Fallout Equestria: Clockwork Precision

102 Top-Down Approach

Of all of the ways that Gearing could have handled this situation, there’s a couple that would be very efficient. Sable had brought it up to him, and, in truth, he had thought about simply blowing the supports on the old roof and dropping the whole thing down onto all of them. Even if it didn’t kill them, it would certainly bury them alive. And without any kind of outside help they would die eventually. But, that’s not nearly as satisfying as what he wants. For a variety of reasons. One, needless suffering has always been a sour topic for him. And that’s exactly what would have happened if they’d been buried alive. It could be argued that they got what they deserved. Some would even cheer for it. But, not Gearing. That’s not his style.

And then there is the problem with how long it would take him to confirm the kills. He doesn’t know how many are involved with this group as it is, but having some able to hide from him, even in a hole that they don’t want to be in, isn’t something he wants to wait out to figure out if they’re going to kick the bucket or not.

Besides, he’s pretty sure that this organization has some leaders. After everything that’s happened, he’s sure now. This group has some level of organization. They had ponies salvaging items while not on active duty. They had ponies set up in ambush that had enough discipline that they didn’t give themselves away with talk or idle movement before they could unleash their trap. Granted, the pair that were in that shipping container died, but that wasn’t the game plan he’s sure. Most ponies would not have survived that kind of attack. Handy barely did, and only by a single hair on his tail at that. Swift would have certainly been killed if she had been with them when the trap was sprung. And the only reason Gearing wasn’t in the same shape as Handy is because he doesn’t bleed. A strange advantage of being cursed the way he is, but an advantage nonetheless.

So he wants the leaders. Badly.

Someone not only put them up to it, but had the ability to control them enough to do so. That is a rather rare trait. And with the leaders gone, along with the others they have set up in key positions, the rest should just devolve into a non-cohesive rabble. Far less dangerous. Far easier to manage. So just like he’d mentioned to Magnolia, he’s going to cut the head off this snake.

And as he’s getting into position for his planned attack run, he can’t help but actually smile at what he’d been told by Sable as he was leaving Stable 68.

‘The Light Bringer is alive.’

That was the bombshell that she had left him with when he was about to leave. She went on to explain that the little repair pony mare had somehow managed to survive her rescue operation. Not only had she survived it, but is apparently thriving now as she’s been rescuing ponies this whole time, fighting the good fight, and even recently was seen saving ponies in the Manehatten area. She’d learned all of this by keeping tabs on the radio frequency for DJ Pon3, and had been excited to tell Gearing about it when he got back from Hoofington. But things had been happening so fast she couldn’t find a good segue into it. But, with him leaving, and with everything that had happened, she’d thought it would be a good idea to give him some good news. That he’d appreciate it. And might even draw some strength from it.

And she was right, on all counts.

After hearing about that little victory for the good guys, Gearing is practically pumped. Security is still doing good and avoiding capture despite the massive bounty on her head and half of Hoofington seemingly after it for the same reason. And now the stable dwelling ‘Light Bringer’ is back in action too, after returning from a fight where she was thought already lost. He’s hoping that with such individuals, it’ll help others to rise up and be better versions of themselves. To help improve the wastes of Equestria instead of simply surviving.

For him, it’s a strange feeling. Like something out of one of his comic books or games. Because back during the war, he’d always felt at odds with the propaganda. About the whole ‘us versus them’ nonsense that the Ministry of Image kept spouting off. He knew different. He’d seen first hoof how things really were. On both sides of the line. It wasn’t so black-and-white clear-cut as they tried to make it out to be. Simply saying who the ‘bad guys’ were was more of a case of which side you were on than it was anything else. He already knew that they were simply creatures. On both sides. As a whole they weren’t evil, they were fighting for their own causes. That’s it. And he’d always hoped that reason would win the day and they would declare peace. But something happened while he was knocked out to prevent that. So it never came to pass.

But now, here, in the wasteland, there’s far less morally questionable folks to be disposed of. The lines are far clearer. There are some universally accepted rules of society, regardless of your nationality. And to go against them willingly, and gleefully, is not only frowned upon, but actively despised. And those that do go that route are firmly in the category of ‘vile creature that needs to be removed’. And thus, unquestionably the ‘bad guys’. In a more perfect world he’d be able to remove them to some high security holding facility where they could remain until they were rehabilitated or generally dealt with appropriately. But, there’s no justice system for him to hand them over to now. There’s no prisons for him to toss them into. In fact, the last prison he saw looked like it was actively burning with a balefire missile lodged into its side.

