Techno-Babble in Equestria

Chapters

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Story Conclusion
Chapter Fifteen

Chapter One

A man was hunched over a collection of metallic rings that were wrapped entirely in a web of copper wires. Green sparks danced across the metal that would make a Geiger counter breakdown and steam shot violently out of several mechanical devices around the area, all of which appeared to be made from salvage. As the humanoid carefully examined the full length of the odd contraption in front of him occasionally he would stop and apply an additional length of wire to a ring or he would tighten a screw that sat a little too loosely for his liking.

A loud and drawn out exhale came from the man as he straightened his stance and let his gaze linger once more on the collection of random metal and wires that he had designed, his weary gaze running over all the various details of the metal monstrosity for flaws. “That should do it, perhaps a bit variable in regards to the exit portal which isn't the best thing, but I want off this god forsaken rock. I could hardly care where I end up, whether it be drowning in water or melting in lava anything is better than this sphere.” He spoke to himself, if anyone had been listening they would have thought him crazy, of course there wasn't anyone though. There hadn't been anyone in a long, long time.

The inventor looked up at the slab of scrap metal that formed the roof to his little shack. Occasionally, he liked to believe that beyond that metal roof was a bright blue sky with the old yet familiar comfort of fresh sunlight that drifted down through the atmosphere and warmed his skin. His belief was ill-founded and he knew it, beyond that roof was the ever changing, yet always the same, mess of a ceiling composed of brown clouds. No sunlight ever got through, everything had been dead for so long that the memories at the back of the man’s mind of the yellow orb in the sky were more vague dreams then actual recollection.

With a shake of his head to break the thoughts the man turned his attention back to his work. “Dimensional folding though, quite an epiphany that one was. I never would have theorized that if it weren’t for that brainspark. Still not entirely convinced that it’s possible, probably isn’t, the sheer idea of such a dramatic tearing of the laws of nature sounds like god’s work.” The man frowned at his own words, god’s work. That was a phrase that had come into use just before The End, everyone believed their weapons were doing god’s work. Irony at it’s fullest, as always.

“Well, no sense in putting this off I suppose.” The bipedal said as he strode purposefully toward a monitor that hung loosely on a nearby wall and had a series of wires running into and out of it. With a flip of a switch a hum filled the room as energy began to flood over the wires and into the collection of scrap metal that the man had put together, a blue light began to circle around the rings and soon shot into the air forming a cylinder.

The man gathered the items he would be taking with him, just a bag with a few random inventions that he had managed to pull together in case he needed them. “What was that saying again? Ah yes,” he said as he turned to face the portal that had been created. “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” With those words the bipedal threw himself into the blue abyss. The chunk of rock was left to spin onward around the sun, carrying nothing but the empty whistling wind and yet it continued to spin, on, and on, and on. Into the dark eternities.

The moon princess had just finished setting the luminescent sphere for the new day as her sister raised the sun. Luna had always been more of a nocturnal pony unlike her sister and was in her room preparing to lay down in her bed for a well deserved nap for the day while Celestia took care of the business for the capital.

Luna stood by her bed and was about to sleep when a blue glow began to pulse like a heart in a corner of the room, her sleepiness momentarily forgotten the younger ruler carefully approached the odd orb. Her slow gait had just lost its hesitation when electricity began to shoot around the room energetically crackling through the air as it was released. The blue alicorn dropped to the floor and brought her limbs in underneath her while ducking her head.

Just as quickly as it had come the electricity stopped and the blue glow faded leaving the room to the domination of the smell of ozone, the red from the rising sun, and the ticking of clockwork. The princess had just come to the realization that she did not own anything in this room that ran on clockwork when a voice broke through the relative stillness that had fallen. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, the portal must have given off quite the show on this end, now that I think about it. Must have been quite the scare for you. There, there.”

Inventor had spent a period of time upon leaving the portal to stare out the nearby balcony at the rising sun, the sun was actually there, the sky was highlighting into a blue hue as the yellow orb rose above the edge of the land, and the sun was really there. It was only a few moments after this that he noticed the rather tall horse which appeared to have a horn and a pair of wing that was laying on the ground in front of him, he was promptly hit by curiosity towards the odd body shape but passed it off as a dimensional inconsistency. Shivers were running through the creature and Inventor realized his exit portal must have been quite the sight to the animal. With a final glance around the room the man spoke in an attempt to try and calm the animal.

Luna’s eyes snapped open at the voice, some random pony had wandered into her room while she was curled on the floor and was spouting nonsense about portals and treating her like a foal. She rose to her full height to yell at the impudent foal who had snuck into her room. What she saw made her stop dead, it wasn’t a foal who stood before her, no it wasn’t even a pony. Instead what stood before her was a bipedal creature that stood at her height and was looking into her eyes as she looked into his. An expression of pure joy covered the face of the creature, like all his wishes had just come true.

“What are you?” Luna finally managed to ask through her stunned mouth. The bipedal creature looked at her with an eyebrow raised before leaning to the side to look behind Luna he briefly took note of the mark on her flank but decided to leave it for later. After a second or two he straightened back vertically and looked back to her face. A smile slowly spread across his face as he took in and analyzed the information of what he was indeed seeing. Luna for her part returned a look of a raising eye brow at the creature's odd actions.

“A talking pony? Now that’s new, quite unbelievable. Never would have guessed at that option upon arriving in a new world,” Here the man barked a sharp abrupt laugh that made Luna flinch. “Talking ponies, very creative are the possibilities of the universe, or would it be the multiverse? Hmm. That would depend on if I jumped universes or dimensions, either way I tore space-time...” The man then turned on his heel with a thoughtful look on his face, as he turned he looked at the location the blue glow had been coming from only moments before.

Dropping onto his knee the man began to search through his bag, metal hitting together emptied into the near silent room as the blue alicorn slowly realized he had completely ignored her question. She returned the idea and ignored his previous statement, opting instead to repeat her question. “What are you!” Luna shouted louder at the bipedal with anger in her voice. The creature had dared to enter her room and he had then proceeded to ignore her without a second though, to say the princess was seething would be an understatement.

The creature paused, but didn’t make a move to look at the princess, for a moment nothing happened and then the man spoke in a tone much more somber then she would have expected, “I’m a human, well,” The man's voice took a bit of joviality as he paused, “Yeah I guess I’m still human, humans were considered to have a common background with the apes by the more scientific community, but that matters little.” Another pause and the lightheartedness was gone, “And as for my name, before you go and ask I may as well tell you that I dropped my original name long ago on the grounds that I didn’t deserve it.”

With a second more the man stood from the ground abandoning his search through his equipment for what he had been searching for, “Let’s try this again shall we? Lacking a name of my own I guess you could call me Inventor, since that is what I do. And your name, my equine acquaintance?” He smiled warmly at the blue alicorn as he proffered a hand for her to shake.

Luna cleared her throat and spoke, watching the man all the while to make sure she wasn’t caught off guard by this strange creature. “My name is Luna, Inventor. it’s a pleasure to meet you.” she said though the tone in her voice shattered any hopes she had of pretending to be nonchalant. She shook the creature's hand hesitantly and with a nod from the biped he returned to his bag and once again continued digging through it.

After a few moments the man stood from the ground and an odd erratic clicking filled the air. Curious as to what was going on Luna walked slowly up behind the human and gazed over his shoulder at an odd device that he held in his hand. The needle on the device seemed to be spinning wildly around, unable to remain in one position for too long. It reminded the mare of a compass gone insane.

“What are you doing?” Luna asked over Inventor’s shoulder, he jumped slightly as his limbs straightened and looked at Luna like he had just realized she was there. The moon princess held a hoof in front of her mouth to try and block out a smile, she failed miserably.

“Well you see, I came here to your world by jumping through the very fabric of space and dimensions. By dimensions of course I refer to alternate worlds that are parallel to ours that we can’t access normally.” He turned his attention to Luna, a look of confusion was clear on her face. The man decided a physical example would be needed.

“It’s like,” Inventor paused and tapped his chin, with a look of eureka on his face he pulled a string from his pants pocket. “It’s like this, pretend that one end of this string is your dimension and the other is mine. Now normally,” Inventor pulled the string taut “The shortest distance between point ‘A’ and point ‘B’ is a straight line, which in this discussion is incredibly long and near impossible to walk on.

Inventor paused for a moment to make sure that Luna was keeping up with his fast paced conversation, with a nod from the princess he continued. “Now what I did,” Inventor put the two ends of the string next to each other as the rest of the string fell into a loop underneath it. “Is I bent the dimensional path and placed both points right next to each other allowing me to easily step over to your dimension like it was just on the other side of a door.”

As a vague look of comprehension dawned on Luna’s face Inventor turned his attention back to his device once again. “The act of jumping dimensions takes a considerable amount of energy, so much so that the backlash from the energy will contaminate an area after the effect. I’m trying to get a read on the energy for future reference but it seems my scanner is being blocked by some form of interference.”

Luna raised her eyebrow, “What could be blocking it out do you think?” She asked the strange biped, the lunar princess couldn’t quite place it but something about him seemed to ooze calm and peace, relaxing even the princess in these odd circumstances.

“I really have no idea as to what could even block it out in the first place, let alone interfere with it to this extent.” Inventor admitted with a sigh as he reached his hand up to push back his short hair. As he did so his scanner was dropped to the ground and before he could bend down and pick it up Luna had subconsciously grasped it with her magic and was levitating it.

The device let out a high pitch squeal and black smoke began to curl up and out of the sides of the metal plating that composed the case. With a gasp the blue alicorn dropped it from her telekinetic grasp and looked hurriedly at the man who was standing still looking at his smoking device. After a minute he turned to look at the blue alicorn with a look that Luna did not expect, it was a look of awe and wonder on his face. “This world has magic? Wait, you have magic?! I don't even, it is magic right, that's just, I don't even know!"

Luna eyed the man with a raised eyebrow, "Of course we have magic, what do you take us for? An alicorn without magic, who has ever heard of such a thing?"

"Oh, sorry, I meant no disrespect, but still, MAGIC!" He continued to repeat himself with louder and louder tones as he looked to the alicorn as if trying to get her to react in a surprised manner. Seeing that that was not going to happen he coughed into his hand, "Right sorry, just umm, never seen magic before."

He looked once more at the alicorn, "BOOYAHSHAKA!" Luna twitched an eye at the exclamation and turned to look at him again, he was annoying, no doubt about that, and yet he had some kind of goofy attraction."Sorry that was the last one, I promise."

(Thanks for the support everypony, its good to know that my work isn’t going to waste. -N64Fan)

Chapter Two

(There ya go, chapter two as promised, now where's my cookie? Actually forget the cookie, can anyone tell me how to condense my sleep so I can get more of it in less time? -N64Fan)

Though the rest of the conversation up to the point of Inventor's excited revelation had been quiet enough to avoid the attention of anyone outside the room, the exclamation that Inventor shouted echoed through the silent stone halls of the castle. Due to this, the outburst was heard by none other than the only other princess in the castle. As it turned out this particular alicorn was on her way to try and talk to Luna before she went to sleep for the day. She shrugged the odd noise off as odd, but picked her walking speed up slightly as a slight niggling worry for her sister entered her mind.

She approached the door to Luna’s room and heard her sister's voice, which was muffled by the thick obsidian door. ‘Who is she talking to?’ Celestia thought to herself only to have that question answered as another, male, voice responded, the sun princess was confused even more by the strange voice and opened the door with a cast of a spell to see what stallion was in Luna’s room.

She did not see a stallion, She saw a weird biped talking to her sister, “...So as you can see, I highly doubt that the mere existence of my technology would interfere with your magic in any notable way unless it is specifically designed to do so. Which, as I said before, is due to the operating wavelength differentials between the electricity in my technology and the magic you use. For instance, that device malfunctioned not because it is highly established tech and you used magic on it, rather it malfunctioned due to the fact that it is designed to pick up on energy particles, such as what I was I trying to detect with it, that are in the air. So when you used your magic directly on it, which is composed of manipulative energy particles, it overloaded the system and the device fizzled.”

As he finished Luna’s gaze began to move across the room as she took in what little information she could understand about this weird man’s ‘technology’. It seemed nothing like anything she had ever seen or heard of before, and that’s saying something for an immortal. Her thoughts were briefly stopped when she saw Celestia standing idly in the doorway with a stern look on her face. “Hello, Tia.” Luna said with a kind smile to her sister. "This is Inventor, he was just telling me about his technology. It really is amazing, you should look at it."

Inventor, who was about to continue his rant about how he could theoretically create some kind of tech that amplified or was amplified by magic, paused and turned to see a creature similar to Luna but taller and more regal looking. “Hello there, as Luna said, my name is Inventor, well, for now anyway. It's very nice to meet you.” Inventor took a small bow once again and smiled politely at Celestia.

“Get away from my sister.” Celestia said coldly giving a death glare in the direction of the odd biped. After a few seconds she slowly approached the two, taking the hint Inventor backed away from the approaching alicorn and made his way over to the balcony that overlooked the majority of Canterlot. Putting his right hand over the open air he began to mutter words, Luna tried to listen to what he was saying but could only make out the words ‘Aviationary’ and ‘Wind speed velocity’ before Celestia began talking to her.

“What do you think you're doing? Hanging out with strange things like that?” Celestia hissed quietly to her younger sister. “He could be dangerous and might kill you at any moment and yet you hang around him like he’s some kind of teddy bear.” Luna saw fear in her older sister’s eyes, not fear of the creature most definitely, so then fear of what?

“He’s a good... whatever he is.” Luna said confidently with a nod “He’s just a little... eccentric”

“How would you know? He could easily be hiding something deadly under that excessive amount of clothes.” Celestia said a little louder, Luna remained silent as Celestia looked to her sister, her voice shifted to a soft caring tone. “Look, I just don’t want to -” she coughed lightly and corrected herself “I can’t lose you too Luna. You’re the only thing that will stay with me, I can’t lose that.” There was a pause for a minute as Celestia’s words sunk in. “All I’m suggesting is we put him under surveillance in the dungeon for a few days until we figure out what he is.” The sun princess whispered quietly.

“Yeah, no. That’s not going to happen” Inventor said, interrupting the conversation “This, oh how did you term it?” the man paused, “Ah yes, this ‘strange thing’ isn’t going down to a dungeon, I just came from a world that was far too much of dungeon for me to head back into one so soon.” For the first time since Luna had met Inventor he was frowning, almost disappointingly.

Celestia raised an eyebrow, “You heard everything we said?” Inventor nodded, “Well what exactly is your plan to get out?” Celestia said as she moved between the man and the door to block his escape.

Inventor smiled smugly, “Hey Luna, remember the string?” Luna looked confused but nodded slowly. “I hate starting at point ‘A’” Inventor, who had gathered his bag as well as his less than operational energy detector while the princesses were chatting, then took a running leap off the balcony.

Celestia gasped in surprise and Luna bolted to the edge of the balcony in shock, when the moon princess looked over the balcony however she saw nothing. She looked around desperately for any sign of the eccentric human who had told her so much about everything he had built. Only to see absolutely nothing. The room seemed to radiate an odd silence in the void created by the lack of clockwork ticking that, until that time, Luna hadn’t realized she enjoyed so much.

Inventor, meanwhile, smiled as he soared on the air currents using his leather and clockwork wings that he had attached to a metal plate that ran down the back of his coat. Inventor flew onward as the sound of two additional clockwork mechanisms filled the air. “Invisibility handheld” the man said to himself as he glided on his wings, “Can’t believe I got that thing working before I left, I mean, the four engines of steam, clockwork, electricity and radioactive fallout working symbiotically in such a small contraption that bends light around the user, and any programmed extensions of that user’s body, thus blocking any optic reflection from reaching any onlookers. Definitely one of my better inventions if I do say so myself.” he smiled “Not to mention that it is a working pocket watch at the same time.”

He glided on the thermals of the city for a fair distance seeing very few ponies out and about quite yet as it was still early morning, the flight was very relaxing for Inventor to the point where he even closed his eyes for a minute as he breathed deeply. “Fresh air, I haven’t smelt fresh air since, well, ever. Even before The End the air was almost completely smog.” Inventor said with a smile as a large tower that seemed oddly placed with just a park to surround it caught his attention.

Seeing no other place he could stay that wouldn’t grab unwanted attention he landed outside the front door and tapped a metal device just under the valley between his shoulder blades and the wings flipped closed underneath his jacket as he approached the tower, it seemed to be abandoned, though a multitude of facts pointed it to it still being in use. “Must be a summer home,” Inventor said to himself as he entered the tower through the surprisingly unlocked door.

Inside Inventor saw something that took his breath away, shelves upon shelves of books of all different genres were set into every wall and every shelf looked full to bursting. In addition to this the entire tower smelled like dusty tomes. “A library, no, a personal collection. I haven’t seen this many books in ages, not since The Incident.” The techie flinched slightly at this but then closed the door behind him and turned off his invisibility machine, the clockwork ticking of an unknown source continued on.

Slowly picking his way through the collection Inventor ran his fingers over the binding of the books. His hand stopped when it came to a book entitled ‘The brief history of Equestria’ With a smile Inventor took the massive tome off the shelf and laid it down on a nearby table. Upon opening the book he smiled when he understood the archaic language written down upon the pages that Inventor guessed was the traditional language of the area. “Visual translator, definitely a good choice to build that one, made no sense to build it at the time, but on the other side of the coin, I did just jump off a balcony, I’m probably not entirely sane.” And with that comment and a content smile Inventor settled down in the chair to read.

Meanwhile, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were in the middle of their discussion about the creature. “You say it jumped across dimensions to get here? but why?” Celestia asked.

“That’s the gist of what I managed to understand sister, he used a lot of large words that I had never heard before and I am pretty sure that I would never understand.” Luna said as she lifted up her tea for a drink when out of the corner of her eye she spotted the string that Inventor had used for his demonstration that morning. With a smile she levitated it over to herself and tied it around her own forehoof. Celestia gave her a weird look that Luna shrugged off and the conversation continued.

“So, where did it go? Did it teleport himself back to its world?” Celestia asked.

“I doubt it.” Luna said as she reflected back on her meeting with the odd man, Celestia gave Luna a confused look so the moon princess continued. “I think the reason he came here, to our world, is because he’s running.”

“Well what could it be running from, it seems to be quite brash and from what you told me and what I observed it doesn’t seem to be the kind of creature that can't take care of itself in a fight.” The white alicorn observed.

Luna reflected once more on her meeting with the man and one phrase came to mind ‘I used to have a name, but I lost my right to that a long time ago'. Luna couldn't decide what to make of that and she wondered what a person would have to do to reject their name.

“I think..” Luna hesitantly spoke, “I think he’s running from himself.” Celestia looked at Luna curiously but Luna shrugged “I can’t explain it much better then that.” Luna took another sip of tea and continued "and call it a he, he's not some mindless monster."

With a louder than intended slamming noise the book closed, “So Luna has a dark past that she wishes to forget as well.” Inventor said with a sigh as he leaned back in the chair. “The history books are a bit vague on it I hope she can manage it, well at least she has her all-powerful sister of the sun to help her out. That should be good for her, I know I was in desperate need of some company while I was alone, she should be fine though.”

Inventor sighed once again as he reached up to pull his top hat down over his face only to remember he hadn’t had a top hat in over three years after the last wayward wasteland gust had stolen it from him.

“Okay, first things first, when I get my hands on some money, I am buying a top hat, I need the extra room for my tech. Not to mention the added swag.”

Inventor stood from his chair and picked up the massive tome in one hand before walking over to where he had took it from and shelved it back into place with a thunk. It was then that he noticed an odd ray of sunlight that ran across the shelf, turning his head to see the source he saw the door was open, and standing in the doorway was a lavender unicorn looking at him with its mouth agape. “What are you!” It said in with a sense of awe and surprise in its voice.

With a smile to the confused scholar Inventor turned to get a better look at her, "My name’s Inventor, unless you can come up with a better one, and I’m a human.” He said, “And you are?”

“Twilight Sparkle, unicorn.” she said.

“Nice to meet you Twilight, and this is quite a nice collection of books you have here if I do say so myself.” Inventor said as he walked over and settled back into the chair he had been reading in earlier. Leaning back until the chair seemed like it might tip. "I apologize for entering unannounced but I had a desperate need for some knowledge and what a better place then the largest collection of non-fiction book I've ever seen."

“Thanks! Though I’ve never received a compliment on my books from someone like you before, It's always nice to get a compliment.” Twilight said, laying down on a comfortable looking pad that was raised to the table level.

“This is going to be a long day” Inventor mumbled under his breath.

“What was that?” Twilight asked.

“Oh nothing” he said as he smiled jovially at the unicorn.

“Who you talking to Twilight?” Asked a voice, Inventor turned to see a small purple and green lizard creature walk in, who reached about the level of his knee.

“A very long day.” Inventor confirmed to himself.

