Techno Blue's Travels

Chapters

Chapter 1: Accident
Chapter 2: Disability
Chapter 3: To Create
Chapter 4: Dull Work
Chapter 5: Rainy Pains
Chapter 6: Replace

Chapter 1: Accident

Techno Blue’s Travels

Information:
*This story is based on my OC and I’ve tried very hard to make sure he isn’t over powered. This is the 1st fanfic I’ve done in years so I don’t know how well this will go down.
*This story took me ages as I didn’t expect to need to write so much drama, though there should have probably been more. It is meant to be more Sci-fi than anything. There will be more adventure and action in the next chapters.
*Please note that I am Australian and will use the letter ‘U’ in words like ‘colour’, or ‘S’s where other use ‘Z’s.
*The word Octarine is from the Discworld series, I love this word and have used it for my story.

Thank you: I do of course need to thank the MLP: FIM, the creators, HASBRO and the Brony community for giving me inspiration to write something, even if my story sucks*.

*I'm not fishing for compliments, I'm just just paranoid by nature.
Also a thank you to Ezn for his guide on writing FanFics; I can’t promise I did everything right.
I specifically need to thank the writers of Fallout Equestria (Kkat) and Fallout Equestria: Project Horizions (Somber). As they gave me so much inspiration while reading their stories.
And finally a thank YOU to you for giving my story a chance.

Any constructive criticism and feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

This story takes place a short time before the episode ‘A Canterlot Wedding’, but after ‘Hurricane Fluttershy’.

Techno Blue’s Travels

In an underground laboratory made of cold, concrete walls. There are several tables with test tubes, pentagrams and other types of scientific and magical equipment. In the centre of the room is a lone male unicorn, he is wearing a lab coat that covers his entire backside. He is busy working on an experiment. He is almost centered perfectly in the room, with his horn is plugged into some kind of device. He is staring at a magical field of energy not far from him. The swirling mass of supernatural energy glowing a light blue colour.

I am that unicorn. I tap a switch, which activates a laser which beams right into the heart of the field of magical energy. I continue to up the power, when something about it catches my eye.

“Huh?”

KABOOM!!

The magic erupts with a burst of energy. I was thrown backwards from my position, my feet leaving the ground for several metres. I slammed into the concrete wall behind me; my back first with the force rolling me upwards until my head and shoulders also whacked into the wall with a mighty thump. My lab coat not helping at all in cushioning my sudden stop, it wasn't designed for something like this.

I fell a short distance to the floor. It wasn’t as painful as being flung backwards into the wall, but it hurt just the same. My vision was partially blinded from the explosion and little lights danced in front of my eyes getting in the way of what I still could see.

CHINK, CHINK-CHA-CHINK, CHINK

‘What was that?’ I thought as I tried to understand what was going on around me. Everything about my body ached but my head felt light. The blinding white in my eyes was dissipating and being replaced with a slow fade to black.

A shadowy figure walked up to me, turning its head and peered at me with its glowing yellow eye. “I…know…you…” I gasped just before I lost consciousness.

-_-_-_-_-

Earlier this day; 9am.

I am Techno Blue, I have always been Techno Blue and nothing will change that. I’m a unicorn with a light blue coat and dark blue mane. My eyes are a calming light blue.

I don’t have my cutie mark. I stopped trying to find it after it stopped being a quest of self-discovery and became more of a life sentence. While I enjoy researching of the connections of science and magic, it never revealed itself to be my 'special' talent. But due to constant questioning and bullying as a young colt, I wear a lab coat that covers my back.

I am a member of the Colour family. With a long family history, we reached a point where we used all obvious name pairings, so we started throwing colours that didn't match our first names, for example I always thought the word 'Techno' was more silver than blue. We are a mixed family of Earth and Unicorn ponies.

I am a researcher and study what I like. I have been considered an outcast for my theories. Being an outcast suits me fine as I prefer to be alone. I have no interest in sharing my results with anypony.

I have lived in Manehatten all my life, but I never considered it my home. As long as I can be left alone I'm ok. I own a two story apartment building almost a perfect light blue box. It wasn't perfect for my research but I just renovated this housing block to suite my needs. The neighbours have learned to stay away from my place as I don’t cater for them.

I could easily afford an actual laboratory thanks to my family’s heritage in a jewel mine. But I found most designers didn't cater to my needs. So I changed the basement and two bedrooms into laboratories, each matching my needs for whatever experiment I was doing.

“Good morning sir.” said a griffin walking down a flight of steps into the sterile laboratory. This was Brick Beak, her black feathers around her neck neatly forming a perfect ‘V’ shape just above her golden-brown fur. She is a griffin who carries herself with pride and class, not because of her lordly lion half nature, but from position in the working world of Equestria. She had worked hard working a regular desk job like some ponies only to be shunned for being a griffin. I though saw her as an excellent communicator for the family mine.

She is one of two individuals that I actually like to have around. I don't consider myself a heartless bastard, but I don't get on with a lot of ponies. I looked up from my table, filled with test tubes, beakers and other apparatus. “Morning BB,” I responded in a low grumble. “Apple Juice please.”

Brick Beak looked at me surly. “Do I need to remind you, sir, that I am your liaison - not your maid?.” she said as she stepped over to and opened a small fridge, filled with many different types of juices and snacks.

I grabbed a bottle with my telekinesis as she went to grab the cool drink. She turned her head. Her expression was unimpressed, but she said it all with her yellow eyes and her face remaining blank. I am very good with my magic and have a diploma a university was unhappy about handing over. It might have something to do with not being a team player for them.

I popped the bottle cap with my magic and threw the cap into a draw. It was slowly becoming a collection of caps and had a decent use as scrap metal. I took a large sip of the drink. “Ah,” I said, enjoying the sweet taste of the apple juice. A moment later the expression of enjoyment fell from my face as I noticed Brick Beak staring. “What?” I asked bluntly.

She pulled out a number of documents from under her right wing. “Your papers, sir. Sign here, here, initial here and hoofprint on the last page,” she said as she pointed to a series of signature markings. “You really should read the papers sir, how do you expect your employees at the mine to respect you, if you don’t get more involved with their activities?”

I magically picked up all the required signing documents and brought up several quills and signed all at the same time and brought them down to her. “I expect my brother to take care of all that. Management doesn't respect me, they fear me. How can you say I don't pay enough attention, you are clearly in your moulting stage for the year? Shouldn't you tidy yourself up a bit.” I looked at her wings, some of her feathers were tattered and frayed. Some smaller feathers came off with slight movements and floated around the room scattering on the floor.

Brick Beak turned her head. ‘Is she embarrassed?’ I thought. She shouldn't be, my mane was scruffy and all over the place, sometimes it looked like it had grown around my ears.

“Ahem,” she coughed bringing my attention back to the dull world of mining. “Mister Rocky Orange wishes for you to know that the miners have found two Blaze diamonds. He needs your approval to auction one off and give the other to the princess for marketing purposes.”

A Blaze diamond; a dark red, very rare, powerful magic stone that can store huge masses of energy, it was unknown how much it could take and sadly they were used more for jewellery than anything else.

“Which princess would that be?” I asked. Before she replied I jumped back in “’Cause as you know there are three and only two of them really matter when it comes to our livelihoods,” I continued with a flat tone. “If my dearest brother wants to just give one away, then he can give the other to Luna. Tell him specifically we aren't going to suck up to one princess while the other is left unnoticed…again.” As I spoke the words, my mind recalled a newspaper article about the history of the two princesses. “So he can either give them away - and I’m sure they will look lovely on a plaque - or he can auction both.”

Brick Beak looked at me. dealing with the negative approach on the subject with a calm reaction. “Yes sir, your brother will be coming by later. I will be upstairs doing paperwork, please call if you need anything.” She started to walk away and turned back. “One other thing actually, I need tomorrow off.” She looked at me for a few seconds, then she picked up on that I wasn’t going to say ‘why?’, but expected an answer to it anyway. “It’s my birthday and my niece is visiting.”

She continued to look at me. I think she was expecting a happy response “I know,” I replied with my flat voice. I pretended to think it over, “Enjoy your day off.” I turned back to my table.

“You know?” she replied with a surprised look. “How? You never remembered my birthday in my two years of service.”

“Yours is very easy to remember after some time; you always moult during your birthday month,” I said as I picked up several test tubes with my magic. This was another emotional conversation that didn't give any real results. She blushed but I wasn’t interested in looking too much and she turned to go up the stairs. Just as she was out if sight I yelled “There is a gift for you in your desk!” I’m pretty sure she climbed the stairway a bit quicker after hearing that. 'One of two individuals I get on with,' I thought with a sigh.

I could finally start setting up my experiment.

-_-_-_-_-

10am.

Ding Dong

The doorbell upstairs sounded. “Oh goody.” I sighed, there’s a good chance that's one of three ponies, two of whom I don't want to see. I heard the sound of happy trotting coming down to my lab.

"Hello brother," said a yellow female earth pony. Her mane was a darker yellow and it flowed off both sides of her neck. This is Poppy Yellow. Her cutie mark was of a square, triangle and circle which are red, blue and green respectively. She is the youngest sibling in my family, our brother in the middle and I'm the oldest. This was a bad sign. The arrival of my sister told me my day will steadily get worse as she was the only pony around for miles I liked having around, and that the other two visitors will just grind my day away.

"Hello Poppy, why did you ring the bell? You have a key to the door and it’s always unlocked with BB upstairs," I asked, knowing the answer will be childish.

"Well," she said putting on an innocent looking smirk, "it barely gets used, so I thought I'd liven up the day with a couple of musical notes." She pulled open her saddle bag and took out a bouquet of colourful flowers and placed them in a beaker on my table; the one with all my experiments. I quickly moved them to the side with my magic, still in the beaker and placed the flowers on an empty wall desk, I wasn’t mad; I had expected her to do that and she didn’t mean any ill will. I could see small pieces of pollen and petals fall off. They danced around the air as they fell to the ground.

"Achoo!” She sneezed despite no longer being near the flowers. “I can't stay long, the nursery is putting on a puppet show. So I've been called in today as an extra hoof," she said gleefully waving her hoof around like a sock puppet. Nothing gets her down, she is happiness incarnate. She continued to look through all the beakers, her face warped by the glass "I came by quickly to say we'll be back later tonight so we can all have dinner together. Toodle-oo!" with that said she skipped out of the lab up the stairs.

"We? Oh." I realised she probably means her husband and daughter. Her husband, Check List, worked in some office, he is a pencil pusher. Her daughter, Staples, so young she had only recently started noticing the world around here in that childlike wonder they get. "GOODBYE!" I yelled knowing she probably had left by now. Her visits were regular and one of the few good distractions I got round here.

As I returned to my work, I found myself occasionally glancing at the flowers. I really should remove them, they could easily contaminate my experiments but throwing them away felt like throwing Poppy away.

-_-_-_-_-

Earlier this day; 11am

My work was proceeding on schedule; I had learned to incorporate interruptions to my routine. The only problem was never knowing when they would occur. I had turned on the radio to help the flow of work. A gentle orchestra was playing a slow and peaceful tune. I believe this is one of Octavia’s pieces of music.

Brick Beak came down the stairs, with a grey coloured coat and black mane earth pony followed her, he has a large emerald for a cutie mark. “Mr Rocky Orange, sir, is here to see you” Brick Beak said standing to attention. Rocky Orange walked past Brick Beak, everything about his body language showed his dislike for my griffin assistant and she knew it. I wasn’t sure if he didn’t like griffins or that she aided me despite being employed for the mine.

“Thank you Brick Beak,” I replied. Brick Beak turned to leave knowing that Rocky will not allow her to be in the same room as me when he is present, not because of his dislike of her, but because of a secret I hold over him. It is a foolish secret that he seems to be ashamed for, I see it as the few times he can actually show joy in his life. “How are you little brother?” I said in a childish tone. He frowned at me.

“I’m good,” Rocky answered back. He has a one track mind and hates idle chat as much as I do, but I still find it fun to annoy him with it. “I’ve been told we are to give both Blaze diamonds to both princesses or auction both off; why? Celestia is our ruler and I have yet to see Luna do anything except raise the moon, which Celestia did perfectly fine before she turned up,” he snorted. “We need to do some public relations, not gallop to bankruptcy."

Multiple answers ran through my mind, I played with the ‘cause it’s the right thing to do for the unloved princess.’ That would really tick him off. Instead I said “The mine is far from going bankrupt. And we will do it my way because I’m in charge.” Rocky hates me, he always hated me.

Before I got the deed to the mine from Uncle Quarry Silver, Rocky hated me. Rocky chose to look for gems as a hobby and so Quarry Silver took him on for employment. So it came as a great shock to the Colour family that I was given the deed to the mine when Uncle died. I liked my Uncle and he taught me many facts about gems and diamonds and how they were used for magic. But I never thought being as close to him as Rocky had been. Rocky never put a fight about not getting the mine, he just accepted and kept working. I decided after that, if Rocky actually fought or asked for ownership I would give it to him but until then, it's mine and I will continue to push him until he finally pushes back.

Rocky glared at me, he was furious with my response, he closed his eyes and took a big breath. ‘Is, is this it? Is he’s going to go bananas’ I thought in anticipation.

“Ok, will auction both diamonds off and put three percent towards charity.” He replied.

‘Swing and a miss, damn,’ I thought. ‘Why did he never put up a fight?’

“It will take a week or so to advertise and-“

“Why are you telling me this? I am in the middle of my experiments and am getting close to a breakthrough,” I lied. My research was slow paced and I was only testing theories, I was not actually looking anything major.

I am a scientist and scientific research must be tested over and over again, so after many tests you can say ‘I have a theory’ which can fall apart on the next test. Fortunately I am also a magic pony and magical researchers can jump to conclusions however quickly they like, as if a spell goes wrong they blame it on supernatural forces.

“You’re still working on this thing and; you don’t even know what the end result should look like. You are probably gonna’ get blown up if you keep trying to merge science with magic.”

Now he was ticking me off, time to explain. “Magic can enhance a mechanical contraption, while a mechanical contraption can make a magic device work. There must be a balance.” I have repeated this to him many times and he still doesn’t get it, “I’ve changed the test a bit; I’m now aiming a laser scalpel into a spell through mid-cast. I’ve used many spells so far but I have high hopes with my locator spell. I just pop my horn into the spell castor analyser & projector which should…. which will project my spell outside of my horn so I can examine it closer and dissect it,” I was now shouting, “THUS leading my research to new directions. Who knows where this could take me?!”

“Fine, whatever. It’s not like you share your discoveries to other ponies or do anything with it.” Rocky noticed the radio playing on a shelf. It was still playing classical music, "Couldn't you put something better on? This stuff is too dull. There's no decent beat to it."

I stopped what I was doing and paid attention to the radio playing. The piece was unmistakably 'Flight of the Parasprite'. "Are you kidding? Apart from being a masterpiece, it has a fast beat-"

"-That flies all over the place. There's just no way to dance to this." Rocky said shaking his head. As he shook his head, something fell out of his mane on to the floor.

‘Are those gems?’ I thought as I saw them scatter around the floor. They must be from the mines. ‘How’d they get there?’ He never did properly comb his mane. He saw the gems as well and picked them up with his hooves, I swear he missed some but I don’t know where they all went. With a hoof full of gems he was stuck standing on three legs. He looked around for somewhere to put them but he gave up quickly and put them back in his mane. I stared with disbelief that for somepony who acts so professional would carelessly put precious rocks in his hair. 'Let him do what he wants with them, it doesn't affect me one way or another. If he's going to be careless, then so be it.'

“I’ve leave you with your crazy and boring music then, there wasn’t anything else but I’m expected to meet up with you. I’m heading to Canterlot, I’ve got a very important business deal to work out. I will be back next week.” Rocky trotted up the stairs.

‘Probably taking first class on the train again, mine going bankrupt indeed,’ I snickered to myself.

I powered up the laser scalpel. Multiple lights flickered on the device and a triangular shaped crystal at the front glowed a dull red, just about ready to start. Preparations took longer than I thought, but I still have more than half the day to go. I stepped up to the device and my stomach growled. “Hmmm?” I said. “Time for lunch maybe.” I powered down the machine and went upstairs.

-_-_-_-_-

11:45am

I came up to the ground floor landing of my house. Brick Beak was brushing her fur coat and, hadn’t noticed me yet. “Are you happy with the gift?” I asked. Brick Beak was startled and the brush nearly dropped, but she caught it and placed it gently on the desk.

“Yes, sir, thank you for the brush. Just what I needed,” she replied. “It’s not easy to find a brush for griffins in Equestria. I really appreciate it.”

“Well good. I am going out for lunch, care to join?”

“Oh, uh, sure.” Brick Beak collected herself together. I opened the door and we exited.

“Oh you-hoo!” a voice cried out to me as I locked the door. I turned around and there was female pegasus pony about my age. She has a light pink coat with a bright red mane. Her cutie mark was of a red lip stick kiss mark. “Hiya Techo, whatcha doing?” she asked in a high pitch tone and then she kissed my cheek.

This was it, the final hurdle of the day so my day can’t get any worse. This is Luscious. She comes to see me almost every day and she appears to show me affection but I think she’s after my family’s heritage, in fact I’m sure of it. Like me, she comes from a wealthy family, I believe they own the trains for Equestria or something. I think there was a rumour she was expected to court me so our families could merge into a more powerful group, but I never confirmed it.

I don’t know what it is about her, but I can’t bring myself to be rude around her. Instead I make a bunch of excuses so I can run off but I have to spend almost an hour with her first. I had known her for sometime but never learned her last name, she probably told me at one time but I wouldn't have been listening. Plus there’s that nickname ‘Techo’ - is it really that hard to put the ’N’ in?

This wasn’t good. If she found out we were going to lunch she would join us and I would be stuck in a conversation in which she drops clues and hints about dating and needing a strong pony around the house.

“We’re going to lunch, Luscious,” beamed Brick Beak. “Would you like to join us?” I was stunned; Brick Beak is aware of my dislike of Luscious and every other pony in Manehatten.

“Oh joy!” Luscious yelled, covering my back with her wing, dragging me away from my house. “I’d love to have lunch with youuu,” she said looking straight into my eyes. Brick Beak caught up to us and walked next to Luscious.

There is a café that I like. It’s covered by oak trees, down a narrow street with a cobblestone path. The atmosphere was perfect until we arrived on the scene. “OH. MY. GOSH!” yelled Luscious. “Do you know what this place is, Techo?” I shook my head, worried she might yell it off. “This is where we first had tea together. It’s been so unfortunate that we always seem to miss each other here.”

“Oh, imagine that,” was all could reply. I had figured her lunch schedule out ages ago and moved mine to avoid her, but then she started randomly turning up at my place. The first day I met Luscious, I was happily enjoying my paper, when she walked up to me and asks if she can sit down with me as there are no other spots. If I only looked up before I said ‘Sure, whatever,’ I would have seen the café was empty and I wouldn’t be where I am now.

We sat down at a table. Luscious proclaimed she needed to use the powder room and off she went. “Why did you tell her we were having lunch?” I hissed at Brick Beak from behind a menu. “And who calls it a ‘powder room’ anymore? It’s a blasted toilet.”

Brick Beak appeared to be enjoying this “First off; I’m on my break, I can do what I like and tell who I like anything that isn't work related.” she said as she looks through her menu. “You ponies never serve mice for meals. Second; do you not know anything about females? She was being polite and tactful.”

“She knows nothing about being tactful, you know how she acts around- Lusciouuussss. Welcome back, you were... quick.” I said as Luscious sits back down pausing slightly on the word 'quick'. Brick Beak was right, I know nothing about the opposite sex.