So, with limited options for dealing with them otherwise, a fight that needs to be carried on, and an ear full of good news that he’s not alone in this endeavor, Gearing heads to eliminate one nest of bad apples from Equestria’s lands. Permanently.

Gearing had decided on a different avenue of approach this time, as he flew high in the air and stuck to his primary advantage: flight. And from so high that he’s sure no one at ground level would actually accurately spot him, he carefully positioned himself over the warehouse, and lets drop a few items. As he watches the small items disappear into the scenery below he can’t help but smile. “It was hard hitting that mare, because she was moving, but a stationary target like a building? Oh, that’s a piece of cake…” Then he flies a bit further over, and starts circling. He counts out a bit as he does the mental math on how fast and how far the items he’d dropped would have to fall until they reached where they needed to be, then he folds his wings, turns down, and dives right towards the tallest building in the immediate area. On his way down he sees a few flareups of bright white, and then multiple orange fireballs, as the small objects land in the hole where the ponies had set up their ambush and shot Swift the day before. And as Gearing is falling, he finally hears the noise of the explosions travel to him as he meets up with the shock wave's crest. And he smiles even more as he sees even more of that warehouse’s ceiling collapse and wonders if he managed to catch anyone in all of that.

The little blue pegasus in his head giggles as he sees the multiple explosions go off simultaneously. ‘Awww after they went to all that trouble to clean the place up! Bet they’re gonna be crying about that now!’

The little golden pegasus comments with a grin, ‘Bet they piiiisssssed.’

Gearing fans his wings, cuts his speed, and comes to a sudden stop before landing on the top of the roof of the building he’d been aiming for: the eight story tall office tower. And he can’t help but grinning even wider as he can hear the tell tale sounds of various machine guns firing in the distance. And having confirmed the distraction has taken hold, he walks over to the back side of the tall building, opposite the giant warehouse and manufacturing area combination, and looks over the side carefully. To his surprise he looks down, and sees a barrel sticking out of the window a story down. The window had already been broken. But there is obviously a pony with a long rifle looking out into the wastes like they are expecting an attack to come from this angle and they aren’t falling for the multiple explosions on the other side.

Gearing scowls as he comments, “Some of these assholes have more than a couple brain cells… That’s a dangerous trait indeed.”

The little blue pegasus rolls his eyes and looks away with his snoot high in the air. ‘Amateur. Only a complete idiot sticks their gun out of the building...’

He can see how the rifle is going slowly back and forth. How it’s stopping at certain spots, and then moving around randomly. And, it’s not hard to mentally picture where the pony is looking based on the angle and movements. They’re looking closely at a ridge in the distance. And at all of the rubble on that side of the complex. And, as Gearing is looking around, he realizes that they hadn’t managed to be as sneaky as they had hoped when they came to attack this morning. From here, as he had been afraid of, they had spotted them approaching. So there were probably a few ponies set up in ambush throughout the compound. He’s still not sure what was up with that group of six they removed, but that’s a mystery he’s willing to solve after everything has been done and accounted for.

And, right now, he already knows what the next thing he needs to do is.

He grabs out a coiled up bit of wire from one of his bags, and holds it just like he’d been taught over two hundred years ago by some cowponies turned soldiers back during the war. He starts twirling it over his head, before he jumps over the side of the building and spins around. He drops down fast and hard enough that the pony with the sniper rifle didn’t even have time to register what was happening before it had been completely ripped away from him as Gearing grabbed it with his hind hooves as he was falling down. As Gearing came to an abrupt stop, using his wings to provide just enough lift, he whipped out his other hoof and let the coil soar out towards his target.

Gearing stops just long enough for the improvised lasso to circle around the buck’s neck, and greet him with a friendly, “Howdy, pardner,” before Gearing jumps back and up, yanking the pony right out of his sniper nest by his neck to dangle from the metal rope turned improvised noose. Gearing flies up a bit higher, then yanks the coil towards himself, roughly bringing the buck up even higher, another five feet, before he stops flapping his wings. After they are back at the level of the floor where he had pulled the sniper out from, he suddenly flaps his wings and goes back up at full speed.

