eyes go wide as they practically sparkle. “You’re shitting me!”

Gearing shakes his head as he’s going out the door. “Nah, shouldn’t even take me very long. They have enough fires going already. Just gotta direct the flow of the pipes correctly.”

Dandy partially moans as she closes her eyes and thinks about having an actual hot shower, “If you can make that happen, I’ll have your first born!”

Gearing pokes his head around the edge of the doorframe from out in the hallway and looks in at her for a moment before he smirks and says, “Hey… don’t get fresh.”

She starts blushing half way down her neck as she shakes a hoof at him and screams, “It’s just an expression! I didn’t really mean I’d screw ya stupid until ya knocked me up!”

Gearing stares at her a bit longer before he says flatly, “That was… far more specific of an answer than I would have expected.” Then pulls back and goes off to the atrium as he snickers. Even more so as she starts screaming at him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about and if you keep up these wild accusations I’m going to shoot you!”

Gearing shakes his head as he chuckles and starts surveying the area, “Ooohhh boy.”

As they are exploring the area, Dandy goes about taking off her coat, and trying to scrape off the various gore and disgust from herself as she lays out her long coat and tries to clean up. The buffet table, while highly scorched, actually still smells rather good. And she debates on going ahead and seeing if any of it was still edible.

Until a partially rotten eyeball of roughly equine size comes loose from her mane and falls down across her muzzle. Entirely ruining her appetite for the foreseeable future. She’s so desperate to get clean, she starts pouring the various bottles of beer, already open, over her back and washing her legs with the contents of the various cups and mugs that had been abandoned around the tables.

As she’s still trying to scrape pieces of things she doesn’t even want to try and identify, because thinking about it would make her retch even more than she’s already feeling like doing, Gearing comes back out of a side area dragging something large and metal.

She walks over and looks at him as he drags the large barrel-like container over to the far side of the center area of the atrium, where the two ponies are still set up as burning macabre decorations. He disappears and comes back a moment later with a large coil of copper pipe, and feeds the coiled pipe across the burning pile of wood and tires, connecting one end of the pipe back to the container.

She watches with interest as he zips around, using a couple planks of metal that were, at one time, a set of shelves, and sticks the far end out through a broken window. And in short order, with a few piled barrels for proper support, he creates an aqueduct that leads to the barrel. A very leaky aqueduct, but the amount of water coming down outside makes it pretty much a non issue as the barrel quickly starts filling up, and then even overflowing.

Gearing hovers around a bit as he takes in the sight and then points off to the side as he says, “Okay, it should be ready.”

She tilts her head, then walks around to the other side of the giant fire pit in the center of the atrium to find a large metal cooler suspended in the air by a table that has been upended lengthwise. And, as she’s watching, water comes out of the copper pipe, steaming hot, and starts pouring into the cooler. But, given the cooler has a ton of holes in the bottom, it quickly leaks out the bottom of it in various streams.

Her eyes go wide and she starts running over to look at it closer as she asks, “Did you seriously just make an indoor hot shower?!”

Gearing shrugs as he looks over at her. “The water gets heated as it goes through the pipe, and it should be about right by time it comes out this side.”

She starts walking towards the water streams but Gearing grabs her by the shoulder and holds her in place with a fetlock as he says, “Hold on, give it a minute… The pipes were pretty hot; give them a moment to cool down first.”

She looks over and gives a frown of disappointment as she worries about letting the water get too cold. After a few more moments he lets go and she reaches over to gingerly test it with a hoof. It’s so hot it’s barely tolerable, but after a few moments she starts adjusting to it and finally jumps in with her other clothes on as she just stands under the hot stream and giggles incessantly as she turns her muzzle up towards the oncoming stream. “Water! Hot water! Oh sweet Celestia, thank you!”

Gearing rolls his eyes as he says bitterly, “Figures, I do the work and she gets the credit…”

Dandy looks over at him with her eyes closed as she grins through pouring the streams. “Awww, don’t be that way. It feels great! Besides, it’s just an expression.”

Gearing pushes over another table, uprighting it to make a slight ‘L’ shaped screen with the two tables as he says, “Uh huh… just like the ‘having first born’ bit, huh?”

Her eyes zip open, despite the hot water pouring down onto her head, as she shakes a hoof at him. “It was! Don’t make me shoot you!”

Gearing rolls his eyes and walks away, and a moment later Dandy quickly throws off all of her clothes and hangs them up in the shower as she takes the first priority of scrubbing herself clean. She lets out moans of pleasure as the steam keeps rising up around her as she uses a bit of wire mesh as a comb and starts brushing out her hide, mane, and tail of all of the debris she’s recently collected. With the crispy burnt pieces at the end of her tail simply snapping away from the action alone. As she’s looking around on the ground while using the metal mesh to get bits of gunk out of her tail, she notices a bristly dish brush on the ground at her hooves, and gleefully scoops it up with her levitation field and begins using it to give herself a thorough brush down.

She’s so busy enjoying herself she doesn’t notice her clothes disappearing around the screens one by one as she slowly spins in place under the steaming stream. Eventually she brushes her mane out of the way with a hoof, and glances over to where her shirt had just been, only to find the space empty. She looks down and around on the floor to see where it had fallen, but then glances up as Gearing’s head pokes around the corner of the improvised partition.

“Hey, is that brush I gave ya good enough or do you need something a bit more stiff?”

Her eyes go wide as she magically reaches for her pistols, but nothing comes up. Except the dish brush. A dish brush that she raises in the air with her magic, puts it to Gearing’s head, and she screams as she waves her forehooves at him feebly, “What are you doing don’t get fresh I’ll shoot you!” She keeps poking him in the side of the head with the dish brush as he slowly narrows his eyes at her.

He pulls back to the other side of the screen as he says, “It’s just a shower, what’s the big deal? You mean you never just trot out with your mark out?”

“Well, that’s- that’s different! A shower’s a deeply personal private thing! You shouldn’t be peeping on a mare in the shower!”

