* * *

Back at Megamac, the Crater Side is getting pretty busy as more and more ponies come in for the evening. Many spread out and start ordering food and drinks and start socializing with other members of the community as the opportunity arises. And the seats quickly start filling up. Including the ones at the bar.

The barmaid walks over to the side closest to the front door and leans on the counter. “You sure are throwing those back pretty hard… Everything okay?”

Chert nods, and sinks his head onto his left hoof as he sniffles. “Y-yeah… e-everything’s fine… Wife and girls are just at home… I’m just… I’m just hanging out here for a bit to clear my head.”

The mare smirks as she says, “Ah… Code for ‘I dun goofed’ and now you’re trying to hide at the tavern while your wife cools off?”

The dirty white buck smashes his face into his hoof as he moans, “I- I did something… but… my wife and them are at home fine, so… yeah… I’ll just… I’ll just deal with it.”

The mare lets out a sigh as she sees him nursing his fourth glass of whiskey. She waves her hoof at it before she says, “Bud, I’m gonna have to cut you off. I don’t need you getting all weepy and falling over drunk in here. Sober up, wait a bit, then go talk things through with your wife. If you want, after you sober up some, I’ll talk with you about it and help you figure out a way to apologize to her or whatever, okay?”

He sniffles and buries his face into his hooves as they cradle the half drank glass on the counter. But then he nods a couple times to let her know he heard her.

She shakes her head then heads back the other way to deal with other clients along the rest of the length of the bar.

The bar’s wooden double doors swing wide, and a green light illuminates most of the bar as the doors open up suddenly. And a moment later the doors close, but the green light bathing the inside just gets brighter in the dim bar. The strange light draws ponies attention in short order. And it doesn't take long before everyone's turning to look at its source. And the stunned silence is palpable as individually everyone in the bar takes note of what just joined them inside of Crater Side.

The mare behind the bar counter stares at the glowing green light before she asks with a hushed whisper, “Is that Fixer?!”

The dirty white buck lifts his head, looking up towards the wall across the bar counter from him but not daring to look behind himself, and he starts shaking as he sees the green light get brighter and brighter around him. His heart rate begins to sky rocket and his bloodshot eyes grow wider by the second. And, even though he’s shaking while sitting there, he can feel the heavy hoof steps getting closer to him. But he doesn't turn and look at what he can actually feel getting closer to him. He’s terrified to. He’s not sure if it’s the liquor or if he’s finally passed out from what he’s drunk, but this definitely seems like the kind of thing he would have a nightmare about: the buck that he sold off to a bunch of raiders in exchange for his family, coming back for revenge on him. On some foalish level, he’s hoping this is just a nightmare. A nightmare that he can live with. But even through the drink dulling his senses, he’s pretty positive that this is real. And just as positive that he’s about to experience more pain than any single pony should be physically able to endure.

The other ponies turn and watch, and all eating and drinking comes to an absolute stop as they shamelessly watch the golden colored pegasus walk straight toward the dirty white buck at the bar counter. His wings glow so brightly it reminds some of them of a balefire blast, or at least what they’ve heard of them looking like with its ominous green glow.

Gearing stops on the far end of the bar counter, not far from Chert, and leans over onto the bar with a foreleg and stares at the side of the buck’s face. The only face in the entire building that isn’t directed at him at the moment.

No one says anything.

Gearing slowly stretches out his neck towards the buck. Waiting for him to look up, but the buck doesn’t and, after a few moments, Gearing breaks the silence as he leans on the wooden counter, making it creak under his weight as he says flatly, “I’m back.”

The buck jerks from the sound. It’s cold and merciless and like death itself to him. He slowly lifts his head and looks Gearing in the eye. And a cold sweat begins rapidly growing all over Chert’s body.

Gearing stares at Chert coldly, meanwhile his form is wreathed in magical energy coursing through his body as he’d taken an extra dose just to make sure that he’d get through everything. But, it’s not just the white light spilling out of certain parts of his body that draws such shock from the crowd. It’s not just the green light pouring out of his wings, even as ominous as it looks. Gearing is absolutely covered in blood, fur, bits of bone, and there are pieces of mane and tail hair hanging from in between his wing feathers. There are even pieces of hair strangely sticking out of the middle of a few crystal wings as the pieces had gotten locked in place during his hyper healing. A visual testament to the absolutely brutal fighting he had just taken part in.