Luscious blushed and so did I. “I’ll go get us some tea.” Brick Beak got up and walked to the café doors, leaving us in an awkward silence. I had nothing I wanted to say so I just looked around at the cafe.

I picked up a paper from across the café with my magic. I was checking for what I call news, not the gossip some ponies think is important. “Would you look at that?” shrieks Luscious, “They are pretty sure Princess Cadance is going to get married soon.”

rolled my eyes at the gossip. Yes, it creates ripples in Equestria’s economy but it doesn’t matter to either of us personally. I tried to ignore her statement knowing she would go about it.

“I wonder who the lucky colt is.”

I replied with, “Probably Prince Blueblood. They may be continuing with a royal pasttime, where royal families married each other and become inbred. It’s what they call ‘keeping the royal bloodline pure.’”

Luscious gasped, “Really. That’s disgusting…Are they even related? But a wedding... I’ve always wanted to be a bride, Techo.”

Danger signs flashed in my head. 'Change the subject now' I thought. I eyed the articles on the paper and randomly chose one. “Did you hear that just the other day, Ponyville barely got enough wind power to refill Cloudsdale’s water supply?” I said. ‘WHAT WAS THAT?!’ I screamed internally at myself. Not only was that the worst segue ever, but it could be seen as a go at pegasi.

“Um, no. I-I must have missed that one.” replied Luscious. Clearly that was as uncomfortable for her as it was for me.

Brick Beak glided slowly over to us with a tray with tea, three cups and two cakes on it. She knows what I eat but she didn’t get anything for either herself or Luscious. “Ok, they only had one caramel mud cake slice left, so I thought you two could share,” said Brick Beak, grinning at me. ‘Note to self: fire Brick Beak,’ I thought knowing I value her work too much to do such a thing.

“Ooh, I love this cake, it’s my favourite,” exclaimed Luscious. She grabbed a fork, and dug a piece out. She looked at it for moment and then me. “Open wide, Techo.” She was grinning as she held the fork dangerously close to my mouth.

“Ahhhh,” I awkwardly said as she put the fork in and I bite off the cake piece. “I can do that myself, you know.” I swallowed the delicious cake.

“Yeah, but where is the fun in that? ponies can think we are ‘special someponies’ on a date!”

“Yeah, where’s the fun?” Brick Beak mockingly said. I’m starting to learn she has a different personality on her time off. In two years of service how did I miss all this from her?

Luscious took a small piece of the cake on the same fork and slowly put in her mouth, locking her eyes with mine the whole time. She moaned with delight, hopefully from the taste of cake.

It had been fifteen agonizing minutes, I’ve decided I had spent enough of my social hours with Luscious. Time to find an opening to escape and get off this topic. “How’s the family?” I asked.

Luscious replied, “Oh never better, though there…” For the next few minutes I stopped paying complete attention. I started grinning and nodding to what she said in order to create the illusion of paying attention. I was making myself listen out for key words like ‘machine’ and ‘research’ that I could use to escape this smiling hell. She continued “… I’m not sure what to do about it. Time and time again…”

‘That’s it, go, go, go,’ I thought. “TIME, gosh would you look at the time,” I said as I gazed round to a local street clock. “I’m sorry, but I must get back to the lab. I have a test running and I need to stop it before it spoils.” I am a bad liar but I didn’t care. I jumped up and ran off, hoping that the lie would suffice for my swift exit. “See you later!” I yelled as I left the scene, leaving a shocked pegasus and an unhappy, all-knowing griffin.

I returned to my house and headed down to my lab, leaving my problems at the door. I went down, excited that I can start my test, despite that I get the same result every time. At least I was free to do what I want.

I powered up the laser, the crystal shining a dull red. I plugged my horn into the analyser and started my experiment. My locator spell works by me thinking of an item, and my spell leads me to it. I wasn’t thinking of any particular item for the test. I projected my locator spell into the analyser. The projector then took my spell from me, but not the power I use to create it. The spell cannot work like this. It requires a mental connection, that I have cut partially. I am trying to see what happens when a laser cuts through and enters a magical field.

The spell floats in mid-air in the designated area, the field of magic just swivels and waits patiently for the next step. I have to tap a button with my hoof to get the laser to fire.

TAP

The laser’s crystal shines a bright red and a thin red beam comes outs and hits the blue magical field. The floating supernatural energy starts to shimmy and strain under the laser, like it doesn’t like the laser, but it doesn’t cut despite that the laser would cut through steel right now. I up the power on the laser, the beam becomes more refined and brighter, slightly painful to stare at. The magic goes mad, like an amoeba being filmed and then played, sped up a hundred times faster.

The beam cuts into the field for a brief second. During that time I see the inside of magic, my magic, a mixture of blue colours and octarine. But after that second, everything turns into a combination of red and grey.

“Huh?” I wondered.

KABOOM!! goes the magical field from the inside out straight at me and I go flying across the room. I slammed into the wall, "Gahh!" I exhaled, the air pushed out of me. I felt my body fall to the ground. I didn't have far to go down and I didn't have the energy to land safely.

My cheek feels odd as if a pleasant touch had graced it. I couldn't see anything, my vision was all over the place and a mixture of bright lights and dark shadows filled my eyes.

CHINK, CHINK-CHA-CHINK, CHINK

My head felt weird, I could of sworn I couldn't see my horn anymore. The darkness in my eyes was taking over.

A shadowy figure walked up to me, turning its head and peered at me with its glowing yellow eye. “I…know…you…” I gasped just before I lost consciousness.

End of Chapter 1.

Author's Note

I have edited this chapter into smaller segments as I have been informed I may have been a tiny bit on the insanely long side.

Chapter 2: Disability

Present time

I woke up. Not slowly or tiredly, I just woke up. Without looking around I knew I was in hospital and in bed. The sights and smells were too familiar. 'What happened?' I thought, remembering an explosion, pain and then…blacking out. Further examination of the room revealed many other patients lined up around the room. Either I wasn't given a private room or this is the Intensive Care Unit.

I looked at my forelegs and chest. I knew that the explosion had hurt but I didn’t look injured. There was something odd though... I couldn't figure it out. Something was missing or wrong. It hurt my head to think about it.

Doctors and nurses were all walking back and forth to other patients, checking equipment and chatting to each other. There were a couple of other ponies, clearly family members of the other patients, some with children visiting. A wooden-brown earth pony with a cutie mark of a catheter trotted up to me. I wondered 'Was he proud of his cutie mark? Do the other docs make piss weak puns at him?' This must be my doctor.

The pony looked at me with an uncaring glare and said with a gruff tone, "Finally awake. I'm Dr Stone, not that it matters to you.” This was not what I expected from a doctor. “You were caught at the front of an explosion, despite the fact you don't look it apart from the damage to your head from whacking into a wall." He pointed to the top of my head.

Wait! "What about my head?" I said. I started looking around frantically for a mirror or any reflecting surfaces. The doctor picked up a hand mirror from a nearby draw and show me. My eyes had changed colour. Instead of my calming blue there was a sharp, scary red. But that wasn’t catching my attention as much as my horn... or what used to be it.

What was there was a white bandage where my horn should be. It was taped around the remaining edges of my horn. Dr Stone lightly tossed the mirror at my front hooves, expecting me to catch it. I didn't and it fell reflective side up onto the bed. I pulled myself up to stare down at the mirror and gazed deeply towards where my horn should be.

"You’re a lucky sod to be alive. Consider losing your horn a decent price for your life and no broken bones.” He picked up my medical chart from the end of the bed and examined it. "Ugh! There are no personal details here. Not surprising given the urgency of your situation. Mind telling the nurses? I don’t really give a crap right now." I didn't respond. I continued to stare at the white bandage on my head, that can’t be me in the reflection. The doctor got annoyed when I didn't answer. "Well you're out of the woods now, but we want to keep you here for the night just for observation." I wasn't listening or caring. With that he left the room mumbling loudly to himself.

After a few minutes of staring at where my horn had been, I couldn't take it anymore. I thought ‘My horn had to be there, it needs to be there.’ I pulled my hooves up to remove the bandage, my mind racing back to a disability I've had all my life. I don’t have the ability to hold things in my hooves. it’s such a rare disability, it doesn’t have a name. I was fortunate enough to get around this problem using my magic.

I started using the edges of my hooves to push any small opening in the bandage into a larger one. It stung on every push. I would consider myself fortunate that nopony was paying attention, but my mind was elsewhere.

The bandage came off bit by bit. My head was now facing up to the ceiling in the odd belief it gave me better access to my injury. Finally I could put both of my hooves on either side of the bandage, crushing it with pressure and ripping it off. The underside of the bandage had a rainbow-like tint to it, some kind of magic protection gloss.

I looked back down at the mirror and I saw Octarine. Octarine; the colour of magic, a greenish-yellowish purple colour. Octarine in any form is magic at it's purest form and wildly unpredictable. Liquid Octarine was inside the cavity of my horn and slowly flowing to the edge of the hole in my head. Three drops fell from the hole in my head. Two drops hit the bed sheet, one of which grew a blue flower instantly. The second drop landed turned into a small flame. The fire spread very slowly, burning the sheets and the flower. The last drop turned into a bubble in mid fall and floated out of sight.

"AHHHH! Where is it?! Where is my horn?!" I screamed. Using my back legs I pushed myself up the bed frame. I wasn't running from the fire; I was too concerned with less life-threatening things. My forelegs were searching my scalp for my lost horn. I went crossed-eyed, trying to see where my horn was meant to be. I was trying to find something that just wasn't there. "It has to be there somewhere, where's it gone?"

Some doctors and nurses rushed over to me concerned, not just for the fire, but the terrifying spectacle I was putting on. One started patting out the small fire while the others were trying to contain me. I continued to scream as some of the staff started pulling me down. Patients and families stared at me. A mother tried to cover her filly’s eyes to the scene.

"Sedate him!" yelled one of the doctors as he tried to grab me, but with my limbs flailing everywhere I wasn't making it easy. A nurse unicorn stared at me. Her horn glowed and my body started feeling light; my eyes started drooping. The group of medical ponies were pulling me down easier. "Strap him down in case he does this happens again," the doctor ordered. "Is this one of Stone's patients? He probably used that fantastic bedside manner as always," he continued sarcastically. I was losing consciousness again and could feel my hooves being restrained. The last thing I heard was,
"Better do something about that hole now."

-_-_-_-_-

I awoke...again. I couldn't move. I felt straps holding me down. I could budge a little, but not much. A blanket covered me and the straps underneath. I looked around my surroundings. I was in a single room now. "Probably didn't want me to scare anypony else," I mumbled.

I was still thinking about my horn. I couldn't see it - it’s still gone - and it wasn’t a dream. I could tell I was getting frantic again. "Breathe Techno, breathe," I told myself over and over. Eventually it worked, took slow deep breaths and calmed down. 'Try and get free,' I thought. I summoned my magic. I planned to use telekinesis to undo the straps. I could feel the stub start to glow.

"Aiieeee!" My head erupted with a pain I never thought possibly. My eyes stretched wider than ever before. It felt like my brain was expanding and contracting; wiggling and jumping at the same time. I was having a fit in my straps as I was trying to get my forelegs to cradle my head, but they could not break free. Despite the magic spell having stopped a few seconds ago, the pain was ongoing. Where was Dr Stone or a nurse? The pain wouldn’t go away, shouldn’t somepony should be attending to me? I then realised the screaming was only in my head, but I had convinced myself I was yelling to the world. The pain had stopped me from saying a word, my mouth was wide open trying to find the ability to scream. I was there for who knows how long, just writhing in an agony that I couldn’t comfort.

Eventually the pain subsided like an ice-cream headache and my world came crashing in on me. I was now a cripple, unable to use magic and unable to grab things with my hooves. Would I be reduced to grabbing plates with my mouth? What about cups? How would I drink from them without a straw? I've never used my mouth for anything but eating and talking. My research; the only thing I really enjoyed... could I even continue it?

After sometime, the door creaked open slowly. A head bobbed around slowly - it was Brick Beak. She opened the door fully and walked in, still using her professional, proud manner, carrying a suitcase. She looked down at me. "Hello sir. The doctors said I shouldn’t unstrap you, but if you promise to behave I will. Will you?" she said.

I nodded and she started releasing me, starting with my forelegs and then my hind legs. I looked at where the straps had been on my legs - my fit during the magic attempt had left a noticeable mark which would probably bruise later. "I have your belongings here, including anything you may need for the night. So you are aware, your lab activated its magical lockdown, seconds after I rushed you out of there, but I can tell you what I saw when I came-"

"Stop!" I muttered loudly. "I have other issues right now rather than dealing with a burnt up laboratory - or maybe you haven't noticed? My. Horn. Is. GONE!" Brick Beak was trying to be sympathetic, understanding and professional, but I didn't care for any of it.

A long pause filled the room. She really wanted to talk about the event. "As you wish, sir," she pressed on. "Your sister will be in soon to check up on you; there was a problem at the nursery when a young colt brought a puppet to life," Was she trying to break the tension with a joke or was that true? Brick Beak placed the saddlebags on my bed. "Do you have any need of me now sir?" Brick Beak asked.

"No. On your way out, tell the staff I want a doctor other than Dr Stone," I ordered coldly. Brick Beak nodded and went to the exit, her tail wagging showing her dislike of my treatment of her. I was being a jerk...more than usual, I never treated her or Poppy like this. She didn't deserve this. "Brick Beak!" I shouted before she was out of sight. She turned around and faced me, not saying a word. "Thank you....for rescuing me," I stuttered not looking at her. I don't stutter easily.

Brick Beak cocked her head to the side and replied, "You've rescued me before, so we're even." She closed the door and left me with my thoughts.

I rescued her? Nope, seems like something I would remember; saving ponies or griffins wasn't in my nature. I first met her at the management building at my mine, she was working in finances. I appreciated her record keeping and efficiency and offered her a position as my assistant for the company. She took a day to decide, but took it nonetheless.

'What am I doing?' I thought, trying to get back on track with current problems. I decided to see what was in my saddlebags. Knowing that the only way to open them was with my mouth, I bent closer whilst using my forelegs as a brace to keep the bag from moving. I positioned my teeth and bit at the strap wrapped around the buckle. "Come. On. You. Little. Sod," I sputtered on every yank. I was getting nowhere. Changing positions constantly, coming from different angles, nothing was working.

Every so often I had to rest, either because my mouth and tongue were strained, or because the constant pulling had worn me out. I had been trying to undo the bags for half an hour or so. This was so frustrating and I thought, 'Is this how my life is going to be?' I was now standing on the bed with my rump higher than my head. I would have fallen off the bed if it weren’t for the metal bars on the side that had helped keep me restrained earlier.

The door to my room reopened. In came Poppy and another female earth pony wearing a lab coat over her black fur and white mane. I couldn’t see her cutie mark. 'My new doctor,' I presumed. It was then I realised how odd I must have looked standing up with a bag strap in my mouth.

Poppy understood my predicament right away and trotted over to help me. I slumped back into bed as she loosened the bags and put them down next to me. "How are you, Techno?" Poppy asked, deeply concerned. She looked at my new red eyes and I think she felt scared of them.

"I don't feel hurt…anymore. I can feel part of my horn but not all." I'd realised that being grumpy with Brick Beak had gotten me nowhere. The best I could do was act brave for Poppy. "I was in an explosion in my lab. That certainly hurt, but I feel.....fine now. But I can't do any magic; I'm getting a thrashing headache when I try." I looked towards the doctor for advice.

"Yes, hello, I'm Dr Mort,” the doctor said finally given a chance to talk. I started having second thoughts about this hospital's staff, the ponies here seem to have the oddest cutie marks and names. "I'm sorry but there was not much we could do about your horn. Sometimes a horn can be reattached; given time and nature of the injury. According to your griffin friend, you horn was beyond shattered. You have had a number of spells set on you to heal minor fractures and bumps. You were fortunate not to have a broken leg or spine; the only damage we could see was the horn and a red mark on your cheek.”

“Oh, here, let me help you with that.” Dr Mort reached for my horn and removed the bandage with her hoof. “We covered the hole with a magical glue. It should be hard as a rock now, but you will need to reapply some from time to time as it will erode. You might want to consider some blue body paint so it isn’t a grey mess. What is left of your magic is still in there, but you sadly can’t focus it without your horn. There is only so much magic can do.” She sighed knowing this information wasn’t comforting me. "So you know, just because you lost your horn, doesn't mean you can't have a full and rewarding life.” I glared at her and then sunk my head down.

Poppy could see I how distressed I was and replied timidly for me, “Techno has a unique condition... he, um, can't pick things up with his hooves." She started rubbing my back to comfort me but it didn't work.

'The magical ability of all ponies to hold items physically in my hooves was beyond my grasp.’ I mentally kicked myself for that pun.

Dr Mort looked at me, stunned for a few seconds. I could see she didn’t know what to say. "I'm...sorry.” Dr Mort said, and with that all chances of a normal life left my body. "There is nothing we can do."

The next hour or so was spent with Dr Mort explaining that I could be put down with a disability. She mentioned what I will probably experience over the next couple of days: depression, anger and all the other cliché stuff. She suggested counselling, but I had no intention of seeing a shrink. I think most of what she said was aimed at Poppy so she could help me through it. I just nodded along in a daze until she left.

We sat in a long silence. Poppy was trying to find the words to comfort me, but she could find none. I continued to stare down and the terrifying future which kept getting bigger and bigger in my mind's eye. A future of being spoon fed, having a nurse’s aide help me for everyday living. I was slowly being enveloped in a darkness I couldn't fathom. Poppy got up - I guess she had to get home for her family.

Suddenly I felt warm and safe. Poppy was hugging me. Her face was buried in the side of my head. "I'll help you. We will find a way for you to hold things," Poppy cried into my ear. My world returned to normal, the darkness retreated and I was mentally back in the hospital room. I was shuddering but I wasn't cold or scared. I think it was jitters from recovering from that hellish vision.

"Thank you," I said softly. The embrace went on for several minutes. I pattered her side to ask her to let go, hesitantly she let go slowly. "You should go home, it's getting late and I'm sure Staples is worried by now."

"You’re sure?" Poppy said weeping slightly.

"Yeah. I'll be fine."

"Okay, I'll come back tomorrow to pick you up,” Poppy was rubbing her eyes clear. "See you tomorrow." She walked to the door, took one more glance at me and then she was gone. I was alone again.

I decided to go where I left off by checking my bags. Inside was my money pouch; a couple of gems for more costly goods. My journal and quill; I carried these things everywhere, never made a damn note in it and worse couldn't now (I wrote using my magic and had never learned how to write by mouth). There was a small set of tools for both magic and mechanical equipment, and finally there was my house key.

It was now that I noticed the window in my room, it was positioned directly behind me so I had never paid it much attention. It was certainly late, the moon was high in the sky. A full moon, the beam of moonlight was covering me. I wondered, 'Is this Luna's embrace?' and considered I was being cared for more than I knew. 'I should get to sleep,' I thought, so I laid down and closed my eyes.

-_-_-_-_-

I rolled to my left, I rolled to my right. I had to admit I was not sleepy, clearly I had had too much sleep earlier. I laid in bed and started wondering about my future. “Stop it, stop it!” I whispered loudly to myself trying to remove the random fantasies. I needed a distraction and so I got up and went out of my room. Turning the door handle was a unique feeling: smooth metal ground against my teeth sending disturbing vibrations throughout my body.

I was now in a predictable hospital corridor: linoleum floor, grey and cold. Most of the lights were off, allowing the darkness of night to be reflected inside the building. White walls littered with signs to other wings of the building. Just down from my door was a nurse’s desk, glowing brighter than anywhere else that I could see. I slowly approached it and found a well-built, earth pony. She was doing a crossword with a pencil in her mouth. She had a pair of thin framed glasses on. She noticed me as I approached, peered over her glasses and removed the pencil. “What are you doing up?” she asked.