Gearing lets out a long groan as he says, “Oh well damn it. If you’d gotten that excited about the shower, and were intending on clopping in there, you could have just said something about wanting some privacy in advance… Anyway, I’ve cleaned your clothes in that big cooking pot they had, and they’re hanging up to dry now.”

She blushes straight to her hooves as she peeks around the divider at him and yells, “I wasn’t doing anything like that! How are you going to accuse me of something like that?! We just met!”

He looks over at her as he’s straightening out her dripping wet jacket over a rack not far from the fires. “You’re the one that got all embarrassed about being seen in the shower. I figured you had a reason for it.”

She closes her eyes and looks off to the side as she says obstinately, “Well being seen in the shower’s an embarrassing thing when you’re not expecting it.”

He shakes his head as he rolls his eyes. “So it’s fine if you’re expecting someone to see you in the shower?”

She flushes more as she squirms. “Well… not really…” She looks over at him and scowls as she pokes him in the side of the head with the dish brush again. “You saying you don’t have a problem with somepony peeking on you in the shower?”

Gearing raises an eyebrow as he says flatly, “No… Not actually... Why?”

Her eyes go wide before she decides to call his bluff. “Uh huh… Yeah right… Prove it then!” Gearing shrugs as he grabs a long-handled metal-bristled grill cleaning brush with a wing and starts walking towards her. Dandy’s eyes go wide and she starts stepping back behind the divider as she stutters, “Wh- what are you doing?!”

Gearing trots around, looks her right in the eye, and holds up the steel bristled wooden brush as he says, “Proving a point… And I really need a shower anyway.” He spins around and sits down with his back to her, and under the edge of the steaming water, as he says, “I don’t know how long this is going to hold up, but I really need to scrub some of this crap off of me. So if you’re bothered by being seen I’ll keep my face pointed this way.”

She recoils, and watches him slowly start scrubbing himself with the metal bristly brush. And with each stroke more of the blackened material comes off of him, revealing the golden brassy color underneath. She stares mesmerized for a bit as her eyes slowly travel down the length of his back. After realizing she’s been staring at his rear for longer than would be socially acceptable she flushes harder and turns sideways as she continues washing herself off. “So… What’s with the color change? Why are you so shiny?”

Gearing rolls his eyes as he trails the bristly brush over his body and says, “Well, my actual hide is brass… I gave myself a chemical treatment to try and darken it so I didn’t stick out so much.”

“Because your skin’s gone and your implant’s not around to replace it?” she asks as she looks sideways at him.

Gearing nods. “Yeah. Which really sucks. It’s hard to sneak around when you fucking glow like a freshly minted bit.”

Dandy looks down as she sighs, “Yeah… I bet…” She looks him over a bit more before she steps closer to him and asks, “So… I just- I don’t know…”

He tilts his head to aim an ear at her but keeps his eyes pointed out beyond and not at her. “What is it?”

She looks him over a bit more then asks, “Well... it’s just that you were so hot paper was igniting just by touching you…”

“Yeah…?”

She leans over and actually does draw his eyes’ focus on her as he feels her interrupt the water flow along his wings and back. “If that’s the case… Your original organic parts should have cooked, shouldn’t they?” She looks him over as she asks, “How’re you still alive?”

Gearing lets out a sigh and drops his gaze down toward the ground as he says, “I don’t have any organic components to burn,” and then looks up and locks eyes with her before he frowns pointedly.

Her eyes go wide as she recoils slightly, then, ever so slowly, she reaches out with a forehoof and rubs it over his shoulder. “So… you’re entirely inorganic now?”

Gearing looks her over then leans in as he says softly, “Not a splinter of bone, a drop of blood, nor a bit of flesh. Entirely inorganic.”

She slowly sits down as she looks him over. “Damn… I knew the war was rough… but…” She shakes her head. “Damn.” She looks him over slowly before she says softly, “I’m sorry.”

Gearing gives her the faintest of smiles as he says, “I wish I could say it could be worse, but I can’t honestly say that with a straight face… so… thank you.”

She leans over and wraps a foreleg around his shoulder, laying her head up against him in a soft hug as she asks, “Is there anything anyone can do?”

Gearing shakes his head. “Not as far as I know. And trust me, they’ve tried.”

She pulls back and smiles as she looks him over. “Well… you’ve certainly had an interesting life.”

He chuckles as he looks away. “Tell me about it.” He looks over to the side, where a magical glow envelopes the metal brush he was using. He lets it go as he feels a tug on it then looks and follows it with his eyes as it hovers over and behind him.

Dandy gives him a slight smile as she says, “There’s areas back here you just can’t possibly get… Here, let me help.” The brush starts gently rubbing across his back and sides.

Gearing smirks, then stands up and fans out his wings limply as he says, “You can apply a bit more force to it… Don’t worry, you’re not going to hurt me and it’s going to take a bit of oomph to get this burnt up crap off me anyway.”

She nods and complies, and, after achieving the right pressure to actually start removing the blackened coating, she asks, “So what is this stuff anyway? It’s not just burnt blood, and you didn’t have your skin… so?”

Gearing stands up straight and at attention, not moving as she works the bristles over his body with her magic. “The fire was intense enough it burnt the outer surface layers of my body straight off. Combination of ablation or sublimation. Whatever you want to call it. What you’re scrubbing off is the carbonization from the leftover residue. It would flake off eventually with use, but I’m going to need to get rid of it to make sure nothing builds up and jams anything.”

She works up and down his side with the bristly brush, eventually picking up the wire mesh she’d used earlier on herself, with its prodding wires, and using it to start combing bits of debris from Gearing’s mane. “That’s a rather unique problem to have.”

“Don’t have to tell me about it.” She giggles as she bobs her head. A moment later he asks, “So what got you into the whole bounty hunting thing?”

Dandy lets out a sigh as she asks, “Is this the point where we swap tragic backstories?”