Gearing, after maintaining hard eye contact with the dirty white buck for a few long seconds, asks, “So, your wife and kids…?”

Chert snorts, shakes, and says, “H-hey… p-please… I’ll step outside. Whatever you want… Just- just- don’t… Not my family… Please.” He reaches over, grabs his cup, and starts bringing it up to his lips. It shakes and rattles between his hooves as he’s trying to bring it up to drink it. “Just let me down this, and you can-”

Gearing snatches the cup from him with a gore covered wingtip, and holds it out to the side. He stares at him a bit, leaning in and looking him in the eye from only a few inches away from touching muzzles. He slowly pours the drink out onto the floor as he maintains hard eye contact with Chert. “I think you’ve had enough of this…” After he’s dumped out the cup, he sets it onto the counter right side up. “Now. Answer the question. Is your family safe?”

The buck nods and lets out a sigh. “They’re at home. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But they’re home now.”

Gearing nods as he looks the buck over. He takes in a deep breath, and then lets out a slow snort that causes a noxious fume to spill out and hit the buck in the face. He starts passing the buck, but then leans towards him sideways and says, “The next time some shit like that happens… Just fucking tell me about it…” He turns his face toward him, putting his lips near the buck’s ears as he growls. “I can deal with the shit easier when I know what I’m getting into…”

The buck shivers and shakes and sinks to the ground at Gearing’s hooves. He nods rapidly and looks down as he expects, at any second, to have his skull caved in by the pissed off golden monster looming over him. The fumes coming out of Gearing already are making it hard for him to breathe, and Chert doesn’t want to find out how far Gearing is willing and able to take his dragon impersonation.

Gearing continues walking past Chert and looks at the barmaid. And between the two ponies, his demeanor has already changed. He smiles at her as he says, “Hey. So. I found the assholes I was looking for… Most of them…” He lifts up a wing and shows the pieces of hair hanging from it. “I’m afraid one got away… If you hear about a buck named ‘Lucky’ coming through town, let Pile Driver know. Sandy hide. Blue mane. Dark red eyes. Annoyingly lucky and knows when the best time to run is. He’s at the top of my shit list.”

The mare nods quickly. But doesn’t say anything.

Gearing looks around at everyone else in the tavern, then looks at the barmaid again and waves nonchalantly. “Also, there’s a group of bounty hunters coming in. They’ve got quite the haul with them. So I’m pretty sure they’re going to want some good grub when they get here and get paid.” He leans towards the mare and his smile warms up a bit. “They got a little filly with them. She’s pink, no mark. She’s with her momma, an orange mare. Give that little filly whatever she wants, and put it on my tab. If she wants to eat a whole crate full of fancy buck cakes, let her. I’ll pay for it. That little filly did me a solid today and she deserves whatever happiness she can get.”

The mare smiles and nods. She looks around, at everyone else, as they stare gaping at Gearing, but none of them having the guts to say anything to him. She looks at him and tilts her head as she asks, “Is there anything I can get you though?” She looks him over and frowns as she says softly, “Looks like you’ve had a hard week in the last few hours.”

Gearing laughs and shakes his head. “Oooohhh you don’t know the half of it. But, I’m going to go get cleaned up and take a nap.” He waves as he turns and starts heading out as he starts looking through his bags. “I’ll see you all around.”

A light blue-gray buck in a cream colored long sleeve shirt with a red kerchief in the breast pocket steps up from the side. “Uh… Uhh… Mr. Fixer… sir?”

Gearing turns his head and looks at him as he’d been looking through his saddle bags to make sure they’ll last the trip home. They have been minimally repaired from where they were cut off of him, but he’s pretty sure they’re good enough to be functional. At least for now. They should last him long enough to get back to Stable 68 so he can get them properly repaired instead of the crappy job he had to do so far because of time constraints. Gearing instantly recognizes the owner of the establishment and relaxes a bit before he asks, “Yeah?”

