The dirty buck stumbles back and away from the shipping container as it slams into the ground, right on top of Gearing as he’s trying to get up. Chert slowly starts backing up away from it, and a few moments later, multiple ponies come from a variety of angles out and around the rubble and wrecked machinery like roaches pouring out of their disturbed nests. All of them are laughing and grinning at what they had helped cause. Most of them are wearing equipment from the mining company nearby. Almost all of them are wearing mining helmets that they have now turned on, and shine the light on the shipping container that’s been smashed into the ground with enough force to crack the concrete in some places.

A pair of bucks walk up from behind Chert and chuckle. The bigger buck looks at the shipping container and comments, “Hey, Lucky, get a load of this. Told you it wouldn’t be that hard to get the fucker…” For a unicorn, he’s definitely an impressive size compared to most. Being far bigger than even average earth ponies. With an obvious high protein diet habit to boot. Like most of the other’s that have revealed themselves after the trap was sprung, he’s wearing a good amount of mining equipment. The grayish utility uniform he has under everything is in pretty decent shape and covers most of his coffee brown hide. But he’s also wearing a rather thick jacket that’s been modified with some obvious armor enhancements over most of his torso and shoulders. But, even so, it has a thick lining from where it protected miners from the colder parts of mines and environments. Unlike many of the others, he’s not sporting one of the lighted mining helmets. Instead, he has an old weathered brown safari hat with a hole for his horn to poke out through. The hat obviously wasn’t made for him as it both looks a bit too small for his head and the hole for his horn was roughly cut by an amateur. Even so, the beat up hat does a pretty good job of covering up his coal black mane.

The buck next to him puffs on a cigarette as he eyeballs the disaster with barely contained nervousness. And the dark brown heavy duster he’s wearing makes him seem more like a buck that wishes to disappear at any moment with the way it covers him up almost entirely. His midnight blue mane is kept tightly to his head with a bit of black cloth tied like a sweatband over his brow. So there’s very little of his sandy colored fur visible to onlookers. “I’ll believe it when you get him out of that suit and we can string his corpse up in front of Megamac.”

The dirty white buck Chert looks over at the large unicorn and asks quietly, “I- I did what you wanted… M-my family…?”

The looming unicorn waves him away dismissively with a forehoof while still staring at the shipping container. “Yeah, yeah… Get the fuck out of here… I was even nice enough to keep the boys off that filly of yours…” He throws a key at the dirty white buck without actually looking at him and only getting it into his general direction. “Get out of my sight and don’t come back.”

Chert dives and catches the key and, without saying another word, turns and runs out of the industrial complex as fast as he can with the key tightly held in his teeth.

Lucky puffs on his cigarette as he asks, “Sure that’s smart, Boss? He could just go get help? Never know when a buck like that will suddenly grow a conscience…”

Boss laughs as he pulls out a large cigar from the inside of his heavy armored jacket. “Except we know where he lives… And I already made it perfectly clear that if he double crosses me, we’ll be stringing his family up by their own guts… He’s a smart buck. He’ll know to keep his mouth shut… Unless he wants to see his family ripped apart worse than feral ghouls will do…”

The large unicorn waves over to the side and yells, “Lift it back up, that should have done it. He shouldn’t have survived the skewer, let alone that shipping container full of spikes.”

Several of the ponies run around and a couple of the unicorns help guide the chains that are lowered from above with massive hooks on them. The hooks are put into place, and the chains are brought taught as they make sure it’s connected well enough. And then the gantry that Gearing had been admiring before proves its functionality as it starts the process of lifting the shipping container and moving it off and to the side on top of other containers under the control of a pony up on the walkways far above.

The massive chains connected to the shipping container start cranking upwards, and slowly the large box is lifted up and into the air. Those around it keep waving and directing it. And, after the box only gets up a couple feet off of the ground a couple of the ponies that had crowded around actually take a step back as they get a look underneath it.

Gearing is still sprawled out, skewered with the enchanted rod with it curled over and burrowing back into the ground on his right side. The wings that he had spread out to help push himself up, have been shattered and along their entire length a variety of giant metal staples had been fashioned and are pinning his wings to the ground like some kind of sadistic insect display. His body had taken multiple impacts from the metal spikes as well. And there are multiple staples along his entire length. But most of them had bent and gotten deflected. Though a few found purchase and those watching can see where a couple cogs have actually been knocked off on a couple points from the staples hitting just right and wedging them away from his body.

But the part that makes more than a few of them step back, recoiling from the sight, is the fact that Gearing is still moving. Or trying to. Now that the container’s off him, he’s arched up his hind legs onto his knees, and is trying to pull himself off of the spike going through his chest, but it just doesn't seem to want to budge. Regardless of how much he’s pushing against both it and the concrete under himself.

Boss takes a few puffs from his cigar as he stares at Gearing, and obviously doesn’t like what he’s seeing.

Lucky pointedly looks at him and scowls. “I fucking told you he wasn’t just some nopony. That fucker’s probably got healing talismans in his suit. He’s harder to kill than a damned hellhound. He took out my whole gang that went up north. Every. Last. One. He’d been taking out high priority targets left and right. He’s the one that took down Cookie. I warned you not to underestimate the fucker, now look!”

Boss looks at him and scowls. “Yeah… now look… He might be alive, and that suit might be keeping him that way… but not for long…” He claps with his forehooves a couple times and a dirty orange mare with an auto axe starts walking towards Gearing. “Let’s see him heal from that!”

Lucky puffs on his cigarette quickly as he keeps looking back and forth. “I don’t know, Boss. I helped get him here. To get him back for what he did to everypony we know. But that rod didn’t do it… I don’t know why, that aim of yours was perfect…”

The large unicorn puffs a few more times on his cigar before he starts walking forward. “We got this…” He walks to a bit away from Gearing, getting within a few paces of him, before he says, “Hey, you pegasi fuck… You’ve killed a lot of my friends… You should have stayed out of our business and you woulda made it through today.”

