“Alert: Security unit has ceased function. Hostiles are in the AO. Security threat matrix raised to level two. Beginning sweep for hostile targets,” the menacing echoey voices of the sentry robots call out as they are brought online.

Gearing runs as quickly as he can, which isn’t nearly as fast as he would like, before jumping into and crashing through the set of double doors on the other side of the mail room’s sorting facility. As soon as he’s through the door, he can hear an ongoing commotion coming from nearly every direction in the hallway as one robotic voice after another declares its intentions and tasks. But they all seem to have one thing in common: Destroying whoever they can find.

Gearing quickly turns and starts heading away from The Core again as he tries to figure out the best way to go. This is getting to be a problem, and he can’t simply wander around anymore. The area’s security is waking up and on active alert so it’s not a matter of if he gets discovered again, but when. He looks at his mangled wings and groans as he sees that, still, none of the crystals have started regrowing yet.

“I gotta get further away,” Gearing moans as he trots as quickly as he can. He takes a peek at the map on his PipBuck, and can’t help but notice that he’s not terribly far from where he’d originated. But that doesn’t really mean anything. He knows he could be twenty feet from where he needs to be, in a straight line, but if he can’t get there without drilling through solid rock and steel it might as well be on the far side of Luna’s cursed moon for all of the good it’d do him.

As he’s paying more attention to the map than anything else while walking, he almost misses the slight green glow in the peripheral of his vision to his right. Almost, but not entirely. Not after having been hunted down by that green glowing menace repeatedly. He hops and jumps away from the glow as he jerks his head over and looks. But, thankfully, it’s not the green glowing ghoulified unicorn come back from the dead.

Instead it’s her handy work.

After noticing the still popping glowing green puddle of goo, he quickly darts his eyes around this smaller distribution room and takes note of the other damage. Yes, it’s evident that the ghouls had come through here on their running rampage through the facility. There’s destruction everywhere, in the shape of weapon’s fire and destroyed supplies and robots.

However, there’s not a single dead ghoul among the carnage.

He starts trailing his eyes up a set of stairs not far away, ones that had been partially melted and burnt by various weapon’s fire and the green ghoul’s own magical death balls, as he tries to see if it’s a possible way out.

But his inquisitive search gets abruptly halted as an already weakened platform above gives up the fight with two of its cables and a smaller cargo container comes swinging down towards the ground as the cable rope snaps.

Gearing has enough time to barely register the noise, and look over, before the edge of the shipping container smashes down on top of him, edge first, and drives him down into the ground as the edge of the cargo container tries to bisect his back.

Gearing lets out a scream of pain and surprise as he unwillingly kisses the concrete as the large metal box falls on him. But there is a slight reprieve as the edge of the box bit more deeply into the rifle barrel slung over his back than him, causing the barrel to get noticeably, and horribly, bent as it gets wedged against Gearing and the floor under him, but the box kept pushing down anyway. The leverage of the barrel’s end biting into the concrete floor as the other end is propped up by Gearing’s body practically destroys the barrel, but it causes just enough of a hitch in the fall that the box starts coming down flat because the edge gets deflected off to Gearing’s side.

Although few would call that a blessing as the rest of the container crashes down and comes to rest flat on top of Gearing.

And it only takes a split second after the container comes to rest before Gearing starts pushing it up and sliding out from under it as he lets out a long string of frustration induced blasphemies against existence itself. “Fuck me hard with Celestia's hindhooves! Bitches gonna just spit roast me like this, what the fuck'd I ever do to deserve this bullshit?! Fuck'n dingle berry laden festering corpse rim jobbing diamond dog testicle gargling cheese dick licking bobbing for dingle berry lovin' road apple eating colonoscopy jelly gonorrhea milkshake!”

He scrambles out, and bucks the container off of himself. Then looks over his shoulder with a scowl, which only gets wider as he sees the barrel of his rifle impersonating a hockey stick with its bend, and starts bucking the container repeatedly, heedless to his environment and the situation, as he screams, “Fucking great! Now I don’t even have that anymore! Piece of shit worthless inbred spunk factory burrito gobbling queen of stupidity!”

The little blue pegasus in his head repeatedly waves its forelegs and hisses at him, ‘Quiet you fool! You’ll get us both killed!’

Gearing gives it one last massive kick, with both hindhooves, leaving a considerable dent in the side of the metal and actually knocking the shipping container away from himself several feet. As its still screeching across the concrete, Gearing stomps away from it and heads out through another door as he grumbles, “Fuck you guys, I’m going home!”

Though he’s still fuming he manages to get more control of himself to at least keep his swearing and screaming in his own mind space instead of out for the rest of the world to hear and ‘enjoy’. However, the annoyance and frustration show up in other ways as he is steadily picking up his pace as he continues down the hallway he’d discovered once escaping the storage facility that had tried to crush him. And the repetitive nature of the nondescript doors he passes just further serves to sour his mood.

It doesn’t take long before Gearing hears a set of mechanical hooves echoing down a hallway coming from his right, that dead ends into the one he’s in, and quickly scrambles backwards as he checks the doors along the sides. The supply closet on the right is locked, but, for some reason, the small office on the left is unlocked. He quickly slips in, shuts the door behind himself, and turns the lock’s knob before hopping over behind the office’s desk for good measure. As Gearing is watching, but not moving, he can see through the warped frosted glass on the office door. He can’t make out exactly what’s passing, but judging by the lights and the silhouettes there’s a group of four protectaponies walking down the hallway, and not far behind them is a hover bot.

“I want this place searched top to bottom!” the voice of the hovering sergeant bellows out as he’s passing the door. “They’re not going to get away from me!”

“Yes sir,” the protectaponies’ voices reply in unison as they continue on down the hallway the way Gearing had come.