The buck takes his derby hat off and fumbles with it in front of his chest as he tries to think of what to say. He looks Gearing over. And many things run through his mind. But, out of everything he can say, he simply looks up at Gearing in the eye and gives him a warm smile. “Thanks for what you’ve done for us lately… And I mean for more than the lights.” He lamely points back towards the ceiling lights before going back to rotating his derby with his forehooves. “All the raiders. The slavers… You saved Pile Driver… I mean just everything you’ve done for us, I don’t know how-”

Gearing raises a hoof, and the buck instantly stops speaking. “You want to thank me? Then keep being the good ponies I know you folks are. Help each other when you can. And, if you ever hear about any slaver or raider activity, don’t keep it to yourself. If you or anyone you know gets threatened, get help… They can’t be trusted and it’s not worth the risks. Life won’t improve as long as ponies fight each other over crumbs. Instead of fighting and killing each other over scraps, let’s build something better. Okay?” He waves a forehoof around as he adds, “Remember, we in Equestria went from building with wood and rocks to making steel skyscrapers and with advanced technology all in a single generation. We can do it again. It just takes working together… Okay? Good ponies can accomplish anything when we work together.”

The owner stares at him for a few moments before he starts nodding rapidly. A few other ponies start stomping their hooves in applause and, after a few more seconds, they are joined by whistles and other cries of agreement from the local ponies.

Seemingly making his point, Gearing turns and leaves Crater Side. And the last thing he does on the way out is shoot a side eye at the dirty white buck at the bar counter. They maintain hard eye contact for only a split second. And, after that, Gearing is already out of the tavern and into the beginning of night. The next second Chert has collapsed onto the counter, bawling uncontrollably. And though no one says anything to him, the barmaid slides him a glass of water on the house and goes about her business elsewhere as she practically starts ignoring him.

Gearing’s trip back to the stable isn’t as direct as he normally would like. And it’s in direct conflict with his desire to get back as quickly as possible and jump into the waiting limbs of his mare. But there are still a few things he needs to do before he can indulge himself in some patented Sable loving. So instead of listening to the two protesting pegasi in his head who constantly list off the reasons why he does in fact deserve some nice things at the moment, and how much he’s earned it, he swings by the initial ambush site that started his whole nightmare. The weapons and materials from the worst of it, he left for the group of bounty hunters that he met. They did a great job of pinning the gang down. And were, in fact, making excellent headway in corralling. And then Gearing suddenly showed up. With the auto axe. And the fight increased in fervor as the gangers realized that he was very much back, very much alive, was fully intact, was now glowing, and was very very very angry.

Though Gearing was sensible enough to toss the pink filly to her mother before putting the auto axe to work in a sealed room where he didn’t care about being shot. They sealed themselves in that room hoping to hold off the bounty hunters long enough to drain them of their ammo before launching a counter attack with their numerical superiority. But the way Gearing was feeling, he didn’t care about getting shot in the face, point blank, with a variety of weaponry. None of their pathetic weapons could out damage the healing rate he actively had coursing through his body. And the only way they had to go was out through the door that he knocked over with his own body.

But outside of that doorway, beyond Gearing, was a firing squad of bounty hunters that were already licking their lips at the pay day they were about to receive.

Although, after seeing the aftermath of what Gearing had unleashed on the gangers in that room, all of the bounty hunters had the good sense not to ask him how he managed to break an auto axe on just ponies. And that auto axe was one of the few things Gearing actually took with him from the mining complex.

His next stop was at the manufacturing plant where Handy was involuntarily made to perform a colander impersonation with the holes put in him. By the time he’d arrived, he already had a plan for how he was going to gather everything, and went the most efficient route to go from body to body once he made it to the complex around the tower. Once there he quickly zips around and grabs the various weapons that he can find on the kills that he’d made earlier in the day. To his surprise, no one had come back through here. Whether because the survivors were too busy trying to run for their own life, or what, he doesn’t know. But he quickly strips all of them of their weapons, plus anything else they might have of value.

He doesn't even bother with the jumpsuits except making sure there’s nothing hidden in them. From his perspective, they’re so disgusting they aren’t even worth cleaning. And that’s before you add in the biohazard of blood and pony innards covering them. The lieutenant and the commander in particular had more gear than the average pony of the group. And he strips them all the way down. Including the actual Equestrian Defense Force uniform from the gang’s ‘commander’. He’s not happy with the buck having this. He’s not sure where he got it from. But it feels dishonorable to him for such a pony to be wearing something with so many symbols on it and to do such horrible things on the very soil the oaths attached to it were meant to protect. He grabs several other bags and clears out all of the weapons and armor that he can find, then heads up to the roof. He quickly opens the fan access, and pulls out the bags he had stored up here before following Locke. And, again, he’s pleasantly surprised when he finds that no one had tried to run off with any of it. But he doesn't question his luck in this case, after all, he paid for all of this with absurd amounts of his clear viscous blood.