Gearing looks over his shoulder at her and smirks as he waves his wing at her. “Well I’m a metal pegasus that has to worry about soot jamming up his movement… Sooo, I think we’re already halfway there?”

She chuckles as she shakes her head. After she takes in a deep breath as she says softly, “Not a whole lot to tell. My parents were traders. Ran a small farm down near the badlands… Raiders came again and again, and took what they wanted. And killed anypony that tried to stop them. My parents just drew the short straw the day they felt like they needed to make an example of somepony. Shot them dead in the street to make sure nopony would resist them.”

Gearing shakes his head as he asks, “And… did anyone?”

She nickers off to the side and scowls at him. “Are you kidding me? Everypony was even more scared after that; they got exactly what they wanted! Everypony was too chicken shit to do anything while they bled the community dry.”

Gearing frowns as he looks down. “I’m sorry bout that.”

She nods as she starts working on his other side. “Me too…” She gives his side a slight nudge with a hoof as she says with a smile, “Really coulda used somepony like you back then. Seeing how you dealt with these assholes.”

Gearing nods as he closes his eyes and looks down. “Yeah… I know,” he says softly as he sighs.

She pauses brushing him before she taps him on the top of the head a few times with the brush. “Hey. I don’t know why you’re looking like it’s your fault… I meant it, it would have been nice to have somepony like you there, but we didn’t.” She taps him on the head a few more times as she adds, “But you’re here, and you’re doing good here. So don’t you dare go feeling guilty cuz you can’t be everywhere at once… You’re just one pony dammit!”

The little blue pegasus in his head hovers with his forehooves pressed to his muzzle, with his eyes the size of trash can lids and ultra sparkly, as he squeaks, She called me a pony…

Gearing looks up at her for a few moments and an easy smile appears across his muzzle as he says softly, “Thanks.”

She flushes and quickly redirects her eyes elsewhere as she says, “Ye- yeah… Well… Anyway, I got out of there, ran into a group of bounty hunters, and helped them track down the ones they were after. Which just so happened to be the same gang that had been harassing our community to death.” She shrugs. “After they were taken care of I joined the company and started a career as a bounty hunter.”

“Your way of getting back at those that killed your parents?”

Dandy bobs her head around and smiles sheepishly. “Maybe a bit… But it’s good money. And, I’m doing some real good out here too. All while making a living.” She grins. “Did I mention how good the money is?”

He starts chuckling as he says, “Yeah, I think you might have mentioned that once a while ago.”

She looks off to the side as she lets her magic work on scrubbing him, entirely going by feel with a leading edge of magic guiding the way as it travels along back to his haunches and flanks. “So, yeah. I learned how to find the good contracts, the ones that aren’t be ess, and how to go about doing it from a professional’s standpoint.”

“Uhm...”

She waves a hoof around as she says, “That way we don’t have to worry about double crosses.”

“Uhhh…”

She nods as she says, “Yeah, and ya can sleep at night too… Not having to worry about having done something we shouldn’t have.”

“Ummm…”

“You know… you’re a pretty good listener and… and…” She scrunches up her muzzle one way, and then the other as she rotates her eyes around in their sockets and tries to mentally picture what she’s feeling through the feedback of her magic. “That… that doesn’t feel like normal armor… plating...”

She slowly turns her head to look down under his rump where her magical aura is highlighting a very unexpected find. Her eyes grow to their widest before she slowly looks up, mouth agape, and meets Gearing’s gaze.

Gearing, with a rather amused smirk on his face, asks, “So… pardon me for being fresh… but am I going to have to pay extra for this service, or is it part of the package deal?”

The flush starts off at Dandy’s cheeks and starts traveling down her neck as she asks, “A-a… you- You’re… A-anatomic… A-”

He gives her a wink as he says, “Yeah, I’m one hundred percent functioning stallion… in case you couldn’t tell.”

In short order the flushing jumps straight to her hooves as she stares at him with her mouth agape. But her magic doesn’t weaken, strengthen, or even move at all as it stays in the exact same scandalous position.

Gearing smirks and turns his head to look back straight ahead as he grins. He coughs into a hoof as he asks, “So… yeah... about that… honest job… stuff…”

Her eyes travel down from where she’d seen his eyes, to his flank, as she tries to sort out exactly what she was just talking about. The thought patterns only get scattered even more as he gives his rear a little shake and looks back at her as he asks, “Sorry, do you need a minute to reboot, or did that break your brain entirely?”

She recoils a bit as she entirely shuts down her magic aura, through lost focus, making the bristly brush fall to the ground as she stares at his eyes. “Oh god, I’m sorry!” She puts her hooves to her cheeks as she closes her eyes and squeaks, “And I just kept holding on! Even after you said something. Even after I noticed I couldn’t let go! Oh god, oh god, oh god!”

He rolls his eyes as he turns around and faces her. She opens her eyes slowly and flushes even harder as she says, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to grope you like that…”

He sits down close to her and leans in as he asks, “Dandy, level with me…?”

She looks him over and bites her lip as she nods, “Uh huh…?”

He narrows his eyes as he asks, “Are you in cycle?”

Her eyes go wide and her cream colored fur practically turns hot rod red as she bops him on the head repeatedly with both brushes, pointing one against his head like it’s a pistol and bopping him with the other like the shower brush it looks like. “Oh my god! Why would you say something like that?! Don’t get fresh! That’s a massive invasion of privacy. You can’t just start going around asking mares if they’re in heat. That’s not proper! That’s not done!”

“That’s not a straight answer,” Gearing says flatly while getting bopped on the top of the head by the long handled wooden brush.

She covers her face with her forehooves as she groans. “Oh god… Why would you have to say something like that?”

Gearing leans in more as he says softly, “Cuz every time we’ve had any real contact, regardless of intent, you’ve gotten all kinds of fidgety…” He looks off to the side and smirks, “And then there was the glow job…”

“Oh god…”

He leans in and whispers in her ear with a smirk, “And not even the shower is covering up the pheromones your bombarding me with.” He gives her mane a light sniff for emphasis before he says, “You’ve been getting worse by the minute, especially since I got in the shower.”

