Gearing, still in his ‘Stubs’ impersonating gear, keeps his pace as he’s heading back towards the Red Eye base. There’s a few things he needs to do there, or at least near there, before ‘Stubs’ disappears for a while. As he’s debating on the merits of going ahead and throwing off the costume, and hurrying up with his plans to get back to Megamart, he comes up to an intersection where the majority of the buildings around have fallen down or otherwise been reduced to rubble. He notices movement, through the debris, but keeps on trotting down the lane until he actually is crossing it.

He pointedly turns his muzzle to look to the side and sees a group of ponies, and a few of which he actually remembers.

The little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head comments, ‘How the hell they already catch so many?!’

The paradise slavers are walking with a staggered formation with the newly caught ponies in the middle. Two slavers in the back of the group, and two near the front. With the grumpy looking mare in the very front of everypony and leading the small herd. Gearing abruptly turns towards them and asks as they are getting closer to the intersection, “Are those the transfers for Red Eye?”

The grumpy looking mare in the lead gives him a look that transcends language barriers by declaring ‘No, dumbass’.

A slaver buck a few paces back and on the left side of the group yells back, “Nah. These are fresh meat. Taking them to Paradise and they’ll be sent out from there.”

Gearing shakes his head and then replies, “Well, when you get back to Paradise, make sure to tell Usury to hurry up with our shipment. Red Eye’s growing impatient.”

The slaver bobs his head around. “Yeah, yeah, got it… Any you want out of this batch?”

Gearing looks them over as they start passing, and then suddenly points at a mare in the middle of the herd. “Dibs on the unicorn. Red Eye has mandated more unicorns are needed to be recruited.”

The mare in question’s jaw drops as she starts shivering and shaking. A look of pure fear crosses her entire being as apparently her worst case scenario for what is going to happen to her has already been decided. Of all of the possibilities for what could be in her future, this one is apparently the worst for her.

The buck smiles as he says, “Great! Bonus score! I’ll keep an eye out for more.”

Gearing nods. “Good. We’ll be expecting the delivery soon.” Then he abruptly turns and continues on the path he was walking before anyone could say anything further.

The grumpy mare comments, “That freak always going full tilt?” A split second later she lets out a shriek of pain and spins around to look behind her. “What the hell was that for? Why’d you throw a rock at me!?”

The other mare slaver glares at her and says, “Your mouth, that’s why.”

The buck slaver from before chimes in, “Don’t piss off Red Eye… it’s bad for business, and life expectancy…”

The grumpy mare scowls and just becomes grumpier as she spins around and continues to lead the way to Paradise Mall, swearing and swearing revenge the whole way.

A few blocks away from their encounter with ‘Stubs’, and still far away from Paradise Mall, the grumpy mare comes to a halt, causing the whole procession to stop, as she hears something. Her ears turn around quickly as she tries to pinpoint from what direction it’s coming from, then suddenly jerks her chin upwards.

Just in time to see a pony falling at terminal velocity a few feet in front of her. “aaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHH-”

Her focus stays on the buck from the point she first saw him, to the point he hits the ground. And the sickening slight bounce that occurs from the impact. The buck’s voice likewise comes to an abrupt halt as he’s killed instantly from the fall.

The grumpy mare half rears up as she steps back in disgust at what’s landed in front of her. “What the hell’s this!?” She blinks a couple times, then steps a bit closer as the buck in question strikes a chord with her memory. “… Razor?” She stares at the body, with the gear, the hide color, and the bomb collars still hanging from his belts. She shakes her head a bit then spins around. “Hey, Razor, this buck’s just like y-”

She stops as she comes face to face with Gearing, standing just a foot or so behind her and wearing nothing but his PipBuck. His face is plastered with a grin that, while jovial and happy, sends a shiver up her spine.

Gearing, in all his golden brassy glory, waves a hoof as he says, “I’ll be honest… I actually tried to bullseye you with him, but from that altitude it’s a bit hard to judge and factor in changes of speed. You know, two ponies with one stone kinda thing.” He puts the tips of his two wings together and keeps grinning as he says, “Missed ya by that much.”

In the background behind him, the group of pony slaves-to-be are standing and looking as bewildered as the grumpy mare is. All of them are staring at the pair with confusion and fright etched into their faces. Like they’ve personally seen some things that they wish they hadn’t. But there’s not sight nor hair of her other companions. Besides the oozing mass behind her -which even if he survived that fall he’d be no help with the condition his body is in and that rapidly growing pool of blood- there’s the slaves and this golden monstrosity in front of her.

She gets a malicious grin on her face as she starts reaching for a side pouch. A sick twisted smile grows on her face along with a mad gleam in her eye that says she’s going to get even, even if she doesn’t win.

Gearing, at her first movements, jumps forward, grabs her head with both of his forehooves, and then uses his wings to perform a crocodile death roll on her midair. Her head twists unnaturally, and eerily easily within his hooves, as he spins midair. Her body even starts following suit a split second after a teeth rattling cracking sound comes from her neck. Then, with his grip still just as firm as it had been at the beginning, he spins around parallel to the ground. After a few cycles with the limp mare being flung around him he lets go and throws her into a partially collapsed building nearby.