After loading himself down with all of his hard won loot, Gearing takes flight and heads towards the stable. He takes the same general pattern that he’d taken before, heading where he’d landed with Swift and Handy earlier the night before, and then starts on his way towards the stable from that landing point. Except, this time, he simply flies just above the ground and goes as quickly as he can, as he’s hauling the dozen duffle bags with his legs that are only off the ground by a mere foot or so. He’s also not zipping around and trying to dodge any imaginary incoming fire this time. With the mood that he’s in, anyone stupid enough to shoot at him after the day he has had is just asking to be crammed inside of a tiny trashcan and punted across Equestria.

Gearing gets to the hidden hatch in short order and starts heading down. But as soon as he gets the hatch closed, and before he even starts moving towards the stable’s main door, the sirens for the stable door’s opening protocol start alerting their intention to open. Gearing stops just outside of the front door, and waits for it as he wonders who has been watching the entrance and who is so eager for him to get back. In normal situations that answer is a short list of one mare. Currently it could be several, and most of them would not be too happy with him.

The door opens and he doesn’t even manage to take a single step forward before Swift zips out of the stable.

She screams at him as she’s barreling straight towards him, “How dare you leave us behind!” She comes in with a swing of her forehoof, not her powerhoof, and aimed right at his face. But, Gearing stops it cold with a single forehoof as she’s homing in on him. And he doesn’t even try to catch it this time as he becomes as rigid and unyielding as a stubborn earth pony’s head as he actually lets her hurt herself on his hoof. She recoils, shakes her now sore hoof, and gets back in his face as she snarls, “You just couldn’t wait, could you!? Why?! Why didn’t you let us go too!?”

A green glint catches her eye, and she looks over to the side where her shadow is blocking some of the light coming out of the stable and overhead lights. She waves a forehoof back and forth over it, before leaning in closer to confirm her suspicions. She puts a hoof and a wing over his wing, blocking as much light as she can from reaching it, and sees how there is still a faint glow coming from under her hoof. She looks Gearing in the eye, who, at this point, is out right glaring at her. She asks softly, “Your wing’s glowing again…?” Gearing just narrows his eyes slightly at her. She asks quietly, almost mouthing it as she looks at him. “… That bad?”

Gearing’s left eye twitches a bit, but, again, he doesn’t say anything. Instead he unhooks Handy’s bloody pneumatic sledgehammer from his back, and presents it to her. She takes it, and holds it with a hoof as she slowly processes the chain of events again. After that, she moves in to give him a hug, but stops as she finally sees all of the blood and bits of pony all over him. Instead she whispers, “I won’t say anything to Sable.” Before she pulls back and heads back inside. She looks at her hoof as she’s entering and screws her face up in disgust as she says, “This is disgusting, Gearing… Go take a bath, would you?” And along the way she intercepts both Apple Armor and Plum Pie and directs them back where they had come from. In the case of Plum Pie she’s so obstinate about it that Swift actually picks her up. And Apple Armor gets a few swats on the flank from her tail as she chases after him through the hallways.

Once inside of the stable, and the door is closing behind him, Gearing sees that a couple protectaponies have been standing off to the side of the pathway. He looks at them for a moment then asks, “Could you help me carry this down to arr and dee?”

The closest protectapony starts moving towards him as he comments, “The crea-TOR has stationed us here for salvage transfer. So, yes! Lead the way!” And Gearing slowly starts passing bags onto the protectaponies, who use their cables to carry the various duffle bags, before Gearing heads down to the R&D section with the one large bag still within his forehooves.

After he gets to the Research and Development’s decontamination chamber, he zips right through it, skips decontamination protocol, then heads into the Research and Development section. He sets the bag down not far away from the door and looks around for Sable. But, not immediately seeing anything, he quickly takes off everything he still has on him, mangled bags and all, and sets them on the floor near the duffle he’d brought in. After that he turns around and heads back into the Research and Development decontamination chamber. He stands on the other side and quickly loads himself up with the bags from the protectaponies, who dump them into the decontamination chamber with him, and then he takes them from there to put them inside the actual Research and Development section. After getting the practical mountain of salvage stacked up near one of the computer consoles, he turns and heads into the decontamination chamber again. The door to the chamber hangs open a bit longer than it would normally, and just as Gearing turns to look at the door with a raised eyebrow, Sable trots out of the back storage area.

They look at each other for a moment across the research lab before Sable asks, “May I join you?”

