Priest runs around the guardrail and down the length of the embankment on Chapel’s side of the river until he’s roughly perpendicular with where Gearing splashed down at. His eyes dart across the surface of the quickly moving water until they find a spot where bubbles are popping up semi regularly and he yells out, “He’s not surfacing!”

Swift trots towards Priest casually as she keeps looking at the high walls of the Hoofington Core. “Hey, Priest, you sure you should be getting that close to the water? Those turrets seem to be of the extra angry sort.”

Priest shakes his head as he spares her a glance. “They don’t shoot this side of the river. So we’re safe.” He looks back and forth between Swift and where the bubbles are in the river as he comments, “He’s still not surfacing; I don’t see him…”

Swift sits down and waves dismissively with a forehoof as she says, “Give’em a minute.”

Priest looks over at her as he tilts his head. “Why don’t you seem concerned about this? Aren’t you friends? After all, you tried to warn him about the defense grid…”

Swift smirks at the black unicorn as she shrugs. “Get to know him, and you’ll find out why.” She looks out at the water and giggles as she says, “He’s survived getting shot down, blown up when a sky wagon detonated, and a building dropped on his head, all in the same afternoon…” She waves her hoof dismissively again. “There’s no way a little water is going to be a problem.”

Priest’s eyes go wide for a moment as he looks at her and tries to figure out if she’s being serious. But, failing to find any real evidence of it either way, he can’t help pointing out a fault in her logic. “Even if he’s tough, that doesn’t mean he can’t drown.” He motions with a hoof at the water. “And he’s already been under far longer than is healthy; we need to get him out.”

Swift waves it off with a hoof again. “Don’t worry, Priest, he can’t drown.” To Priest’s slightly arched eyebrow she adds, “He doesn’t need to breath. We’ve been over this a few times and he’s rather adamant about that fact. Annoyingly and cockily so at that. So he’s fine, I’m sure.” She looks over at the water and partially frowns as she lets out a sigh. “Now we just have to wait on him to get his act together. Again.”

Priest looks back and forth, but the worry doesn’t leave his facial features at all. “If he can’t drown, then why hasn’t he surfaced yet? You sure he’s okay?”

Swift nods and points off into the water a distance away. “His heavy ass probably sank like a rock.” She slaps the side of the embankment for emphasis with a soppy splat sound as she says, “Straight to the bottom.” She holds up her right foreleg to show her PipBuck as she smirks. “I can still see his marker out there. So he’s fine.”

Priest glances at the PipBuck before he asks, “Then… why’s he not climbing out?”

Swift shrugs. “Maybe he found something interesting down there. That buck has some serious curiosity issues.”

“That… doesn’t make sense…” Priest replies quietly as he gives it some thought.

Handy pokes his head over the embankment’s crest a distance away and closer to the bridge, looks around, and spots the pair further down the river. He quickly trots towards them as he asks, “Hey, what’s going on? The kids are running around and flipping out about ‘the shiny metal butt pegasus’ getting in a fight with the city walls?” He looks around randomly some more as he asks, “Where’s Gearing?”

Swift and Priest both point a hoof out into the water.

“He took a dip,” Swift says with a bit of amusement in her voice.

“Your friend had a disagreement with the city wall defense grid and jumped into the water to avoid the lasers,” Priest adds solemnly.

Handy’s eyes jump open as he asks, “He really did get into a fight with the city walls?” He looks back and forth between them and the water before he asks, “Who won?”

Swift smirks and giggles. “Well, his ego bit off more than he can chew this time.” She giggles some more and says in a singsongy voice, “He fought the waaaaaalls, and the waaaaaalls won…”

“Actually,” Priest begins. They look over at him and Priest nods as he finishes in a quieter tone, “Considering he actually survived the encounter with the city wall’s defense grid… I’d say he was indeed the victor.” A slight smile appears across his lips as he says, “He fought hard to preserve his life. And I’m happy to say he still has it. So, yes, he won.”

“Eh, I guess that counts,” Swift replies with a laugh.

Handy walks over near Swift as he asks, “How long has he been under?”

Swift shrugs. “Few minutes.”

Handy looks back and forth between the water and her as he asks, “Has… has he moved at all?”

