"Do I wish to hear about the latest in Sosan weapon prototyping?" Gerardo cocked his head, making a show of thinking. "Well, I can't say that couldn't be interesting. Please, do tell."
"Perfection." Live Wire slammed both hooves on the table, eliciting a chuckle from Egil and a dubious recoil from Off Switch. "Now, I was in the lab yesterday, making adjustments to a new master die for manacannon compression chambers, which are down to science enough that a hair's width could make them explode the bad way... and shut up, Crennel, I know how rare it is to hear me say that. Anyway, a... colleague had noticed that the firing nozzle on the casting machine was cracked and neglected to tell me until I already had a new vat of entwinement glue heating, and that is the end result of a three-week process that you really don't want to try stopping after it's started. So I was trying to get the filament that had already been fed out without pulling any-"
"Hey. You." Off Switch cut him off with a rasp, thick scarf shifting slightly as his head turned. "Look at the griffon's eyes. See that sheen of gloss? It means you're losing him. Tell a story you don't need a background to understand."
Live Wire blinked owlishly, broad mouth frowning at his companion. "...Once, I discovered that putting two cannons on your back gives twice as much firepower as one. They said it wasn't an original discovery, but it sure worked well."
"I... see," Gerardo replied. "Remarkably sophisticated. Though, while I do indeed lack the background to understand most of this technology, I'm hardly opposed to hearing about it."
"You should take him to the testing range," Crennel offered, speaking in slow-motion.
"That... could be interesting..." Live Wire's grin broadened, and he rubbed his hooves. "Hey, Gerardo. Down for a little explosive demonstration?"
"You know I'm in!" Abandoning his seat, Egil rose and moved to join him, pumping a meaty hoof.
"No," Off Switch grumbled, nevertheless rising too and moving to follow the group.
"Well, I suppose I might as well oblige!" Game for anything that didn't involve being exploded himself, Gerardo neatly shoved his stool under the table where it wouldn't get in the way and stretched, vaguely aware of the amount of ponies at other tables paying him attention. It wasn't many, since there weren't many left in the bar, but it was enough to give him a tingling impression of being famous. "Might I ask that one of you lead the way?"
"Leading like a bad oil level leads you to the supply room." Live Wire strode ahead, pushing open the door to the corridors with a bombastic red aura and motioning for the rest to follow.
They slipped through the door, and it swung closed behind them, leaving a lone Crennel happily nursing three forgotten drinks, because it would have been a shame to let them go to waste.
Another door flung open into a deep, straight, iron-walled chamber that looked like it had once been used for cooling and ventilation equipment. Great sections of air ducts hung from the sides where they had been magically sawed off, and the majority of the room was taken up by a balcony overlooking a reinforced, burn-resistant track.
Live Wire unlocked a sizable cabinet with his horn, its face rolling aside to reveal rack upon rack of blasters, launchers, lasers, stabbers, slicers, choppers, clubbers, whackers and other assorted lawn care implements. "Any of these look fun to you, Gerardo?" he offered confidently. "I know I can think of some ones to recommend..."
As a square cube that slightly resembled a bucket tumbled in his aura like a ball spun on a hoof, Gerardo squinted. "Truthfully, I have no idea what to look for. Have you any you are particularly proud of yourself?"
"There's not really all that much here we made," Egil answered, shoving his girth through the testing range door. "Most of these finished products here are from the other two factories. Mobius has us doing more preliminary research, proof-of-concept types of deals, and who knows what happens with that?"
"Shinespark," Off Switch coolly replied, standing near the wall, mane long and black. "She's the one who controls everything, here. Mobius isn't the stallion he once was, so any time someone is doing something and you can't see who, it's Shinespark."
"Well... we do have these..." Live Wire shrugged, pulling out something that looked like a brass snail shell the size of a pony's head. "They're made here, by us."
"Are they, now?" Politely, Gerardo did his best to keep the conversation moving. "What does that one do, if I may?"
Live Wire grinned. "Egil? Mind playing the good guy again today?"
Egil shook his head, taking the machine in his aura and moving toward a staircase to the track below. "You enjoy your job far too much, sometimes, bud."
"We all have our ways of coping." Shrugging, Live Wire pulled out a turret with a long, slim barrel and several concentric rings attached to a wide nozzle. "Better than doing nothing all day. En garde!"
He followed Egil to the floor, and Gerardo peered at them over the railing in morbid fascination and suspense. Were the weapons really suited for a head-on duel?
"You may want to cover your eyes," Off Switch murmured, shuffling up beside him. "That long one makes a very big flash."
"I should like to think I'll be all right," Gerardo assured with a smile, nevertheless holding a wing near his face in case he needed to duck behind it at a moment's notice. With a small crackle of lightning, Live Wire's weapon charged to fire, aimed squarely at Egil... and then let loose.
A single, blinding, razor-thin beam streaked instantaneously from its end, moving so quickly it might not have been traveling at all so much as springing into existence, already spanning the gap between it and its target. Gerardo barely had time to blink before it splintered violently, however, filling the room with the sound of metal striking metal.
Egil held his shell protectively in front, and a broad umbrella of energy streamed from the hole, mushrooming out into a wall that broke the beam's advance. His portable shield sparked and crackled, yet held firm, its cracked surface glossing over and returning to pristine seconds after Live Wire's beam finally ended.
The attacking unicorn tossed down his laser and grinned. "How about that, Gerardo? Impressive?"
"Verily," Gerardo called back, unsure entirely what else to say.
"This thing..." Egil huffed after a moment of climbing, trying to get back on the overlook railing. "Developed completely in-house, with work from Shinespark herself!"
"The Defense Force contract that funds us doesn't contain any specifics," Off Switch interrupted. "We can make what we want... or what the chiefs want, at least. It's a good sign for integrity when a pony asked to make a weapon for a war she doesn't believe in brings you a shield instead of a sword."
"Now, now, while we're showing off the shield..." Live Wire interrupted, sticking his head up above the railing. "What say we show off some of the rest? I'm very partial to cannons, myself, but it's not too much of a stretch to show it off against melee instead..."