Gearing steps further into the chamber and away from the door as he looks at her. “Sable, the one thing I want right now, is to feel your hooves on me. So, yes. And as much as you want.”

Sable trots happily in place and then bounds into the decontamination chamber with him with a massive grin on her muzzle. She starts reaching for him as she’s pulling out a few tools she’s already grabbed to help him, but stops as she looks him over and starts getting a good view of him. She gives his form a careful examination as she says, “My Darling Gearing… you have… organic material… from many ponies… embedded all over your body…”

Gearing nods as he lets out a sigh. “It got… unpleasant…”

She quickly starts helping him clean off as the decontamination protocol of the Research and Development section starts running. She keeps digging pieces out of them and starts getting frustrated as a couple bone fragments really seem wedged in there in a couple spots. The fur, mane, and tail hairs in his wings seem even worse as the hair had somehow gotten wrapped up and tangled inside of his wings and she’s not sure how to get them out without simply cutting it away as small pieces at a time. But that wouldn’t get the fragments that are actually encapsulated by the crystals of his wings. After the one cycle has finished, she’s barely made any headway. Except for the blood and loose bits. Gearing even stretched his head back and gargled with the cleaning solution before spitting it up in the air like a fountain as he tried to make a joke of the situation. But, after the cycle is over, Sable leans back and looks him in the eye. “My love, this is going to take a while… far longer than normal…”

Gearing lets out an annoyed sigh as he looks up at the ceiling. He contemplates going through a few more cycles. But then thinks better of it. And has another idea in mind. He slowly lowers his muzzle, and looks at Sable. His instincts make him want to tackle her, wrap her up in his hooves, and just hold her. That’s all he wants to do. The pair of pegasi in his head are waving little banners and yelling into megaphones for Team Sable and urging him to do exactly that. But, he also doesn’t want to worry her. On some level he’s grateful for Swift not to fink on him about what she suspects he’s been through. He looks over at the door leading back to the main part of 68 and asks, “What do you think of… me going ahead and hopping in the autodoc, and letting it remove the rest of the organic material while it checks me for damage? Before we do anything else I mean?”

Sable looks at him for a moment before replacing her various tools and setting them in the R&D side of the chamber before going out with him on the side facing the rest of the stable. The two walk along, with Sable a bit in front and leading the way this time. After they get through the medical bay's decontamination chamber, and Gearing is heading towards the auto doc, Gearing finally asks, “How’s Handy?”

Sable starts helping Gearing into the chamber for the auto doc as she replies, “Subject Handy Hooves has recovered from his injuries and is out of danger. However, as expected of such serious injuries, he will need time to recover still. He had a substantial loss of blood and will need rest before he’s able to continue on with any further strenuous tasks. On top of the round in the auto doc, he was also given infusions of synthetic blood and injections of blood creation stimulants to speed up the recovery process. Full recovery is expected within a week. Physically he is already fine and will mostly be dealing with fatigue related issues until then.” After helping get Gearing into the chamber, and before closing the chamber’s lid she looks him in the eyes and says softly, “He’s resting in bed with his foals…”

Gearing smiles and relaxes back into the chamber as he closes his eyes and lets out a long gush of air. “Good. I’m glad. I was worried the auto doc wasn’t enough.”

Sable starts the machine, and stands off to the side as it works. Sable keeps watching over Gearing and the process and, after a while of it running, she actually extends a cable from herself and plugs into the side of the machine. And, from her position, she blatantly eavesdrops on the continued actions that the machine is taking. But, she says nothing and doesn’t even try to engage Gearing in any form of conversation.

Gearing, for his part, is okay with that. He’s not sure what all the machine is wanting to do to him before declaring him at full health. The indicator on his pipbuck showing his current health status was the thing of nightmares for most ponies. He’s not sure how many others would survive the same relative damage he’d received. Seeing the caricature of the crying pegasus with nearly everything crippled was surreal. And he can’t help admitting that at the time he did feel about as empty as the system depicted his life was. He’s not sure how he feels about that and how that tingling feeling made the excruciating pain fade from his notice and be replaced by pure rage. But now one thing he does notice is feeling certain parts of his body move around again on their own. Using the auto doc’s ability to separate flesh without the patient actually feeling it thanks to some of its enchantments the machine digs through Gearing’s entire body. Even so, the nerve deadening field is not fully working on him as, in a couple instances, he does feel some sharp stings in certain parts of him. Sometimes in some deep parts of him at that. But, as usual, he doesn't move at all. He just lets it happen and suffers through it without making any complaints. Though it’s not like he has much choice in the matter there. The special mods that are being used to allow the machine to help him correctly are the most welcome thing for him on this side of the bombs dropping. Because if it wasn’t for them, he’d be in absolute agony as the machine tried to heal him, and in the process there would be a very real possibility of it causing more harm than good. Assuming it would even register him as a living being in the first place, that is.

