With it getting so late, and even passing traffic nearly evaporating, Patches figures it’s as good of a time as any to close up her booth in Megamart for the night. With everything going on lately, business had been pretty good. Busy. Profitable even. But the down side of that is the physical and mental toll it takes on a mare. She’s ready to call it quits, get a snack, something to drink, and then go to bed. Probably a really hard something that rhymes with ‘shmooze’ or ‘Whisk-Key’ given the day she’s had. As she starts moving around her displays so she can close up the booth, she grabs a fancy buck cake from her secret stash behind the counter, and quickly takes a bite before the wrapper’s even entirely off of it.

She pauses just long enough to register the carroty goodness before she flicks the wrapper onto her workbench inside.

Picking up trash is future her’s problem.

She wrinkles her nose for a second as she mutters to herself quietly, “What’s that smell?”

As she’s preparing to take another bite from the scrumptious carrot filling filled delight, a voice that she doesn’t recognize draws her attention through a crackling speaker.

“Hey, Patches, I know you’re -er,” there’s a staticky pop and screech that interrupts it before it picks up again, “-sing… closing… but got a minute to talk about a co-“ the speaker cuts out again and, as she starts turning her head, it finishes, “-sion… commission…?”

Her mouth had already been open to take another bite from her snack, but, the sight before her, in the middle of the walkway, makes her jaw completely hit the floor. Along with her eyes jumping to the size of practical saucers and her magic overglow to fail entirely.

The two ponies walking up, she can easily place. The one on the left, and further back, is an obvious Burner Boy, judging by his equipment. There’s no mistaking that custom flamer and the Hoofington Fire Department jacket he’s wearing. But he’s also wearing the hat with a respirator mask on as well. She may not know who this pony is, exactly, but his affiliation is unquestionable.

Then there’s the one who she knows exactly who it is. The one the Burner Boy is following close at heel.

She knows the armor well, for she helped make it, and, presumably, the owner underneath it. But, this doesn’t appear like how it looked when she last saw it. Which wasn’t long ago. There’s still pieces of the parts used to make it on the floor of her workspace.

But the outer trench coat, the one they spent so much time reinforcing, looks like it had been put through a wood chipper and somehow survived. Various sized holes and gashes are across its entire surface, along with some areas outright fraying. In some spots the leather had been pelted so badly that the combat armor pieces they used for reinforcement along the interior lining are actually visible. And some of those pieces have holes straight through them as well.

And that’s to say nothing of the damage that’s been inflicted to the rest of the armor.

The helmet is so bad that not only does it have a visible dent on the left side, but the mask and muzzle guard is fractured with sizable pieces missing off of the outside. The right lens flickers its red glow on and off at a rate that looks like an annoyed pony’s eyelid twitching. The left lens is a complete loss, with multiple cracks in it and a small piece actually entirely missing from the outer bottom connection point.

And then there’s the tip of some kind of weapon still sticking out of the breastplate where it had broken off, and the pony in the suit hadn’t even bothered to remove it.

As Patches is slowly taking in the vast damage, with her mouth gaping open, she finally blurts out, “Sweet Celestia, what the fuck happened to you?!”

Gearing’s wingtip zips out and catches the half eaten fancy buck cake before it hits the ground and holds it up, but the action also reveals the many holes in his wing sleeves and drops a few pieces of green crystal onto the ground in the process.

The Burner Boy looks at Patches and shakes his head before he sags his shoulders and lets out a sigh. “Oh, I’ve had one hell of a bad day, you just wouldn’t believe it! Thanks for asking! First I get jumped, then some raiders try and eat me… I tell ya! This last day’s been a real shitfest! Why I-”

“I don’t mean you!” Patches snorts at the ranting Burner Boy buck.

Gearing lifts the small treat up for Patches to take as he chuckles through the damaged respirator, “Yeah… ah-“ It entirely cuts off for a few moments before he manages to choke out, “I’m gonna need another pair of sunglasses for the helmet!”

“Pfft… figures no one would care about me,” the other buck snorts as he looks off to the side indignantly.

“Soots,” Gearing’s voice comes out clearly.

The buck in the Hoofington Fire Department outfit practically snaps to attention as he asks, “Yeah, boss?”

Gearing points off to the right, through the row of stalls, as he says, “Go find Swift, if you would, and let them know we’re back and I’ll be over there shortly to figure out our next move. They should be over at the motel.”

“Yeah, Boss, whatever you say,” the buck nods quickly before turning and trotting off. But, as much as seemingly being reduced to an errand buck, he seems happy with it. Especially with how quickly he starts picking up speed the further he gets away from Gearing and Patches.

Patches takes the cake from Gearing’s wingtip up in her magical field and takes a dainty bite before she smirks and adds, “Cute kid…”

“I’ll have to take your word for it,” Gearing replies.

Patches walks over and starts nibbling on the cake as she looks the armor over. She visibly winces a few times as she traces the damage over his entire body. After finishing off the cake, and coming back to the front to meet him face to face, she lets out a long low whistle before she asks, “So are you looking for repairs, or another armor upgrade?” She looks him in the eye and partially closes one of her own before she adds, “I’d thought we’d made an overkill level of walking tank armor that would be problematic to even move in. But apparently it wasn’t enough with the kind of trouble you get yourself into.” She reaches up and taps him on the end of his armored muzzle. “One day, you couldn’t go one day without wrecking your new armor!”

A clink draws both of their attentions as a piece of metal falls off his muzzle guard from where she’d tapped and comes to a stop between them.

Gearing shrugs before he says with a chuckle, “What can I say; I’m not allowed to have nice things…”

“Upgrade, or repair?” Patches repeats as she looks him over again.

“Both,” Gearing replies quickly. “Repair what I got now, and work on something better for later.”

Patches shakes her head. “I’ll figure something out, but I think what you really need is a zebra killer tank that you can wear at this rate.”

“Got one?” Gearing asks with a sparky chuckle.

While Gearing and Patches negotiate, scheme, and banter, Soots makes good on his escape. Sure, he’s grateful for the rescue, but he can’t help wondering how long he is going to be at the beck and call of a certain psychopony. He knows he could just take off. Make a break for it. But, really, he doesn’t want to do something like that and end up having someone like him as an enemy. He’s seen what he’s capable of.

And, Celestia protect him, that force of destruction is something Nightmare Moon herself had to of conjured up. And Soots feels the further away he is from it, the better. So playing errand buck is a no-brainer.