A mare from the right yells, “You killed my sister up in Hoofington!”

A buck from behind and to Gearing’s left yells, “You killed my pa and cousins at Tower Towing!”

Another mare yells from the shadows to Gearing’s left, “I heard tell you was the one that killed my ma when she was just collect’n’ tolls from a caravan!”

A stallion on the right side in front of Gearing steps more into the light as he taps a large crowbar against his own shoulder. “Ya killed my son when he was escort’n’ a shipment to Red Eye. I expect yer gonna answer for that…”

‘This is going to be a nasty fight for sure,’ the little blue pegasus in his head comments with a frown.

Gearing snarls at the large unicorn in front of him, and starts pushing against the ground more, but, again, he doesn’t make any headway. The glowing rod stubbornly refuses to yield at all.

Boss starts laughing and stoops down, to look at Gearing at almost eye level, but from a distance away. “Awwww the little flying bitch having a problem with a little spike? What’s wrong? It won’t move? Awww that’s a real shame, ain’t it.” He straightens up as he looks around at the others around him. “That’s a real shame that he’s stuck, isn’t it boys?”

All around him they start laughing as they begin gathering and bringing a variety of metal working equipment from out of some other area.

Boss looks at Gearing and points at the spike coming out of his chest. “Not that you’re going to live long enough for this to matter… Maybe for whatever friend of yours that can hear through your radio set up… But my name’s Boss Borer of the Dunwich Borers. The Borer family helped build this country. We’ve been cracking rocks and ripping metal since even before the war. Loooong family tradition of bending metal to our will.” He grins at Gearing around the cigar, then points at the rod sticking through Gearing’s chest. “That rod there, that you can’t seem to lift, that is one of my family's pride and joys. My ancestors made them as a way to make mining faster. They sink into minerals… stone… metal… whatever… with ease… As easy as a hot knife through butter… and when they are commanded to, they lock in place, and won’t move afterwards until they are told to. And, lucky me, I’m one of the few ponies that know how to use them still… Not that there’s many of them left, a lot of them were lost or destroyed in the war.” He stoops down as he scoots closer. “You are a tough bastard aren’t you? I mean, your heart should be run right through… If not that, at least a lung… but here you are glaring at me like I stole your last sparkle cola….” He leans back and puts a hoof to his chest. “Sccaaaaaarryyy…” His aquamarine blue eyes practically sparkle with delight as a bunch of the others laugh and the mare with the auto axe walks up behind Gearing. He pulls out a knife from a sheath on his foreleg with his levitation field, and quickly cuts the saddle bags off of Gearing with it. After getting the bags away from him, he summarily throws them off to the side with his telekinetic field without really looking at them. As he’s putting his knife back he yells out, “Nopony touch that stuff. After we’re done dealing with him, we’ll open up his bags and see what goodies he’s brought us for Hearth’s Warming this year!” This causes another round of laughter to spark up from the ponies standing around.

Boss puffs on the cigar a few more times before he points it at Gearing using his levitation magic. “You’ve pissed off the wrong ponies… I’m sure I’m going to make a fortune selling your armor off to those tin head ass holes… You’re actual head though? I think Usury and the slavers would like that, judging by what Red Beard has been saying… The rest of you? I don’t know. I’ll figure it out later. I still think hanging you out front of Megamac will get the point across… But if somepony’s willing to pay me more, I’ll do that instead… hmmm choices choices…” He puts a hoof to his chin as he looks back at Lucky. “Hey, Lucky, what do you think? It was your crew that he wiped out after all?”

Lucky looks at him and flicks the already smoked cigarette off into the surrounding rubble. “What I think is you need to stop fucking around and just kill this fucker. My mane’s itching in the worst kinda way and when that happens bad shit always happens. I would have already ran out of here with how bad it’s itching, but I really wanna see what this fucker looks like first…”

Boss Borer frowns and waves him off with a dismissive hoof. “You’re just a chicken shit. He’s not going anywhere with that spike through his chest. I don’t know how he’s still breathing. But he won’t be for long… Just stay there and enjoy the show.” He clicks with his tongue and looks sideways at the orange mare with the auto axe. “Get that fucker out of the suit. Try not to wreck it. Cut it in half if you have to, but I want him out. I don’t think those steel ranger fucks will pay as much if it’s entirely ruined… half should be okay.” He looks over at Lucky and grins. “Half works, right?”

Lucky lights another cigarette as he scowls at the mare with the auto axe. “Whatever, just quit showboating before he figures out how to get off of that or some of his friends show up…”

Boss Borer rolls his eyes as he nickers. “Oh, please… With how bad both of those two got shot up, if they survived, they aren’t in good shape. That’s why he went after the commander’s crew. I mean, I was sure that was going to happen, not that I’d tell that pushy fuck that, but with those two out of commission he’s on his own… Now if some of the-”

Whatever he was going to say gets drowned out as the mare with the auto axe turns it on, and comes down on Gearing with the spinning blades. It was a tool with industrial purposes. Its rapidly spinning blades are capable of ripping into and breaking down metal in an efficient and economical manner. It was a favorite in multiple recycling sectors.

A fact that Gearing is introduced to in short order.

The mare with the auto axe brings it down across Gearing’s right shoulder at the neck, and starts running it at an angle from there across his back towards the rod. But she’s careful not to let the spinning blades get too close to the rod. She doesn't want to risk damaging it and incurring the wrath of her leader. And with expert handling of it she slowly works back and forth, cutting into brass gears, plates, and other pieces with a slow but steady motion. Her helmet that she’s wearing, with a full face guard, keeps having pieces plink off of it as she’s looking so closely at it, and trying to work around Gearing’s wings. One after another pieces fail as the weapon designed for dismantling equipment on an industrial scale eats through him in rapid succession.