Gearing can’t help but feel the time slipping by as he’s laying there. But, still, the machine has him trapped and has given no signal, at all, that it’s even close to being done with him. And the longer it goes, the more concerned he actually gets about it.

As time passed, a few of Apple Armor’s friends had come through to see how things were, having heard that Gearing was back and already knowing how bad Swift and Handy ended up. But after sitting there for a while, and him not exiting, they leave without so much as asking a question. If whatever is being done to him is taking that long, they know it’s serious enough that he needs to be left alone.

They’re smart kids like that.

But after receiving an hour of treatment, and the door showing no sign of opening, Gearing finally opens his eyes and starts looking around. He’s not sure if he’d simply fallen asleep, though he’s pretty sure he hadn’t, but something’s not right. So he finally calls out to Sable to try and figure out what’s going on.

“Sable, could you check the machine? I think it might have locked up or something.”

“I’m already monitoring the auto doc chamber, my darling. It is still functioning within normal parameters,” Sable replies flatly.

Gearing blinks a few times before asking, “Why is it taking so long? I figured I’d be in and out in five, maybe ten minutes?”

There’s a delay before Sable leans over the chamber and looks through the glass at him. She narrows her eyes a bit at him then replies, “I believe the one who is most capable of answering that question, my love, is you yourself…”

Gearing looks up at her, he notices the cable coming out of her neck, and he instantly recognizes one of her data cables. “Uh… Sable… What- What is it telling you?”

Sable looks in at him, before rearing up and planting her forehooves on the glass on either side of her face as she gets close to it and stares in at him. “Enough that you are not coming out of that chamber until it has completed its cycle. If you attempt to do so, I shall use my laser and weld the lid closed. Am I clear, my love?”

Gearing looks up at her and sees a scowl. An actual scowl. And pointed at him. Her eyes, their soothing blue, even flashed a different color for a moment. Not red, but a slightly different shade of blue. Enough to let him know that something’s up and she’s not happy with him of all ponies and that it’s probably in his best interest not to push the situation at the moment.

Gearing looks her in the eyes and gives a slight nod. “I’m not going anywhere, Sable…” He gives her a faint smile. “If you promise to stay right there… while this does its thing, I’ll promise to stay right here while it does too.”

Sable looks at him and gives him a faint smile. “That is acceptable, my love.” She keeps looking in and leans on the capsule just a bit, but maintains the majority of her weight with her own hind hooves.

It takes another fifteen minutes of working on Gearing before the machine finally signals it has finished its process and indicates it is okay to open the door again.

But Gearing stays laying there as he looks up at her. After a few more moments of looking at each other through the glass Gearing asks, “So, nurse, am I clear to leave the bed now?”

Sable looks at him and smirks. Then her eyes look elsewhere as she focuses on the information coming from the cable again. And then she nods as she disconnects the cable from the auto doc and puts it back where it’s supposed to be. “Yes, my darling Gearing, you may leave the chamber.” She pulls back and helps lift the lid, and then stands off to the side using a couple of her cables to help him climb out of the chamber and get to his hooves onto the ground. It’s an entirely unnecessary thing to do, but she wants to, and he appreciates it. Plus it gives them an additional excuse for further contact with each other. Not that either of them actually needed that.

As Gearing is standing upright to his hooves, with Sable on the other side of him, he starts stretching. As he’s stretching his wings and head up towards the ceiling, Sable walks a bit away from the chamber and looks at him.

As soon as his head is back down enough where they can have eye contact again, Sable holds up the jar where foreign objects are collected, and asks, “My love… Care to explain this?”

Gearing looks down and his eyes jump wide open as he takes a step back.

