By the time Gearing finally finishes, both his stories, and answering any questions that Sable has along the way, it’s already well into the next morning.

Gearing’s pipbuck alerts, and he carefully checks it as Sable loosens her grip on her blue furred body pillow just enough for him to do so. He flops back down again onto her as he lets out a long sigh.

“What is it, my love?”

Gearing groans again. “It’s Swift. They’re up. And they’re wondering when I want to go. We need to go deal with those assholes that shot Swift down yesterday.”

“That is understandable. Do you believe they could be connected to the Wild Ones that had shot us down previously?” Sable asks as she starts rhythmically massaging him again, taking particular joy in playing with his blue mane with her forehoof.

“Wrong side of the mountain range, Sable. So it’s not likely. Plus, whoever it was, was using an LMG… much bigger caliber. I’m pretty sure they were throwing fifties at us…” Gearing replies as he doesn’t seem to want to pull away from her and end their snuggle session.

“Then my darling Gearing needs to be careful. Projectiles of that caliber can cause significant damage. I do not wish for my darling Gearing to prematurely terminate…” Sable says softly.

Gearing grins as he nuzzles into her a bit. “Don’t worry. I don’t plan on just standing there and letting them chew me up with their auto fire. If I can manage it, I’m going to take them out from a distance. Or, maybe, silently and up close. It’ll just depend on what opportunities we can find once we get there.”

“Must you go so soon?” Sable asks with a frown as she pauses rubbing all over his body to give him a decidedly possessive full body squeeze.

“‘Fraid so. But, we’re not going far, and will be back today. That’s one of the reasons we have to go; they’re way too close for my liking.” Gearing replies with a frown. Sable starts loosening her cables, then looks down at him as he looks up at her with a raised eyebrow. “Sable?”

She smiles at him, then kisses him on the nose. “My darling Gearing has not had his turn in the medical pod yet. My darling Gearing must tend to his health, before he journeys out and gets injured again.”

Gearing smirks as he asks, “What makes you think I’ll get hurt?”

She stares at him for a moment before she narrows her eyes at him. “Because it seems that’s all you’ve been doing since you left here last: getting hurt. And even more so when I’m not around.”

Gearing goes slack as he practically melts over her and groans. “You know, I really would like to disagree with you… but I can’t. Not without lying through my shiny teeth… I’ve been shot, burnt, exploded, crushed, smacked, drowned, molested by gravity, and magically nearly torn apart -repeatedly- over this past week alone… And unless someone's got a megaspell big enough for the whole world that’ll make everyone play nice again, I don’t see that changing anytime soon…”

She slowly manipulates him, to pull him up and look him at eye level. But, he simply lays there limp and not holding up any of his own weight as she holds him like a dead chicken in mid air. “Do you not want to go? I am sure Subject Handy and Subject Swift will understand if you decide to stay in, after everything you’ve been through lately.”

Gearing looks at her in the eye, then stretches out just enough to kiss her gently on the snoot. “I don’t want to go, but I have to go. I don’t want out of your embrace, but I need to make sure this gets done. Because if anyone else gets hurt, it’s going to bug me for eternity. And… really… The guilt’s getting heavy enough already…” He smooches her again on the nose before he puts his legs down around her, starts holding up his own weight again, and starts pulling away. “I’ll make sure to get back as soon as I can.”

“I am sure my darling Gearing will… However, we are going to the medical bay, and you are going to get tended to… After that, we shall return here and get you ready for your trip,” Sable says as she starts standing up.

Gearing starts stretching off to the side as he says, “Nah, I can just grab what I need and head up there. More efficient that way.”

Sable grabs him with her cables, and yanks him over to herself as he’s still in the middle of a stretch. She spins him around, gets face to face with him, and has a grin of glee on her face as she manages to so easily overpower him in the current situation. “No. You will report to medical. You will receive treatment. And then, and only then, will you be allowed to come and retrieve your equipment. I’ve already sent a message to Swift and Handy explaining that you still need treatment, and we will contact them once you are finished. So there is no need for you to rush away. And, as for the other materials you had brought with you and left on the other side of the decontamination chamber, I shall clean, inventory, and organize them while you are gone. So that you may use them as you wish once you return. Is that an acceptable compromise?”

Gearing stares at her for a few moments before he smirks. “I didn’t really hear much in the way of compromise there… More like you dictating on what we’re doing?”

She starts massaging the length of his body as she leans in closer to him and rubs noses with him. “The compromise, my darling Gearing, is we get to be together for as long as possible before you finally do leave the stable again… And I’m going to make sure that every inch of you remembers me, and wants to come back to me, while you are out and about on your mission.”

The blue form covering him starts getting sucked into his body in rapid flows. And quickly Gearing’s golden brassy body is left fully exposed as he stares at her with his mouth hanging slightly ajar. Gearing’s ears start whistling as he asks, “E-every… Every inch…?”