“I couldn’t sleep. I need something to do or I’ll go mad,” I said wearily.

She continued to stare. “There are some magazines over there.” She pointed towards a small bench with a stack of glossy books and then resumed her crossword without a further care to the health and safety routine.

“Thank you.” I replied and slowly walked to the bench. I used my hoof to push the magazines off each other to get a good look. “Let's see; ‘Gossip Bridle’, ‘The Buck’, some children’s book and ‘Magic Miracles’,” I mumbled to myself. Discarding the rest, I picked up Magic Miracles in my mouth and placed in on the floor. I was using my face to turn the pages, which was an uncomfortable action. I think the nurse was giving me odd looks.

I skipped multiple adverts and finally came across an article, a rarity in magazines these day. It was about Magic Thread.

Magic Thread™ is a breakthrough in not only the medical world but for multiple other industries. Magic Thread™ is primarily used in surgery for stitches and shows promise for a replacement for motor control over frayed nerve cells. Currently, Magic Thread™ can be as small as 2 microns thick. It even allows alternate magic to run through itself like an electrical current. Magic Thread™ is recharged by just touching any source of magical energy without it. It disappears after 24 hours, so a constant connection can power Magic Thread™ indefinitely. Alternate uses include sustaining liquid octarine, sending electrical signals and network wiring…

The article went on and had a few diagrams. Sadly I knew half of this already. My magic analyser uses Magic Thread. I didn’t know that it could be used for replacing nerve cells or could conduct magical currents. Sadly this new information was of no use for me and barely distracted me.

I went to turn the next page using my mouth this time. It got stuck to my lips and ripped out of the magazine. I looked up. The nurse was peering over her glasses again at me. I wasn’t sure if I should spit it out, so using my tongue I pulled bit by bit into my mouth, crushed it down and swallowed. I couldn’t stand being here anymore. I felt fine and nothing has happened to me yet.

I got up and said, “I would like to go home now.” Waiting here wasn’t doing me any good. If I stayed here doing nothing my mind would continue to send me further into a deep depression. I am a pony who prefers to do something rather than wait.

She re-positioned herself in her chair, ready to argue that I was here for a reason. “You are under observation. Your chart says you were at the front of an explosion, but there are no burns and practically no damage. Don’t you think you should be observed if there is some magical problem with you?” she asked.

I didn’t feel like arguing. “Just a minute please,” I said as I walked back to my room. I grabbed my saddlebags with my mouth and flung them over my back. They fell off, so I tried again. On the third try it stayed there. I couldn’t fasten it so I had to walk carefully. I went back to the nurse, and I picked out my money pouch. Shoving my face into the bag, I pulled out a big gem with my teeth “sHOWth sABOUTh-“

“NO!” barked the nurse “You can’t bribe me over your own health. Go back to bed before I force you there myself.” She shoved her hoof violently towards my room.

‘She has no right to keep me here,’ I told myself but I wasn’t in the mood to fight. I sighed and spat the gem back in and slinked off to my room. She watched me the whole time. I creaked the door closed until it was ajar. Placing my ear to the gap I waited for the light sound of pencil scratchings…

Scratch Scratch

That’s my cue. Slowly, very slowly, I opened the door and crawled out of my room. I headed down the corridor in the other direction. When I got a considerable distance I stopped being sneaky and aimed for the exit... if I only knew where that was.

This was the largest hospital I had ever been in. I had been wandering for what felt like hours. Whenever I saw a window I used it to get my bearings and give me an idea of where I was going, but I still got messed up. I tried using the method of sticking to the left wall, but that proved fruitless as well. I had returned to my starting point and at no time did I double back or get stuck by a dead end.

Every time I found a different nurse’s station, I turned back not wanting to get caught. I even found the first one I had visited but from another angle. I could see the exit sign, but to get to it meant going past the nurse who no doubt wouldn’t let me pass. I turned around and tried again.

I was so frustrated that I hadn’t made my way out that I had not thought about my physical problems since starting this little trip. I found the window again. The faint glow of the sun rising could be seen from between the towers of Manehatten. ‘Had I really been wandering that long?’ I wondered.

I found my way back to my room despite knowing I never came down this path. I got to the door when I heard the Nurse shout “Yoo-hoo! Come here.” She was waving her hoof, beckoning me towards her.

‘This will not be fun,’ I thought as I went up to her.

She had an annoying smirk, “Did you have a nice walk? See all the sights?” I was confused, sure she would have found out I was sneaking about, but she seemed pretty certain I would come back.

She continued, “Problem patients are a dime a dozen here in Manehatten, so we got some unicorns to warp the unused sections of the hospital into a maze. So if the patient tries to sneak out and then relapses, we don’t have to go far to get them. Occasionally you would find your way out of the maze. An emergency exit of sorts, but then you specifically walked straight back into the maze from another entrance. There are easy exits everywhere...” she waited deliberately to see if I would figure it out. “Since it’s the unused areas, the patient’s rooms weren’t manipulated and some have exits to the outside, but nopony wants to invade another pony’s room.”

I was feeling really stupid and I had let my frustration get the better of me by not stopping to think about it. The nurse pointed at me and said, “YOU are now the record holder for longest time in the maze.” I would kick myself if my legs weren’t tired from walking around all night. “Fortunately for you, you may now leave. Luckily for both of us, you haven’t collapsed after several hours of constant walking, so you must be ok to go.” I didn't reply. She passed me a form for my hoof print. I paid my dues and left.

Outside was still cold. The sun was not visible still, just beams of light coming from in-between the buildings. The streets were empty, a slight breeze making me shudder as I found my bearings for home. I should probably have waited for Poppy to come pick me up. I’ll have to apologise later. I wished that I had my lab coat. It wouldn’t keep me warm but it would at least stop oncoming stares to my rump.

The further I got, the more active the city became, starting with newspapers being delivered, the odd jogger or two and cafés setting up for the day. A few ponies stared at me on their way past. They stared at my horn or lack of and then my backside. My mind raced back to what Dr Mort said - that I would need paint to cover up the magic glue so I look somewhat presentable. Did I currently have a grey blob covering my hole? If I did, I must of stuck out like a Diamond Dog at the Grand Galloping Gala.

Finally I reached home. I was just about to use my magic to open the door, when I realised the pain I would have suffered if I tried. I then reached for the door…knob. I have a door knob. Why? Even if I could open it, earth ponies and pegasi couldn’t open it…could they? Poppy had had no trouble before. I reached for the door knob, placing my flat hooves on either side, increasing the pressure. I went to turn it, but slipped, almost losing my balance. Tried again; failed, again; failed.

It was now I figured out the door was locked, as it should be. I reached into my saddle bags and bit the end of the key. I could feel my teeth grating the metal. It made me think on a griffin’s talons on a blackboard; a bad feeling with a bad sound. I had now worked out that the key was around the wrong way. Taking the key into my mouth, I swirled it around with my tongue, the metallic taste making me scrunch my face a bit.

I finally got it positioned right. I aimed the key for the hole and turned my head ninety degrees to align it. When the key was near the hole, I couldn’t see the key or keyhole anymore. I took a guess and pushed forward. I guessed wrong. The key missed and started moving sideways as I hit the door with my face. The key flung from my mouth, bouncing on the ground until it lay in a small corner a drain covered in mud.

I will not shove my face into dirt for delicious apple cider soaking into the ground, let alone my key. So I left the key in the dirt. I had tried to be patient. It had taken about five minutes to the key out and align it correctly. I was tired of being tired. I turned my back to the door. I raised my back legs into the air and bucked the heck out of the door repetitively. On the fourth buck I heard something give, so I gave it one more buck, putting more effort into it than any other.
BANG

I looked back during the buck. The lower hinge came off first, followed by the other hinge before the door did a complete flip, going past Brick Beak’s desk and finally lying on the ground. I didn’t consider myself a strong pony, but I was quite proud of that kick. As I went inside to make breakfast, I heard somepony call out, “Quit it with the racket!”

I entered my kitchen, stepping over my front door in the process. Time for breakfast. I thought about what would be easier to make using only my mouth to grab things. If I had toast, there would be no way of buttering it, so I decided on cereal. I grabbed a box of Celestia Crunch - somehow I doubted Celestia endorsed this sugar snack; it seemed beneath her. I had to open my mouth extra wide to get just the side of the box in. Placing the box down, I moved my jaw around to relax it from the strain.

Getting the milk was easy apart from the fridge door; cold, rough metal clenched between my teeth again. This isn’t a feeling I would get used to anytime soon. I got a bowl. Plastic was a much better choice than ceramic as it didn’t hurt, it didn’t taste it of anything, and it was nothing but a piece of warped polymers. Fortunately the cereal was already open. I tipped the frosted flakes into the box using the alternate corner as leverage. I had to shake it a bit to get enough cereal into the bowl. The problem was that I got equally as much outside of the bowl as I did inside. I put it down as my first try and it might get easier with time.

Pouring the milk was a challenge, I had to bite the lid off. Lifting the bottle proved troublesome as the liquid sloshed from side to side. When I had a decent grip I tilted my head towards the bowl. ‘TOO MUCH!’ my mind screamed at me as milk gushed from the bottle, almost filling the bowl. In my desperation to control the flow, I moved my head sideways, not upwards as I should. Milk now poured onto the bench and dripped onto the floor. I got control of the milk again and put it back down. I now realised too late that I couldn’t reattach the lid of milk to the bottle, so I simply left it there to go off.

Right, it had been a struggle but the meal was ready to eat. I thought about a spoon and quickly realised that wasn’t possible. I looked at the breakfast, an overfilled bowl of milk with a sugar snack now getting soggy. There was only one thing I could do. I wanted it over quickly and so I face planted the bowl. My added snout now made the milk overflow. I closed my eyes in how sad this must of looked. I slowly slurped up my meal, waves off depression were taking over me. I could feel the ripples created as my slurping sloshed the milk around. It was the saddest meal I ever had.

I didn’t bother with cleaning it up afterwards, what would the point be? I would end up making more of a mess than what was already there. Plus I wasn’t in the mood.

I looked towards the basement door. I wasn’t going down there. ‘I never wanted to go down there again,’ I thought, though eventually I would have to.

I decided to move to my lounge room while I tried to figure out what to do with myself. The lounge room doesn’t have much to it; I concentrated on my work and never bothered to decorate it. It just has a couch, some chairs and a small side table with a radio on top. I didn't entertain guests, except for Poppy. I sat next to the radio on one of the chairs. I was happy that the radio could turn on with the tap of my hoof.

It’s a bright sunny day,
all my cares, just fly away.
Not a problem to be,
I’m just a happy old me.

“Arghh!” I yelled. I swatted the radio with a hoof. It flew backwards and hit the wall then fell to the floor. It continued to play.

I’m gonna put on smile,
make it all worthwhile.
I will stand up high on my hooves,
and show the world how I groove.

I had to force myself over my seat, pushing the table to the side. I reached the radio and started slamming my hooves onto the box. The music was stunted at first but kept going.

I’ve had days of sorrow,
SLAM!
but CSSSHHH better tomorrow.
SLAM
I’ve seen CSSSHHH worst
SLAM
but I am gonna CSSSHHH
SLAM, SLAM, SLAM

The radio finally stopped working, probably because it was now in tiny pieces. I wasn’t satisfied. Beating the radio up didn’t make me feel better, so I turned my anger towards my furniture.

Unfortunately my taste in furniture was strength over style. I spent the next five minutes trying to beat up and rip open furniture that could take the brunt of my attack. When I was spent, I saw the results of my rampage. Excluding the radio, the couch was now turned a couple of degrees and one of the chairs was lying on its back. But they weren’t broken, beating up or a shadow of their former selves, like I was.

I just sat there not knowing what to do. I don’t know how long I sat there. The room got warmer from the sun rising higher into the sky, but it didn’t lift my spirits. I thought Brick Beak would be in soon, but realised today was her birthday and she wasn’t coming in today. I hoped she was having a better day than me.

I continued to wallow until I heard a “Hello,” coming from the front door. It was Poppy, who was looking very distraught. She came up to me, putting her hoof around my back. “Did somepony break in? I didn’t know burglars ripped doors off. Did they take anything?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I broke down the door, I couldn’t open it.” I moped.

“I know you’re distressed, and I think you need a distraction. I have an idea that might be able to help you with your problem,” she said as she started pulling me with her hoof. I slowly got up and followed her to the front door. “Before we go, we need to do something about the door,” Poppy said.

I pointed to Brick Beak’s desk. “Top draw...Talisman,” I mumbled.

Poppy trotted over and opened the draw. Inside was a small circular rock. Carved onto it was a picture of a brick wall. “How does it work?” she asked. I waved her towards the doorway. She grabbed one of my lab coats and my saddle bags and she then helped me get them on.

“Put it down just in front of the door, then tap it twice with your hoof.” She did just that and a light pink energy filled the doorway, creating a force field. “We take the talisman with us and do the same thing we want to get back in,” I said in an miserable tone.

We started walking. I think we were heading towards her nursery. “Are we going to your work? I don’t think children are going to help me.”

“You may not like it the idea. But nurseries are where fillies are taught the basics of everything, for example body control. Hopefully we can find a way to get your hooves to pick up things, so we start with the toys.” It wasn't like I hadn't tried when I was younger. I had been taken to several specialists as a young colt and none of them could do anything for me.

As we walked along, we passed a number of ponies all of them stared at my grey stub of a horn, some even snickered. “Just ignore them,” Poppy said, trying to comfort me. We just started to pass a small twenty four hour store. “Idea!” Poppy raced in and exited out with a baseball cap. She put it on my head covering my stump, creating extra pressure around my skull. It was uncomfortable, really uncomfortable. “How’s it feel?” she asked.

“It’s nice,” I lied back sheepishly.

“Oh good,” she beamed back. Her smile made me feel a little better. We continued heading down to the nursery. I still had ponies staring at me. One female who was quite large gave me a wink. I didn’t want to think anything of it with my current problems going on.

It was at this time I realised something, something very important. I asked, “Where is Staples?” Poppy took Staples to her nursery all the time.

“Check List has her. In a one in a million chance, it’s ‘bring your daughter to work day’.” How oddly convenient.
“Cough, cough,” went Poppy covering her mouth.

“Are you alright?” I said, trying to adjust the hat.

“Oh yes, the air is just a bit dry and cold.” I could agree to that, but i didn’t think it was that bad.

We eventually reached the nursery. It was still early in the morning so we were the first ones here. When we got in, I saw a mirror and looked at myself with the cap on. There was some text and a large red heart on it which was hard to read backwards.

“I Love Big Bottomed Ponies”

I didn’t know what to think about this, I had so many other problems running through my mind, it was hard to be mad at Poppy. I knocked the hat off and put it on a hook designated for one of the fillies. ‘I guess its Innocent Lily’s problem now,’ I thought as I read the name above the hook.

I noticed a puppet in the corner of the room. It had large black eyes and its strings were cut. I swear it was grinning at me, mocking me. I picked up a blanket from a shelf and threw it over the disturbing item. ‘Was this the doll that came to life yesterday?’ I wondered.

Poppy had been turning the lights on, tidying up bits and pieces around the building. During one of her trips passing me she said, “Why don’t you see what you can do with the toys?”

I looked over at an open box filled with toys for the yearlings. I decided the coloured blocks would be best. The problem was getting them out, but I realised that that was part of the reason I’m here. I placed my front right hoof onto it and lifted. Nothing. Maybe there is a thought process to this. I started thinking, ‘I will lift the block,’ as I went to try again. Nothing. I sighed and said to myself, “I will lift up the block.” Still nothing. After a few attempts of feeling confident, I just sat there placing my hoof on and off the blocks. I gave up, but I didn’t want to upset Poppy.

Sometime later a herd of young ponies raced into the building, all cheerful and active, running around the room aimlessly. Some went to the hooks and put their jackets and scarves on them. One filly with a lily pad for a cutie mark said “Where’d this hat come from?” Some of the other ponies gave her a playful tease about it. Some older ponies came in, some of whom I recognized as other staff members. There was a pony carrying some baby twins on her back, she kissed them goodbye and left them with Poppy and the rest of the staff.

Then the worst thing happened: the older children noticed me. They rushed over, forgetting everything they should know about stranger danger. “Who are you?” one asked. “You are old, mister,” said another. One unicorn asked, “Why don’t you have a horn and why is it grey? You’re a freak!” I wanted to yell at her, I can’t deal with kids. But I couldn’t, I didn’t have time, their questions just kept coming and I was being swamped into a corner. I needed Poppy to save me.

“Children,” Poppy spoke loudly, “Go get your things for class, we are going to do some painting today.” The children ran around the room picking up their brushes and paper. “Are you alright?” Poppy asked me, seeing I was shaken to my core.

‘A freak.’ That’s what the unicorn called me. Is that what the ponies in the street thought as well? I was used to being disliked by some ponies around the city. I never went out of my way to make them hate me. But just having my horn gone made me a disturbing freak around ponies and it made them uneasy.

“I… I want…to go home.” I said.

“No, you can’t. We are going to fix this and you need to be here.”

She got the younger ponies set up and they started painting. Some used their mouths to hold the brushes, some used their hooves and that unicorn from earlier was using her magic. While they were distracted, Poppy grabbed a brush and some paint from the back of the room, it was meant for decorating walls. It was a light blue, almost the same colour as my coat and horn.

“Sit still please.” Poppy dabbed the brush onto the dried up glue. I could feel the pressure of the brush but nothing else; like the expectant coolness of the paint. I could always feel the horn when it was there, to know you are touching something but not feeling it was a horrifying experience. It didn't take her long. “Done, it came out really well.” Poppy said looking quite pleased with herself. She took me to the mirror I saw before.

I looked at myself in the mirror. My new red eyes stared back at me. Even when depressed, they looked frightening. I looked at where my stub was. She was right; it was a good job, but it reminded all the more that my horn was gone.

I looked myself in the eyes again, ‘Is this how you’re going to do this?!’ My eyes seemed to yell at me, ‘Continuously feeling sorry for yourself. Get over it! It’s gone! Find something to do about dealing or fixing it. Just get it done!’ But I didn’t know how to fix it. I took a big breath and exhaled. I looked at myself with some determination, ‘Okay,’ I thought, ‘Step one: Get over it.’ Easier said than done but I would try.

One of the staff ponies came over to Poppy and asked, “Poppy, the twins need a diaper change, could you please? I’ll take over the fillies and colts. Maybe your brother could help?”

“Sure we can,” replied Poppy. “Come on Techno, this will be a new experience for you.” We walked over to a small table, the twins were lying on their backs without a care in the world. “Ok, I’ll do one and you do the other, just follow my lead,” Poppy said as she reached for a diaper. Her hooves moved at great speeds removing the diaper, I couldn’t keep up with her. I didn’t get any of that. How did she undo the pins? She then pick up the diaper using her…MOUTH!

I felt like gagging as she threw the used cotton garment into a bin. I backed away thinking, ‘No, there has to be a better way. If I was expected to use my mouth to clean this up, forget it. It will never happen.’

Poppy saw I was retreating. “Techno, what’s wrong?” she asked.

“Poppy, thank you for helping, but I’m gonna look elsewhere. There’s just some things I just can’t...won’t do,” I replied quickly. I raced for the door. What luck, a door handle. This I could use, pushing it down and pushing the door open, I bolted out of the nursery and aimed for anywhere but there.

-_-_-_-_-

I found myself wandering the streets aimlessly, just looking for something to distract me. Some ponies were too busy to notice my stump as they passed by, but not all of them. The word ‘Freak’ ran through my mind with every stare I caught. They would stare just up to the point I crossed paths with them. They had clearly never saw a unicorn without a horn and neither had I.