The buck falls down, as gravity wants, before suddenly and violently getting jerked back upwards by his neck. He’d already been getting choked so hard that he wasn’t able to even scream. But the sudden change in forces causes a loud pop as the weight of his own body is multiplied by Gearing’s maneuver and his neck hyper extends to the point of snapping the buck’s life line. Gearing flies up to the roof and gently drops the buck’s still warm corpse onto the concrete top. He reclaims his coil from around their neck, completely ignoring the amount of fresh blood on it, as he keeps looking around. He stoops down, grabs the buck, and starts checking him. And the first thing he does, is open the buck’s eyes.

Gearing stares at the green irises of the buck, and gives them a discerning examination. And, frustratingly, he finds that not only are they clear, except for a few popped blood vessels from his recent treatment, and otherwise blood veinyness from stress or whatever else the buck has been through, there’s nothing else. There’s no yellowing. There's nothing to explain to Gearing on why this buck would be part of a group that’s indiscriminately killing ponies. Beyond greed and meanness. And it just makes Gearing more frustrated.

And angry. Very. Very. Angry.

Gearing checks the sniper rifle that he’s dropped on the roof before dropping the body, and decides he’ll be dealing with that later. But, after making it to the edge, he turns and looks at the rifle again as he gives it a second thought. He stares at it for a few moments before he shrugs. He walks back over, grabs the rifle, and checks its ammo. And, true to thought, it has a completely loaded magazine in it. He quickly checks the buck’s body, and finds not only a couple more completely full magazines, but a bandoleer over his chest that’s half loaded with more individual rounds as well. Gearing quickly stows them on himself, with the long rifle across his back, before he drops back down and hovers in front of the window.

He’d managed to take out that one lookout sniper. But that doesn't mean there aren’t more on this floor. And, he’s tired of playing mister nice buck. So he looks the area over where the sniper had been, and notices a radio sitting next to a stool that the buck had been using. He grabs it, and quickly clips the small radio onto his own harness, though he turns the volume on it down.

As he’s listening to the radio carefully, he hears a mare’s voice come across the radio.

A buck replies back over the radio.

The mare’s voice replies with an annoyed groan.

Another voice comes across the channel, talking over the others with a louder commanding voice.

The two chime back quickly <> and the radio goes silent again.

Gearing smiles as he looks at the radio. Even more as, even though he had the radio in his ear, he’s pretty sure he heard another buck’s voice. But not through the radio.

He starts walking through the building’s top floor, checking around each corner, and looking for the source of the noise. He gets to the right side of the building from the point he’d entered through, and starts looking through those offices. And, it’s not hard for him to track his quarry after a certain point.

Because this sweaty buck is hanging near an open window and there is a nice window tunnel effect bringing his scent straight to Gearing. Gearing comes right to the door in short order as, once he got so close, he was able to pinpoint the buck not only by his smell, but by the red marker on his EFS that let him judge the distance and direction pretty accurately. So as he’s stepping into the doorway, he looks around carefully at the various debris to make sure there’s not any noise making traps.

But apparently his hoofsteps alone are enough to draw the buck’s attention.

The unicorn buck scoffs, “What are you doing on my side, we’re supposed to be-” He stops when his eye is turned enough to see Gearing, which wasn’t much really, and then, in a move that actually mind boggles Gearing, the buck actually jumps straight ahead and out of the window away from Gearing. He spins around throwing his flank out the window as he twirls to bring his rifle around and aim it at Gearing. But, at the same time, his horn glows and his own body starts to get encompassed with his own levitation field.

The little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head puts a hoof to his chin as he asks, ‘Is he going to fly out there, or try and float himself down to ground level? Long way down for a non flier…’

‘Could simply shoot his horn then, and just wave goodbye as he falls,’ the golden pegasus offers.

But the question is moot as Gearing jumps forward after him. But, not only does he move forward suddenly, he stops mid air with his wings and uses his whole body to spin and fling his metallic rope out at the buck at the moment they’d moved. In the process, the sudden maneuvers and change in directions put extra power into the toss. And in a bit that’s actually humorous for Gearing, the buck actually turns around and puts his own neck into the lasso by his twirling spin maneuver. He would have jumped clear of it, and Gearing would have missed, but trying to get all fancy actually put himself in harm's way.