Swift smirks as she glances at him sideways. “Handy, the indicator doesn’t exactly give me distance here…”

Handy looks out at the water and then mutters aloud as he thinks, “We can get a fix on his position based on our two points and using his indicator marker as the third.” He turns and starts trotting further away from the bridge along the embankment as he says louder so he’s sure the others can hear, “Using our EFSs together we can see if he’s making any progress. Just point out the line you see him at, and I’ll do the same from over here.”

Swift shrugs and juts out her hoof towards where the marker is on her display as she watches Handy get into position about forty feet further down the river on the embankment. Handy sits down, thrusts out his hoof, and then asks, “Do you notice any movement on the marker at all?”

Swift focuses on the indicator along the peripherals of her vision for a few seconds before she says, “Yeah. But not much. It’s kinda jittery if anything. Only slight movements.”

Handy nods as he says, “Pretty much the same thing from here. Only slight movements...”

They sit like that for a few minutes, with nothing really changing, before Handy asks, “Well? Anything different?”

“No, same thing,” Swift replies.

“Oh…. Shit,” Handy replies as his eyes go wide. He starts running towards Swift and Priest as he yells, “We gotta get him out of there!”

Swift waves it off with a hoof as she says, “You don’t gotta throw a panic over it, Handy. Remember, he doesn’t breathe so he’s not gonna drown.”

“He can’t fucking swim, Swift!” Handy yells as he runs past Priest.

Priest’s head zips over to look at Handy as worry and alarm take over his facial features again. “What was that?!”

Handy points off into the water towards the marker on his EFS display. “He doesn’t need to breathe, but he can’t swim.” Handy looks off into the water as his normally grumpy face morphs into fear laced concern. “He might be stuck in the silt at the river’s bottom.”

Swift raises an eyebrow as she asks, “What are you talking about, Handy? I thought Gearing was the paranoid one?”

Handy looks at her and narrows his eyes as he asks, “You remember when you were asking what we were talking about earlier?” Swift nods, so Handy thrusts a hoof out into the water as he yells, “This is part of it! He told me himself. This is like his own personal fucking nightmare!”

Priest starts climbing the embankment as he asks, “What do we need to get him?”

Handy shakes his head and shrugs. “I’d say just lift him out if you could.” Handy points at his head but then adds, “Short of that? Some rope long enough to reach out there and something to help it sink… or, hell, even a long bit of chain.” He looks back out at the water and groans as he says, “We’re gonna have to pull him out.”

“I’d need to be able to see him to have any chance of levitating him, and the waters too dark…” Priest replies over his shoulder. As the other two sit there focusing on the water, Priest quickly runs off and yells back, “I’ll get something to help!”

Swift and Handy sit there staring at the water, and can’t help but notice that the bubbles have long since stopped rising to the surface.

“He’s… he’s really not getting out… is he?” Swift asks as she focuses more on her EFS display than anything that’s actually in front of her.

Handy slowly shakes his head as he keeps straining to look at the surface of the water, hoping to see through it, as he comments, “No… not on his own it looks like…”

“He’ll be fine though… right, Handy?”

“You’ll have to ask him when he gets out… I don’t know how living through a personal hell like that would affect somepony,” Handy replies flatly with a frown.

Swift grins and waves a hoof towards the water. “Awww, come on. It’s not that serious… He’s probably down there plotting what he’s going to do next. I bet once he gets out, he goes and grabs a pile of garbage from the ditch, and comes back with a tank for round two with the walls.” She waves her hoof around as she giggles, “Probably with a whole lot of explosives and while somehow rigging up a balefire bomb out of a washing machine and Sparkle Cola to throw at it. Especially if you hear Dandy tell it.”

Priest comes running back with a bundled up rusting chain floating in front of himself. “Here, I got this, although I’m afraid it may not be as long as I think we need.” A group of young ponies, mostly made up of the gawkers that watched Gearing walk to the bridge, follow close behind Priest. Between a gray colt and a filly slightly bigger than him they manage to carry a box to the embankment.

The pair drop the box along the embankment and the gray colt points at it as he says, “We brought rope too.”

Handy hops over and looks between them as he says, “We’re going to need the weight of the chain so it sinks straight down instead of getting carried off by the river’s current.” He fishes out the end of the rope and starts attaching it to the end of the chain as Priest holds it up with his levitation field for Handy to work on easier. Handy runs the rope through several links in the chain’s end, weaving it back and forth, before folding the rope over and deftly crafting a thick multi wrapped knot around all of it.