I found a fairly empty street with a bench I could sit on. Across the road was a construction yard. I sat and watched the work ponies move lumber around, while a crane picked up rubble and disposed of it from a large pile of scrap. Its massive three prong claws grabbed the junk, lifting it up and then letting go of its hold into a massive skip. It felt like it was mocking me with its ability to pick things up. Every time it grabbed some rubbish the cable retracted so it could get high enough the dump its contents. I stared at it until I heard a, “WOOOOO!” noise. The sound of some alarm from the construction yard. Probably their lunch break or something.

I was left alone with my thoughts again. "One day...It's been less than one day and I can't take it," I said, looking across the street. I thumped my hoof on the arm rest. My saddlebag shook and an apple fell out. I looked down at it. I reached down to try to pick it up again, as I touched the apple nothing happened. I sighed with my head low to the ground and foreleg stretched out.

I looked up and stared at the hanging claw, no longer being operated. It swung gently in the breeze. Then I had an idea, the first good idea. I now knew how I could fix my problem. My mind started whirling with plans and every time I found a flaw in it, I compromised. Pieces slotted together and I finally had something that will work.

But to do it, I needed parts, bought and created. I would need to visit two guilds in Manehatten; the Guild of Magic and the Guild of Science. Two large organisations that worked to create new magic and new technologies. They disliked each other as they were both competing to be better than the other, but they hated me more; due to my stance on magic and science.

My mind started filling in mores gaps in the plan, but I compensated straight away. I would also need to go to my mine outside Manehatten and grab some more money, a gem. I also needed a gallon of artificial liquid Octarine (something like that is only possible at Cloudsdale). The last thing I needed was to find a medical practitioner. One willing to ignore ethics and perform a dangerous operation. Fortunately I think I know one now. I wasn’t feeling sad or happy anymore, just determined to get something done.

Cloudsdale would be easy and hard, throw enough gems and they’ll sell you their entire rainbow supply. But since I can’t walk on clouds, I’ll just send Brick Beak. Rocky won’t be back at the mine yet, probably doesn’t know what’s happened to me either. So I can get in without any issues and grab what I need.
I had a plan. I didn't know if it would work, but it seemed a lot better than moping around Manehatten. I headed off to create something never seen before.

End of Chapter 2.

Chapter 3: To Create

I had a plan to fix all of my disabilities. The idea was stuck firmly in my mind. I just had to rely on other ponies now to put it all together. Ponies that have a low opinion of me and I of them.

“Hmm? Which guild first?” I said to myself as I trotted along. “Guild of Magic. That way I can deal with the mocking of my horn first.” I headed towards my first destination.

The Guild of Magic was a very old cathedral. Massive stone spires aim high into the sky, but are dwarfed by the skyscrapers around it. All of the buildings around here are newer in comparison to my suburban area. But the guild has been here longer than anything else. It has a school in the back for young unicorns and has only recently accepted alternate magic such as zebra craft and the fourth wall arts. I still had no idea what that last one was or how it worked.

I pushed myself up the steps and through the large open door. The smell of incense fill my nostrils. It was expected being a place of magic such as this. Due to expansion, the interior filled with swirling rainbow portals to many underground rooms. It is the only place in Manehatten to build deeper rather than higher.

I walked up to an information desk. A short, red, male unicorn was filing paper work. I exhaled and said as happily as I could, “Hello, I would like to buy some-”

“Gift shop is on your right,” interrupted the unicorn, not looking at me.

“They won’t have what I want,” I replied. This conversation would go downhill no matter how nice I acted. The unicorn looked up at me and gave my forehead a quick glance. “I need about one tonne of Eternal Magic Lifter’.” Magic lifter is a weight canceler and the lamest name ever. It makes the heaviest of items easier to carry. Eternal Magic Lifter does the same, except it lasts forever unless a magic nullifier is used or destroyed. It has to be separated into two parts when applied or the lifter works on itself and floats away. Before being mixed it is very heavy in bulk.

It is also is very expensive to make and I would be better off hiring unicorns to do a spell for me. But I needed to keep the guilds unaware of what I was doing as they don’t do joint ventures with each other and they have a tendency to be untrustworthy. I had read many articles where the guilds had outright stolen plans of individual groups and gotten away with it.

“Oh, ha-ha!” laughed the unicorn. “Very funny.”

“I’m not kidding,” I replied flatly.

The pony looked back at me, his face stared at me blankly. “You are mad. That would be our entire stock! We need most of it for ourselves”

“You might want to consider making more then, ‘cause I want what you have. Now!”

He continued to stare at me, then he did a double take and said “Oh, you’re that pony they talk about. The MAD one, the heretic.”

I had enough of this time waster. I brought my head up to his and stared into his eyes hoping my red eyes were
freaking him out. “Go get the Magic Lifter.”

He was startled now. “I, uh, just let me get my supervisor, I don’t think I can agree to an order that big.” He trotted off to a small office and returned with a very tall female unicorn, she had a pink body, blue and gold mane and two wands for her cutie mark.

This is Sparking Thought, one of the heads of the Guild of Magic and one of the top ten magic users in Manehatten. She never liked me, which she made very clear on the day we duelled at school. Short story; I won, she lost, but I got in trouble for it.

She was probably more powerful than me now when it came to magic, even if I still had my horn she'd probably be more powerful. We never had a rematch. She lost and never approached me again. The only time I had to speak to her after that was when I needed something from the guild. My visits here were more common than I’d like to be.

She glared at me spitefully. I had to stare up at her to look her in the eye, but I showed my best poker face to annoy her. Truth be told, I didn’t care about her enough to want to start something. I also knew she wasn’t the big head of the guild, so I can still complain to a higher power if she starts something.

She spoke after a short glare “You want all our Eternal Magic Lifter? Well, that would be impossible. The guild requires E.M.L on a daily basis and we can't just give it away, especially to someone who isn't a guild member. Would you like to join?" She paused looking at my forehead with the most dislikable grin. "But you need to be able to use magic to join. Can you do magic?"

"This is insulting!" I raised my voice, trying to make a spectacle of myself. "The guild exists to serve the public. Refusing to sell to a pony and one your best clients. I might just have to go and report this!" Sparking Thought was giving me the ‘cold eyes’ treatment now, as a number of ponies stared towards us. "I will take my business to the Guild of SCIENCE, if I'm going to be treated so rudely. At least the Guild of SCIENCE knows how to treat ponies with respect." That last part was blatant lie.

"All right!" she barked, she paused thinking about her situation. "How about we work out a deal; four hundred thousand bits.” She grinned meanly, knowing the price was at most two thirds that. I couldn’t care less as long as I had the damn stuff. It shouldn’t be this hard to just buy something though.

“Done,” my tone changed immediately. “Charge it to the Colour family’s account and ship it to my house in two days. Do you know where that is?” I answered back slyly. “Of course you do, I order from here all time. Thanks, ya’ a doll, BYE.” I turned around and started walking off, calling her ‘doll’ will make her see red. In couple of seconds she’ll get pissy and try and start something.

“Nice horn, no horn!” she yelled. How predictable.

‘Keep walking,’ I told myself. It hurt, it was a pathetic insult, but hurt anyway. I got out the building, relieved that it went better than I thought it would. Next up, the Guild of Science.

-_-_-_-_-

The Guild of Science has many offices around the city; public relations, a shipping warehouse, a R&D lab and a bundle of other places. I needed the R&D lab. One cart ride and many traffic jams later I arrived out the front of the building. Unlike the Guild of Magic, the Guild of Science has no imagination when it came to building design. A steel box, a few stories high with windows. Some may call it sleek, but I called it dull. I didn’t care much for style anyway.

Inside it is very plain; white walls, a couple of pictures of the Guild’s achievements and a horrid looking plastic plant in the corners near the door. There were three earth ponies at a desk, all talking but not to each other. They were communicating on their radios and jotting stuff down in ledgers. One of them stopped talking and beckoned me over.

“Hello and welcome to the Guild of Science. How can we help you reach your objective today?” she asked, not missing a beat of the guild’s slogan.

“Hello, yes. I would like something developed, but I can’t draw it. I’ll need a unicorn to extract the idea.” I replied. While the guild main purpose was scientific research, hundreds of years of magic history was still a useful practice. This guild used magic to a certain degree. It would only be used for the most minute purposes.

“Okay sir. Please note there is a fee for idea extraction, for magic usage. Any thoughts running through your mind at the time may be used as a Guild of Science’s project in the future -if we so choose-. Any immoral thoughts and you will be charged a further fifty bits.”

‘She really knows all the lines,’ I thought. “Ok, let’s get on with it please.”

“Right this way please, sir,” she said as she pointed towards an opening door. We entered another room almost identical to the last. The only difference was a several curtained off sections. Ponies are given a private section. There is a side effect to idea extraction; arousal and other side effects were not uncommon. They were used for private memory and idea extraction as a pony can become aroused. Other side effects were not uncommon. “Please sit down and a pony will be with you shortly,” said the receptionist as she left the room.

I must be here on an off day. Usually this place is bustling with activity. ‘Right, concentrate, I need to focus on what needs to be done,’ I thought to myself. ‘My idea, my idea. Don’t worry about the magic requirements, my idea, my idea.’

Sometimes they send a pony in here to talk about what you are doing. That way they can make you lose focus and get more information from you for themselves. They had tried it on me once before. That pony ran away cringing quickly after I told him where I’d stick my hoof if he kept bothering me.

It was annoying that a Unicorn can’t extract their own ideas, but sadly it’s how the spell goes. It’s more of a copy, than an extract. A unicorn will probes my mind for what I am thinking of, and copies it into a magical orb which anypony can observe. Then they have a perfect plan of your idea, which they then build. Most ponies have no technical expertise, so they just think of what they need, extract it and get the Guild of Science to fill in the blanks. I though, know exactly what I need.

“Focus,” I told myself. ‘My idea, reams of strong hollow metal, wiring goes here, connects there. My idea,’ I did this for a while with my eyes closed.

“Excuse me sir?” said an incredibly sweet voice. I opened my eyes and there stood an attractive unicorn mare. Her coat is a gleaming white, with her sapphire mane sweeping over one side of her body. Her frame is thin and delicate and overly alluring, it was hard NOT to be attracted to her. “I’m ready for you,” she said in what I thought was in sweet slow motion.

She lead me behind a curtain. Why I did I feel really embarrassed about this? I’ve done this a few times before, even with a mare. So why did I feel dirty this time? “My you’re a cute one,” she giggled whilst looking up at me. I’ve never felt more embarrassed in my life. She placed her horn on my head and begun. I wasn’t focusing yet. My face started relaxing. I needed to concentrate and she kept looking at me in a lovey-dovey way.

My mind wandered away from what I needed done. I tried to concentrate ‘My idea, metal, wires, cogs, flank -WHAT!- Remove flank. A wired connection there, a coupling here, hoof job there -STOP THAT-. Moving section there, more wires there, hollow that bit out, joint piece’. This continued for some time, until I had fully envisioned my project’s needs and my world returned to me, I felt dizzy.

The unicorn had a small orb floating next to her. She looked at me with a naughty grin. “My, my, my, what dirty thoughts. You know you have to pay extra now,” she said turning around giving her backside a slight wiggle. “But maybe we could discuss that last one, some time. Oh, and bring your friend there as well,” she points to beneath my legs. I then realised that I could feel myself very erect. I crouched down and hid my shame. I covered my lower regions more embarrassed than earlier.

“Could I have a moment?” I asked, feeling humiliated.

“Take all the time you need. We do sperm donations here as well for our bio lab. You can make a discount on your extraction if you want.” Her voice kept getting more seductive with every word. She could make accounting sound sexy.

“No, that will be all. Thank you.”

“You’re sure? If you want, I can help,” she said with a wink. Please sweet Celestia tell me she’s kidding. I remained crouching, not looking at her. “No? Alright then. When you are ready then.” I will have to wait this out.

Some considerable time later I emerged from the curtains. The unicorn looked over to me from her desk and said “Feeling more relaxed now? Ready to move on, big boy?” With that I was back in curtains and frustrated.

“Could you tell me what the extraction collected?” I asked popping only my head through the curtain.

“A long metal shaft, with grooved sections,” she said deliberately. “Sorry, two metal shafts. A small separate cylinder needle piece with odd plates. A harness that connects to the shafts, the front of the harness is an empty groove, either for a power source or…” she licked her lips. “...A chain accessory and quite a few attachable joints which are pretty small. A lot of it I don’t understand, I just extract the gooey goodness and others build it. It doesn’t appear to be a complete design.”

“It’s pretty complicated.” If I was really lucky the guild wouldn’t figure out the basic design. I doubted that, but they would never know the power source or half of the internal mechanisms. They did know me though and might work out some details of my plan. “Anything else?”

“Just a lot of kinky ideas,” she replied “When and where you want your toy are all questions you can tell the ponies at the desk. But if you want we can spend more time with little ol’ me.”

I had finally gotten myself back together and left. Not saying a word to the mare, knowing it would set me off again. I paid for the extraction, the creation of my idea and the penalties that came with it. I didn’t know it was one payment per immoral thought. As I left the Guild of Science my sense of rationality came back to me. ‘That unicorn must be a new approach to sucker guys into thinking sexual ideas. To suck more money out of them…me,’ I thought with a sigh.

-_-_-_-_-

My money pouch was almost empty, but that wasn’t a problem. My next destination was the Colour family’s mine. But I needed to get Poppy to write a note first that I could leave for Brick Beak to go to Cloudsdale…or I could just go see Brick Beak. I’m sure she won’t mind, it’d be quick and I wouldn’t be bothering her birthday plans.

I caught a taxi-cart to Brick Beak’s home. It was across two bridges from my place and a considerable distance for somepony who can’t fly. This street seemed to house all the griffins of Manehatten or so it would appear. I didn’t see a single pony anywhere else on the street. The taxi had dropped me off at the wrong address, I think he was scared of this place. Every apartment building had a landing platform, but most were being used to laze upon. Many griffins were absorbing the remaining sunlight.

When I was approaching any group of Griffins, they instantly stopped talking to each other and stared at me until I was far away to continue their conversation. The walls showed that graffiti had been cleaned off repeatedly. The street had an odd stench - foreign, yet familiar. It seemed to get stronger at the corner of each building. I got Brick Beak’s building, smack down in the middle of the street. It looked better than my apartment building as it had a door.

I walked up to the entrance and knocked the door. Nothing, I knocked again “Yeah, I’m coming! Gosh!” yelled a voice from inside. It certainly wasn’t Brick Beak. A griffin opened the door. She had a white feathery head with brown fur and wings and purple colouring around her eyes. The feathers on her head pointed towards me, making it look like a punk hairstyle or something like it. “Wha’da’want?” she asked bitterly.

“I-Is this the home of Brick Beak?” I asked nervously.

“Who wants to knows?” she asked again. I could smell alcohol coming from her.

“Uh, oh. Me, I’m Techno Blue. What’s your name?” I asked putting my hoof out.

“Pah, Gilda,” She ignored my friendly attempt be civil. This is one of many reasons I gave up on it myself. “Aunt Beak is out shopping. Being her favourite niece I got enough booze to party. But she wouldn’t have any of it. Miss Up-Her-Self wouldn’t know fun if it came up behind her and rode her backside.”

I’ve met a few griffins before, true Brick Beak was a unique case, but I’ve never seen one so self-centred. I thought about leaving Gilda to whatever bottle she is downing. Then I remembered how Brick Beak tortured me with Luscious yesterday. “Is that so? Please tell me more,” I said with a grin.

Gilda leans against the doorframe. “Oh, don’t get me started. She works for some dweeb unicorn who she goes on about for giving her a fantastic job, despite that she can get a better griffin job.”

“What is a griffin job?”

“Pah! Just the coolest jobs around. Some are delivering heavy materials; we’re twice as strong as a Pegasus. Pegasi are just faster, but not by much no matter what she says!” she yells waving her talon in my face.

‘Wait, who says?’ I thought. I dismissed the thought.

“We also do mercenary jobs ‘cause we’re *hic* so tough. Aunt Beak is like, really strong but refuses to show it. I’ve no idea why, I would if I was her.”

“Uh, ok. So what else does Brick Beak say?”

“She whines all the time about not seeing her mother. Clearly I’m not fun enough. Listen up, because you appear to be thick and clueless. Griffins come from the far east, over the ocean. You may have seen one of your Equestria maps. It says ‘Yonder to Griffins’,” Gilda said as she pointed her arm in any direction but east. “So ya see, Brick Butt…heheh, Brick…Butt. Funny. The rest of our family lives in the Land of Griffins. Manehatten is the closest place in Equestria to our country. Now if we’re done asking a bil’jillion questions, I have some bottles to smash. So why don’t you make like a bee and BUZZ off!” She slams the door before I could even say goodbye.

As I go to leave the street, I noticed I had a lot more observers watching me. The griffins on the landing pads were all staring at me. Some now in the shadows of the setting sun, their glowing yellow eyes freaking me out. I felt like they would swoop down and grab me. My imagination stopped there as I didn’t want to know what would happen after that.

The further I got the more speed I picked up, but I never started running as I felt that would set them off. When I reached the corner my fear got the better of me and I galloped round the corner and slammed into somepony, no, someone. I looked up and saw Brick Beak. She didn’t seem startled to see me in neighbourhood, but she didn’t seem impressed either. She had a bag of shopping in one of her claws.

“What are you doing running around here? Shouldn’t you be recovering?” she asked. I noticed the lack of ‘sir’ but I didn’t care. I never cared when it came to her.

As I got off the ground I replied, “Would you believe I’m practicing for the ‘Running of the Leaves’ Race?”

“No.” Her face was unamused. I could see she was trying to work out why I was here.

“Oh, worth a try. The hospital was pointless, I couldn’t stand it a minute longer and I felt fine despite losing my horn,” I said trying to avoid her first question.

“Fine. What do you want me to do?” she asked. She got it right away. I was shocked. Was I really that predictable to her?

Knowing now that she chose desk work over physical labour, I didn’t want to ask her to bring me the heavy Octarine now. I knew I wasn’t going to get around this, but I could at least manipulate it. I stuttered at first, “I-I-I w-would like you to go to Cloudsdale-” her eyes widened, “- And order a gallon of Octarine…tomorrow of course.” I wasn’t sure if she was annoyed or excited about her task to the other side of Equestria.

Her face returned to her professional poker face. “Why don’t I just bring it back myself? It would save time.”

I bit my lip. “I wouldn’t want to put you out,” was the best I could say.

“I’ll do it, but I want a first class ticket on the train.”

I didn’t even think of that, I was imagining her flying carrying a heavy tub the whole way back. “That’s fine then. Come with me to the mine tomorrow and we’ll collect some spending money.”

“Okay, I’ll see you at your place. Good day sir.” With that said, she flew up and then around, down her street.

As she left, I yelled out, “Oh and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” She replied with a wave.

-_-_-_-_-

I returned home. As I reached my doorway the glow of the force field lit my way up the steps. The stars and moon had long since risen. There was a note attached to the force field, the paper had dried due to the energy of the wall.

Dear Techno,
I know you are feeling down and probably wish to be alone. But please come visit me and the family for dinner tonight. Please let us help you get through this.
Love Poppy

Short and sweet, very like Poppy. I had a choice either go eat a well prepared meal in a warm home or make delicious floor cereal again and tackle indestructible furniture. I like to think I made the right choice.