And Gearing thanks him by jumping in the air, and spinning again like a miniature tornado, yanking the buck towards him by his neck and pulling him, and his rifle, clear of his own levitation field from suddenly getting choked. As the buck is getting closer to Gearing he snaps his wings and goes after the buck as he pulls back with his other front hoof. “This is for Swift!” And he hits the buck in the side of the head with enough force that the buck actually gets sent flying back the direction he’d come. Gearing chokes up on the rope a bit more, making it shorter, and again yanks the unicorn towards him. “And this one is for Handy!” He hits the buck in the other side of the head with a hind leg kick, though the buck’s eyes are already looking dazed and out of focus. This kick not only makes him go flying back again, but knocks loose several teeth. And, up in the air, up near the ceiling, Gearing keeps playing yo-yo with the buck with one hoof strike or another as he yells at him. “And this is for making me waste my time with your ass instead of being in bed with my mare! And this is for fucking up my wings. And this is for making me late to teach the kids. And this for fucking up my equipment. And this one, fuck, I didn’t say it fast enough. Well this one is for something but you’re not dead yet so have another!” The buck’s body gets thrown back and forth as it’s getting yanked closer by the rope, and then pummeled with Gearing’s hooves. And then, after the buck’s head starts losing pieces of fur, Gearing finally grabs him and slams him into a wall made of concrete instead of the windows.

Gearing stares at the buck for a bit. Then he turns his head and looks back where the buck was getting yo-yo’d so violently. Then over at the stallion’s crumpled form again. After a few moments of silence he slowly walks over and starts pulling his rope back off of the buck. “Uhmm… you were already dead… weren’t you? That uh… that red bar’s still there…” He wipes his bloody hoof off on the buck and says, “Sorry about that… I thought that was you… I’ll go find out who that is and get rid of them… Glad no one else saw that, or they’d think it was excessive…”

The two pegasi in Gearing’s head look at each other sideways, and then start innocently whistling quietly as they look away in decidedly different directions.

Gearing grabs the couple of magazines for the rifle that had fallen onto the ground, as it had not only one loaded for use, but another additional four strapped to its butt stock. He even takes the extra round out of the chamber and walks out with them as he leaves the rifle behind. For now. He’s not interested in getting shot in the back today.

The next floor down, third from the top, doesn’t really seem to have much in the way of problems that are in need of correcting. But one thing Gearing has noticed were some things that seemed to confirm his hunch about their living situation. Because while this floor did have a broken window, as all of them had at least one broken window, the one that had the broken window was cordoned off from the rest of the building. Except, it seems, that the door wasn’t entirely sealed. And, Gearing realizes, that they probably propped the door open to the room with the broken window to aid with air flow on warmer days. But on days like today, with it not being too bad, the door is closed.

However, the floor has a large amount of individual office spaces. Similar to the above floors. And the center portion, again, has an open floor plan where many ponies would work in their own little cubes of hell back during the war. However, all of the offices have obviously been converted over to individual rooms. Like little apartments. All of the work desks had been removed. And in their places were either actual beds, cots, or, in a couple cases, simply mattresses on the floor. But, even so, they had their own rooms. And as he’s looking around the center area, he can see the desks and cubicles in the area have all been repurposed as communal areas and storage space. A few of them have even been converted into makeshift workbenches as he can see a variety of tools and bits for working on weapons or armor. One area even has had everything pushed out of the way and a bunch of seats set up where they can hang out. And, as a bit of civilization it seems, the little kitchenette not far away, where the office’s break room once had been, has been converted into a full blown kitchen. And, to Gearing’s surprise, this isn’t simply a matter of making due with what they have. They aren’t just burning desks in a bathtub to cook random animals. No. They have pots and hot plates. And, as he gets closer, he can’t believe what he’s seeing. A working refrigerator. And the power is coming from a generator nearby that has a spark battery plugged into it. He cracks the fridge open carefully, and looks inside, and, sure enough, there’s a variety of food in there. Even a few beers and sparkle colas.

And, the biggest shock of all, is the fact that several things have names on them. Crudely put on, but noticeable.