Chapter Three

“Oh Spike, I almost forgot, this is Inventor, apparently he’s some kind of.. human?" The lavender mare paused as she turned to look at the human who nodded to tell her that she had gotten it right, the mare's thoughts began to drift, "Though I don’t think I’ve ever heard about such a creature before...” Twilight said.

The librarian's eyes glazed over as she lost herself to her own thoughts, after a moment she came back to reality and finished the introduction. “Inventor, this is Spike, he’s my number one assistant.” Spike blushed slightly under his scales at this.

“Nice to meet you Spike,” Inventor said with a nod toward the purple scaled lizard, Inventor paused for a moment before smiling and with his short barking laugh continued. “How odd today has been when I see a talking lizard with a position as assistant to a unicorn and it doesn’t surprise me.”

“Dragon” Spike huffed as a short burst of smoke exhaled from his nose.

“Right, dragon, my apologies to you then Spike.” Inventor said as he looked to the purple dragon, "I meant no disrespect." He finished sincerly before turning his gaze toward Twilight once again “and my apologies to you as well Miss Sparkle, if I had known that this tower was still in use I wouldn’t have barged in as I did.”

“Oh it’s fine, I’m glad my books could be of help to somepony else. I haven’t gotten a lot of usage out of them recently, what with me living in Ponyville and all.” Twilight stood from the cushion she was laying on and walked toward the shelves “which reminds me of why we came here in the first place...” she was silent as she walked past the shelves reading the book titles scrawled on their spines. Eventually she came to a stop with an ‘aha’ and focused her magic on a thick book towards the top.

The book began to glow the color of Twilight’s magic and it floated onto the table in front of Inventor, The book seemed to be some kind of reference guide on air physics. Twilight grinned, settled back down on the cushion, and began reading the book. The world seemingly falling away from her mind as she became absorbed into the complicated examples of the instructional guide.

Inventor let his chair slowly drop to all fours before leaning over to Spike with a whisper, “Is she always like this?” After the nod of confirmation from the dragon, the inventor shrugged and reached into his bag that sat on the ground next to the chair. From which he pulled out his destroyed handheld, it had mostly stopped smoking though occasionally a puff of black smoke would escape the casing.

Inventor placed the device on the table before pulling a small set of tools from his bag and placing them next to the machine. Leaning forward Inventor took out a set of screwdrivers from the set and began to unscrew the panels from each other. Spike looked curiously at what Inventor had dropped in front of him but opted to remain silent while the techie continued his work.

A couple minutes later when the panels were all unscrewed Inventor set his tools to the side then picked up the top part of the case, he separated the two halves carefully and laid them next to each other, doing this revealed all the wires crisscrossing between them as well as the intricities of the several different mechanisims inside the device. There was a gasp of surprise from in front of him. Inventor looked up to see he had two onlookers watching him work. Twilight blushed a bit as an embarrassed smile crossed her face. “Sorry, I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s so complex and delicate looking.”

“It’s alright, to be honest your magic is quite the marvel to me as well.” Inventor said as he began to critically examine the inner workings of the device in front of him. “Let’s see, if an overload is truly what caused the malfunction then it would originate from the core tracking unit due to the conversion of energy to a pressurized stable state.” he mumbled to himself as he began to poke around the device to look under the wires.

“I don’t mean to interrupt your train of thought or anything.” Twilight said looking at him with an eyebrow raised, “but didn’t you have magic where you came from?”

“Nope, no such thing, however if there is one thing we humans were, then it was resourceful. I mean it was usually to kill each other over petty disputes. But we were still very resourceful. So we made technology, and we advanced technology, it got to the point where we didn’t need to advance tech anymore, but we still did, just because.” As he said this Inventor reached down underneath the wires and grasped his fingers around a small metal clasp, with a click a compartment opened and a puff of black smoke poured out into the open air.

Twilight paused in thought as she began to ponder of what Inventor had just said, out of everything that he had said there was thing that caught her attention even more then the fact that they killed each other. “You said ‘were’, past tense. Why?”

“Because Twilight, they’re all dead and I’m the only one who is still alive.” Silence hung in the air as Inventor dug through his collection of tools, he pulled out a small rod and tapped a small cylindrical object inside the device twice, there was whir and then a click. “There we go, all fixed.” Inventor returned everything to how it had been before and screwed the device shut.

"Fixed? How did that fix it? You didn’t even do anything to it.” Spike was the first to recover from the revelation that all the humans besides Inventor were dead, albeit only through completely ignoring it and being distracted by this new revelation. As the fire breather spoke he looked at the man in front of him with disbelief on his face.

“Quicksilver adaptive tech, the rod I tapped against it reset the basic electronic flow of the metal allowing it to take its basic conductive shape again, I also enhanced it through electronic decisive flow allowing it to be affected by magic without blowing up.”

Silence...

“What?” Spike asked in confusion as he scratched the top of his head.

“Hard to explain.” responded Inventor waving his hand back and forth to dismiss the notion.

It was at this point that Twilight recovered, “So... you’re alone?” she asked hesitantly, Inventor nodded. “Well, we need to do something about that don’t we Spike?” Spike smiled and bobbed his head in confirmation. Inventor looked at the two with a confused look before Twilight continued, “Would it be okay if we were to be your friends?”

There was a brief pause where the man recovered from this unexpected question. “Nothing would honor me more then to have the two of you as my friends Twilight, Spike.” Inventor said with a smile as he nodded to each of the two when he spoke their names. As he leaned back in his chair once again the madman slid the handheld device back into his bag, he doubted it would help him anytime in the near future but stranger things had happened.

Twilight smiled back as the purple draconian approached the madman and patted him on the back, “Welcome to the group of friends buddy.”

The intelligent mare’s eyes sparked wide and she spoke. “Oh we have to have you meet all our other friends, they can all be a little... odd... at times but who isn’t right?” Twilight said. “We were planning on going back to Ponyville tomorrow, if that’s alright with you that is.”

“Sounds perfect Twilight, but first” Inventor smiled as he reached into his bag and pulled out a small metallic orb, “want to see what one of my inventions can do?” Twilight’s eyes sparkled at the prospect and she nodded. “Alright, first, Spike, would you like to try it out?”

Spike spoke with a lot of joy and impatient anticipation obvious in his words. “I would love too, ooh what’s it do? Does it give me a moustache or does it make me glow or, or..” He was interrupted as a beam shot out of the orb and hit him, Spike closed his eyes in fear of what was going to happen, when all he felt was a brief feeling of weightlessness he opened his eyes about to ask what happened, what he saw made him laugh with joy as he began to look around wildly. “I’m floating, this is amazing, its like gravity is gone and I can just float away.”

As Spike began to laugh and enjoy himself Twilight looked over at Inventor. “How did you do that?” She asked. When Inventor didn’t respond Twilight began to worry and looked closer at Inventor, beads of sweat were beginning to pool on his forehead and he slowly crouched to a doubled over position.

“Can you get Spike to come down please?” Inventor whispered through clenched teeth. A small worry formed in Twilight’s mind as she called for Spike to land. The dragon obeyed, the smile quickly disappearing from his face, and Inventor tapped the device twice, and Spike felt his gravity return. Inventor exhaled a held breath and stood up again. “Thank you.”

“What was that?” Twilight asked, the worry she felt was slipping into her voice.

“Anti-gravitational beam, it works by use of the universal law of balance. It utilizes a plasmoid core to remove the gravitational pull on one object, however by doing this the gravitational pull on the user is doubled. Because you see, laws of gravity are multiplicative rather than additive.”

That explanation earned him a confused look from both of his new friends. “Someone weighs nothing, Someone else weighs double.” Both Spike and Twilight looked at each other with understanding.

“So why did you do that? If you knew it was going to hurt you so much?” Twilight asked returning her attention to Inventor. She was worried about the health of the person she had just invited to meet her friends. If he had died during that last stunt what would she have told her friends when she saw them the next day? ‘I saw an alien kill himself in front of me yesterday’?

“Did you see the look of joy on his face when he found out that he weightless, that made it all worth it.” Inventor said with a smile, “I haven’t seen someone smile like since everyone died off. I can handle a little pain if I get to see someone smile like that again.”

“But I never would have enjoyed it if I knew it was causing you pain Inventor,” Spike said speaking up somewhat indignately. “Real friends can’t have fun if it’s causing their other friends pain.” Spike shook his head at the notion as he talked. Twilight looked at her assistant with a new found respect, he had grown up a lot these past few years they had been in Ponyville.

“I..” Inventor paused as he tapped his finger to his chin, “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Well," Twilight said interrupting the man's musings. "I think we’re all thoroughly worn out by this point that we can go to sleep for the night.” Twilight said nodding her head to a second floor window where the full moon shone in. “C’mon Inventor you can take the guest room, Spike can sleep in his bed in my bedroom.”

“Time flies” Inventor said as began to trudge his way up the nearby stairs. Upon reaching the guest room he saw that the bed was actually about his size. Assuming that such a large spare bed had been set aside in case one of the princesses decided to come over for a visit, Inventor carefully set himself into the bed with all his clothes on. The comfort of the bed was immensely satisfying in comparison to the junkyard mattresses he usually slept on.

He was swiftly pulled deep into the oblivion of his sleep with his mind running through advanced and near impossible mathematical equations all the way into his sleep and deep into his dreams. underneath which nightmares curled and waited for a moment when they could get past the human's mental defenses, that moment never arrived, Inventor had been doing this far too long for it to ever even be considered.

Chapter Four

(Chapter 4, because who needs sleep right? -N64Fan)

Inventor slowly awoke in the cushioned bed as the familiar scent of dusty tomes reached his nose and the rhythmic noise of clockwork drifted into his ears. Despite all that had happened the previous day Inventor couldn’t help but smile at the entire situation. “I got away.” Inventor smiled even wider as he said this and he began to fall back to sleep before a memory jumped to the forefront of his mind. “Twilight”

Standing up from his bed Inventor brushed his clothes off in a vain attempt to flatten them. After a couple beatings of his clothes he exited the guest room only to hear a familiar voice ringing in from the bottom floor where he and Twilight had spent most of the previous day. “How did Celestia manage to follow me here?” Inventor thought to himself but then shook his head in doubt and disbelief. With his left hand he reached into his coat and pulled out his pocket watch, with a turn of the winder and a click his invisibility disguise covered him once more.

With this camouflage active Inventor made his way downstairs for a closer look at what was going on. Spike sat with Celestia at the table, Spike taking the chair while Celestia sat on the cushion, Twilight was standing off to the side of the table. Celestia stood to leave as she finished her visit. As she left she turned back to Twilight “Make sure that Inventor is the first one to exit the building, we’ll take care of it from there.”

“I will Princess,” Twilight said with a nod, the princess smiled back to Twilight and left the tower. When the door was closed Twilight sighed heavily, “I don’t know if I can do this Spike, I offered to be his friend last night. And my first act of that friendship is going to be to send him out to get captured by the princess.”

“But Twilight, if he’s really as dangerous as Celestia said then how do we know he wouldn’t do something bad to us as soon as we were outside the city?” Spike asked as he walked over to comfort the lavender mare.

“I just don’t know Spike, this is such a tough decision for me. Honor the princess or destroy a friendship I just made.” Twilight shook her head back and forth in indecision as a look of sadness came to her.

Inventor remained silent through the exchange between the dragon and the unicorn. His hands were now clenched tightly into fists as he made his decision. “I am done running.” Inventor said to himself as he threw open the door to the tower and marched out into the ambush. With his invisibility cloak on Inventor walked harmlessly through the danger zone as many rushed whispers danced through the foliage of the park about the door opening but no one coming out.

Around a bend in the road Luna and Celestia came into view who were looking at the door with confused looks. As he approached and his tell-tale clockwork ticking increased in volume Luna began to look around wildly with a knowing smile. Even more confused Celestia was about to begin to do the same when Inventor turned off his cloak directly in front of the sun princess.

Celestia was stunned, as were all the hidden royal guards in the bushes. “If you have a bone to pick with me, You talk to me, got it? YOU DO NOT PUT YOUR STUDENT INTO A SITUATION LIKE THAT!” Inventor shouted at the sun princess, rage blatant if every word, he had had a bad day yesterday and this recent act of Celestia's didn't help the matter. Back at the tower Twilight stared on in awe at the fact that someone had just shouted at one of the princesses for her sake.

As Inventor finished his rant a guard bolted out of the bushes and ran at him fearing for the safety of the princess, Inventor turned the look he was using on Celestia to the charging guard, The result from this act was a display of the sheer anger in his eyes as the guard was not only cowed backward, but also ducked back into the bush he had come from.

Inventor leveled his gaze back at the princess, “Now then, I believe that you wanted to talk to me? Let’s go then shall we.” The man said impatiently as he looked expectantly at Celestia who returned the gaze to the man before her albeit with curiosity rather than anger. It took a jab in her side by Luna to get the white alicorn to start acting again.

After a quiet and short trip back to the castle they arrived in the conference room that was headed by two thrones, one of obsidian, the other of gold. The princesses took their respective thrones while Inventor stood in the middle of the court. There was silence for a minute before Celestia spoke, “Inventor, me and my sister have a proposal for you.” Her voice echoed around the acoustical hall. “We will let you be free and do what you will with your life, within the pre established laws of course, if you will accept our one condition.”

“and that condition is?” Inventor said, unimpressed by the hall or the thrones, he had seen grander things fall.

“We read your memory to determine if you are good or bad at your core.” Celestia said, Luna nodded in agreement with her sister’s words and looked expectantly towards Inventor, awaiting his answer. They didn’t have to wait long.

“I decline.” Inventor’s eyes were level and his voice flat as he responded to the princesses and Luna had a feeling she was somehow being stared at evenly despite height difference from the stand and the thrones.

“On what grounds?” Celestia asked, curious as to what had made Inventor’s decision so soon.

“On the grounds that I would rather not be held responsible for the insanity of the figure head that almost everyone in the entire country looks up to. Not to mention that I recently read a history book for this world. Luna needs you more than you think Celestia.”

Luna blushed slightly at this but Celestia continued on unphased “I am several thousand years old, there is little I haven’t seen Inventor. I very much doubt your memories would drive me to insanity.” Celestia replied a little too quickly, confidence in her voice.

“Oh really, My apologies I hadn’t realized you had seen first person a man killing countless souls to protect his own, or for that matter, the only person you have ever loved melting into a puddle of SLUDGE!” Inventor choked as tears began to force their ways to his eyes as his memories came to him causing him to relive them. “I wasn’t aware that you lived by yourself for a hundred years plus some having all the incidents repeating themselves mercilessly in your sleep. AND THAT, DEAR PRINCESS, IS JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG!” His head snapped up looking first into Celestia’s eyes and then into Luna’s.

What Luna saw in those eyes almost made the moon princess cry as well, There was sadness and loneliness and such horrible feelings that she didn’t know how the man had avoided killing himself. There was so much self-loathing in those eyes, so much pain and anguish. ‘He must be telling the truth, there is no other explanation for what I see in those eyes’. Luna thought to herself.

Silence echoed in the hall in an attempt to fill the shouts that the air now lacked. In a poetical way Celestia doubted the hall would ever be the same after that outbreak. That, whenever she entered the hall from then on it would sound different, even if nopony spoke. “I will not lie when I say that your words have hit me quite hard, however I can’t let you go free by those words alone.” There was a silence before Celestia continued, “But, given the circumstances that you recently came to the defense of my student Twilight, I think I can give you a free pass to go.”

Luna smiled as Inventor looked up at them, “May I ask one favor Celestia?” the madman muttered as he wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket.

“And what would that be Inventor?”

“I want you both to promise me that no one outside of this room will ever hear of what I have said. It is not a past that I take pride in.”

Luna was the first to take up the offer and she did so eagerly, “I promise never to repeat the words spoken in this room to anyone besides my sister Celestia and the human Inventor.”

Celestia made a similar promise and Inventor bowed to them, “Thank you.”

As Inventor made to leave Celestia spoke up one last time, “If you hurt Twilight I will do all that is legally in my power to make your life as horrible as possible.” her voice was cold as she looked at the man.

“If you could find it in your heart to kill me, that would be great Celestia.” Inventor said nonchalantly as he left the high arching eves of the throne room, upon exiting Inventor saw a large crowd that had established itself at the rumors of someone threatening the princess. They all gasped as he stepped out from the shade created by the overhang.

Near the front of the crowd Inventor saw a familiar looking purple unicorn. He approached the gathered ponies causing a spectacle as all the ones near the front tryed to back away, Twilight however remained still and looked at him with a sad smile. Upon reaching her Inventor spoke first to answer Twilight’s question that she was about to ask. “So, Ponyville huh? We should set out or your friends will start worrying for you.”

Twilight nodded as a tear began to roll from her eye as they began to leave, a guard called out to them before they were out of earshot. “Princess Celestia has prepared a chariot for you to take to Ponyville, Usual place.” Twilight nodded in response and they set out again.

Getting back through the crowd wasn’t difficult as everyone backed away from Inventor and before long man and mare were walking the near deserted roads of early morning Canterlot. The few earth ponies and unicorns who were out ducked into nearby houses as the biped approached, the pegasi just flew a few feet higher until he was gone.

The walk past mostly silently until Twilight spoke up, “So what did you talk to the princesses about?”

“My past.” Inventor responded as he pulled out his pocket watch to check how much time had passed since he had used it last. “Two more hours,” He muttered to himself with a sad shake of his head before turning his attention back to Twilight.

“And how did that go?” The librarian replied curiously, if the princesses had heard about his past, and had still given him a free pass, maybe his past wasn’t so horrible after all.

“Almost made Luna cry.” Inventor responded with an apathetic voice. ‘or maybe not’ thought the unicorn with a sad shake of her head, the lavender mare was about to ask about his past when she stopped herself, He obviously didn't like to talk about it, Twilight decided that she could hold her comments for a more appropriate time.

The rest of the walk to the sky carriage was silent except for the soft exclamations of the ponies who ducked into nearby houses to escape the monster and the soft clockwork ticking of unknown source.

The sky carriage was positioned near the edge of Canterlot and showed the massive overlook of the rest of the valley, as well as a thick forest off in the distance. “Where’s Ponyville?” Inventor asked the librarian. The lavender mare pointed out a small settlement of in the distance, oddly near to the forest.

“Right, you fly ahead and prepare your friends so I don’t get attacked on first sight, I’ll come into town on the next sunrise.” Inventor smiled as he began to stretch. “Oh and I don’t suppose that you have my-” he was interrupted as Twilight levitated his bag out of her saddle bags. “Thanks.”

“No problem, but how do you intend to get to Ponyville if I take the sky carriage?” The lavender mare asked her odd companion. With a smile Inventor tapped a metal spot just under the valley of his shoulder blades and his leather and machine wings clicked open at full force, almost knocking Twilight to the ground. Twilight steadied herself and smiled as she got on the sky carriage. “Now where is Spi-” she was interrupted as the scaly dragon himself came huffing up to the carriage.

When he got on he turned his gaze expectantly to Inventor until he noticed a pair of leather wings on his back. “I didn’t know you had wings, Inventor. How do you keep them flat under all that clothing?”

Inventor just smiled as he waved to Twilight, she nodded and spoke to the pair of pegasi at the front of the sky carriage. “Ponyville, please.” The sky carriage took off leaving the biped alone on the edge of the city.

With a smile Inventor jumped into the open air and let the wind catch his wings as he drifted lazily towards Ponyville. Inventor breathed in deeply, once again admiring the scent of the fresh air that seemed prevalent wherever he went. Little did either group know that a certain cyan pegasus had just set out from the same town they were heading to to look for her magical inclined friend and her spiked assistant.

Chapter Five

(Okay, So I feel this needs a little explaining, the reason I am doing such short chapters so often is because I am trying to work on my chapter length through gradual improvement.)

After his relaxing glide down from Canterlot, Inventor ended up on the ground a fair distance from Ponyville. With a smile the inventor tapped the metal panel on his back to click his wings closed again. “Good to see that basic constants, such as air resistance, and the such remain the same cross dimensionally, though I do feel like the gravitational constant is closer to 10 as opposed to 9.8 in this world, could be my imagination in that regard though since I may be suffering from some form of psychological condition where I’m looking for something so hard that I think I can see it.”

“Then again perhaps the gravitational pull is the same but the constant to Newton’s third law has been degraded, Though I highly doubt that as it would lead cause to infer that several things I have seen are completely impossible. Although, with the addition of magic perhaps you can get away with things like that.” Inventor shrugged, deciding to drop the topic for now and started on his way towards the town.

Inventor walked an old worn dirt road in the direction of Ponyville, the entire area around Ponyville was pretty much flat, with the only exception being the mysterious forest that seemed to curve around the edge of the town like a crescent moon. “What an odd forest, was it grown like that magically I wonder? Seems like a weird shape.” Inventor commented to the air as he recalled the view of it from Canterlot.