She tilts her head as she grins at him. “Mmmhmmm… I’m going to cash in a good amount of my credits tonight, after you’ve finished with what you are doing today… that is… If you’re feeling up to it…”

Gearing's ears whistle a bit louder, but then he smiles as his ears flop down. “Yeah… that sounds like a wonderful way to spend the evening, Sable.”

Sable gives him a quick kiss on the nose and then sets him back down again. “I am glad my darling Gearing thinks so as well. I shall look forward to it and prepare accordingly.”

He grins at her as he stares at her and thinks about it. But then he arcs an eyebrow before he asks, “‘Prepare accordingly’? What do you need to ‘prepare’?”

Sable reaches out with a hoof and boops him on the nose. “That, my silly little stallion, is my secret.”

‘I kinda like the accent,’ the golden pegasus in Gearing’s head comments.

‘Kinda alluring, isn’t it?’ the little blue pegasus next to him replies.

Gearing shivers from his nose to the tip of his tail as she ever so gently touches the end of his nose. He can’t comprehend it. The slightest touch from her having such an impact on him. The way his very body is reacting to her like it has some sort of muscle memory from years of training. And it’s confusing to him on so many levels. Even more so as, before she can even get her hoof far away from him, he catches it with his own, then proceeds to plant a kiss on the edge of her hoof as he looks her in the eye. But it just felt so right to do. “I’ll look forward to it.”

They get up and head out and up to the medical bay. Along the way they are strolling side by side, giving each other gentle bumps and tender caresses with either wing or cable. And after making it into the medical bay, Sable helps Gearing into the auto doc pod and stands at the side of it, looking in as the machine goes about the task of looking over Gearing. The two stay quiet the entire time, and no one interrupts them, as the auto doc continues working.

And working.

And working.

And, despite the intention of this being a quick trip in the pod and then out, it takes a bit longer than either of them expect.

And as Sable is helping Gearing climb back out of the system, after everything is said and done, he actually points out the fact himself. “I wonder if the thing needs some work itself. That seemed to take longer than it should have otherwise.”

After she gets him out, and onto his hooves, she stares at him for a few moments before asking. “How are you, my love?”

Gearing starts stretching, and, as he starts moving around, he can’t help smiling as his movements do in fact seem to be a bit faster. And some things aren’t as grindy as they had been. In short, he does feel even better. Even though he didn’t realize he was having some discomfort in a few places. Now that it’s gone, he really notices it. “Better. Somehow. Good even.”

She reaches up, and gently touches his left ear. Giving the barely noticeable waving aspect of it a gentle caress before trailing her hoof down to his cheek. She keeps caressing his cheek for a few moments before she says, flatly, “When you get back, whether you have any combat action or not, I want you to get back in the medical bay pod.”

Gearing tilts his head as he asks, “Why?”

Sable steps to the side, opens up a compartment, and slides out the portion where the auto doc puts foreign objects it’s removed from the body. It’s inside of a clear container, a type of transparent metal with a gasket at the top, so the contents may be dumped hygienically into an incinerator or whatever the waste needs to go into.

Gearing’s eyes slowly go wider by the second as he looks inside what Sable is holding in front of herself with her cables.

He stoops down and starts eyeballing the contents as he asks, “… When was the last time this was changed?”

Sable comments flatly, “It was changed after Handy had his turn through the system. Which he was the last one to use the system before you… My love, this is all from you… And from this round of treatment.”

Inside of the container is a variety of fragments that Gearing can’t quite identify. There are many shiny bits of metals. Thin fragments of copper. Warped pieces of either lead, bits of steel, or iron in the mix as well. There are also many bits of what can only be bone fragments. But, and what’s most worrying for both Sable and Gearing, is the amount of pieces of brass pieces inside of it. There are fragments. But then, there are entire cogs, pins, and small fragments that have been taken out, somehow, and put into the container. But, Gearing can tell, the pieces weren’t from his anatomy. Not currently. They had all gone inert. Somehow, there were this many pieces, somewhere within his body, that had become so damaged that they had gone inert and had, through some combination of bad luck or timing, gotten stuck inside of him instead of being cast off like most other pieces. And, a good portion of them are from a region around his head, almost to be expected, but others still are obviously from somewhere in his torso.

And all of them look sickly. Malformed. With pits and slight warps to them such that they don’t really look like they should have ever been attached to him, but they had to of been for them to be inside the auto doc’s discharging container.

As Gearing is still staring at it, Sable shakes the container lightly, making it jingle a bit, “What would you like to do with all of this discharge, my love?”

Gearing keeps staring at it then comments, “Store it in a jar, would you? I know this is going to sound weird, But I’d like to look through this later. See what’s going on with all of it.” He points at the bottom as he smirks. “I see sand in there too. And I figured some of that crap had gotten deep enough in me to cause a problem, but that’s ridiculous…”

Sable dutifully uses her cables and snoops through a few cabinets nearby, looking for a container to pour it in. And Cure, already seeing what had been going on, quickly zips over, opens a cabinet in an entirely different area, then comes over as she is opening up the lid. “Here is a suitable container to carry the waste materials from the automatic doctor.”