And, because he’s feeling a bit cheeky at the moment, he commits a bit of office place theft by stealing the Stable-tec lunchbox sitting on the top shelf. He opens it up, and notices that it does indeed seem to have food inside of it. It even has the accompanying small thermos that fits inside and keeps cold items cold and hot items hot for far longer than should be possible. So, Gearing takes the whole thing. And when he puts it into his inventory he can’t help but chuckle as his Pipbuck determines the best description for the item he put into his bag is ‘Somepony’s Lunch’.”

And he doesn’t have a single feeling of guilt about it as he turns and starts looking around for the other red chevrons on his EFS. After all, once he’s done getting rid of all of these red markers, he intends on taking all of these items too. So, whoever made this lunch, is never going to get to eat it.

Except maybe in Tartarus. Which is a long way away, so it’s a good thing they’ve already packed a lunch.

Gearing gets down to the next floor rather easily as the steps near the kitchen area are clean and clear of debris. He starts walking down slowly when he hears a mare’s voice over the radio he’s carrying again.

The commanding voice from earlier comes back over the radio.

Gearing smirks as he says quietly, “Oh~, I’m sure they haven’t seen anything since getting their souls snatched out of them… but… how long until you figure that bit out?”

The mare’s voice comes back over the radio before cutting off.

Gearing hears a grumble from the same floor before a mare practically snarls. “What’s taking them so long to find a couple half dead pegasi?”

The voice from earlier, not coming from the radio this time, comments, “They probably had potions and took off. The explosions might have been a distraction so they could flee. Whoever they are, they are at least somewhat smart…”

Gearing smirks as he looks through the wall, and towards the area that he’s pretty sure the voice just came from. Well hello there brain cells…

The mare huffs before she asks, “Should we have everypony fall back to the tower, just in case? Shore up the first floor?”

The commanding buck’s voice lets out an annoyed sigh. “No, that’ll just group us up, and they already showed they have access to explosives… We tighten up like that and they’ll just drop the building on our ears. Better for us to spread out more. Less chance of us getting wiped out.”

Gearing creeps around the hallway divider, then gets to a doorway. He peeks in and sees two pony shapes on the other side of frosted glass where a conference room of some kind is. He slips off the pistol that he’d taken from among the corpses at Ironshod and walks right up to the frosted glass. Both of the ponies seem to have their back to him as they are looking over a table of some kind and don’t pay any attention towards him. Well, That Gun, let’s see what you can do...

The mare’s voice echoes around through an open door. “That’s fair, but how about moving one of our heavy weapons teams inside? Maybe to the mid floor spotter location? That way they can provide fire both to the air, or towards anyone at the ground. And if they get inside they can keep the stairs secure by not letting them climb up.”

The shadow on the right moves and Gearing can see bits of it slightly disappear from view as they stretch away and point at something on the table.

Gearing points the large pistol at the glass, and waits.

The commanding voice comments, “Move the LMG team. Leave the others where they are.” The shadow on the left moves as it stretches towards the mare’s side as it points somewhere with a forehoof. “The weapon’s ballistics should let them-”

Whatever he was going to say is drowned out as Gearing pulls the trigger on the pistol and the weapon releases a resounding crack. The initial noise is even loud enough to drown out the initial sound of the shattering glass near him. And as the glass is getting blown inwards, an older stallion wearing a worn out military uniform gets knocked over by the impact of the round. But, his head, as hard as it must have been to control this rabble, wasn’t hard enough to stop the bullet from continuing on and putting a massive pockmark in the wall across from him.

The mare’s eyes go wide as she sees half of her leader’s head explode right in front of her, and all of their paperwork getting covered with his blood and gray matter. However, she has enough wherewithal to jump back and away, as she rolls behind cabinetry before Gearing can even point his weapon in her direction.

Gearing calls after her. “They’re already inside, dumbass… Let me show you why it’s a bad idea to piss off clever pegasi…”

He hops over the low wall that’s there, pointing the pistol in the direction she had went, but narrows his eyes as he sees she’s already gone. He starts after her, going through the door that’s not far away, and it’s not hard for him to track her as he hears her panicked hooffalls as she runs down the hallway, then down the stairs not far away.

The little blue pegasus in Gearings head smirks wickedly as he comments, ‘We got a rabbit.’

As he’s making it to the opening to go down, Gearing can hear the mare start screaming.

“They came in through the roof! They got the commander! They’re right behind me!”