As Handy is checking on the connection’s strength, by giving it several hard tugs, he asks Priest, “Do you think you can train the chain out there and dump it like a conveyor belt into the river?”

“What?” Priest asks as he raises an eyebrow.

“I can just take it out there and drop it in for him; I can stay close to the surface. No problem,” Swift comments as she reaches for the chain.

Handy jerks sideways away from her, keeping it out of her reach as he says, “No you won’t. We have no idea how far out those lasers can shoot.”

“Well, it can’t be that serious…” Swift replies as she slowly drops her outstretched hoof back down.

Priest looks at her and frowns as he says, “There are very few that have mapped out where is safe and where is not on the river. Because those that are wrong typically don’t live long enough to tell the tale.” He looks back and forth before he says, “You’re husband is right. The lasers are capable of reaching the water’s surface in certain areas. I would advise against it.”

Swift flops down on her haunches and crosses her forelegs across her chest as she grumbles, “Well I’m not useless you know! I bet I could just jump in there and get him out in like two seconds flat if I really tried…”

Handy and Swift exchange a long hard eye contact as she slowly narrows her eyes. And, Handy knows, he can tell just by looking at her, that she’s strongly debating on doing just that.

“The current is even stronger than it appears, I wouldn’t advise it or we’ll have two ponies that need rescuing,” Priest replies reasonably.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m a strong swimmer when I want to be. Like a big ole fish even,” Swift quips with a smirk.

“I still wouldn’t-” Priest begins but gets talked over and cut off mid sentence by Handy.

“No!”

“‘No’?” Swift asks with a venomous tone.

“You’re not being useless!” Handy quickly blurts out, and rather defensively at that. “We all need you to help pinpoint where he is again with your EFS. And once we get him on the chain we’re going to need you to help pull him out.” He shakes his head quickly. “You’re not being useless, just please let us do this a smart way that won’t cause any problems… please?”

Swift purses her lips to the side as she gives it a moment’s contemplation. “But you’re convinced this is a serious problem and he needs rescuing?”

Handy nods quickly before he says, “If he could have gotten out on his own, I’m sure he would have done it. And, if this is all an overreaction, we get to razz him about it for making us worry and lying to me about it.”

Swift rolls her eyes before she turns her head and looks out in the water. “Well, if it’s that serious, we gotta get him out…”

Handy waves the chain’s end with it grasped with his fetlock as he says, “Working on it!”

Swift looks back at him and gives Handy a sweet smile before she says, “And if that doesn’t work, I’m doing things my way.”

After a long groan of understanding Handy pleads, “Come on, Swift… We got enough to deal with without you doing that…”

“There’s no ‘Come on, Swift,’ this time, Handy.” She smirks as she tilts her head and waves it away dismissively. “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. I’ll be careful to avoid any problems.”

Handy shakes his head to cast off all of the gloomy thoughts that creep into his mind before he says, “That assumes this method fails. So we’ll just cross that bridge when we get to it.”

“As long as it’s not that bridge,” Swift says with a smirk as she points at the bridge up the river that leads to the Hoofington Core and Gearing recently jumped off of.

Priest nods and smiles at her as he says, “That would be a preferable choice, yes.”

Handy uses the edge of his hoof to draw a small diagram in the ground and starts discussing how he wants the chain to be dropped into the water with Priest. Afterwards he asks, “Can you?”

“I believe so, yes,” Priest replies with a single nod of his head.

Handy starts walking away as he says, “Okay, let’s pinpoint where he is again so Priest can drop the chain down for him. Just remember to go further than you think you need to, Priest. It’d be better to drop it on his head, than it would be to fall just short.”

Handy resumes his previous location, confirmed by his own fresh hoofprints on the embankment, and points off towards where he sees the marker on his EFS. He frowns even harder as he can’t help but notice that, yes, the marker seems to be in the exact same place where it had been previously.

Once Swift resumes her task of playing ‘Point Out The Gearing’ Priest stands in between them and uses their forehoof angles as a target to drag the chain out to. He picks the chain up in its entirety with his levitation field and quickly snakes the loose end of it out in the general direction of where the pair is pointing out just above the water’s surface. Giving a strange impression of a weird glowing water snake in the process. Once there, the end of the chain loses it’s glow, and simply allows gravity to take over as it points straight down towards the water. Using this method of magically pushing the chain out and simply dropping it, Priest quickly starts feeding the chain link by link out into the river.