“None of that, thank you,” Gearing comments as he hurls the perpetually grumpy mare into the building. He glances over at the ponies with the bomb collars around their necks and gives them a warm comforting smile. “Just wait here, I’ll get those bombs off your neck after I finish dealing with her.”

All of them just stand there, staring, not daring to move nor say anything.

Since there’s no objections, and he’s pretty sure they realize the problem of running with a bomb collar around your neck, he takes it as compliance and jumps into the building with the mare he’d just thrown. A moment later there’s a sickening crunch that makes the ponies cringe as Gearing crushes the mare’s head with a hoof. And, despite not seeing it, the ponies all, somehow, know exactly what just took place with sickening clarity. While they are shivering from that, he comes trotting out as he’s putting the detonator and slave collar control box back into the pouch he’d taken from the mare, and heads towards the one visible corpse. He wipes his hoof on the dead buck’s clothes, and then turns towards the still standing ponies. Doing a quick headcount he sees that all of the original six are still here, and none had made the unfortunate mistake of running off.

He trots over to the closest pony as he says, “Okay, now let's get these collars off. If you would, hang around for a bit, and I’ll help you get somewhere safe.” He gets to work and the bewildered stares slowly turn into realization as he gets the first collar off.

As Gearing starts working on the second bomb, the freed pony asks, “Who are you?”

Gearing pulls off the second deactivated collar, and throws it in the air with a flourish. As he catches it he grins at them and replies, “I’m Fixer. I fix problems. I saw you folks were in a bind, so I fixed the situation.”

The third pony is the mare unicorn of the group, and she stares at Gearing with a hard to read expression. After he finally gets the collar off, holds it up for her to see, and smiles at her, she finally cracks. Tears break out in a flood and she throws her hooves around his neck as she hugs him. “T-thank you! I was gonna d-die! I was really gonna die!” She nuzzles him as she bawls her eyes out. “A Red Eye soldier said he wanted me and they were going to send me to one of their death camps!” She sobs as her legs shakes. “Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Gearing’s caught off guard at first, and actually stumbles as he’s glomped by the mare. But he quickly recovers and starts patting her on the back. “There, there. You’re free now.” He looks around at the others. “Would you all be willing to accompany me to Megamart? You can break off from there, or figure out what to do. It’s more secure than around here.”

One of the bucks with their bomb collar still on, waves lightly and says, “We were headed that way anyway, so sure!”

The rest likewise nod their heads in agreement.

“Great!” Gearing replies cheerfully as he extracts himself from the bawling mare’s fleshy prison. He quickly goes by the others and removes their collars as well. “Okay, let's get out of here and I’ll get you to Megamart.”

“Uh… Sir!” one of the bucks calls out.

Gearing looks over at him and tilts his head. “Yeah?”

The buck looks around, then points at the only corpse he can see at the moment. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful… but when they captured us, they took some of our personal stuff. Would it be possible to get it back?”

Gearing looks at them, then over at the bodies, before looking back at the buck. “It’s too dangerous for you to be sorting through the bodies here so close to Paradise and on a street the creeps travel regularly-”

The buck sighs and hangs his head, “I understand, sorry.”

“But!” Gearing says a bit louder. “Let’s get you safe somewhere nearby, and I’ll come and grab everything, and then you can reclaim whatever’s yours from that. Sound good?”

The buck lifts his head up quickly in shock before grinning. “Yeah, that’d be perfect, thank you!”

Gearing nods as he starts walking away and motioning for them to follow. And follow they do. Eagerly and without further question. The group of frightened ponies stick close together and follow close to Gearing, but not too close. He waves them off, and scouts ahead, as he leads them through rubble and other pathways, motioning for them to stay put in place every now and then while he zips off, only for him to come back and lead them further not long after.

As they are traveling, the little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head sets up a variety of papers hanging from the clouds in his mindspace, and writing out maps, on the fly, along with advanced calculations, as he furiously works an abacus. The little pegasus comments, ‘It’s going to take some patented flashery to pull this off, but it’s doable. Just have to be really careful and creative with your movements…’

Gearing mentally acknowledges it as he looks at the giant rapidly updating map that’s appearing in his head. Three dimensions of a wide area of Hoofington and covering a lot of places that he’s been to recently, plus the ones around him currently.

After they’ve traveled only a couple blocks, Gearing finds something acceptable for his plans, and quickly motions the ponies following him into a tipped over wagon with its top portion facing a building near it, and the tireless wheels sticking out in the direction of the rest of the street. After they’re all inside he looks them over and says quietly, “I have to carry you for this next bit, but don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe.

As one, all of the wide-eyed ponies nod in solidarity and understanding. And, Gearing feels a heart tug as he feels like they may be so shell shocked that he could literally walk them through hell and they’d still thank him for the guided tour.

He gently grabs the closest buck and says with a gush, “Try not to scream. I’ve done this before. Hold your mouth if you have to.” The buck nods and, apparently not trusting himself, quickly holds his own muzzle shut with both forehooves as Gearing grabs him and takes off with him.