Slowly the madman’s view drifted skyward as he watched the clouds move slowly across the sky, his view was obstructed when he saw a streak of cyan shoot past a cloud. Remembering the world for being inhabited by multi-colored ponies he shouted up to it. “Hello!” The cyan streak didn’t seem to notice as it continued on. Inventor paused for a moment as he looked to see the direction the streak was heading in. “Well, I hope you find whatever you need in Canterlot then.” Inventor said as he lowered his eyes once more in the direction of Ponyville.

With a shrug Inventor continued his slow, relaxing stroll to Ponyville. The sun had just began to set as Inventor meandered along, the air slowly began to smell vaguely of fresh apples as he approached, this caused Inventor’s smile to appear once again. “I haven’t had food in a while, I’m going to need to start since my replacement energy source isn’t able to utilize the excess energy of the fallout radiation.”

He thought about this for a moment before he continued “I wonder if I could alter it so that it utilizes the residual magic left in the air by the unicorns and alicorns, then again, the only reason I built it in the first place was due to lack of food, now that I have food available I won’t need to redo that annoying counterbalance engine.” Inventor sighed as he broke out of his reverie and turned his attention to the town in the distance. “Even if I rest for the night I should still make it to town by morning I thi-” Inventor was interrupted as he abruptly fell into a pitfall trap.

Picking himself up off the bottom of the pit he shook his head a few times, looking around his impromptu prison Inventor discovered that the walls were much too steep and loose for him to climb. “Professionally dug pitfall? Yup, that’s a new one.” Inventor said as he shifted his gaze to the lower sides of the tunnel, as he looked around the circular pit his gaze fell upon a nearby small tunnel that had been dug through the dirt and off to a location in the forest. “Very professional pitfall.” Inventor said, with a shrug the madman set off down the tunnel.

After a few minutes of wandering through the dark tunnel he came into an opening with a shallow rectangular pit over which rested a covering of criss-crossed poles. Light flickered a little ways away from the pit and Inventor could hear gruff voices. Looking over to a corner he saw a small orange pegasus with a violet mane shuddering violently.

As Inventor approached her his heavy footfalls caused her to flinch. “It’s okay, It’s okay, I am not here to hurt you.” The filly uncurled a little at the comforting tone of his voice, her eyes remained shut tight in pain. “What’s the matter, where’s the pain?”

The filly managed to get out a single word, “Hungry.” Inventor’s eyes flicked to her now exposed stomach as he realized he could see the ribs against her skin. With horror he looked around the small containment looking for some form of food. He saw a slab of meat in the opposite corner but, with ponies being herbivorous, that would do no good.

“Hey!” Inventor shouted “This filly needs food!” He was hoping to get the attention of whatever idiotic kidnappers these ponies were. What leaned over the pit was not a pony, rather it was an odd humanoid dog.

“You weird mister pony.” the brute said as it looked at its newest capture.

“We don’t have time for how I look you dense brute. This pony needs to be fed.” Inventor shouted at the muscular humanoid.

“Pony won’t eat anything we throw down there, just a waste of good meat” The dog responded.

“She’s herbivorous you thick canine, she only eats plants.” Inventor responded impatiently. They had just thrown random food into a cage with a pony and hadn’t bothered to ask her what kind of food she ate.

“Oh” came the response of the dog as he moved out of Inventor’s line of sight. Inventor was about to yell at the dog to come back when he heard a loud cacophony coming from off to his right, the dog returned a few minutes with a bush, roots and all, in his grasp. He dropped it into the pit and then went back over to the fire.

Inventor grabbed the bush and tore off a single branch, he brought the branch back over to the filly who hadn’t moved the entire engagement. He lowered the branch in front of her and she sniffed it, after a second or two of smelling the plant the filly bit eagerly into the leaves and began to chew them, after her third mouthful Inventor pulled the branch away.

The filly silently protested at this act before Inventor leaned in close to her ear, “Do you think you can run?” The filly responded with a shake of her head as the pain from talking was still too much. “Oh well, guess I’ll have to carry you then.” Inventor replied as he scooped her up in his left arm and held her close to his chest. She was lighter then Inventor expected.

As she settled near his body she managed to get out a few words through her clenched teeth. “What’s your name?”

Inventor smiled at the filly even though she couldn’t see it, “My name is Inventor and I’m going to get us both out of this ridiculous jail.” With a pause Inventor turned his gaze up to the crisscrossing felled plantlife above them. “Semi-fibrous plant structure of the poles in addition to the poor quality of the string binding would lead me to the meaning that a single blow to the weakest point in this crude, makeshift grid would easily shatter the entire thing.”

Inventor laughed to himself as his eyes gazed across the ceiling of the haphazard trap. “Professional diggers, children with crayons when it comes to anything else.” Inventor said as he found what he was looking for, “But then, what would you expect from such a substandard intelligence.” With a purposeful stride Inventor moved to the position nearer to the opposite side of the cage.

With one last glance around the cage Inventor reached into his bag and pulled out a worn-out metal hammer. With as mighty a swing as Inventor could manage with one hand holding a filly to his chest he swung the hammer at the spot he had noticed earlier, The effect was instantaneous, the entire thing collapsed as his hammer made contact.

Inventor turned his body to protect the filly from any falling debris. Once the crashing noise had stopped Inventor immediately jumped out of the pit, barely making it with the filly in his arm, but by planting the sharp end of his hammer in the dirt in front of him he managed to pull himself and the filly out.

Inventor didn’t wait to be followed, he immediately broke into a run, quickly throwing his hammer into his bag. Using a guesstimate of how far he had drifted off to the side in the underground tunnel as well as what direction he needed to head in, Inventor made a beeline for where he expected Ponyville to be. As he ran the man jumped several bushes to avoid getting tangled in any greenery, the crash of that self same greeny several minutes late indicated that he was being chased.

As he broke through the treeline Ponyville came into view, at the same time he looked into the sky and took note of the full moon that hung in the middle of the dark blue sky, “Beautiful as always Luna, never change.” Inventor said to himself with a smile as he continued to run.

As Inventor ran desperately for Ponyville the sounds of being chased continued to follow him and they seemed to be gaining, at one point the bipedal human looked back to see how close his pursuers actually were, it was at this point that one who was only meters behind him jumped to tackle him to the ground. Seconds before it hit him a light blue cyan streak blurred through the air and hit the humanoid dog in the side.

All the other pursuing dogs stopped at the sight but Inventor continued to run, he needed to get this filly to a hospital before her situation got any worse. The madman made a forward glance to search the town for some kind of medical building before he looked back again and called over his shoulder “Thank you!” to the pegasus who now floated between the diamond dogs and the town.

With a nod in his direction the mare turned her attention back to the diamond dogs with a brash statement of, “Who wants a piece of the fastest flier in Equestria next?” The last thing Inventor saw of the confrontation was a stand off as he ran around a corner.

A minute or two later Inventor found the hospital and ran desperately to the door, running through the door Inventor ran up to the reception desk, panting. “Please,” he said to the wide eyed mare, “Help her.” The mares eyes went from fear to caring in a split second.

“Nurse Redheart, we need you, stat” the mare called over the intercom with urgency, before turning a look of appreciation toward Inventor. Inventor could tell that she wanted to say something, but she remained silent as she thought over her words.

The next few moments went by in a blur as the nurse came in and took the filly to ER, After several moments of silence after that the mare at the reception desk finally gathered enough courage to speak up, addressing Inventor. “I don’t know what exactly you are, but I want to thank you for bringing in Scootaloo.”

“Her name is Scootaloo?” Inventor asked as he ignored the statement about what he was. With a glance to the receptionist Inventor raised an eyebrow, the receptionist paused for a moment, afraid to confirm the man’s suspicion now that it was put to her, deciding that she could trust this weird creature the receptionist nodded. Inventor continued “Do you need me to go do anything for you? Go tell her parents where she is or anything?”

A sad smile came to her face as she spoke “If you could go tell Miss Caretaker down the road that would be great, she lives in the house three doors down you’ll recognize it immediately, it’s the only brown house on this side of the street.” With a nod to the mare Inventor left the hospital and made his way towards Miss Caretaker’s house which even now was obvious by its color alone.

When he arrived at his location he went up to the door and knocked twice, while Inventor waited for someone to answer the door he noticed a sign that sat to the side of the doorway. It designated the building as the ‘Proud Foals Orphanage.’ Inventor froze as the words hit home and the puzzle pieces fell together. The receptionist’s sad smile, how the filly had disappeared for so long with no search party. Memories of a time long long ago also began to stir behind Inventor’s mind.

The door opened and a young unicorn colt with a stark red mane and a blue coat looked up at Inventor, innocence in his eyes and voice as he said, without hesitation to the odd creature that stood just beyond the threshold, “What can I do for you, sir?” Inventor turned to the small foal with a kind smile.

“May I talk to Miss Caretaker please, I have some news for her regarding one of her charges.” Inventor said as he looked at the sign once more out of the corner of his eye. The colt nodded and shouted Miss Caretaker’s name before abandoning his position and walking away and out of sight, leaving Inventor alone at the open door.

Several minutes passed while Inventor waited, during which time his kind smile turned to one of joy as he ran over what he was planning in his head. When Miss Caretaker arrived she was stunned silent by Inventor’s appearance, this gap in the conversation allowed Inventor the first words in the conversation, “First bit of news, Scootaloo is safe and recovering in the hospital.” The orphanage host sighed with relief at this. The next question made the look disappear and replaced it with one of surprise “Secondly, I would like to adopt Scootaloo.”

(If any of the reactions to Inventor seem a little off to you I would like to point out that to RD and the receptionist he just saved a sick filly, to Miss Caretaker he doesn't actually give her any time for a reaction before telling her good news and the colt who answers the door to the orphanage is too young to think that anything is too off about the biped.)

Chapter Six

(Thanks again for the continued support as well as the suggestions to help the story along, just a reminder that if you have anything you would like to give your two bits about just post it in the comments below. -N64Fan)

Almost immediately upon arriving at the hospital Scootaloo fell asleep, still cuddled against Inventor’s arm with the lulling call of the clockwork beat. It was a long sleep as her body recovered in the hands of the competent hospital staff. Several days passed and many people visited the sleeping filly, they left gifts of get well cards and flowers.

There was one visitor however that visited everyday, he never brought a gift and he stayed for about an hour before he would leave to take care of things that were happening elsewhere. He would always visit at the end of the day though, just to double check on her. The man never could manage any form of sleep until he had checked on Scootaloo for the night.

Then, eventually, Scootaloo woke up.

With a loud mumbling Scootaloo mentally stumbled out of her extended sleep. The first sight that greeted her was the sight of a white medical pony with a red cross on a sheet of paper for a cutie mark. “Triage?” Scootaloo mumbled.

Triage turned around to smile at the recently awoken filly “Ah, so you decided to come back and join the land of the awake ponies have you?” She spoke in a mother-like tone to the filly as she did with all young ponies who fell into her care.

“What happened?” Scootaloo said as she rubbed her forehead with a hoof as she massaged an ache out. “All I remember is that I was walking along the road and then suddenly,” Scootaloo eyes sprung open. “I was trapped by diamond dogs, and they wouldn’t feed me any plants, they just kept throwing me meat. I thought I was going to starve to death, but then,”

Scootaloo paused as she placed her head in her hooves trying to remember what happened next, “but then they captured somepony else, he got me food from the diamond dogs and then he, he saved me, his name, oh, what was his name.” Scootaloo paused briefly again before her eyes shot open. “Inventor, that’s what he called himself!” she announced excitedly.

Triage smiled politely at the filly and walked over to her nuzzling the orange pegasus’ neck as she said, “Very good Scootaloo, you remembered a lot more than what I expected you to.” When she finished Triage raised her head again and began to walk towards the door, she was interrupted as Scootaloo began to move about.

Scootaloo stretched her body splaying her wings out to her sides, “When can I get out of here Triage? I want to move around somewhere. Oh, and I need to go see Applebloom and Sweetie Belle and let them know that I’m okay.” Scootaloo said excitedly as her wings began to buzz at her sides.

Triage walked away from the filly and took a look at the medical chart that hung on the the foot of Scootaloo’s bed. “Well, according to this chart, you're free to go whenever, we just need to wait for your parent to sign the release form.” With those words Triage hung the chart back on the edge of the bed.

Scootaloo gave Triage a curious look before talking “I’m an orphan remember? I don’t have a parent.” Triage just gave Scootaloo a cryptic smile before opening the door and walking into the hall, making sure to close the door behind her. There were muffled words on the other side of that door that Scootaloo couldn’t make out from her position on the bed. Eventually the muffled noises stopped and all was silent for a moment.

The door slowly opened and an odd biped walked into the room, “Hello Scootaloo,” it said with a smile. “Feeling better?” Scootaloo was silent for a moment as the words played in her head, the voice sounded so familiar. Suddenly the realization hit Scootaloo and her violet eyes brightened.

“Inventor?” Scootaloo asked, joy in her voice. She didn’t care what this man was, she only knew him as the being who had saved her from the dark cage of the diamond dogs. The creature’s smile brightened as he nodded his head. “Oh, thank you so much.” Scootaloo said, “I thought I was going to be stuck in there forever.”

“It’s no problem, really, but I’m going to give you two choices right now Scoots,” Scootaloo nodded apprehensively at Inventor’s words. “You can continue to call me Inventor and know me as that odd human down the road, or,” Inventor reached into the bag that still hung over his shoulder, from which he pulled a scroll of paper that he set in front of Scootaloo, undoing the binding on the paper, revealing that it was, in fact, an official proof of adoption, Inventor continued. “You can call me Dad.”

Tears showed in Scootaloo’s eyes as she tried to force words out of her mouth but was choked off by joy from the fact that the one thing she had convinced was never going to happen had just occurred in front of her. After several minutes of struggling with her emotions she finally managed to get a single word out. “Dad.” Inventor’s eyes glistened over at her response and he pulled her into a tight hug which Scootaloo readily returned. From the doorway Triage watched with a knowing smile.

After several minutes the filly and the man managed to sort out their feelings and they succeeded in getting Scootaloo checked out of the hospital, As they walked out of the hospital they were empty handed of any of the gifts the young filly had received. This was due to Scootaloo having asked to have the gifts she had received to be given to other ponies who were in the hospital, to which Triage happily accepted.

As they walked down the many intersecting pathways to a destination only the human knew, Inventor was the first to speak, “I haven’t had a child in a long time Scoots, so if I do something wrong you're going to have to tell me, okay?”

Scootaloo nodded and grinned “Will do Dad,” The duo walked on in silence after that with the flightless filly following Inventor as they went, they turned down the road for the orphanage and the orange pegasus’s heart skipped a beat, nervousness coated her features as they got closer and closer to the place Scootaloo had been a long time resident in. And then they arrived at the orphanage.

And then they walked directly past it.

The look of relief on the foals face can’t be over exaggerated as she looked up at her dad. The new father returned a knowing smile of comfort and they continued on, a few houses down they turned and walked up to the door of a white house. With a wink to the young filly Inventor reached into one of his jacket pockets and pulled out a key. Putting the key and turning it the door opened slowly to reveal the dark interior.

Upon entering the house, though Scootaloo went at it a bit hesitantly, Inventor closed the door and dropped them both into pitch black. With the flick of a switch the lights turned on, the act of which was accompanied by a loud “SURPRISE!” Scootaloo stumbled backward and fell on her rear at the shock. The house was decorated with a large amount of party favors and in the middle of the picture from Scootaloo’s point were three ponies. Pinkie pie, who no doubt planned the party, stood in the middle. The pink party pony was flanked on either side by Sweetie Belle and Applebloom, all three of who were grinning ear to ear.

The party consisted mostly of the cutie mark crusaders off playing party games, but not before everypony at the party congratulated Scootaloo on her adoption. Besides the rest of the CMC and Pinkie this included Twilight, Applejack, and Rarity. As the party swung into full force Inventor found himself standing near one of the walls. Twilight made her way over levitating two cups of punch.

The lavender unicorn passed one into the human’s hand, who nodded his thanks in response for the drink. They stood silently for a few moments as they both took sips of their drinks, the mysterious clockwork beat still bouncing around the room. “You certainly wasted no time jumping into this adoption thing.” Twilight said to break the ice.

“I don’t regret it though, after me and the mayor worked out an arrangement for my job and this house I knew it was all going to work out.” Inventor paused to take a sip of his drink before continuing. “And besides Jo-, Scootaloo is a good kid.” Inventor looked at Twilight who was beginning to turn and face him. “You know,” Inventor said interrupting Twilight as she opened her mouth, “your bolstering of my reputation helped a lot in getting the deal worked out for the mayor. I owe you my thanks.”

“You're welcome,” Twilight said taking the hint to the let the situation drop, she found it in her duty to Scootaloo to say a few words on what she suspected Inventor had just hinted at however, “You can’t use her as a placeholder for something you lost Inventor.” Twilight said wisely, eyeing the haunted man out of the corner of her eye.

“She isn’t Twilight, she is much different in just about every regard, but when I was running away from those diamond dogs I was reminded of my daughter Joy. She was so innocent, she didn’t deserve what she got, and I miss her dreadfully. However, I know that Scootaloo is not Joy, and she deserves much more than being a placeholder in my heart. She is unique unto herself I assure you.”

Inventor paused in his explanation as he sighed and took a drink of the punch. “And even though she isn’t Joy, she still brings me quite a lot of it whenever I see her smile. I couldn’t just let her stay at that orphanage like some discarded toy, she should get more.” At this Twilight nodded in agreement and wandered back to the center of the party to chat with her friends.

The remainder of the night went by without much import, Rarity complained about how Inventor needed new clothes and that he should come by to get measured for a pair, Applejack told him that he should come by and get a few apples from her cart in the morning as a gift from a friend to a friend. To finish up the offers from Twilight's friends, Pinkie Pie assured the man that she would clean up the party when he was gone the next day. So, when the party ended, each of the party guests left with smiles on their faces.

Pinkie Pie was the last one to leave for the night and Inventor stopped her at the door, “How much do I owe you for the party Pinkie?” Inventor asked as he reached into his bag.

Pinkie put her hoof on his hand before he could pull his money out, “This one was free,” Inventor was about to reject the offer when the pink pony spoke again, “We’ll call it my gift to Scootaloo.” Inventor thought about that for a moment before nodding his thanks to the pink pony as she left with a smile on her face.

With a similar smile of contentment Inventor turned to face Scootaloo who was off in a corner of the room about to fall asleep, “Not gonna sleep in your bedroom Scoots?” Inventor said as his smile widened. Scootaloo looked up at him first with wide eyes before dashing off and up the stairs, excited with the prospect of getting her very own room. “On the right!” Inventor shouted up the stairs after her. Shaking his head while the smile clung to his lips.

Scootaloo ran through the door into her room quickly flipping the room light on and began to look at the room that was laid out before her. The walls and ceiling were painted a fiery orange to match her coat and the bed in the middle of the room was the same color, aside from the bed the only other things in the room were her small scooter that she had owned for about a year now that leaned against the far wall and a doll that sat in the middle of the covers on the bed.

The doll was a very childish design but the initials that were sewed onto its back made its value above that of any other doll that Scootaloo had ever seen. S.B. and A.B., Sweetie Belle and Applebloom. The young pegasus jumped onto the new mattress and curled up in her bed as she swiftly fell asleep with the new sleeping companion tight in her hooves.

Mere minutes later when Inventor scaled the stairs himself he checked into the room himself to see the pegasus sleeping contentedly on the new bed the doll held tight between her hooves. With a smile Inventor turned the light off in her room and let the house fall into the darkness before he closed the door behind him.

In the middle of the night as Inventor slept Scootaloo snuck into his room and closed the door behind her. The sound was enough to wake the man from his light sleep, “What’s the matter Scoots? Something wrong?” Scootaloo climbed onto the bed with the doll in her teeth before she spoke.

“I can’t get any sleep dad, everytime I close my eyes I dream that I’m back in the diamond dog cage and that I’m still starving to death.” Scootaloo said with a quivering tone. “and so I was wondering...” The pegasus’s voice fell off into an incoherent mumble as she spoke.

“You were wondering if you could sleep in my room tonight?” Inventor finished for her. Scootaloo looked at Inventor and nodded her head several times, “Of course you can Scoots, I wouldn’t like to dream of being in that situation any longer than absolutely necessary, which in this case would be not at all.” Scootaloo jumped up happily and landed directly on his stomach. Surprising Inventor as he left out an ‘oof’ from the sudden act.

“Just don’t tell anyone about this okay?” Scootaloo said as she drifted off into the sleep that had eluded her earlier that night. “Sweetie and Applebloom would never let me live it down.” There was a yawn and Scootaloo was out like a light and into the dreams of a happier variety as the soft clockwork ticking played its constant lullaby to led her away into dreams that came from a happier place.