As the chain is continuously getting fed into the water, with no end in sight, Handy yells over, “How deep is this thing?!”

Priest replies calmly, “There is no telling, actually.” Priest’s eyes jump to the side as he notices a color change in the tether they’d made and watches as the rope portion floats past him along with the chain to get dropped in as well. “We’re already getting into the rope length of it.” He starts using the furthest end of the chain still within his overglow to wiggle and sway the length of the chain side to side to try and draw attention to the dangling bit.

Suddenly the chain gets yanked down into the water, and what had previously been a slow and steady feed turns into an alarmingly fast uncoiling.

“Something’s got the end, I’m losing it!” Priest yells out before he reaches over and chomps down on the rope with his teeth. The maneuver causes his head to get jerked straight out painfully as he’s tugged and pulled towards the water’s edge. The younger ponies, who had simply been standing by and watching the action, jump over as they see Priest getting dragged towards the water. They all form up, grab hold of the line, and start tugging and digging their hooves into the embankment.

“I just saw him move!” Handy yells out as he notices the marker on his vision make a sudden lurch forward.

“Me too!” Swift confirms.

There’s a lull as the improvised cordage has gone completely taut, but is no longer being rapidly drawn out as the force on it has slacked off to simple equilibrium. Priest’s jaw aches from the force he’d applied and getting jerked away by his mouth, but he firmly plants his hooves and keeps his ground as he digs into the embankment and stares out at the water with a steely determination not to let go.

Swift and Handy join the pony line, with Handy getting at the very end and acting as an anchor as he wraps the rope around a foreleg before biting onto it further up the line in preparation to pull.

Swift lands right behind Priest and grabs the rope as she looks off at the water. “He’s not moving again.”

A few seconds later Priest’s eyes go wide as he feels a very rhythmic increase in pressure on his teeth as the rope is pulled, then slightly slacked, repeatedly. In short bursts of three.

Tug, tug, tug.

Tug, tug, tug.

Tug, tug, tug.

“Puhl!” Priest yells as he pushes back and tries to jump away from the water with his grip on the rope. At the same time, everypony else starts pulling backwards, digging their hooves into the muddy embankment as they struggle against the cordage.

And, a split second later, they all jerk backwards suddenly as there seems to be a sudden and massive decrease in pressure at the end.

As they are recovering and reeling in the slack in sequence with each other, Swift yells out, “He moved again!”

But, after reeling in a bit of slack, and far less progress than they would have hoped for otherwise, the line goes taut again. So they start tugging and pulling, but not making any perceivable headway anymore.

Handy swirls the rope around his foreleg as he squats down in preparation for a quick jerk backwards as he yells, “He’s gotta be stuck in the bottom! We’re going to have to drag him out!”

Again they keep a steady pressure on the line as they try to figure out the best way to go about breaking the stalemate.

Then the line starts rhythmically tugging again, from the other side, and Priest instantly screams out around the rope once more, “Pahl!”

Once again everyone starts pulling back with the rope, and even stumble as the rope goes momentarily slack, but a split second later they find pulling the line to be far easier as they all quickly retreat from the river. However, as what had happened last time, the rope goes taut as the pressure on the other end seems like it's being held down by Discord himself. They all start rearranging themselves closer to the water to get ready for another rapid pull of the rope.

Swift zips around Priest and gets in front as she yells, “Everyone turn around and get ready to run away from the water. As soon as I yell, start running and don’t stop!” She turns toward Priest as he gets right behind her at the rope and comments, “Don’t get so close to my butt. Back up a bit.”

Priest’s eyes go wide as he says, “I didn’t mean to encroach on your personal space; I have no ulterior motives, I assure you!”

Swift rolls her eyes and smirks as she shoos him away with a forehoof and waves her wings at him. “I’m going to fly as soon as I can and if you’re too close you might get your teeth ripped out before you have time to let go of the rope.”

“Thank you for the warning, but make sure to fly away from the river to avoid the defense grid.” Priest dips his head respectfully and quickly repositions himself. “Better?”