One by one Gearing disappears with one of the six ponies, until he has them all where he wants them. As he’s dropping off the last buck he sees them all slowly looking around themselves, but staying exactly where they are laying, where he sat them, as they explore the little cubby he’s stored them in. The room, for some apartment that’s set into the building above a strip mall of stores, and on the third floor no less, is exceedingly small. And has no easy way out. Or in. Except the door that leads in, but the other side of that door is practically a straight drop down. The windows are covered by debris, from the outside, as the building next door had fallen down and over onto it. As evidenced by some of the debris actually making it through the windows and onto the floor near them. Gearing stoops down so he’s in proximity to all of them as he says quietly, “I need you all to stay right here, understand me?” They all stare at him with the same shell shocked blank stare. So he sighs as he says, “I understand that you're terrified. You have every right to be. But we still aren’t far from Paradise. I know that you want to get out of here, to get home, to your loved ones, to just get away… so I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to just cut and run… But, please, understand, if any of Usurys slavers find you, and find out what’s happened, and that I’m this close to Paradise, that bitch will send her entire army out here and we’re all screwed.” The eyes of the ponies seem to grow even wider as the one unicorn mare starts shivering and shaking.

Gearing looks at her and asks, “Also, you mentioned a Red Eye's soldier, right?” She quickly nods as she actually jerks suddenly from the pain of the thought. “How many? Where were they? Did you see where they were going?”

The others look around and one buck comments quickly. “Just the one. Some buck on a mission of some sorts. Apparently confused us with some sort of transfer and thought we were supposed to go to him.”

“It wasn’t too far from where you’d saved us…” the jittery unicorn mare adds.

Gearing looks at him and asks, “Transfer?” They all nod. “He was expecting a transfer through here?” Again, they all nod. Gearing grins as he looks to the side and rubs his muzzle. “Oh… that’s good… that’s real good…” He glances at them sideways then says, “I’m going to get you guys out of here. To Megamart. But with all of these Paradise assholes, and now Red Eye's soldiers patrolling, we're going to have to be careful along the way. So, please, just wait here, don’t make a sound, and I’ll be right back with the stuff the slavers were carrying. Then I’ll figure out the best path to avoid the fuckers and get you all to safety… okay?” They look at him and a couple actually breathe a light sigh of relief, with the one older buck actually getting tears in his eyes as he nods with a smile on his face. Gearing gets up and goes to the door as he nods towards them. “Thank you.” He reaches over, and grabs what turns out to be a large sign from the building next door, and tilts and leans it over to cover up the door. As he’s closing it up he looks at them and promises, “I’ll be back shortly. Be quiet. And don’t move. And I’ll get you out of this.” And then he drops the sign down with a metallic groan of the metal before turning to leave.

But, he noticed, that despite being grateful, the ponies are still anxious. And he hopes that they will play along so he can get them to safety.

The ponies are looking around and increasingly more nervous the longer he’s gone. Though, they stay absolutely quiet. As, on some level, they feel like they are absolutely surrounded by predators, and the only way to survive is to stay hidden, stay quiet, and not move. And, arguably, their ancestrally rooted fears are correct.

But, to their great relief, they hear Gearing’s voice coming in through a crack on the outside as he mercifully warns them of his presence before startling them, “Hey, it’s me. Don’t scream. I’m coming in.” They watch, in silence, and just as planned, as the sign that’s covering the door gets lifted and set to the side. And as the sign hits some bricks on the side, they realize the scope of the ridiculous feat as the sign actually chips some of the stone from its sheer bulk. Gearing quickly zips in with a variety of bags and clothes and sets them down in the middle of them as he says, “Here’s all of their crap. Grab what’s yours, or, hell, even what you can use.”

As they start quietly sorting through it, they can’t help but notice a few of the pieces are particularly bloody. And they recognize the gear as belonging to the grumpy mare, and the one known as Razor. But the others’ gear are, oddly to them, surprisingly lacking in their blood coatings, making them wonder exactly what Gearing did to them that killed them without making much of a mess.

And as they are busying themselves with reclaiming their own property, and sorting through the rest of it as well, Gearing comments, “Now, I’m going to go check on our path through here. You guys get situated, and get ready to go, and I’ll be back shortly. Okay?” They all nod, a couple even smiling more, especially the buck that’d asked about it all originally as he puts on a very old stetson hat, and puts a pocket watch into the pocket of his vest where the worn pattern in the vest fabric shows the watch has lived there for a very long time. Gearing quickly puts a hoof to his lips at the door, and once again seals them into the little third floor room as he goes off on another mission.

A while later, considerably longer than the last time and past the point where the hidden ponies had started getting antsy and wondering if their would-be-savior had gotten caught or killed himself, Gearing’s voice from the other side of the sign instantly lifts their spirits again. Even more so as he casually lifts the sign out of place and they can clearly see that he’s okay. He motions them over to himself as he says quietly, “Sorry it took so long, but I have the route to take now.” After they’d gotten close enough to touch he comments, “I managed to break somepony else out. He’s downstairs. He’s apparently been with them a while so please be kind he’s really skittish and shell shocked about the whole ordeal… I’m sure you can understand.”