“Oh god shut up!” she screams as she brings the brush down and breaks the brush head off of its long wooden handle over his head. Her eyes go wide and she instantly hops up as she grabs hold of his head with her forehooves to look at the damage as she screams, “Oh god, I’m sorry! Are you okay?!”

Gearing nods as he reaches up and pulls her down with a hug of his wings before he looks her eye to eye. “Yes, I’m fine. But are you?”

She covers her face with her hooves as she moans. “Oh god…” She sits there in the still steaming shower for a few moments before she admits, “I think so… yeah.”

Gearing looks around where they are and asks with a sigh, “Why the hell would you want to come here in that kind of condition?”

She pulls a hoof back and looks at him as she asks softly, “Honestly?” He nods so she continues, “I think it’s one of the reasons I did…”

His eyes go wide and she waves her hooves around defensively. “I don’t mean I wanted to get raped! I mean that you can’t talk about Cookie and his crew without his sexcapades being brought up. And that just leads to one thought after another and quickly your mind’s just thinking of sex every other thought and who it is isn’t the point but it’s just the sex talk aspect and that starts making things that really aren’t, seem like a good fucking idea, when they fucking aren’t, and… god damn it there I go again!” she blurts out in a ramble.

She reaches up and starts tapping on the sides of her head as she says, “Stop thinking of dicks, stop thinking of dicks… stop thinking … of… dicks…” She slows down and keeps her hooves on her head as she’s looking down at the ground, at his hooves. But not really looking at his hooves as she’s temporarily lost in her mind space.

“And that’s the reason you’ve been getting all fidgety around me? Despite the fact I look like a damn golden pony?” Gearing asks without drawing attention to where she’s currently focused on while biting her lip.

She blinks a few times before she looks up into his eyes and lets out a soft moan, “Yeah…” She shakes her head a bit and says as she makes herself look in a different direction. “I mean… It’s gotta be the damn hormones… but I know how strong you are, and you’re obviously tough, so maybe that’s got something to do with that…” She bobs her head around as she says, “And you’re nice… and you try to protect ponies… like Security…” She looks up at him with just her eyes as she says softly, “Like you protected me, and got burnt… while you stood over me and took the blast. Which musta been hard on you. Real hard.” Her eyes go wide as she brings her forehooves around and holds onto her muzzle. “Oh god it was right in front of my face that whole time and I was too busy trying not to piss myself to really notice.”

Gearing lets out a sigh as he says, “I think, given the situation, self preservation trumping a desire to rut is a perfectly normal train of thought.”

She covers her face as she groans. “Stupid bullshit hormones! I’m fine, even around really cute ponies, any other time. But as soon as Auntie Cycle comes around the hormones come charging in and my body just starts throwing a party and beggin’ for a preggin’…” She waves her hooves around and scowls as she says, “At this rate I’m going to jump the first buck I see, and end up pregnant, and I don’t know what the hell I would do with a kid at this point in my life! The wasteland’s got a loooong way to go before I’d feel comfortable with doing that!”

Gearing looks her over as he asks, “Well, if you don’t trust yourself, what do you normally do?”

“Honestly?”

He nods.

“I either lock myself up somewhere for a while and just… take matters into my own hooves…” She taps her forehooves together as her pelt has another wave of flushing wash over it. “Or I visit a brothel and have the fillies keep me too exhausted to go buck chasing…” She sheepishly smiles as she says, “When they realize what’s up, they usually are even nice enough to give me a discount…”

Gearing looks around as he rubs a hoof on his muzzle. “Damn… and I don’t know anywhere where you could hole up or …” He smirks. “Tender some recompense for some tender recompense.” His grin just gets even wider as the cream mare with the black mane practically turns into a bonfire from the heated full body blush. He shakes his head as he says, “So… just gotta find something to… scratch the itch.”

“Gearing?” she asks softly.

Gearing tilts his head and looks down at her. “Yeah?”

She leans in close to him, grabs him with a forehoof, and starts poking him in the side of the head with the dish brush as she has an absolutely embarrassed and mortified expression across her face. “I- I- I’m not asking because I like you like that or anything, Understand! So don’t get fresh! But… I’m dying here. I’m losing my mind…” She slowly hangs her head before she tilts it and looks up at him with just her eyes as she asks, “Could… could you help me? Please?”

Gearing’s eyes go wide as he steps back. “Whoa, wait, you mean you want me…?”

“I don’t want you I just want your dick!” she blurts out as she looks up at him straight in the eye. After a moment of what she’d said actually sinking in she flops back onto her rear and moans. “Oh god…” She throws her forehooves around wildly as she starts yelling, “Okay. Fine! Alright! I want you to give me a sweet gentle plowing full of love and tenderness and… Oh, hell, who the fuck am I kidding here?! I want you to spin me around, grab my hips and ride my ass into the sunset! I wanna do bad things to you. Like so bad and dirty that others will need to go to confession just for standing next to me! I want a piston pounding! I want your hot rod! Grind some corn. Make some butter with my tail. I want you to be the meat in my taco! I want you to be my summer sausage! I want you to take a ride below the crupper! I want you to send your little soldier cave exploring down under! I want you to shove your dick so far up my ass that it’s literally on my mind! And I don’t mean asshole. I mean my overly-hot, stupidly-wet, beggin’-for-a-preggn’ pussy! Okay?! Is that blunt enough?!” She hops up, spins around, and points back with a forehoof as she says, “Your dick, right there! Right now!”

He takes a step back as he asks, “Uhh… Didn’t you just say you’re worried about getting pregnant though?”

Her eyes go wide as she starts crying, which begins with a few frustrated sniffles. “Oh god… You’re right… See?! I can’t think straight!” She sits down and covers her face with her hooves as she moans, “Oh god I need a buck soooo bad…” She sniffles as she looks up at him. “But I really don’t want to get pregnant… I can’t go back to Megamart like this, or anywhere else there’s any bucks… I don’t trust myself… At this point changing my name to Queenie and letting Cookie have his way with me seems like a good fucking idea!” Her eyes start slowly growing bigger as she pulls her hooves away from her face as her ears perk up at a sudden thought.