Sable quickly pours the contents into it, even tapping the back to get more of it out. And as she is shaking and tapping and shaking it even harder to try and get the rest of the tinier particles out, Gearing laughs and waves at her.

“Sable, I don't need all of it. That should be enough.”

Sable looks at him. Then smiles. And as she is blindly putting the lid on it that Cure had given her, she summarily gives Cure the container from the auto doc so it can be sanitized, cleaned, and replaced back into the machine for the next individual to use.

Though while bets would assume Gearing would be the next one, with so many foals running around, that sort of thing wouldn’t be sure money.

Afterwards, Gearing leads the way out and back to the R&D department as Sable carries the quarantine container with one of her cables. And, the whole way, the two walk side by side. Gently rubbing up against each other, with Gearing’s wing slowly creeping over and, eventually, grabbing Sable sideways and pulling her into himself by the time they reach the halfway mark. And, Sable, having been getting more and more encouraged with such actions has no problem with reciprocating by giving his shoulders, back, and sides gentle squeezes with her cables. By the time they get to the entrance to the R&D container, Sable has coiled up her restraining cables around his legs, and is massaging them along their full length, but in such a way that it doesn't impede his movements.

And, after they are stepping into the decontamination chamber, Gearing looks at her sideways as he asks, “So, have you changed your mind on letting me out of your sight? Or are we actually going to manage to get out of this room without me pinning you to the wall and making Nettlekiss jealous?”

Sable giggles as she gives his entire body a gentle squeeze with her cables. “My love, as much as that would be positively amazing… We need to be sensible. Our friends need your help. And, as loath as I am to admit it, you are the best pony for the job for tracking down and bringing bad ponies to justice. So, I won’t stop you from going. But, I will make sure you know what you are missing. And, I’ll make sure you positively know that I’m going to enjoy every second of us being together until you actually do have to leave.”

Gearing looks at her sideways and raises an eyebrow. Something seemed a bit off to him as she’d commented on what she wants from him. But he can’t quite put a pinion on it.

The little blue pegasus in his head flies around as he looks at Sable and asks, ‘Did our ears get changed a bit, or did her voice change? It seems… different… not bad… just… different…’

The little gold pegasus sits with his hindhooves dangling lazily off of the edge of a cloud in the mind space as they gently swing back and forth. ‘I don’t know, but it sounds sweet to me.’

Kinda… sweeter… for sure, Gearing mentally agrees as he looks at her.

Gearing starts stepping through the door as it opens into the R&D section and starts heading over to where he’d stashed his equipment. “Well if you’re going to be so reasonable, then I’m going to have to insist on you taking advantage tonight of that I.O.U. check I wrote you…”

Sable giggles and gives his flank a light slap, leading to a blatant groping of his rear, with a cable. “Well now! How is a mare to refuse such a generous offer?”

Gearing chuckles as he’s pulling out a few items from his personal weapons locker. “Okay, so, now I need to get my gear and head out.”

Sable walks over, sees him pulling out the various items, and then asks, “My darling, Gearing… where is your armor?”

Gearing hangs his head a bit before he looks at her sideways. “The vast majority of it had been trashed. The one set I had Patches help me make, is still at her place because it took so much damage clearing out those raiders in the police building. The improvised suit I made for information gathering isn’t really useful for much else. And, well, the suit I went up there with got converted to the suit that Patches helped me with, what was left of it anyway, but you’re already aware of that…”

Gearing sets out a couple weapons and as he’s setting out various ammo for them, Sable leans over, and looks him in the face. Her eyes quickly narrow at him. “Why are you not withdrawing any armor?”

Gearing frowns as he says, “I don’t have any other sets really ready for now. I’ll have to work on converting one of the other sets into something that’ll work for me. But don’t have time for that at the moment.”

Sable stares at him for a few moments, then narrows her eyes further. “Do you mean to tell me you plan on purposely entering into a hostile zone, with full intention of engaging in combat, but with no armor, what so ever?”

The little blue pegasus recoils as he says, ‘Wow is she spitting ice, now, or something?! Bbrrrrrr!’

Gearing looks at her sideways, and actually recoils a bit himself as she stares at him like a hostile turret. “I- I mean… yeah… but-”

Sable shakes her head and spins around. “No. This is not acceptable. Armor is made to be replaceable. You have been far too injured far too much lately, even with armor. You are not allowed to go seeking combat without at least some protection.” She trots over to one of their storage crates, and starts rapidly removing a variety of items. In quick succession, she’s laid out, in a perfect grid, a set of combat armor that had been taken from the Gunners. One of several sets they had managed to acquire, but one that had not been modified for him at all.