They all quickly nod and the unicorn mare puts her forehoof to her chest as she says quietly, “The poor dear…”

Gearing quickly ferries the ponies back down to the same overturned wagon they’d been stowed in before, except this time there’s a young tan buck with his tail hair bobbed down to nearly nothing. And though the buck looks to be of the age of where he’s just tentatively stepping a hoof into adulthood, his eyes are worn and wild with fright. And, with what Gearing had told them, and the look on his face, all of the ponies clearly put an image in their head of what the buck’s life has recently been like. A fate that they’ve recently been lucky enough to dodge thanks to the strange golden buck that’s personally escorting them. And, respectfully, they all keep their distance and simply let the buck be.

Except for the mare unicorn who just gets close enough to quietly encourage him, “You’re going to be fine. We’re all going to be fine. We're in good hooves now. We’ve escaped. Take your time and breathe. Just breathe, sweetie.”

The tan buck spares her just a quick side glance, only a momentary flicker, before going back to staring blankly in front of himself off into space and into the void itself.

As soon as Gearing sets the last of the herd down inside the wagon he quickly grabs a few bags that were stowed near the tan buck as he says, “Okay, let's go. Stay down, stay close, stay quiet. We’re almost home.”

They nod and as he heads out, the tan buck startles them all as he jumps out of the wagon and practically stays up Gearing’s ass as he stays so close to him that in normal circumstances it’d be considered extremely rude, outside of bedroom environments.

The others fall in quick and, given that the tan buck in front of them seems so terrified of their environment, they too amp up their vigilance and do their best to follow the instructions given to them. So much so that they are even careful of what they are stepping on the whole way.

But, it doesn’t take them long to realize that the path Gearing is taking them on, isn’t as direct as any of them expected, or actually would prefer. It seems to zip back and forth and ambles around. But, true to his word, they don’t run into so much as a living radroach along the way. A few dead ones, even somewhat recently deceased at that judging by the still goopy mix spread across the floor where somepony stepped on them, but none alive. A couple times Gearing even halts the procession, and has them hunker down while he quickly takes off to scout ahead again, to ‘make sure nothing cropped up since he was just here’. And, given all of the other precautions he seems to be taking, they all obediently do as asked. And the fact that the tan buck snaps to action as soon as the words are out of Gearing’s mouth, helps the others to do the same as they all play ‘follow the leader’ with the instructions.

As they are approaching a building that seems to be a bit more intact than most, Gearing stops and doubles back to whisper towards them, “I need to check ahead again. I’m getting a few readings I don’t like. So follow me upstairs real quick.” And as they are nodding understanding he quickly doubles back a bit, and leads them all up a flight of stairs. On the fourth floor of the building, he walks around quietly before finding a room. He waves them all in and joins up with them as they all huddle near the brick wall across from the door.

Gearing looks them over and smiles as he says, “You guys have been doing a great job so far. We’re almost home free. I’m going to go check on this next part. Hang out here and remember, no matter what you hear, if a fight breaks out, stay quiet. Stay hidden. And let me take care of it. It’s worked thus far, so let's not mess anything up by changing the formula now, okay?” They all nod and he raises a hoof high in the air. “Great! Go team, wooooo!” Then he turns around, closes the door behind him, knocks over a cabinet to block the door and hide it from outsiders, and goes off on his scouting mission.

And, as had happened multiple times already in a relatively short period of time, the group hunkers down and gets comfortable as the stallion with the plan goes off to do his thing. It’s already getting close to dark, but they’re pretty sure that, in this case, it'd just aid them more since they have such an effective scout, and are so far along in the path that they can practically smell Megamart already.

Sometime later, but well within what they’d expected to wait, they hear a commotion break out in front of the building, and then suddenly there’s a loud impact into the brick wall next to the wooden boarded up windows as something hits the side of the fourth floor. With part of it actually splatting against the wood with a partially meaty and partially metallic clank against the wood and brick surface. The hidden ponies all shoot up their ears in alarm, as a few of them peek over the stonework and out through the heavily boarded up windows.

The unicorn mare shrinks back down as she moans in despair, “Celestia have mercy…” She looks over at the others and hisses, “It’s a slaver hunting squad! A big one!”

The others, against better judgment, quickly scoot over to look over and down at the fight that’s taking place at ground level in the rubble of the street. Bullets start flying as screams of anger and fear fill the street way. The buck with the stetson catches a glimpse and recoils from the window as he says in astonishment, “It’s him! He’s attacking the slave convoy! Even one that big and all by himself!”

Gearing voice roars out from somewhere outside. “Why don’t you pick on somepony your own size, huh?!”

The others quickly crowd over by the windows, including the young tan buck, and watch on in shock at what’s starting outside. It’s very clear that there’s quite the sizable group of slaves down there, as the ponies on the ground with bomb collars on them are trying to hide and make themselves as small as possible as all hell breaks out around them.