Swift smiles warmly with a grin so wide her eyes close as she nods. “Perfect!” Then she opens her eyes partially and the glare she gives him is a mixture of smug confidence and malicious glee. “And, make sure you all drop the rope as soon as I take off.”

As she turns around and grabs the rope with her forelegs while dipping downward, taking note at the same time that they are actually getting close to the chain section again, Priest passes the warning along to the other ponies.

A moment later a series of tugs start, and Swift doesn’t even wait for the sequence to play out as she screams, “Pull!” and then she rears up and pulls backwards. As the others in the line start pulling, again the line seems to go slack as the tension on the other end seems to be suddenly cut from the sudden combined force of their efforts.

But this time Swift springs back, jumps, and starts flying up and at an angle away from the water towards the center of Chapel. Instantly the others let go and a few of the younger ponies crash into each other, as they suddenly find themselves so off balance, and watch as the sky blue pegasus with the tornado cutie mark gives them a new benchmark for speed.

The chain quickly comes flying out of the water at an increased pace, and a higher angle, as Swift keeps flying not only away, but up, as she tries to get as much of the chain out of the water before it becomes lodged again. Her method, while potentially reckless, pays dividends as the end of the chain comes shooting up and out of the water, with a massive muddy golden anchor on the end. And as soon as it seems to her like he’s going to make it far enough to clear the worst of it, Swift drops the line and turns back around to fly down towards the embankment again.

Gearing, with the chain wrapped around his body repeatedly, and several times around his neck, hits the water just short of the river’s edge with a metal shipping box held firmly with his legs and wings. His hind quarters, and all legs, are covered in a brackish dark colored sludgy sediment that clings to him relentlessly despite the rapid water movement he just emerged from. Gearing’s wide eyed glare looks up from the box, sees the shore, and uses the metal box he’s holding onto as a stepping stone to jump towards the embankment.

But, as he impacts into the muddy river side, it becomes clear why he isn’t flying. Although he’s obviously trying, he can’t. His wings are barely functional as several points have melded together and refuse to move at all. Causing the rigid limbs to flop around stiffly as he continuously tries to fly away from the water. Even after making it to shore.

As the others are running over to check on him, he quickly scrambles, with every single one of his limbs, as he digs into the embankment in a bid to put more distance between himself and the river. His movements are spastic as he grasps at anything and everything he can to pull himself further up and away from the water while his wings do little to nothing but flop around impotently.

Swift comes back and hovers overheard with a smug grin on her muzzle as she folds her forelegs in front of her chest. “See, told ya he’d be fine.”

“Gearing… are you o-” Handy starts, as he’s walking up, but then stops and jumps to the side as Gearing actually gets more solid footing and starts really moving.

Gearing, still wrapped in the chain, and with his wings nothing more than mangled stiff decorations, goes running as quickly as he can away from the river. In a straight line. And through the air space where Handy had just been occupying. As the others watch with confusion, Gearing bolts away at the highest speed he’s capable of at the moment as the sludge covering him slowly oozes off.

The others follow him, trying to find out what’s going on, as he practically stampedes through Chapel. His wide eyed bewildered look is more than a little concerning as the chain whips along behind him. After running around one of the buildings, he seems to zero in on a spot where a shipment of goods is sitting to be sorted. All in metal and wooden containers and neatly stacked along a wall. The group comes around the corner in time to watch Gearing awkwardly clamber up the stack of boxes. A few of which get knocked over and fall from the stack in the process. As they are watching, Gearing crests the pile of boxes, and backs into the building with his head facing outwards from it. He then squats down and holds onto the boxes under him, regularly testing their solidity with his hooves as he tries to make sure he has a firm grasp on them.

Priest slowly walks forward as he looks Gearing over, and can’t help but notice as Gearing’s strange form seems to vibrate and jerk sporadically as he lays on top of the stack of crates like some dragon guarding its hoard. “Gearing… That’s your name, right? Are you okay?”

“Water,” Gearing replies flatly as he gazes off into space with a thousand yard stare.

Priest nods as he says, “I’m sure that was scary. But you’re out of it now.”

“Water,” Gearing replies again without giving any acknowledgement to anything that Priest had said.

Handy walks up next to Priest as he says, “Gearing…? You alright?”

“Water,” Gearing replies again.

“What about the water, Gearing?” Priest asks as he looks him over. “Did you see something down there?”