Gearing looks at it and frowns as he says, “Sable… that’s not going to work very well… my gears are going to rub on it, it’s going to be uncomfortable, and I’ll just end up damaging it just by walking around…”

Sable holds up a few pieces as she scowls at him. “Well then, you can just fix it when you get back… Or use pieces of this one to modify another one that can be set to fit you more appropriately. You’ve explained your mission to me. This should be sufficient enough to complete that mission. And, if you think you are going to be gone for more than the afternoon, you really should postpone the trip until after you’ve made appropriate repairs to your armor supply.”

Gearing looks at it as he bobs his head around. “You know… you’re right… If I just use this as a temp set, and just long enough to take care of those assholes in that warehouse, that should be good enough.” He looks at her and frowns as he says, “It’s still going to chafe though…”

She smiles and tilts her head rather cutely as she asks, “But, that will give me an excuse to massage your soreness, would it not? And, you are going to be entering the auto doc for treatment once you return, so even if there are any real injuries from it, it’ll be taken care of by the healing abilities of the auto doc, correct?”

Mentally a record screeches as all three Gearing’s stare at Sable wide eyed.

‘Did she just-?’ the golden pegasus asks.

‘-Offer to kiss our soreness away?’ the little blue pegasus finishes.

Uh huh, Gearing mentally nods.

Gearing stares at her for a moment before he reaches for one of the larger pieces of armor. “You had me at ‘massaging your ouchies’, Sable… gimmie that.”

She giggles and keeps it away from him with a cable, swatting his hoof away with another one as she stares at him. He looks at her with a raised eyebrow, but then smiles as she walks over and starts prepping the armor herself. He stands up straight, and lifts his wings, so she can put the pieces of armor on him. And, just like she had done previously, she performs one of her favorite rituals by planting kisses along him, before covering up such affections with a piece of armor. After a bit longer than necessary, where she’s readjusted pieces, and planted extra kisses along his neck, she finally relents and steps back as she starts looking him over. She tilts to the side as she asks, “My darling, I don’t know what kind of enchantment you have on your soul, but whatever you’re wearing always makes your flank look so cute…”

Gearing tilts his head towards her as he grins. “You should see me wear a bodysuit…”

Sable’s eyes start growing wider before she asks, “Do you still have that one?”

He grins at her and nods over towards a chest. “Yeah. I put it away already. I need to fix a few holes in it along the legs, but, beyond that, it should be good enough to give you a little…” He shakes his rear at her. “Fashion show… of sorts…”

Sable’s eyes open to their max, with her robotic eyes seemingly nearly jumping out, and her grin gets wide, but then she starts prancing in place as she half stamps her hooves in frustration. “Geeaarrriiinnnggg! You’re teasing too much! You shouldn’t wave your glorious flank at me like that and then just leave!”

Gearing shakes it again as he grins at her. “What are you talking about… I haven’t left yet…”

She darts her eyes back and forth between his rear, and his eyes, before she springs forward, grabs his cheeks with her forehooves, and plants a deep kiss on him. And, of course, given the blatant permission via endless teasing, she extends a few cables to explore his back side with her retaining cables and finding the experience nice but not entirely satisfying as the armor plating around his haunches prevents her from getting a real grip on her Gearing’s real rear.

Gearing shimmies a bit back, into her blatant groping of him, and can’t help but giggle, even mid kiss, as she lets out a few huffs of frustration. But, after a bit, She actually picks him up, spins him around, plants a kiss on his flank, and directs him towards the door to the R&D section.

She points at the door with a hoof as she says, “If we do not hurry and begin your trip, I’m in danger of ripping your clothes off and not letting you leave until I’m overloading my capacitors!”

Gearing chuckles and starts pointing to the side, but can’t help but smile as her cables rapidly bring over the various equipment he had already set out to take. As she’s setting his new shotgun into the holster he’d whipped up for it, he nods his head and asks, “Think you can last until tonight?”

Sable stares at him in the eye then leans in and plants a very sweet, tender, and light kiss on his cheek. As she’s still hovering there, with her lips so close that they brush against his cheek as she talks, she replies, “My love, I’ve been waiting this long for us to have time together. I can certainly wait a few more hours. I know you are close. I know you will return to me. And, above all… I know you truly love me. And there’s nothing more in the world I can think of that I’d enjoy even more than knowing that fact.”

Gearing turns to face her, then suddenly strikes like a cobra. He grabs her head with one forehoof, twists his head a bit unnaturally, and begins a deep kiss attack on her as he leans into her. He gently caresses one of her cheeks with his wingtips as he does, and she is so shocked about this sudden development that she does nothing. Because she doesn't want it to stop. But at the same time she has a worry that if she tries to escalate it any, he’d prematurely end it.

So, when he finally starts pulling back, she simply puts a hoof to her mouth and beams a smile at him before she says, “Thank you, my darling Gearing…”

Gearing slides his hoof from around the back of her head, to caress her cheek before he says, “Yes. I’m yours. And I’ll do what I can to make sure you never have to question that fact again. I’m sorry if I’ve ever done anything to make you wonder in even the least. Sable, you’re a kind of special that I can’t even define.” He leans in closer as he smirks, “Let me put it this way… if you were out and about when I was working for the government… They’d have a real concern on their hooves because at anytime I would pick you over them… Without a single regret.”