“Wouldn’t dream of it Scoots,” Inventor replied softly with a smile to the already slumbering pegasus, Inventor stroked the purple mane of the pegasus filly a few times with his left hand before he let his it rest across her side and he fell into a shallow sleep for himself where the familiar mathematical equations moved around against the black backdrop, this time though the darkness seemed to have a bit more of an orange hue to it.

(Hope that did an apt job of explaining why Inventor adopted Scootaloo.)

Chapter Seven

“C’mon Scoots, wake up.” Inventor called to the pegasus who was still asleep on his chest. She groggily stirred in reply and Inventor smiled, with a couple nudges to her exposed sides she woke up with a look of impatience on her face. “It’s a school day Scoots, after all the days you missed while you were asleep, I think we should get there early to negotiate the make-up work with Cherilee. Don’t you?”

After a few minutes of preparation for both man and filly they eventually set out on their way towards the school. As they walked the streets the few ponies would look at the biped with looks of confusion and distrust. Inventor knew these looks, he had been receiving them since arriving in the small town, but he did as he always did and shrugged them off. Scootaloo, however, took notice and looked at each of the ponies in confusion.

“Why don’t they trust you dad? I know you look odd, but you saved me and they look at you like you might kill them on a whim if you felt like it.” said the orange pegasus with a confused look to Inventor. Inventor looked at the young filly with sad eyes and a half-hearted grin on his face, but didn’t answer her question. With only the mysterious ticking to follow them, father and daughter approached the school.

Upon entering Cherilee’s classroom the teacher herself was seated behind her class desk. With the sound of a door opening the instructor turned an expectant look to door only to have a look of disappointment at the human who stood in the doorway, when the orange filly came around him to enter the room Cherilee put on a fake smile and nodded to her.

“Sorry to interrupt your pre-class preparation Miss Cherilee, but me and my daughter wanted to talk about the make-up work that Scoots will have to do because of what she missed while she was at the hospital.” Inventor said evenly in an apathetic tone.

Cherilee’s fake smile briefly faltered at the tone of voice but the teacher hid it as she reached into a nearby desk with her mouth to pull out a packet of papers, she laid it on the desk in front of her before she spoke. “There it is Mr. Inventor,” Cherilee said. “Those are the assignments she missed, I will accept them anytime between now and next week.”

With a nod to the purple mare Inventor took the packet and dropped it into Scootaloo’s saddlebags. “Glad we took care of that, See ya after school to walk you home, okay Scoots?” With a nod from the orange filly Inventor left the room as his heavy footfalls echoed down the hallway and out the front door.

The school day was largely uneventful for Scootaloo. She tried to pay attention in class, but the snickers she was hearing from Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon refused to let her pay attention to anything besides her turmoiling conscience. However, the meaning of the quite laughs weren’t revealed until the lunch break.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders had just sat down at a table together for lunch when the mocking tones of the two bullies came within earshot. The pink and grey fillies approached the table with a sure stride as they talked between themselves. Upon arrival they began their usual torture of the three children.

“Hello Blank Flanks, what stupid idea did you have set to try and get your cutie marks today? Getting into the hospital again cutie marks?” Came the snide comment from the pink pony.

“Leave us alone Diamond Tiara, we’re just having lunch.” Scootaloo replied as she set her saddlebags on the table to see what Inventor had packed her to eat.

“Oh, the orphan is talking, tell me, has anyone taken any pity on the pegasus that can’t fly?” Diamond Tiara responded.

Scootaloo didn’t hear the insult as she dug through her saddlebags in vain looking for some kind of lunch. Inventor couldn’t have forgotten to pack her lunch could he have? Diamond Tiara was instead answered by Applebloom. “As a matter of fact she was adopted.” The yellow earth filly responded.

“Seems her parent forgot to pack her a lunch though, guess whoever it was doesn’t care after all huh?” Responded Silver Spoon with a smug grin as she noticed the increasingly frantic acts of the purple-maned pegasus as she dug through her saddlebags.

Before anything could be said or done in response a voice echoed over to the group from the fence that surrounded the outdoor playground. “Hey, Scoots!” The five fillies looked over to see Inventor easily step over the fence and approach the group with an odd circular plastic plate in his hand, the two bullies’ jaws dropped. Upon arrival he smiled at the Cutie Mark Crusaders before setting the plate on the table.

There was a heavy gasp as the three girls looked at the contents of the plate, sitting on it was a masterful arrangement of vegetables and fruit in a circle with a cup of dip sitting carefully in the middle. “I forgot about your lunch this morning so I decided to go out and buy something for ya. Didn’t know what you liked so I got a little of everything, I’m sure your friends will help you eat whatever you can’t.” Inventor smiled.

Inventor turned to leave and spoke. “Now I have to go, Twilight is helping me prepare for a seminar I’m going to be giving in Canterlot this weekend.” Inventor paused to look over his shoulder at the three fillies sitting at the table. “Oh that reminds me, do you want to come along Scoots? If you don’t I’m sure I can get someone to babysit.” Inventor said

The response was immediate as the orange filly managed to drag her attention away from the veritable gourmet course in front of her. “I would love to Dad.” the pegasus hesitated. “Is it okay if Sweetie and Applebloom come along?” She looked up to her adoptive father with a pleading look and he responded with an easy-going laugh.

“Of course they can come along, assuming of course that they ask their families and get their permission.” Inventor smiled at the eagerly nodding unicorn and earth pony. “Now I really must be going, Twilight will wonder what happened to me if I’m gone for too long.” As he left, the Cutie Mark Crusaders began to talk excitedly amongst themselves while munching on the wide variety of food that sat in front of them. Meanwhile Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon merely stood with dropped jaws for a few moments until they silently retreated to a table to eat until lunch ended.

The rest of the school day went by pretty uneventfully with the stunned silence of the bullies carrying back over into the classroom for the rest of the day Scootaloo was able to pay attention to the class and Ms. Cherilee’s lectures on the class work. The peace that the orange filly enjoyed couldn’t last for long though as the day ended and she was getting her stuff together to leave. As she went to leave she found her path was blocked off by the poison tongued torturers who had been silent for the past few hours of the latter end of class.

“So, your dad is an alien monster? I suppose that would explain why he decided to adopt a blank flank, flightless pegasus. He probably adopted you to try and make himself look more normal.” Diamond Tiara said with a voice that was dripping with undeserved hate.

“Yeah, it would take an outcast like your dad to adopt you.” Silver Spoon said with a mocking laugh. As several fillies slipped out of the class until the three of them were the only ponies remaining aside from the teacher. Applebloom and Sweetie Belle having left earlier in the excitement to ask their sister’s permission for the trip.

Scootaloo looked over helplessly at Cherilee who was conviently paying a large amount of attention to her desk. Scootaloo turned her head back to the bullies, “You can insult me all you like, but don’t you dare insult my dad, he’s braver and stronger and better than all of your -” Scootaloo was interrupted, something in the doorframe caught her eye.

Oblivious to the reason as to why Scootaloo had stopped mid sentence the two bullies continued on with their teasing, “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue? Better than all our what exactly?” Diamond Tiara teased with a laugh.

When no response came from the pegasus Silver Spoon spoke up, “I think we broke her, Come on Tiara let’s leave.” With an approving from the other filly they turned around and set to walk out the door with their heads held high and there eyes closed in fake superiority, only to run into something unyielding as stone.

Diamond Tiara was the first to recover from the unexpected obstruction, “Hey, who do you think you are, Standing in our wa-.” She was quieted when she saw what had blocked her dramatic exit, she slowly followed the unmoving body up with her eyes until she was looking a at face of a creature standing about four times her height when she was on all four hooves. The tall biped looked back down into the eyes of both fillies with something akin to a sad rage.

“Scoots,” The figure said, his dark gaze not leaving the two bullies who were now trying to make themselves as small as possible under his unyielding leer “let’s go.” The orange filly obeyed and exited the classroom somewhat hesitantly as an unnatural tension began to fill the room, Miss Cherilee turned to see the speaker and found herself looking into a similar gaze that had met the two fillies, albeit with more disappointment than anger. After a few seconds of looking into the teacher’s eyes Inventor left the doorway leaving the tension behind.

The man and the filly walked through town, Inventor’s steps unconsciously matching that of the clockwork beat that followed him around as he fell deep into thought, Scootaloo took notice and decided that she needed to say something to break her dad out of his silent reverie. A nearby ice cream shop caught the attention of the pegasus and she spoke up, “Hey dad, can we get some ice cream? The lunch you brought was nice, but I haven’t had ice cream in days.”

Inventor looked down at her with a smile, “Sure, let’s get some comfort food. I could certainly use some right now.” Scootaloo smiled in response as their path altered to go to the shop that the small pegasus had pointed out earlier. The little filly happily hopped behind the tall biped as she cheered with joy inside at the fact that she had achieved her goal of making her dad forget whatever was on his mind, if only for a moment.

Upon entering the store the owner turned his gaze from the ice cream bowl he was cleaning, a smile broke across his face as he saw the duo enter the shop to the sound of a small bell that hung above the door, “If it isn’t my favorite customer and her new dad, how ya doing Scoot?” he said cheerfully as he put the bowl away under the desk and walked over to the cash register, happy to have some customers in his currently empty shop.

“I’m doing great Lickety-Split, its been a good day.” Scootaloo said with a large smile. “Can I get the usual please, oh and one for my dad too, I’m sure he’ll love it.”

With a nod to Scootaloo, Lickety-Split turned his gaze to Inventor to make sure that he wasn’t going to object to the order. Inventor shook his head with a grin, turning his attention back to the ice cream pony, the human spoke up “I guess I’ll have what she just ordered me, my names Inventor by the way, It’s nice to meet you Lickety-Split.”

“Nice to meet you as well sir.” Lickety responded professionally with a polite nod as he turned away and began to fill two ice cream cones with a purple ice cream, while they waited the two customers approached a nearby table and settled down, after a few minutes Lickety-Split brought over the ice cream and laid it into front of the filly and the man before announcing he would be accepting the payment at the register when they were done.

The sound of a bell ringed announced the arrival of a new customer, turning to look Inventor saw a somewhat lanky creature that looked like a pony but was covered in stripes, “A zebra huh? That’s unique.” the man said out loud without realizing.

Scootaloo looked as well when her dad started talking about zebras, she happily waved a hoof to the new arrival. “Hey Zecora.” the pegasus said with a grin toward the odd inhabitant of the Everfree Forest.

Zecora returned the smile before speaking, “Hello again the young pegasus known as Scootaloo, one second before you tell me about the creature who sits with you.” With this line of rhyming dialogue the zebra walked over to the counter to order her ice cream, as she did so Inventor watched her with an amused smile.

After Zecora had finished her order she walked over to the duo and sat down, “So Scootaloo, tell me about your oddly shaped friend, if it’s against his rules to talk I’m sure that rule we can bend.”

Scootaloo was about to speak when she was interrupted by Inventor himself, “You seem to talk in rhyme, I find that very odd. But if you wish I could talk like it as well and, my own voice, mod.”

Zecora looked at the human as her smile widened, “Someone wishes to talk to me in a rhyme all their own, that’s something I have yet to have seen someone else shown.”

“I’m not normal, in fact I’m quite eccentric you see. As for my race I come from a group called humanity.”

“Humanity you say, that seems so weird. Nothing I’ve heard of suggest a group so mirror’d.”

“Well as you can see my flesh is near colored orange,” Inventor said but paused. A look of triumph flashed across the zebra’s face and Scootaloo quickly figured out what had just happened. Then Inventor clapped his hands in epiphany, “But I can assure you that I can operate a door hinge.”

Scootaloo sighed at the bad rhyme as the striped quadruped shook her head, with a look to her adoptive father Scootaloo spoke to the zebra. “He adopted me and saved me from diamond dogs, Zecora. We’re even going to Canterlot this weekend.” the pegasus said excitedly as she barely contained her happiness.

Zecora looked back at the human before standing from her seat, having finished her ice cream during the trade of rhymes, “It’s been nice to meet you, protector of fillies, but I really must go. We should talk again later when time is moving too slow.” she said as she stood from her laying position and stretched her muscles. Inventor noticed several strong muscles flex across the zebra but decided to ignore the fact that the rhymer apparently had enough muscle strength to rearrange his facial construction with one hoof.

“That’d be nice, I’ll ask around for where your house is so I can visit you, wouldn’t want to hold you up even more than I already have.” Inventor said as he dropped his rhyming pattern, with an agreeing nod from the zebra the talk had ended and Zecora walked up to the register, paid, and left the restaurant.

As soon as the zebra had left Scootaloo turned to Inventor, “Where did you learn to rhyme like that? You almost kept pace with Zecora, and she’s the best rhymer I know of.” the pegasus said with a smile.

“Being alone for years and years has a tendency to improve odd skills like rhyming in speech.” Inventor responded with a reminiscent look in his eyes as he finished his ice cream. Scootaloo looked at her father, realizing she didn’t really know anything about his past. Before any question could be asked Inventor stood from his sitting position and pulled out a stack of bits. “How about we head home Scoots, if I remember correctly you have quite a lot of homework to catch up on.” A depressed sigh accompanied this as Inventor paid for the ice cream and they went home.

The rest of the afternoon went without note as Scootaloo worked silently on her homework in her room, which had received a few additions while she had been gone to school for the day, including a small writing desk for her to do her homework on. Meanwhile Inventor toiled away rather noisily in the workshop, that had been converted from a room on the ground floor, after having told the pegasus to come knock on his door when she was going to sleep.

With a yawn Scootaloo laid her pencils to the side as she sidled off the chair to go set her papers inside her saddlebags for the next day. After that was done she drowsily made her way towards the door so she could go tell Inventor that she was going to be heading to bed now.

When she opened the door the orange filly found the man at the doorway and only then did Scootaloo realize the noise from his workshop had ended a while ago, “Sorry Scoots, I just couldn’t wait for you after I finished it.” Scootaloo raised an eyebrow but waited patiently as the human set down a light brown wooden box on the stand next to her bed, another addition to room since that morning. He opened it to reveal a small wooden disc, with a smile from Inventor he stuck a key into a hole at the back, twisting it a few times set the device in motion.

The noise that emanated from the wooden device told Scootaloo that it was a music box, “Is this for me?” Scootaloo asked looking curiously up at Inventor.

“Yup, it should help you get to sleep at night with having to fear about nightmares. Marvelous little device, a music box, it manages to contain enough gears and space in order to acoustically produce a series of sounds which play in the right rhythm for a piece of music, I always was did enjoy a well put together music box when I was your age.” the man said with a nod to the filly.

The young pegasus latched onto Inventor’s leg in a hug and looked up at her dad, “I love it, thank you.” With a smile from the man and a pat on the head Scootaloo climbed into her bed and brought her doll between her forehooves. With a smile to his adopted daughter Inventor made to leave the room when the pegasus called after him, “Hey, can you teach me how to do that stare you used on Diamond Tiara today. Ya know, so I can get her to leave me and my friends alone.”

The man paused in the doorway as the rhythmic ticking filled the void and forced silence away from the situation, “Nope,” came the eventual response of the human.

“Aw, why not?”

“It takes a long time to learn," Inventor paused for a moment before continuing "as well as a few specific circumstances that I would rather you never be exposed to.” With those words the techie turned off the light and went to his room, and, as promised, Scootaloo had only peaceful dreams that night as the music box turned away from the bedside table.

(Took me longer then I expected, I felt like I needed to reaffirm a few things with this chapter that I kinda just threw without thinking into my last chapter. This includes the fact that I needed to show that Scootaloo is still a tomboy as well as the fact that I gave the unintended impression of everyone just accepting Inventor on Twilight's word, Both were adressed in this chapter though perhaps not the extent I would have liked, I will continue to build on these and a few other things in the coming chapters, as always leave any critiques or comments you feel like, I promise I will read all of them.)

Chapter Eight

The remainder of the week went by quickly as Scootaloo as the Cutie Mark Crusaders were filled to near bursting with excitement at the prospect of a trip to Canterlot. Applejack and Rarity had agreed on letting their younger sisters go on the trip as long as Twilight and Rainbow Dash we’re going to be going since both older sisters had to stay behind for their jobs.

Twilight had planned on going to see how Inventor’s seminar would turn out and had arranged to leave Spike in charge of the library while she was gone. The cyan pegasus herself had plans in the capital as well in the form of going to see a Wonderbolts show, apparently this one was going to be a race followed by a stunt show afterwards. She had managed to convince Fluttershy to cover for her in any unlikely emergency weather conditions that were unlikely at best.

With the chaperones decided the three adventurous fillies had spent the majority of the week planning what they were going to while at the city on the mount. Sweetie Belle insisted on going to a musical performance, Scootaloo demanded they watch the Wonder Bolts with Rainbow Dash, Applebloom suggested that they go to a theatrical performance. All of which were fit into the schedule by Inventor as he planned out the trip.

Sooner rather then later the day came and the five ponies with the human counterpart were on their way to the Canterlot by train. It was still early morning as the group travelled the rails to the place where Inventor had met Twilight a week before. The wheels clicking on the train tracks repeated a strange melody with the clicking that followed Inventor around creating a haunting song that seemed to encourage the silence that reigned over the train car.

The silence was broken by Applebloom as she struggled to get some kind of conversation started, “So, Inventor, ah’m curious, what will you be doing a seminar on in Canterlot?”

Scootaloo spoke before Inventor had even opened his mouth, “More importantly, what’s a seminar?” the orange pegasus asked as she began to pace across the floor in anxiety.

“A seminar is an educational meeting Scoots, as for your question Applebloom the topic of my seminar will be application of, and ideology on, magical theory.” Inventor said as he began to stretch in his seat. “Which, in less advanced terms, basically means that I will talking about things that magic may be capable of doing under the hemisphere of plausible terms which I have discussed with Twilight that haven’t actually been done yet.” Inventor paused for a breath as he looked at Applebloom who had a confused look on her face.

“Not enough basic? Let me try again,” Inventor coughed and then continued “What can and can’t magic do.” Inventor settled back into his seat and looked over the room.

Rainbow Dash chose now to speak up, “Why do you do that?” Inventor responded with a quizzical look on his face. “Why do you go into extremely long and complicated explanations when you could just say a few words to say the same thing?” They cyan mare clarified.

Inventor smiled in the semi-silence that followed before he spoke, “There is a saying I used to say quite a lot that I applied to my life.” Inventor sat forward in his train seat before he spoke again, “Everything in life is clear as clockwork.” The train car lapsed once again into the cryptic melody from earlier as the car fell silent with the quiet thoughts of the passengers once again.

A few choruses the of song later and they had arrived at Canterlot, climbing off the train the trio of fillies with the trio of chaperones made their way toward the hotel that Inventor had booked for the weekend. As they walked through the city Inventor received one of two looks. Either people would look at him with confusion or, more commonly, with looks of fear.

Inventor was about to do something to encourage less fear but decided against it. Those ideas never worked out anyway. All the while, completely oblivious to the looks they were receiving for being with Inventor, the three fillies ran circles around their elders talking excitedly amongst themselves about everything that they had planned.

As they walked through the streets the normally crowded path was quickly vacated in front of the approaching party. “If I knew you got the entire world to part before you I would have come to Canterlot sooner just to meet you first.” Rainbow Dash joked as she walked alongside the man. “This is much nicer than being pushed around in a crowd.”

It was at this point that a stallion darted from the side streets and made his way hurriedly toward a building on the other side of the row. The old stallion was looking at his feet when he ran into the leg of Inventor. The pony fell backward onto his rear from the collision and looked up confused, “I’m so sorry sir, I didn’t see -” his speech stopped.

Inventor clutched his leg in pain, a pair of fillies slowly meandering into him was one thing, a fully grown stallion running headlong was quite the other. “Shoot, probably a break.” Inventor said with a grimace as he reached slowly into the bag that hung at his side, he was still wearing the same pair of clothes he had been wearing when he first arrived but he had found time to wash them when noone was looking, he never had taken Rarity up on that offer.

As he pulled a small green metallic orb from his pocket the crowd that had gathered around him inhaled a collective gasp, he sighed as he tapped that device against his leg. A green glow slowly spread across the injured limb, when it had covered the entirety of the wound a soft muffled grinding noise filled the air, Twilight gasped and Inventor grimaced in pain as the device did its job.

The stallion that had broke the man’s leg quickly finished his run into the building of his original destination but the crowd remained watching. Inventor stowed the green device back into his bag and cautiously began to flex his leg. Twilight spoke up at this point. “Was that grinding noise the sound of your bones rearranging back into their original position?”

Inventor could hardly speak and was gasping for air as if he had just come up from drowning, after a few seconds of this he turned and nodded in Twilight’s direction she continued her query, “Can you do that to any wound?” There was silence for a minute as Inventor finished collecting his breath to answer.

“Only my wounds and even then only wounds on the arms and legs, bar a few. Such as, for example, a compound fracture, if I try and repair that I do more damage than good.” Inventor said before looking to make sure the Cutie Mark Crusaders hadn’t wandered off.

