Octavia isn't all one thing. She's not just a cellist. She's not jsut a music pony. She's always had a loving fascination with technology, and has put herself further than the rest in the field. She invented the energy drive for transport, she made it possible to get the first self-sustaining satellite in orbit, and five years early. But, she took it down, using another invention of her own, to wipe that blinking dot in the sky, out of existence. Nopony asked ehr to share what she made. Equestria's most secretive have been on her from day one. She knows it too.
Now, she's got her newest project up and running. An exoskeleton of a hard, lightweight material. Octavanium. Not named after herself, but her profession, and the process of which it is made. Sonic bonding. Now, she's wearign an exoskeleton mad efo it, and experimenting.
Left hoof first, then right hoof. Hind legs, the same. She began trotting directly after, and then began running, finding it resistant to friction by a good degree. It's like it's oiled, but it's just the metal on metal. She slowed to a trot, breathing a bit heavily. The test was a success, the exoskeleton, though externally powered, works without a single flaw. As she knows of.
An object caught her eye.
Four pads that she had set in the failure part of the testing lab. In other words, she ventured to the right, instead of the left.
The experiment was a set of four flight pads, much like prosthetic hooves that allowed one to hover, instead of walk, but the project had to be scrapped. They proved the need of too much power, and too much force was used when they were activated. They would be used for later mechanical devices, liek amchines that carried objects.
She smiled as a enw idea climbed into her mind, and turned, running back to the work station, cord followign behind her like a dumb tail.
"Something internal, somethign compact, somethign that can last a good while...", she said to herself, looking through her old blueprints. She found a large scale, self sustaining pwoer core module. Somethign she had kept directly behind ehr workstation for half a year now.
There was something about it that called itself a star. It was clean, it was round, and it gave off an odd energy that neither killed anypony, nor did anything damaging. Completely safe and clean.
She smield at the beauty before her, admiring the fruits of her efforts. It was like lookign at her pwoer source. This is something she left untapped until recently, having this ball of energy just to have it. And now, she has it in a cradle of metal.
Throwign everything off the table, save for that single set of blueprints, she got to work, bringing out tools and activating the greater part of her work place. For an underground basement, this was a pretty big place.
The days passed by as she completely ignored food, even sleep. Neither bothered her as piece after piece was forged, by hoof, and by fire. She had it nearly complete when finally, something did break through that self induced trance.
"Mistress?"
Octavia froze, bemused. She turned, still tightening the one screw on the device as she greeted her female butler.
"Eva.", she smiled.
"You...look terrible.", the keeper of the house grimaced.
"Well, I don't know how long I've been down here, now that I think of it....and now that the thought of sleep enters my mind, I feel weak. Thanks, Eva, I needed my strength to finish this project. Not a single fidget, bump, or wrong mvoe, or a complete failure, not to mention half of canterlot gone. I wonder why it's so much bigger than the bass clef star....It's probably bigger, because it's smaller...It's higher pwoer, it's like the exact opposite of the bass star, like a treble clef star..."
"You sound a bit off the wall, mistress."
"I expected that.", she said nonchalantly, dropping the screwdriver.
Octavia turned back to the worktable and set the device she had, inside a great device, like a harness. At first, it stayed black, glass gettign even deeper black as Octavia locked everything down, vacuum tubes doign their job. She set the vacuum device tot he side and pulled a heavy utility cable to her, the high voltage light blarign red at her. it was a direct hookup to the bass clef star.
In one swift move, Octavia slammed the cable's end against the device. A powerful spark leapt at the metal device and the black inside began to glow a dim red, climbing in brightness until it changed to a very ligth purple. The center became a beacon, makign a small shining dot that grew slowly, creating a ligth that grew to the size of it's casing, breakign the glass. Octavia shielded her face and slowly looked back at the end product. The star crystalized. Pure energy had taken on the form of a gem, faceting itself into the device she amde. It was busted, but it served it's purpose.
"It's more thna success.", she said with smile, and a hint of glee.