Gearing groans as he looks around. “Great. Not only are they increasing their security, they are sending their military grade hardware out on patrols. And the protectaponies are probably to help search faster. Shit…” Gearing lifts his head up and looks into the trashcan next to him. His eyes dart around a bit as he sees the various Sparkle Cola bottles filling up the small bin. “I guess no one’s taken out the trash in a few decades…” He looks over at the door and, realizing he has a bit of time before he can even do anything else, goes ahead and starts pulling out a few bottles. And then, there at the bottom, he can’t help but snicker as he sees a collection of caps that are more than the bottles that he’s withdrawing. He quickly scoops them out, and adds them to his bag as he keeps one eye on the door. “From trash to cash… who’d have thought it…” He lets out a sigh as the aching in his shoulder and face start picking up now that he’s not focused on running away. “The kids would be proud of me…”

Gearing groans as he’s pushing himself back upright and starts walking towards the door, “Speaking of the kids… I need to get going so I can actually get back there before they grow old and forget what I look like…”

Gearing carefully opens the door, peeks out, and, after making sure the coast is clear, slips out again. And, just in case, he keeps the door unlocked this time. After all, that’s how he found it, but, again, he might have to double back and hide again.

After a few more turns, and after Gearing passes through a security door that has a door frame considerably shorter than the ten foot high ceiling it's a part of, Gearing starts coming up to a four way intersection as his right ear twitches. His shoulders start feeling cold as he hears a variety of sounds that he really doesn’t want to hear. Repetitive metallic hooves, the exhaust from a hover talisman, and most worryingly of all, even as faint as it is, the hint of what sounds like a conveyor belt to him. He quickly doubles back and jumps through the security door as he hits the button on this side, closing it as he’s leaping through it in a bid that the robots won’t see him before he can get away.

A few seconds after the door shuts completely, a group of protectaponies come walking out from the right side hallway intersection; they make an abrupt turn, and start walking towards the security door. And, as they are reaching it, a hovering robot turns the corner after them humming an equestrian army marching song to the cadence of the protectapony hooves. It pauses and glances down the other hallway, looking at the individual coming its direction, and then turns and continues on to follow the protectaponies.

The protectaponies change their walking formation, from two dead center and close together, and the other two out a bit wider and practically walking along the walls as they make an even edge shaped formation, to a simple tight four block as they open the security door and start walking through. Close behind them the hovering bot continues through with them, but even after it passes the doorframe it doesn’t bother even trying to close the door again. And the reason is perfectly clear as the four wheeled heavily armored big brother to the protectaponies passes through the doorway slowly.

Above the door frame, and squeezed tightly into the corner with a couple of the utility pipes that run the length of the hallways, Gearing has wedged himself over the door with his hooves and stares down at the opening with his eyes as wide open as they can possibly go.

The security bot that rolls by is a terror to behold. It’s slightly bigger, with armor plating that seems on the far side of excessive. Instead of a simple dual machine gun armament, with one on each side of its torso, it has far more dangerous weaponry. On the right side the minigun has been swapped out for a chaingun. True, it has a slower rate of fire, if you want to be technical, but the larger caliber rounds it slings, and the damage each individual round is capable of, more than makes up for it. On the other side of the torso, a missile launcher looms waiting to deliver rapid fire explosive pain on anyone it could possibly even see. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, mounted on the shoulder is a gleaming magical focus that’s capable of as much if not more destruction than the missiles.

And time stops as Gearing stares at the rolling arsenal and activates SATS.

‘T-t-that’s an Annihilator class! What the fuck is that doing here?!’ the little blue pegasus in his head screeches as it looks the robot over and takes in every horrifying detail in rapid succession. ‘That shit’s meant for forward fire bases or offensive combat position defense. Maybe convoy defense! Those things are fucking unstable! Why are they in the city?!’ The little blue pegasus grabs a cloud, pulls a large cloth out of it, wraps it around his eyes, lights a cigarette, and starts belt-fed chain smoking them from an ammo box as he says, ‘That’s it, kiss our flank goodbye. If we’re already running into these, than the systems totally fucking awake and we’re screwed! We’re screwed, man! Game over, Gee Gee, we’re fucked and they’re not using lube!’

I’m tired of getting reamed… I’m tired of being fucked with… and I’m sick of this bullshit! Gearing mentally swears.

‘Well what the fuck are we going to do?! We can’t fight something like that, not without some serious hardware, and in a better condition than we are now. We’re barely holding together as it is!’ The little pegasus starts flicking one spent cigarette butt after another at the robot as it screams, ‘They’ve been fucking hardened so even if you hit them with a spark grenade it’s just going to slow them down for a bit. And piss them off. Did I mention that? Because it will. It seriously pisses them off when they get zapped!’ He throws his hooves in the air and glares at Gearing. ‘So the fuck we gonna do this time smart guy!?’

Load the dice, Gearing replies as a mental sneer crosses his muzzle.

‘How the fuck do you expect-’ the little pegasus asks, then stops as the inventory sorter does its thing and the item in question becomes highlighted in Gearing’s peripheral vision. ‘Oh… that’s how…’ He flicks the cigarettes off to the side and shrugs his shoulders as he says, ‘If there ever was a time to pull something out of our ass, this is it…’ He throws the dice over his shoulder way up into the air as he puffs on the last cigarette and asks, ‘How do you like our odds?’

I don’t play fairly if I can avoid it, Gearing mentally replies.

‘That’s not an answer,’ the little pegasus says as it blows a long stream of smoke to the side.

Let’s see whose number’s up… Gearing replies as he cancels SATS. A moment later he steps to the side, wedges and holds himself to the pipes with his other limbs as he reaches into his bag and pulls out the item on top. He looks at it while it’s held in his right fetlock, he pops it into his mouth, and then carefully inserts the old module into his PipBuck. Gearing closes his eyes as he begs, Please work… I swear I’ll make it worth your while if it works…

The little blue pegasus in his head holds a forehoof over its eyes as it doesn’t even want to watch as it says in silent resignation, ‘Who’s horn do I gotta suck off to get a break? Or, hell, spit roast me if you two bitches want. Just toss me a fucking carrot here…’

A moment later the enchantment showing the display across his vision fuzzes and shakes as Gearing’s frown slowly increases. “Shit…”

A moment later the enchantment comes back with full clarity, possibly even a bit more than it was before hand, oddly enough, and in the corner of his vision he sees a new toggle activation option.