He zips along as he keeps his head on a swivel. It’s not nearly as crowded in here as the last several times he’d been into Megamart. But, he normally stops in during peak hours with his friends. Not in the night when almost everypony else has already done their shopping and gone home.

Most of the stalls have already closed up for the night anyway. So it makes looking for his target that much easier. Not that she’s hard to spot.

And, just as advertised, the music practically starts playing when his head whips one way then the other in an unintended double take. He’d recognize that sky blue goddess with the blue-streaked red mane anywhere. From any angle.

Especially from behind.

He’s glad he’s wearing his mask, as it does an excellent job of hiding the ridiculous grin across his muzzle while he shamelessly checks her out as he approaches her. But, as good as she looks, he knows better than to say anything. Considering the company she keeps. And, he knows better than anyone, a pretty face can easily hide an epic flank whooping if you’re not careful.

That ‘crazy Psychoshy’ is a perfect example of it in his mind.

He walks towards them and catches the attention of the blue buck with her, causing her to turn and look over her shoulder at what had drawn her companion’s focus from her.

“Excuse me, ma’am? Boss said to let you know that we made it back, and he’ll be over here in a bit to go over plans for what to do next,” Soots comments as he comes to a rather abrupt, and stiff, halt not far from where they are sitting next to a few of the Megamart’s motel cots.

Handy raises an eyebrow as he says, “I think you got the wrong ponies…”

Soots stares at him for a moment before shaking his head. “No, I’m pretty sure he meant you two.”

Swift directs her eyes side to side quickly as she looks from Handy to the new comer. “And… who’s your boss?”

“You know… Boss…” Soots says as he shrugs his shoulders. He looks between the two as he obviously expects them to make the connection. After a few moments he lets out an annoyed sigh as he says, “Well you’re friends with him, you should know better than I do!”

“Wait… what?” Handy asks as he stands up.

“Who the hell are you talking about?” Swift asks as she starts paying even more attention to Soots, and the flamer at his side.

Soots sits down as he lets out a long sigh. “Look, I don’t know his name, alright?! Cut me a fucking break here!” He waves towards Patches’ booth with a hoof as he says, “I asked him, I did, I tried, but he just said call him whatever the hell I wanted, that he didn’t care.” He huffs and looks off to the side as he grumbles, “He wouldn’t even give me his damn name, like I’d get it dirty or something if he did…”

He turns his head back to look at them, and both Swift and Handy look utterly confused. Soots rolls his head on his neck in a painfully exaggerated eye roll as he says, “Look…” He takes in a deep breath then starts flailing his forelegs around as he says, “He’s the big scary demon on hooves that you two stormed that raider nest in the Hoofington Police station with. You know. Him?!” He waves his hooves one way. “The one that just barged right in, dropped a fucking wagon on a mare that was impersonating a tank, successfully I might add, then he threw you all out with that busted up buck and stayed behind.”

Swift and Handy look at each other before Swift asks with a smirk, “You mean the one with the creepy voice modulator on his mask?”

“Yeah, him! That buck’s the scariest shit I’ve seen in my whole life!”

Swift giggles as she waves a hoof at him dismissively, “Yeah, Gearing has his moments, but he’s not that bad!”

Soots stares at her for a moment, in complete silence, before he says,” Not that bad… not that bad? Not. That. Bad?!”

Handy stares at him as he grumbles, “Yeah, that’s what she said, what of it?”

Soots sits back and stares at them for a few moments before he takes off his mask and reveals his half burnt face. “You two have either got to be idiots, or completely shitting me right now…” To their surprised, and slightly offended, reactions he takes in a deep breath. “That crazy mother fucker didn’t stop until he got each and every one of those raiders. I was there. I know!” He slaps on his chest a few times. “In a few instances he used me as fucking bait!”

Swift’s eyes go wide as she says quietly, “What?”

“Yeah! He even strapped a few tin cans on my tail and made me run up and down the hallways to draw them out. It was fucking nuts!”

“He did what?!” Handy asks with his eyes shooting open to their max possible size.

“Yeah! And, that’s not even the scary part!”

Swift and Handy glance at each other before turning to look at him, simultaneously, as they ask, “Oh?”

Soots nods as he waves over towards Patches’ booth again. “While they were busy chasing after me, he was chasing after them!” He points up at the ceiling and at various places on the walls as he says, “He strung several of them up like piñatas with wire around their necks, others he straight up pinned to the wall like they were pre war posters, but he used flagpoles and rebar!” He starts shaking as he says, “There was even a statue of Celestia in the courtroom, depicting justice… and he picked that whole fucking thing up and smashed one of the judge’s armored mares… You thought the one getting hit by the wagon was a mess, that bitch went everywhere. At once!”

He sits down and holds his cheeks as he says, “That’s all he wanted me for… bait… and to help him burn the bodies afterwards…”

Swift coughs, and tries not to laugh, as she says softly, “Well… you do have a flamer.”

“No!” he screams. “He didn’t want my flamer! He got the building’s trash incinerator back online and we just chucked the bodies in there! He made me march around and scorch whatever mess was too pasty to scoop up with a shovel and throw in the incinerator.” He leans towards Swift as he says quickly, “And with his crazy ass, there was a lot of that!” He flails his legs around as his pupils shrink to pinpricks while vividly remembering the scene. “It’s like he steamrolled the whole lot of them! Pony paste everywhere! Glue! Jam! You understand me!?”

He looks side to side before leaning closer and nervously chuckling. “I… I thought that level of insane murderous destructive power was limited to Reapers… but even of all the shit I’ve heard of Reapers as a whole, nothing was like this buck. I bet he’d be top ten if he actually gave a shit about fame or money or whatever and actually tried out.” To the blank stare they give him he gives a sheepish smirk in response and says, “He pretty much left everything. What he didn’t burn with the bodies that is, considering he didn’t even bother checking them.”

Handy looks between him and Swift before he says softly, “That… doesn’t sound like Gearing.” Swift shoots him a sideways glare and he adds, “Something seems off with this.”

Swift nods as she says, “He’s not really one for intentionally using somepony for bait like that.”

“Well, this buck did so… I don’t know what to tell you, except do not get on his bad side,” Soots says with a snort as he looks off to the side.

Swift giggles and directs her attention back to Soots, “Yeah, about that… Good advice… especially since he’s already killed one Reaper during a bout…”

Soots nods his head as he looks around and only partially pays attention, “Yeah, no kidding I mean-“ He pauses and his eyes go wide as he actually processes what was said. He looks over at Swift and asks softly, “Wait… killed a Reaper?”