Gearing flutters down the stairwell, upside down, and practically hangs from the ceiling while he goes as quickly as he can to the next floor. When he gets there he sees a group of three ponies, all looking back behind themselves, as he sees a mare running at full speed further up the hallway away from them all. Gearing quickly flies out of the stairwell, and over the three ponies, who seem to have been carrying a set of heavy weapons, but then drops it all and quickly starts setting it up to point at the stairwell. To their credit, they manage to get it set up, fully loaded, and ready to fire at the stairwell in a matter of seconds.

Unfortunately for them, Gearing had already managed to get behind them, again, and was now between them and the mare that had run past them. He stares at them for a moment, then shakes his head silently. He activates SATS, and targets the three ponies.

Target Select:

Select Attack Point:

Ninety-Five percent chance of success.

Confirm.

Target Select:

Select Attack Point:

Ninety-Five percent chance of success.

Confirm.

Target Select:

Select Attack Point:

Ninety-Five percent chance of success.

Confirm. Confirm.

And then he activates the spell assisted sequence. Instantly That Gun begins roaring in the hallway. The pony in the middle, operating the machine gun, is the first one to get shot, and their helmet doesn’t stay on their head as a good portion of their head manages to get separated from the rest of them. The pony on the left is the next to go down, likewise getting shot in the head without even having a chance to move. The third and final pony, the one on the right, is just fast enough to turn and look behind them as they heard, and saw, the other two get shot out of the corner of their eye. And Gearing can see the horror in the pony’s eyes, in slow motion high detail, as they look back at him right as he fires his third round. The surprised look didn’t even get removed from their face as their head’s knocked sideways and a good portion of their personality gets thrown over the stairwell.

With the three targets registering as destroyed by SATS, time resumes, and the bodies continue their fall to the ground.

But before they even finish flopping over like boneless ragdolls, Gearing has already spun around and started flying after the mare that had run this way just moments ago. He gets to the next stairwell, and, as he starts flying down, he hears the mare’s voice scream over the radio as she pants, Then Gearing can hear over the still open radio channel, but with her voice getting further away from the transmitter as she screams, And a buck’s voice over the radio, who apparently had his own and she commandeered for a few seconds, comments,

Another voice comments on the radio,

Another voice chimes in,

Gearing’s smile gets even wider as he hears the command structure of this little organization completely implode on itself after so few casualties. With minimal effort, he’s dumped their morale straight into the toilet. But, in this instance, he’s not interested in simply routing them and minimizing casualties.

He flies down to the second floor and finds a group of ponies grabbing a bunch of items and throwing them into EDF colored duffle bags. He’s not sure what all of it is, but it’s obviously something they themselves consider valuable. It’s not a bunch of personal effects, he’s sure, the area doesn’t look like a bedroom of any sort. Not even a communal one. To him it looks more like a place to store gear in the middle of the building for rapid deployment or before they go out on their patrols or ambushes. And more than a few weapons are easily identifiable in the mix.

And instead of fleeing like the one mare that had already made it around to another staircase, and down again, this group has decided to try and steal more from their own comrades.

From his perspective up near the ceiling, Gearing can see the ponies below him working furiously. Most of the stuff is already boxed. Some of it might be food. Others could just be scrap. None of it would be worth their life in this case.

So as he drops down on the buck with the fewest things packed, and smashes his chest straight to the ground with his gravity implant turned off, he finds it a bit ironic. He looks around at the other five, who had been stuffing various armor and weapons into bags. None of them have any weapons currently at easy access.

While the buck under him is still screaming out in agony of having a ton of brass smashing him into the concrete and almost cutting him in half, the others look over to see what had happened. And their eyes almost jump out of their respective heads as they see a golden monstrosity with flared out green wings standing on the buck as casually as if it had stepped on a river rock.

Several quickly start pulling weapons out of the bags they had just tried to stuff them into. The mare in the back side of the group actually lifts up a carbine from near her and almost has it leveled at Gearing before she gets shot repeatedly and goes down. The pony closest to Gearing manages to get his weapon pointed at Gearing’s head. And he pulls the trigger.

Both of them clearly hear the impotent click of the completely empty weapon.

The buck’s mouth slacks as the weapon droops, and, despite what he thinks at the time, it’s the buck directly behind him that is next to be shot. And then the one to their left after that.