Gearing quickly hits it, and then the grin that crosses his muzzle grows massive, before it fades out of sight entirely.

The little pegasus in his head jumps to his hind knees, throws his forelegs in the air high above himself, and screams out loud, ‘Fucking thank you!’

>> Stealthbuck Mk I activated.

Gearing quietly slips down to the ground lowering himself to his hooves by holding onto the pipes, door frame, and supports as he nearly silently steps back to the floor. Once firmly on the floor again, he quickly scurries after the security bot, coming up right behind it as silent as a ghost and no more visible then a heat mirage.

The back panel of the annihilator pops open as it’s rolling down the hallway on its patrol. A few seconds later, it comes to an absolute halt, ceasing all movement entirely. The back of the security bot shifts ever so much as added weight is applied to its back. Gearing’s voice whispers from behind the robot, “Voice control, begin new security search patrol to designated sector.”

The annihilator shutters and shivers, then spins around abruptly and says “New orders acknowledged. Beginning patrol duty.” Then it starts rolling back the way it had come.

‘This is crazy enough it might work,’ the little pegasus says while chewing on its forehooves.

The panel on the back of the security bot closes and secures itself as Gearing mentally replies, Bots got me in here, maybe they can get me out…

Gearing, completely invisible thanks to the magical effects of the stealth buck, rides on the back of the annihilator as the drone travels along on the task it had been given. The whole time Gearing is practically wrapped around the back of the robot’s torso, with his legs clamping onto the bot’s back like a spider trying to give a hug, but careful not to impede its movements. It wouldn’t be necessary, but he knows, according to their search patterns, and the way their eyesight is fixed forward, they turn their torsos to look around. If he blocks the movement, he’ll be discovered. If he gets knocked off suddenly, he’ll get discovered. There’s a hundred things that could go wrong with this, but he’s pretty much out of options. And then there’s the change of task he input into the security bot. It was a bit of a gamble. Gearing doesn’t actually know where the section he wants to go is. But he made an educated guess that the robot itself would either have the knowledge of the layout itself preprogrammed in, would be able to query the security nets database for where it’s supposed to go, or would be able to follow all of these codes written on the walls that he can’t translate. All he knows is the section that he needs to get to.

A bit of information provided to him via an identification card that a long dead colleague had loaned him. And, yet again, he can’t help feeling indebted to an individual he’d never even met.

The security bot easily rolls through one security checkpoint after another. The doors open for it, other bots steer clear, and absolutely nothing even challenges it as it slowly rolls down one hallway after another. Another hunch that Gearing had that turned out correct.

‘Heads of Security usually have all of the keys, so it’d make sense that the baddest tools in their arsenal would be able to get wherever they needed to get as quickly as possible without having to check in with anyone nor drawing suspicion,’ the little blue pegasus declares happily.

Don’t get full of yourself. We both know this guy isn’t exactly the highest on the food chain. If a super sentinel gets a bur up its mechanical ass this annihilator is toast. Gearing mentally grumps. And then there’s a few others that could give it a run for its money using a combination of equipment and tactics. It’s powerful, but it’s slow, and that’s a disadvantage I could really do without.

‘Which is why we have the gravity modulator…’ the little blue pegasus says with a shrug.

I wish I could make this guy speed up without drawing attention. But the only time they ever go into overdrive mode is in the middle of combat and when they are trying to close in for melee or reacquire targets. It’s a waste of energy otherwise. So if he starts speeding down the halls, it’s going to raise some alarms, Gearing mentally moans. And this Stealthbuck isn’t going to last forever. I think I got about an hour on the charge. Which should be enough if the bot goes straight there with no interruptions. It wouldn’t have taken me that long to get where I did if I wasn’t having to constantly backtrack and dodge things, let alone all the fighting.

‘Let alone being as lost as a noble in an empathy convention,’ the little blue pegasus groans.

That too.

As they are getting closer to the area where Gearing thinks he can break away, he checks his PipBuck regularly. For most of the way there he has one eye on his map function, and the other on the surroundings, careful only to glance at it when there’s nothing that might actually see it, and the rest of the time keeping it off so there’s no possibility that any glow will give him away. And he actually starts feeling a bit of an accomplishment as the bot steadily gets back towards the sector he was in before. He can see it on the map as the bot takes the absolute most direct route there. Although, the bot starts using side tunnels that he’s not even seen, and suddenly turns perpendicular to take a different path then what Gearing had expected. But it’s heading that way at the same steady pace and has given no other indication of anything being wrong, so he wonders if the bot is going to use another more accessible entrance.

And as they are approaching a hallway that this dead ends at a ‘T’ into, Gearing looks over the shoulder of the security bot and his eyes go wide as he sees the ensemble coming around the right side corner and into the hallway with him. This group is the most heavily armed as of yet. He’s already been passing more and more bots. And not just protectaponies, other security bots, and military grade hovering drones. But this single group consists of six protectaponies, all of which making up a wedge formation as they lead the procession, with a pair of sergeant military grade ‘Mr Buckies’ and in the far rear is another annihilator security bot. But, as bad as all of that is, out of all of them, the one robot he sees that makes his hair stand on end and fills him with a sense of dread is not, in fact, the second annihilator that he’s seen today. It’s the hover bot floating along lazily in front of it, and behind the two sergeant class combat units.

‘A fucking officer,’ the little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head groans. ‘Why’s it got to be a fucking officer?! Officers screw up everything, living or not.’

At least it’s a lieutenant Mr. Bucky and not a major, Gearing mentally adds as he looks the combat hardened robot over.

As the groups converge, neither of them really reacts to the other’s presence. Except the protectaponies, in unison, step to the side and march in two lines to give the sentry bot plenty of room to pass through, likewise the two sergeants crest around it like water hitting a rock. But, just after passing the pair of hover bots, the sentry bot Gearing is riding on abruptly changes course, getting along the right side wall as his counterpart does the same thing with the left side wall. But as it’s getting close to the lieutenant Mr. Bucky, the hovering bot yells out, “Halt!”