All the while Gearing screams and thrashes as the axe slowly sinks into his shoulder, and then starts moving towards his back and flank. She obviously knows what she’s doing, and how to tear down equipment, because she’s not simply trying to sink the blades down to the hilt. No, she’s working back and forth in a line, cutting the various parts and intending on making a nice clean line to the opposite side of his abdomen. Going around the rod and avoiding cutting the sections around the wings. On some level, she’s pretty sure the tech controlling the wings would be especially valuable, so she doesn't want to risk damaging them anymore than they already are.

Boss Borer tilts forward, putting a hoof to his ear as he groans out a moan of approval. “Hey, Lucky, you hear that? That’s an actual scream… He’s not just pissed, she’s got him.”

Lucky puffs on his cigarette slowly as he says, “Yeah.. Except.. He’s still screaming… Why ain’t that buck dead yet?”

Boss Borer just shrugs as he steps a couple paces closer. “I don’t know, he will be soon though…” He looks at the mare cutting into Gearing and yells. But she can’t hear him between the machine, the sound of grinding metal, and Gearing’s screaming. So he steps around so he’s within her line of sight and starts waving his forehooves. After she notices him. She stops, then looks at him with a tilt of her head. He points at Gearing as he says. “Avoid the flank area too. That’s gotta be where the circuitry for that thing is.” She nods, then waits a moment for him to motion for her to continue. And once he does, she brings the blade back to the starting position, the deep cut into Gearing’s shoulder near his neck.

Gearing looks up at the buck and screams at him. “I’m going to fucking kill you! I’m gonna rip your guts out and leave you swinging from the gates of Tartarus you fucking bastards! All of you! You’re all gonna die!” His snarling scowl travels over them, and stops as he looks at Lucky. The two catch eye contact, and Lucky’s burgundy eyes slowly go wider as his mane itches more and more.

Time comes to a stop as Gearing activates SATS.

The little pegasus rages as he flies around “I’m going to kill them all! All of them! They’re dead. All dead! All rules of engagement are suspended until further notice. Kill. Them. All!”

Gearing mentally snarls back. I don’t have anything to counter this. This damn rod. It’s enchanted against metal. It’s keeping me here. I can’t move it and I can’t do anything as long as this rod’s holding me in place… I don’t know what to do…

Gearing’s already getting a feeling like he’s being drained. Like how he’d felt in The Core. Not the exact same. But similar. And he doesn’t like it. Not one bit. But, unlike The Core, he’s got nowhere to run. Because he can’t run. Despite his strength, he can’t push himself off of the rod. It’s locked in place and won’t budge. He’s lifted shipping containers before, but he can’t lift this. And the faint glow coming from it gives him a good idea why. And that the buck who’s in charge of all these psychos wasn’t kidding about it’s intended purposes.

It just so happens that Gearing is particularly vulnerable to such enchantments. Whether they realized that fact or not.

Gearing, despite having a snarl of defiance on the outside, is quickly coming to a realization that doesn’t match it. Hope starts slipping away from him, even in this time accelerated period for him, as all it does is give him more time to process the situation and realize how truly screwed he is. He can feel how deeply they’d already cut into his shoulder and neck. And how the blade had already been worked to be back near his wings. It’s not far from where the rod had pierced his back. And they very clearly intend on literally cutting him in half with that axe.

And he knows, without being told, that not even he would survive something like that. Not for long anyway. There had been other ponies that had been blown in half, or lost a large portion of their body and been able to survive. But they all had the benefit of extreme medical care. If not an actual mega spell. And none of them, as far as he knows, had been cut crossways from shoulder to opposite flank going right through their chest.

Despite everything that he could be thinking about at the moment. The biggest feeling that he has, he’s no stranger to. But this time it comes in a new and horrible form. Regret. He feels an overwhelming and crushing wave of regret come over him. Not simply for dying or going through this. But there’s one thing that he’s feeling the worst case of regret he’s ever felt in his entire miserable life for.

Sable.

As the very reality of his life being taken from him is all around him, what he’s regretting the most is not being able to be with Sable any more. That instead of being wrapped up in her legs and cables, he’s going to be parted out to the highest bidder. He’ll never see her again. Not in this life, nor the next.

The little golden pegasus sits down as he looks up at the starry sky above in his mind space. ‘This is not fucking fair. We finally get to meet someone like her. Only to lose her. The universe really does hate us, doesn’t it?’

Gearing mentally snarls, I can’t leave her alone. What is she going to do? Is anyone else going to treat her the way she deserves to be treated? This is bullshit! I tell her I love her and want to spend the rest of my life with her, and then go off and get ripped apart the same day?! What kinda comic book black flag raised bullshit is this?!

The little pegasus in his head fumes as he looks around. ‘This can’t be it. This can’t be it!’

Gearing replies, I think it is… We can’t get out of this on our own, and no ones coming…

The little blue pegasus in his head starts slapping at his own face. ‘This can’t be happening…’

Gearing gives a dark humored chuckle before he comments, Seems fitting though, doesn’t it… I figured I’d go out in the line of duty. No one like me gets to retire at an old age after all. And not only was I betrayed by someone I was trying to help, but it was after I fucked up so bad that the world was blown to hell while I was napping.

The little golden pegasus looks at him and frowns. ‘So, where does that leave us?’

Tartarus? Gearing asks with no hint of irony in his voice.

“So, that’s it, Gearing?” a familiar mare’s voice asks from the aether.