It didn’t take long to get to my sister’s home. Unlike many places in Manehatten, Poppy has an actual house with a garden. It was a shame that the area was surrounded by apartment buildings, but Poppy made the garden beautiful despite the lack of sunlight. The house was two stories tall, painted a creamy yellow, with a porch with bright lights hanging from the ceiling. In almost every way in was a cliché house that you would see in a country town like Ponyville. That’s what Poppy wanted, but she didn’t want to leave Manehatten. So Rocky and I agreed for the first time ever to buy and build her a house.

I reached my first obstacle; the gate. I couldn’t open it as I still had no way of grabbing objects. So I gracefully jumped over the fence and landed face first in Poppy’s petunias. I got up and checked around me to make sure no one saw that. That’s when I saw a face staring at me from a window on the house. It was Staples. I wasn’t worried she could barely talk, so she wasn’t going to mock me. I trotted up to the door and pushed the bell. The bell played slow notes of “Hush now, quiet now,” in a very pleasing tune.

The door opened almost immediately and Poppy rushed out and hugged me. “I was so worried!” she cried. I put my hoof on her back to comfort her. “Where’d you go?”

“Please don’t worry. I went on a small trip around the city, and I have an idea on how to fix my problem,” I replied.

Poppy wiped a tear out of her eye. “You do? That’s great. What can I do?” she asked as she let me in.

“Just keep doing what you’ve always done, keep supporting me.”

“I will. I will give you loads of energy.” She puffed up her face, stiffened her body and held her hooves at shoulder height.

I looked at her perplexed. I asked “What are you-”

“HUZZAH!” she yells, throwing her forelegs into the air, jumping slightly.

I ask be-wielded, “What was that?”

“I filled you with my positive energy. Now your project will work. Come on, let’s go have dinner.” She turned around to go for the room and I smiled. She always has some way of making others happy.

We entered the dining room. Check List was putting Staples into a baby seat. “Oh hello, Techno,” he said, strapping the yearling in. “Damn shame about your accident, but I hear my little sugar-tart is helping you through it.”

Check List was a mystery sometimes. He was practically the ideal male pony of an era long past. He wore a green patchwork sweater and he owned a pipe but didn’t smoke. I never understood how he missed the flow of time. There was only one other pony more bizarre than this and I was related to him. He stared at me. It took a moment but I knew he would ask about my horn. “So what did the doctors say about your eyes?” I wasn’t expecting that.

“Uhh...” I replied. The doctors didn’t say anything, either they didn’t know they changed or they thought it was the least of my problems. Then again Dr Stone clearly didn’t care from the beginning.

“He gwot Dwirty,” interrupted Staples, laughing and pointing at me. I turned for a mirror. The first thing I see are my blaring red eyes, then I saw patches of black dirt rubbed into my face and lab coat. Poppy placed a cloth on my face and rubbed away the grit. I think Check List and Poppy were being polite about it by not mentioning the soil.

“Shall we get started?” asked Poppy. We all sat round the table, there was a seat for Rocky, despite that Poppy knew he was not coming. Poppy served up fantastic salad. It was now I realised that I still couldn’t use cutlery. It was then I noticed that Poppy and Check List didn’t have any either. Poppy noticed that I had noticed. “We didn’t want to make you feel awkward, isn’t that right hun?” she said as she looked at Check List.

“That’s right, Schmoopy Doo,” he replied looking back at Poppy. I really don’t think that’s an act. I swear any second he’ll say ‘old bean’. “Well dig in, old bean.”

‘I KNEW IT!’ my mind screamed at me. We all lowered our heads to eat except Staples, who had started some time ago. The meal was delicious and after a few minutes, I had forgotten all about the bad table manners all four of us were showing.

Afterwards we sat around the living room chatting about our day. I only told them where I went and that I have a plan. I didn’t want to scare Poppy with the details. Later Poppy cleaned up the plates and left the room. We said we’d help but Poppy refused, so I started listening to Check List.

Check List loves his job. He would have to considering his cutie mark is his job. Many would say he has the dullest desk job in the whole of Equestria. He went on about the joys of sorting, filing and shredding like it was something everypony needed to do before they died. The whole time he was waving his pipe around, occasionally putting in his mouth, despite it not being lit. He was just getting into the process of ordering forms when there was a loud CRASH from the kitchen. We quickly got up and raced for the source of the noise.

Poppy was on the ground. A bunch of plates were now shattered around her. “What happened?” we asked.

“Are you alright, dear?” asked Check List. He knelt down and checked on Poppy. I grabbed a broom in my mouth and tried to clean up the mess before anypony hurt themselves further.

Poppy was dazed, but coming to her senses. She coughed a bit.

‘Maybe a bit winded from the fall?’ I thought.

“Oh I’m alright, I just…slipped on the floor,” she said. “Just help me up, dear.”

Check List pulled Poppy upright. She wobbled a little, but Check List and I stabilised her. “Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked dropping the broom.

“Oh yes, I’m fine.” she replied.

“But-” I muttered.

“Yes, I am. Please stop asking please, I’m fine,’” Poppy said, breaking eye contact.

“Ok, if you’re sure,” I said, not fully convinced.

Check List finished the washing up and I kept an eye on Poppy as she put Staples to bed. She sung a short melody and waited until she was sure her daughter was fast asleep. Soon after I said my goodbyes. “Thank you for having me around,” I said.

“Think nothing of it, chap. Always fun to have another male around the old household,” Check List said, elbowing me in the ribs lightly. No pony acts like this anymore. So why did he?

I looked at Poppy with concern, “Take care.”

“I will as long as you do as well.” she replied.

“Give me a week and I will be,” I grinned back, putting her at ease. I walked off and came back instantly to my old nemesis; the gate. I acted before Poppy could help and jumped again over the fence. I did it perfectly this time and waved goodbye to Poppy and Check List.

-_-_-_-_-

The following morning, I woke up to a mixture of shadows and sunlight passing over my closed eyes. I eventually stirred and opened my eyelids. Brick Beak was on the window ledge tapping on the glass. I slumped out of bed and asked, “Why don’t you just come in?”

“I would,” she replied. “But there is a force field where the door used to be.”

That’s right. Last night, I came home and deactivated the force field. I then reactivated it from the inside. I groaned, “Go down to the door, I’ll let you in shortly.” Brick Beak flew down and I trotted down groggily. I am certainly not a morning pony.

I tapped on the talisman and the magic barrier evaporated. Brick Beak entered and glanced at the fallen door, the mess in the lounge room and asked “What’s that smell? It smells like,” she sniffed, “Off milk.”

I stiffened my lips as she walked into the kitchen. “What on Earth happened in here?!” she yelled. I felt like I was going to be scolded like a bad child. “You should have stayed in the hospital,” she told me harshly. “At least there, I wouldn’t have to clean up this mess.”

“But you said you weren’t my maid. I’ll clean it up when I finish my new project in couple of days,” I replied, attempting to be clever.

“And you expect me to put up with this smell until then?” she said angrily, grabbing a mop. I knew the right thing to say was to say nothing. Brick Beak sighed as she started cleaning. “Have you been to your basement lab yet?”

“No, I don’t want to go down there at all. It’s just a painful reminder of my horn.” I tried to look at my horn by going cross-eyed, but there was still nothing there.

“You should, whatever you did down there could be dangerous. If it isn’t, it might give you closure. Also I don’t care what you break down there.”

She started to jab me with the broom, pushing towards the basement staircase. I reluctantly went down the steps to the basement.

My emergency magical lockdown had activated. It was a spell I used in case there was an explosion, it gave a little time for anypony to get out and contain a fire. If Brick Beak didn’t get to me in time I would have been stuck in there until I regained consciousness. To disable it, all I had to do was touch it as it was keyed to my DNA. Eight talismans acted as a frame all embedded in the walls. I had the same setup for my two other labs upstairs. It fortunately doesn’t slice anything that gets in the way so nopony would get hurt when activated and my plumbing doesn’t need repairing after every use.

I touched the field of magical energy and I entered the lab. The walls gave no appearance of an explosion as they were not scorched. The test tubes and vials though were…warped as well as the table they sat on. The glass had been stretched, pulled towards the explosion. It reminded me of a painting of melting clocks. The flowers Poppy gave me were fine but the glass jar they were in was warped like the others. What had happened here?

I looked over to where I thought I fell. I found the remnants of my horn. It wasn’t how I thought it would be. I expected tiny chunks of horn that could fit back together. Instead, hundreds of blue tiny like needles lay scattered close together. One could ask ‘How do you know this is your horn?’ To me it felt instinctual, this was definitely my horn. What could cause such an unusual incident? “Wait a moment,” I said, examining my piled remains. “My horn is over here. It broke off after the explosion, not during. If it had, the pieces would be scattered around the room.”

Finally I looked towards the cause to the explosion. The laser, I deduced could only be defined as inside-out, but the crystal remained intact. The spell caster-analyser was charred black, while the projector was just gone. ‘Was it vaporised?’ I thought.

But the most interesting thing in the whole room was where my spell was being projected at the time of the explosion. A small orb was floating perfectly, it didn’t wave up or down like a telekinesis spell would make. It sat perfectly still in mid-air. It kept changing colours from a greenish-yellowish-purplish (Octarine) to silver and grey. It was glowing, but not projecting its light on anything. How was that possible?

I stared at the object, afraid to touch it. ‘What is it?’ I thought. ‘How did this happen? My experiment wasn’t meant to create anything, just examine.’

“I need to know what this is,” I said to myself. I started thinking of a plan. “Ok, I’ll do this right. First; contain it, it could be projecting anything. Second; find a way of stopping it.” I had read enough stories, seen enough plays to know that a mystical item should have a kill switch before doing anything else with it. “Third; find out how this happened. Fourth; recreate for analysis.”

Sure I could move step two and four around, but this thing that took away my horn and that was too much of a high price for me already. I may need to analyse it to get rid of it, but it will have to be done. I then realised that I will have to finish my current project before working on this new problem, but I could at least get it contain…hopefully.

I went back upstairs, Brick Beak was just finishing up she looked at me and said, “I’m ready when you are.”

“Unfortunately, I need your help before we go,” I said. “Upstairs in the science lab is a large radiation container.” She looked at me with concern. “It’s perfectly safe, but I need it taken down to the basement and it is very heavy.”

Brick Beak sighed, put the mop away, and followed me upstairs. In the science lab was almost everything I would need to create my idea, but I couldn’t build it in my current state. Asking Brick Beak to do it for me seemed like a bad idea. I walked over to the container. It was a tall tube made up of different metals including lead. It had two thick glass hatches on two opposite sides and it had multiple handles and wheels for adjusting pressure, magical shielding and other systems.

“Right,” I said with confidence. “I’ll push - it’s the only thing I can do - and you pull.” I got behind it and put all my force into it. I then fell to the floor as Brick Beak picked it up in both talons and walked away with it on her hind legs. She did struggle with it, but it wasn’t stopping her. “Or I could just let you carry it,” I mumbled as I got off the floor.

Amazingly she got to the basement before I did. I cleared away the analyser and told Brick Beak how to open it. She glanced at the orb as many times as I did. “So, what is that thing?” she asked opening the hatch door.

“Not sure yet, it’s volatile on its creation, yet appears stable now. I don’t know for how long though, so we need to secure it. Try not to touch it at all when we move the container in, something that floats perfectly can’t be safe. I’m just happy it’s still affected by the planet’s orbit or it could be ripping through all of Equestria by now.”

Brick Beak slid the container over to the mysterious orb and through the hatch. Fortunately neither came in contact of each other. I blew a sigh of relief and tapped a button that records activity inside the container. “Now we can go…What?” All the readings were showing the container was empty. I had Brick Beak adjust some dials but still nothing. After some time I gave up. “The container is not picking up any radiation anyway and there isn’t much else we can do right now. We may as continue with our plans.”

As we left the basement lab I reactivated the emergency force field for insurance. “Brick Beak, this is important. Don’t let ANYONE know about this. If it gets back to the guilds they may try to take it, or it may cause ponies to panic around the neighbourhood.”

“Of course, sir.”

End of Chapter 3

Chapter 4: Dull Work

Brick Beak and I were off to the train station, I was going to make a withdrawal from my mine, one I knew Rocky would hate. But for my plans to work he would have to suffer. I figured I would have to actually do some work about the mine while I was there, there was always an issue there on every trip.

When we reached the station I ordered the required tickets for the rides there, back and to Cloudsdale; all in 1st-class except my return trip. I wasn’t choosey on these things, it only mattered to me if I got to destination.

We hoped on the train and many ponies were staring, not at my missing horn but at Brick Beak. Brick Beak had never been in first class, I didn’t care either way as long as no colt was kicking my seat I was happy. First class differed from economy with cushioned seating and the food was almost edible.

The train departed, the whistle blowing, smoke shooting out the front. I was sitting backwards to the direction of the train with Brick Beak going forwards. She had her professional grin on her face, I think she was enjoying the special treatment. She was the only Griffin on the train and all the other first class ponies were giving her a wide birth, only now were some of them staring at my forehead and the word ‘Freak’ kept coming back to me. I needed to distract myself, I had my head resting on my hoof and I asked “Why is everypony afraid of you?”

“Griffins are usually known for their physical might, proud nature and quick to anger attitudes…that and the fact we are carnivores” she replied.

“So why don’t you attack and eat us? It’s not like we can match your strength.”

“I am a special case when it comes to my strength, and no I won’t go into detail on that. We don’t eat you for several reasons. One; You are not our type of food, two; We don’t like eating food that pleads for their lives it gives us…” there was a serious pause as she looked for the right words “…moral digestion problems and three; Your princesses and bearers of the elements are a formidable lot. The Griffin Democracy has no interest in war or at least not with Equestria.”

“Griffin Democracy?” I wondered.

“Don’t think of it as a voting system or any form of a democracy. It’s more like a ‘Free for all’ dictatorship. Griffins’ line up for what section of the government they want to be in charge of and then fight it out in an arena every three years. The winner gets the job, so the strongest usually aim for the position of president.”

I thought about what she said then and before about not wanting to talk about her strength. She looked at me and realised it too. “We are NOT talking about it.”

“Ok, ok. How long does it take to get to the Land of Griffins?”

“It depends on the clouds, longest it takes is two days. We can’t fly that far so we ride the clouds, usually the weather pegasi leave some for us. It’s more common for the clouds to head away from my homeland and come straight here. But this is the time of the year when the clouds go westward. But we can always catch a pony air blimp if necessary but we still get the same looks from the ponies.”

The scenery was zooming past us, I stared unimpressed outside the window with the now disappearing city and emerging country side. The hills went up and back down again, why was I meant to be impressed with this? “When this is done, the project and all, why don’t you take a week or two off?” I said with a yawn.

Brick Beak did a double take. “Th-thank you sir.” She said lowering her head slightly. I saw, not a grin but a faint smile…worth it.

“I do have one more question.” Brick Beak looked up at attention “There is an odd odour to your street, what is it?”

She blushed, harder than ever before. “Well, uh, you see,” she muttered “The young male griffins used to paint graffiti everywhere to ‘mark their territory’ as they called it. Eventually the older griffins managed to stop them getting spray cans. So they came up with another idea to mark their turf using their own.” I stared showing a face of curiosity. I knew exactly what she was saying but it was too much fun to not torment her further now. She sighed “Pee, they piss over the walls ‘cause they feel more masculine. Happy now?” she folded her arms together and looked away.

“I am now,” I smirked.

Wasn’t long until we reached the station nearest the mine, a waste of a 1st-class ticket really. We disembarked and waited for a bus-cart to come along. There were many others waiting at the stop with us, a few Diamond Dogs. They were probably going to the mine as well. We hired them to dig the gems up and paid them well for them, though Rocky always thought we could pay them less and earn greater profit.

One of the Diamond Dogs recognised me as I did him. It was Zippy a tall, skinny, grey Diamond Dog with a big under bite and black spikey collar. He was literally the pack leader for the dogs at the mine. I respected him for his work ethic as he tolerated me for not being more involved. When I was forced to get involved with working disputes, I usually sided with him as he was the only one talking about keeping everyone safe.

The bus-cart arrived and we hope on and I sat just behind Zippy. “Hello Zippy, anything I should know?” I asked. Brick Beak passed on only the information management thought was important so I never got a two-sided story. The cart started moving slowly.

“Ponies keep making us work longer in the deeper sections, it’s getting hotter down there,” he replied in his gruff voice. “I say we are close to a lava stream. But boss wants more blaze diamonds, since others found near there.”

“Are there any gases or lava coming out?”

“No, but the rocks warm to the touch sometimes. No one hurt yet, but we haven’t found any other gems down there in two days. Not even with pony gem spell.”

“I guess it’s time to check in with management then,” I sighed. I hated doing that, they keep trying to change my mind, yet they have no understanding or consideration of the risks of digging at that level, Rocky did though but seemed to forget all of it when he was promoted.

“You should take more control of mine, you understand danger…where your horn, what happened to your eyes?” He only just noticed, did he only recognise me by smell before?

“Lost, in an accidental explosion of my own making. So I don’t understand danger or it wouldn’t have happened. I can’t do anything right.”

“You can fix mine problems before someone gets hurt. You pony, get things done.” The cart came to a stop, we were here. Zippy started to climb out, “You are the only pony who can fix this. Boss ponies care not ‘til others get hurt.”

-_-_-_-_-

The mine was surrounded by the finest chain wire fencing management could find at the bottom of a barrel pricing. There was a large cliché opening into the mine with a service elevator next to it. The cafeteria which sold food not much better that a 1st-class train carriage. There is also a large, lush, white building that stood higher than all the others, it was managements and I hated it. It always reminded me of a story where some animals decided ‘that all animals were equal, but some animals were more equal than others,’ after throwing off their enslavers and went corrupt anyway.

Management’s building is connected to the vault, it was the only thing management agreed with me when it came to protecting it. We had it reinforced with strong metals, magically enhanced shielding and finally camouflaged so dragons couldn’t see it from above.

Uncle Quarry Silver didn’t do occupational health and safety until the twilight of his years. It was a new concept to him and everyone, but when he found himself stuck underground in a cave in with two Diamond Dogs he realised the benefits. Wasn’t for another four days until they got out and he emerged with a new look on life and possibly a different opinion on of management? Rocky had worked in the mines but never experienced that level of fear, being trapped underground in darkness, neither had I, but I at least appreciated safe work practices, now more than ever.

Brick Beak followed me up to management’s office, it had clean walls, polished floors and a sign that said ‘all miners must wipe feet before entering’. I always wanted to walk through the mud outside and then enter but thought it unfair to the cleaning staff…that was until I found them as snobbish as management, then I took great joy in it. It was amazing that Brick Beak could work with these jerks, thinking on it now she was the only griffin here.

We walked inside, Brick Beak declined my request to help annoy the staff inside with muddy limbs. I usually hate making a spectacle of myself, but here I felt the ponies considered themselves above Celestia and Luna. So I made it my job to take them down a peg or two.

SQUELCH SQUELCH SQUELCH SQUELCH

The mud leaving my hooves to form large patches on the ground, some leaking dirty water across the very shiny floor. “Can I help you?” asked an unimpressed earth pony from behind a curved, white desk. I didn’t recognize this new guy, he has a dark blue coat with streaks of gold and red in his mane, I couldn’t see he cutie mark but then again I didn’t care. These ponies never showed much emotion until they heard you were either in charge or had money you wanted to spend. I too was one not to show much emotion…but I got endless joy annoying these guys, especially newcomers.

“Ohhh. I’m just here to loot stuff up from the vault, meddle around in my brother’s office and RESCUE THE COMMON DOG FROM HIS OPPRESSING OVERLORDS!” I shouted throwing my hoof into the air, some mud went flying.

This pony remained unimpressed and finally replied flatly “Get out before I call security.” I was amazed that management didn't warn him about me but I wasn't going show it.