Swift nods.

“In an official bout…”

Swift nods again, but with a growing grin across her muzzle.

“That means he’s…”

Her grin turns mischievous as she starts slowly nodding at him.

Soots eyes go to their widest as he asks, “A Reaper?! There’s a Reaper in your group!?”

“Yeah, Soots, her name’s Iron Hoof Swift, I see you two have finally met outside of that cage,” a statically voice comments from the side.

Soots jumps up in the air like a jackrabbit, bounding up in pure freight, as he spins around and faces the pony near him. “Uh.. heh… heh… Hi... B-boss…”

Swift and Handy look Gearing over as their mouths uniformly drop open. After they trail up to his sparking face mask, Swift asks, “Hard day?”

Gearing chuckles through the respirator as he says, “I’ve had worse… but it’s up there.” He points at his head with a hoof as he adds, “At least I didn’t get a couple tons of concrete and steel dropped on my head this time… again.”

“Ohhh maaan…” Soots moans as he sits down. “I’m so fucked… I’m a Reaper’s serf…”

Swift looks over at Soots, then up at Gearing as she asks, “Have you been making this poor buck do all of your errands for you?”

Soots’ head zips up to her as he brings a hoof to his lips. “Please. Don’t help! I wanna live!”

Gearing shakes his head as he snickers. “Don’t look at me; I don’t know what his deal is.”

Soots looks over at him, then at the others before he points a hoof at Gearing. “You’ve been making me follow you around and do all kinds of crazy stupid shit since you busted me out of that meat locker!”

“No I haven’t,” Gearing says flatly.

“Ya did too!” Soots retorts. He taps on the ground with a hoof as he says, “You made me help you burn the raiders.”

“You said you wanted to.”

Soots taps on the ground again. “You made me run around with cans on my tail and act like bait!”

“I asked you to be a distraction, you said yes.”

Soots taps on the ground again. “You made me scoop up pony paste, and burn the remnants!”

“You said you wanted to burn them.”

Soots taps on the ground again. “What about following you around all over the place in that building?”

“It was the safest place for you to be.”

Soots slams his hoof on the ground again, loudest of all, before he asks, “And making me follow you all the way to Megamart?! And be your errand buck by finding these two?” He throws his hoof accusationally at Swift.

“I asked you to come here so we could have a place to sort things out without having to worry about getting ambushed. So we could meet up with our friends. And, as for Swift, again, I asked, and you said okay,” Gearing replies evenly.

Swift snickers as she looks over at Soots and asks, “Wait… this whole time he’s just been asking you to do things, and you’ve simply agreed to, without question, and thought he was making you?”

“I… I didn’t want to know what would happen if I’d said ‘no’,” Soots says softly as he looks down at the ground and thinks things through.

“I woulda said thanks anyways, and goodbye,” Gearing replies flatly.

Soots scrunches up his face before he looks over at Gearing. “I really did this to myself, didn’t I?”

Gearing’s snorting laugh shorts out the speaker on his mask again before he says, “Yeah… you did.”

Soots lets out a sigh before he asks, “Are you two seriously Reapers?”

Swift grins as she says, “According to Big Daddy… yes.”

Soots looks between them as he grumbles. “Look, I don’t like this. Thanks for busting me out and all, but, really, what’s this going to cost me?” He looks over at Gearing and narrows his eyes as he says, “I don’t like having debts, and having an unidentified one to a Reaper is not something I’m willing to have over my head for the rest of my life… so… How are we going to square this up?”

Handy waves his hoof and looks away. “Don’t worry about it.”

Soots shoots him a dirty look and snips, “Considering your ass wanted to leave me in the cage to be raider chow, fucking better believe I don’t think I owe you a fucking thing.”

Swift looks at Handy, as his content smirk instantly turns to a scowl of indignation. “Awww… it’s okay… I still love you.” She leans over and gives him a kiss on the cheek. It works to break the scowl from his muzzle, and replaces it with a glance of bewilderment in her direction.

Gearing nods as he looks between them and Soots. “Well, a wise buck once told me never to do anything for free, if you’re really good at it…”

Soots hangs his head as he moans, “Celestia damn it, here it comes…”

“So…Here’s what I want…”

Soots looks up at him and sighs as he beckons towards Gearing with a forehoof. “Come on, let’s hear it…”

“First, I want one of your canisters of Flamer fuel. A full one. The whole thing, one you haven’t tapped into yet…”

Soots looks at him and tilts his head as he looks him over. “Well. Shit… that’s not hard at all. I still have a couple, here I can square that up right now.” He rummages in his bags, feeling the weight of the canisters and looking at the tops, before tossing one of the candy apple red metal canisters to Gearing. “There we go.”

Gearing grabs it, puts it in his saddle bag, and checks his PipBuck as he asks, “This mix have any oxidizers in it?”

Soots recoils as he says, “No way, that’s just the straight napalm mix. No oxidizers, that’s nasty stuff and I’m burnt enough already without doing it to myself!”

Gearing nods as he confirms the contents through his inventory sorter enchantment. He looks up at Soots as he points at his uniform. “I hear you Burner Boys have pretty much all of those Hoofington Fire Department jackets, that true?” Soots bobs his head around before he nods. “Okay, I want you to drop one off at Patches’ booth when you get a chance. I need one for a set of armor she’s making me.”

Soots reaches up and grabs the collar of his coat as he asks, “Want mine now?”

Gearing shakes his head. “Nah. You’ll probably need it, especially since your primary weapon is that flamer. Just get it to her when you get the chance, but sooner than later.”

“Easy, will have it back here in a couple days. Tops,” Soots replies with a nod of his head. “Anything else?”

“Yeah… if you really wanna consider us square… Whenever you hear about raider nests or activity, pass the info on to The Finders… and make sure it gets back here to Megamart and Bottlecap.”

Soots shakes his head, before he tilts his head and asks, “Why do you care about all of that?”

“Need I remind you what we spent half the day today doing?”

“Oh…” Soots’ eyes go wider as his legs start shaking under the fire department jacket. “You… you going to need me to come with you… too?”

Gearing leans over and tilts his head so he can look at Soots through the lenses of his mask before he asks with a gruff snort, “Do you really think I actually needed your help back there?”

“Uh… no… no you didn’t,” Soots says as he quickly avoids eye contact. “Point taken.” He nods a few times before he waves a hoof weakly at Gearing. “I’ll pass the word around… the less of those psycho cannibals there are, the better for everypony… No sweat.”

