281182 'Fine I'll just get the houses on the way...' With that Ash made a beeline for Gears house, haphazardly spewing flames at the homes along the way.

281267 'Alright good, I just hope we aren't too late...'

281335 '...and here we are!' Ash said, opening the door to Gears house, closing his eye in anticipation of what would be seen.

281670 He walked in to the red mare that had a flame for a cutie mark, standing over Gear Clank's body.

Fire Dancer: "Gear! Wake up!!" She said as she nudged the body harder. She turned to the pony that walked in the door. "Hey... can you help me wake her up? Shes sleeping like a rock..."

281703 'You want to take this one, I don't know the first thing about her... let alone how to distract her, and I don't want another unmoving body in here...' Ash asked Gear.

281709 'Uh... If she sees your eyes change shes going to flip... and She's good at noticing ponies eyes.... Just tell her something like I was up all night last night or something.'

Fire Dancer: "Hello?" She waved her hoof in front of Ash's face. "You alright?" She leaned to the side and looked at the side of Ash's body and saw his ash cutie mark. "Whoa! You have ashes for a mark!" She turned sideways to show him her's "I have a fire mark!"

281713 "heh, fancy that..." Ash said, praying he wouldn't seem awkward, "I wouldn't really bother Gear right now though, she's been awake for the past few days working on... something..." Ash said, his thoughts running rampant attempting to think of something to drag her away from the house, "Hey... any chance you want to go do something together? I was just painting the town red... and yellow, and orange in a way, any chance you want to see?" Ash hopes his speech won't yield him a kick to the face.

281715 a kick to the face? How lol.

"Your a painter?... alright, I was thinking you had something to do with fires because of your mark." She said, a look of disappointment on her face. "Sure, atleast they are my favorite colors." She said with a smile returning and followed Ash."

281716 They step out the door to a scene of absolute destruction, the majority of the town in flames, "I told you I was painting the town red, orange, and yellow... temporarily of course..." Ash chuckles when he looks at his handiwork, a massive smile clear on his face, "Also, you might want this..." Ash says passing a gas mask to Fire.

281721 Fire Dancer's mouth gaped open in shock. "Y...you s-s-set the town on f-fire?" She stuttered the question with her eyes growing wide.

281723 "What, I thought it was kind of obvious when I had the name Ash BURN..." Ash reasons, now looking at Fire, "What's wrong, did I accidentally hit your house in my little... pyro spree?" Ash asks, most of the happiness gone from his voice as he attempted to fake some amount of concern for the stranger he just met.

281725 "First of all, I never knew your name, and no its not that you hit my house... my house is fire proof because of what I do, its just that...." She gets down on her knees and fans her hooves out as if she was giving an invisible pony a hug and faced the burning town "Its just so... beautiful!" She said as her eyes gleamed at the dancing flames.

281727 'Well, I guess everything went better than expected huh Gear?' Ash thought as he looked back to the inferno before him, "Hey, any chance you want to come with me? Still a lot of houses left, if you don't mind ruining ponies livelihood and all that emotional garbage..." Ash said, putting his flame retardant suit back on, "Also, any chance you want to go to the concert tonight?" Ash blurted out without thinking about what Gear had told Riff earlier.

281729 "I love fire, but I don't want to hurt anypony.... and what concert? Aren't you Gear's coltfriend?"

281731 "Well I guess that's where me and you are a tad different, there is a concert tonight... somewhere... Gear had tickets that I have now, even though more likely I won't like the music there, and no, Riff is Gears coltfriend if anypony. I'm only friends with her." Ash said, responding to everything Fire had said in order she had asked.

281732 "If you wouldn't like the music, then why would you want to go? I mean, I prefer upbeat coastal music... they never have concerts with tins or ukelele's these days."

281734 "because most ponies our age like the "music" there, so I thought it would be a passable excuse for us to spend time together for no apparent reason" Ash said, giving a particularly hollow smile.

281738 "I think Gear likes that stuff, not me. I don't want to have a headache for five hours, sorry." Fire said, showing an indifferent smile.

281739 "Well then, I guess I'll see you around then, unless you want to do anything..." Ash says, starting to walk away from the glorious inferno of his design.

281743 "I need to go and wake Gear up, she really shouldn't sleep this late." She looks over at the setting sun before she trots back to Gear Clank's house.

'Um... You should stop her Ash....' Gear Clank said worriedly. 'and is it almost time for me to go back now?'

281744 'midnight my friend, it just seems like the best... and most cliche time to do it...' Ash think, "Hey Fire, wait!" Ash shouts trying to catch up to her.

281745 Fire stops in her tracks and looks behind her. "Yes, Ash?"

281746 "any chance I could treat you to dinner?" Ash mentally kicks himself for asking this so suddenly and almost regrets it immediately... almost.

281749 "No thanks, I really should wake up Gear, I know how she gets weird if she sleeps too much."

281750 "Sorry, but I'm afraid I can't let you do that..." Ash says in a particularly cold voice as he races ahead of Fire, leaving her behind in a cloud of kicked up dust.

281751 "Wh-what?" She was stunned for a moment but shook her head and straightened her black headband and entered a gallop for Gear's house.

281752 Ash, now panicking about what he is doing, notes an opportunity, his flamethrower still laid next to Gears door, without thinking he picks it up and sprays a wall of fire a short ways in front of Fire who was still galloping towards the house

281753 Fire jumps forward straight into the fire and twirled, causing the fire to blaze around her harmlessly. She now had an angry expression and yelled ahead of her. "I know your hiding something! Go ahead, use your fire! I know how to take the heat!"