Gearing tries to look to the side, towards where the voice is coming from, but can’t. That’s not the way the SATS spell works. Instead he replies, I’m sorry, Commander. But I’ve got nothing left.

In his peripheral vision Rainbow Dash, wearing her officer’s uniform from the Shadowbolts, steps into his sight and looks at him. Her eyes look tired. The look he’d seen repeatedly working with her. Her multicolored mane lays limp and unmotivated. She keeps staring at him for a few moments before she asks, “After everything, you’re just going to give up?”

Give up?! Gearing snaps. I’m not giving up! There’s a point when you’ve given all you got and there’s nothing more in the tank.

“That’s an excuse, Gearing.” Rainbow Dash says as she stares at him.

What else am I supposed to do? Gearing asks in exasperation.

Dash walks back and forth a few times. “I don’t know. You’re the egghead pony, Gearing. So, why don’t you egghead your way out of this? Your strength isn’t doing it. Your speed certainly isn’t doing it. So, what do you have left?”

Gearing keeps trying to think, but doesn't respond.

Rainbow Dash turns away from him and comments evenly, “You’re the most dedicated… devoted pony I’ve ever met. When you set yourself to a goal, you don’t stop until you reach it. You use any and every loophole you can to make the impossible possible. So, do that.”

Gearing keeps his focus on her as he asks, What, Commander?

“What was that you used to tell me, Gearing? When the deck was stacked against you. And the whole world was telling you to quit?” Rainbow Dash asks with her back to him.

Gearing stares at her and a spark pops up in him as he starts thinking about it.

Rainbow Dash looks over her shoulder and gives him a wide grin. “That’s right, Gearing… Win… Cheat if you have to, but win. That’s an order, Gearing.”

Yes ma’am, Gearing replies mentally as he feels the SATS spell slip away from him as it runs out of charge a bit earlier than he was expecting.

After entering normal speed reality, Gearing’s voice continues echoing out in pain and rage. He starts thrashing again, trying to twist and move his body as he screams out a variety of obscenities.

Lucky stares at him and starts backing up a bit. He waves at Boss as he asks, “Sh-shouldn’t we be seeing blood by now, Boss?!”

The mare over Gearing has a hard time getting the cut right, and has to fight to keep cutting along the path she’s already cutting on it.

Another buck walks up from the side, looking the damage over, and his eyes trail down as something catches his eye. “Uh… Boss… I don’t mean to sound like a whiny buck, but… his wings? They… they seem to be growing back.”

Several others look over and their eyes go wide as they all can’t seem to ignore the fact that the wings that had been mostly devoid of its crystal, had now started having pieces of green show up all over it. And pieces of broken metal actually warp in and mend themselves of apparently their own free will.

Boss stares at it as he starts puffing on his cigar quickly. “That can’t be… There’s usually a glow when a magical repair talisman kicks on. What’s going on here?”

The mare on top pauses with the auto axe as she screams. “This fucker’s moving more! He’s throwing off my cuts. It’s really starting to piss me off!” She lowers the axe as she asks, “And when the hell am I going to finally get to the fucker inside so I can shut him up finally!?”

Gearing starts twisting his body in every conceivable angle as he tries to move and manipulate his body to get some kind of leverage. The axe bites in quickly into the base of his neck again, and is working its way towards the middle of his back as the mare on top of him screams about how long this is taking.

A few pieces go flying away, and a couple others get pulled up into the auto axe as a group of them come loose at once and get sucked into the rotating machine.

She wasn’t expecting the kickback of the auto axe, but being a professional with it, she manages to guide it up and at an angle correctly to avoid hurting herself.

But, enough of Gearing had been cut that the pieces that had been pulled away, cause an even greater gap to form. So when Gearing twists and kicks with his hind legs, his body actually moves this time.

But not the way he’d want, nor anyone else had expected.

His body breaks along the cut, with the majority of his body being on the right side, with only his head and left foreleg taking up the left, and even then only attached to the rest of him by a very small bit of twisted plating and loose cogs down near his left hip. From the cut that was placed between the base of his neck and his right shoulder, all the way to the middle of his back between his wings, the metal that makes up his body has separated. Whether it was from being actually cut, or just the strain from all of the torque he was applying plus the loss of structural integrity from all of the parts being damaged if not entirely removed.

The sudden jerk caused the mare to completely lose her balance, as she’d been operating the piece of equipment with her forehooves, and ended up falling forward and stumbling, but, having a lot of experience with the tool, she quickly threw it away from herself and off to the side before she face planted a bit in front of Gearing’s head. And as she’s screaming in pain about her face getting smashed by concrete, everypony else is staring in stunned silence at Gearing and what he’d done to himself.

All of Gearing’s internal components are clear to see. His various metallic organs. They can see his intestinal tract, a winding series of plates made of tubes making up the length of corrugated piping that’s extra oily looking. His lungs, as one of them stayed with the right side of him and the other is still in the left side of his chest, mostly, keep moving as he screams. All of the internal components are covered in a thick oily material that they can’t identify, but even these hardened murders actually feel uneasy at the sight as it feels so unnatural it’s sickening. And among all of it, are many thin strands of rainbow colored wire like material. They travel up and down his body and, now that his body has been cracked open, they are in full view and seem to be stretched between the gap that had been cut.

Boss looks the scene over and the cigar falls out of his mouth as he says, “Wh-where is he? Where the hell is he!? What is this!?”

Lucky takes a step back as he says, “The fucking rumors are true! He’s not a pegasus, he’s a fucking murder machine!!!”

Gearing’s scream echoes out in horror and terror at what had been unleashed on him. And with the break in his body, he’s able to turn his neck enough to see behind himself at what had been done to him. The unmistakable fact that except for a small portion of his left side, he has indeed been cut in two. Gearing is shaking and snarling in pain as he feels everything get fuzzy. But movement catches his eye, and he looks down a bit.