His eyes fell on an orange pegasus who was looking at him with worried filled eyes, “You are okay now though, right dad?” there was a chuckle from Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo quickly corrected her statement, “Because if you’re such a wimp that you can’t take an ordinary run-in like that..” The nervousness in her voice did little to encourage that she was serious however and with his classic friendly smile inventor nodded to the filly.

After a moment more of stretching from the techie, they continued their journey. The crowd once again parted in front of the entourage as they began to move once more. The inn was right around the corner from where Inventor had taken a blow to the leg and the group gleefully accepted the lack of staring eyes filled with anxiety inside the relative calmness of the building.

As they entered the earth pony manager behind the front desk grinned back at them, the smile was fake and Inventor knew it but decided not to bust down the only defense the stallion had between him and the ‘monster’ that was slowly approaching. “Hello sirs and ma’ams, party of six for the Twilight group?” With a nod from the purple unicorn herself to confirm the registration the manager continued. “Rooms 340 and 341.” and with a quick of toss of keys to Twilight the earth pony disappeared into a back room.

The group began getting settled into the rooms that Twilight had reserved. Inventor, Twilight and Rainbow would share one room while the Cutie Mark Crusaders took the other. “They’re never going to go to sleep while we’re here you know.” Rainbow said to Twilight, who only nodded in return.

After the rooms were set up the inhabitants thereof quickly made to do whatever they were going to do to consume the rest of the afternoon until that night when the seminar would start. Inventor and Twilight stayed at the hotel to finish the remains of the seminar while the three fillies and Rainbow Dash went out to go watch the Wonderbolts that were performing that afternoon.

Scootaloo greatly enjoyed the Wonderbolts show, mostly because she got to listen to her idol give commentary about every little aspect of the show that caught her attention. This included the flying habits of every single one of the flying athletes and all the tricks they were known for. As the event ended the group made their way back to the hotel, Rainbow was excitedly reliving the show out loud and with a lot of stunt flying while Scootaloo watched on in awe. Sweetie Belle and Applebloom were happily discussing the events the next day that they were going to attend.

Upon arrival back at the hotel they found Inventor and Twilight already in the lobby, the man had a stack of papers under his arm has he stood waiting for the arrival of the quartet. When Scootaloo entered she ran quickly up to her dad and began to ramble off the events of the show she had gone to witness. Inventor smiled and ruffled her hair, he spoke as he turned to the other three members of the outing “So, we all set to go then?”

Upon confirmation from each of the individual ponies they set out on their trip toward the seminar hall, they arrived without incident and Inventor ran through his notes one last time before he was called on stage, “Well, here goes nothing then.” He said with a nod to his three companions. They watched silently from the shade at the side of the stage as he made his way into the limelight.

With a collective gasp from the assembled unicorns Inventor nodded, “I know the vast majority of you are now looking for the nearest emergency exit at the sight of me, so I guess I don’t have to remind you of that.” There was a soft laugh in the darkness at the rear of the assembled ponies.

“I am here to discuss with you today the aspects of magic theology. I understand that many of you don’t trust me by appearance alone and I can quite agree with you. That is quite a normal reaction for you to have, however I would like for you all to put aside your stereotypes and listen with open minds.”

After a silence from the crowd that Inventor determined was an acceptance of that condition he continued, “Now, due to the basics of magic that we are all familiar I would like to discuss the extent of magical grasp and its use in the medical field, such as holding a patient’s veins to ensure that they don’t roll during an injection. -” Inventor spoke loudly and with courage as he continued his seminar.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders quickly became bored of the speech, even Scootaloo who at first had been enraptured by listening to her dad. The orange pegasus talked in low tones to her two friends, “We should go explore Canterlot at night, we might get our cutie marks for midnight adventuring!”

“Ah dunno Scoot, I think that sounds really dangerous.” Applebloom said, voicing her concerns for the shadey idea that the purple-maned filly had suggested.

“C’mon Applebloom, It’ll be fun!” Sweetie said with a voice crack.

“All right I guess, but if we get in trouble I’m not taking the blame.” the yellow earth pony responded.

There was a moment of silence as they all looked at each other. Then, with a quiet hoof bump and a hushed call of “Cutie Mark Crusaders Nighttime adventurers yay!” they walked out the back door under the loud cover of an applause as Inventor called Twilight out onto the stage to demonstrate one of his suggestions.

About thirty minutes later the trio of adventurers found themselves on a completely unfamiliar street as odd sounds circulated through the night atmosphere. Sweetie was the first to fall the the nightmarish suggestion as she froze in her steps, the other two went back to comfort her when they too succumbed to it and all three of the fillies curled up scared on the side of the street.

A mare walked up to the three ponies that had curled up in the cold air, “Are you okay?” She asked the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Scootaloo looked up at the voice in surprise and noticed her cutie mark, a pair of crossed wrench behind a gear.

After she took notice of that she turned her attention back to the female pony that stood above her she spotted wings, announcing her as a pegasus, after she noticed this Scootaloo spoke, “Could you help us get back to the convention seminar place miss? My dad is probably worried sick right now.” With a nod and a smile from the adult they began to urge the other two fillies back to their feet, with that done they began to head out in the direction of the seminar.

The seminar had finished almost immediately after Twilight had done her demonstration, the three missing children was noticed almost immediately and the chaperones decided to split their search into three separate parts. While Rainbow Dash took to the air, Twilight teleported randomly through town trying to capture a glimpse of them, this left Inventor with only one choice of searching, running madly in one direction.

After a minute or two of running directly south Inventor spotted the trio of ponies being escorted by a pegasus mare, his speed increased and the man ran toward the newly spotted fillies, as he approached a look of concern ran across the face of the adult escorting them and before Inventor had time to say anything he had received a full force buck to the chest, as he flew helplessly through the air the stillness of the night echoed a horrid shattering filled the air. “That would be my pocketwatch, oh well, I didn’t really care what time it was anyway. No more invisibility though, I’m going to miss that.” the madman said though his voice was drowned out as the wind whistled past him.

After hitting the road and skidding a few feet of cobblestones on his back he came to a stop, he heard a familiar voice speak hurriedly from the direction he had been heading before taking a double hoof powerhouse smash to the chest, his head heard and a ringing noise echoed through his ears, “Phones for you honey,” He murmured incoherently as he laid on the road. Not one minute later his vision was filled with the outline of his assailant and his daughter.

“Why the crap are ponies so friggin strong?” Inventor said to the taller of the two silhouettes, then he turned his attention the flightless filly, “Heya Scoots, I’m going to pass out now, if you could get me some kind of help that would be great.” Inventor mumbled before blacking out as his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

The apologetic mare quickly managed to heave the unconcious man onto her back with his face up and walked him toward the the nearby hospital that glowed from the 24/7 lights inside the establishment. It was at this point that Applebloom noticed that there seemed to be metal joints attached to her two back limbs, which bent as the adult pegasus lead the way.

After a few moments of loud argument between the pegasus chaperone, who turned out to be named Crimson Turn, and the night manager of the hospital a room was finally set up for the less than peacefully sleeping Inventor, Scootaloo depressedly walked outside and sat on the bench near the entrance to the medical building, before long she was joined by Sweetie Belle and Applebloom. They sat in the still of the night for a while before Sweetie Belle spoke up, “It’s not your fault you know.” Scootaloo only managed a slow nod while she kept her eyes focused on the road in front of her.

A few moments later a pop was heard and all three of the fillies looked in front of them as Twilight Sparkle smiled back, a minute later Rainbow Dash managed to land safely in front of the hospital and the Cutie Mark Crusaders relayed the story to the two chaperones, the two mares, in turn, explained how Rainbow had seen the fillies on the bench and had managed to get the message to Twilight.

After the stories were traded by both sides both groups entered the hospital and made their way to Inventor’s room, outside of the door, sitting on the floor, was the mare who had kicked him in the first place. She was staring blankly at her legs and their metal attachments. Scootaloo nuzzled up to the mare and broke her from her silent reminiscence, and then time passed like it always does. Slowly, and in the right direction.

(I had to fight the very forces of the internet to put this up, 502 and 504 errors closed in on me from all directions. I determinedly pushed forward, "I have to bring this chapter to my readers." I repeated to myself as a mantra, even now I suspect that FimFiction is against my very soul in this endeavor, this internet will meet the full wrath of my technical genius though, never before has it experienced such an amazing combination of pressing the refresh button and patience. And now, here you are, chapter 8 - N64Fan)

Chapter Nine

(A little bit of blood is mentioned in this chapter, no fighting or gore mind you, just a warning for anyone who might want to avoid it, skip the paragraph with the red orb. -N64Fan)

It was the morning after the incident and Scootaloo walked with Crimson Turn and the doctors as they headed toward the hospital room Inventor had been placed in. The goal was to remove his clothing and check for wounds on his skin. It had been a long night and the other ponies in the hospital had been taken care of first before they had even agreed to look at the odd monster that had come in with a white shirt stained red.

The medical ponies had insisted that both pegasi be there for the examination as they had both been direct witnesses to the act and might be able to help locate the wound, upon cutting open the red shirt that covered his chest that was hardly necessary. Metallic shrapnel had been lodged in his chest when his pocket watch had shattered, blood was already pooling around the shallow wounds.

The red pegasus gasped as she looked at the wound she had caused, inside her mind the mare began to berate herself and her own actions, reliving all the time her parents had said that she couldn’t do anything right. Her self-punishment was interrupted when Scootaloo stood next to her. When she looked down at the small filly a look of determination met her eyes, with a soft nod the red pegasus reaffirmed herself and looked once again at the unconscious human body on the table in front of her. A small glint near the sleeve of his shirt caught her eye.

“Do you think you could cut open his sleeve as well? I think I saw something there.” Crimson asked the doctors had she narrowed her eyes at the spot where the glint had been only moments before. The hospital staff talked among themselves for the briefest of moments before they cut open his sleeve as well. The result left the doctors shocked, Crimson looking on in awe and Scootaloo glancing quickly between all the adults with a confused look as she tried to spot what everyone was looking at, her height working against her.

“b-b-b-but that’s not even possible!” One of the doctors sputtered as the clockwork ticking echoed around the room. “That breaks all rules of gear work, no magic is even being used to keep the thing working correctly!”

“That’s amazing.” Crimson said with her mouth agape, she could hardly believe she was looking at what the creature had used to replace a missing arm, a basic container had been made out of half rotted wood and scrap iron to keep the parts intact but behind it Crimson could make out an entire mechanical limb running on nothing but cogs.

Scootaloo managed to climb up the edge of the bed using what little lift she could get from her wings as she pushed herself up the side. “That explains so much, I always wondered where that ticking came from.” the orange pegasus said nonchalantly.

A sharp inhale broke from the body that lay on the bed as it’s eyes danced around the gathered faces, many of which were looking at the now awake man who should have by all rights been dead. Bar two faces that is, a red pegasus was staring completely enraptured at his mechanical arm which was now in full view. The other was Scootaloo and Inventor breathed a brief sigh of relief. “Scoots, can you get a glowing red orb from my bag please.”

With a quick nod from the filly she clambered into the bed and over to the bag which lay at Inventor’s side. She pulled out a red orb from the bag and Crimson Turn’s attention was immediately grabbed by this odd device. “Right, now hold it just above the pieces that are in my chest if you would be so kind.” Following her dad’s instructions the young pegasus did so. There was a soft hum for a moment then all the pieces shot out the wound and locked onto the red orb, they all attached to the outside of the device with a loud ‘clang’.

Scootaloo almost fell backwards from the sudden noise, a burst of blood came out with the pieces and Inventor let out a gasp of pain before the blood settled back on his chest. “Right, now then,” Inventor turned his gaze over to the doctors. “Do you think you could bind this for me? I need to get going, Scootaloo here has to go to a few meetups with her friends for the weekend and, knowing her, she wouldn’t leave my bedside for the entire weekend if I was in the hospital.”

The doctors were stunned for a minute, then one of them spoke up, “We can’t let you go, you’re bleeding heavily and I highly doubt you can stand.”

“Oh pshaw, I’ve been better after worse, I’ll be fine.” Inventor said as he reached his organic arm up into the air. “See? Perfect motor control, now if you wouldn’t mind, oh never mind I’ve lost more blood then I thought.” Inventor blacked out again as his arm fell down to his side.

With a shake of her head, both to clear her mind and in response to the actions of the weird creature Crimson Turn turned to the medical ponies that we’re all looking dumbfoundedly at the human. “Just take care of him by staunching the blood flow, I’m sure he’ll be fine. Right Scootaloo?” She asked as she turned her gaze to the pegasus filly who nodded affirmatively in response.

After a few more moments of hesitant glances between the doctors they began treating the chest wound. The two pegasi left the room and returned to the lobby where they found Rainbow Dash sitting agitatedly on one of the chairs, the two other fillies and the librarian having left to go to the theatrical performance that Inventor had planned. The cyan pegasus had disagreed to go with them to the theatre that she had viewed as boring.

She immediately realized her mistake when she was left alone in the empty lobby. The cyan pegasus was happy to have someone to talk to as she had been told off by the receptionist that she couldn’t fly in the lobby. “So how’s he doing?” She asked excitedly almost blowing over the other two pegasus with a mad dash before they could respond.

Scootaloo made to respond to the energetic athlete’s question but was cut off by Crimson Turn. “He has the most amazing mechanical device I’ve ever seen and he’s using it as a spare limb! Those other inventions as well, that creature is a genius inventor.” She blurted out, “The amazing turning of those cogs dancing a perfect tango to the ticking sound, so inspired.”

Scootaloo and Rainbow looked at Crimson with raised eyebrows, the cyan mare was the first to speak, “I’m guessing you are an inventor too?” With a blushed nod from the red pegasus Rainbow smiled “Great, now there’s two of you, because one didn’t confuse us enough, Inventor and you are going to get along great.”

“His name is Inventor? That sounds like a weird hybrid between pony names and griffin names or something, and it sounds completely made up,” Crimson replied to which Rainbow slowly nodded.

Scootaloo spoke up, “You two sound different though, you both speak about technology with the same kind of....” Scootaloo paused as she searched for the word, “passion, but when he talks about it it’s more of a confusing smart and long worded explanation while when you speak it’s more of a confusing artistic... thing. Both of you are so weird.”

There was a brief silence before Rainbow spoke up “Wait, one of his body parts is actually an invention? Well I guess that would explain the ticking.”

“Yeah, his right arm is actually clockwork,” Crimson said with a nod, “Pretty cool if you ask me.” The cyan mare nodded in agreement. “Oh, how rude of me I forgot to introduce myself earlier, my name is Crimson Turn and yours is?”

The cyan mare puffed her chest out as she stood on her hind legs, “Rainbow Dash, fastest flier in all of Equestria, but of course you’ve probably heard of me.”

“Can’t say I have.” The red mare returned which caused the prideful mare to deflat her chest in defeat, “Of course I really don’t talk to anyone besides my customers since my parents disowned me. And even then it’s usually just to barter about the price of an object that they had accepted to pay full price for earlier.”

The introductions between the three of the ponies continued on through the afternoon as Rainbow bragged about all the tricks that she knew and was going to perform for the trials to get into the Wonderbolts. Scootaloo listened intently to the cyan mare’s dreams and aspirations occasionally throwing in a few comments of her own, Crimson just sat on a chair a looked at a wall with her eyes glazed over.

The newest discussion about Rainbow’s tricks had been raging on about her Buccaneer Blaze when the trio of ponies who had left earlier arrived back at the hospital, another round of introductions followed between the new arrivals and Crimson before the conversations broke off into a few seperate discussions. It was in the middle of one of these that a nurse came down to inform them that Inventor was healing rapidly and would be good to leave in the morning.

Rainbow, Twilight, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle left for the hotel leaving Scootaloo and Crimson behind in the hospital to be there to greet Inventor when he woke up. After a few good nights from all the ponies they each headed off to bed. Which, for the orange and red pegasus, meant the floor of the hospital. A few times before she fell asleep Scootaloo tried to start a discussion with the inventor pegasus but her questions were answered shortly and eventually the purple maned pegasus decided to go to bed. Eventually the mechanic pony did as well to the memories of her foalhood.

Scootaloo’s dreams started off alright as she was running around with the rest of the Cutie Mark Crusaders trying to find their special talents. This particular one involved running through town and, try as she might, the orange pegasus couldn’t keep up with her friends who ran gleefully off into the darkness and left her behind. The darkness began to laugh at the flightless pegasus and the voices of Silverspoon and Diamond Tiara started harassing her.

She curled into a small ball to try and protect herself from the insults as the darkness enclosed around her, just as she was scared that the darkness was going to collapse in on her and consume her a ticking noise filled the air. She raised her head to see Inventor walking towards her, his trademark smile on his face. As he approached the darkness around her seemed to run away, scared of this new arrival.

She ran to Inventor and he caught her in his arms and put her on his mechanical shoulder, “I would never leave you unless I knew you could handle yourself, you know that right?” The man said as the two walked on. Not long after the statement both Applebloom and Sweetie Belle came running back to join the duo and apologized for accidentally leaving her behind. The rest of the dream went by peacefully as she ran around, never finding her cutie mark but always happy after they had done some daring trick.

As the light began to trickle in from the door at the front of the hospital Scootaloo opened her eyes and smiled, that had been a good dream. She realized she wasn’t on the floor of the hospital where she had fallen asleep. Her eyes drowsily drifted around the room until it settled on the source of what had moved her last night. Inventor lay with his eyes closed and leaning against a chair back, he had somehow pieced his shirt back together and Scootaloo now laid against his chest as she rested on his mechanical arm which was covered to the wrist with his shirt but left his hand fully exposed due to a missing glove.

With a smile the orange pegasus lightly stepped off out of his arm and moved over to a nearby chair, the man’s eyes flicked open and he smiled at Scootaloo, “Sorry about that Scoots, I was having issues getting to sleep last night, I couldn’t think up any mathematical equations to keep my mind busy so I came down here, you were writhing in your sleep and so I picked you up and sat in the chair, seems I drifted off at some point.”

Scootaloo only smiled in return as the man stretched out both of his arms into the air, “So,” Inventor continued “Who’s our insanely powerful mare here?” the madman asked as his gaze drifted over to the red pegasus who was asleep on the ground.

“She’s Crimson Turn, and she invents for her job, she knows quite a bit about clockwork, you should have seen how she was complimenting on your arm.” Scootaloo said with a yawn, “She called you a genius inventor.” Scootaloo added as an afterthought.

“Funny, I would have called her the same thing.” Inventor replied as he looked around his room from his position on the chair, “Quite a nice room isn’t it Crimson?” the man asked then paused and looked at the mare, “You can stop pretending to be asleep you know, you’re horrible at it.”

The red pegasus opened her eyes and looked at Inventor, “What gave me away?” She asked the human.

“Your eyes weren’t in R.E.M state, hardly believable.” Inventor replied.

“And? There are stages in between said state where the eyes don’t move. You can’t possibly have known I was actually awake.”

“Perhaps, but at the same time the rotationary period for the cycles is pretty basic and there are signs that give away the other stages.”

“That theory is debunked and I can see in your smile that you know it.”

“I have no idea what’s going on,” Scootaloo interrupted “Or what you two are even discussing anymore.” the orange filly turned to face Inventor, “You said she was a genius inventor, what did you mean by that?”

Inventor looked happy that the conversation had been changed and gladly quenched the curiosity of the young pegasus, “She is working in a field that was usually ignored by almost all humans. She’s working in the field of bio-appropriate tech, she’s making tech that works with the body rather than on the assumption that the body is gone.” Inventor turned with a look of appraisal to the mare, “Those jacks on your legs that allow you the ability to walk are quite advanced and have my jealousy I hope you know.”

A brief break in sound followed in between clockwork beats where the mare blushed which was luckily blocked out by her coat color while Inventor mumbled to himself, “Crimson Turn, Blood Gear.” The mare flinched subconsciously at the second name but Inventor seemed not to notice as his smile faded, “But what’s in a name right? Just loose memories that are better off forgotten.”

Silence tried to cover the room but was beaten back by the continual rhythm of the artificial appendage, the half-silence continued until the quartet of ponies who had gone to the hotel returned. A smile emerged on Inventor’s face once again at the sight of his friends. “Good to see everyone is safe and sound, no one worried too much for me I hope?”

Rainbow was the first to respond, “Nah, you’re too tough for someone as cool as me to worry about you. You singlehandedly saved a filly from a random group of diamond dogs, if a single buck to the chest took you down I would have to have someone else go to the funeral for me out of shame.”

Twilight walked slowly up to Inventor before her horn began to glow, she raised his mechanical hand up off the chair rest and folded back the sleeve to get a better look at the inner workings. “Just as Crimson told us yesterday, that is indeed quite the advanced piece of work you have there on what is left of your shoulder. Too bad we’ll never hear the story of how you lost your original.” The purple mare said with a tense tone to her voice.