“You cannot remove me! I am the saviour of the fellow miner!” I barked. Brick Beak started rubbing her claw in her face over her eyes in embarrassment. The bored pony pushed a button that I knew would send in the guards soon. I jumped onto the desk “I will not allow this evil to continue!”

Two ponies entered wearing blue vests and blue hats with ‘security’ labelled on them. They were concerned at first, about to reach over and grab me. They then checked me over one more time and change their expression to attention. “Good day, Mr Blue. We weren’t expecting you.” They said in unison. I wondered if the only way they knew it was me was from my lab coat and blue body colour.

I stop prancing on the table and hopped down. “No one expects the Caterlot Inquisition!” I said with a sneer, this was too much fun. As I walked past the now stunned receptionist I said “My, this place is dirty, clean it up next time.” The mud from my hooves now speckled the walls, the desk and the face of the desk pony. His body was petrified, he was too scared of being fired to move.

We headed deeper into the building, I spoke to the guards without turning my head round to them “Get the vault open, I wanna rummage.”

“Uh, sir, we can’t do that. Your brother, uh, Rocky Orange has introduced a new procedure that stops anyone from just taking stuff without properly documentation.” One of the guards replied meekly. “You will need to talk to Desk Jockey.” Other desk ponies looked up from their desks as I passed them, some noticed my horn was gone, but they quickly darted their eyes away before I could growl at them.

Desk Jockey another of the emotionless, spineless, ‘yes’ ponies, quick to agree with every decision he disagreed with but would never say, he is an earth pony with brown coat and mane, he matched his brown desk to a ‘T’. I approached Desk Jockey’s office, he was sitting at his desk doing what he considered ‘work’. He was expected to find ways of producing cheaper equipment for mining, I can’t help and think of it as some sort of death sentence for the diggers.

Desk Jockey saw me and his eyes widened in fright, every time I came here I had to sort out this abuse of the miners. “Hello sir.” he said as jumped from his seat to attention, the guards left us alone. “I guess you wish to inspect the vault?” my trips here have become predictable. “And you probably wish to discuss the miner’s working conditions. Unfortunately new policies stop us from removing items from the vault without the proper documentation, but I will gladly talk to you about the miners.” His voice was getting squeaky, he clearly didn't want to be anywhere near me.

I looked at Brick Beak “Did I sign anything on the vault?”

“No sir, I make sure to tell you things that would get in your way of disturbing the peace here,” she said smugly.

“Oh good, brother has been busy trying to stop me having fun. Consider the orders under review for the next two hours, during which time we go back to the original system. How does that sound?” I asked knowing that he wouldn’t dare challenge me.

“What an excellent idea sir. I had just been thinking they should be reviewed,” Desk Jockey replied with a scared grin. Desk Jockey gulped, he was terrified of the repercussions he would suffer from Rocky, not like their was much my brother could do. “Just let me get the vault key.” He reached into his desk, he was shaking, I could tell from the keys rattling in his hoof.

We got to the vault, a large round door blocking our way made of a thick heavy metal, it has a large metal bracket that allowed a pony to push against it and the wall to help open it. Desk Jockey handed the keys to Brick Beak and I asked “Why are you giving her the keys?”

“So, uh, she can open the door. She does it every time due to the weight of the door” He replied meekly.

“Brick Beak is not here for manual labour!” I barked, knowing she had done some heavy lifting earlier this day for me. “She is my aid for the company. You open it.” Brick Beak remained still with her talon opened with the key sitting on top, she never objected before, even when she didn’t work under me. While management didn't care much for her, they would have her open the vault any day over having a Diamond Dog do it.

“Uh, yes sir.” he said unsure of his own strength. If he showed some backbone and fought me about it, I would have got the guards to do it. But he is a coward and refused to fight his boss. Desk Jockey unlocked the door and positioned himself between the wall and the bracket. He started pushing but nothing happened. “Ughh!” He pushed harder and still nothing.

I turned to Brick Beak “Could you get some water please?” I asked quietly, she nodded and left.

Desk Jockey took in a deep breath and pushed harder and harder. The vault squeaked, moaned and budged an inch or two. It would get easier from here, but Desk Jockey was already sweating and exhausted but he kept going. He couldn’t hold himself on the wall anymore but he slowly managed to open the door enough to give me ample room to enter. He then collapsed on the floor, he was tired and breathing hard. “Sir, I have your water.” Brick Beak returned.

“Please give it to Desk Jockey.” I asked and Brick Beak brought it over to him. He drank steadily, thankful for every drop. “Very well done Desk. Most impressive. Rest as long as you need to.” I said to him as I stepped over him into the vault.

“Thank you sir,” he replied wearily as head steadily drunk down the water.

The vault has two entrances but only one exit, the other entrance is a sorting machine that files different gems into different sections. Any dragon that came along would have a love/hate relationship as they could find any precious stone they wanted but not be able to sleep on any of it. I came up with the design due to management not wanting miners to access the building and the Diamond Dogs not wanting to deal with whining ponies, that last part was never mentioned in the arrangement so for once management thought I sided with them.

I wandered past diamonds, emeralds, crystals, all stacked neatly, efficiently and correctly. Also part of my design as the vault did originally look like a dragon’s den. What I needed was at the back in the ‘Rare’ items cabinet. It did take a while to reach the back as we did hoard a lot of gems, I was reminded of what Rocky said about going bankrupt “Yeah right!” I yelled.

Finally I reached my destination and looked over the best finds the mine ever had. I wondered if loving brother may have hidden even rarer items from me, I wouldn’t put is past him. But it didn’t matter, the item I needed was here as well as its friend. I picked up the Blaze diamond with my teeth and put it in my saddle bags, I left it open all the time now since I couldn’t open it. I decided I would take the other knowing it would greatly annoy Rocky, I wasn’t planning on going this far but I couldn’t stand the idea of such a useful gem being wasted on a locket or something else that is in fashion for week. I grabbed some more common gems for me and Brick Beak to finish paying off my project and headed to the exit.

I returned to the vault entrance, Brick Beak didn’t enter but waited on the door frame and Desk Jockey had finally recovered and standing back up. “Why don’t we discuss the miners in Rocky’s office?” I said knowing Desk wanted to object but wouldn’t.

Rocky’s office had wooden panelling on the walls, it was a style that left us a decade or so ago. But it was Uncle Silver’s office so Rocky left it how was. The only changes were the personal touches. Photos of the family on shelving, the only one with me in it was the picture of Poppy’s house with Poppy –pregnant with Staples-, Check List, Rocky, mum and dad all standing in front. Everypony had this photo. Briefly, very briefly I thought on when mum and dad would come back to visit, but I knew that for them to come back one of us needed to be dead to ruin their round the world vacation, I chose to drop the subject in my mind instantly.

Back to Rocky’s office, he has a lovely mahogany desk which is neat and tidy, a window that meets the rising sun and a liquor cabinet with a radio on top. That radio was my favourite item in this room, it got me out of so many problems. I was brought back from my look around with an “Ahem” from Desk Jockey. I sat down in a chair that faced towards Rocky’s. Despite the fact that I annoyed him I wouldn’t go as far as to sit in his chair, there had to be limits.

“The miners tell me that they are working very far down and fear they might be near a lava stream.” I said.

Desk Jockey looked nervous, I don’t think he wanted to deal with this problem on his own. He replied “Oh sir, there is no risk, we would have to dig very far down to reach lava-”

“Two Blaze diamonds were found at that level. A Blaze Diamond only forms near lava and since there were two found, I believe the miner who tells me the ground is warm down there.” I was not playing this game of countering each other.

Just as Desk was about to reply, the door opened and their stood Rocky. ‘This will be fun.’ I said sarcastically to myself. “Brother what brings you here? I thought you were in Canterlot” I asked nicely.

“I work here, you on the other hoof don’t know what that means, the deal fell apart so I came back.” he said entering the room “Get out Desk Jockey, you to Miss Beak.” Desk Jockey didn’t say a word and quickly walked out and Brick Beak slowly followed. “I know you have been in the vault and…” he stopped talking and focused on my head. “Some of the guards said you lost your horn, I thought it was a sick joke, what happened? And your eyes?”

I was sort of stunned to see concern from my brother. “There was an accident in the lab, an explosion and my eyes changed and my horn, it broke off…somehow.”

“You don’t look like you were in one.” he frowned.

“We…I don’t know what happened exactly.” I replied not knowing where to look.

“Something like this was always going to happen, messing around with stuff you don’t understand.” He said harshly at me.

“How can I learn if I don’t take chances?” I argued back.

We continued down this track for some time and I told him I couldn’t do magic anymore. He knows about my condition with my hooves, he showed some sympathy but he was still annoyed I was here. “Why are you here?” he asked.

“I needed some gems to pay off a project I’ve started, I may…have…also taken…both-the-Blaze-diamonds.”

“YOU DID WHAT!?” he yelled, I got this feeling he mad. The cost of the Blaze diamonds were nothing compared to the combined bills of the guilds, when he finds out about that he’s really going to lose it.

“I need them for my idea.”

“Auctioning those will make us recognised as one of the top gem procurers in all of Equestria, give them back!”

“I can’t, they’re a key item for solving my problem.” I said tapping my horn.

“No, you will just have to live without them, I have planned too much for this.”

I tired quickly of all this, I got up and walked over to the radio. “Are we really going to do this again?” I asked. He didn’t say anything, his face was glaring angrily at me. I tapped the on switch and heavy rock started playing, the music loud enough only for this room to hear. Rocky was standing still. “Oh have you managed to control that side of you then?” I asked but then noticed his rear left hoof tapping to the beat of the music. “Clearly not.” I said watching the music slowly overtake his train of thought.

This was Rocky’s secret, he loved this type of music so much he was literally compelled to dance to it but he was ashamed of it due to making himself a respected upper class pony. His head was waving up and down now, his mane flopped in all directions. I was the only one who knows this secret, discovering it one day when we were young and walking in on him when he thought he was alone…I always thought it could have been worse. There had to be a reason his mood changed so quickly when the music played, I put it down as his body needing to be released from uptight attitude.

“YEAAHHH!” yelled Rocky, there was no way no one didn’t hear that outside, there would be some awkward question avoiding later for him. Rocky was dancing, jumping around the room like a pony possessed, at one stage he jumped on the desk and flipped to ground. He started to pretend to play a guitar, violently around the room. I caught glimpses of his face, he was smiling, why couldn’t he be happy any other time?

But like all things the music came to an end and Rocky was able to think logically again. He didn’t want his secret out, I didn’t care, I had told him years ago just to admit it to others but he refused so I use against him until he learns better. He stood still and eventually looked at me, gritting his teeth and asked “Are you done here?”

“No, please get the head management team to meet me outside,” I said flatly, but happy we moved on from the previous argument.

-_-_-_-_-

Everyone was outside now, the members of management including Rocky, Desk and three other ponies that I could care less about. Rocky was second in charge with me at number one, every other pony were equally lower than that but in different sections of management. “Ok!” I said “Who hear believes the miners don’t have good…no GREAT working conditions?”

No pony replied, they learned that if they stand up to me they sometimes get their way, it was rare but it happened. I waited a bit longer and said “Ok then. Who believes if we keep working at the current depth we will find more Blaze Diamonds, when we know there are plenty of other gems higher up?” They all looked at each other and raised their hooves. “Ok, I can deal with that, now the Diamond Dogs work down there for four hours plus before needing to come back up to a higher level to cool down. So here is what we are going to do, we are going to play a game. We will all go down to the lower level, see the conditions down there and test how long we last. Anypony that doesn’t come should not be on the premises when I get back.” As I said all this I thought about how long my project kept getting pushed back by all these annoying interruptions.

Some of the ponies gulped. I continued, “Any pony who doesn’t change their mind while down there and leaves before me is disqualified. If you outlast me you and all disqualified members keep their job, if you all leave before me, you are all fired. If you change your mind before then you can keep your job.” I said all this knowing that Rocky will outlast me, he had worked in the mines back with Uncle and had adapted to the environment down there.

As they headed nervously towards the lift, I turned to Brick Beak, “Why don’t you get head off to Cloudsdale now? You probably won’t like it down there.” I suggested as I got her to remove some gems from my saddle bags.

“Thank you, I will, sir. Take care.” she said as she flew off towards the train station.

I trotted over to the lift and joined my fellow ponies. A diamond dog standing by a lever pulled it down and we descended. I cried out “TO THE DEPTH OF TARTARUS!” Scaring lower management slightly.

“Oh shut up!” yelled Rocky.

I turned to the Diamond Dog “How long does it take to get to the bottom?”

“Ten minutes down, a bit more up,” he growled.

“Ok, so if I were to give up.” I said turning back to the others “It would be at least twenty minutes until you guys could get out.” The other ponies looked to each other with worried faces.

“No.” replied the Diamond Dog “Longer. The lift burns up on constant use and needs cooling time.”

“Interesting.” I glared at management wondering who was to blame for this cheap load of garbage. The air had already started getting humid and uncomfortable. We stood in silence as we waited for the lift to finish its decent.

As we lowered other levels showed many ponies and Diamond Dogs working hard and tirelessly, but the lower we got the workers showed more fatigued they appeared. I half expected them to be moving in slow motion shortly. A lot of levels showed that the walls and ceilings have gems scattered everywhere but no one was digging them out due to being a support wall and too dangerous to dig out or that Rocky had moved most of the miners to the lower levels.

The lift came to a stop with a heavy “Thunk” noise. The ceiling was not very high for a Diamond Dog, while a pony would have no trouble. It wasn’t very bright, any light would create more heat. I was already breathing harder for air and the ground was unusually hot like concrete on a summer’s day. The miners all looked at us, particularly the management staff. Zippy came up to me, he didn’t say anything just annoyed that I had brought them down here, why should they come into his work place if he couldn’t go in theirs?

“Any success in finding anything?” I asked Zippy.

“Some tiny gems have turned up, we may find a haul soon but need more digging time for the tunnel.” He replied.

“Is it warmer down that tunnel? Any signs of magma?”

“It is very hot down here even without lava. We haven’t seen any sign of magma.”

I wasn’t the answer I really wanted, if there was nothing found during my time in management then I didn’t have a problem dealing with this. But if all was going better than before I might have to side with management.

“Well then, there we are,” Desk said happily “All is good, so let’s get out of here.” He pointed back to the lift controls.

“Nah, come on. Let’s look around.” I replied. Just I was stepping off Zippy slammed a safety helmet on me and the others.

“You should know better ponies.” Zippy said looking at me, “Especially you, you wrote some of the rules.”

I did write some and I forgot all about them, how’d that happen? We started walking around and asked questions…well Rocky and I asked, the rest of management was trying to catch their breath, the air was hot and stuffy. There was a female unicorn checking the walls with a gem spell, management passed her by with a mixture of lust and confusion on how magnificently she carried herself in this exhausting tunnel.

We got a bit further down and came across a larger cavern, not big, but Zippy could certainly jump and not hit his head. It was at this stage Desk Jockey and another pony had to give up. Desk nearly collapsed and needed to be pushed back in a mine cart to the lift. While Desk was being pushed away, the two last members thought about it and realised it would be over twenty minutes until they could get out, so they quickly chased after Desk Jockey.

That left me and Rocky, I was certainly feeling the effects while Rocky didn’t let it affect him and I think he was smiling, was it because he knew he would win? I thought he could be more in his element down here that behind that desk. He did start working here in the mine before being promoted to management, despite the fact we didn’t get on, he was happier working down here back then.

At the back of the cavern was a small pool of water, it was clear but not clean. I touched it, it was freezing, how could it be that cold down here? I seriously considered dipping into it to refresh and win against Rocky, but it would probably give me a cold and Rocky could last hours down here. “Shall we call this a draw?” I asked mockingly, knowing he will win.

“Certainly not.” he replied.

“Rocky.” I said with hesitation, wiping my forehead with my hoof from the heat. “There’s something you should know.” Rocky looked at me, expecting some stupid remark about to come out. “Yesterday, Poppy had an accident... She’s fine now, she said she slipped but I can’t help but think she was hiding something.”

Rocky’s face changed to concern. “Did she look ill?”

“No. She looked stunned, but she wasn’t sick. She may bruise but she isn’t seriously hurt.” Trying to talk about an important matter down here was the wrong idea, the air, or lack of, was really getting to me.

“I will visit her soon then…without you.” He replied ending with a cold tone that sadly didn’t cool me down.

I was starting to lose my focus, wobbling on my legs. I don’t think I could last much longer down here. “Fine……you win. I can’t stand it much more down here,” I mumbled. Rocky’s face remained unchanged.

“I thought pony better than that,” growled Zippy.

We started heading back to the lift, just before the opening to the lift I tripped and fell down from the over bearing heat. I couldn’t get up, it wasn’t due to any pain, it was the heat. It was just too much for me now.

Zippy lowered his head and looked at me right in the eyes close to my face. “We need to get him out now.” He wasn’t talking to me though.

“Go.” Said Rocky, his tone didn’t show much care or love.

Zippy picked me up and slung me over his shoulder and started carrying me. He grabbed the built in ladder on the lift and started climbing. He was fast, fast enough for me to feel hot wind rush past me. It did feel cool to a point but my body wasn’t ready to work yet. Zippy climbed and climbed, it was amazing he had so much energy when it was this hot.

He got some distance before the climb started wearing him down. When he reached another level, he called over a larger Diamond Dog “You, carry and climb get outside. Don’t drop, good friend.” ordered Zippy. He held me out with his arms, I felt floppy as I hanged there. I could feel Zippy’s breath on me, making me feel warm again, his tongue was hanging out panting.

The larger Diamond Dog picked me up and started climbing. He was faster, stronger. The wind was really flowing past me now. I was able to think clearer, Zippy considered me a ‘friend’, I don’t know why. I only did what he suggested not due to friendship but because it was the better idea that was offered when it came to the mine.

I heard the lift rumble and it went down below us, had we really been climbing that long? There was no way the Diamond Dog could get it to start coming back up, so he just kept climbing. I honestly thought he was faster than the lift anyway.

If I could have concentrated better I would have seen the Diamond Dog’s limbs working at a flurry, all I saw was this cartoonish limb wavering, faster than my eyes could keep up with. ‘When this guy mines, he must just drill through rock like it was a big cake’ I thought.

I could see the top of the lift shaft, daylight was a small distant light. I could feel my carrier get slower and sluggish, it wasn’t surprising with the speed and time it had taken to get this far. We reached another floor but instead of asking another pony to take over, he put me in a cart and pushed me along the tracks down one of the tunnels. I could feel the angle, we were going uphill, racing higher and higher.

Now we were going faster than before. I was jostled every time the track made a slight bend or hit a groove. ‘How was he going so fast?’ I wondered. I could see the tops of other Diamond Dogs as we zoomed past them.

I started feeling better I could feel a definite breeze coming down the tunnel. It was cool and refreshing, I sat up to tell the Diamond Dog to stop and rest. He pushed me back down. “I ordered to get you out, not talk, PLEASE BE QUIET!” he screeched. I was wedged in the cart now, stuck upside down. All I could see was the head of my rescuer and the occasional lamp lighting our way. I had nothing better to do, so I started thinking how to help the miners more than what was asked. Better ventilation was a must but something lingered in my mind about the lift.

We kept on rising, the path occasionally went left or right and then became dead straight and it slowly started to get brighter. Since I was lying down when we did exit I got a face full of Celestia’s bright sun. I was squirming around in the cart dazed.

The Diamond Dog stopped pushing the cart and pulled me out “What wrong with pony?” he said to almost anyone, I couldn’t see so I didn’t know. “Maybe pony need air?” he said as he breathed in deeply. I may not have been able to see, but I could imagine a horrible fate quickly coming towards me.