The mare that had been cutting on him sits up, and removes her helmet. She looks right at him and her eyes go wide at what she sees. She starts trying to get up, and scramble away. On an instinctive level her guts are telling her hell is coming.

Gearing uses his left foreleg, and throws himself forward. He’s entirely expecting his hind end not to follow, given everything that he’s had done. But he’s going to take at least one more down with him. At least one more. And as the mare rolls over to get up and run, Gearing’s fetlock locks around hers on her hind leg, and pulls her a bit closer. He’s broken himself a bit more, and his left wing rips more as he pulls himself closer to the mare to keep her from getting away. She starts thrashing around as she kicks at him with her other hind leg as she’s dragged slowly towards Gearing by her hind hoof.

She looks at Boss Borer and screams with unabashed terror in her voice. “Help! Help meeee!! Somepony, pleeaasseee! HEEELL-AAGGHHHH!!!”

Gearing pulls her close enough that he can chomp on her leg, which he does. And he bites hard enough that the bones snap. But Gearing isn’t looking for a last minute snack. Gearing uses his jaws to free up his one good leg, and then uses it to grab her at her hip, and pull her even closer.

As she’s being dragged back even further she’s flailing around with her forelegs feebly as she’s in full panic mode. “Help help, no! HELP! HEELLPP!! Somepony do something, heeellp! AAGHH URhhhK AAGGHhh!”

Gearing chomps down on her upper thigh, holding her there, then reaches up with his forehoof, and drives it straight into the abdomen of the mare. And, with the edge of his hoof and his force, it sinks straight in with little effort even without having the majority of his weight to aid him. And he keeps hitting the same spot until it breaks through the abdominal wall, uniform and all, and then he uses that as a hoof hold to pull and turn her closer. As she’s staring at the others, and screaming with every breath her lungs can bring in, Gearing bites her in the back of the neck, flips her to the side, and holds her down on the ground as he stomps her body with his left foreleg. And, after she’s gone still, he looks the boss in the eyes, and then closes his jaws even more, causing blood to spurt out and the audible snap of bones to echo in the otherwise quiet work area. Then he flicks his foreleg to the side, sending the mare’s bloody mangled body sailing a distance away.

Gearing gives Boss Borer a maniacal grin that’s covered in blood, viscera, and bone fragments. The kind of grin a wolf might give someone when he’s just had a meal that wasn’t quite satisfying, and he sees a new meal that’ll help hit the spot.

Gearing slams his foreleg on the ground as he cackles out with his eyes wide open and a mad maniacal glint to them. “You kill me?! You. Kill. Me?! Celestia couldn’t even kill me! If that stuck up bitch couldn’t manage it, what do you weak pathetic fools think you can do!” He stomps his hoof and pulls himself just a bit more towards Boss Borer, straining against the metal staples in his wings and breaking a few of the wires of his wings in the process. “Once I pull myself together, you’re dead! Your foals are dead! Your whole fucking family will pay for your mistakes! Whether it takes me a minute, a day, or a century, it’s all the same to me! Your whole family will be wiped off the map! You’ll learn not to fuck with beings beyond your comprehension!” He leans his head back and cackles as he looks up at the ceiling. “I’ll rip your souls out and feed them to the beasts of Tartarus myself! They’ll be eating out of my hoof again! AHAHAHAHH!”

Gearing looks around at them as he feels everything quickly getting more fuzzy and his vision isn’t working as well as it normally does. As if a fog slowly starts over taking everything. He goes from one vague shape to another as he snarls. “You’re dead. You’re dead. Oh, you know you’re dead. You’re dead too, you just don’t even know it yet.”

Gearing drifts his head to the right. Towards a shadowy area that he’d not paid much attention to before because he was too busy getting cut in half to really focus on anything else than the mare that was standing on him. As he’s looking, the shadows move and sway. And a bit glints out of the gloom as Gearing feels a pair of eyes watching him. He stares at the vaguely pony shaped shadow as he tries to figure out what he’s looking at. But, then he decides, it doesn’t matter. He’s still got a job to do. He’s got somewhere to be. Someone counting on him. Gearing snarls in the direction of the looming shadow and yells with a growl that makes his whole body reverberate, “And you! Skeletal fuck! I’m not done yet. So sit the fuck down and wait your turn! I’ll deal with you in a minute!” The skeletal figure wreathed in shadows didn’t seem to expect that, and does indeed stop moving. And simply watches.

The other ponies start backing up and away from him as Gearing’s snarl promises retribution on anyone, everyone, and everything within reach. Like a dragon protecting its hoard.

And, to make matters worse for all of them, from a mental standpoint, they can actually see certain parts of Gearing trying to pull himself back together. And that’s all the confirmation any of them needed that they may have made a mistake rolling out of bed this morning.

Gearing looks past Boss Borer, and straight at Lucky, the one pony who’s been trying to slowly back up enough to get a good enough buffer that he can turn and run without anyone catching him. But Gearing ruins his plan when he screams at him, “Lucky! That’s a fucked up name, because the only thing you’re going to be lucky about is if you die before I get my hooves on you, you fucking walking corpse!” He snaps his teeth in his direction a couple times for emphasis before he says, “I’m gonna eat your fucking heart and make you watch!”

And that display of mercilessly psychotic nature was all the others needed. Regardless of what their boss tried to say to them, the other ponies go running. Any hope of a huge pay day going out the window as they come to the realization that they didn’t crack open a suit, they pissed off a death machine.

Boss Borer had turned to look at Lucky when Gearing drew his attention to him, and then noticed him further back than he was expecting. He starts running after Lucky, but Lucky, not being a dumb buck, turns and starts running away as fast as he can.