“Alright, thanks,” Gearing replies with a nod.

Soots looks him over and partially closes an eye. “That’s it? Seriously?”

“If you keep up your end of the bargain, yes. That’s it. It’ll be worth it to me, I assure you.”

Soots looks around quickly then points off to the side as he asks, “So, like, I can just get out of here then? We’re done?”

Gearing starts chuckling before he shakes his head. “Soots. I’m not a slaver… Hell… I kill slavers… Go ahead and go if you want; I’m not going to keep you. But, try not to get caught by raiders again.”

Soots waves and quickly trots off. “Sweet! I’ll see ya later then!”

They watch him walk away, and after he’s out of sight, Swift asks Gearing, “So, you kind of freaked that buck out…” She looks him over some more as she asks, “Care to explain how you look like you were mistaken for a dragon’s afternoon snack?”

Gearing shakes his head and chuckles as he says, “It’s a long story, but-“

He stops as they both look over and see the same Hoofington Fire Department uniform come back towards them.

Soots looks at them, as he’s passing and says, “I’m not pressing my luck. I’m getting a good night’s sleep before heading on.” He starts taking off his battle saddle with the flamer connected to it as he’s walking back towards a cot along the wall. “Don’t mind me.”

They stare at him as he quickly disrobes, shoves his equipment under the cot, and then plops on top of it. After a few seconds the russet brown buck with the mahogany mane starts making some coital sounding noises as he stretches out over the top of the cot.

Swift snickers as Gearing shakes his head. Then he looks over at Swift and asks, “Hey, where’s Dandy at? I got to find out how many caps I owe her.”

“I don’t know, I haven’t seen her in hours,” Swift replies as she rubs on her head and tries to think.

A mare in a caravanner’s outfit, climbing into a cot nearby, looks over and asks, “Are you talking about that unicorn mare with the white jacket?”

Gearing and Swift look over at her and Gearing nods as he replies, “Yeah, have you seen her?”

She nods as she points over towards the stairs up to the roof. “Yeah, Doc Bonesaw had me drop off some results to her.”

Gearing and Swift nod again as Swift says, “Yeah, sounds like her, she was rather in a rush to get that sorted.”

The mare gives them a crooked smile as she says, “Yeah, well, I mean, I don’t know what’s going on, you can never tell with some mares. I mean I know far more that’d be happy about it, but, well, to each their own I suppose.”

Swift nods. “That’s true…”

“…what?” Gearing’s voice comes out in a staticky stumble as he mentally trips over her phrasing.

The mare looks at Gearing and nods as she says, “Well, Bonesaw had thought she’d be happy with the results, but, apparently not. She started bawling and wailing like a banshee as she ran off and hid up on the roof. And that’s the last I’d seen her.”

Swift’s eyes start growing wider as she asks softly, “Was that like a few hours ago?”

The caravanner nods as she settles into her cot. “Yup, that sounds about right. Why?”

Swift holds up a hoof to her mouth as she says softly, “Oh no… I thought somepony had died or something, I didn’t recognize the voice…” She looks over at Handy, “I heard her clear on the other side of Megamart!”

“And that’s how she reacted when she saw her results?” Handy asks as his mouth has a hard time staying in any position except hanging to the floor.

“Mmmhmmm… I tell ya, it’s the darndest thing I’d ever seen…” She waves a hoof dismissively as she says, “I mean there’s not taking it well, and then there’s whatever the hell that was!”

Swift and Handy slowly turn their head to look over at Gearing as the auditory void becomes palpable.

Gearing stares at the mare through his helmet in speechless contemplation for a few more seconds. He doesn’t move. Not a hair. After a few moments of complete silence from the group he gently lowers his head, raises up a hoof, and starts working on his helmet’s face mask. After it finally detaches, he looks up at the mare, and gently pulls the muzzle guard portion away, revealing his face shining underneath. He keeps his eyes closed, and takes in a long, slow, deep breath before he opens his eyes and asks with a gush, “Wot?”

She tilts her head as she says, “I knew it was hard to hear in those things… but… yeah, your friend, the unicorn mare with the white coat? She got her test results back from Bonesaw, and then com-pletely flipped out. Screaming. Crying. Stampeding to find a place to hide. The whole package.” She shrugs. “I guess you never can tell in advance with some mares how they’re going to react to the news.”

Gearing’s eyes slowly start going wider by the second as he lets out a long deep-intoned rumbling breathy growl, “Noooooooooo-”

“Uh Gearing?” Swift asks as she looks at him sheepishly.

“-oooooooooo-”

Handy sits down as he looks up at the ceiling. “Well… I guess this puts some questions to rest…” He snorts as he says, “It’s a messed up way to find it out though…”

“-oooooooooooooo-”

“I mean, if that’s the case, it’s pretty definitive: Dandy was right,” Handy adds with a smirk.

“-ooooooo-”

Handy looks at Swift. “That reaction too… should I like… buy some cigars or something? I mean… that’s an appropriate gift, right?”

“-ooooooooooooooo-”

Swift puts her hooves to her muzzle as she looks at Handy. “Oh, Sweet Celestia, I feel like shit!”

“-ooooo-”

“After all that teasing, I mean!”

“-oooooooooo-”

“It was only funny because I didn’t think it was possible, but now… oh god…”

“-oooooooooooooooo-”

“G-Gearing…?”

“-oooooo-”

“Are you okay, Gearing?” Swift asks with growing concern in her voice.

“-oooooooooooooo-”

Swift looks over at Handy with her hooves still covering her mouth as she sheepishly smirks, “I think the news broke his brain…”

“-oooooooooo-”

“That’s some lung capacity there.” The caravanner smirks as she lays down and looks at Gearing as he mentally short circuits.

“-ooooooo-”

Handy walks over, and drapes his foreleg over Gearing’s shoulders as he says, “It’s okay, Gearing. You won’t be alone in this. Okay? I’ve already been in your shoes, and we’ll help you through this.”

“-ooooooooooooooo-”

“Both of you,” Swift adds quickly as she stands up and gets on the other side of Gearing.

“-oooooooooo-”

“Oh damn, he’s stuck good…” Swift looks around Gearing at Handy and asks, “Hey, how’d you break yourself out of that mental breakdown when you heard?”

“-oooooo-”

“If I remember correctly, I think you kissed me and practically sucked out my lungs through my muzzle so I had to stop freaking out or I’d pass out…” Handy replies as he rubs his chin thoughtfully.