The buck with the stetson turns around and heads over to where a pile of gear that was taken from the slavers was set by Gearing before he took off. “We can’t let him fight on his own! I’m not gonna let the buck that saved me die on the same day! That ain’t right!”

As he’s digging through the supplies and pulling out weapons the unicorn mare runs over next to him as she says, “You’re right! And if he goes down, we’re next!” She pulls out a rifle and starts sorting through the random bullets in the bag as she says, “I’m not dying today. Not to Usury. Not to Red Eye. And not to these fucking slavers!” Her horn glows as she starts rapidly loading the rifle.

Of the others, only two don’t jump over to find a weapon to get some form of payback against Usury’s slavers: the tan buck, and another buck from the original six. Both keep looking out with unwavering dedication to see how things are playing out. But, while the tan buck is simply staring with a nearly vacant stare, practically emotionless, the other buck pales more and more at what he’s seeing. Eventually the scared buck looks back at the other’s and comments quietly, “I… think he’s got it… guys...”

A series of loud gun blasts echo out, and then there’s no more shooting, except Gearing shooting off his mouth as he screams, “I fucking hate slavers!”

They all run over to the windows and look through the cracks between the boards down below. And, sure enough, all of the slavers seem to have been dealt with.

The buck with the stetson turns around, grabs the remaining baggage Gearing had left, and starts towards the door as he says, “Well, let's get down there anyway. Never know when some asshole’s going to show up after all that gunfire. We can at least guard him while he saves those poor sods. And after that, we can all get on to Megamart.”

The tan buck scurries over without a word and starts loading himself up as it seems to make perfect sense for him and he wants to get the hell away from here as quickly as possible. The last hold out calls over to them as they’re getting ready to try and open the door out. “Hey, he- he said to stay here… no matter what…”

The stetson wearing stallion looks back at him and waves towards the window. “Yeah, that’s what those hero types always say… They always put too much on their shoulders, so no one else gets hurt. Well, I’m going to be the bad little colt and not listen today… We’re getting out of here. All of us. You can wait until he gets back if you want, but the rest of us are going down so we can leave sooner.”

The buck looks around, sees that, yes, everyone does seem to be ready to leave him here, and he folds his ears back as he grumbles. “Fuck. Okay, fine. Hey, hold up, I’m coming too!”

As Gearing is closing the door up, and doing a rather poor job of it to cover this fourth floor room, he keeps going over everything in his head. With himself.

If Usury stuck to her word, they should be getting close.

‘With the zigzagging we did, it should have ate up enough time. This should be timed correctly. We just need to find them and hit them.’

Already have the witnesses set up for this coincidence. Worked out better than originally planned.

‘Yeah, especially with the one mare giving us the info and setting the table for this. I could kiss her!’

Gearing happily hops down and takes to the air right out of the building. He zips around them, backtracking and doing a quick search pattern as he looks for signs of the ponies he’s looking for. He knows they’re going to be in this area, and they are going to, if they’re smart, go through this general area. And, it doesn’t matter which angle they come in at, he’ll be able to get them within sight of the building where he currently has the other ponies hidden.

As he’s performing his search pattern, he mentally snarls, It’s already getting close to dark… They should be here by now… Did she really double cross us, intentionally? Damn, I thought I was making that shit up! If so, this’ll work out even better than we planned.

'Heads up', the little blue pegasus in his head alerts him.

He looks over through a set of broken struts from where a roof collapsed and sees a group of ponies passing through, along with a collection of red and blue dots marching along his vision.

'Show time!' the little blue pegasus in his head cackles as it hops back and forth on its hind legs and claps with its fore hooves.

Gearing stays back and around areas to stay out of sight, as he gets a quick headcount of the ponies involved. And, sure enough, it isn’t hard to notice the mob of downtrodden ponies with bombs around their neck, surrounded by armed guards that look as mean and psycho as an Ursa Major that someone kicked its baby.

Gearing tails them, from whatever angle he can, as he makes sure of their angle and plans his attack approach.

'Just a bit more,' the little pegasus says excitedly.

Yeah, but, there’s more than I was expecting… I guess she really didn’t want anything to happen with this shipment…

'Quick headcount says that she added four to the transfer from what was expected.'

Wow… It’s hard to believe that she’s that scared of Red Eye… Good thing we didn’t try to do this in reverse, and make her shitty at them, it’d never work if that were the case! She’d probably bow, kiss his hooves, then offer to present flank if she’s this cowed by them…

'I wonder why though… Sure they’re better armed and organized, but they don’t have that many ponies around, presence isn’t that big…'

A mystery for another day… Show time!

The little pegasus’s ears turn into horns as he says, 'Remember that fucker from the gate? Remember all that shit that we found out? Remember what we had to do to get this kicked off?'

I’ll never forget, Gearing growls.

Time to relieve some frustrations, go get’em champ! the little blue pegasus yells as it pulls out a giant pole with a flag on it that says: "Murder time, murder time, time to commit some MURDER!"