“Stop!” I yelled at my saviour. “I’m good now, please put me down”. Slowly the Diamond Dog put me on the ground, I had just avoid the kiss of death. My eyes adjusted to my surroundings and I realised that I was at the top of the lift shaft but had exited the original entrance of the mine. All of management was there except Rocky. Desk Jockey looked better than I did as he chugged down a bottle of water. I looked back at the Diamond Dog and said “Thank you for helping me.”

“Pony stay out of mine next time, not place for you. I need to get back to work.” He replied and walked back into the mine. A one track mind, I’ll have some sort of thank you gift made up later or something.

I walked back to the management staff who were very surprised to see me coming from a different exit. One of the ponies said “The lift is on its way back up. We thought you would be on it.” He passed me some water.

“I suffered quickly from the heat shortly after you left. If you’re wondering, your jobs are safe…” I paused deliberately, taking a swig of the water while it was still in his hoof. “BUT there are some serious upgrades you’re going to install.”

We waited for the lift to come up, Zippy and Rocky were aboard. Zippy seemed happy that I was alright, Rocky of course didn’t care either way. I started my upgrade demands “While having some heroic Diamond Dogs rescue me-”

“You only needed saving after foolishly risking your life,” Rocky blurted.

“Yes, it was stupid. But I learned a lot about the mine in less than a day than you have in the many years you’ve worked for it. SO I want a ventilation chute built, make the lower levels easier to adapt to. I don’t know how it’s done, if you want go to the guilds in Manehatten, just get it done. Second; One lift is all we have and it’s slow, no emergency lift. If I had a rock fall on me that would have been the end of the line.”

“Wouldn’t that be a shame?” Said Rocky looking to the side.

I picked up on it instantly “It would. Build another lift nearby to the main, no pony’s….no one’s life should be at risk, so upgrade the main lift and install a second one. We work together to reach the same goal.” I looked at Zippy, he seemed pleased with my decisions. “Also, miners are to have set hours underground. Once a miner reaches a limit they must exit the mine. I’ll leave Zippy here to figure the details out with you. Give him a role in management.” No one saw that coming. Zippy wasn’t sure how to handle management, but the more I thought on it, the more sense it made.

All of management except Rocky guided Zippy towards their office, as they left I heard one say “Zippy will need a desk.” as they left the scene, it would need to be a tall desk.

Rocky came closer to me and said “Are you done here? Do you need to overturn anymore of my orders?”

I was just trying to make the site safe, why could he not see it. “Does it annoy you that I can run this place better than you…little brother?” His face going red with rage “If you made the right choices before I come here we wouldn’t have this problem. Why am I, the only one who ever seems to get things done around here?” I was trying hard this time to make him really fight me. There was a deafening pause.

Rocky closed his eyes and breathed in slowly “Enjoy your trip back to Manehatten, SIR.” Rocky said and turned away from me. I started to wonder if I was making the correct choices, trying to get him to fight me wasn’t working and I wondered why he won’t challenge me. We fought all the time when were fillies; over left over food, what activity to do with our family and sometimes to get Poppy to pay attention to one of us alone.

-_-_-_-_-

The trip back to Manehatten was boring and slow, economy class was no better than 1st. The trip made me think of things I’d rather not, ‘FREAK’ the word keeps shoving itself in front of my mind. My idea will remove that label, I know it will but until then I have to deal with my disabilities. It would take about three or four days for Brick Beak to return with the Octarine. The Magic Lifter would be a day or so, the real problem was my blueprint from the Guild of Science, which could take a week and it would have taken more if I didn’t pay extra for fast work. The Guild of Science were masters at metal work, I just don’t need them figuring out how it’s powered.

So that left one thing to do was to find a doctor with no sense of ethics, back to hospital then. “I’ll go tomorrow.” I said to myself looking out the window, there was a mother and buck opposite me, both pegasi. The mother had a worn out saddle bag and the child had a ratty baseball cap, I don’t think they had much. The small colt kept staring at me, at my horn. “Can I help you?” I asked the little one bitterly.

“You’re like me.” The child replied smiling, standing up and showing two naturally deformed wings, they were bent and twisted and gave the opinion they were painful just to have. How did I not see that before? The mother was reading a book, but eyed me cautiously.

“I don’t think so.” I said, the child looked down, upset with my response. “You probably haven’t made mistakes you regret.” I continued as I looked out the window again as the child showed a half smile.

“I am getting an op-oper-op…” He stuttered, “The doctors are going to take away my wings as they hurt. I don’t wanna lose them, they’re part of me.” He returned to his gloomy state.

‘Life sucks’ I thought but I would be yelled at if I spoke my mind.

The mother was shaking her book close to her face, I think she was hiding her tears from her kid. “What is it like to not be you, to lose that which is part of you?” The child asked, I was stunned at the innocent and philosophical question.

“I-I-I’m not sure, I lost a lot of my life from this.” I pointed to my head. “You will certainly miss it.” This was not the answer he wanted and I was starting to feel bad myself. “But if you are strong, and you look strong.” Trying to give hope, “You will overcome it and find a way around it. Some ponies can take months or years to find their way.” I leaned in close to the buck “I’ll tell you a secret, I figured it out in less than two days and maybe you can do the same.”

The child looked at me in wonder. “What did you do?”

“I came up with an idea, I am now making it real and very soon my problem will be gone.”

“Oooh. Maybe you can help me.” His wings fluttered the wrong way. “Oww!” he stopped in pain and started caressing his wings.

Drat, I started digging a pit for myself on that one. “I’m not sure…” my voice trailed off. “How does this sound, if you can’t find your way, find me in two weeks, I’ll see what I can do but NO PROMISES.” his face showed some signs of hope but not in the direction I was trying to give. I deliberately didn’t give my address to him or his mother. I wasn’t absolutely sure my idea would work, being a science pony I relied on theories, but also being a magic pony I relied on hope as well.

-_-_-_-_-

It was late when the train was arriving at Manehatten central, the two pegasi were asleep. The train came to a stop, I didn’t want to wake them, and fear of the child’s belief in me was too much for me to bear.

I was just about to leave completely when I had an idea. I went back to the mother’s saddle bag and very quietly opened it with my mouth, fortunately everypony else had left and it was just us, so I wasn’t going to get done for suspected robbery. I reached into my saddle bags and pulled out half of my gems and scattered them into her bag, I couldn’t open her money pouch. There was no way she could miss them in there, she only had her own money and some medical reports on her son, his name was on the cover…Free Flyer, ‘Ow,’ I winced right in the hope department.

I left the train and a few minutes of walking later I ended up on a bridge overlooking the train yard when I heard “THANK YOU!” I looked down at the train station. They mother had rushed out and was panting heavily. Clearly she found the gems, Quicker that I would have thought. She couldn’t see me and I didn’t want her to. “Thank you so much!” she yelled out with many ponies staring at her, her face dripping with heavy tears and her kid looked a little confused to his mothers actions.

‘Heh,’ I thought as I moved on, ‘maybe they can fix his wings now instead of removing them.’ I left and went home. I wondered if it was possible for them to rotate the wings but I came to the conclusion that the nerve cells wouldn’t line up right.

As I went to bed, I rounded the day into pros and cons in my mind. ‘Cons first’ I thought; nearly died and nearly caused another to die, upset brother more than usual. Pros; helped a child with a problem, got Zippy and the miners a plan for better conditions, Zippy was also promoted. I laid in bed for a while thinking ‘fifty: fifty, could I do better than half good and bad.’ I then realised I was giving Brick Beak a holiday after the project, good enough, I finally got to sleep; happily.

End of Chapter 4.

Chapter 5: Rainy Pains

The next day, it was raining and I couldn’t use my umbrella of course. But I didn't care, as staying here all day will just make me get angry with myself as usual. I had made another wonderful breakfast on the floor, I’m sure it would have tasted delicious. In the end I went to a garden bed Poppy set up on a window ledge and ate the flowers, of course I couldn’t open the window so I had to climb up from the outside. I don’t think anypony saw me, they were all inside on a day like this.

I headed towards my favourite hospital to talk to my least favourite practitioner. I was soaked way before I got there and tried to shake it off before going inside, my mane slapped me hard in the eyes a few times. I walked in and my night time nurse with the glasses was at the reception desk. “Hello again, ready to be a proper patient?” she asked.

“No.” I replied “I want to see Doctor Stone.”

“Hello to you to,” She snapped back at me. “You can’t see him. Mr attitude doesn’t work here anymore.”

“Why?”

“Beats me and we don’t give reasons to the public on internal affairs, especially when we fire jerks ‘cause they don’t follow etiquette. He insulted his last patient two days ago. Small world huh?” she peered at me again over her glasses, I wish she would stop doing that.

“Could you please tell me his address?” I grinned with a squee back at her.

“That’s confidential information,” she pulled out a large bundle of papers and started sorting through them. “I can’t just tell you where that parasprite of a pony lives.” She slid a paper to me, it had Stone’s address on it. I looked quickly, he lives a few blocks from my place. I went to grab a few bits of money to give her as thanks but she refused. “You just give him a piece of your mind when you find him.”

“That’s the plan,” I grinned wider at her, thinking she was more right than she knew. “Thanks.” That went remarkably better than I thought it would. It could of been better if he was here, but with him fired; I wouldn't have to be concerned about the hospital's intervention.

I left the hospital quite pleased with how things were going, then I realised it was still raining.

I walked past my apartment, soaked and cold. I past some more streets until I arrived at Dr Stone’s place, it’s a five story building with graffiti around the base. I walked into the building and up to his flat. The building was in bad shape, it was old and nopony was taking care of it. The wallpaper was peeling with more graffiti marks and some rubbish littered the floor.

How could a medical pony live in such squalor? He should be doing well financially, unless he was one; a terrible doctor or two; sued frequently. Both answers were not optimistic.

I reached his door and knocked, it opened on the first tap. I peered inside “Hello,” I said meekly. The place was a mess, take-away scraps were everywhere, the furniture was old, a pile of newspapers on the couch. Dr Stone owned one of those beds that folds into the wall, it appeared to be stuck halfway down. This pony’s life was a mess and I started to regret needing him. 'The terrible doctor' thought came back until I saw on wall decorated in several diplomas, I took no heed in reading them. 'A doctor is doctor,' I thought, 'What more could there be to than 'just heal this Doc' and move on.'

I walked in and looked around, the floorboards creaking loudly. I heard something groan from the couch, I looked closely at the scene. The papers on top were crumpled and piled high and wide. IT MOVED, I stepped back in shock and saw a slight rise and fall to the heap of paper. I could then hear it, somepony was snoring underneath that.

I started moving the newspaper away noticing the jobs sections were circled. It had only been two days and this pile of paper was huge, either he bought all the newspapers of Manehatten or he's been looking for another job for some time.

I removed the last piece of paper and there was Dr Stone, asleep, upside down and…exposing himself for all to see. I blushed with my eyes moving upwards, I really didn’t need to see that. I tapped him on his shoulder, he budged and something flinched down his lower half on the edge of my eye sight. ‘Pretty sure it’s was his leg’ I told myself. I pushed him harder and he started to wake up, sadly though he also woke up down there and he just looked at me with his pole at full attention. “Are you going to make this worth my while?”

It was one of those special moments now that you'd do anything to not be in, I could feel my cheeks burning with embarrassment. “I’ve come to you with a proposition.” I said regretting every word. “I want you to operate on me.” ‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING? SHUT-UP!’ I yelled at myself, ‘You’re making this worse.’

He got up right and stared at me, it was bouncing up and down. I shouldn't be able to see it anymore with him standing towards me but there is was, 'He was naturally blessed,' I thought. I tried REALLY hard not to look at it, but it was just there and not going away. “Sadly I don’t fancy you,” He replied flatly.

“No, what, no. Sorry. Let’s start again. I would like you to help me with a project, I need a doctor that can perform surgery on me, practically on my skull, brain and spine.”

He walked over to his fridge and pulled out a bottle of alcohol. It was still early but he took a swig of it anyway. “Why? And why me? You got me fired, not like it wasn’t coming anyway.”

“You might not know that I am more crippled than I appear, without this operation I don't see a point in going on" That was a lie, suicide wasn't an alternative, just an excuse. "I need a pony who won’t say no because of it being ethically wrong and you seemed like an obvious choice.” I slightly walked up to him. “Also I can pay a more than fair price for your help.”

“Ethically wrong, huh?” he replied, taking another drink. He lowered the bottle then smashed it and raced up to me, he was holding the broken bottle close to my face with the neck end in his mouth and he pushed me against the wall. “Maybe I could just kill you and take your money, is that ethically wrong enough for you? Takes care of your suicide wish, so we both win, huh?n, huh? Why would I risk my doctor’s licence over you?” he mumbled with the bottle getting in the way.

I tried to remain calm, I don’t know how cool I looked at the time though. “I can get you your own practice, if my project works I might be able to share the results with you and then you could help many ponies.” I tried to find something better than a cliché to work off of, but he had no personal items around that I could use as leverage. “If the procedure goes wrong, you could probably run away if I die and nopony will know. You’d be doing me a favour that way honestly.” I had no real problem with that, but I wasn’t going to tell him Brick Beak would be there, I wondered how she would react to all this.

He stood still, eyeing me closely and eventually tossed the bottle aside. “I want four things; a new CLEAN apartment, the practice you’ve offered as well the money and you never to come wake me up ever again.” He growled as he backed off. “What do you need done exactly?”

I pulled myself of the wall, “I need you to carefully attach Magic Thread from the inside of my horn to the front of the dorsal vertebrae to a small attachment piece.” I tried to tap between my shoulder blades, but my body doesn’t bend that way.

“Are you loco in the coco? What could you possibly need that for?”

“I need the thread to attach to a harness that is being built which will help me with my disabilities. All I need is your help and a lot of Magic Thread.”

“There’s something you’re not telling me, there has to be. I will need to know what you are doing, so I know what to do properly. Also this will be beyond dangerous, doctors don't usually enter the brain from the angle you're describing to reach the horn. Did you even research me before you came asking me to rummage through your body? How did you know I was a brain surgeon?”

“I just needed a doctor and didn’t think that was an issue. Wait! If you are a brain surgeon what about your cutie mark?” I pointed at his catheter symbol.

“I got it helping a colt pass a kidney stone and found my calling in helping, healing ponies, it wasn’t til later I found most ponies were ungrateful dicks. I majored in brain and spinal surgery.” He pointed to the diplomas on the wall. "Brain surgery is such a dangerous practice it can leave some side effects after an operation. I got sued due to them experiencing tiny twinges or something else and some I swear put on an act afterwards just so they don't have to pay.” He stared at me in the eye, “And I am a good doctor, I saved lives that did nothing but curse me later." So many pieces fell into place.

What he said and how he said it, I know that feeling, to be hated for just being who you are. “I believe you. Look I know the procedure will not be without risks. But I am willing to take them, if you aren’t I will find somepony who is. And I’d I know the Guild of Science would be willing to do this but I don’t trust them entirely.”

He sighed not happy about any of this, but he needed a job and definitely needed a new place to live. Once the operation was over, I wouldn’t need him anymore, the Magic Thread would last forever from touching my horn and I had no plans on giving him access to all of my project. “When do we start and do you have any plans I can look over?” he asked.

“Sometime later this week, pieces are being delivered over the next few days and with the operation I will need to be fitted into a mechanical part straight away. There are no plans made available, I’ve…been making this up as I go along.” He stared at me, not liking any of this.

“I’ll need an operating room and money to get the equipment I’ll need.”

“I have a place we can operate in, I just need a few days to clean it up.” I replied as I started pulling out my money pouch, I tipped a small pile of gems toward him

“Gonna’ need more than that.” He said, I tipped out more “Not enough.” I tipped out the rest of the bag, grateful I had some more money at home. I wondered if some of this was going towards alcohol. “I’ll figure something out about how to sew the thread into your mind but this is crazy.” He said shaking his head. “I have to work out how to keep the string tight so it doesn’t move around, yet loose so you can move easily. Come get me when you are ready and I should be done by then. Now get out before I change my mind.” I left the apartment hoping he would keep his word and help me, I didn’t want to pay someone a small fortune to go running off.

-_-_-_-_-

I returned to my place, just as I arrived the rain stopped. I looked down the street, the rain was still pouring down it. I looked the other way and noticed a large cart carrying a lot of boxes had just pulled up. There was a force field being projected, stopping the rain from entering. The water pooled against the magical barrier and my apartment walls. It was pulled by three earth ponies who looked very strong. One unicorn sat at the front of the cart, Sparking Thought, ‘Why was she delivering my Eternal Magic Lifter?’’ I thought. She hoped down from the cart, I noticed that when she moved so did the force field.

“Where do you want it?” She asked bitterly.

“Just in the lounge room on the left.” I replied, was she here to figure out why one pony could need all this stuff? I took a second look at the contents of the cart, there was way more than I ordered. Did they get the order wrong? If they did, so be it, I can always use more of the stuff.

I would need to make sure she didn’t go down to the basement and see my little mystery sphere, fortunately my magic barrier was still up. She lifted the boxes into the air with her magic and I released the force field at my door, as she entered I saw all the earth ponies shudder as the force field’s cover left them and they started being rained on.

I returned my attention to Sparking Thought who tried to act lost and walked past the lounge. “Ahem!” I coughed, she turned back and look at me pointing towards the lounge.

“Sorry, wondering what that smell is?” she replied.

‘Oh no’ I panicked, I haven’t cleaned up the mess in the kitchen. I had used a new carton of milk earlier, but the milk from my first breakfast attempt was still out, the smell of the off milk was pretty strong. Luckily she returned to her task and floated the boxes into lounge and placed them down in a corner. She looked around the room.

“What?” I asked, trying to figure out what was wrong.

“First time here. I thought it would be colder, with lots of stupid contraptions and nothing but a laboratory in each room. I have the same settee. Come on show me around.”

I was shocked and surprised “Why would I do that?”

“I’m your guest and rival-”

“We aren’t rivals! We battled once. You see this!” I shoved my hoof to my horn “It’s gone, I can’t do magic, we can’t duel anymore because…I’m, I’m a freak,” I mumbled.

“Yet your arrogance remains. Have you ever looked the word up, I know a really good dictionary, you were a freak before you lost your horn. But the loss of your horn hasn’t changed your personality which hasn’t changed you. If that loss changed you mentally then there is no hope for you, but you are the kind of pony that works around problems and gets things done.” Getting comfort from her was painful but it at least helped. “Despite the fact that your ideas are rubbish. Come on show me around.”

As we passed the hall, I saw the earth ponies outside at the cart. They were miserable and completely soaked. They looked a little happier with Sparking Thought heading towards them, then straight back to depressed as she walked up the stairs. I then lead her around upstairs and showed the magic lab and science lab, she was only impressed with the magic lab. “Over there is a toilet, my bedroom and a closet.” I said pointing at several doors, “You saw the hall downstairs and the lounge…Its best if we don’t go into the kitchen.” We walked back down the stairs. “And that’s about it.”

“Hmm? What about the basement? I can feel some powerful magic coming from down there.” Was she picking up my force field or the mystery orb, I really need to find a better name than 'mystery orb'.

I needed to think quickly, she would never believe there’s nothing down there. She headed to the door which would take her to the basement. “Don’t go in there!” I yelled. She looked at me “I use a barrier protection spell to…protect…my...my…my books,” I stammered.

“What kind of books, rare magic spells?” she asked inquisitively.

“Uh.” She will want to see them if I said they were spell books. “No.”

“What are they then?” I had to think quickly, anything would do.