The container is half full of various fragments. There are a few pieces of lead, steel, rock, broken glass, and other bits and pieces. There are even more than a few pieces of bone, hide, and hair mixed in. But the vast majority of it is clearly brass. And relatively shiny at that. There are entire hunks where cogs had been shattered. There are twisted and misshapen plates of a variety of thicknesses. And, among all of it, is an entire pile of practical powder. But, it’s not powder. It’s shavings. And clumped slag. Shavings and slag that were caused when an auto axe was taken to him and cut him in half. The fragments had been knocked inside of him. And, when he’d been healed by his implant at the last possible second, most of it was sealed up inside of him.

The very thing he warns others about happening as a possibility of using rapid regeneration based healing. That’s what happened to him.

Sable stares at him for a few moments before commenting, “If you do not wish to tell me about it, I would prefer you to say so instead of trying to make up an excuse.”

Gearing looks at her for a few moments before he says softly, “I don’t want to lie to you. I would rather not tell you the specifics. I- I don’t want to hurt you… But, if you really want to know, I’ll tell you… but not here. Down in the arr and dee department. I don’t want anyone else knowing about it. For now, at least.”

Sable frowns as she looks at him. She stares at the container for a few moments before she sets the entire thing to the side on the counter next to the recovery chamber. “If that is what my darling Gearing wishes, that is what we shall do.” She walks over and joins him, then gives him a soft kiss on the cheek. “Are you sure you are feeling better? Did the machine do everything that it should have?”

Gearing takes in a deep breath and lets it out a few times before nodding. “Yes, I believe so. I feel a little… off… But that usually happens after having to resort to using… something…” There’s a delay before he says quietly, “Let’s get to the arr and dee section so I can tell you what had happened.

The pair walk down to the Research and Development department, side by side, but not saying anything. Sable gently tested boundaries with him along the way, looking for what he was comfortable with, but hoping to comfort him as much as possible. Her cables wrap up and over his shoulders, gently rubbing on his wither region and the area around his wings. And, to her delight, he actually leans towards her as she does. An act that blatantly signals that not only is he okay with it, but he desires more. By the time they get to the Research and Development decontamination chamber, he’s wrapped her up in one of his wings and is holding her close to himself. They skip the R&D chambers protocols, given they both just came from Medical, and head inside.

He pulls away from her, walks a bit further into the room, before turning around and sitting down. He looks at Sable for a few moments before asking, “What do you want to know?”

Sable walks a bit closer as she looks him over. His body, without question, is in perfect condition now. It has that slight golden shine to it that makes him seem just that much more appealing to her. Even if he’s not turned around or bending over and giving her the best view of himself to her. She sits down, across from him, and mirrors his body positioning. “Everything. From the time you left. To the time you returned.”

Gearing stares at her for a few seconds before saying quietly, “It’s bad, Sable… Like right up there with The Core… Maybe even worse if you actually wanted to quantify the two experiences…”

“Tell me, please, if you are willing… I want to know what my Gearing has been through,” Sable asks politely.

Gearing looks up at the ceiling as he takes in a deep breath. After a few more cycles of breathing, a completely unnecessary maneuver, he lets it out in a gush. “Nettlekiss? Nettlekiss are you there?”

No one responds.

“Nettlekiss, I know you monitor the microphones in the stable. They are turned on by default. So I know you’re listening…” Gearing says a bit grumpily.

The speaker near him kicks on as Nettlekiss grumbles, “What do you want, you stupid stallion?”

Gearing keeps looking up at the ceiling before he says, “Nettlekiss… I think you’ve seen and been through enough. You don’t want to hear this. So I’d suggest you turn off the microphones in here for a while. If you don’t, you might hear something that you can’t unhear, and that’ll just lead to a spiral. If you leave it on, and hear something bad, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The speaker chimes back. “I’m a big girl, Gearing. I can take care of myself.”

Gearing looks over at the speaker and deadpans, “Funny, I’m a one ton metallic monster and couldn’t…” There’s a long silence before Gearing turns over towards Sable and lets out another sigh. “It involves an industrial strength auto axe used for tearing down things for recycling, and multiple ponies finding out what it’s like to be on the receiving end of that…”

The microphone and speakers click in the R&D section as they give various pops and static before no more noise of any kind comes out of any of them.

“Nettlekiss?” Gearing asks. “You still there?”

“My Darling Gearing, Nettlekiss has informed me that she would like to refrain from taking part in this meeting. But has asked me to relay to her any pertinent information, minus the, as she put it, ‘gory details’… Is that acceptable to you, my darling?”

Gearing nods and smirks as he looks down. “Yeah… that’s fine.”