Boss Borer screams after him, “Where the fuck are you going?! Get back here and help me finish him off!”

Lucky screams back, “What ‘him’?! That ain’t a ‘him’! That’s a fucking monster from Nightmare Moon herself! You go and finish him off, you’re the one that pissed him off by dropping a fucking ton of garbage on him!”

The two continue off across the warehouse, without slowing down.

Gearing, slowly turns his head, looking around for anyone else, and sees that, yes, they had all entirely disappeared from the area. The only one remaining is the mare that’s not much more than a mangled corpse. Gearing looks at her and grins with blood seeping out of his mouth. “Heh… They won’t… get the satisfaction…” Gearing slumps down and lays to the side as he groans. “Of watching… me die…” He uses his foreleg, and pushes himself back and to the side again, while trying to undo what he’s done to himself at least a bit. That rod is still in the way, and is proving to be a hard obstacle to get around. So Gearing actually has to push himself back enough that he breaks his wings the other way. And, once he gets his body around the loop, he flips and maneuvers himself to get his two halves back together again. And, in a bid to try and actually get them together, he rolls over on his side, completely forsaking his left wing and letting it get ripped apart even worse as he desperately tries to force his pieces together. But his right foreleg isn’t wanting to work at all. Neither is his right hind leg. His left hind leg can barely move, and isn’t doing much more than acting as a kickstand to keep his flank on his body. He checks his pipbuck, trying to find if he has anything on him. And in the gloomy light that's being provided to him, it only confirms what he already knew.

He has nothing that can help him. Nothing at all. Not even the coil of wire he’d used to string up certain ponies. All of it had been cast far enough away that he can’t get to it at the moment.

As he’s laying there he starts hearing weapons fire in the distance. And he smiles as he closes his eyes. “I hope the fuckers are fighting among themselves over this… The more of them they kill, the better the world will be…” He gently opens his eyes and smiles lightly as he asks, “Do they count as my kill count? If I just bluffed them into having a freak out and killing each other? It feels like it should… I’ll have to ask when I get to Tartarus…”

Fighting in the distance seems sporadic, and voices echo out in the manufacturing plant so much that Gearing can’t quite pinpoint them. Though that also is probably because of his tenuous grip on reality at the moment.

And then he starts opening his eyes as he hears a set of hooves running through the warehouse. He prepares himself, and tries to figure out if he has enough strength to maybe take out one more. Yeah. One more notch will make him feel better. Maybe this one he can drag to Tartarus with him. Both of them dying with his hoof buried in their chest or wrapped around their neck choking them to death.

Gearing keeps trying to see who it is, but doesn’t see them. Even though they are getting closer. Then, a fact that worries him starts poking at his consciousness. The hooves sound small, and the hoofbeats sound more like a young pony than a full grown adult.

A few moments later his fears are realized as a filly comes running into his line of sight. She slides by, looks at the light from the mining helmet that the mare with the auto axe had set down, then starts walking over there as she seems to see something she wants as her ears perk up and a smile explodes across her muzzle with foalish enthusiasm.

Gearing lifts himself up a bit, and looks at her. “Hey, kid…”

The pink filly jumps in the air in surprise. Scared out of her wits by the way her mane and tail hair frazzles out in unnatural directions as she spins around and looks at the source of the voice.

Gearing gently waves his one good forehoof at her. “This place… is bad… you need to go… go to Megamac… Get clear of here… tell… tell them it’s full of raiders.”

The filly starts walking towards him, and then she perks up again as she says excitedly, “Oh, wait! You’re that shiny pony!”

Gearing blinks a couple times as he looks at her. In his mind’s eye he visualizes an orange mare and a pink filly cornered by slaving raiders. And he imagines the smile on the little filly’s face as she paid him with some kind of toy still in its original plastic wrapping. Then his eyes clear a bit as panic once again starts rising in himself. But, not for his own safety, he knows he’s gone, but he knows what kinda monsters live here too. “It’s you! Oh no! Go on, run! Save yourself! Don’t let them find you!”

The filly starts looking around the area and scrunches her muzzle as she sees the amount of blood around the whole area. And on him. She tilts her head side to side before she asks, “Everything okay? You… don’t look to good…”

Gearing smirks as he lays his head down and says, “I’ve… had better days… kid…”

She walks over and gets right in front of him as she asks, “Is there anything I can do for you?”

Gearing looks at her and takes in a deep unnecessary breath. But as he’s about to tell her to leave him, the little pegasus in his head starts bucking him at hyper speed, then pulls out a projector and plays a scene for him as the golden pony holds out a pair of flags and directs the air traffic of his attention towards what is being shown.

From his view, Sable had twisted around to hold him sideways so they can look at each other more directly instead of him having to crane his neck to look up at her. She’s giving him a rather loving smile, which gives no hint to the conversation they’d just had and are still actually having. “I know you don’t have to worry about bleeding out, but, I don’t want you having to suffer and limp home either.” She grabs his cheeks, and he can remember the slight smooshing feeling she caused as she looked into his eyes and demanded his attention. “Take what is specific to you… You hear me?”

In a jump cut to a few moments later, he’s setting down some ammo to take with him, and suddenly Sable drops a laser pistol and the magical packs that function as its ammo. He glances up at her as her cable’s retracting back to her. She glances at him as she comments, “Variety is important, my love. That has multiple uses beyond simply terminating bad ponies…” And he nods as the statement is true on multiple levels.

The two pegasi in his head start chanting, ‘Multi use tool! Multi use tool! Multi use tool!’ repeatedly and each time they do the projection, and thus his focus, narrows in more and more on the laser pistol.

Gearing’s eyes open a bit wider, then he lifts his head. After quickly looking off to the side, he spots his bag. Right where it had been cast aside earlier after they cut it from his body. He tries to keep his excitement, and desperate need, in check as he asks as calmly as he can possibly manage, “Actually… Could you… go get my medicine for me?”