Inventor’s smile faltered once again before he could replace it with a fake grin to make everything look alright, ignoring the second part of the librarian’s statement Inventor began to talk, “Indeed, it took me awhile to figure out how to get a continuous or near continuous piece of motion that would move along with my thoughts, I utilized the basis idea of electronic pulses from brain waves in order to directly influence the moving of the arm, I installed just such a converter into my shoulder and then applied a receiver on the inside of the upper arm to control the movements.” Everyone except Crimson listened vaguely to the ramblings they were getting used to hearing. The red mare however was enraptured.

“How did you manage to overcome the constant evil of entropy using a system of gears, it seems like it would require to be wound every four minutes.” She said.

“Ah,” Inventor said as he tapped the side of his nose with his metal hand, “That was why I made highest use of gravitational torque in addition to the theological entropic side energy that’s given off as heat.”

“Ugh, told ya, two of them,” Rainbow said while she rolled her eyes.

“Regardless,” Twilight said as she looked back at the two technologically inclined personalities as they chatted happily, occasionally one would interrupt the other to ask about a specific aspect of the other’s field. “We should get going so we can get to that musical act for Sweetie Belle.”

After a few more minutes of discussion the group had signed Inventor out of the hospital and all seven of the bodies made their way toward the musical hall planning on buying a seventh ticket for Crimson upon arrival. When the group had arrived at the concert hall they managed to snag a spot for the red pegasus with the rest of the group.

As they stood patiently in line and waited for the time when they could take their position in the hall the ponies behind them began to move to the side, Curious as to the commotion Inventor turned his head with a raised eyebrow to see what had caused the ponies to give up their precious positions in line. It didn’t take long before a loud voice announced the answer to the man’s silent question.

“I, Prince Blueblood, demand all commoners out of my way so I may enter the theatre.” The voice called, full of pretentiousness.

Inventor made no movement to suggest he was going to be shifting, instead he turned the rest of his body to face the approaching white unicorn. The unicorn stopped and looked at Inventor expectantly, the ponies in the man’s group backed away shyly from the incoming confrontation. “I demand that you move you monster.”

Scootaloo spoke up defensively from behind the imposing silhouette of her dad, “What gives you the right to go around treating others like that?” the orange pegasus said before anyone could stop her, Twilight conjured a zipper on her mouth and closed it.

“As Prince, I demand that you monster and your lowly commoners depart from your position so I may enter this theatre.” The white unicorn repeated.

Inventor was directly in front of the pretentious royalty when he pulled his now clenched mechanical hand back and the gears inside it began to give off a whirring hum, “Insult my friends one more time and I’ll make it look like a blender ate your face then spit it back up.” The man threatened.

“Is this how all monsters act? In defense of their worthless friends for pointless reasons?” The prince asked.

“What was that? All I could hear you say was ‘oh yes, please turn my face into a smoothie.’” Inventor spat the words at the white unicorn. Both of the two fell into a glare, each one mustering a large amount of rage into their eyes. Before long the crowd began to unconsciously surround the two combatants not wanting to miss any of the actions.

“Wo wo wo, break it up,” A voice called and the crowd began to spread out once again to make room for the new arrival, as he entered the circle the blue unicorn shook his head, “Blueblood I thought we went over this, you can’t command my customers, now leave before I have to inform the princess of your actions, again.” With a harrumph the prince stormed off and around the corner, as soon he was out of sight a cheer erupted from the gathering of ponies and Inventor smiled.

“Looks like you have the crowd on your side.” The blue unicorn said to Inventor, “Now go on in and enjoy the show, you look like you deserve it.” Inventor could hardly focus on the musical act as the night ran past him, all he could remember was a very talented mare playing beautifully on the violin. The most important thing was that the people of Canterlot didn’t view him as some deadly monster anymore, or at least they didn’t right now and the lack of critical staring made Inventor once again feel like he belonged somewhere, a feeling that he hadn’t felt in at least a century.

Chapter Ten

(Because updating at insanely late times is how real men write their stories, Oh YEAH! - N64Fan)

Inventor leaned back in the chair in his workshop back in Ponyville with a smile on his face, Scootaloo had gone to bed for the day recently and it had left the human alone with his thoughts. after standing up to Blueblood the word had spread quickly through not only the capital but also to Rarity, who was always one to listen quickly to gossip, after hearing about the incident the fashion stylist had done two things.

First, she had told the rest of the residency of ponyville, if not through her own actions then through the words of her friends. Secondly though, she had put together an entirely new outfit for Inventor, she had always intended to but the man had always declined her offer. This was an offer she had refused to let be refused. Of course when Inventor had arrived to pick it up the additional fact of one of his arms being metal recalled a few minor adjustments but she had managed those in mere minutes and Inventor had left dressed in an entirely new outfit.

Inventor’s smile widened as he recalled the dress maker’s actions, she did indeed deserve all the praise she had received from everyone who bought her dresses. Not only had the white unicorn made the entire outfit from memory but she had even made a top hat. The madman ran his finger across the brim of the hat in deep thought as he began to ponder what invention to install into the wonderful headgear first.

As he did a spark of stray energy jumped off the hat the same color as Rarity’s magic, Inventor froze as several equations jumped into his mind and he practically jumped forward in the chair as he bent over the workstation, he set the hat to the side and frantically began scribbling down a design on the paper in front of him. After several hours of scratching away at the paper with graphite and eraser he put it to the side and began to bring down sheets of metal.

Scootaloo knocked on the door to tell Inventor she was going to be heading out, when the man answered the door his hair was a mess yet his clothes remained perfectly set due to Rarity’s magic. It wasn’t a new occurance though, Inventor had pulled a few all nighters before the trip to Canterlot the weekend before. “Just came to tell you that I’m heading to school, hope you finish whatever you’re working on.”

“Alright Scoots, be nice and don’t follow my example.” Inventor said with sad smile at the pegasus, he knew he wasn’t the best role model but he always tried. “Try and solve things peaceably before you get angry.” the orange pegasus nodded and left, he had been telling her the same thing since his run-in with the two bullies from school and Scootaloo had taken the ideology to heart.

Scootaloo was heading towards the school and had just closed her eyes for a blink when a flash of unicorn magic teleported her away randomly, when she opened her eyes she was trapped in a purple prison and a blue mare was sitting just outside clutching her head and crying. “I can’t control my magic, ugh why is this happening?”

The day ticked by for Inventor as he worked on the odd blueprint that sat in front of him, occasionally he would shake his head and erase parts of the design to replace them with others. Eventually the blueprint was complete and Inventor put his dress clothes to the side, wearing an undershirt and his old pair of pants the madman got to work on the device.

Several hours later as Inventor finished the machine he smiled, a small ring like object sat in front of the man and he picked it up, turning it carefully under the light the human examined the length of the object multiple times looking for flaws. It looked like a ring made of copper with a steel on the inside. With a glance at the clock the man’s smile dropped and his eyebrow raised. “Scoots should have been home at least an hour ago, where has she gone?” Inventor said to no one in particular.

With a quick change of clothes and a newly made ring Inventor left to go check the farm and Rarity’s boutique for the orange pegasus, as he left the house he noticed the two mares heading in his direction already. “That’s not a good sign...” Inventor said to himself as he locked the house and headed off toward the two approaching mares.

“I don’t suppose you two are coming to tell me that your sisters have my daughter over for a party...” Inventor asked, when a negative was answered by both older sister’s Inventor held up his pointer finger, “One second.” Inventor quickly entered his house again and came out with a compass-looking device. “This should pick up on the tracker that I made for her.” Both sisters looked at the man questioningly, “Don’t give me that look, she agreed to it as well you know, It’s not like I’m spying on her or anything.”

The trio of one man and two mares approached the everfree forest with the odd device in Inventor’s hand wobbling back and forth slightly while still managing to give advice about the correct way to go. As they entered the forest the device leveled and the arrow pointed straight ahead. “There we go, wonderful place this forest, somehow manages to block magical interference. I really need to figure out how it does that. I wonder if Zecora would know, I do have a meeting planned with her tomorrow.”

The man paused and looked at his traveling companions who were both busy paying attention to the trees that were on either side of the trio, “Ah dunno Inventor, this place seems like the last thing ah would want to get info on.” Applejack said as she looked back at the human before immediately turning her gaze once more to the trees on the left side of them.

Rarity, for her part, was managing to keep herself composed as they walked through the forest though her gaze was also focused on the dark treeline to the right. “Indeed, this place is absolutely horrid dear, so rampant and uncivilized, I don’t think I will ever understand why Zecora leaves in this place, or for that matter, why Fluttershy lives so close to it.”

Inventor was quiet for a moment as they walked on before he began to sing a soft melody that both Rarity and AJ had to strain their ears to hear.

“Into the forest, long lost love professed upon the hearts of star-crossed lovers blest.
A few more souls have met their rest.
Do not fear the evil that lives in the trees at the sides of the path,
it misses the light that it once had.”

Sang the man under his breath,

“To her smile the beauty that caused me to sway,
To her desires I could never answer nay.
I miss her as the days run by and my time draws near,
yet my courage is for truth that death is nothing to fear.”

The two mares on either side of him began to relax slightly at the oddly comforting melody and the walked on, in the distance Inventor spotted a flash of purple light that broke him from his song. Rarity and AJ looked at him wondering why he had stopped when he suddenly took off running.

The two clambered after him with Rarity pulling up the rear, upon breaking through the line of bushes that blocked the view Inventor came to an abrupt stop as he took in the situation almost causing the apple farmer to run into him. In the clearing ahead of them there was a blue unicorn mare crying as she curled up in a ball and behind her were three cages, containing Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo.

Inventor was about to run into the clearing and attack the unicorn when he caught Scootaloo’s eye, she looked at him with worry, not for herself, but for the unicorn that lay curled in a ball. “Don’t hurt her, she’s just confused. I think her magic is messing with her head or something, she says she can’t control it.” The orange pegasus blurted out.

Inventor glanced once more at the unicorn who had raised her head to see who the new arrivals were, at the sight of the human the unicorn began to try and back away in vain as she couldn’t get enough force into her hooves to actually move anywhere. As she sat up Inventor noticed that she was suffering from malnutrition. Memories of his first meeting with Scootaloo sprang to mind.

Inventor cautiously approached the unicorn as worry grew on her face, “Don’t come any closer, I have a lot of magically power right now and I’m not entirely sure I can guarantee you’ll live.” The blue mare called to the creature that was advancing on his location.

Inventor continued his approach until he was directly in front of the scared unicorn, “Would you like me to lock down your magic, at least until you can get it back under control?” Inventor asked, there was a pause while the mare processed what he had just said then she nodded. With a nod of his own in return Inventor took the ring off his middle finger and placed it carefully on the unicorn’s horn.

For a moment nothing happened, then a pulse of blue magic echoed around the clearing, Inventor took the full force of the blow and he bent over on his knee. After everyone recovered it was revealed that a few things had happened. First, the mare was sleeping soundly on the ground at Inventor’s feet. Secondly, The Cutie Mark Crusaders were on the ground, the cages having vanished in the pulse of energy. Thirdly, magic static sparks were dancing across the length of the Inventor’s fake arm.

There was silence for a moment before the silence was broken by the human, “KNEW IT!” He yelled triumphantly and turned to face Rarity, “You see, magic is kept in two separate yet similar states in a unicorn’s horn. First, there is the raw magic that covers all basic magic usage such as levitation and a few other magical areas. The other is refined magic, it is what is used for more advanced magic. Now the thing about both of these forms of magic is that they leave behind a residue when they are used. A highly unstable residue.”

Inventor paused and Rarity looked at him like was insane, “Right, I’ll just talk to Twilight about it later.” The man turned back to the unicorn that lay sleeping near his feet, “Anyone know who this mare is?” he asked as he picked her up and slung her over his mechanical shoulder.

Applejack was the first to answer, “It looks like Trixie, she came into town and began boasting about all the magnificent acts that she had done, a lot of which she lied about.” The farmer said with a huff, “But, she is in really bad shape and I never was one to do something kick a dog while they’re down.”
It was quickly decided that Twilight would care for the blue mare, this decision was of course made without Twilight to vote making it unanimous. Upon arrival at the door they told the librarian the details of the events and that Inventor and the rest of her friends were going to be helping with the care as well, they had just decided that she should be under the watchful care of the only unicorn in the town known to defeat her in regards to magic.

Applejack and Rarity left with their younger sisters leaving Scootaloo and Inventor at the library with Twilight, Inventor was quick to begin his explanation of his anti-magic ring. “So you see, because of this unstable residue if too much magic is cast to quickly the buildup will cause a chain reaction, like how if you turn the lights off and on really fast a bulb blows out.”

Inventor paused and looked to Twilight who seemed riveted by the human’s discovery on magic, “So what my ring does is it reverts the residue left on a unicorn’s horn into an opposite charge meaning that it binds the magic and subdues it rather than increasing it to rampant levels.”

Twilight asked a few questions in regards to how he had found the discovery and had Spike write it down in a letter for the princess, after a few more questions for the inquisitive unicorn Inventor and Scootaloo began to head back home, “Adventure every day huh Scoots?
the man said as they walked along.

“Always, Dad. Always.” The orange pegasus replied, “Dad,” Scootaloo paused, unsure whether to continue the conversation or not. Eventually she did “Did you have a family before you came here?”

“Yes, I did.”

“So you just left them behind when you came here?”

“No,”

“So then, they had moved on to the next life right?”

“Yes.”

“Do you ever miss them?” As the orange pegasus asked the question the man’s eyes drifted up to the stars above them, he looked back at Scootaloo with tears in his eyes. The question was never answered verbally but Scootaloo saw the longing in his eyes when he had looked at her.

“And you?” Inventor asked, “What ever happened to your parents?”

Scootaloo sighed, “From what I heard from Miss Caretaker they just left me behind and ran away.” the orange pegasus turned to see what Inventor’s response was to this, to her surprise a smile was splayed across his face.

“Joke’s on them, I adopted the best filly ever.” The orange pegasus returned the smile and the two of them soon arrived back at the house. They each went off to their separate rooms to sleep for the night and they both drifted off, Scootaloo to the music from the music box that still sat on the bed table, and Inventor to the thoughts that danced through his head.

The morning of the next day went by without much of a hitch, Inventor walked Scootaloo to school again to make sure she got there without much of an issue then returned back to the home for a few minutes before deciding to go see the librarian down the lane and ask in on the random pony they had brought in.

Upon arrival a groggy Spike answered the door and ushered Inventor inside, Inventor sat down and watched as the sleepy dragon began to make breakfast. Food was one of the few areas that Inventor had no experience in and, no matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to cook anything correctly. It was one of his own major downfalls that drove him to insanity, not that he wasn’t already there of course.

So as Inventor sat there he admired the dragon’s adeptness with cooking food, perfectly browned hashbrowns and sunny side up eggs of the perfect consistency. “You are, without a doubt, the best dragon cook I have ever met Spike.” Inventor said as he moved some of the breakfast onto his own plate.

“I’m the only dragon you’ve ever met Inventor,” Spike quickly responded, Inventor tapped the side of his nose before digging into the food in front of him. Spike served up a slightly smaller helping before he too started his own breakfast. A few minutes later Twilight joined the group and they all silently enjoyed the breakfast made by the dragon.

After they finished Twilight levitated a napkin and wiped her face before speaking to Inventor, “So, what brings the madman with a mysterious past to my house today?” the lavender unicorn asked.

“Well, first I wanted to ask you about how our, how shall we say, indisposed friend is doing since the rather daring escapades from last night.” Inventor asked as he took seconds from the eggs in front of him. “Also, I was wondering if you got any response from the princess about the letter you sent in regards to the magical theory I cooked up.”

“Well, in regards to Trixie her health seems to be improving, she refuses to wake up but that’s probably out of exhaustion rather than any threatening mental condition, I’ll be casting a spell later today to do a check on her brain waves and make sure that she hasn’t fallen into a coma or anything.” The Twilight unicorn said as Spike walked sleepily over and took Twilight’s empty plate to the sink.

“As for the letter, the princess says that she will have a few of her trusted magicians try a few tests on the theory, if it turns out to be correct she will send you a fair sum of money for your efforts to improve the kingdom.” Twilight paused as she looked over at the man. He had stopped shoveling food into his mouth and was now paused looking at Twilight with expectation. “With the same circumstances as before obviously, she promises the discovery will not be used for any kind of weapon.” The man nodded and dug back into his food.

Inventor quickly finished his breakfast and with his thanks to the lizard and the unicorn he set out into the everfree with his destination being Zecora’s house. A few moments of time that were measured by the clockwork arm later and he had arrived at the small hut. With a light knock on the door a voice answered him, not the voice of the zebra who he expected rather a muffled ‘meep’ noise as he entered the house.

Sitting at a table was Fluttershy, despite whatever the human tried he couldn’t get the timid pegasus to come out of her shell around him so he left her to her own devices for the most part. She did the same, except his devices were a bit more real and a lot more complicated. With a slight smile to the shy pegasus Inventor sat down at the table.

“So, where’s our kind host right now?” Inventor asked almost intending it to be a rhetorical.

“I see my friend the human has arrived in my house, I assume you already know this pegasus as quiet as a mouse?” Came the reply from behind one the doors nearby, after a brief moment the zebra opened the door and walked into the room with a collection of candles. “This pegasus mare just came for some candles to buy. She was just about to leave when you came in to say hi.”

“Ah, I see,” replied Inventor as he looked back to the pegasus who sat at the table and was standing to leave. “Well, we really should get together sometime, I would love to get to know you better Fluttershy.” With a small nod in his direction the pegasus put the candles into her saddlebags and left the house.

The zebra and the man enjoyed several pointless conversations as the day passed by, they touched on the topic of the magic displacement that the Everfree seemed to have, the two foreigners passed some ideas back and forth but never actually came to settle on anything. Eventually the time came for Inventor to leave as he really didn’t feel like walking back to Ponyville in the dark.

As he left the cottage Inventor immediately began his trek home, he was walking a peaceful pace until a high pitched animal shriek rang through the air, picking up his speed Inventor found the source of the noise a little ways along the path. A yellow pegasus was holding an injured bird to her side with her wing while a pack of Timber wolves slowly surrounded the pair.

Inventor sprung into action letting instinct guide his movements, “Just like the radioactive ghouls, they act on instinct, that means that I should be able to beat their pack leader and they’ll go away.” Inventor said to himself as he approached. The first beast jumped into the air to attack the two winged animals and Inventor punched it in the jaw with a whine of the gears in his arm.

The beast hit the ground and backed away, with its tail between its legs, as it moved away Inventor spotted what he was looking for, one timber wolf was acting differently then the others, while the rest of the group approached their not so helpless prey this one walked around behind the circle looking for an opening.

With one last look to the alpha Inventor made his move by turning his back to the pack leader and feigning an attack on one of the wolf pack. Inventor heard a crack from behind him and ducked on instinct, The alpha soared above his head and Inventor launched himself from the ground with all the strength he could manage.

The mechanical fist hit solidly into the chest of the pack leader and sent him sailing into the side of a nearby tree. The leader hit the ground and backed away from the foe who had just sent him flying into a tree. As he retreated the rest of the pack left as well and Inventor turned to fluttershy who still had the bird under her wing.

“Well, we should get going don’t ya think?” Inventor said to the yellow pegasus, with a nod she lifted the bird into her mane and stood as well. The two of them continued along the trail and eventually left the forest.

“Thanks for saving me, you really were quite brave back there.” Fluttershy said.

Inventor barked a sharp laugh and looked at Fluttershy, “You were the brave one, you put your life on the line to save an innocent life, I’m just insane and decided to fight a bunch of wolves, out of the two of us you are obviously the wiser.” he said.

Fluttershy blushed a little at the compliment before heading into her home, Inventor made it back to his house as well, he messed with a few sketches that sat on the workshop table then went to bed. The nightmares that danced behind the mathematical equations seemed to be slowly disappearing in his dreams but Inventor didn’t dare to let up for the night to see just how far gone they were. The jagged claw mark that ran down his back didn't help matters, turns out that the Alpha hadn't missed completely after all. "Rarity's going to kill me for this." Inventor mumbled in his sleep

Chapter Eleven

(Sorry about the wait but, well you see, I'm very bad at this, lame excuses for why Inventor doesn't seem to have any character development await the reader. I think I'll just toss this entire story away, these past two chapter are horrid and I feel like I just need to burn the farm to fertilize the soil. I unno give me your suggestions on it I guess, maybe I could try my hand at a fallout equestria fic. - N64Fan)

At around lunchtime the following day Inventor went over to the fashionista’s house/shop. Upon entering the ringing of a bell divulged the whereabouts of the bearer of the torn suit. Flinching slightly at the noise of betrayal Inventor entered fully into the shop. The madman wasted no time once in the place of business, with deft reflexes he dropped the damaged suit onto a work table before backing away towards the door.