Sable trots happily in place for a few moments before leaning in and nuzzling his neck. “I love my darling Gearing!” She brings a foreleg up, around his neck, and pulls him in a bit abrasively before she says into his ear, “My love. I’m sorry. But you really need to go. I won’t be able to control myself for much longer if you keep this teasing up. A mare can only handle so much, you know?”

He gently pulls away from her, then kisses her on the nose, before turning and heading toward the R&D door. And, before the door is even open all the way, Sable has caught up, and caught him. She wraps him up with her cables and continues rubbing him in various locations as they go back towards the front of the stable. But, as they are going through the main area, Sable lessens her overt groping of him. But, even so, she keeps at least a pair of her cables along his shoulders as she keeps giving his shoulders squeezing massages the entire time.

By the time they are entering the foyer for the large door that leads out of the stable, Handy and Swift have already gotten there. This time, however, no one is around the door trying to sneak out. Apparently all of them have sufficiently been corralled elsewhere. So it’s just Handy sitting around on the crates that have been set up as a defensive position just inside the giant cog shaped door that leads into 68, while Swift and Scarlet are standing near the door to the rest of the stable that Gearing and Sable are approaching.

“But, dragons?” Swift asks as she rubs her chin.

“I know it sounds weird, but, yeah…” Scarlet says with a sigh as she looks at Swift.

Swift’s eyes dart to the side, seeing Gearing and Sable approaching towards them down the hall, and then gives a quick nod to Scarlet. “Yeah, sure. I’ll help. Gearing’s here, so we’ll talk about it more later when we get back.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Scarlet looks behind her, sees the pair coming, and then lets out a sigh as she nods. “Okay. Well, thanks. Good luck out there.” And then she turns, making a wide arc, and scurries past Sable and Gearing as they are entering the stable’s main door’s entryway.

The pair barely pay Scarlet any mind as she’s passing them, as that seems to be what she’d prefer at the moment, and continue towards where Handy is seated.

Both Swift and Handy look spectacularly better than they had looked before. Both of them are not only clean, both armor and clothes, they both have apparently changed their clothes. Gearing can tell, even under Handy’s armor, that he’s apparently wearing a new stable maintenance jumpsuit. As several of the holes that had developed while they were up in the Hoofington region are not only gone, but there’s no sign of any kind of patchwork that would need to have been done to cover up such holes. Although Gearing can’t help but notice the fact that Handy’s armor has had some quick patch jobs applied to it, but that it should be good enough for what it was. And as he’s looking him over, Gearing can’t help wondering if it was simply because Handy was in a hurry, or if he really didn’t know how to do a better job of it. Which starts making Gearing think about showing him how to do a better job of maintaining his own armor for the future. Because now that Handy’s not being such an ass to him anymore, and has started giving him the same courtesy and respect he’d give any other creature, Gearing doesn't have nearly as many scruples with actually being nice to him in return.

And, as for Swift, her wrappings and clothes have also been changed out. They had gotten pretty worn out from all of the action up north, and that was before they had even reached Megamart for the first time. Let alone all of the action and excitement since then.

And as Gearing is walking in, both of them look fresh, refreshed, rested, and ready to get on with the day. And the grin Swift gives them when she catches sight of Gearing and Sable lets Gearing know that she’s definitely ready to go.

“Hey, Swift, how’s the wing? You guys going to be okay to go? How’d it go with the auto doc?”

Swift’s excited face suddenly starts drooping as she groans. “It went, what else can I say?”

Handy chuckles then looks over and smiles at Gearing. “That machine pulled out more metal out of her than you’d think. I had a bunch of bits of metal and glass in me too. I thought I’d gotten it all out, but apparently not. But at least now my shoulder doesn’t keep hurting me, and I know why.”

Gearing nods as he walks over to them. “Well, the problem with healing potions is that they just increase your natural healing rate. They don’t get rid of anything. So, all of that crap got trapped in your body…” He waves a hoof as he says, “That’s why I suggested the trip through the auto doc. It’s actually programmed to find that kind of crap and remove it. Any foreign body, really.” He perks up as he raises a hoof. “Relatedly! If you happen to have one of those anti pregnancy copper implants? You need to change the settings on it so it knows to not remove that too. Because that’s not a natural part of your body and the system will just read it as another foreign object and remove it while pulling everything else out.”

Handy’s eyes go wide before he asks, “You’re kidding?!”

Gearing shakes his head.

Swift laughs. “And how’d you know about that? That’s more than just a bit of funny tech trivia.”

Gearing shrugs as he says. “Actually, it was a bit of a problem in certain areas. Some of the mares coming back from the front line getting taken care of. In extreme cases, when doctors weren’t available, or it wasn’t quite that bad and instead they were just thrown into an auto doc. But, they aren’t calibrated for pregnancy prevention implants. Not by default. So as the mare’s were getting treatment for battlefield injuries, the machine would see it, and be like ‘oh no, you’ve been shot in your abdomen!’ and remove that too. I mean, most of those mechanical-chemical implants were copper. And some rounds have a copper coating to them. So, even from a programming standpoint, it was doing what it was supposed to.”