“-oooooooooo-”

Swift looks at Gearing’s vacant thousand yard stare, and then back at Handy as she shakes her head. “I don’t think that’s going to help in this case…”

In reflex to his absolute panic at what is going on, Gearing activates SATS and tries to cheat the universe by giving himself time to think. To respond. But that’s not helping in the least as his mind is completely short circuiting at every possible level at what has been dropped on his head. Multi tons of concrete and steel, he can handle. Though painful, it could be managed. But this? This? No. He can’t handle this. No training or reading could prepare him for something so unexpected and out of the ordinary.

The little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head bursts a foreleg through the surface of his mind, then starts crawling and scrambling out of the filth and muck like a zompony climbing out of a soggy grave.

The little blue pegasus looks around with eyes that are solid white and lifeless as it mutters, “Not possible… not possible… no… not possible…”

The little blue pegasus trots over, dropping feathers from its body, before it grabs a cloud from Gearing’s mental space, and flips it end over end until it turns into a table covered in books. He flops down and starts mindlessly pushing one book after another over until it grabs one on equine biology and starts ripping pages out one after another.

“Not possible, not possible, not possible…” It groans as it pulls the pages out. It grabs a couple hooffuls of ripped out pages, and starts cramming them into its mouth as it noisily chews. “Nawt pawthiboo…”

No, it’s not! I don’t have any swimmers, that shit’s been tested, repeatedly, how is this possible?! Biology. Science. Research. Testing. The scientific method! It all says this isn’t possible!

What the fuck is this?!

“Nawt pawthiboo, nawt pawthiboo, nawt pawthiboo,” the little blue pegasus in his head chants as it munches on sheet after sheet of completely useless knowledge.

I didn’t go through the ceremony, and you can’t accidentally go through the ceremony. This couldn’t be happening. This shouldn’t be happening! I was still metal!

“Nawt pawthiboo,” the little blue pegasus zompony agrees.

Does this mean Mom was wrong and I could have been impregnating mares this entire time?!

“Scaway thawt,” the zompony agrees.

Oh fuck, how many foals could I have left behind? How many of my descendants are still around? There could be hundreds! Thousands even!

“Ith werth den dat,” the zompony chimes in as it starts chewing on the book itself.

How could this possibly get any worse?!

The zompony spits out a wad of chewed up paper before it says, “Remember that one unicorn mare’s chaperon…”

OH… oh god… You don’t mean…?

The zompony shrugs as it starts throwing books around everywhere. “If we’re throwing out the fucking rules of the universe, then, why not?! Yes! Her!”

Oh god… and the others…

“Yeah, all the others…”

I don’t think that’s possible, otherwise I’d have a bunch of mutant reptilian clockwork children running around! A whole clutch of them at least!

“Well this isn’t supposed to be possible, but, a pear ant lee, it is!” The little blue pegasus starts hopping around as feathers and fur flops off with each hop. “Yeah, just fuck the whooooole universe, knock it all up. It’s been fucking us hard long enough, let’s repay the favor! Hell, start fucking the ground and see what crops up from that! Maybe you can get Equus itself pregnant with one of your mutant clockwork foals!”

This can’t be happening, it can’t! Gearing whimpers into his head space. I didn’t sign up for this shit!

The little blue pegasus in his head waves a hoof at him as he says, “See, this is what we get for talking shit all the time and cracking jokes about it not being our problem. That we can’t. That we’re sterile. That it’s all good and fine. You know what they call this shit?!” It hops and stamps its hooves as it growls, “Tempting fate! You should have knew better, but nooooo… Now we’re getting bitch slapped with some karmic justice for all of our jokes!”

This can’t be happening!

“Oh, it’s happening!”

NO!

“Daddy!”

Nnooooo!!!

“Father!”

Nooo- ooo -ooo -oo…

“Pappa!”

He whimpers as he cries out into the void of his mental space, Nooooo.

“Sperm donor!”

Dammit, if I was going to magically knock up some mare, why couldn’t it have been Sable? She actually wants foals! And I barely know Dandy!

“Again, Karmic fate, that’s why!”

“-oooooooooo-”

“Oh shit, what are we gonna do?”

“-oooooo-”

“Well, it’s kinda funny, but…”

“-oooooooooooooo-”

“Yeah, but ponies are going to be trying to sleep soon… How long can this buck keep going like this?” the caravanner mare asks.

“-OOO^Oooooo_ooo…” Gearing finally finishes his long panicky denial of the universe with a slow wind down into sub audible ranges like a toy with a battery that is dying.

Gearing suddenly realizes SATS wore off a while ago, he'd just been too stuck in his own head space to notice, and now he’s surrounded by over half a dozen ponies, all of them looking at him with a mixture of concern and confusion. Swift and Handy are still on either side of him. But the mare in the caravanner outfit had gotten out of her cot and got close enough to stare at his face as they try to get his attention. Several other ponies sit around, watching, that he’d never seen before. But the tan mare at the entryway of the Megamart Motel he recognizes as one of Megamart’s Security.

The tan mare waves a hoof as she asks, “Has he snapped out of it? Bonesaw’s on his way.”

“G-Gearing?” Swift asks as she slides around to get in front of him so her face takes up the majority of his cone of vision.

He still hasn’t moved a millimeter, but he’s no longer belting out the long same chord. And they aren’t sure if that’s an improvement, or signs of things getting worse.

Swift waves her hoof in front of his eyes, trying to get some kind of reaction, before she leans in even closer. “Helloooo… Gearing? You there?”

Gearing takes in a long deep breath, and the caravanner mare takes a step back as she groans, “That fucking lung capacity, he’s probably just recharging for another flat solo…”

Gearing slowly turns his head, and then gingerly takes a step forward. “Dandy… I gotta go talk to… Dandy.” He tries to take a step forward, but rocks a bit. With each step he takes, he rocks forward, like he’s going to step, but then rocks back a bit, before rocking forward yet again and completing the single step cycle. He continues this slow jerky walking pattern, with his legs sometimes even crossing each other awkwardly as he makes his way out of the Megamart motel. The others step back and away from him as he makes his way out and into the main walkway.

Swift flutters after him as she asks, “You want me to go with you?”

“N-no… not now… we… we need to talk… I did this, I need to make sure she’s okay,” Gearing mutters as he turns and heads towards the stairway up to the roof.

