Techno Blue's Travels

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