The little filly perks up and hops up and down as she squeals. “Yeah! I can help! Momma told me to just come and hide, but I can help, see!” She whips her head back and forth a few times as she grins. “Where? Where is it?!”

Gearing lifts his foreleg a bit, and waves over to the side. “Over there. There’s a saddle bag that’s been cut up… Can you bring it over here?”

The little filly runs over, grabs it, and starts trying to pull it towards him. A moment after tugging on it she whines, “It’s sooo heavy…”

Gearing lays his head down as he closes his eyes. “Just… just dump everything out… We’re looking for a laser pistol, or ammo for it… either one will work… The laser pistol looks like a little black box with a mouth grip on one side… The ammo for it looks… well… shit… smaller blocky cylinders… like cans, but tiny… and wrapped in tape… if that makes sense…”

The filly starts dumping things out, kicking stuff away as she looks for anything even resembling what he’s talking about. She kicks several towards him, and then finds one of the ‘taped mini cans’ that he’s mentioned and quickly runs over to him with it in her mouth. She drops it in front of him as she asks, “Is this it? Huh?”

Gearing opens his eyes, and a smile breaks across his muzzle. “Yeah… that’s it… That’s the ammo…”

The filly tilts her head as she asks, “How’s that medicine? Huh?”

Gearing reaches over with his hoof, but he’s quickly losing strength. And his leg doesn’t want to move. The tingling sensation is spreading all over his body and he’s starting to feel rather cloudy at the moment. He tries his best to keep his eyes open, but the lenses just feel so heavy. “Put it under my hoof.” She quickly does by sliding it under his with a quick tap of her own. And he says softly, “Please, lift my hoof up and drop it on it.” She does and, as she’s got it at the peak, Gearing deactivates his weight mitigation implant. The fact it’s still functioning is a blessing he is truly happy for.

The filly lets out an ‘eep’ as the sudden weight increase makes her drop it even as she tries to hold it up, and Gearing’s brass forehoof comes crashing down on the ammo. The edge of his hoof catches it right in the middle, and the plastic casing caves in instantly. He reactivates his weight mitigation implant and slowly slides his hoof to the side off of the ammo casing. He can see that it’s cracked. And he starts closing his eyes as he tries to focus. “Now… can you break that in half the rest of the way? Just… just bend it…”

She does as asked, and starts struggling, then starts whining, “All this powdery stuff is getting everywhere… I’m getting dirty…”

Gearing’s eyes jump open, and he sees the sparkling red powder fall out onto the floor. “W-wait!” he chokes out. He has a hard time doing anything, and it takes a lot of focus just to get his mouth to move so he keeps his eyes closed. “That red stuff… that’s what I need.”

“In your mouth?” She asks helpfully.

He tries to shake his head, but nothing happens. “No, listen, on the back side of my pipbuck… there’s a big hinge, do you see it?”

The filly walks closer and looks at it, then sticks her tongue out as she says, “Yeah, it’s all dirty… and your hoof’s bloody too…”

Gearing doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, making the little filly wonder what’s going on. And Gearing finally comments, “On the side of the hinge closest to the hoof, that part can be unscrewed… just pushing it in as you twist… it’ll take a few times, but it’ll come out, I promise.”

“Okay, I got it,” the filly replies almost instantly.

The little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head slaps a hoof over his eyes as he comments. ‘Leave it to a foal to defeat ‘foal proof’ medicine bottle designed locks…’

Gearing says quietly, “What I need you to do… is… put the red powder in the little thing you just pulled out… the metal cylinder… The more the better, but some is better than none… and… I need it faster than not so don’t try too hard to get it all…”

The filly asks quietly, “Is the blood okay to be in here too? That’ll get it dirty, won’t it?”

“Little one, I’ll clean it later, don’t worry… I… I just need… a later… to… clean… please…”

Gearing settles down and his hearing and everything else changes to screeching and a high pitched wail. His body feels like some kind of combination of weightless and cloudy, but also a jam full of pain and misery.

The little blue pegasus in his head slumps down the rest of the way as he moans. ‘Close… so close… Fuck… sorry, Commander…’

The little golden pegasus in his head looks at his hoof as it’s starting to fade into cloud again. ‘Well… shit...’

Gearing wants to activate SATS, but it’s not going to help and he knows it. At best it would give him a few more seconds to think. But, right now, that’s all he can do. Nothing else. His body won’t even move under his own command anymore. He doesn’t know what he can do with all of his energy depleted and his body has given its last ounce of fight for the cause. He can see nothing to do but wait for the inevitable, unfortunately.

Secondary source of power confirmed.

Would you like to activate Hydra Protocol 2? Y/N

Gearing activates SATS.

He stares at the glowing text in his peripheral vision. He can’t really see much, not really. But he can see that clearly.

The little blue pegasus starts pulling himself up as he gives the sight a manic grin. ‘Oh hell to the fucking yes!’

Gearing quickly confirms the prompt’s request and he stays in SATS as long as he can, watching as the prompts and feedback roll across for the implant in his body. And as it’s going by it gives him flashes of the little diagram of a pegasus, with the majority of the body in critical condition and his torso listed as ‘Crippled’.

Gearing moans mentally, Please work… I know this sounds stupid coming from me, but I’m not ready to die now. Not now. There’s more I gotta do and a mare I wanna hug.

And when the tingle starts crossing over his body, to let him know that the magic was being activated and is just on the cusp of starting to work, he stays in SATS. He wants to have as much time to think and process what’s going on as possible as the magic starts quickly jolting across his body. And, after being sure that this is no hallucination brought on by his situation, Gearing finally cancels SATS and returns to real time with only a small amount of charge left on his PipBuck.