And, just like that, every other robot in the hall comes to a grinding stop.

Including the one Gearing is riding on.

The lieutenant floats over by the security bot and focuses all of its eyes on the eyes of the sentry. “You will immediately tell me what you are doing in my combat zone, soldier!”

“Status report: Green. Unit is in route to perform patrol duty in designated sector,” the security bot instantly replies.

“What’s your purpose, soldier?”

“Advisement: This unit’s current task list is as follows: Travel to designated sector. Engage search pattern Delta. Search for known violent infiltrator operating in the area. Engage infiltrator with lethal force until target is destroyed.”

“Where’s your support crew, soldier?”

“Advisement: This unit has no attached units to its deployment.”

“Well that doesn’t sound right at all! You shouldn’t be alone, even as Celestia damned glorious as you are!” The lieutenant looks around with its other stalks as it says, “You should join my detachment, we’ll figure out what to do with you later once we find some spare help.”

“Negative.”

The lieutenant’s eyes whip over towards it before he asks, “What did you say to me, soldier?!”

“Advisement: This unit is in active pursuit of a known saboteur. Priority has been declared. No other orders can supersede the termination order at this time.”

The lieutenant sputters in the air and gets closer as it screams, “Are you refusing to follow my orders, soldier?!”

“Advisement: This unit is under the orders of an officer of a superior rank. Lower ranked officers do not have the authority to countermand the orders of a superior officer.”

The lieutenant’s hover talisman shows its irritation as it sputters momentarily, “You’re really getting on my nerves, soldier.”

After a short pause the sentry replies tersely, “Advisement: If the lieutenant is displeased with the operation of this unit…” the security bot’s torso pointedly turns as its sensors aim at the hovering robot. “Take it up with the colonel.”

The lieutenant grumbles and starts moving around him as he grumbles, “I think I just will! Now get out of my face, you maggot!” As he’s passing the security bot he yells, “My troops, on me, resume search operations! I want this intruder found like yesterday!”

The other robots continue on with their path, and a moment later the security bot that Gearing is on continues on its way, taking up its position in the middle of the hallway as it had done before and continues rolling at the same slow speed.

Gearing mutters quietly, “That fucking officer is going to cause a problem…”

The little blue pegasus rattles some dice then quickly flicks them up in the air. He catches them and shows a pair of sixes as he asks with a grin, ‘Well then… why don’t we load the dice and make sure that doesn’t happen?’

Gearing groans as he mentally replies, This is either the dumbest idea I’ve ever had, or one of the most brilliant.

The little blue pegasus in his head shrugs as he says, ‘Only one way to find out…’ He chucks the dice up in the air behind himself and folds his forelegs across his chest as he looks out and watches.

Gearing, still invisible, hops off of the security bot he’d been riding, and turns around. He quickly sneaks up behind the other annihilator and starts walking in time with it as he looks over his shoulder at the bot he’d already compromised. As soon as his annihilator has turned the corner to the left, Gearing scoots closer and quickly gets to work on this annihilator as well by popping the back panel open with overly practiced skill.

A few seconds later the robot shutters and comes to a complete stop. And, a fraction of a second later, there’s a pop and shower of sparks coming from the back of the annihilator. A fraction of a second beyond that a shrill loud scream of pure uninhibited mayhem and rage bellows out of the annihilator. The other bots in the hallway, hearing this, all quickly spin around and look at the annihilator that is bringing up their rear. And before the annihilator gets to do anything, they all start opening fire on it as it stands there and screams. A moment later it starts unleashing all of its weapons simultaneously while charging at his squad mates at full speed. The protectaponies get mowed down by a combination of chaingun fire and, in the case of two, it simply runs them over and bashes them into the wall. Missiles, bullets, and magical weapon fire fills the hallway as the melee increases at a disastrous pitch.

But Gearing is nowhere near the fighting by the time it really starts picking up. As soon as he destroyed the robot's combat inhibitor, he jumped away and left it to its own devices. With it facing the way it was, it had plenty of targets to choose from and absolutely no reason to look behind itself. But, just to be safe, Gearing didn’t even start until his own ride had gotten out of line of sight around the corner. But, even so, Gearing ran as fast as he could, completely disregarding any attempts at stealth or giving away his position by the sound of his invisible hooves. The berserking annihilator not only more than made up for it with its screams of rage, but it posed an obvious and immediate, visible, threat to those around it. All of which immediately took action to try and stop the monstrosity. Gearing quickly catches up to his slowly rolling security bot and hops back onto its back. A moment later, after giving it another command, the bot starts traveling at its top speed as it starts charging down the hallway to get away from the fighting.

‘If that thing comes around that corner, we’re right in the line of fire, you know that right?’ the little blue pegasus asks as he nibbles on his forehooves.

And, to complicate matters, the robot comes to a stop at a large metal security door not long after. They are still within line of sight to the intersection and, as he’s watching Gearing can see more and more fire pouring out from the hallway where he’d sent the berserking Annihilator. And the weapons fire coming down the hallway gives evidence that more robots had joined the fight as there’s simply too much laser fire for the number of bots that were originally there.

Gearing looks at the door, and at the robot with apprehension. After a while of the door not opening, Gearing asks quietly, “Why have you stopped?”

“Advisement: Sector has been quarantined and sealed off. Doors will not open while they are in fire flood control mode.”

Gearing groans as he asks, “Great, so we can’t open the doors because the area on the other side is flooded?”

“Affirmative.”

The little blue pegasus scoops up the dice he’d thrown earlier and spins them around as he shows a pair of 7’s that are on each of the six sided cubes. ‘What fun is there to play by the rules?’

Gearing steps off the security bot as he says, “Concentrate fire of shoulder mounted weapon on the left side segment of the door until a hole is cut through.”

“Affirmative.”