Handy raises an eyebrow before he asks, “And how’d they figure out the screw up?”

Gearing smirks at him as he says, “After an epidemic of pregnancies struck a few units… there’s rules against fraternization, of course, but it’s mostly a ‘hey, don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t get caught’ kind of thing. So a good portion of mares would get the implants just to avoid any unwanted accidents… to be fair, a few even got them in case of any instances of rape… lesbians included… anyway… it was kinda hard to deny that anything had gone on when a group of mares all at the same time showed up pregnant. It was really a ‘Something in the water’ kind of conversation… And they were all very much surprised about what had happened. It didn’t take long, especially after checking the logs, to figure out what happened…” Gearing shrugs. “After that initial wave of unexpected pregnancies they made a point of starting to set them up correctly and had procedures in place to prevent it from happening again. It caused a whole ordeal.”

Swift smirks as she asks, “Why, because suddenly a lot of soldiers had to go on maternity leave?”

“Worse,” Gearing replies. “Because now there was a small living diaper wearing undeniable proof of violations of code of conduct. A lot of soldiers got in a lot of shit. Both sides of the sirings at that. If I recall correctly, a few officers even lost their commissions when it came out that they’d been having affairs with a couple enlisted.”

Swift’s eyes go wide as she says, “Oh… yeah… that’s a whole ordeal alright.”

Gearing nods and looks between them. “Anyway… your wing’s good again? Really?”

Swift flutters up in the air and starts flying back and forth really quickly, then making figure eights in the air that get tighter and tighter as she giggles. After her bit of acrobatics she stops and looks at Gearing. “As good as new!” She slowly lowers back to the plating of the foyer as she asks, “How about you? Ready to go?”

Gearing taps on his chest plate, on his helmet, and then shakes his shotgun. “Yup. I’m armored, locked, and loaded. Whenever we find those fuckers, I’m going to blast them, ask questions of the survivors, and then, maybe, blast them a few more times.”

Handy smirks as he’s getting up. “They piss you off that much?”

Gearing narrows his eyes as he looks at him. “Well, they shot your wife, aren’t you mad too?”

Handy grabs his sledgehammer, and swings it around, before setting it so the handle is on the ground and the pneumatic head is upright. He grins as he rests his chin on the top of the mallet head. The mallet has obviously had a lot of maintenance. A few parts seem to have even been replaced. And the entire thing has been cleaned up such that it looks like it’s been entirely rebuilt. “You could say that… You could also say that I’m looking forward to repaying the fuckers by playing croquet with their empty ass heads.”

Swift flutters around as she asks, “Well, are we going to just stand around here talking shit, or are you going to actually go and take out the shit?”

Gearing looks at her as he grins. “I mean, we can do both… And, if we really want to make them suffer, we can always have Handy crop dust them. That seemed to be a fate worse than death for that radhog…”

Handy quickly lowers his head as he groans. “That poor poor piggy… I’m so sorry…”

Gearing trots over, starts the process to open the stable door, and quickly shakes his head. “Look, if we find a device that lets us talk ‘mutated ugly hog’, we’ll go find it and tell it we’re sorry for having you puke on it. But, for now, let’s go rake the muck out of that warehouse.”

Swift giggles in mid air and holds her stomach as she sees Handy looking visibly ill at the thought of it.

Handy shakes his head, grabs his hammer, and puts it over his armored back as he starts walking across the gangplank that leads to the door before it’s even really started opening. His desire to escape the conversation being palpable for all around.

Sable steps over quickly, and nuzzles up to Gearing as they watch the door to the stable open. And, true to form, Gearing uses his wing and holds her to him sideways as they watch the sequence complete. And they stay in that gentle side embrace until the door has entirely opened, even after Swift had flown out and Handy had quickly trotted after her.

Gearing gently pulls away, and heads out of the door, but feels Sable still with him. Literally. As she has her cables over him and he can both feel and hear her walking along behind him as they head for the door. But, at the entrance, where the giant cog actually separates the pony made cave beyond, and the interior of the sable on her side, Sable stops him and gives him a gentle tug to get him to turn.

Gearing turns and before he gets far, she grabs his cheek and gives him a soft tender kiss. But, despite what may be thought, she simply leaves it at that. She pulls away and starts backing into the stable as she says, “Stay safe out there, my love. And, if you need assistance… you know how to get a hold of me.”

Gearing smiles and nods. Then he turns and trots away. And, as he’s climbing the ramp up and out through the hidden door to the station. Sable stays watching as long as she can. And then, and only then, after Gearing has exited out of sight entirely, does she turn and start closing the door for the stable. And she stays standing there, watching the door close, until the process has completed, including the above lights going out and the alert sounds ending. After that is finalized, she turns and heads off towards the Research and Development area so she can continue with a task that she had been interrupted with previously. She loves her darling Gearing, but this task is important for the mare to do herself. And she can’t help but get giddy at the thought of one day revealing the final results to her chosen stallion.