Gearing strategically shoots them all, with the second to the last left alive being the buck he’s currently standing on. Until finally silencing his suffering and the screaming that’s filling the entire hallway. Then he levels his gun at the last buck and asks, “Who shot the pegasi down yesterday, and where are they now?”

The buck quickly reacts, flipping his hoof out towards the general direction of a couple buildings across from the major warehouse as he does an impressive impersonation of a direction sign. “The fire team was moved to the building acrossed the truck park from the manufacturing plant.”

Gearing stares at him for a moment before asking, “And who the fuck’s idea was it to seal ponies up in shipping containers with AP rounds?”

The buck shakes a bit as he points up, then back behind himself. “The leader, and his second in command, that lieutenant of his that just ran past here. She’s already running as fast as she can…That way...”

Gearing frowns as he asks, “And where are they going?”

The buck stares at him, and then slowly sits down. He knows he’s done. And the best thing he can do for himself is to try and purchase his own hide. “I- I don’t know, okay? Just- just took off screaming every pony for themselves… I don’t know where you’re from, and I don’t know if she thinks that’s some kinda code or whatever. But to me, that just means she’s just trying to run and save her ass.” They stare at each other for an extra second before he swallows hard and waves his forehoof gently, slowly. “L-look… I’ve only been with this crew a couple days, okay? I-I didn’t know they were just gonna start popping pegasi… I thought they were a salvage crew or something. They were just having me and a few others stripping out machining equipment to be sold as scrap while the rest provided security.” He looks around then says, “I didn’t know they’d be ambushing caravans and stuff too. I- I didn’t want to be a part of that. You gotta believe me, man, I’ve already been planning on taking off at the first opportunity… Because these ponies are the kind that’d shoot you in the back.”

Gearing stares at him for a moment, then waves at the ground with a hoof. “Don’t move. Don’t talk. And don’t mess with anything. Stay right there. Maybe I’ll believe you.”

The buck stares at him and his legs shake as he looks at Gearing, and That Gun that just wasted five ponies in front of his very eyes. He breathes hard a few times and then asks, “M-mind if I lay down? My knees feel like they’re about to break from all the shaking…”

Gearing nods and the buck quickly flops down. He stretches out, going prone, as he seems to try to melt into the concrete under him. He even holds onto the top of his head and closes his eyes as he obviously doesn’t want to be part of this reality anymore.

Gearing turns and heads towards the windows that lead out to the front of the building. As he looks out, he can see a mare, the lieutenant, running toward the buildings across the truck parking area from the warehouse. He casually slips out the rifle that he’d taken from the spotter up stairs, and scoots over a chair from nearby to one of the broken windows. He sits down, and sights down at the mare as she’s running away. He double checks the ammo of the rifle, makes sure there’s a round racked, and then settles into the position. He lets out a gush of air as he says quietly, “Hope this thing is sighted correctly.” Then he goes deathly still.

He squeezes the trigger.

The rifle jumps a bit from the recoil of the blast. Back into him. And as he’s looking through the scope he sees the back left leg of the mare suddenly develop a new joint in it as she was just landing on them when the bullet hit her. The ground under her gets splattered with blood. And Gearing can tell, from the movement of her head, that she must be yelling something fierce. But, he can’t hear her at the moment. Not with the focus he’s putting into his task.

The two little head companions in Gearing’s mind space sit casually playing Go Fish as they ignore their surroundings intentionally.

Off to the side of the pair is a single pedestal floor sign with a plaque hanging from it that reads:

‘Mercy’s out to lunch.

Please try again later.’

“Damn, it’s a little off… that was short and to the left… That’s okay, I can compensate…” Gearing mutters to himself.

He keeps staring at the mare on the ground and slowly moves the scope up and to the right more. He sees the door to the building open, just a few paces away from the mare as she’d almost made it. Another mare, wearing a uniform like the commander up above, steps out with a weapon drawn, but then looks down at the lieutenant as she’s trying to pick herself up after having one of her legs knocked out from under her. The new mare lets go of her weapon, and starts walking forward in an obvious bid to help the downed mare.