They all watch him walk away, and Soots comments from the back after he’s gone, “Holy fuck, I swear it looked like his brain threw a gear or something!” He starts chuckling as he looks around. “Who’d have thought a tough bastard like that could have been brought to a grinding halt by just some unexpected news."

Bonesaw trots in passed the tan security mare, floating a bag in front of himself, as he asks, “Where’s he at? What’s wrong?”

Handy looks over at him and waves it away. “He’s fine, Doc, thanks for coming though. He finally snapped out of it and left.”

Bonesaw looks around as he asks, “Well, what happened? Ponies don’t just lock up and start singing a solitary note for so long without something seriously wrong. Like brain damage or something.”

Swift turns and sheepishly smiles as she says, “He just got… some unexpected news.”

Bonesaw raises an eyebrow as he asks, “What could have been so bad to cause a catatonic state?”

Soots starts giggling as he sits down and holds his stomach with one forehoof. “Apparently he found out he accidentally knocked a mare up, and he wasn’t expecting to be a daddy!” He shakes his head as he laughs some more. “Funniest shit I’ve ever seen, I’ll tell ya!”

“That’s … a strange reaction…” Bonesaw squints his eyes at Soots as he tries to figure out if he’s being pranked or something.

“Well… according to his marefriend, he’s gone his whole life not being able to have kids, even though she wants them,” Swift replies as she lands next to Handy and keeps looking in the direction Gearing had left in. “So, now he’s probably having to reevaluate his entire life at this point…”

Bonesaw looks over at her and asks, “I don’t see the problem then, you’d think he’d be happy about it? If he wanted a family I mean…”

“Yeah, it’s just…” Swift says with a giggle. She looks over at Bonesaw and points a hoof towards Gearing’s direction. “The one he knocked up… wasn’t … his marefriend.”

Bonesaw’s eyes go wide as he says, “Oooohhh.”

“Yeah, and… his actual marefriend… is the jealous type… like… willing, and able, to ash anyone that even seems like they are getting a bit too much of his attention,” Handy adds with a smirk.

Bonesaw’s eyes go to their absolute widest as he starts putting the pieces together rapidly. “Ooooooohhhh!”

The caravanner mare looks over at Bonesaw as she scowls. “Dammit, now don’t you start too!”

As Gearing is slowly climbing the steps, with one slow deliberate hoof at a time, his SATS recharges enough that he can activate it again.

So, trying to put this off as long as mentally possible, he takes the cowards way out, and activates it again. Again the world distorts as time seems to slow down, but, in reality, his own processing ability has been sped up to help him perceive and react to things with the aid of Stable-Tec’s enchantment.

But, this isn’t like the middle of a combat situation where he’s surrounded by targets that he can line up progressive shots on. This isn’t a foe that he can blow to Tartarus, nor pummel into submission. This is life. A musical score that will continue on despite his complaints. This one part is just a particularly sour note to this accompaniment.

Again his logical mind bashes and crashes against the wall of reality. The seemingly inexorable march of what’s been presented to him. It shouldn’t be possible. It shouldn’t. Everything. His very existence is a monument to that impossibility. His kind simply aren’t allowed that facet of life without a whole lot of flank kissing.

Want to know why so many prefer sweet treats over salty? Assume the position.

Want to know what a kiss tastes like? Assume the position.

Dare to have aspirations for a family?

Assume.

The.

Position.

After countless years of that being the case, there’s no reasonable explanation for them to suddenly change the rules. Outside of wanting to screw with him in particular. But, again, narcissism and self loathing aside, even that doesn’t make any sense.

If he wants children, he has to prostrate himself before their mightiness, and grovel. And it’s not a one and done task either. Nope. Because that would be too kind. His mother is a perfect example of that. She was very open with how long it took her to finally conceive even doing everything she was supposed to do to make it happen. She’d even warned him that he’d want to get started as soon as possible because it would likely take a few times.

The differences between mares’ cycles and males’ notwithstanding.

He and his mother argued about it regularly. Usually with him intentionally cutting her off, if not outright leaving, whenever she brought it up. She was sure it was just a rebellious phase. That one day he’d feel the need himself. The desire. Like she did.

But he always took it as her not really understanding him, nor how much he truly hated what they were.

At some point he acknowledged that the universe as a whole didn’t want his family line to continue anymore. That it would prefer he didn’t exist at all. It must, given all it constantly threw at him. So he decided to at least go along with part of it. If he’s not allowed to have a normal life, children, happiness, fine. There’s no point in fighting a pointless battle that you’re never going to win anyway.

But then what in the name of all that is green and good in the world is this?!

A line pops up in his mind’s eye. One that he’d read in a scientific journal focused on research and discovery. And the often overlooked powers of the process of elimination.

When you have eliminated answers for being impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the true solution.

Even when he first read it, he realized the apparent hole in the logic, as it didn’t take into account things that had yet to be discovered yet. But, at the same time, it wasn’t really a hole. As, upon closer inspection, he realized you can’t eliminate a solution, that you haven’t even considered yet.

The little blue pegasus hops around in his mind’s eye as it starts throwing up posters for him to consider.

…whatever remains, however IMPROBABLE, must be the true solution.

There must be something else going on. Something I haven’t thought of…

The little blue pegasus in his head cringes as he says, “She could simply be trying to say it’s ours, knowing it’s not, for some reason… Wouldn’t be the first to try that kind of deceit with some random buck, for whatever personal gain reasons.”

Gearing brushes the idea, and the little blue pegasus in his head, aside. No, that can’t be it. Though it can’t be ruled out one hundred percent. Her actions at the Police Headquarters… She’s a really prideful mare. And it took a lot of pride swallowing for her to confront me like that. In the middle of a shoot out nonetheless.

“The only other options are either the rules changing, or we never really understood the rules correctly from the very start,” the little blue pegasus retorts.

Between the two, I don’t know which is the worse possibility.

The world returns to normal around Gearing as the spell loses its grip on his mind and SATS starts recharging. As he’s slowly climbing the stairs he has another thought creep through his mind. In between the constant thrashing in his mind going from ‘This can’t be!’ to ‘Well it is!’ another thought makes itself known. What if. Just. If.

What if he’s lived long enough that the magic that’s keeping the curse active in his body is finally dissipating. There hasn’t been a single clockwork that’s lived as long as him, as far as he’s aware. So, maybe he’s simply outlived the curse. Nothing lasts forever, right? So, it’s not in the realm of impossibility that that could be the solution.

That he’s living long enough, that he is, in fact, actually becoming a stallion. A real life, flesh and blood, stallion.