She rolls over, smiling at Gearing, as she slowly starts walking towards him with a sly smile across her muzzle and a swish of her hips. “Hey… Gearing…?”

He looks around as he tries to figure out what to do and asks offhandedly,” Yeah, Dandy?”

She strolls right up to him and gets face to face with him as she grins. “You’d said…” She looks him over slowly as she bites her lip. “That… you don’t have... any organics left… right?” She leans up and gets muzzle to muzzle with him again as she grins. “But you’d said you were a 100% functioning stallion… right?”

The little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head flies around swinging klaxons and hitting alarm switches as it screams, Oh shit she paid attention! This is what we get for cracking jokes and teasing! Warning! Warning! Warning! The jig is up!

She leans in closer as she asks softly, “That means… you can’t get me pregnant… right?”

Gearing rapidly looks around as his ears fold back. “Well… well no… Not actually.” He lets out a long sigh of resignation as he stops pulling away from her and nods. “Yeah… I’m only shooting blanks.”

She nuzzles his muzzle with hers as she asks,” But you … can… ‘shoot’… right?”

Gearing looks her over as he asks, “Are you sure you wanna do this?”

Dandy looks him in the eyes and says flatly, “I’m so far out of my mind with an absolute need right now if it’s not taken care of quickly I might end up turning tricks in Flank for free.” Her eyes pop open to their widest as she realizes what just came out of her mouth. She reaches up with a forehoof, mentally pushing herself away from him, as she says, “I’m sorry.” She pulls back and looks over at the ground as she starts stomping her hooves on the floor’s stonework as she grits her teeth. “Dammit it, Dandy, get a hold of yourself! It doesn’t matter if he’s a strong buck with a cute bubble butt, you can’t expect him to do something so fucked up!” She stomps her hooves a few more times, hard, hard enough that she chips one as she screams in frustration, “You can take care of yourself, you don’t need nopony else!”

Gearing wraps a wing out, and encompasses her in it, pulling her into a hug as he asks softly, “Dandy, if you really need help keeping yourself from doing something stupid, I’ll do what I can… okay?” She turns around and looks at him as her lower lip quivers and her jaw shakes. He gently runs a hoof across her cheek as he says softly, “I’m not going to take advantage of a desperate mare. I’m not like that… But if you truly want my help, I’ll do what I can.”

She spins around and looks him in the face. “You won’t get mad at me? You promise?” She starts rubbing a forehoof along his chest as she asks, “You mean it?”

Gearing gives her an easy smile as he says, “If you promise not to get mad at me… sure.”

She hops closer, rubbing her forehooves along his sides as she wraps his middle in a hug and squeals in delight, “Deal!” She starts slowly running her hooves in circles over his body before she says sheepishly, “Uh… ummm… there’s just one thing…” She pulls back and looks up at him with a crooked smile. “How… How do we… I mean… you’re...”

Gearing snickers as he says, “Pretty much like anyone else… I’m a buck after all.”

Dandy tilts her head and a mischievous smile crosses her muzzle as her horn starts to glow and she asks, “Is that so?”

Gearing’s eyes go wide as he feels her magical manipulations. Again. He lets out a chuckle and pulls her in closer as he says, “Uh… yeah… and that’s a valid way to get started.”

As Dandy is comfortably sleeping off the rigors of her latest discovery, Gearing goes around the plaza and the primary building gathering what he can from the gang’s stash piles and corpses. Most of what was on the bodies of those that were killed is useless, as it all had extreme thermal damage if not entirely burnt up in the napalm.

He started off in the plaza, though entirely ignored the building being used as Cookie’s gang’s garbage dump. Whatever is in there isn’t worth the hassle in his opinion, and he’s not interested in straying too far from the main building while Dandy sleeps curled up near one of the fires. He works from the furthest point in, towards the main door, as he carries one salvaged bit after another. Though his first acquisition was grabbing his equipment out of the trash can he’d stashed it in, and gearing up again. Although he quickly took the cloak back inside and covered Dandy up with it before it really got wet in the steady rain. Even though the amount of water that is coming down has slacked off tremendously versus the torrential downpour it was earlier, it’s still enough to be annoying. But at least it’s helping to wash away the various burnt materials.

Cookie proved to be particularly problematic to gather from. His armor had gotten so hot, that it had cooked and fused to his skin. So, when Gearing was pulling it off, large pieces of blackened and bloody stringy bits held on to it as he disrobed the corpse of the sadistic chef. He groans as he uncovers the one side of Cookie and notices that, as with most of this entire side of Cookie, Cookie’s right flank, right where his mark would be, has been burnt beyond recognition and now seems to have more in common with a burnt pudding than a pony’s flank. His face has likewise been scorched beyond belief. Given that Gearing had a good portion of Cookie’s face adhered to his chest when he’d walked into the building, blackened and practically burnt to pure carbon, it wasn’t exactly a surprising find. Still, he uses a tire iron that’s had a bit of metal attached to it to make some kind of axe, and lops off Cookie’s head once the armor’s out of the way. He’s not sure how well the identification will work with this, but it’s better than nothing. He rolls Cookie over, onto his other side, and pulls off the rest of the armor from him. And that’s when he makes a bit of a delightful discovery. This side of Cookie isn’t nearly as burnt, as it was the side facing the ground when the explosion went off, But, still, the armor is metal and was so conductive that it still burnt and scorched most of this side as well. Practically cooking him in his own armor, well after the fires had burnt out.