The little filly backs up as her jaw drops. But her eyes start to sparkle as she looks on with a growing smile at what she sees. And she can’t help letting out a gasp of surprise, the happy kind that’s almost a squeal of delight, as she gushes, “So preeeeettyyy!”

Light shoots out of Gearing’s body from various sources. A warm daylight, almost white light. The rainbow cabling running through his body convulses as power courses through it. His wings start glowing green and in short order the crystals zip out from the metal as the metal twists and warps back the way it should. And missing pieces of the wings frame are rapidly replaced by bits growing from its neighbor. Gearing’s body shifts and shakes as various pieces of his anatomy get replaced back where they are supposed to. His body slides and locks into itself again. He grits his teeth as the process is mind numbingly painful. Pieces that are entirely missing get replaced from other parts that take their place and grow rapidly in place. Other pieces that had been damaged, even ones that had been mostly removed, quickly regrow the missing fragments and leave nothing more than a shine on them before disappearing into his body under the next layer of parts that have formed. The trench cut into his neck seals up in rapid succession. Slag and small bits of himself that had been cut off, but not knocked away, get discarded and flicked away simply by the pieces filling in so quickly. And, after his body returns to his control enough to do so, he pushes himself up to his hooves. He violently yanks one way, ripping his wings free from the remaining staples that still held him down and were getting grown into his wing. Then does the same for the other one. But, this time, he stands up right as he flares out his wings and closes his eyes. The magical aura pulses through his entire body as he starts flexing his body and looking up at the ceiling with his wings flared out and at the ready. In a matter of moments, his body has been entirely repaired, but still flows with magical energy.

He looks down at the filly, but then spits off to the side. Several times. After getting rid of a good amount of pieces of his own discarded body, and the bloody bits still in there from where he killed the mare with the auto axe, he looks at the little filly. He stretches out his right foreleg, dips his head, and says softly as he gives her a formal bow fit for the castle halls of Canterlot, “Thank you very much for your help. I feel much better now.”

The filly looks him over as the glowing continues just as bright as it was a few minutes ago. Except all of the white light seems to be contained to within his body. The green light, however, is still bright enough that he’s illuminating the entire area around them. She claps her forehooves together a few times before she says, “You’re soooo pretty.”

He strikes his regular high winged pose, giving angles so that his wings can redirect light from the surrounding area. But, in this case, they are already producing enough light that he doesn't need other sources. Instead he wraps their own light to make it look like the filly herself is glowing. “Well, little one, that’s thanks to you.”

She looks at him for a few moments. Then she gets a sheepish smile on her face. “Well… I helped you… riiiight?”

Gearing nods deeply. “Yes. You did. More than I can explain to you.”

She taps her forehooves together as she brings them up to her muzzle and seems to be worried about even asking something. After a moment she sheepishly looks around and avoids eye contact before she asks, “Does that mean… I can ask a favor of you?”

Gearing smiles warmly at her. Then he leans down and looks her in the face. “Ask it, little one. If I can do it, I’ll do it…”

She smiles at him and then hops up and down a few times. She points off to the back where she’d come from as she says, “Well… my momma made friends with some ponies. And we came up to get some stuff to salvage… But when we got here, there were a looooot of bad ponies. And my momma’s friends realized that the bad ponies are ponies that they’ve been looking for… So… They don’t want to leave until they get them all, because they worth a lot of money… But I wanna get back to Megamac to get something good to eat, since we got some good stuff to trade, but momma said we can’t go until we’re done here… But we can’t leave while they’re chasing the bad ponies…and that’s gonna take foreeevveerrrr...”

Gearing smirks as he says, “So if the bad ponies get dealt with, you can go get something good to eat at Megamac, and you wanna hurry up and go, right?”

She looks at him and taps her forehooves together as she says, “Weeeelllll, I was just going to ask you to convince them to go now… but… I guess that’d work too…”

Gearing gives her another warm smile. Then he reaches out and ruffles her mane with his right forehoof. He gets closer to her and says, “You show me where the bad ponies went… and I promise you you’ll be able to leave soon.”

The two pegasi in Gearing’s head puff in smoke and suddenly change to being fully kitted out with more weapons than most armories on both of them as they grin manically. The little blue pegasus pulls a cigar out of his mouth as he says, ‘Oh I gar-on-tee eet...’

She beams a smile at Gearing and then turns and points off towards the direction she’d just come from. “Oh! That’s good. They went that way, come on, I’ll show you!”

Gearing grabs the auto axe that was used on him from the ground with a forehoof, and the little filly with a wing at the same time. He sets her on his neck as he rears up. “You show the way and I’ll kick their flank!”

She grabs hold of his mane with one hoof, uses her hind legs to wrap around his neck, and gives a determined scowl as she points off through the manufacturing complex. “They went that way! Giddy up, shiny pony!”

Gearing takes off with the filly on his back. And, after a few strides, takes flight and starts zooming towards the area she points at as he readies the auto axe with his forehooves. “Ohh I can’t wait to ax them a few questions!”

Footnote:

Perk Unlocked: Nerd Rage!

Nerd Rage! - You've been pushed around long enough! You’re down but not out, time to show Rainbow Dash what you’re worth and be 20% cooler! With the Nerd Rage perk, all damage you cause is increased and you take less damage from all sources whenever your Health drops to 20% or below.

‘BlueMac’ Sub Partition Credentials Locked . . .

Processing, Please Stand By . . .

Processing, Please Stand By . . .

‘BlueMac’ Sub Partition Errors Discovered . . .

Analyzing Data, Please Stand By . . .

Author's Note

Getting caught in an ornate trap can have long term far reaching consequences, and this is no exception.

* * * * *

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