Gearing swings around and zeros in on his first target. A buck that’s been dragging behind and seems like he’s either coming down from some drugs, hasn’t had his morning coffee, or just generally can’t be bothered with taking this assignment seriously. So Gearing relieves him of the responsibility by coming in at high speed from the side, grabbing his head, and taking off with the buck in his forehooves without slowing at all and all of the gentleness of a balefire bomb. Gearing arcs up and over the buildings across the street as he keeps an eye on the rest of the convoy, that’s still heading forward, and simply lets go of the buck before changing direction. The buck hits the roof and mostly tumbles quietly with the action, coming to a sliding halt. And that probably would have been quite helpful to prevent any injuries, if he hadn’t already had his neck broken by Gearing when he was yanked off the ground by his head alone.

The next in line is not far from the convoy, bringing up the rear of the group and doing a good job of looking back and forth as the rest of the group leads the way. But the mare never gets to let out a single warning, as Gearing zipped up from behind, dropped a lasso around her neck made from thin wire, and took off up and backwards, pulling her with such force that not even the first droplets of blood landed near the convoy as she was hauled off to hang from a light pole around the corner. Though she was well on her way to spiritual judgment as the wire trick had nearly completely decapitated her by time she was tied up.

The next in line from behind is a buck who’s walking next to the last slave in the convoy. And both of them are quite startled as Gearing zips down and practically tackles the slaver. But, the pony with the bomb around their neck has enough sense not to say anything and alert the rest. But, as Gearing suddenly turns to run off with his prize, and for no discernible reason, the next slaver in line, a few paces further up the line, and on the other side of the conga line of slaves, picks that exact moment to look back behind themselves towards the tail end of the convoy. Just in time to watch as Gearing holds the buck’s chest with one foreleg, and snaps their neck with his other in a quick but quiet movement that looks more like giving a sudden hug or maybe a muscle spasm.

The two lock eyes with each other as Gearing is starting to head away.

The little pony in Gearing head grumps, 'Dammit… why they gotta be competent! Was hoping to thin their numbers more before shit went down!'

Can’t be helped. Shit happens. The pony factor will always fuck you if you let it.

The little pegasus in Gearing's head summons a large gong and hits it hard as he grins wickedly. 'Light's green, bitch!'

Gearing twists in midair, spinning around, and just as the first few notes of the slaver's scream comes out of their mouth, Gearing chucks the lifeless body he’s holding up and in an arc. And as the others start turning around to see what’s going on, the body slams into a group of four ponies, causing them all to tumble over and fall as they get tangled up with each other and the corpse. One of which is currently wearing a bomb collar and Gearing mentally makes a note to apologize to them in a few minutes.

As the body was still soaring through the air, Gearing had kept his momentum and directed it towards the witness to his shenanigans. They jump to the side, trying to dodge out of the way of the incoming bullrush charge. But, they’ve apparently never fought a pegasus before, and Gearing simply adjusted his trajectory mid-flight with a snap of his wings and grabs her as she’s mid air. He rolls with her, flicking her up in the air, and uses her as an improvised weapon as he hurls her at two other slavers that’d turned around to join in the fight.

Gearing kicks a pile of debris not far from him with a downward stomp, and the action causes a giant disk of metal to pop up and clang off his leg painfully before it continues up and at eye level, He grabs it, spins around quickly as he creates a mini tornado of wind, before letting it go in a nearly perfectly formed discus toss.

Straight at the only slaver that hasn’t had some form of rude treatment applied to them by Gearing yet.

But that status quickly changes. As the other six are still trying to get to their hooves, the ponyhole cover flies right into the buck's face at Mach Discord. The ponyhole cover smashes through the buck's teeth, shoving them in, as it rips his cheeks and tries to go right through his head entirely. But, there’s enough resistance that he simply gets thrown backwards and off his feet as he looks like he bit off more than he can chew, though his completely warranted screams are massively muffled by the heavy hunk of rusty steel embedded in his mouth.

As the widemouthed buck is still falling towards the ground, Gearing zips over towards the group that was trying to untangle themselves from their dead compatriot, and helps them lighten the load.

By grabbing one of the still living combatants, skewering their head, with the spear one of the others with him had but Gearing took away from them, and hurling the now dead pony with the stick through his head with such gusto that it hits the fourth floor of the building near where all of this is taking place.

The little blue pegasus in his head giggles as it mocks knocking on the boarded up windows. 'Knock knock…'

But as that body is falling back down to ground level, the bullets start flying in unhealthy doses. The slaves, regardless of what the slavers are yelling at them, all jump to the ground and try to make themselves as small as possible as the surviving slavers all dump as much lead as they can at the golden flying menace.

Gearing zips around horizontally to the ground as he circles the group just above the worn road, with bullets impacting just behind him as the slavers pivot to shoot at him. And the closest pair of slavers, the ones that had peeled themselves free of their dead comrade, both have their eyes go wide as their weapons click empty, and they catch eye contact with Gearing as he looks right at them and the smile on his face lets them know that he definitely just heard that.

“Why don’t you pick on somepony your own size, huh?!” Gearing yells with unnerving glee in his voice.