In the building above, Gearing closes the trap door leading down to the stable, and then starts walking through the service station. It actually takes him a few moments to get outside and find Handy standing under the awning where wagons used to stop to receive service, or stop to walk inside to buy something. And he notices Swift already flying around a bit off in the distance, as she apparently went out, took off at speed, and then gained altitude to scout out the area for them while she waited.

Gearing walks up next to Handy and asks, “What’s up? I figured you’d already be starting to head off?”

Handy looks up from the wreck of an electric sign that’s laying on the ground and stares at him for a moment. “You know, I was thinking.”

“Dangerous habit,” Gearing replies with a smirk as he looks at him. A smirk that just gets even wider as Handy stares at him and narrows his eyes at him. After chuckling a bit he asks, “About what?”

Handy waves around at the service station as a whole as he says, “You know, what we were talking about earlier. About starting up a shop?”

Gearing nods as he looks around. “Yeah, about that… We still need to come up with a good name for that…”

Handy nods emphatically before he says, “True! But, I was thinking, you know, we already have the station here. Couldn’t we, like, fix it up, and just open the store here? It’s already in pretty good shape, we wouldn't even have to really do much to it.”

Gearing tilts his head, then starts giving it a discerning eye. “You know… you’re not wrong… but…”

Handy lets out a sigh as he says, “But it’s too close to the stable, would be a target by itself, and isn’t close enough to any real settlements, so we’d have to worry about security all the time… right?”

Gearing smirks as he asks, “Damn, just fired that off that quickly… Why’d you even need to ask me?”

Handy bobs his head around as he says, “Well, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t the only one thinking it. It would be nice, but it’d also be a problem keeping it safe.”

Gearing nods as he looks around. “Yeah… well… shit…” He looks around a bit more before he says, “We could set up a shop in Megamac, you know? Maybe start off with making some deals with some of Bottlecap’s caravanners. I know Roadie comes down this way. He might be interested in it. Selling on commission… maybe… Or maybe he’d just want to trade or buy stuff…”

Handy nods and comments, “It’d be a way for us to bring new stuff into the stable… I mean, we have enough food production, for now, and water’s not an issue… But… There’s more to life than bare minimum life necessities… We’re already surviving, I want my children to thrive.”

Gearing nods as he leans against the pillar for the awning above them. “Yeah, I know what you mean… Well, we could look into-”

Swift zips down, flies right between them, and stops on the other side of the pair with a gush of wind. She starts hopping around as she asks, “Oh my god! Are you two back at that shop crap!?” She hops around with her feathers fluffing out in irritation. “I thought we were going to go out and kick ass and take out the garbage?!”

Gearing slowly looks over at her, then looks sideways at Handy.

Handy, already seeing the glint in Gearing’s eye, snickers before waving towards Swift, silently allowing him to take the lead.

Gearing waves it away dismissively. “Yes, we’re going… And we’re going to take those fuckers down. But, after they get made into pony jam, what do you think we are going to do with all of their stuff? Armor, weapons, and the like?”

“And don’t forget whatever they might have stashed… radios included… I heard ponies are paying good money for functioning radios these days…” Handy adds with a grins as he looks at Gearing, but then gives his wife a playful side eye.

Swift’s wings dip down a bit before she mutters, “You bastards are going to make me sell your shit, aren’t you?”

Gearing and Handy look at each other, then they start roaring with laughter as Swift starts stomping and screaming about becoming their salesmare.

Gearing waves it off before he says, “Don’t worry. I plan on actually bringing the stuff back here before we even think about selling it. There’s a lot to get organized. And a lot that’ll need to be repaired too, I’m sure.”

Swift looks at him and snaps, “Just where the hell you plan on storing it all?! You keep this up, and the R and D is going to be flooded with crap and you won’t have room to walk!”

Gearing grins at Swift. Then polishes his hoof, unnecessarily, on his other foreleg cannon as he looks at her. Then he gives her a smug grin as he says, “You know… the lower levels? We’ve already cleared them out. And, after all of that, and moving things around… well… there’s not really much down there anymore. Except. There's a lot of empty space. Space perfect for me to set up racks and racks and racks and racks of all kinds of salvage. And, actually, with my inventory control system, I could just start making crates. Or, hey, even start salvaging them too, and then just store them so tightly you can’t fit a razor blade between them. And I can just keep on storing things that way, and only fish them out when we actually need them. My inventory control lets me know exactly what I have and where. So that’ll make it easy… and… Also, you know, we’re in a stable designed for about three thousand individuals to live in at maximum. Without the need for expansion… So I could, for instance, take over entire wings of residential sectors and just use those for storage.”

Handy nods along and then comments reasonably, “Actually, if we set it up correctly, you could simply have entire rooms dedicated to individual products. Like having radios in one room.”