281755 Ash merely looks at Fire as she draws ever closer, 'For Celestia's sake help me out here Gear!' Ash mentally shouts, attempting to think of some way to stop the ever advancing mare without just resorting to physical violence.

281756 'I have no idea... we might have to explain this to her, I think you should be lucky its not Raven, but Fire is almost as worse...'

Fire had her eyes on Ash's flamethrower, now only 50ft away and gritting her teeth, not heading for the door, but for Ash.

281757 "Oh sod it!" Ash shouts throwing the flamethrower at Fire just as she reached within 10ft of Ash, Ash then using the distraction tackled her and pinned her to the ground, "Not exactly how I planned the first date but I'll take it" Ash laughs to himself as Fire struggles.

281758 She slid on the ground under the flamethrower and then regained herself to tackle Ash, but found herself being tackled and pinned. She smiled at Ash as he laughed in his triumph. "Whoa.. slow down there..." She snickered. She heaved her back legs on his stomach and pushed upwards. "You didn't buy me dinner yet!" She kicked him off, got up and then tackled him on his back and raised her hoof to deal a blow to his head with the back of her hoof. "Why the hell did you do that?!"

281761 "Do you want the full, confusing story or do you want a happy little lie?" Ash asks, hoping to obtain one last attempt to avoid the truth.

281762 She growled down at him. "Gear might be the genius here, but she misses alot of detail, I don't just need a happy little lie when im already pissed."

281765 "Fine, Gear might be able to explain it to you a tad better than me though..." Ash said, closing his eyes 'Gear get out there your friend is about to eviscerate me!'

281766 'No she wont...What happened to that badass who took out all those mercenaries Riff's dad sent?'

"Wha.... " She gave him a death stare. "I got my hopes up for nothing, your a psycho..." She got up off of him and casually trotted to the door.

281768 'I can't just kill a mare that I....' Ash stops his thought when he realizes what he was about to say. "Don't open that door!" Ash shouts, standing up and dashing towards Fire as she almost reached for the doorknob.

281769 'What! I'm not telling you to kill her!! Just knock her out or something or-'

Fire Dancer saw him dashing towards her, she grabbed his hoof and raised it up over her head, put her back against his stomach and pulled his hoof over her, sending Ash to the ground. She stood over him. "IF your going to keep secrets, at least be able to fight." She glared as she turned around to grab the knob.

281772 Ash had enough of this, he slowly stood, walked over to Fire and shouted "Enough! I have had it! No more games, time to die!", before grabbing onto her by her neck and repeatedly rammed his hoof into her oversized eye while bashing her head into the hard ground, the ground swiftly turning red.

281773 oversized eye?

When Ash finished he stood back to look at his work, but his heart sank as she stood up. 'OH my gosh.... YOU have no idea what you just did.... man her therapist is going to be sooo pissed...'

She knocked a few times on her own head with a strange smile. "I'm from Haywaii, where all the hard-heads are...." Her irises tensed up and she threw off her headband as some blood spilt from her mouth and eyes. She grabbed Ash and rammed him through the front door, sending them both tumbling on the ground locked in each other's grasp. She pinned him to the ground again with a sick smile. "So you like fire?...." She struck her hoof on the ground and ignited some sparks with her special dancing horseshoes. The sparks flew near Ash's face.

281775 "Oh, look at the time..." Ash said in a completely normal sounding voice, despite the pain an individual would typically be in after this, "Hey Gear your going back in your body now!" With that Ash's horn began to glow with the same blindingly bright light as before consuming all three in the room, before a similar blast of energy sent all of them flying to separate sides of the room, an odd smoke following.

281778 Gear Clank shakily got up from the couch. "That... sucked..."

Fire Dancer got up from the corner she was knocked in to. Her eyes returned to their normal state. "Ugh... what happened." She forgot everything that happened in the last 5 minutes and saw Ash on the ground across the room with some noticeable bruises and she trotted over, sat and lifted his head gently and placed it in her lap. "Oh my...Are you alright, Ash?"

281781 "I guess you could say I've had a very... very long day..." Ash says, not bothering to question why she wasn't trying to kill him anymore, "Actually wasn't I just about to ask you out to dinner?" Ash asks Fire, clearly not concerned about how he almost died not even a few moments ago.

281783 Fire looked over at Gear Clank who was stretching out and rubbing her eyes. "But... you look hurt..." She started to stare at his bruises, not knowing about her own.

281786 "Believe me I've had much worse and still showed up to work the day after" Ash muses, almost laughing at the limited extent of his wounds, "You still didn't answer my question, and not to mention you're not exactly completely intact yourself..."

281788 She just shrugged. "I'm always getting bruises out of nowhere... I think I have hemophage or whatever its called where your blood sucks... but uh..." She looks over again at Gear who was looking at her own hooves and smiling. "I guess since Gear is awake now.... " She turned to smile at him. "Sure!"

281789 "Well then, where should we go...?" Ash asked remembering that most of the restaurants in town were not nothing more than a large pile of ashes and rubble by this point.

281791 "Hmm... Well you kinda burnt down half the town.. and uh..." She patted the top of her head. "Where did my headband go?"

281792 "I don't know, must have come off when you were walking here, actually why don't we just skip dinner and just hang out together?" Ash said, attempting to steer the subject away from what just happened a few moments ago.

281793 She took a quick look around the room. "Alright, that sounds even better... but without my headband my hair gets messy, even though its short."