Gearing boggles their mind as he turns at a perfect ninety degree angle, and zeros in right at them. He hits them both, one with each forehoof and with enough inertia that he doesn't even slow down. The impact is so severe that they are lifted completely off their hooves, and go sailing up and over the cowering line of slaves before impacting into the sharp rubble on the other side. Both of them cough up blood as pretty much everyone is aware that there’s been more than a few ribs violently broken with that stunt. But, to the injured bucks’ surprise, they’re inflicted with more suffering and misery as their coworkers try to shoot Gearing as he’s coming down on them, only to hit the pair of groaning bucks with far more bullets than hit Gearing. And, insultingly to the dying bucks, the SMG aimed at him seemed to do practically nothing to the golden monster, whereas with them it made neat repetitive holes in their body that they really didn’t feel like they needed at the moment. Even worse that none of them were friendly enough to be a lucky headshot that’d end their suffering.

Of the remaining three, two are trying to threaten the slaves into getting up and running, but it’s not working as bullets are still flying. The third is the most heavily armed of the entire group, with a pair of carbines attached to their battle saddle. And worryingly to Gearing, they are showing an unnerving level of professionalism by being selective with their shots. They haven’t used nearly as much ammo as the rest and, for their judicious aim, have the honor of being the one to have inflicted the most hits and damage on Gearing by far.

Which also grants them the bonus achievement of thoroughly pissing Gearing off as well.

Gearing, while actually starting to literally fume at this point, practically ignores the bullets impacting into his shoulder and chest as he charges the heavily armed buck who has the audacity to keep his composure despite the situation. But Gearing doesn’t simply plow into him. Right before making contact, he snaps in rapid fire zigzags, then wraps a foreleg around the buck's neck as he starts passing him. Gearing uses the momentum, and the buck's neck as a focal point, to swing around the buck and seize him from behind as he practically mounts the slaver while holding onto the slaver's neck with one hoof as he partially chokes them.

It only takes a fraction of a second for the buck to realize the very compromising position Gearing’s just put them in before he yells out in a startled voice, “Hey, no butt stuff!”

The little pegasus in Gearings head facehoofs as it says, 'Okay, I get how this might look… but what a hell of a thing to be known for as your ‘famous last words'…'

While the buck getting mounted by Gearing is apparently more worried about his chastity than anything else, Gearing overpowers the stallion so thoroughly that he’s reduced the buck to a simultaneous shield and weapon.

The other two slavers have their eyes open to their max as they see their compatriot getting held in place in such an awkward position. But it’s not from the apparent mid battle exhibitionist sexploitation extravaganza, even if the mare gets a decided blush to her cheeks from the sight. It’s because while the buck’s worried about his rear end, as understandable as that would be given the situation, he’s not paid any mind to the fact that Gearing’s directed his whole body like a turret. The important point of contention being that the weapons he’d just been using on Gearing, are now unquestionably being pointed at the others, while still attached to the slaver.

The other slavers hesitate only a second themselves, before they start unloading their weapons at Gearing. They’d originally intended to wait for a clear shot, because if nothing else they didn’t want to kill the most heavily armed individual among their whole group, let alone of their remaining number. But they both came to the same realization at the same time, that they were about to die while some ‘hero’ uses their coworker as a meat shield, and began firing at nearly the exact same second. They weren’t actually aiming at the captive slaver, but with their panicked shooting it’s no wonder that so many bullets tear into the buck who’s been using all of his strength to clench his butt.

Several of the smaller rounds hit Gearing along his arms, shoulders, chest, and head. A couple actually pass through the buck he’s holding in order to do so and put bloody pock marks into his brassy hide. But his return fire, with the decent sized rifle rounds, drops the two remaining slavers in short order. And, with them down on the ground, and the buck in his hooves gurgling and hissing out blood through various wounds, Gearing does a quick headcount to make sure the job's done.

A couple of the dots haven’t entirely faded from his EFS. So Gearing releases the bleeding buck he was holding as he reaches and pulls a weapon from the small saddle bag he’d been carrying. He bites the modified mouth grip, then aims straight down at the still hissing buck, and pulls the trigger. And the large revolver screams out its deadly roar right into the back of the buck’s head. The cylinder only has five rounds, and there’s only five slavers that he deems need to have to be put down. So it’d probably be a bit weird to those viewing the situation to see him have to reload, and release another full set of five rounds into the bodies of the slavers.

Gearing holds the gun to the side with a wing, tilts his head back, and screams up at the sky as if blaming it for the situation, “I fucking hate slavers!” And then he quickly starts reloading the revolver as he trots over towards the nearest cowering pony that’s not only still breathing, but has a bit of explosive jewelry around their neck that he’s eager to confiscate.

As the mare is still on the ground, terrified to do anything at all besides breathing as quietly and shallowly as she can manage and trying to become one with the broken road under her, Gearing starts working on her collar. Without a word. But as he starts walking to the next pony he waves towards the others. “Hurry up and get over here so I can get those collars off. We’re gonna have to get out of her quickly before a patrol finds us.”