“TVs and monitors in another room,” Gearing adds.

“Salvaged components like capacitors and tubes in another room,” Handy continues.

“A room full of armor sets,” Gearing chimes in.

“Hey, have one room for each type of armor… one for light, one for heavy…”

“Good idea! And we can have one dedicated to things like scrap metal!” Gearing says excitedly.

“Don’t forget furniture!” Handy replies.

“Why stop there? Jukeboxes in another room. A whole room just full of jukeboxes waiting to be set up and used!”

Handy grins and nods as he says, “Oh yeah, a whole room of jukeboxes! Hell, hearing about that -I- want a room full of jukeboxes! With enough of them, you could practically have all of the songs ever made just ready and waiting for you to hit play on them!”

Swift’s mane starts frizzing out as her head whips back and forth, watching as the two go on and on and it just never seems to stop. She can’t understand how they could be completely and unabashedly acting like fan fillies, but instead of some famous individual, they’re talking about junk and hoarding things beyond what even a dragon would think was reasonable.

Eventually she hops up into the air, holds her head with her forehooves, and screams in dismay, “Stooooop! Please! Celestia! Make it stop!”

Handy and Gearing look at each other, then start laughing before they turn and start walking away. After they’ve gotten a good distance away, and Swift’s still screaming and having waking nightmare delusions about being chained to a counter and selling a never ending pile of crap, both Handy and Gearing scream back at her, “You coming or you going to stay behind while we go on?”

Swift drops her hooves, sees them hurriedly getting away from her, and screams after them, “Like I’d leave you two boys alone! If I don’t come along you’d probably try to bring back the whole damn warehouse with you!” Then she starts flying after them at top speed.

Gearing laughs as she’s passing them, and then starts circling around them like she’s trying to corral them. “The warehouse? Naaah… we have plenty of storage… But, you know, that office building or whatever that taller one is? Yeah, that’s a possibility… Not only is it added storage, but it’s tall enough that we can see for a distance!”

Handy looks at him as he grins. “Hey, how about we set up shop there instead?!”

Gearing looks at him and nods. “That’s a brilliant idea! Let’s check it out after we mop the floor with the assholes, and I’ll see what we need to do to keep the place from falling down with us in it.”

Handy laughs and shakes his head. “Yeah, you’ve already had one building fall on your head, let’s not try that again.”

Swift flutters above them, with her face looking back and forth between them. Her eyes go wider by the second and she eventually holds her cheeks with her forehooves as she says, “What the hell is going on… This can’t be real. This is a nightmare. This is a real fucking nightmare!” She starts tapping her cheeks repeatedly. “That’s it. I must still be asleep. Like. Passed out in the auto doc or something…”

The two look at each other and nod a few times, before turning so they are both looking inside towards her, with Handy on the right, looking back at her over his left shoulder, and Gearing on the left, looking over his right shoulder. Then, as they look back at her, they both give the same kind of crooked grin before they ask, in unison, ““What are you talking about, Swift?””

Swift sees this, and her forehooves drop down limply. She stares at their grinning faces, with her eyes zipping back and forth between the two faster and faster. Her own muzzle starts smirking. But the grin that looks a bit manic keeps appearing and disappearing. But then she slaps both of her forehooves against her cheeks, screams, and starts flying away in a straight line in front of them as she screams in terror about being stuck in a living nightmare.

After she’s taken off, screaming into the distance, both Gearing and Handy start laughing. So much so that they have to slow down their walk as they are laughing so hard. But then Handy reaches out his forehoof towards Gearing and grins. “That’ll teach her for hiding my tools on me.”

Gearing bumps his forhoof against Handy’s as he grins. “Yeah... Really… That’s unforgivable… She does it again, just let me know, and we’ll figure out another way to drive her as crazy as she’s driving us.”

After a bit longer Gearing comments, “I’m not sure she’s coming back…”

Handy laughs some more before he says, “Well… she didn’t bother marking the area, so, if nothing else, she’ll have to come back and follow us in to figure out where the hell it is.”

Gearing snickers as he says, “Assuming she doesn’t just let her pride get in the way, and starts flying high and fast to look for it herself.”

They both start laughing again.

But then the laughter slows down.

Then it outright stops.

“You know my wife…” Handy says quietly.

“Fuck,” Gearing replies.

Without even looking at each other, they both start running with Gearing providing directions.

“We can’t let her get there first without us, she’ll just start trashing shit so we won’t want to bring it back with us!” Handy screams.

“For the jukeboxes!” Gearing yells with a laugh.

Footnote:

Analyzing Data, Please Stand By . . .

Matrix Quadrant ‘Personal’ Status: Ready.

‘BlueMac.Cred’ Sub Partitioned Successfully

‘BlueMac.Matrix’ Verified

Processing . . . Verifying Matrix Status

Author's Note

A few hints of new things to come here, some tomfoolery there, and a new quick trip is on the way...

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