Inventor quickly flung the door open and was beginning to start his run for escape when a white unicorn with a perfectly styled purple mane blocked his path, “Oh sorry Rarity, just umm, dropping stuff off, ya know. Stuff...” the madman tried desperately grasping for anything that might delay the unicorn to entering the store, all he got in turn was a raised eyebrow.

An awkward silence filled the air while both of the two looked at each other, the silence would have continued had Twilight not run up to Inventor right then, “Trixie woke up!” She cried excitedly as she came within voice range, “She says that she has important information to tell you! Life and death importance she says!” The lavender unicorn was shouting this at a distance after having teleported away and back towards the library.

Without a word Inventor began running away from the boutique and towards the library, an anguished cry from Rarity filled the air only a few moments later as the human and the librarian ran towards the library, Twilight raised an eyebrow and looked at the madman, “Not the time Twilight.” Inventor said quickly with a frown glued to his face as he began to stride faster than before.

The human burst through the door to the library a few moments later as Twilight teleported inside, “Upstairs,” she said as the madman tore through the room and up the stairs, when he arrived at the room Trixie was sitting upright in bed in the guest room staring at her hooves. She glanced up as he ran into the room and her eyes began to tear up.

“I’m so sorry,” she cried as the tears began to streak down her face, “I was hired to kidnap your daughter, I told him that I didn’t have magic strong enough to do what he was asking so he cast a spell, it amplified my magic, but the spell went wrong somewhere. I lost control. I just, I don’t know, I need something that I can’t find.”

Inventor was caught off guard by the confession and by the subsequent self-pity but decide that there was more important things that he should be doing but first he needed to find out who had started the ridiculous kidnapping, “Who? Who hired you?” He said nervously though he suspected the answer already.

“Blueblood,” came the hesitant reply as Trixie struggled with her own emotions, the man began to fume as the news hit him but his angry was abruptly redirected to another emotion as the azure magician continued “He said he would send someone today to kidnap her if I failed.” Shock shot through the madman’s mind as his eyes widened.

Without a word to anyone and barely a moment to breathe he ran out of the room, back down the stairs, and out the door. This sudden act left a confused Twilight standing at the door to the library. With rage and worry pumping through his veins the man was running as fast as his feet could manage, his arms swinging rhythmically at his sides as he approached the school.

On his approach he drew several pony’s attention but they turned away when they realized who it was. The human ran into the building to see Cherilee sitting idly at her desk while the students were at lunch, gasping for breath Inventor was about to ask the wide-eyed teacher about Scootaloo when a piercing scream echoed from the school yard. With another brief glance to the teacher he took off once more with barely any breath in his lungs.

With a slamming noise Inventor arrived at the playground in time to see a group of diamond dogs dragging a yelling Scootaloo away as Sweetie Belle and Applebloom did all they could to save their friend, after the dogs managed to dislodge the two fillies a white glow began to form around them, Inventor put all his effort into a running jump aiming for the three dogs. As he flew through the air the glow thickened before they all winked out of eyesight.

Inventor skid across the ground as he flew through the now empty air, for a minute the human only laid there in the near silence as his mechanical arm ticked away like a second heart. For a moment to move was to push the world, slowly the man stood from the ground and walked away over the fence of the playground.

On his way to exit the grounds Sweetie Belle managed to get a glimpse of the man’s face, what she saw shocked her. It wasn’t the joyful Inventor that she had come to know, it didn’t even look like the same man, the look on his face made the white foal wonder if she had ever seen him actually smile at all.

The man made his way to his house, with a loud crack the door was shut with such force that it seemed to be taunting the world to try and come in. A crowd slowly began to gather around the house as the sun began to set after hearing the rumor spread around town.

The first to arrive outside the door was Twilight who was worried for the health of the man inside, Trixie arrived a few minutes later with a limp, accompanying her was Spike. Following that the rest of the elements arrived, a little idle chatter filled the time as they looked toward the door patiently.

Scootaloo slowly stirred as she came to in an odd stone room, clutching her head in her hooves as a headache pounded against her skull the filly looked around the room, the first thing she noticed was that the room was completely white, the second thing she noticed was that Crimson Turn was in the room and looking at the filly.
Scootaloo gasped and ran over to the red pegasus, and laid down next to her. Crimson shared a glance at each other with Scootaloo before the orange filly began to look around the room again.

Scootaloo was already bored of the mundane white room, “So,” Scootaloo said in an attempt to pass the time, “How long do you think it is before Inventor saves us?”

Crimson smiled, “Oh I think he’ll be here before dawn.” Scootaloo nodded in agreement before she laid her head on her hooves.

When the sun had touched the horizon Inventor emerged from the house, he looked at the elements and then began to walk towards Canterlot without a word. The group shared a glance before they ran after him.

Upon arrival Twilight was the first to speak, “Inventor, what are you -”

“Shut up Twilight,” Came the cold reply.

After she overcame her shock she tried again “W-why are you -?”

“Because I don’t like this world anymore Twilight,”

“Why? What’s changed? I mean we can always rescue Scootaloo so what could possible be so horrid that it took away the joy you used to have?” The librarian managed as she grasped at straws.

“Nothing, just me. Synonyms really, now go home and leave me to do what I’m going to do.”

“No.” The lavender mare said with a stop of her hooves, “We’re friends remember? We are going to do this together.” The other elements looked at each other before they each nodded or said something in agreement to the statement individually.

Inventor spun on his heel to face the group, “IF YOU STAY WITH ME I SWEAR ON HELL AND HIGHWATER THAT YOU WILL DIE, SPARKLE. NOW GET AWAY FROM ME!” He shouted at the purple mare. The shock ran through the entire group as they stood there not believing what they had just heard. Taking advantage of the situation Inventor set off again, this time without anypony following him.

The trek to Canterlot was quiet as the human followed the train tracks up the steep slope alone, his tracker had said that the orange pegasus filly was somewhere in the capital city and Inventor intended to find her. Whatever the cost, and when he found her, he would have to break his own heart and hers in order to save her.

As he was walking he heard a train begin approaching from uphill, Inventor froze as he stared ahead at the track which was rumbling, the man merely stood there as the train approached, a sharp whistle pierced the air and at the last possible second the man jumped to the side, for a moment the Inventor merely sat on his heels as he looked blankly ahead, “Suicide won’t solve anything.” he muttered to himself. Taking a few seconds to stand and brush off his clothes the insane homosapien continued on his way.

Upon reaching the capital city without incident Inventor once more took out his tracker and tapped the glass before he once again set out following the arrow. As he trekked through the town in the direction of his daughter several ponies who recognized him would call out to him, he answered none of the shouts as his eyes were set grimly ahead upon his goal.

He picked his way through the streets as the sun set behind the horizon and the moon rose into the sky, in the distance Inventor made out a rugged building with lights blazing out the windows. Inventor paused once more to check his tracker before he began to walk toward the building, as he approached a few diamond dogs formed a group in front of him.

“Move aside,” Inventor said as he stopped in front of the hostile group, the merely snickered in response and began to close in around the human, “I don’t have time for this you mangy mutts.” the man said as he pulled a small cube out of his worn-out coat.

With a flick of his wrist Inventor tossed the cube at the nearest Diamond Dog, the cube sent out a large static discharge that jumped from one furred attacker to the other knocking them all flat to the ground. The electricity danced across their fur as Inventor picked up the cube once more and pocketed the device. “Electric pulse that utilizes any built up static on its target for more power, good thing these mutts have a lot of fur.”

With a sigh the man continued on the path he had been walking earlier as he approached the door to the house, with a light knock followed by an explosion Inventor walked into the house. Seated in a red chair at the other end of the main floor was Blueblood whose eyes went wide as he saw the man enter.

Blueblood quickly replaced his look of surprise with an uneasy mask of superiority. “I see that those Diamond Dogs are just as horrible at fighting as I suspected them to -” the white stallion didn’t have time as Inventor dashed the short distance with amazing speed. Grabbing the prince by the throat Inventor lifted him off the ground and stared deeply into his eyes.

“Where. Is. Scootaloo.” Inventor said slowly emphasizing all his actions with a squeeze to the obnoxious prince’s throat. Blueblood was struggling for air but managed to gather enough magic in his horn to teleport the orange filly and the red mare into the room. Both seemed disoriented by the sudden change in scenery and Inventor hurled the white unicorn to the ground with a sharp crack.

Blueblood gasped as pain flooded through his bones, Inventor wasn’t quite done yet though as he pulled a device out of his cloak that the unicorn had not seen before. “W-what’s that?” the prince managed.

Inventor lowered the end of the device at Blueblood’s head, “Its a gun,” Inventor said nonchalantly as he clicked back the hammer of the device, “And it kills people.”

The man slowly began to pull the trigger as he willed his body into the act, just as he was about to pull the trigger Inventor glanced out of the corner of his eye, Scootaloo sat with wide-eyes. “Dad?” She asked curiously as she rose from her seated position. “What are you doing?”

Inventor flashed back into the deepest memories of his mind, a small child was looking up toward him with those same eyes, curious and scared. Inventor's hand began to twitch and he tossed the gun to the ground with a shout and it shattered on the pristine linoleum floor, “Stupid me, of course I can’t kill someone now.” he said to himself as he looked at his mechanical hand that was concealed with a glove. The idiotic unicorn that still lay helpless on the floor took the opportunity to teleport away from the house and the madman.

Scootaloo slowly approached her dad before he held out his hand to stop her, “Crimson,” the pegasus nodded in response. “I need you to take care of Scootaloo for me.” She seemed slightly taken aback but nodded her head all the same. “There’s a vault in my house behind the work table, the password is the date on the adoption certificate.”

Slowly Inventor looked once more to look at Scootaloo, “I need you to be strong for me Scoots, I thought I had my emotions under control, this is by far enough to prove me wrong. When the princesses show up in a few minutes I want you to tell them that I have banished myself to the Everfree Forest for some self-reflection, I am doing this for you Scoots I really don’t want to hurt you like I just did to Blueblood.”

Inventor pulled out a small device from a separate pocket of his coat and held it out in front of him, a small glowing blue crystal sat in the middle of a circle of copper, “Short range teleport, should get me to the edge of the Everfree, goodbye and remember Scoots, I love you.” With a flick of his wrist the air collapsed around the human and a gust stirred through the air.

Scootaloo immediately began to cry.

When the princesses arrived a little bit later at the behest of a very distraught Blueblood, they were greeted by Crimson and a still-sobbing Scootaloo. The inventor pegasus explained the issued to the two royal figures and they both stood somewhat dumbfounded. Celestia was the first to recover as she spoke softly to herself but loud enough for the others to hear. “Moodswings, Inventor has been affected by such trauma from his past that his emotions are unstable. He thinks he can handle it by himself but he can’t. I don't entirely trust him, but he's brought more joy to Equestria then pain I suspect.”

The white alicorn raised her head as she looked at the red pegasus mare, “I need you to deliver a message to the Elements of harmony,” Crimson nodded once and looked again at Celestia, what she said next caused the orange filly to stop crying and made her smile sadly instead. “I need you to tell them that we are heading into the everfree as soon as they are ready on a rescue mission, we are going to safe Inventor from himself.”

Chapter Twelve

It had taken the remainder of the night for the group of ponies to get ready for their trek into the Everfree and now they stood at the edge of the dark forest. The princesses had returned to the castle in Canterlot to deal with the sudden influx or worried ponies. This left only a few who would be venturing into the dark woods in search of Inventor. Aside from the Elements only Crimson Turn and Trixie were there to go in with them.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders were all back at the library where Scootaloo was fretting about her adoptive father. Sweetie and Applebloom were attempting to get her attention off of the current situation but were failing miserably as Scootaloo moped about around the hollow tree occasionally staring out the window of the building in the direction of the forest. All while Spike set about with his chores that Twilight had given him before she had left.

Before heading into the forest Twilight coughed loudly to draw the attention of the group as she walked forward. All eyes turned to look at her as she began to talk “We will be heading into the forest in search of Inventor, we owe it to him. A quick note if we get caught I suggest we all meet up at the old castle in the Everfree, I have given a map to both Trixie and Crimson so they can find their way back out. Is that clear?” The lavender mare paused to look at the assembled group.

“Clear as clockwork,” came the reply from the group, they had decided to use it as a catchphrase for this adventure in honor of the person they were going to rescue.

With a nod from the lavender mare the group set out into the forest.

The time passed slowly as they headed out into the dark woods, each mare was looking into the surrounding trees which were completely shrouded in darkness despite the rising sun. The ponies were all on edge, something was unnatural about the forest, it seemed to ooze evil and danger. Something the candy colored miniature horses were not used to.

“So,” Trixie said as she started up a conversation, “How did you meet Inventor, Crimson?” The showmare asked as she looked towards the trotting pegasus.

“I kicked him lethally in the chest.” Crimson said with a smile of the memory before turning to Trixie. “And you?”

“Kidnapped his daughter and her friends in the service of Blueblood.” Trixie responded as she looked down at the ground with despair. Her sad self reflection was interrupted by a snorting laugh from Crimson, The showmare turned her look to the inventor with a raised eyebrow.

“Inventor really is something isn’t he? I almost kill him and you kidnap his daughter and what does he do? He forgives us.” The red pegasus said with a smile.

“I just wish I knew why he forgave me.” Trixie replied with a hang of her head.

“We’ll just have to ask him that when we find him won’t we?”

A nod from the blue unicorn responded to the question and both mares smiled at each other in understanding.

The silence fell once more though it didn’t last for long, a few steps later into the wood and a giant bear paw landed directly in the middle of the group, Twilight looked up the bear paw and began to freak out “Ursa Minor, everyone split up!” She cried before she ran off into the woods.

The rest of the group split up and ran into the woods of the surrounding area in separate directions, Fluttershy ran hurriedly through the brush as she tried to escape the imposing bear, she could calm animals easily but this bear was an exception and the yellow mare doubted that it would stop if she asked it to. Much to her chagrin the bear began to follow her.

The pegasus was running as fast as she could as tears of strain came to her eyes, it was because of these tears that she didn’t notice the root that jutted from the ground in front of her. Fluttershy tumbled end over end once before coming to a dizzy stop. The mare closed her eyes as she anticipated the coming pain, the pain never came however and instead a voice spoke just above her. “Hello there miss, you seem to have tripped.”

Fluttershy opened her eyes to see a pegasus stallion standing over her, “Oh, I’m sorry, I was running from an ursa minor and I must have tripped and gotten in your way, I’m so sorry.” She managed as she stood up.

The stallion smiled back as he bent down to support her side with his head as he helped push her to her feet. “Its no problem I was just worried for you, Ursa Minors aren’t exactly known to be kind to their prey. Now, is there anything I can do for you?” he said as he took a step back, allowing Fluttershy to see the entirety of the stallion, he had a blue coat and mane and his cutie mark seemed to be a stitched together heart with several pins in it.

“So, what are you doing in the Everfree at this hour?” The stallion asked as he gave up on his previous question. He smiled warmly as the shy pegasus looked at his odd cutie mark.

“Oh, me and my friends are looking for a friend who said he was going to come here.” Fluttershy said as she blushed slightly, embarrassed that she had been staring so impolitely.

“Must be a very important friend if you came into this evil forest to look for him.” the stallion replied with a wise nod.

“Oh, he is. I just think that he’s a bit confused about himself, but that’s what friends are for, to help out when we can’t seem to manage by ourselves.” Fluttershy said with a small smile as she looked at the stallion.

The stallion nodded and waited a bit before speaking, “I guess we you should go find the rest of your friends then. I have nothing else to do right now and I assume that you had a place to go to if any of you became lost?” Fluttershy merely nodded shyly and the two began to head out into the woods with Fluttershy leading the way to the designated meeting place.

“So, why are you friends with him then?” The stallion said as they walked on.

“He was there to save me when I needed it, I guess I just want to try and repay him for being so nice.” Fluttershy said. A rustle sounded from the bush off to the pegasi’s right side. Immediately the blue pegasus jumped in front of his shy companion.

Both heaved a sigh as Applejack walked out of the underbrush, “Ah, Fluttershy, ah thought I heard you talkin’ over here.” The farmer said before looking to the blue pegasus, “And you are?”

“Oh, how thoughtless of me, I forgot to introduce myself, my apologies.” The blue stallion said with a glance over his shoulder to the yellow mare who had shrunk slightly at the sound from the bushes but was now beginning to stand straight once more, “My name is Insight, it’s a pleasure to meet you two, I have decided to help your shy friend with her trip through this forest.”

“Nice to meet ya then,” the orange earth pony replied “Ah’m Applejack”

“Oh, and I’m Fluttershy, sorry I forgot to introduce myself.” the yellow pegasus responded.

“It’s okay, I didn’t expect introducing yourself to be your top priority after escaping from an ursa minor and being without your friends.” The blue stallion said, “Now, we should probably continue to wherever we were heading.” He said as he fell to the back of the group and indicated for the yellow mare to continue on.

Applejack instead took the lead as they made their way through bushes and between trees, after a few minutes of walking Insight spoke up again, “So, why are you such good friends with the friend you are in here after?” he asked as he glanced around Fluttershy to look at Applejack.

“Well, when Twilight first came to town and told us about this thing that she had made friends with ah was more than a mite doubtful about its intentions. I decided to give it an open mind though just in case ah was wrong.” the orange mare smiled slightly before she continued. “I was a little worried when it suddenly adopted Scootaloo like that, but then one day I took mah sister Applebloom down to its house for a playdate with her two friends so they could have a day to hang out.

“We took ‘em down to the playground for the day and me and the creature got to talkin’ it introduced itself and I introduced mahself and before long we were talkin’. Not long after was started talkin’ did Applebloom scrape her knee on the asphalt and give out a cry.” The farm pony broke into a wide grin and paused briefly as she recalled the day, “Boy I tell ya, he was off faster then a six-legged mouse after cheese, he was at her side and was making sure everything was alright with her before ah barely knew what happened, that was when I decided he was probably a good whatever-he-is after all.” The work mare glanced back with a sad smile at the blue stallion and then went back to leading the way.

“Ah just think he needs to be less hard on himself, thinks he can carry the entire world on his shoulders, and then tries to bind his wounds with his own clothes.” Applejack said with a shake of her head.

“Indeed.” Came the reply from the blue stallion who looked to be in deep thought. “Indeed.”

Shortly thereafter the group arrived at the bridge that lead over the crevasse to the castle that the group was supposed to meet at, however as they emerged from the forest they caught the eyes of Rarity and Pinkie Pie who had just emerged from the forest as well. Rarity was relieved to see them as the energetic party pony spouted off another line of confusing repetitive dialogue.

Slightly picking up with her walking speed the white unicorn met the other group of three ponies at the bridge with Pinkie bouncing up slowly behind. “It’s nice to see you again darlings, I hope you managed to get through the forest okay.” The fashionista said as she looked over the two mares before catching a glimpse of the blue stallion at the back of the group.

“Oh, how unladylike of me, My name is Rarity. May I ask what your name is, gentlecolt?” She said.

“Ooo, ooo, let me guess let me guess.” Came the reply of the pink pony as she jumped into the conversation. “Is it Sky, or maybe ummm, Aqua?” She said as she hopped up and down.

With a smile at the antics of the party pony the blue stallion replied “No, actually my name is Insight. It’s nice to meet you Rarity and...?”

“PINKIE PIE!” The mare replied with an explosive voice, “ohmigosh a new pony, I haven’t seen you before where do you live?” she continued in a rant.

“I live in the Everfree I guess you could say. I’m not sure I could really fit in with other ponies so I decided to live here in the forest instead.” the blue stallion said.

“Oh but darling, it's so dark and scary in this forest. Surely you would much prefer a room in Ponyville, I’m have a guest room you could use if you wanted.” Rarity said.

“No thank you, I’ll be fine.” the stallion said, “I don’t mean to change the subject, but on another subject I was wondering why a pony who obviously cares so much about their clothing would come out into this forest, why are you out here looking for your friend?”

“He always seemed to be quite gentlemanly, he would take blame when something happened that was his fault,” The white unicorn paused and frowned “He usually took the blame when it was someone else’s fault too.”

“And you?” The stallion asked as he turned toward the pink mare.

“He always wants to make other ponies happy!” The party pony exclaimed “How can you not like a guy who wants that?”

“Indeed.” The blue stallion paused for a moment before nodding to Applejack, “Let’s keep moving, we shouldn’t leave your friends waiting any longer than necessary.” The work pony nodded and the group began their trip across the bridge in a suffocating quietness that was only broken by creaking wood boards.

About half-way across the ancient bridge the fashionista spoke up “You know Insight, I feel like I’ve met you before though I would swear I have not seen you since today. How odd.”

“Odd, most definitely.” Was all the blue pegasus would say as the rest of the trip passed in the same pseudo silence that had encompassed the previous half of the time on the bridge. After making it to the other side safely the ponies made their way into the nearby castle that sat within sight of the end of the bridge.