The others slowly come out of their stupor and start coming towards him to be relieved of the collars as they see him quickly disarming the ones he’s already got his hooves one. A few of them end up crawling over as they don’t know when the next shootout will take place.

“Well I’ll be damned, you managed to save these folks too!” a buck's voice calls over from the side.

Gearing only glances sideways before he scowls and says, “I thought I told you all to stay hidden until I came back?”

The buck with the stetson hat keeps walking forward as he grins. “Well, shoot. I’m not the best at following directions… besides… If some asshole pops up and starts shooting at you, you might end up screwing up and blowing those collars. And that’d be a shame, to lose the victory after all you’ve done.”

Gearing gets the collar off then moves on to the next one as he sighs, “Okay, fine, no point in arguing about it.” He pauses and looks over at them long enough to say, “If you really wanna help, start stripping down these slavers. We’re going to need the extra firepower on the way back.” He looks at the couple that’d already had their bombs removed and nods towards the buck with the stetson. “You too. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can get out of here.”

When there’s only a couple left he calls out. “Hey, those unicorns among us, I need some help hiding the bodies. You don’t need to touch them, no telling what nasty shit they might be carrying. But if you can use your levitation to drop them where I need them it’ll help.” The couple unicorns actually nod. The mare from the first set eagerly so. And the second the last bomb clicks off of its victim, Gearing starts walking away from them with it in his grip as he heads towards the first slaver that’s already had their equipment stripped. “Okay, grab this guy and follow me.” Then he grabs one of the mare slavers and hurries off with the unicorns working between them to haul the other body.

Gearing looks around behind one of the buildings, getting a feel for the layout, before he finds what he’s looking for. He sets the body down, then uses a piece of rebar on a ponyhole cover. It’d already been moved and was letting a good amount of light and water down into the depths below, and with the lid entirely removed Gearing can see straight down into the filth below.

Along with a practical army of oversized roaches.

'Killit, killit with fire!' the little blue pegasus says as it jumps back instinctively.

Gearing scowls as he grabs the corpse, and then summarily throws it down into the hole below. A couple roaches, that had been standing and staring up in wonder at the sight, end up getting crushed by the falling mass of the mare as they couldn't get out of the way in time. And a moment later, another body gets dropped down into the hole. Gearing leads the unicorns back as he says, “We’ll hide the bodies there.” As they are getting back to the rest of the herd Gearing comments loud enough for all to hear. “Use what you can, stow the rest. Hiding the bodies will give us more time to get away without that damn patrol finding us too quick.”

They run back and forth, ferrying the bodies, and Gearing chucking them down into the hole with the rest. It doesn’t take long before the ten dead slavers make a mound of bloody pony flesh at the bottom of the hole. The one with the lid in his mouth was actually the most complicated, as Gearing actually had to remove the lid from his skull before the body would even fit. And he chucks the bloody lid down the alleyway, making it clang and clank as it skitters off the stonework before disappearing into the rubble of a mostly collapsed building. And then, as Gearing is grabbing the original lid to put in place, he can’t help but see the strange sight below them. The roaches are circling the growing pile, in apparent excitement. A few have even raised up on their legs to look at him and his shining brassy self. And, he swears, that a couple of them are actually waving their antennae at him in thanks and with what looks like reverence for their new sky god of food. And when he does start putting the lid on, is when the roaches finally start digging into the largest meal any of them have ever seen.

Gearing, despite being the one to cause this, is thoroughly disturbed by the sight and thought of it.

Once back with the rest of the rescuees, Gearing grabs his bag from the tan stallion, and does a quick headcount. Apparently the others had explained the plan as Gearing was ditching the bodies. Which helps speed things up tremendously as none of them wandered off. Gearing looks them all over before asking the newest members if they knew where they were being taken. And, apparently, the answer was no. Which, again, helps Gearing with his plans. He gathers the original six he’d saved, and asks them quietly if any of them had an idea of where the others were going. They apparently were able to put two and two together, on their own, and figure it out. So Gearing pulls them in close.

“Don’t tell anyone where they were headed, okay? This is important. I need your help with this, please. Consider it a personal favor. Consider it repayment, in full, for getting you out, but please, don’t tell them, or anyone else, where this convoy was headed.”

The unicorn mare asks quietly, “Sure, but, why? Why’s it matter?”

Gearing looks them over and says quietly, “I wanna fuck Usury. And to do that it’d help if this convoy was never sent in the first place.”

The mare gets a malicious grin on her muzzle as she says, “Oh, yeah, sure. Actually… I don’t want or need to know anymore… Ream that bitch!”

The others, likewise, nod quickly in agreement with the sentiment. And Gearing thanks them before taking the lead and directing the ponies to follow him.

Although, this time, Gearing takes a far more direct route as he’s not trying to eat up any time this time. He’s genuinely trying to get to Megamart as quickly and safely as he can with his little traveling herd.

---

Footnote:

Please Stand By. . .

Please Stand By. . .

Please Stand By. . .

Attempting Synchronization… Please Stand By…

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