"Octavia, you need to get some sleep."
The gray earth mare slumped against teh table, and fell backwards, unconscious.
"And I thought that might happen.", Eva admitted, approaching her mistress.
It wasn't much for Eva to carry Octavia. She was ligth, but Eva was also trained physically as much as she was mentally. Had to know how ot defend Octavia in law when she needed it. But Octavia was her own lawyer, and she didn't even attend law school.
"What in Equestria do you think you are, Octavia? You're no super stallion."
"I know...", Octavia mumbled.
"You're not asleep yet?", Eva opened the door to Octavia's room.
"No...I'm not tired...Just weak...."
"Are you hungry?"
"No...Just let me lie down for a while..."
Eva sighed and sided beside Octavia's bed, tossing the mare in. Octavia roleld onto her side and the annoyed butler gave a smile to the sight.
Returning to work, Eva thought to that device that Octavia left on the worktable.Octavia hit her head on it, she must have. But there was no blood, so Octavia might just have a bruise. There isn't harm in it, is there?
Octavia's back was stiff when she finally awoke, everything rushing faster than ehr mind could pick up. After a moment's realization, she found she was in a dream. The world flying around her, multiples of something...like a pony, flying everywhere, all metal. One took to the sky against them all, and she felt her body jar with every blow it took. One last blow did it's job, and she felt herself knocked out of the sky, jumping up just before hse hti the ground. She was panting, sweating, and covered in a heavy blanket. Throwing the hot covers off herself, she hopped out of bed, grabbing the stack of toast that was left for her.
She was anxious. A few new things could result from what she ahs made, but she ahd business to attend to. First, eat. then a shower. And both passed by with such a long time. It was only half an hour, but felt liek four times that. When she finally came to her new creation, she smiled down on it. It was a solid, uncuty gem, if anything. Many ideas came to mind, and she had one that would fit perfectly. Forging it.
She got everythigns et up, activating the electric blast furnace. Everything ran smoothly, the gem even melted like it were a metal. The process was simple, and after having everythign set up, Octavia set the molten...whatever it was. Energy? She pondered it for a moment, then poured it into the mold. The sphere that resulted, landed on the table, steaming as the heat dissipated. All that was left, was a smooth, glowign sphere.
Actavia continued the process five more times, giving herself six of those gems. She got excited over it, feeling as though power were infinite in these small gems.
She sighed, rolling the small objects around, and watched as each attracted one another, making a hexagon of themselves, stopping stiff on the table. Ideas came forth over that, passign on, and on .She created piece after piece, until finally, she ahd something that she didn't want to use. It was like holding a gem in ehr hooves. Asimple faceted set of glowign purple orbs that sent a pulse through one another, passign through each superconductor that connected them. It split, and the next moment, it split again, sending a pulse throughout the set of gems until all it was, was jsut a simple glow.
"This is so fascinating.", she said to herself.
"Really? What is it?"
Octavia stood stiff and turned to the stallion that had come up behind her, grimacing at him.
"I'm with Equestria's greatest.", he admitted, takigna closer look at the device Octavia made.
Octavia gave a sigh and looked at Fancy Pants with a disappointed look.
"Is ee you don't have your beard. Didn't feel like eltting down that disguise for me to actually see your face?"
"Well, I'm only on quick business. Plus, Fleur De Lis had to meet up with your butler. I'm trying to get her to be a bit more...Whats the term?"
"Normal?"
"Well, I guess that will have to do."
"So, are you here to steal another of my projects, liek you did last time? Or are you here to find out I took the satellite down?"
"You took it down? Thats news to me."
"Oh, don't give me that, you're a spy for them, you even do the hardest jobs."
"Look, I'm not here to aggravate you, nor am I here for information. Well, information about you, of course. I've once slept with oyu. I know all your secrets."
"Thenw hy are you here?"
"Problems. Preferably in the greater society of Equestria. We've got something new in Equestria thats existed for a decade now. Haven't found out, because they've not done anything until now."