Using the improvised axe, he scrapes the inside of the armor, carefully trying to separate enough hide from the armor to at least see his mark. After getting the armor away, and partially skinning Cookie’s haunch in the process, Gearing is greeted by an interesting picture. Apparently Cookie’s mark had something to do with a frying pan, and flipping something in the air. Whether it was a cooked egg, or pancake, Gearing can’t tell. A good portion of it has been charred and burnt off. But, even so, Gearing cuts off that piece of hide, and a large area around it, as he hopes that’s going to be good enough for identification.

It’s certainly not about the money for Gearing. But the reputation bump from such an act of goodwill could be valuable beyond measure later down the road. So he has to make sure to do this right.

Cookie’s flamer had been severely damaged, and its storage tank had literally exploded, but Gearing’s sure with a bit of work it could be brought back to functioning again. Meaning someone might buy it. So he starts piling up the various goods in the plaza under the large staircase: armor, weapons, random salvage, and whatever food or drink is still in their packaging.

Off of the atrium, he finds a small cafeteria that, at one time, probably served quick grab-and-go meals for the workers of the office building and their visitors. But, the seating areas have all been filled up with a variety of junk. And not even anything Gearing would want to take. But it quickly becomes clear that these were put here intentionally, not simply cast off. A large sign written in green paint on a plywood board declares:

Gearing continues back, around the counter, and into the back room lit with small lights. He has to stop at the door and blink a few times in surprise at what he’s uncovered.

The kitchen looks to be in damn near pristine shape. Clean beyond anything he’s seen since leaving Stable 68. Granted, the room and equipment shows signs of their age and wear. Bits of rust here and there. Places where paint had peeled off or started peeling. But, it’s been well maintained. Any places that started to peel, the paint was scraped off and discarded. Along the one wall is a station where various vegetables were chopped and diced. And, while all of the appliances are turned off, there’s still a variety of food in the various pots. And, as much as he’d hate to admit it, the smell does strike him as something that would be rather pleasant from his understanding.

He walks around in the kitchen, looking in one pot after another, and in the oven, as he expects, at any moment, to see another atrocity. Maybe a ‘cock stock’ like he’d found in that freezer in 68, given how sex minded Cookie was. But, no. Gearing looks over the shelves and finds an old green notebook with many pages and loose leaf paper hanging out. He gingerly grabs it and reads the front cover.

Gearing chuckles as he says, “Eventually… We all do sometime, some just sooner than others… eh, Cookie?” He starts flipping through the pages and his eyes go wide as he sees one recipe after another. The notebook, it seems, is Cookie’s personal recipe book. And while most others that he’d remembered would have been hard bound books mass produced, this was all hoof written. Except where he’d included clippings from magazines and such with recipes that he’d found. But, on pages with the clippings were additional notes on how he’d made changes to them. And especially substitutions he’d made that made the dish work, with whatever ingredients were currently available. Gearing flips through it until he finds a very old page, probably from an older notebook, that’s been folded, unfolded, and refolded so many times that it’s starting to tear. Maybe he’d simply kept it in a pocket and kept it with him, but its overuse marks it as very important and long lived. Despite what the wasteland’s best efforts may have wished otherwise.

Gearing trails his eyes over it, tilting the paper as he tries to read it, and eventually he does get the faded pencil mouth scribble in just the right light.

---

Is all this food talk making you Hungrywungry? Here’s an easy to follow recipe from Quillsy for your own scrummy casserole!

Quilly’s rendition of Cookie’s Cassierole

---

Gearing scrunches his mouth to the side as he sours at the thought of it. He starts going down the list reading everything and, on some level, expecting there to be something screwed up in the ingredient list. Foal? Eyes? Testicles? Ovaries? Maybe a couple ‘shots’ of his ‘buck sauce’? Or some other equally, or worse, crimes against cuisine.

Instead he’s pleasantly surprised.

The ingredient list is rather short, and to the point. And even he can tell it wouldn’t be all that hard to gather everything needed, even in the wastelands of Equestria. The hardest thing he can think of to get is the heavy cream. He slowly lifts his head as he realizes the entire reason Cookie’s been so adamant about keeping the brahmin safe, secure, and away from everyone else. A hunch that just seems to get confirmed when he finds out the secret meaty ingredient is neither equine nor bovine in origin.

It’s cram.

Plain old cram from a can that has been diced and pan seared to keep its shape and bring out a caramelized flavor. Though there is a note about substituting Radhog meat if it’s available and how to change the spices to compliment the sweeter meat flavor.

But his surprise is tempered a bit by the next couple pages that tote on about the correct and explicit ways that the next recipe has to be cooked to bring out the most of the flavor.

‘Cookie’s Brahmin Steaks’ and ‘Cookie’s Fiendishly Delicious Stew’.

Both of which’s primary ingredient is, unsurprisingly, brahmin.

He debates on looting the rest of the kitchen area, but decides he needs to pay the area in the back where the blue chevrons were showing up on his EFS earlier. He’s hoping they don’t turn hostile when they find out what he’s done. But, if they do, he’ll just cross that bridge when he comes to it.

Gearing looks around, and realizes that the large back door of the kitchen actually leads towards the party patio area where the brahmin are being held. Whether they were put there for intentional proximity, or this is a happy coincidence, he’s not sure. Still, he kicks on his EFS real quick before he opens the door. He pauses and watches as a red bar goes running across his vision. He readies his rifle, and gets ready to step out and shoot, but as he opens the door the red bar approaches one of the blue chevrons. And in the next instant the red disappears from his EFS as a popping noise echoes out, and the familiar sound of a radroach meeting it’s end at the end of a hoof greats his ear. Along with a long bovine groan accompanied by a pair of voices.

“Eww… another one.”

“Yup… that makes three today…”

Gearing steps out, and quickly looks around. As he traces the rifle barrel side to side, the brahmin all freeze the moment he comes out of the door. They don’t move a hair as they stare at him. And, his EFS tells him that this isn’t simply them deciding to suddenly attack him. No. They’re blue. And the only reason he’s keeping it up at the moment is to find out when, if ever, they have a change of heart on it.