She never heard the shot as the bullet sent to intercept her removes any thoughts she still had in her head and deposits them onto the rubble near her hooves and a bit behind her. She falls down as limp as a doll that some child had discarded after finishing playing with it. The lieutenant on the ground sees her attempted savior get summarily killed, then rolls over to look behind her. She tries to see where the shots are coming from. Gearing thinks she may even be attempting to try and get a good angle that she could use to figure out what would be effective to hide behind.

And then her eyes fall on the correct window. Where Gearing is standing holding the rifle and pointed right at her. Through the scope he can see her looking right at him. Their eyes meet over the distance. She had rolled over onto her back and is using her fore left and back right legs to keep pushing herself towards the door as she points her front right hoof towards Gearing and screams something Gearing doesn’t even care to try to understand.

Gearing activates SATS as he stares at her through the scope. He can see her hoof pointing, in his general direction, as she’d been waving it at him. The look on her face is quite telling. Terror. Absolute, unabashed, terror. It’s not some form of anger or retaliation or something like that. Even from here, even as weak as the scope he’s using is, Gearing can see it. And, considering the other red dots he’s seeing around him through his EFS, he doesn't have a lot of time to deal with one mare already halfway out the door and on her way to hell. He activates SATS again.

Target Select:

Select Attack Point:

Eighty-Five percent chance of success.

Confirm.

Select Attack Point:

Ninety percent chance of success.

Confirm.

Select Attack Point:

Ninety-Five percent chance of success.

Confirm.

Confirm.

Gearing’s rifle unleashes a shot, in slow motion, and as soon as the weapon settles enough, it fires again. The spell’s effects, regardless of what Gearing might decide otherwise after it’s already activated, launches three rounds in rapid succession at the mare.

The first round misses its intended target, and instead hits the mare’s outstretched forehoof. And then the projectile travels the length of her cannon before blowing out the elbow and coming out the side. The wound is serious, like the one that snapped her left hind leg. But not immediately fatal.

The second shot Gearing can clearly see impact in her lower abdomen. Thus creating a decent sized hole in the front and, judging by the splatter behind her, a much larger exit wound as it apparently traveled through nothing but soft tissues.

The third shot hits her in the chest, and flings her back and to the ground. Her body bounces lightly from the impact as she’s impeccably knocked a bit closer to her goal: the door into the building.

SATS ends with the firing task complete.

Gearing groans as he looks through the eyepiece. He sucks his teeth as he keeps staring through the scope. “SATS and distances… some things never change… At least it compensated for the scope… sort of…”

The mare starts trying to roll over, towards the door. And Gearing can see how three of her legs are now out of commission. Her hind legs aren’t moving at all except where she’s trying to drag herself with her foreleg. Now she only has the one solitary foreleg still intact, but, based on the amount of blood around her, she shouldn’t last long. Even with immediate medical attention she might not.

Gearing aims again, adjusts the angle, and fires once again, without even trying to use his spell matrix this time.

The lieutenant pulls herself towards the door and, as she is arcing up with the effort of using her foreleg as leverage, the bullet passes clean through the side of her head and she goes limp and falls down.

Gearing glares at her through the rifle’s scope as he’s replacing the magazine with a fresh one he’d taken from the dead buck upstairs. “Not very fun having your body riddled with AP rounds, is it, bitch?” He doesn’t even get the new magazine in before movement in the scope catches his eye. He swings the scope up and to the right a bit more, towards the door, and sees a pony start stepping out of the door. Gearing takes note of the equipment, the dirty jumpsuit, and quickly pulls the trigger on his rifle.

But, the pony, either feeling the scythe of death on his neck, or having some other guardian angel tossing him a carrot, ducks back and away from the open doorway. And just in time as the door frame gets chunks of concrete blown away from it on the inside, and shows everyone that sees it that the shot would have been true and lethal.

Gearing clicks his tongue as he scowls around the scope. “Missed…” He readies the next round as he looms over the complex like a storm from the vantage point of the window. “Let’s play hide and seek...”

Footnote:

‘BlueMac’ Sub Partition Errors Discovered . . .

Analyzing Data, Please Stand By . . .

Analyzing Data, Please Stand By . . .

Analyzing Data, Please Stand By . . .

Matrix Quadrant ‘Personal’ Status: Ready.

Author's Note

Gearing returns on his own to try and find out why this particular group is so effective, doesn't like what he finds, and cleans house. There's more going on here than he knows but he'll find out soon enough.

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