"And why are you coming to me?"
"Now, don't think that-"
"You're in my moral sanctum, Brock.", she snapped angrily.
"Ok, fine, you want honesty, I'm here to try and get you to help."
"No!", she snapped again, "I'm not helpign you or anypony else after my damn technology! I've done my best to keep this place locked down, using my own materials, I even lined these damn walls with an inch of Octavanium!"
"Octavanium?"
"Yeah. Actually, I think you people could use it. But I swear that if you ponies don't give me credit, I'm coming after you first. this won't be the first time."
Octavia turned around, picked out a notebook froma stack, and tossed it at Fancy Pants, who caught it with his own magic.
"Anything else?", Octavia raised her eye brows.
Fancy pants spared a glance at the new device on the table, and then abck at Octavia, who moved in front of it.
"It's simple curiosity, nothing more, love."
Octavia scoffed, "Just leave, I'm still mad at you."
"Don't worry.", he smiled, "Won't happen again. I didn't want to do it in the first place, and-"
"Save it, you told me everything already."
"Thank you, but...I'm not being picky about it, jsut...We're not going into complete warfare. I came to ask if you had anything that could help us in terms of communications."
"I've got nothing, I couldn't help, even if I wanted to."
"Alright. It's been almost a week. So.", he cleared his throat, "What's going on, Tavi?"
"Oh, that accent again? You're really trying aren't you?"
"Hey, I don't like this as much as you do. But when pressured like I was....", he trailed off.
"I understand. If you can keep your mouth shut, I cna let you in on the latest project."
"And that would be?", he raised an eye.
"With the creation of Octavanium, I discovered that I had created a strong, lightweight metal that creates little or no friction. Made an exoskeleton that works without flaw, saw a failed project, and got an idea to make an internal energy source, something to carry with the both. A fligth suit project."
"Well, if you decide to give me an update when it's finished, I'd love to hear it."
"Is that all you want? To know how it works?"
"Not really. Being the coltfriend of Equestria's smartest mare, is something exciting. when you amke something new, it makes me feel like the greatest stallion."
Octavia smiled dimly and turned back to the device before her. Such an effort to make something, it wasn't even much of an effort anyway.
"I don't know what I'm doing next.", Octavia admitted, smiling faded, "I keep getting a dream, and I can see my suit almost complete."
"You never told me you had a recurring dream."
"Of course I didn't. I really didn't worrya bout it before, but now...The suit is almost finished, and I'm modeling the exoskeleton, even the upcoming shell, out of it's figure. Thing is...It might be the end of me."
"How so? Will it explode?"
"No, I don't know. I think I've already shown you too much. I have to keep this under wraps, even from you. I will not tell Eva to lock you out of my house, but you can not come down here again. I fear that it may be you giving away my newest technological advance to your employers. Again."
"I can keep my mouth shut, though, in the past, I have contradicted that."
"Then make me a promise. Keep your mouth shut this time. If not, we're through.", Octavia said bitterly.
"I will. Don't worry. If you see or hear anythign about your tech getting somewhere else, it wasn't from me. I'm not the only one trying to get at what you ahve."
"True. Still, keep that notebook safe. It's an experimental material. I don't know if it can be reversed with anything, turning the metal back into it's molten state. If anything, you should start experimenting with that metal."
"Will do. Anythign else before I go?"
"Don't blow yourself up?", Octavia joked.
"Cute. I'll take my leave.", he put on his posh accent, "And I hope you have a wonderful day."
A moment later, he was engulfed in a bright flash, and disappeared.
Taking a deep breath, Octavia turned to the new devicee she amde, and brought her blueprint paper out, dipping the quill into the blue inkwell. She started with the title: Treble Clef Star Power Core. She looked at the title and put brackets under it: [Experimental]
Satisfied with the title, she quickly drew a rough sketch, dipping the quill into the inkwell regularly, and set it aside, leaving teh quill to drip ink over the side of the workbench.