He looks over at the larger pen of brahmin and quickly takes in the scene. A variety of brush and plant matter piled up in a trough, made of a ceramic bathtub that they’d dragged here from somewhere, functions as their meal source it seems. The three brahmin in the pen, with all six heads looking right at him, have all had a variety of abuses applied to them. Scars mar their respective hides as he looks them over. But for the most part, aside from that, they look okay.

If you overlook the blatant terror all six sets of eyes stare at him with.

He walks over to the pen’s gate, a wagon tailgate that’s being held up with a bunch of wire, and asks, “Hey, are you all alright?”

They startle at his voice, then look among each other before the nearest one nods and says, “Uhm… Yeah… we’re fine.”

The head next to that one asks, “Who are you? I don’t recognize you?”

The first head confirms, “You’re not one of Cookie’s bucks are you?”

Gearing slowly shakes his head as he quickly looks them over, and pays careful attention to their chevron colors along the edge of his vision. “No, I’m not…”

The closest brahmin runs over to the gate and the two heads lean over the pen as they talk simultaneously.

“You gotta get out of here.”

“Don’t let them find you!”

“He’ll rape ya!”

“He’ll kill ya!”

“He’ll rape ya again!”

Gearing looks around as he asks, “Cookie?”

They all, all six heads, nod rapidly as they quickly look around. Their fear is clear, but even so they’re trying to save him from the evil they’ve fallen into.

“Where’s Queenie?” Gearing asks as he looks them over.

The closest brahmin actually shivers before the one behind them looks over towards the delivery wagon. “They’re over there… poor thing.”

Gearing nods as he starts over that way. “Thanks. I’ll be right back.”

The brahmin closest to the gate whispers after him, “Don’t touch them whatever you do! Getting found back here would be bad enough, but if you touch them Cookie will completely lose his shit!”

Gearing quickly runs over to the small pen next to the delivery wagon, and takes in the view now that he’s a lot closer and not simply peeking in through gaps in the sheet metal that makes up the walls around here. A brahmin is laying down on a large pile of hay or grass material, with a bonnet over each one of their heads as they curl up, seemingly asleep. Gearing reaches over and taps on the delivery wagon, causing louder than intended clanks as he calls softly after them, “Hey… Queenie?”

The brahmin startles awake. Jumping both of their heads up then looking at Gearing with their eyes already wide and pupils the size of pinpricks. Their eyes trail over him for a few moments before the left head asks softly, “You… you aren’t Cookie…?”

The head on the right says in an equally soft tone, “You shouldn’t be here.”

Gearing keeps staring at the blue chevron as he says, “Yeah… about that… I need to talk to you about Cookie.”

The heads glance at each other before the one on the right asks in the same soft tone, “What is it?”

The other head adds, “Did Cookie send you?”

Gearing looks around before he sighs and says, “Not really… but Cookie… he’s dead… I hope you understand.”

The eyes of both heads open even wider as they quickly look around. The right head stretches out as far as they can without getting up as they whisper, “Are you serious?”

Gearing nods.

The left head stretches his way and asks, “You’re not kidding are you?”

Gearing shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”

They get up and walk over to the railing, looking over it and staring back at the door to the kitchen for a few moments, obviously expecting to get interrupted at any moment. But, after some time passes they look at him and the head on the left asks quietly, “Is it over? Is the nightmare over?”

The one of the right asks softly as it sniffles, “Can we go? Are we free?”

Gearing looks them over and asks quietly, “I thought… you’d be upset… Weren’t you two… you know… together?”

They look at him absolutely appalled before they reach up and knock the bonnets off of their heads. “Are you kidding me?” the right head asks.

“We didn’t have a choice!” the left head adds.

Gearing looks them over as he asks, “What do you mean? I thought you were the only one that he treated okay?”

The heads lean over the railing towards him as the one on the right says in a hiss, “We’re not the first ‘Queenie’!”

The head on the left adds, “Our name’s not even ‘Queenie’ that’s just what he calls whichever one he decided to make his personal play toy!”

The right one nods as their eyes go wide. “And… if your not good enough… you end up on the menu… Once he’s sick of you, he’s done for good… You go in there,” they nod their head towards the kitchen door, “and you never come back.”

The heard on the left says, “My name’s Earl… this is Ted.” He motions towards the head next to him.

Gearing looks them over and shakes his head. “I’m sorry that’s happened to you… How’d you all wind up here?”

Ted says, “He brings whatever brahmin he manages to steal from caravanners and traders here. He keeps us here until he’s board with us, or whatever reason, and then we get dragged in and killed. Especially if he has some kind of ‘special guest’ stop by.”

Earl nods. “Yeah… apparently he gets paid top notch for his cooking, so he always wants to make a good impression… That typically means at least one of us getting dragged off.”

Gearing looks them over as his eyes go wide. “That’s horrible!”

Ted and Earl say, in unison, “Tell me about it.”

Gearing looks over at the other three, who’ve walked over to the rail of their pen to watch the conversation, before he asks, “You guys traders?” He looks at them as he asks, “Were you part of the Finders?”

“We were,” chimes a pair of heads from the pen across the way.

Gearing looks between them as he asks, “Would you guys be willing to vouch for Cookie being killed? I went a bit overboard I think. He’s not really identifiable anymore...”

Ted and Earls eyes jump wide open as they say, “If you show me the corpse, I’ll vouch for you!”

“Me too”, “Me three”, “What they said” comes the chorus from the other brahmins.

Gearing looks over the set up of Earl and Ted’s pen, and eventually finds the correct set of latches to get the gate open. He waves them out as he starts heading over to the other one to let the other three out. “Yeah. I’ll show you…” After he’s opened up the gate for the other three he says, “After this, if you guys want, I can escort you all to Megamart. I’m sure you can pick up with another caravan or something from there.”

Ted nods rapidly as he says, “Anything to get away from here!”

“Our wagon is still here, we can even haul everything back for you,” Earl adds.

“No reason to leave anything for these horrible horrible ponies,” Ted agrees.