“Water,” he replies again. And while Priest and Handy exchange concerned glances with each other, Gearing adds, “Taste funny.”

Handy raises an eyebrow as he asks, “The water tastes funny?”

“Something’s in the water,” Gearing repeats quickly. “Water taste funny.”

Swift slowly lands next to them as she looks at Gearing. “Gearing?”

Handy looks at her sideways and lets out a sigh before he says quietly, “He’s not okay.”

Priest’s horn glows, and they watch as segments of the sludge covering Gearing start resonating with the same color before getting scooped off and plopped to the side in a broken bucket. They watch as he slowly works and says in a soft soothing voice, “You’re safe now, Gearing. You’re fine. You’ve found your way back to the light.” Small segment after small segment is removed, revealing his dull dirty brass hide and, eventually, the chains that he apparently worked so hard to bind himself with. “Easy now,” Priest says softly as he changes tasks.

Very slowly the chain begins unknotting itself and unwrapping itself from Gearing under Priest’s careful magically manipulated direction. But despite the weight being removed from him, and the soft grinding noise in some cases, despite Priest’s best attempts to avoid it, Gearing doesn’t move as Priest takes the filth covered chain off of Gearing. The only real movement from Gearing is the sporadic rapid vibrations across various spots on his body. But it becomes obvious that that’s involuntary as it simply doesn’t stop. And all his shivering seems to do is make the muck slide off him just a tad bit faster.

After getting the chain off of Gearing, Priest sets it to the side and resumes magically removing the rest of the dark colored material from Gearing’s metallic pelt.

Swift walks closer to Gearing as she asks softly, “Has… has he locked up again?”

“Looks like it,” Handy confirms with a groan.

Swift reaches up with a forehoof and waves it in front of Gearing’s wide open eyes. Eyes that apparently aren’t seeing anything as they give no response to her encroachment. “Gearing?”

“Water,” Gearing replies again. “Water taste funny… something in the water.”

As Priest is getting the rest of the sludge off of the outside of Gearing he asks, “Something like this happened before?”

Handy nods. “Yeah. He completely locked up and sounded like a one note broken record the day before yesterday.”

Priest looks at Handy sideways as he starts pulling out as much of the gunk as he can from in between Gearing’s many segments. “And what caused that?”

Swift looks at him sheepishly before she says softly, “Pregnancy scare…”

Priest lets out a sigh as he replies, “It’s a sad thing when something so joyous as the creation of a new life is cause for enough panic to label it as a ‘scare’.” He sadly shakes his head before he looks Gearing over again and says quietly, “So this is likely to be more fright induced, instead of a physical malady you think?”

Handy points a hoof at Gearing’s malformed wings and comments, “His wings are definitely in rough shape. But it’s not the first time, so that shouldn’t have done it.”

Swift nods as she looks the crystalline green shapes over. “And the crystals that he’d lost to the lasers have already filled back in…”

“But the metal seems to be warped at certain points…” Handy comments as he leans in and gives them a critical eye. He glances between Swift and Priest as he asks, “So he really did get in a fight with the city’s defense grid?”

Priest nods, but can’t help smiling as he says, “Yes, and yet he lives… Celestia protects, Luna defends…” He takes in a deep breath as he looks Gearing over and comments softly, “He must certainly curry favor with them for him to be so lucky.”

Swift steps closer to Gearing as she tries to get a better look at him, and Priest comments quickly, “Watch your step.” Swift freezes in her tracks and starts looking around as Priest adds, “Your friend may not be well, nor thinking correctly at the moment, but his statement is nevertheless true. There is something in the water that makes those who drink from it ill. So do not step in the river sludge; it’s surely contaminated.”

Swift looks down and quickly back peddles away from the growing pile of filth overflowing the broken bucket.

While Swift is still trying to evaluate the threat level of what she thinks is mere mud, a gray colt trots up with a bucket full of water and sets it down next to Priest. “Here. This’ll help clean him up good.”

Priest looks at it as he asks, “From the rain barrel?” The little gray colt nods and Priest smiles as he starts levitating out some of the water. “I’m sure he appreciates the gesture. Thank you.”

The gray colt flops down on his haunches as he looks at Gearing and blurts out, “Never seen nopony go buckn’ at the gates and make it back before...”