Though it does make him wonder how it could be possible that the first things that come back, would be his studding equipment. That doesn’t make any sense. But then, little in the universe makes sense when you factor clockworks into the mix.

As he steps out onto the roof he looks around, and stuffs the mental clouds back into the void of space in his mind where distracting thoughts belong. All of this conjecture is going to get him nowhere. He needs to figure it out, but it’s going to require more study and testing. But, he can’t do that now. So even thinking about it is a waste of resources. Especially when he has so much he has to do now.

Like talking with and checking on the mare whose life he’s probably ruined for her.

He twirls his ears around as he tries to listen and see where she could be. He even flicks on his EFS momentarily to see if that helps him, but with all of the ponies down below it was an exercise in futility.

But the muffled sniffling that makes his ears snap to and triangulate a point not far away near an ancient air cycling unit on the roof gives him far more to work with.

Gearing slowly walks over, and then stalks around the edges of the air circulator until he finds what he’s looking for.

On the other side, hidden away from anypony else that might have come up for a bit of fresh air or whatever other reason, Dandy lays curled up with her head resting on her crossed forehooves as she sniffles periodically.

Gearing takes a step towards her, but, to avoid startling her, calls out softly, “Dandy?”

Dandy lifts her head up, and turns her head towards him. Instantly, even in the dim light of the roof, it’s plain to see how red and puffy her eyes are from her ongoing crying fit. She looks up at him, and stares at his shining brass muzzle. “Oh… Geeaaariiiiing…” she whimpers pitifully as she looks up at him and sniffles.

Gearing slowly walks towards her as he takes off his helmet and drops it to the side. “It’ll be okay, Dandy…”

“Noooo, it woooon’t,” Dandy moans as she covers her face with her forehooves.

Gearing walks over and sits next to her, carefully, as she hunkers down and hides her face. “I said I’ll take care of everything, remember?”

She lets out a long low moan before she asks, “So… you heard?”

Gearing lets out a soft chuckle as he nudges her shoulder with a hoof. “Yeah… I did… Apparently you made quite the spectacle of yourself when you found out too…”

“Oh… dammit… I did, didn’t I?” Dandy groans as she tries to bury his face under her hooves even more but there’s just nothing more to hide behind.

“So… how much do I owe for the test?” Gearing asks as he smiles down at her.

She waves it away with a hoof as she replies, “Don’t worry about it…”

“Well, I said I would. And I promised I’d help,” Gearing says softly.

“You big sweet jerk…” Dandy groans out through sniffles as she scoots closer, and wraps her forelegs around one of his as she tries to hide her face under his foreleg.

He gently lifts his leg, and repositions it, so he can hold her with it. Earning him a groan of appreciation as she nuzzles into the position. “Dandy?”

“What, Gearing?”

“Remember what we talked about?”

She lets out a long low grumble and curls up more, practically covering her face with her tail as she curls up into a tight ball. She lets a gush of air out forcefully in an agitated sigh before she says, “Yeaaaaah? What about it?”

Gearing leans down and rests the side of his cheek against the side of her head as he says quietly, “I know how scared and embarrassed you are about it… And… Honestly I’ve been caught off guard too… but… I want to let you know, I’m sorry.”

She waves at him blindly and mumbles into his armored leg, “Dun worry ‘bout it…”

He lets out a sigh as he closes his eyes. “And, if you don’t want to go through with it, because you’re scared, or whatever, I won’t blame you. That’s a lot to have to have to suffer through for something you don’t want…”

She brushes her tail out of her face as she looks up at him with one eye and asks, “What?”

“Well… I know you have options… but...” He gently nuzzles her. “If you want to… or are willing to, go through with it… and want to keep it… I’ll support you the entire way.” She starts pulling back and looks at him muzzle to muzzle and he smiles lightly as he says, “And if you just want to dump it off on me, and go about your own life, well… like I said, either way I’ll accept full responsibility… and I’ll support whatever you choose…”

Dandy blinks a few times as she stares him in the eye. She wipes some snot from her nose as she asks, “What are you talking about?”

Gearing gently waves towards her middle with his other foreleg as he says, “You know… the baby…”

Her eyes shoot open to their fullest as she stares at him with her mouth hanging open loosely.

He smiles at her and shakes his head. “Dandy, I’m not the kind of buck that’d make that kind of promise, then just skip out. This is my mistake. I don’t know how it happened… but… if that’s where we are, that’s where we are. And I’ll help you deal with it. I promised I would.”

“Y-you mean… you’d actually…?”

Gearing nods. “I’ll take care of you both…” He dips his head before waving his other foreleg at her and giving a sheepish smile. “If you’ll let me… that is… I mean… I know you can handle yourself… but… We already agreed, so…”

Her eyes start sparkling more as the tears well up to the point of blurring her vision before she hops over, wraps her forelegs around his foreleg as she scoots against him and into his embrace even more, and then holds on for dear life. She rubs the side of her head against his leg as she chokes and moans, “Ya… ya big shiny dumb jerk!” She smashes her face against his upper foreleg as she asks with a near whine, “Why’d you have to go and say some shit like that for?!”

Gearing pulls her closer to him as he cranes his neck down to look at her. “I know it’s not exactly what either of us had in mind. Trust me, I get that it’s scary. I’m not trying to make light of it. But, we’ll get through it. I can promise you that.” He reaches down and puts a hoof under her chin. Then gently raises it and directs her to look him in the eyes before he says softly, “It’ll be okay, Dandy. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Oh… Gearing…” She sniffles a few more times before turning and nuzzling his hoof.

“It’ll be okay…”

She lets out a sigh before she hangs her head and says, after a particular loud choking snort sound escapes her muzzle first, “Gearing, that’s sweet… but you don’t get it...”

Gearing shakes his head and leans closer to her as he says, “I know. It’s new territory for me too. But I’ll figure it out. Please trust me…”

“I do…” Dandy says with a moan that sounds like it’s a hair’s width away from turning into another full blown crying fit. “It’s just…”

“What is it, Dandy? Whatever it is, I’ll handle it.”

Dandy lets out a sigh before she looks up at him in the eye and nuzzles his hoof as he tenderly caresses her cheek with it and smiles at her. Then she shakes her head and pulls away a bit as she sniffles, and finally manages to choke out, “The test.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“No, Gearing, you don’t understand…” She turns back to face him as she adds, “I’m not pregnant.”

“What?” Gearing asks as his eyes jump wide.