As soon as Gearing opens up the wide door to the kitchen, all four brahmin start running in a practical stampede. And as the last one is passing they ask, “Where’s Cookie’s body? I wanna see this for myself!”

Gearing takes flight and flies over them as they run as he points ahead with a hoof. “Right out the front door, here let me get it for you.”

As they are running around the large central fire, he simply flies up and over it, getting to the door a moment before they do. The bovines get out the double doors and start snuffing the air loudly.

“They… they’re really gone,” Ted says as he looks over at a pair of burnt corpses not far away.

“Where’s Cookie?” asks Earl.

Gearing lands at a trot by the bloodied headless body as he says, “This one. It’s pretty wrecked…”

The four brahmin trot over and crowd around the body. Snuffing and sniffing at it as they give it a thorough examination. The general consensus is that they aren’t entirely sure. They’re grateful for the assist, and if he wants them to, they’ll lie for him. But they don’t feel comfortable with saying for sure with just this. As they can’t really positively identify the body with how much of it is so burnt up and the smell from him has practically been eradicated and overpowered by the smell of burnt flesh and napalm.

Tick.

Tick.

CLICK.

Gearing pulls out the rolled up burnt piece of hide he’d cut off of Cookie earlier, that’s wrapped up in a couple shirts turned rags, as he asks, “What about this?” He holds it up showing the cutie mark.

Again, the brahmin crowd over, snuffing and looking at it.

The response is nearly instantaneous, and is led by Earl and Ted jumping back with instinctual fright and reflex. “That’s him!” screams Earl.

Ted nods rapidly, so fast it must hurt his neck as he says, “I’d notice that brand of disgusting sweaty stank anywhere!”

The others nod in agreement as they start looking among each other. After a few moments they all look at Gearing as Ted asks, yet again, “Is it really over?”

Gearing nods as he says, “Yeah. I’m sorry you’ve been through this. But we’ll be heading out soon. I just need to load up a wagon with what we’re salvaging from their base, and enough of the corpses for proper identification.”

Ted and Earl walk over and wrap a foreleg around him, trying to pull him into a hug but instead dragging themselves closer to him, as they wrap a head over each one of his shoulders and sniffle as they cry and mumble their thanks.

Gearing reaches up and gently rubs both of their necks as he says, “Hey… I do what I can…” After they’ve separated he gives them a wide smile as he says, “Let’s hurry up so we can go.”

It doesn’t take very long for everything to be made ready, as the brahmin were extremely motivated to get on the road and put as much distance between them and this personal hell as they could. The brahmin stampede through the office building had woken up Dandy from her pleasant nap, but not really enough for her to get up and investigate what the noise was about. So she ends up being the last thing loaded up as they decide to let her sleep while they are stowing the various salvage from Cookie’s gang. One cart gets dedicated to a metal box full of cutie mark covered hide, and a couple sacks worth of heads. He’s not sure if they really have any bounties on them, but if nothing else it’ll make it pretty obvious of the number that had been eliminated.

Dandy is genuinely startled awake as Gearing tries to pick her up and carry her out to the wagon once everything else is stowed. She whips out a variety of her pistols from her nearby jacket and puts them to his head like a spiky crown as he’s picking her up with his wings. She looks around quickly and flushes as she asks, “Hey! What are you doing!?” Her eyes roam around and she bites her lip as the pistols start slowly falling out of the air as her levitation wavers. “Are… are you wanting to go again?” She stows the pistols and taps him on the side of the cheek with a hoof as she says, “Don’t get fresh… That was just a one time thing… Most likely… Probably… Possibly…” She looks around as she taps her forehooves together and giggles, “Maybe?”

The little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head facehoofs as it groans, She’s already thinking about it…

Gearing chuckles as he starts walking and leading the way out. “Uh huh… I see that smirk… well, I got everything else loaded… how are you feeling now?”

She flushes even brighter before she grins at him. “Better… thanks…” She stifles a yawn as she says, “A bit tired still though…” She quickly starts putting her clothes and now mostly white jacket back on.

He chuckles and nods towards outside as he says, “Well, you can sleep on the wagon on the way back if you want.” She hovers his cloak back over and carefully covers him back up with it as she gives him a nod of thanks for the loan.

Dandy’s ears perk up as she quickly follows after him. “Wagons? What wagons?” She gets outside and her jaw drops as she asks, “Where’d you get all this from!?”

Each of the two wagons sitting in the plaza has a pair of brahmin hooked up to them, and they all seem antsy and ready to go. The lead brahmin looks back at her and Ted motions towards the wagon he’s pulling as he says, “All aboard. Let’s get out of here!”

Gearing trots along next to her as he says, “Call it spoils of war… Liberated ill gotten gains… Whatever… It’s stuff that Cookie and his ilk had taken from those he’s robbed and murdered.”

She hops over into the back of the lead wagon and blurts out, “Just how long had I been asleep for you to gather this horde?!”

He walks by and leans into the back of the wagon as he grins at her, “A while… And if we don’t hurry up we’re not going to get back before nightfall.” He steps back from the wagons and looks between the brahmin. “We’re heading to Megamart, you all know that way?” The various brahmin nod. “Great! So we gotta make a quick detour along the way, but it shouldn’t be a problem. So you guys get to moving and I’ll cover you from the air.”

He takes off and starts flying circles as he starts keeping an eye on his EFS and providing overwatch. From his position over the plaza, watching the wagons leave, he cues up commands on his PipBuck with the broadcaster mod attached. He taps the confirmation command and a moment later the acknowledgement flashes across his vision, along with its string of responses.

Burst transmission cycling.

‘Update-Point-Cookie’ sent.

Transmission successfully completed.

Response failure. Reason: Timed out.

Delivery status: Unknown/ Unconfirmed

“Done and done… time to move again…” Gearing mutters as he dives down and keeps an eye on the area around the pair of wagons.

---

Footnote: ‘Gravity Matrix’ Online. . .

Resuming reboot procedure. . . please stand by . . .

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