Sable scoots a bit close before she asks, “What was that about an ‘industrial strength auto axe’, my love?”

Gearing looks up at her and frowns as he says, “It’s bad, Sable… but, let me start at the beginning…”

She reaches over, grabs his head, and in short order has smashed his face into her chest as she starts curling back and pulling him into her. Before he can really say much else, she’s already wrapped him up with her legs and coils. And then, after having him entirely encompassed in a comforting cocoon, she speaks softly into his ear, “Share what you will, my love… I’m here for you.”

And so, for the second time in the span of the day, Gearing is left explaining a whole string of physical and emotional baggage to Sable. But, unlike previously, this time he intentionally avoids telling her a few things. He avoids explaining the extent of the damage that the auto axe had done to him. How it practically cut him in half. How it almost killed him. He down plays its severity as realistically as he can. He doesn’t want her knowing how close to death he truly came. But the damage she’d uncovered was not something he could hide. Not from her. So he does explain the whole situation, but artistically. But, instead of exaggerating to make things more exciting, he cuts that part down to a more manageable size. He even assures her that the spike that had been used on him, had been destroyed.

Which is true. Because after dealing with the mining themed gang of psychos, Gearing went back to the spike, still coiled up and bent into the ground like a giant ‘U’ with his parts all around it, and cut it to pieces. And, in the process, whatever enchantments were on it were destroyed because after he’d sliced it enough times, he tried one of the ends, and in this case his strength allowed him to pull it right out of the ground with little trouble. And, to prove a point, he chucked it on the far end of the manufacturing area to get lost among the rest of the rusting rubble. Though he pointedly ignores the order in which those events had happened.

And, afterwards, when he’s finally done telling on himself, he keeps hold of Sable and just resumes nuzzling in and against her. It’s a while before the silence is broken between them.

“My darling Gearing needs to take care of himself. That could have ended very badly very easily…” Sable says softly, as she continues to stroke his back with a hoof and nuzzle him with her cheek.

“I know, Sable. I’m aware of that. Things snowballed quickly,” Gearing says with a sigh.

After a few more moments Sable asks, “What would my darling Gearing like to do now?”

Gearing takes in a deep breath, then a smile forms across his muzzle as an idea pops into his mind from somewhere in the void that even surprises the little pegasi in there that live rent free. Gearing stretches up a bit to look at her in the eyes, and gives her a warm smile. “How about we cash in some of what I owe you?” He gives her a soft kiss. Then starts increasing them in frequency as he works up her muzzle to her ear as he starts gently rubbing along her body with both his forehooves and his wings. He gives her ear a playful bite before he says, “Make me feel alive, my love. Make me glad to have made it ho-UGH!”

He’d gone too far with his teasing.

She’d gone too long without him.

So, between the two sins, he has a lot to make up for and barely gets a word in edgewise before he’s pinned to the floor of the Research and Development department with his muzzle full of her tongue.

Footnote:

Quest Perk: Local Legend III – “He killed’em with fireballs from his eyes, and bolts of lightning from his arse!” Your various deeds have become the stuff of legends. Jokes and tall tales are spun about you, including getting in a fight with Death itself and making it cry uncle. Some of them are even true. Your reputation has far outpaced you. Those in positions of power are starting to have to factor you into whatever they do. Those with a positive outlook of your adventures are even more likely to provide yet more favorable rates, divulge information you request or that they even think may help you, and will go out of their way to help you in any way they feasibly can all in an attempt to curry your favor. How generous they will be is proportional to the reputation you have with them and how useful they think you are to them. More powerful individuals may even send representatives to seek you out with special offers, requests, or to volunteer information they know is valuable to you. Note: For those that you have been causing problems for, expect proportionally the exact opposite with continuing hostilities thrown at you. You’ve gotten to be such a headache, that your enemies can’t simply ignore you anymore. Even more powerful groups will start working together to try and eliminate you. You’re hurting their bottom line, and they won’t stand for that. The further you go and the more you do, the worse your detractors will become. No good deed goes unpunished after all.

‘BlueMac’ Sub Partition Parity Check Failure . . .

‘BlueMac’ Sub Partition Credentials Locked . . .

Processing, Please Stand By . . .

Processing, Please Stand By . . .

‘BlueMac’ Sub Partition Errors Discovered . . .

Author's Note

Little detour almost cost Gearing everything, but on top of it's long term effects there's one buck that now has the dubious honor of being on his list by name.

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