Instantly the shoulder mounted weapon opens fire on the thick steel door, and the results send shivers down Gearing’s spine. The metal instantly starts heating up, with pockmarks eating deeply into the metal. After a few moments holes start developing in the steel like someone was shooting a paper target with a rifle. In short order a small section looks like a partially melted colander from all of the holes. And the more it fires, the more the metal either disappears or starts dripping downwards. After a few moments, and Gearing watching carefully as the hole widens, he steps to the side and comments, “Cease fire.”

Instantly the robot cuts off its weapon and replies, “Affirmative.”

Gearing steps up to the hole and carefully looks over the whole area. It’s big enough for him to get through. But he’s not too keen on touching any of the edges just yet. And, to answer his curiosity on why there’s no water pouring out, Gearing frowns as he sees yet another security door on the other side. But as annoying as that is, the very fact he’s having trouble getting through shows that the design is in fact working as intended.

The metal starts cooling and hardening back up, and after tapping on a couple still glowing pieces, and making sure they have cooled enough to no longer be molten, he takes a running jump and leaps through the hole. It doesn’t take him long to notice that the other door has already sustained severe damage just as a factor of the bot concentrating fire in one small area for so long and the shots that didn’t quite hit where intended. As Gearing turns around to look at the bot, his eyes go wide as he sees a group of bots coming from further up the hallway, straight towards them. But, as they are crossing the intersection. The entire group turns and joins in with the fight in the side hallway. But instead of simply more hover bots or protectaponies, this group also has a pair of security bots with it. And the pair of security drones live up to their name as they open up with all of their weaponry as soon as they have line of sight on their target.

“Fuck, even an annihilator isn’t going to last long against all of that.” Gearing looks over at the door that’s been shot and commands out loud, “Using shoulder mounted weapon, concentrate fire at the bottom left section of the second door until a circular hole one meter in diameter is cut through the metal.”

“Affirmative,” the security bot replies as it begins firing through the hole it’d already made, and at the lower section of the next door.

As Gearing watches, it’s like the robot is playing one of those unfair carnival games where the carnival booth owner wants you to shoot out the red star using a fully automatic bb gun. The rounds being fired are just accurate enough that they are in the general proximity of where they are being aimed, but the magical jitter on it causes line after line of dents to show up instead of concentrated cutting. Although Gearing is aware if he wanted that kind of precision, he’d need a torch or a laser weapon. And this is neither of them. But the one thing it does do is, with the aid of the first hole created, allow water to start pouring into the area between the two doors where Gearing is at.

‘Or a magical lance would get through in a jiffy,’ the little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head reminds him.

“Shut your whore mouth with that shit!” Gearing instantly balks at the mere thought of the thing he’s reminded of. “I don’t want one of those things anywhere near me!”

‘Does anybody?’

“Lunatics, sadists, and sociopaths,” Gearing mutters aloud as he watches the progress. But over the firing, Gearing hears something else. Or, more accurately, things start quieting down. He leans sideways, and barely peeks around the edge of the hole to look back and behind the annihilator as it magically tunnels through this several inches thick of solid steel.

‘It’s still fucking alive!’ the little pegasus in his head says with shock as he sees the fighting is continuing. And, to make things worse, the variety of fire is cutting down, so the home team hasn’t exactly won the day yet.

“It killed the other sentry bots… oh shit.”

More bots come from the far end, this time it’s mainly a large group of protectaponies and hovering bots. But, even from here, Gearing can tell the hovering bots actually consist of mostly maintenance drones. They aren’t the combat variants.

And his eyes jump to the size of saucers as the annihilator he’d unleashed, comes charging out of the side hallway with a protectapony and hover bot in front of it as it continues straight on until it hits the wall at full speed, crushing the two other bots between itself and the solid wall. The annihilator is smoking. It has damage over the majority of its body, the missile launcher is completely destroyed and the limb ends in a sparking stump, and the chaingun’s calibrators have been wrecked so the jitter from the rounds shooting makes them have a huge ‘cluster’ that the ‘grouping’ seems more like a scatter shot then a precision weapon. More like a blunderbuss than a rifle. But it only takes one hit to cause massive damage, and as it spins its torso towards the new arrivals it proves the point by unloading a constant stream of bullets at them. But the fighting picks up never-the-less as the other robots, heedless to their own survival swarm the berserking security bot with everything they have.

“Oh damn this is going to suck if he looks this way,” Gearing groans. “If him and my security bot start fighting I might not be able to get through entirely.” He hangs his head and sighs. Instantly his eyes jump even wider as he quickly scrambles backwards further behind the security door and starts trying to hug the wall. He looks down at his legs, his completely visible legs, and then starts looking at his PipBuck as he groans, “It fucking wore off already. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Now I’m really boned if he looks this way. Because if it sees me it won’t stop until it gets me and I’m just fucking trapped!”

Gearing looks beyond the annihilator that’s currently impersonating a plasma torch and watches as another wave of hovering maintenance bots arrives on the scene. But their numbers are starting to dwindle faster than they can be replenished by reinforcements and they are effectively doing nothing to the seriously damaged security bot that seems like it’s having the time of its life performing this running riot through all of the bots stupid enough to get in front of it.

Gearing looks over to the side, and sees that the hole is, for the most part, cut. He’s going to have a bit of a problem getting through at this rate. But, it’d be manageable. It’s going to take some finagling, but during the entire time he’s going to be vulnerable to attack from behind. And he knows it. He looks around back and forth, between the annihilator that is helping him and the hole that’s slowly widening as it gushes water. Between the hole that is being cut and represents his impending freedom, and the damaged annihilator that represents the strong possibility of everything up to this point being wasted.

‘Load the dice,’ the little blue pegasus in his head comments flatly. ‘When it’s all or nothing, don’t leave it up to chance…’

Gearing groans as he hangs his head. A moment later he yells, “Cease fire,” and jumps over to the hole as soon as the magical energy bursts stop pouring in. He looks at the annihilator that’s staring straight ahead for a moment, then looks behind it and says, “Turn around one hundred eighty degrees,” as he watches the fight take place further up the hallway.

“Affirmative.” The annihilator’s four wheels turn in conjunction giving a zero radius turn as it quickly does an about-face and starts watching the fight taking place further up the hallway.

