For Science

Renaultar nodded. "I understand. Nonlethal preferably. I should have something though incase it gets bad." He chuckled to himself. "And lessons on how to fight? I think ill have to find other sources for that. A tired old goat like you probably only knows how to choke hold a jar of jelly."

Blue runs a hoof through his mustache, going over ideas in his mind, up until the fighting comment which causes his torn ear to twitch.

"Choke a jar of jelly? Ha! You forget I was raised in the slums. Young thugs still can't get a leg up on me."

Renaultar reflected on that for a few moments. Fighting several ponies at once was not something simple at all. And all this talk was starting to sound more and more like some childish fantasy. It made him think he was perhaps being a little too enthusiatic and crazy.

"I think I should wait before I do anything. I need to think about it. This all sounds too good and has so much potential for failure...I like it but its crazy as hell." He paced about the room as he though, almost falling over at one point from not seeing a table on his bad side. "Not to mention I'm half blind..."

Blue watched Renaultar pace across the wooden floor. As of now, with a clear mind, all he cared about was the bits he'd make in R&D, and if his friend decided to commit fully to his rash plans then he'd feel proud to have a hand in it. Though despite his selfish thoughts about money, some aged wisdom manages to spew from his mouth.

"You know, in my profession, you often find that it's the crazy ideas that work more often and with better results than normal ones."

Renaultar sighed. "An old pony like you, and i expected to hear you encourage me to not be an idiot....Im still considering it, but i have to think about how i do it. Charging in like i am going to take on the world alone will just get me killed." He paced more, narrowly missing other things on his blind side.

"I should avoid fights if i can. But i need to get closer to my goals....Arrghh. I need to think about this more. Right now i feel like I'm taking crazy pills."

"Well if you were taking crazy pills you'd be in an asylum in a funny jacket. You could very well be, maybe I'm just a figment of your deranged imagination. And the last thing you need to do is to charge in bringing attention to yourself. You have to be quiet and fight on your own terms, not any other pony's. The mistake guards make is to charge head first, that seldom yields anything but flesh and scrap in the gutter. That'll be 15 bits."

Renaultar turned to give Blue a sarcastic reply but faceplanted into the corner of a wall before tumbling down in a failed attempt to catch himself.

"Horseapples!" He shouted in frustration. "Damn eye!" He kicked the floor.

Blue winced at the smack and chuckled at him falling over.

"I may be only able to arm choke jelly, but at least I still have spatial awareness."

Renaultar didn't seem any happier to hear that. "Bucking eye...It is going to take me forever to get used to this." He gave up on pacing around and 'carefully' took a seat back on the couch.

"Just you try to lose an eye."

Blue looked up at the clock and steadily got off his couch.

"I need to tend to my garden, you can stay here. We can't have you falling over the railing."

Renaultar was torn between being a little upset and laughing at what Blue said. In the end, he knew he would probably had said something similar and sighed. At least he got away with his life from that incident.

"Perhaps i should go. I did invite myself over after all. I had nothing better to do..."

"Whatever you think your best interests are."

Blue steps out onto the balcony and turns a valve causing water to drip down from further up onto his arrayed vegetable garden. He comes back in and retakes his seat on the couch.

"There... You know, the world would be a lot better place if everypony had their own garden. Heh, it's free food."

Renaultar shrugged. "Free if you consider going out to buy what you need for it, planting them, commiting a time to take care of them, speed bumps along the way, and being an old goat with time on his hands. My trade off with night shifts and day shifts make it hard to ever get a regular schedule on anything else." Renaultar didn't have much an interest in growing food. "Even with the time off i have i don't think I'm into that."

Blue grumbles and gets back up to turn the valve shut.

"Bah. I've had this garden since I moved here. If it wasn't for having to tend to it, I'd have starved working myself to death. I don't have to carry water up here, I have a tank on the roof that collects rain water, bugs and weeds aren't a problem here, and I have a few plants that filter out all the city's toxins. That's why it smells so fresh here. Everypony's living standards would increase three fold if they had my set-up."

He looks out the window at his plants, obviously proud of his small food plot.

"When I have excess food in the winter I can pass out the jars to the poor families back home."

Renaultar just nodded and looked to the ground. He was running dry on conversation. He missed a lot while he was out though.

"How did your retirement go? Anything special?"

Blue gives out a mighty guffaw and raises himself up to his knees, ears perked, grinning widely with eyes bright, eager to tell the tale.

"You should have seen it! I walked right into the lab with those plans I was working on at Earl's, took them in my mouth and placed them right on the horn of the idiot who first drew them out! Then I dragged him all the way to my boss's office and told him his son wasn't meant to be anywhere near a drawing table. When I left I kicked the door closed and shattered it. The rest of my junior engineers cheered and clapped, a great time was had by all!"

Renaultar laughed heartily. "Haha! Oh wow. And you let me call you a dull goat sometimes, then i miss moments like that. You need to save those for when I'm around." He chuckled. "Oh i wish i could do that to Captain Stonewall, but he would absolutely ruin me."

Blue winked at the cyclops.

"Well when you're the only pony with a bit of muscle in a building where only engineers, chemists, and businessponies come and go, you can throw your weight around a little."

"I like to think of myself like that sometimes, but unless they are outright rude or criminal, i can't bring myself to do that. Oh bother. I bet you would make a better guardpony than I." he sighed.

Blue clops his hooves together.

"Ah yes, that reminds me... If you can try to bring your old barding by, I have some ideas on how to improve it."

Renaultar smiled and nodded. "Hah, gladly. Anything you can do is an improvement I'm willing to bet."

"I can hammer it back to full shape... Hmm... expand it possibly, it'll make it heavier, but it won't be as tight. You won't have to worry about getting it beaten into your body. Should keep you warm in winter as well."

"Hmm...Sounds good. But it wont make me look fat now will it?" Renaultar asked in the most serious tone he could. "Don't want to look like i eat too many doughnuts now do I?" He said before finally being unable to keep a straight face.

Blue laughed.

"Ha! No more than you already do!"

Suddenly he pauses, running his hoof over his mustache.

"Donuts sound really good right now...."

Renaultar facehoofed. "Oh come on now. Don't do that. Or i will want them too. And you can't grow those in your garden."