“Porn” I blurted, I could mentally see myself digging another grave. “Yeah my collection of ‘PlayPony’ magazines, really, really hard-core stuff…really…hard-core, whips and everything. Being a female you don’t know how precious that stuff is to a guy, I have to protect it anyway I can.” I was trying hard to make it seem true, I scrunched my face and looked in all directions.

She paused. Eventually she said, “You’re disgusting,” she huffed as she walked past me to the streets. That was a good and bad result, I could live with that. She hopped on the cart, she didn’t look at me as she left.

I went upstairs and over to my bookshelf in my room and bit into my dictionary, scrolling through the pages was hard and frustrating. I would get to ‘F’ just to flip too many pages with my hooves and up at ‘R’. I eventually got to the page I was after and looked at ‘Freak’ “Huh, that’s useful, multiple answers, I can live with that definition.” I said to myself, pointing to a line “but can he live with that one?” I thought of the small child from the train.

#: An eccentric or nonconformist pony, especially a member of a counterculture

#: An abnormally formed organism, especially a pony or animal regarded as a curiosity or

monstrosity.

End of Chapter 5

Chapter 6: Replace

Over the next few days I worked to getting my science lab cleaned up, progress could only be described as ‘Slow’. I needed to be ready to start my project when my equipment turned up and I had nothing better to do. I took breaks and visited Poppy a couple of times and she stopped by as well. I had noticed Luscious never stopped by which was peculiar. Since I had very little I could do, I would have welcomed the distraction for once. Rocky had also been absent, he was problem cursing me over the bill from the guilds and didn’t want to see me, even for business.

I checked on my mysterious orb in the basement, all of my instruments told me the thing wasn’t there. I did my best to make sure they were working, but they kept saying the container is empty. I wanted to do something about it but I couldn’t in my current state. “A few more days” I told myself looking deeply into the orb.

Brick Beak returned three days later after she had left with the Octarine, filled into a bundle of canisters. I didn’t need one gallon but Octarine will do some random things and be lost forever even if you follow procedure, pure magic didn’t follow the rules of physics all the time.

Brick Beak seemed quite pleased with her trip to Cloudsdale and even found time to do some souvenir shopping. She gave me an hour glass that had a mixture of rainbow liquid and water in it, when turned upside down the water flowed down and the rainbow stuff went up, I found it relaxing to watch from time to time. I figured after the sixteenth time that it worked for forty two seconds, I won’t be using that to help cook anything, but I used it again and again for fun.

Brick Beak had fixed the door back on, she said she was tired of seeing children gawk through the field of magic, she even got a handle put on so I could open the door, pulling it was a bit difficult. I then asked Brick Beak to visit the mine and collect a lot of money to pay Dr Stone, when she returned she told me Rocky had said ‘To take the money and get out’.

I had Brick Beak place one of the Blaze Diamonds onto a pedestal and fire an energy laser at it. The Diamond started powering up and when it I was ready, it would take two days to have one days’ worth of energy. I’ve wanted to toy with finding a faster way of energising it more, but it would have to wait. Everything was coming together and soon I wouldn’t have to depend on others to keep helping me.

-_-_-_-_-

“This is it BB.” I said to Brick Beak sitting at her desk behind me. “It’s the final day, X hour is upon us, destiny…pause for dramatic effect, awaits! We go towards a new direction after this coming moment in history.”

“Sir, its only 9:06 am, the guild won’t deliver whatever it is until at least one pm.” Brick Beak replied as I stared intently at the mail flap on the door, thinking wouldn’t be great if it came through now, of course it would be too big to fit through.

“It matters not, we build upon this day.” I sat just close enough for the door to miss me if it opened, I was flapping my tail side to side like a dog wanting for his owner to come home. I hadn’t told Brick Beak about the operation, I thought that she may be needed as a sea-arm or an assistant to Dr Stone, she probably won’t be happy when I did tell her. A minute passed, then a second, my mind couldn’t focus on the negatives I had found myself in after the accident, I was just constantly replaying how this would all go down; the operation, the construction, the magic implementation. “I’m so nervicited.”

After an hour my constant state of alert had worn me down and I was feeling exhausted. Brick Beak forced me to go lie down and leave her alone as she finished her paperwork. After seven minutes exactly, I knew from watching my new hour glass ten times I felt better and got up. I couldn’t wait anymore “I am going to get Dr Stone” I said as I rushed out the door. I’m pretty sure I heard Brick Beak say “Huh?” as I left.

I raced down to Dr Stone’s flat, when I arrived I was tired once again especially after climbing all the stairs up to his room. Just when I was about to knock, I thought about last time and how I didn’t want to see that again. I knocked anyway and the door opened immediately, Dr Stone was dressed in a fine work vest with a lab coat on. “Are we ready?” he asked, I was grinning excitedly “I think we’re ready,” he sighed, he went over to a table, a very unique saddle bag was on it, it has a picture of a caduceus on both sides. “There are a few more supplies in my garage. And since you seem to be bursting with energy you can pull the cart.”

We went down to the ground floor and Dr Stone attached me to his cart, it was made out of wood and had many odd shaped items in it, but I couldn’t tell what they were due to a cloak over the top. I was rearing with energy again and now fully strapped in. I pulled and the cart didn’t budge, I pulled harder and nothing, it was very heavy. In the end Dr Stone helped push the cart until we got it rolling, after that it was all up to me. It was heavy but momentum help drag it along…slowly.

It was only a few blocks but an hour later we arrived at my house. I was just about to collapse on the street when we got to the front door. Dr Stone knocked on the door and Brick Beak opened it and was startled to see the rude pony. “Oi, cart puller!” Stone yelled at me “I’m not paid for heavy labour, get that stuff into the room we’re doing this in.” Brick Beak cautiously let him in and then assisted me getting out of the straps. When I reached for the contents in the cart, Brick Beak pushed me out of the way and took everything in a few trips up to the science lab.

We -I use that term loosely, I really mean ‘they’- then set the equipment up. Machines like; heart monitor, defibrillator, some sort of suction machine, magic thread, a machine that went 'ping' and other operating devices. But none of them scared me like the items in Dr Stones saddle bag; many different types of knives, needles galore, some items I couldn’t described without feeling ill and a very sharp looking bone-saw, I had to leave the room and breathe deeply after seeing that.

I returned with the colour in my face returning. “Shouldn’t you have some assistant for this?” Brick Beak asked as she slid a device into a corner. Dr Stone and I looked at each other then back at Brick Beak, “Oh no. Not happening, I’m not doing it,” She barked back, her feathers ruffling.

“I’ll get you a 1st class trip on a pony air ship, there and back for your vacation.” I replied quickly. She mulled it over.

“You owe me big time after this.” She points at me. That was surprisingly an easy win.

Its 12.59pm, nothing is happening. We have set up the operating table, it’s just a matter of when the final part arrives. Its 1pm, nothing is happening. “WHERE ON TATORUS ARE THEY!” I yell “They’re late, it’s just like them to do this! I’ll sue them for everything they’re worth!” Brick Beak gives me a weak slap behind the ears, I shut up.

Its 1:01pm, I’m getting really annoyed now. “Ding.” I opened the door, “Dong”. A female pony in a casual business suit hands me something and walks off, I am balancing it carefully on my hoof. “What was that?” asked Brick Beak.

“She was handing out free samples of shampoo,” I moped dropping the bottle in a corner.
Back to waiting.

Thirty four frustrating minutes later, they arrived. The delivery cart is made out of metal, my order is in four metal brief cases of varying sizes; two of them are over two meters long. When the items were inside the main hall, I made sure the delivery ponies would not go any further one of them asked me what I was doing. Knowing they were after my project I looked at him and said “Raising a barn.” and I closed the door on him.

“Sweet Semen of Celestia, do we need all of this for the op?” Asked Dr Stone looking at all the boxes, was it really necessary to swear like that.

“No.” I say as I walk to the smallest box, “just this one.” Brick Beak opens the box for me, inside is a small cylinder with tiny discs on the middle section, it has two hollow sections on the ends but they don’t go all the way through, they are designed to hold magic thread and when one particular side clamps down it doesn’t come off, this is where the thread in my spine will go. “Ready when you are.” I looked at Dr Stone confidently, he was not sharing my enthusiasm.

A few minutes later, I was losing my nerve. I was strapped down to an operating table, facing downward, I couldn’t see much but I could hear Dr Stone testing a couple of his cutting machines. My mane and coat were shaved off on my shoulders and up, I got one look at myself before I went on the table. I have a lighter blue skin that my coat and my stump stood out annoyingly without my mane. I was grateful Dr Stone had some Zebra hair tonic with him, that stuff works in seconds. Dr Stone was scrubbing himself clean and Brick Beak was placing a mask over my face through a hole in the table. “Last chance to get out of this.” Brick Beak said trying her softest voice to get me to stop.

I shook my head and she turned on the gas. “If I don’t do this, I’d rather be dead. Oh, I never wrote a will.” the gas from the mask started to affect me already. I had to say something that meant something quickly. “If something…happens, give Rocky…the…m.” I blacked out and the world disappeared.

-_-_-_-_-

I dreamt of the things I should have done, saying goodbye to Poppy, apologising to Rocky for how I treat him. I still have questions about Brick Beak as blurred version of her flew by.

I thought of Luscious, she appeared in my dream she was the only thing in a black void. I didn’t know what I wanted to say to her and she was waiting there patiently for me to say something. Eventually I turned around away from her and she disappeared completely.

The small child from the train appeared “What is it like to become more than you, to add something that shouldn’t be there?” He asked without moving his lips. I couldn’t answer, I didn’t know.

I saw others, Sparking Thought drenched in water. Zippy climbing, racing the other Diamond Dog to the top a mountain as black as the world around me. I could see Dr Stone working with Dr Mort and those nurses, every second their scene changed, they would be laughing together and then Stone would be drinking and the others were talking behind his back.

Finally I saw my own head, thousands of time bigger than me. I had my horn but then it exploded and my face leaned down in sorrow, Octarine poured out of my wound life a waterfall, rushing towards me. It swept me up and carried me down some kind of river, I was struggling to stay afloat.

Eventually the coloured stream moved ahead of me and I was standing again as the Octarine spiralled into the air and turned into a giant sphere. It changed into my mysterious orb in the basement still larger than it should be. I approached it and noticed many other versions of me approached it, hundreds upon thousands copies, some had a horn and others didn’t, some were missing a leg, or had an eye patch and some had their cutie mark. I tried to see what it was but it was always blurry, just out of reach. We approached the orb in a perfect circle, the four next to me were very odd, the two on my left; one looked like he was dead, one was angry, the two on my right; one was overly happy and the last was a girl and yet still me.

The orb flittered through its colours and turned an icy grey, we all stopped and looked. The orb began to crack and at the point of collapse the orb imploded, sucking all of us into darkness.

-_-_-_-_-

I awoke, or at least I think I was awake. My vision was blurry and a shadowy figure appeared over me, turning its head and peered at me with its glowing yellow eye. “I know you,” I breathed wearily.

“Doc, he’s awake. Get over here!” yelled Brick Beak in a panic.

My vision improved and so did my sense of awareness, I was lying on the operating bed, on my back and could tell my mane had been regrown. I wanted to sit up but Brick Beak wouldn’t let me, she pushed me down. “How did it go?” I asked Dr Stone.

“By all accounts you should be dead, you’re a real freak.” He replied, that was not the answer I expected. “I got the thread in and started finishing up when an unknown problem sent your heart skyrocketing and your nervous system started having a fit. You died on the table, I tried the defibrillator but it didn’t work and several other approaches. We gave up, we were exhausted. Then you started your body back up without any help. I struggled through and finished the surgery, I wanted to remove the thread but the risk of you dying again was too great. Even by magic standards you should be dead.” He was scratching his head in wonder.

I didn’t know how to take the news, so I just ignored it, it didn’t seem to matter anymore. “Uh, Cool."

"Cool is not the word I would use. my side of the operation went perfectly, whatever happened wasn't natural. Nopony just lies down dead and then gets better."

"Well...What do you want me to do about it exactly?"

"You could act a bit concerned, maybe ponder your fleeting existence and all that crap. Just do something."

"Can I get up then?” I asked trying to sit up, Brick Beak pushed me back down.

Stone blew out a sigh “Stay there for at least another hour, I need to keep an eye on your vitals.” Stone started checking on all the beeping and blinking machines

I looked at Brick Beak “Hey BB.” was all I could say.

“Hey yourself.” she replied, she realised how she acted just then “Sir. Please don’t do that again.”

“I shouldn’t need to now.” I tried sitting up again and Brick Beak pushed me down again and left her claw on me applying pressure. I would have to wait.

An hour later I could stand up and look into a mirror to see the result, success. There was a small plug just above my shoulder blades, I could barely feel it. “I am so ready for stage two.” I collected the charged Blaze diamond from its pedestal, it had power in it but not much. I’ve read that the Guild of Science charged a Blaze diamond for a year, at the end it had a microscopic sized light generated in it, mine had equal levels of power but would run out tomorrow if all went well. It didn’t matter, it was all part of the test.

I took my jewel downstairs to the lounge room, Brick Beak and Dr Stone followed me down. I asked Brick Beak to open the second box, larger than the first. Inside was a harness, it would loop around my back, chest, neck and forelegs. Before I could put it on, the harness needed magic thread inserted through the straps, round to the front. At the chest piece was a small round groove, when we had the magic thread in, I inserted the Blaze diamond with my mouth.

Next up was the Octarine, we used a small -magic resistant- funnel and filled the same holes the magic thread was in. It took slightly longer than it should, some of the Octarine decided it wanted to be a cloud during the pouring phase. Once it was filled we closed the air tight plug to seal all of it inside.

The square box also had eighteen attachable joints which joined together and required the same treatment as the harness. When put together, they created six bendable pieces. It was fortunate that once contained, liquid Octarine doesn’t evaporate and the magic thread ensured that it wouldn’t transform into anything else.

It was all coming together at last. The last two boxes were very long, it was a long metal pole that was made up of multiple pieces of metal, they were both very heavy but we did our best. When lying down and stuck in the box, they were about one and a half metres long but I knew they could each stretch to just over three metres. Once again, magic string goes in and connect it to the ends and fill with Octarine.

The Octarine took longer this time as it decided it didn’t like gravity anymore and went upwards and changed my lounge room from a cream colour to orange and not the colour, the walls and ceiling now had hundreds of pictures of the fruit as a new wallpaper. I wasn’t sure if I hated the new layout or not. Dr Stone examined the wall closely, he touched it “It feels like hard cheese.” he proclaimed. He licked and then quickly spat out his saliva “Tastes like coffee, I hate coffee.”

The six bendable pieces connected on to the one end of each pole. They were placed around the ends at thirty three degree intervals. Once it was all done, we attached the poles to the harness. We were all sweating, the work was exhausting. “Okay now can rubbed on the Magic Lifter solution.” I said after we caught our breaths.

“What!?” yelled Stone, “That’s what’s in those boxes. Why didn’t do that from the start and save time?”

“Because it must cover the entire exterior. This stuff sinks in what is attached to…even metal. After that you sprinkle on the magic powder and WA LA, you have a super light, super strong piece of metal. If you rub it into the interior it absorbs outwards it causes all kinds of problems.”

“That-That doesn’t make any sense.” replies Brick Beak.

I closed my eyes and said “All those with a certificate in advanced magic, raise your hoof.” I raised my hoof up and then opened my eyes. The others did not have their limbs up “Oh, just me then. Plus this way it affects the Octarine inside without mixing with it. Magic is as magic does and not even the magic thread will protect the octarine from another magical source.”

We pushed the boxes of Magic Lifter closer to where we needed it and on inspection we found the Guild of Magic really hates me and why I had so many boxes. The boxes were filled with Eternal Magic Lifter alright but in small jars with screwed on lids, it would usually be in a large tub. This would take hours, we all sighed in unison.

Brick Beak spent her time undoing the lids, her mind must have been racing with excitement, she wasn’t even looking at the jars. She just picked up, opened and moved to the next one. Dr Stone and I dipped our hooves into cream coloured gel and started rubbing all over the device.

It was getting late and the moon started to rise, Brick Beak had technically finished for the day but volunteered to stay. Stone said he would charge by the hour but I think it was in jest, he had a decent idea of what was going to happen but he wanted to see it. The gel had to coat the device completely so that it had a thick layer of ooze. We managed to get most of the machine off the floor using metal frames from the labs, so it remained off the carpet. We were finally done with the rubbing and just two steps remained. Our hooves were slimy all the way to our elbows, so we scrubbed up before moving on or we would end up with super light limbs.

Brick Beak was now suffering from claw cramp, all those lids took their toll on her. The final touch for the lifter to work was to use the magic powder, just a sprinkle and the entire gelled area is affected. So it was really annoying that I now have more powder that I could ever use, Stone put a lot of it into a bucket and then flung it all over the goo. The powder settled onto the slime and the lifter bubbled and evaporated, it looked like it sunk into the device.

“Did it work?” asked Brick Beak.

I walked over, the powder that didn’t hit the gel now covered my floor. I pushed one of the long poles upwards, I barely touched it and the whole contraption moved. I smiled “Oh yeah, it worked,” I said marvelling at our progress.

“Please help me put it on.” I asked. They came over to me and lifted it up, I stuck my front hooves and head through the loops. “Thanks, now I just have to connect the spinal piece to the harness.” I had to wiggle around slightly, this is the great thing about mind extraction. The measurements are done both consciously and subconsciously so when it comes to your body it’s hard to get it wrong.

CLICK

I was hooked up. “Stand back, I don’t know what will happen.” I ordered. They moved back focused thinking of my telekinesis magic, the metal frame rattled slightly, suddenly the poles expanded so quickly we didn’t have time to see it happen. One of the poles went through a wall destroying a picture of an orange, the other nearly took out my couch. The poles then loosened and now started bending, curving and twisting around and now became my arms. The joints at the end snapped and clicked against each other I as tried to adapt this new feeling.

Occasionally a limb would swing wildly around the room, one claw picked up a chair and threw it towards Stone who quickly jumped out the way. “Are you controlling them or what!?” he yelled.

“I can feel some control, I can feel them but it’s like their numb. Don’t worry I’m getting better every second.” I replied.

“Doesn’t look like it to me,” Stone shouted from behind a wall, not like that would protect him from my mech arms. Brick Beak was sidestepping every flailing attack towards her, it looked like she wasn’t even trying to dodge them.

I thought ‘Remove a sense to enhance others,’ I closed my eyes. I could feel the robotic limbs more now. They slowed down and eventually came to a halt above my head creating a double helix upwards. I thought on how I wanted them to move, I wanted them out straight to my sides like a Pegasus’s wings and they did. I contracted them slowly and they stiffened and shrunk back to one and a half meters.

I then expanded them slowly, they went away from me, one went into the doorway to the kitchen and the other arm reached the window before it fully expanded. If I pushed harder it would go through the glass, but I controlled the strength of the arm and moved it to the latch and opened the window, pushing it up and then sliding the arm fully out. My eyes still fully closed, I was doing all this by touch.

The window though was not properly wedged up and slammed on the arm, I retracted it of fear of pain from the arm, but I didn’t think rationally and pulled the window with. The frame splinted and glass shattered towards me. I instinctively put the arms in the way of the flying glass and protected myself perfectly. I uncoiled the arms from around my side and opened my eyes.

I wasn’t focusing anymore on controlling them anymore, I was just doing. I placed the arms on the ground and pushed down, lifting me up. The finger joints bended to accept the load, I was going up and my legs started to gravitate down. I reached a comfortable height, Brick Beak and Stone stared up at me.

“Oh yeah, this is going to work!” I grinned.

To be continued.

http://imgur.com/HN6bLl5

(Note: This image was done way before I started writing this story, I can’t draw and had this commissioned.
As the story goes on I have more pics to show.)