Gearing pops open the hatch on its back as he says, “Thanks for all of the help. I know it’s weird, but you’ve saved my life. I wish there was something I could do for you. Maybe take you with me or something. But I can’t. And I’m truly sorry for this. But I hope you’ll understand why I did it.” He looks up at the back of its head and smiles widely as he says, “But, maybe this’ll be enough… because if the rantings of a few others I’ve known is to be believed… You might just enjoy having a bit of uninhibited free will…. So… Thanks for all you’ve done and give’em hell!” He leans to the side, and quickly makes the final adjustment, ripping out the critical component before quickly sliding to the side and hiding behind the security door again out of sight.

The effect is instantaneous as the annihilator’s voice bellows out in a scream of rage. But unlike the other one, it can clearly see a fight taking place. And it wants in on the action. Before the water around Gearing’s hooves can even stop rippling from his movements, the annihilator starts unloading with its entire arsenal. Missiles zoom off in a rapid succession of three at a time, chain gun, fully functional and undamaged, rains accurate doom of the hot lead variety, and the magical weapon on its shoulder just randomly sprays in the general direction. All while the annihilator spins its wheels in the water pouring out of the second hole before getting enough traction to practically gallop off towards the other robots.

Gearing rears up onto his hind legs, and melts into the corner as much as he can, as he hears the screaming war machine roll away from him at the highest speed it can manage. It doesn’t care about self preservation. It doesn’t care about overloading its weapons with too much usage. It uses everything to the full extent possible. And after he’s sure the robot isn’t going to hear him moving, he starts sorting through his baggage again. He needs to get through this hole, and quickly. He’ll find a way out of the elevator shaft himself. If he has to start piling up junk or collecting enough empty plastic bottles to give himself the buoyancy he needs he’s going to do it. But now isn’t the time for second guessing himself.

The one thing that draws a slight smile to his face is the fact that as he’s digging through his bag, he notices a bit of green on his wings. He tilts his left wing in front of himself carefully, looking along the edges, and taking in the faint green growths showing up. They are growing back in, but slowly. He breathes a sigh of relief as he realizes that he’s managed to get far enough away that his implant is actually able to outpace the damaging effects of the enervation field. In fact, the left side of his face isn’t stinging as much as it was before and that annoying itching feeling has dropped down to barely registrable.

He pulls out a metal box and holds it to the side as he looks in for more, but then his eyes dart over to it as they slowly cross over the metal container with the dings and scuff marks on the surface.

“That’ll do,” Gearing mutters.

He quickly opens the lid and stares in at the small collection of fangs and teeth that he’d swiped from the museum’s dead dragon before all of this got dropped on him. He holds it aloft with one hoof, as he uses his tongue and draws out other items to the top of his bag with his sorter enchantment. Now that he has an idea of something to do, he knows what to pull out. It takes a couple entire tubes of Wonderglue, but he manages to glue several of the dragon’s claws to the underside of his forelegs, but he’s exceptionally careful that the angels of the claws aim more outward, towards his sides, so that he won’t end up stabbing himself in the belly if he steps wrong. It’s not the easiest thing to manage, and he ends up wasting more glue than he cares to admit, but he manages it none-the-less.

He just had to stay standing on his hind legs long enough to make sure it set. Which, given it’s Wonderglue, didn’t take very long. Gearing peeks around the side of the hole to the outside hallway, watching as the water pours out of the hole as quickly as it’s pouring in from the other hole, and can’t help but smiling. His annihilator laid waste to the other one, which isn’t surprising considering the damage it had already received, then it took out the other bots while following the line of reinforcements further up the tunnel. The sounds of fighting are so distant that he can barely hear it, and typically only the sounds of chain gun fire or missile explosions are all that travel so far at that.

Gearing grins widely as he says, “Give’em hell big guy! And considering how that bitch tried to kill all of us, I hope you find her and wreck her shit too!”

‘It’s going to take a while for them to be able to stop that berserker,’ the little blue pegasus in his head comments. ‘It probably won’t get stopped until it’s near The Core.’

“Good… because unlike us, he’s going to have no problem with the enervation fields and can just give the business to all of those fucking things that tried to rip us apart,” Gearing replies as he finally drops to all four legs and gingerly walks over to the hole cut into the next security door. “And now to get the fuck out of here…”

>> Mass Augmentation Matrix: Deactivated

Gearing uses his forelegs and twists and swings the claws awkwardly at the dangling hot solidified metal over the holes that are partially acting like bars to keep him from advancing. It’s exceedingly awkward, and shows that sometimes ideas work better in your head than they do in reality. He turns around and starts bucking at the metal stalactites, beating and bashing and warping them until they get out of the way, and a couple others actually do break off thanks to the gouges cut into them from the claws. So, it wasn’t a complete waste of time. Gearing walks into the gushing water and continues fighting the stream’s current with his sheer mass as he gingerly works one limb after another through the hole that’s just barely big enough for him to fit through. The rifle is a particular problem as the barrel’s now bent from all of the abuse he’s suffered, but he’s not going to just discard it. He’s sure he can fix it. He just needs to get access to the right set of tools, equipment, and or spare parts.

Plus, it’s sort of grown on him since Dolor told him to keep it. So he doesn’t want to ditch it unless he absolutely has to.

He ends up having to play a weird contortionist style game getting through there, especially with having to take off his bag just to be able to fit, but hold onto them well enough that he can pull them in with him despite the constant water pressure gushing out against it. But, after a few moments, he manages it. All without getting shot in the back. He gets back inside the flooded tunnel and, once inside, and a couple steps away from the hole, the pressure actually equalizes out so much that he doesn’t really notice the flow. Gearing stares down for a few moments as he manipulates his legs around and stares at the pairs of dragon’s claws glued to his legs. After a few cycles of twisting them this way and that, repeatedly, he slowly shakes his head and lets out a snort of amusement. “I look like a fucking salad shooter…” He slips his bag and the rifle back on and starts trotting down the flooded hallway as he casually looks around.