Simultaneously the world around him comes to a screeching halt as he instinctively activates SATS, mid conversation, again.

He takes in the look of the pain and sadness in her eyes as she looks at him. The fur on her face is as damp and matted from moisture as if she’d been caught in a Hoofington rainstorm. But, it’s all from tears.

The little blue pegasus in his head hops out of the pile of chewed up books as it asks, “Whoa, whoa, whoa!?” A moment later it points at her and asks, “Did she just say what the hell I think she said?! That she’s not pregnant?”

Yeah, that’s what I heard too.

“But that makes no sense!”

What part of any of this makes any sense!?

“Then why is she crying?!”

I don’t know!

“Why has she been crying this whole time then?!”

I. Don’t. Know!

“Well, figure it out, this shit’s important!”

Gearing prematurely ends the spell, leaving about half the charge left to hop back into his own headspace if he needs to as he stares at Dandy with complete confusion evident across his muzzle.

Dandy closes her eyes and sniffles as she waves a hoof weakly at the door downstairs. “The test results… they came back… negative… I’m. Not. Pregnant. Gearing…”

Again the world slows down as he hops into SATS again.

What in the unholy fucking hell is going on here?!

“Well, if the test came back negative, that would be pretty solid with everything else.”

It would also explain more than a few things.

“Fuck explaining things, the world, the universe would make sense again!”

Yeah, that’s some pretty high stakes…

“I told you it wasn’t possible! Science doesn’t lie! HAH!”

Shit, I jumped out before finding out why she was crying.

“Idiot.”

I know!

The world turns back to normal as he drains another good portion of his charge of SATS.

Gearing lets out a sigh before he asks, “So… you’re not pregnant?” She shakes her head quickly. “But… you ran up here after reading the results?” She nods and hangs her head. Gearing leans over and looks at her face, trying to read something in her expression, but her eyes are closed, tightly, and she’s giving off nothing but utter sadness and defeat. Gearing uses a hoof and gently pushes her short blue tinted black mane out of her face as he asks, “Then… Why are you crying? I thought that’d have made you happy, you’d basically said getting pregnant would be the worst thing to happen to your life…?”

Dandy shakes her head as she turns sideways, and looks away from him. “Geariiiing… I don’t knoooow… okaaaaay?” She flops down on the roof again, resting her chin on her crossed forehooves as she says, “It’s not your problem, it’s mine…” She takes in a deep breath and lets it out in a snort before she says, “I got myself all worked up… and it started stirring up shit inside me that I didn’t even know was there. Shit that’d probably been better to just stay where it lay. And suddenly the thought of having a foal wasn’t so scary, but something that actually gave me the warm and fuzzies and… maybe… maybe something I’d have liked… But… then.” She turns her head and rubs her face in her forelegs as she groans. “Then it was nothing. Nothing at all… I’d just got myself worked up, again, over nothing.” She waves a hoof at him, swatting at him repeatedly until she does finally start making contact on his metallic foreleg. “And then your big dumb shiny ass had to show up and be all sweet and promise to take care of me instead of running away, and suddenly that doesn’t seem like such a bad thing either, to have somepony else looking out for me, and I don’t know how to deal with that!” She swats him a few more times blindly as she says, “It’s just a whole trainload of emotions I need to unpack and I don’t know how to deal with any of them! Uhg!” She swats him again, and harder, as she adds, “And a good portion of this nonsense is your fault, just so you know!” She swats him hard enough that she shakes her hoof afterward from hurting herself as she says, “Big ole golden bubble butt butt head!”

Gearing stares at her for a moment before he asks, “Is… there anyway I can help?”

She buries her face in her forelegs again before she says stubbornly, “I don’t want to talk about it, Gearing.”

“Okay,” Gearing replies flatly.

He activates SATS as he looks at her huddled there and curling up in front of him in her own misery.

“Well, that’s confusing as fuck,” the little blue pegasus in his head comments as it walks around cleaning up the mess in his headspace this has caused. “At least the world makes sense now. I mean, it’s back to sucking at full tilt, but at least it’s a suck that makes sense.”

The world has never made sense. The more I try to understand it, the worse it just seems to get.

“Yeah, like her crying about getting what she wanted, but then didn’t want it, only to want it, but not want to want it?” the little blue pegasus says as it taps on its pinions and tries to follow along with the train of logic.

Hey, mares are weird, what can I say.

“Always have been, always will be.”

Mares confuse the shit out of me… Gearing mentally admits.

He drops out of SATS again, as the charge has entirely burned out this time, and is greeted by Dandy groaning out, “I don’t want to talk to you right now, Gearing.”

“Okay,” Gearing replies flatly.

They sit there for a few moments before she snorts and says, “I said I don’t want to talk to you!” Gearing doesn’t reply. At all. And a few moments later she turns her head to see if he’s still there or if he’s snuck off, only to find that he hasn’t moved a single millimeter. She buries her face again and groans, “You don’t need to sit here and watch me. I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can, Dandy,” Gearing replies softly.

A few seconds later a raindrop falls and hits Dandy on her nose. Her eyes open and the first strike on her snoot was only the introduction before it starts turning into a miserable drum roll. She closes her eyes as she snorts, “Rain. Figures. Yeah, suits my mood… Come on you feathered bastards… do your worst…”

The rain seems to happily take the invitation, as it starts pouring down in a steady stinging stream all over the area so thick that visibility starts getting cut down to a few paces. Dandy’s eyes slowly open as she hears the torrential downpour starting up, but can’t help but notice one thing: the complete lack of impacts against her.

She trails her eyes up to see how it could possibly be that the rain is coming down so hard, but she’s not completely soaked to the bone already.

And she instantly recognizes the glittering glint of green poking through some kind of rubbery material above her. She trails it over, and a smile crosses her muzzle as she chokes out, “You big dumb sweet idiot…” She wipes her muzzle with the back of her fetlock as she looks around and sees how Gearing is using his wings to shield her from the rain, but pretty much standing out in it himself.

She crawls closer to him, getting closer to his body and under the widest part of his wings as she smiles up at him. She wipes her eyes with the back of her fetlock as she chokes out, on the verge of tears again, “You’re a real jerk, you know that?”

Gearing gives her a warm smile as he says, “Yeah… I can be a real asshole sometimes, can’t I?”

---

Footnote: Error . . .

Parity check failure . . .

!!!WARNING!!! Breech detected!

!!!WARNING!!! Breech detected!

!!!Compartmentalization Protocol Initiated!

!!!Lockdown Commencing!

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