Swift leans towards him and grins as she asks, “You ever seen anypony get a building dropped on their head, and all it do is make ’em mad?” The gray colt’s eyes jump wide open, and he quickly shakes his head. Swift nods towards Gearing as she says, “Happened to him just this last week… Saw it myself. He’s tough, don’t worry.”

“Hard headed is more like it,” Handy adds with a wry grin and sideways glance at Swift.

“Oh like you’re one to talk!” Swift replies with a smirk.

Priest quickly goes through the one bucket of water, and ends up pulling even more of the dark gunk out from in between Gearing’s cogs by flushing it with the water in the process. But it’s a slow process and it actually requires multiple buckets of water to complete, which the watching small ponies are more than happy to provide to Priest without even being prompted. As he’s working Priest takes care in making sure to put the filth tainted water into a separate container so it can all be dumped back into the river from where it came.

After Priest has succeeded in getting Gearing as clean as he can, he starts cleaning up the area around the storage crates. He stops and looks over as he feels a tiny hoof tapping on one of his forelegs. The filly that’d been trying to get his attention holds up Gearing’s mottled blanket and says softly, “Here. He needs it more.”

A warm radiant smile grows across Priest’s face before he takes the cloak up in his magic, and levitates it over Gearing as he thanks the little one.

With Priest’s over glow, the cloak wraps over and around Gearing, then snugs in tightly to his form, even with his wings sticking out at unnatural angles.

A moment later, the cloak seems to magically come alive again, without any form of over glow, as Gearing shimmies into it more, wraps himself tightly with it, and pulls himself into a ball within it so only his face is sticking out. And even of that, just barely so as most of his head is covered in the cowl portion of it.

Like some sort of strange metal filled pony burrito.

Swift walks around the piles of sludge that Priest is carefully gathering up to discard as she asks, “Gearing…”

The flat reply she gets draws a frown from her as he repeats, “Water taste funny. Taste like sad music.” Though the last comment draws confused looks from everypony present.

Hearing the monotoned reply, yet again, the group of gawking colts and fillies decide it’s time to leave. The excitement is over and, at this point, this is a bit too depressing and sad to watch. So they leave the three outsiders to themselves while they go and tend to their own business.

“Why’d you do that? You knew the defense grid was active,” Swift asks with an exasperated sigh as she slaps a hoof over her eyes.

“White list,” Gearing replies in the same tone but, again, adding something different.

“What was that?” Handy asks as he leans towards Gearing.

“White list. Shouldn’t have happened,” Gearing repeats.

“What ‘white list’ what’s that got to do with the city’s defense grid?” Swift asks as she looks back and forth between him and Handy.

“Not possible. Can’t attack white list. Not possible to attack white list. White list can’t be targeted,” Gearing rambles as he keeps his same position.

“Any of this making sense to you, Handy?” Swift asks as she looks back and forth between them.

“What white list Gearing? Where?” Handy asks as he doesn’t look at Swift.

“Not possible. Can’t target white list. Not possible.” Gearing repeats in a quick monotoned ramble.

Swift stares at Handy, taking note that he’s not actually responded to her, as she asks again but with a slightly crossed tone to her voice, “Handy, does this make any sense to you?”

“No sense. Can’t target white list. Not possible,” Gearing replies.

Swift looks over at Gearing and sighs as she says, “Sounds like a broken record again…”

“Broken? Can’t target white list. Not possible. White list broken,” Gearing mutters.

Handy looks Gearing over and says softly, “Can’t target the white list… so if targeted, white list changed…”

Swift flops down and looks between them before she slaps her hooves onto the side of her cheeks and yells out in obvious frustration, “Would somepony please tell me what’s going on in plain pony. Please?! I don’t get it, what does all this even mean?”

Gearing replies flatly as he keeps his thousand yard stare and draws startled glances from both Swift and Handy.

“Somebody’s already inside.”

---

Footnote: !!!WARNING!!! Breech detected!

!!! ’🢤⭲⭧⭦🢤⭣⭲⭨.⭧⭲🢤⭦’ Partitioned and Locked

!!!WARNING!!! Breech detected!

!!! ’⮄⭧⭦⌤⎋⭾⭿.⭧⭲🢤⭦’ Partitioned and Locked

Next Chapter: 68 Sweet Success Estimated time remaining: 16 Hours, 53 Minutes