‘You know… I never would have thought I’d actually be happier, and feel safer being completely submerged and basically trapped with no way out… This is a cruel and weird world we live in,’ the little blue pegasus comments as it actually lounges back and seems like it’s not only not really phased by the suddenly damp surroundings, but actually amused by it.

It’s not silt though, Gearing reminds him. And that current washed off all that gooey crap from those ghouls…

‘True, but trapped is trapped and this just feels… fine… Like we’re gonna be okay,’ the little blue pegasus in his head comments.

Gearing can’t help but admit that, despite what he would otherwise normally feel, how he actually felt not long ago, he’s handling this far better than he’d expected. And he has an even further amount of luck as he looks at the map on his PipBuck and watches as he gets closer and closer to where he knows the elevator is. He comes to an intersection, and looks up as random movement catches his eye.

Above him a few floating plastic items slowly meander their way across and in front of him, coming from the left, as they just keep moving with their own flow. His eyes lock on one plastic bottle in particular, and a smile crosses his muzzle as he thinks, What are the odds that there’s another one of those in here, with the exact same rip on its label?

‘So now plastic bottles we’re jealous of have decided to show us which direction to go? Because they feel bad for us? What is this one of Fluttershy’s kiddie stories?’ the little blue pegasus says with an arched eyebrow as it watches the bottle continue floating down the hallway he’s turning into, but the opposite way.

If it were one of her stories, we’d have already woken up in bed and telling others about the horrible nightmare we’d had and they’d blow smoke up our tail telling us how silly it is and that we’re safe and surrounded by friends, Gearing mentally grumps.

‘Yeah… and we’re neither,’ the little blue pegasus says as it looks down and mindlessly plays with some dice.

Gearing trots along, away from the floating bottle and down the hallway it’d come from, as he comments, At least we’re going in the right direction… and entirely changes the topic away from a dark chapter of his life that he’d really rather not have opened at the moment. It doesn’t take long before he comes to where the hallway dead ends by ‘T’ing into a hall perpendicular to itself. And as he’s getting closer, a smile crosses his muzzle as he sees a series of scorch marks in the wall directly in front of him. He runs up to the intersection as quickly as he can while avoiding stabbing himself, and looks side to side. His excitement only increases as he sees that, yes, this is the exact intersection where they first ran into the maintenance bots that had attacked them. He turns and starts down the hallway at a steady clip and grins as he sees the twisted mangled remains of the security door where he’d held the bots, and the water, off long enough for Swift and Handy to get away. And, beyond that long hallway past it is the elevator shaft. He’d managed to make one giant loop. And, while he’d not gotten what he truly wanted while coming down here, he’s leaving with the information he’d actually come for and, most importantly, his life. Which as far as missions are concerned with him, denying the enemy the kill is, in itself, a victory. So he’s trying not to be too sour about everything that's happened.

He continues down to the elevator shaft, again, as the hallways are completely flooded, still, and he has no idea what he’s going to find when he gets there, again. But this time the bots that he starts climbing over and past are definitely dead as not a single one so much as shivers as he pushes them out of the way and crawls into the elevator car. He spins around, looking at the various debris in the elevator, and frowns as he notices that the force of the water mangled the corpses to the point that they are little more than bones and cloth sitting in a pile against the opposite wall. He looks them over, and then gives a deep respectful bow before he rises and smiles. He speaks with a bubbly distorted sound with the water acting as a strange modulator on his voice as he says, “Thanks guys. I’m sorry I couldn’t be here to help you. But you helped me anyway. Rest easy.” Then he looks up, turns off his implant, and jumps up towards the escape hatch again.

>> Mass Augmentation Matrix: Activated

But, this time, it proves to be more than a little problematic as he has the claws sticking out of the sides of his legs and makes him have to finagle himself to get them through. After a bit of struggling, he decides to stop fighting against the claws, and instead try and use them himself. With a change in tactics he thrusts his right foreleg through the hole completely, close to the left side of the gap, claw and all, then slides it back over to the right side and uses the claws to hook and hold onto the elevator roof while he did the exact same, but inverted, maneuver with his left foreleg. Gearing dangles there by the claws and smirks as he says, “Wonderglue is ridiculous… I just wish I had a medical brace so I could have done this properly instead of this butcher shop job.” Gearing hoists himself up on top of the elevator and quickly looks around.

But, despite his secret hidden hope, the water level hasn’t apparently dropped. He’s not sure if some other water is constantly being pushed in to keep the area’s flood level the same, or if the water level in the elevator shaft was just so high that even with the new drainage hole the annihilator carved through the doors that the level is still so high that it’s outside of his view despite the ongoing loss. And then there’s the fact that there are no chains, rope, cabling, or anything else new that he could use to get himself out. So Swift and Handy hadn’t been able to come up with a solution either. Gearing stares at the walls for a while as he grumbles, “The walls are just too slick to grab onto…”

The little blue pegasus looks at the wall, looks at him, looks at the wall, then at him again as a coy smile crosses his muzzle. ‘Are you sure about that?’ It rears up and starts waving its forelegs, showing a grouping of claws appearing along his limbs in the same pattern Gearing has along his. ‘I bet these have enough bite to get us up there.’

Gearing rolls his eyes as he snickers, “They’re claws, not teeth, but fair enough…” He walks over to the side of the elevator shaft and starts eyeballing the steel and concrete as he says, “It’s worth a shot after all.” He lifts up his foreleg and his eyes dart back and forth as he muses, “Dragons have climbed stone well enough with these… so … I should be able to as well, right?”

He walks over to the wall, rears up as far as he can, and slams the claw into the concrete facing. And his eyes go wide as he sees that the amount of oomph he put into it was disgustingly over what was needed as the claws sink in deeply and chunks of concrete fall away from the wall.

“No way!” both Gearing and his mental companion say in unison before doing the same with the other foreleg. Then he lifts his hind legs up and just dangles there for a few seconds as he looks around. “Okay… this… this is kinda cool.”

‘Now what?’ the little blue pegasus asks as he looks around completely confused.

As odd as it sounds, it’s a valid question, as the angles that he sunk the claws in, compounded with the angles that he has them glued to himself, combine to mean that his movement ranges are extremely hindered and he’s not really able to advance any. It takes him several tries to get any kind of progress figured out, before he actually pulls his body closer to the wall, and comes up with a pattern of climbing that involves him trying to walk on the underside of his cannons, where the claws are glued on, instead of his hooves. The more he works at it, the more the angles become more intuitive, and the faster he manages to climb up the elevator shaft.

One foreleg at a time, using only his forelegs and the claws attached to them, Gearing scales the deep elevator shaft as he performs a weird near shuffling crawl that ends up with his hindlegs dangling uselessly behind him as he moves claw by claw up the elevator shaft. He goes in as straight of a line as possible. There’s a possibility that he could get fancier with it, and get up faster, but he’s worked out a method that works, and right now that’s what he needs. The closest to giving up on his chosen method and doing something else doesn’t happen until he finally breaks the surface of the water and he looks back at his wings. They have regrown a substantial portion of crystal by this point, in fact the growth rate is not only noticeably faster, but has increased to the point that the crystals are growing at a rate easily detectable with the equine eye.

Which, seeing that, does make him happy, for a variety of reasons, but unfortunately his wings are not even close to being able to hold him up. And he knows it. From prior experience. Lots of prior experience. Painful experience. So instead of even dwelling on the fact that his precious beautiful wings are a useless mangled mess, he focuses all of his attention on the climb. One hoof in front of the other. One claw in front of the other. If he can manage it, he stabs steel, because he notices that it’s not only easier to sink into it, but that since it doesn’t break away he doesn’t have to worry about sliding back down, which he’s nearly done a couple times. So steel girder and reinforcement sheeting gets sacrificed again and again, at every available opportunity, just to give Gearing an easier hold on the walls.

Because he might be out of the water. But all that means is that he’s that much further from the bottom. And the further up he is, the longer and further he has to fall before impacting into the ground. And, with his luck, if he does fall, he’s sure that by the time he hits the bottom, the water will be drained, and he’ll hit nothing but steel, stone, and concrete. A landing that he’d really rather avoid at the moment.

He keeps his face curled around and down, watching and carefully aiming and executing each plunge of the claws. He doesn’t measure distance, because that would just bother his anxiety. He intentionally tries not to count how many steps he’s taking, because that would make him think of how far he has to fall. So he just mindlessly works on the task. Not thinking about it. And just doing it.

Yet, despite the attempted lack of thought, he ends up looking up just in time to see the lower lip of the elevator door frame come into view not much further above him. And the light pouring in from the still open elevator door. Gearing fights the urge to speed up. He’s too close. And a mistake now would mean having to start all over. And as he’s closing in he can’t help but count out how much more he needs to go based on distance. Four steps, and he’s digging into stone with his right foreleg. Three steps as he’s stabbing into a metal I-beam with his left foreleg. Two steps, nearly there, as the bottom lip of the elevator door frame gets punctured and turned into a hook hold. One step as Gearing’s foreleg hooks into the actual floor space of the level he’s been trying so desperately to get through, and the claws sink into the floor but catch on the outside of the elevator door frame. And Gearing quickly uses all of his limbs to scramble in the rest of the way onto the delightfully filthy and damp floor that he hasn’t seen since a lifetime ago. As he’s climbing out, and starts kicking his way away from the elevator shaft, his PipBuck chimes with a series of messages.

He quickly looks them over and realizes that, by some function of distance or interference, the message system couldn’t connect to the others, so they didn’t get his message when he’d originally sent it. He glances through the messages quickly and can’t help smirking as they had told him that they were working on a plan, but it was being slow. And then a fresh message pops up from Swift as he’s still trying to read the others.

[Well it’s nice of you to finally fucking reply! I’m glad you’re okay, but like I’d said we’re working on a way of getting you. If you manage to get out before we get done we’re in that maintenance supply closet thing you talked about when we first got here.]

Gearing snickers as he rolls over, stands up, and starts walking down the walk way towards the ponyhole cover where they’d entered the tunnels. He has a smile on his face as he gets further down the tunnel, and it only gets wider as a blue marker pops up on the edge of his EFS. He’d turned it off and kept it off down in the deep sections because it’d be useless with that maze. And only served as a distraction. But, in this case, it’s acceptable. Because it’s always nice to see a blue marker in a sea of red.

Gearing hears a grinding metallic noise as he’s walking into the circular area that surrounds the ladder down from the pony hole above. He carefully walks around the water filled impression, having decided he’s spent more than enough time submerged for one day, and heads to the door of the maintenance closet. He slowly walks up and peeks in as he looks for the blue marker. And there, just inside and steadily at work at the table, is Handy. Around his hooves is an immense amount of chains and ropes and cabling. And as Gearing is watching he sees that the sound he’d heard when he’d walked up was Handy, wearing a welding helmet, cutting into and modifying the chains. More specifically, he’s cutting into links, and using the tools to use the improvised split rings to attach the various chains together. One weld at a time. And Handy does just that, setting two ends of chain together, connecting them with one of the cut loops, hammering it closed again, then welding the gap with a torch.

And judging by the pile around Handy, he’s been working at it for a while.

Gearing steps in slowly as he knocks on the door as Handy grabs another link and prepares to cut into it with a power saw.

Handy’s helmeted head jerks over towards Gearing, and he stops dead in his tracks as he stares at Gearing. Handy uses the back of the power saw and pushes the mask of the welding helmet out of the way, revealing his saucer plate sized eyes, before he asks softly, “Gearing?”

Gearing, leans sideways onto the door frame and grins as he says, “Hey, Handy.” He gives him a wink as he says, “I told ya I’d find my own way out.”

“You could have said you already got out and were on your way, jackass!” Swift screams as she comes zipping in from behind at full flight speed. She chucks a bundle of rope that she’d been carrying to the side into the tunnel, spins around, and bucks Gearing right in his rear as she comes in for a hard and fast landing by planting her forelegs for a proper double smack. “My hooves, your ass!”

---

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

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