As the group of five made it into the castle they noticed that they were not the first to have arrived, the other four ponies of the group were already waiting there, Rainbow was almost asleep in the corner of the room as Twilight and Trixie talked about magical theory and Crimson was seated quietly nearby looking at a small collection of gears in front of her.

Upon the entry of the group all the ponies gathered looked towards them and made their way over, Rainbow almost causing a sonic rainboom as she dashed over, after the group had talked briefly with each other about the events in the forest Insight was introduced to the other half of the group that had come into the Everfree searching for Inventor. He nodded politely and smiled at each of the members and as they finished the group decided to head back out into the forest to continue their search.

They left the ruins and went back to the bridge, what they saw at the other end made them freeze, Scootaloo stood at the opposite end of the rickety passage unaware as the ursa minor from earlier approached from behind. Crimson was the first to jump into action, she tackled Scootaloo to the side as the giant bear dropped its heavy paw down.

The bear once more raised its paw and made to crush them again but was distracted as a rainbow blur hit it in the jaw, angrily the bear changed its focus and began trying to swat the blue pony out of the sky.

Meanwhile, back on the opposite side of the bridge Twilight watched, stunned at was happening, “Redemption day.” The lavender mare turned to see Insight talking to himself.

“What was that?” She asked.

“Redemption day.” He said once more as he looked to the librarian, “I’m so sorry I had to fool you.”

Twilight was about to ask what he meant by that when the sickening sound of bones grinding together echoed into the air, With a shudder the mare closed her eyes and clenched her teeth as the nightmarish noise rang through the air. When it stopped the mare turned her attention to the blue stallion that had stood next to her moments before.

She didn’t see Insight, rather she saw Inventor fully clothed with the exception of his mechanical arm that still hung loosely at his side. All the ponies on the same side of the bridge as the man had their attention drawn to the bipedal. He smiled a sad smile at each of them but turned his attention back to the ursa minor that had managed to hit Rainbow and was once more about to drop its paw on Crimson and Scootaloo.

“Overwind.”

With a burst of steam from his mechanical shoulder Inventor cleared the bridge and was standing next to the two pegasi as the bear claw dropped, both looked at him with confusion and awe. The paw dropped.

And stopped short.

The clockwork ticking that had appeared when Inventor had transformed back was missing from the air and was instead replaced with an incessant whirring noise. Inventor stood under the creature, sweating profusely as his the noise picked up in pitch. With a grimace he managed to push up and toss the bear off balance and onto its back, the scared cub looked at Inventor with horror before running back into the forest.

The man smiled at the two pegasi who lay on the grass next to him before his legs gave out, with a thump Inventor fell to the ground and caught himself with his mechanical arm, crimson liquid erupted from his mouth as he coughed up blood and his gaze was locked on the ground. Mere seconds later the man fell to the ground as well with a horrible raking noise and he lay still.

Crimson approached him slowly, still trying to figure out what had just happened as Inventor had shown up out of nowhere. She laid her head against his chest and breathed a sigh of relief as the comforting sound of a heartbeat echoed back to her.

Rainbow Dash limped slightly out of the trees from where she had been knocked earlier, her mouth dropped open as she saw Inventor passed out on the grass and the ursa minor nowhere to be found. She looked questioningly to Twilight who had no answers to give either.

Eventually Scootaloo broke out of her stunned silence and approached the unconscious man, With a slow purposeful act she slipped down next to his side and rubbed her muzzle into his neck as tears rolled down her eyes. “Dad.” She managed to say through a choked up sniffle.

Twilight broke out of her stunned silence at the words of the filly and approached the unconscious man, “We’re going home, any objections?” The lavender mare said matter-of-factly, when no oppositions were given the librarian nodded and built up a collection of power in her horn, with a nod to the group she cast her spell and teleported all the remainder of the group to the hospital in Ponyville.

(I feel like this is a much better chapter than my last one, be sure to tell me what you think about it, ways I could improve, etc.. -N64Fan)

Chapter Thirteen

(Make longer chapters they said, it'll be good for the story they said. And then tadah, instant fun as an author. If I were to name this chapter I think I would call it 'Crimson Tears' -N64Fan)

Inventor laid on the hospital bed throughout the night and into the early morning with a face paled to the point of being a convincing death mask, unbelievably he had managed to stabilize after his overwind. The doctors said that they didn’t know how he had pushed his body to the point he had been at, just that he was making an amazing recovery. So he laid on the hospital bed with his jacket on. His undershirt was missing and, in its place, a set of tightly bound bandages circled his chest.

The doctors had attempted to magically connect a machine to his heart in order to keep track of the beats it gave off, they failed on the grounds that they couldn’t seem to find his heart, they tacked this up to him being a different creature they hadn’t seen before and left it there, most of the friends agreed with the doctors on this regard but the red inventor pegasus had grown worried about the fact that he may have replaced more than just his arm.

Crimson and Scootaloo sat on some chairs in the man’s medical room as he laid on the hospital bed, the whirring from his mechanical arm had died down a few hours after he had been brought in and was now replaced by the familiar comforting clicking of the arm’s usual beat, it did seem a bit softer though and it wasn’t moving with the man’s movements but rather it remained stiff and straight. The two were mostly silent, occasionally one of the pegasus would ask the other about how their recent life had been but these conversations were short-lived and faded away when they were answered with brief words.

Scootaloo turned to the red pegasus who sat beside her as the sun began to rise and light up the room, with eyes that were bloodshot and watery, “Crimson, why does he always do this? Dad thinks he can carry the world alone but only ends up hurt. I just don’t understand.”

“Why don’t we ask him?” Crimson said with a glance at Inventor, “Why do you keep doing this Inventor? I would think that someone who can make an arm like yours would be smarter then to try and carry the world on your shoulders.”

“How did you know I was awake?” Inventor responded as he opened his eyes and began to have a fit of blinking as the light from the room invaded his dark retinas.

Crimson walked over and stood next to the bed, Inventor managed to clear his vision of the tears and looked at the red pegasus, his reward was tears of pain as she swung her wing to hit him in the face, Scootaloo’s jaw dropped as Crimson stood up and placed her front legs on the edge of the hospital bed in order to get a better look at her victim. “YOU SCARE SCOOTALOO LIKE THAT AGAIN AND I WILL MAKE YOU WISH THAT I ENDED YOU!” She shouted at the man.

“You’re a parent now, that means caring for your child, your stupid selfishness is going to kill you and then where will Scootaloo be?” The red mare continued as her voice reflected the anger she was feeling. “You think you can do anything that you deem ok but you can’t. You have a daughter and friends, if you are having a problem you talk to us and let us help fix it, you don’t randomly disappear into the forest because you think you need to run away.”

Inventor sat there shocked, then slowly swung his legs over the edge of the bed, flinching as he did so not only from his chest, but also for the small bruise beginning to form on his face. After stopping for a deep inhale with his legs over the edge of the bed the man managed to slowly lower himself to the ground next to the mare. He reached his hand back and Crimson cringed at the action as memories of her foalhood surfaced in her mind, instead of a slap to the face however he threw his flesh arm around her neck, as his mechanical one seemed to be unable to move, and he smiled. “Thank you Crimson, that is exactly what I needed to hear.”

She nodded in return as she returned the hug. The pegasus filly, who hadn’t moved since Crimson had hit Inventor, not being one for missing out on hugs, made her way over and joined the embrace, Inventor had pieced together what he suspected to be the basics of the mare’s backstory by now and knew that it must be hard for her, as he was reminded of that fact he hugged her a little tighter. The group remained like that for several minutes as they hugged in a mutual friendship until a nurse entered the room.

She gasped as she ran over to the man who was kneeling on his knees to hug the red mare, “You should be in bed Mr. Inventor, you are still wounded.” The caring nurse said as she approached and took a look at the man who was still hugging the two pegasi.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Inventor said as he managed to lift himself into a nearby seat where he leaned back to keep his midsection straight, “I would like to ask you if you could get the Elements and Trixie for me, oh and ask Twilight to send a letter to Luna asking her to come as well if you could, I have some information that I would like to share with them, something that they should all hear.”

The nurse nodded once and looked at the man with another caring glance to make sure he wasn’t bleeding through his bandages. After ensuring that the man wasn’t going to die while she was out the nurse left to deliver the message to the ponies that the man had asked for. After she left Inventor let his head lean back and rest on the wall behind the chair, it was like that for a few minutes before he spoke to Crimson.

“I don’t suppose you have a clockwork key to wind gears do you?” Inventor said with a glance to the red pegasus out of the corner of his eye, she nodded with a smile and pulled an odd looking key out from under her right wing, she approached the man who shifted slightly to give easier access to his arm. She inserted the key into a small slot at the elbow of the arm using her feathers to place the key then grabbing it with her mouth to wind the gears.

After several clicks the sound of the arm returned to its normal volume and Inventor flexed his arm a few times after the key had been removed, “Thank you, that was driving me insane.” The man said with a look on his face as if an itch he couldn’t reach had just been taken care of.

Crimson nodded and slid the key back under her wing and away from sight. “May I ask you how you managed to transform yourself into a pony?” she said when her mouth was no longer holding the metal key.

Inventor looked at the red mare out of the corner of his eye again and he grinned, “I utilized the magic residue that the city of Canterlot has in the very air to fuel a one use transformation. Some of the magic clung to me as I teleported to the forest and was bent into a semi-circular and very unstable magic field by the innate anti-magic effects of the woods. The resulting effect caused a reflux of the unstable magical area, this triggered a massive discharge of energy I haven’t been able to get my hands on without using less-than-safe means, like blowing up a nuke.

“This magic was then captured and run through a device that I had to half handedly improvise, I used part of my bonemender to bend my bones into a pony shape and the remains of my invisibility device to bend some of the details out of the light like the cutie mark and the colors, which is why Insight had blue mane and coat, since blue is the shortest wavelength and is very easy to reproduce.

“The illusion could be ended at anytime due to my third part of the device which caused a brief flux of magic that would shatter the illusion and trigger the bonemender again. However, because of the instability of the devices I used I can’t use that transformation method ever again because of the resistances my body is already building to the morph. Oh and before you ask, yes, it hurt, constantly.” Inventor said as he let his eye close once again as his grin slowly faded into a satisfied smile.

As he finished he merely got a shake of the head from Crimson as she smiled at his explanation, even she had only understood it so far. “I see, well as long as it was simple.” She said with a glance to Inventor who only remained smiling, she turned her glance to Scootaloo who was now in a fitful sleep on the ground where they had hugged earlier. “Do you know why she has these nightmares?” The red mare asked the human.

“I know that for some reason a steady rhythm breaks the nightmare, check her saddlebags there should be a music box I gave her in there. I would let her sleep in my arms tonight again but my chest isn’t exactly in the best of health.” With a nod to the man she went over to the filly’s saddlebags and extracted the mentioned musical device. She opened it and set it next to the orange filly and a slow sad song ticked out of the machine.

“I don’t recognize the song, I assume it’s from your world?” The red mare asked as she turned to look at the man again who was humming the tune.

Without answering her question Inventor sung a single line, softly, “Though under palm trees your dreams go, such happiness mine will never know.” He stopped humming and looked at Crimson.

“My wife wrote it, she said it was inspired by the way our world was and, more specifically, me and my role in it. She didn’t really like my job, heck neither did I, but I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.” Inventor said as he rested his head against the wall behind him once again.

“What was your job?” The mare asked in response.

“That’s one of the things I’ll tell you and the others about when they get here, we shouldn’t have to wait too long, they are usually quite fast.”

Indeed not soon after he said this the other ponies he had asked the nurse to talk to began to show up. Pinkie was the first, Luna arrived last with the heralding of gasps as the nurses saw the younger of the princesses in their hospital, as she entered a small smile graced her lips as she looked at Inventor. A little small talk was exchanged before Inventor slowly eased himself into a straight sitting position to face the group, the conversation stopped and everypony looked at him expectantly.

“I am sure the majority of you are wondering why I asked you here to listen to me. Well, I will be sharing with you a story, a story of my past, a story I very much wish to go uninterrupted lest I forget myself and stop the story.” The man said as he dropped a kind gaze onto the ponies in the room, including Scootaloo. He had had to argue briefly with the nurse about so many visitors, but when he told her that Luna would be there the argument was essentially void.

“I suppose the important part of the story starts merely a few days before the incident that took all the importance in the world away from me, On that day me and a few other humans were busy working under the oppressive thumb of our government, if you were smart they ‘hired you’ and forced you to work for them. That’s beside the point though, on this day I discovered something, something that the government desperately wanted. I knew what it would cause but they had threatened my family by this point, I knew what it would bring but I still gave it to them.

“The information I gave them that day was the final piece to an explosive puzzle they had nearly finished, a bomb that could destroy all our enemies. After I handed the knowledge of the finishing piece to the leader I realized what I had done, the destruction I had just wreaked upon the world. I tried to warn the man in charge about it but he was insane. I tried to explain that if he used this device he had cooked up the entire world would be irradiated and all life would be destroyed in the process. He exclaimed that if he couldn’t have the world then he wasn’t letting anyone else have it either.

“Three days later he launched the bomb and I became the fifth horseman of the apocalypse, the bringer of radiation and instantaneous death. I almost told my wife about it, but what kind of perverse death is that? Dying knowing full well that there was nothing I could do about it, so instead I waited and prepared for death.

“The bomb hit on the other side of the world. I explored it later, a massive crater that even after a whole year hadn’t been filled completely by the surrounding oceans, the radiation spread quickly and soon hit our country. The people were crying as they saw death approach in all its nightmarish horror, they saw the end and they left that rock as one. They all moved on into the afterlife whatever it was like, but I remained.

“The one unfit for the afterlife. I didn’t know why I survived the massive destruction, not until several years later anyway. I was left with the remains of a broken destroyed planet, I had watched my deepest love disintegrated as her atoms were torn apart and she was reduced into a puddle that quickly evaporated. That wasn’t the worst part of it all though, oh no. The worst part were the ‘people’ who survived. My daughter among them.

“Their minds had been all but destroyed by the radiation and they had devolved into primitive carnivores. I had to shoot my own daughter in the head to save myself and put her out of her misery.” Inventor paused briefly as he took a deep breath to calm his nerves. “And after I had killed them all, all the survivors. I was left alone on a rock where I couldn’t do anything, I quickly began to adapt my technology, an implant to absorb radiation as food, a mechanical arm when I lost my original in a crash. Stupid things that kept me alive for whatever reason, I don’t know why I continued on, but I did.”

Inventor looked at each of the ponies in front of him, “But then I realized something, it was stupid of me not to think of it sooner actually, there had to be other places, other lands in other dimensions where they didn’t monumentally screw up like I had, maybe if I found such a place I could live in peace and be left to the ghosts of my past.

“What I found was Equestria, a much better place then I could ever imagine where the ponies were kind, intelligent, generous, honest, loyal, and happy. I soon found out that the world wasn’t entirely like that, that everyone had dark sides to them, but the thing that made them good and kind, the reason why their society still thrives, was because they knew this darkness and they did all in their power to overcome it.” Inventor looked pointedly at Luna before continuing. “Something we as a race had given up on long before the world was destroyed. I decided I would be the fifth horseman of the apocalypse if that was what this world needed.”

“It wasn’t what the world needed, when I talked to you in the Everfree I discovered that my role up until now was pointless, this land didn’t need a judge, jury, and executioner, the ponies of this land didn’t want a dark protector who would do all in his power to save them while he remained mysterious. The ponies who I seeked to protect merely wanted a friend, a father, and a kind man.”

Inventor raised his head to look at the assorted ponies, Rainbow was looking on with a look of disbelief and awe. AJ hid her face under her hat as she pulled it down over her face to hide her expression. Fluttershy was hiding her face with her hair as she looked at the ground and a tear ran down her cheek. Rarity wore a sad smile as she levitated out the newly repaired clothes that the man had left at her boutique the last time he had been in town, Inventor put his hand out and the white mare dropped the clothes into his grasp, with a nod of thanks the man continued his examination of the effect his story had had.

Luna was managing to keep a resolute face though her eyes betrayed her emotion, sadness and joy, an odd combination to be sure. Both Crimson and Trixie were talking with each other in murmurs. Twilight was looking at him thoughtfully and Pinkie was about to burst into full tears as she hid her eyes behind her hoof. With a smile the man stood and walked over to the pink mare, he squatted low to the ground and tapped her on the nose, she lowered her hoof to reveal her watery eyes.

“You know what would be great right now Pinkie?” Inventor said as his smile grew wider, when the pink mare’s eyes brightened and joy came to her face she looked at him pleadingly while the tears disappeared from her eyes, “A party would be just perfect.” he confirmed and nodded his head.

The pink party pony smiled and turned to Luna to whisper something into her ear, the lunar princess paused for a moment before nodding as a smile broke across her face, a soft blue glow surrounded the group and they teleported away with a pop, on the table the princess had left a stack of bits to pay for the hospital bill, aside from that however the room showed no sign of the madman ever having been in the room.

The group arrived at the other end of the teleportation in a building in the middle of town, the building was already decorated when they arrived as blue magic disappeared from the party favors. Pinkie began to run around and check on several things, before long the party pony had set the entire party into full swing, Luna stuck around for a while and conversed with Inventor about the magical findings he had discovered, she left not very into the party regardless to get some sleep as the sun rose to its zenith.

All the ponies had a great time as the party raged on and the party games were worn on and on, as the sun began to set the group was utterly exhausted and Trixie managed to get a chance to talk to the man alone.

“I suppose your history explains why you forgave me for what I did, I would just like to thank you for it regardless.” The blue mare said before she disappeared once more into the slowing party.

Almost immediately afterward Crimson managed to catch him and talk to him, “I know you just told me your past, so I figured I should tell you mine as well, can’t have secrets between friends right?” Inventor nodded and Crimson let out a sigh of relief.

“It happened when I was a only a little filly, I developed an addiction to machines, I realized I could use some of my small toys to create other new toys using the separate parts to create them. My family disapproved of this as our line was one the prided itself more on being stockbrokers then anything else. My parents decided to let me stay until I was old enough to go live on my own, this was because I hadn't received my cutie mark yet and he hoped in vain it was still tied to finace. As I left on the day of my eighteenth birthday my father was in a drunken rage, he... well.” The red mare looked at the braces placed on her legs.

“I discovered my cutie mark that day though, so I guess I owe something to that old stallion.” She finished with a sigh, “They disconnected themselves from me when they found out what my talent was and I’ve been on my own ever since.”

“Ever since a few days ago you mean.” Inventor said with a smile to the red mare, “These ponies at this party are as much your friend as I am, you have proven yourself to them and they respect your actions, you are no longer alone Crimson, and neither am I.” The pegasus looked up at Inventor and, for the first time in a long time, a genuine smile spread across her face.

The party was winding down when Crimson announced she needed to be heading back to her shop to finish up some business for the next day, Inventor offered her an escort that she kindly accepted, they had only just left the doorway when the red mare froze in fear. Inventor followed her gaze and saw two ponies approaching them from a few steps away. “My parents.” the inventress said under her breath and Inventor nodded.

“So this is what our daughter has fallen to, hanging out with this monstrous rabble that the princesses let roam free.” the stallion said, spitting the word daughter like it was foul on his tongue. The mare behind him merely nodded in agreement.

Crimson flinched at the words but Inventor merely answered with his classic smile as he looked at the two ponies, “Ah, but what is the difference between a monster and an animal, and an animal and a pony? Those questions need to be answered first or else we’ll never get anywhere with this conversation. I personally can’t come up with anything so let’s call a few of Crimson’s friends over to help us with this one shall we?”

Inventor turned away from the confused faces of the two ponies and shouted loudly back in the direction of the building, “Hey everyone, Me and Crimson need your help with something for a minute!" After a few seconds the Elements shuffled out of the building with Trixie bringing up the rear. Most with looks of confusion on their faces.

Inventor didn’t see as the looks of confusion on Crimson’s parents had turned to shock, instead he spoke once more to the ponies he had just called out of the building, “These are Crimson’s parents, the ones who disowned her and cut all ties to her. Anyway they called me a monster and so I was wondering what you would say the difference is between a monster and an animal and a pony, because we need to settle that before we decide on anything at all.”

The expressions of the friends hardened as he explained, briefly, what Crimson’s parents had done to her, the glared at the two parents as they approached their red coated friend. The group formed around the pegasus who looked on either side of her into the faces of the ponies who were protecting her, after a few silent moments Inventor spoke again, his voice cold. “You see, I would personally qualify a monster as some heartless creature that can’t express love or kindness. In that case, there is a monster in this city, but it certainly isn’t me.” The man turned his gaze to look sideways at the parents.

The two ponies looked at the assorted ponies by their daughter and the monster who loomed threateningly in the back and they walked away from the scene at a brisk trot. When they left Crimson turned around to look at the other seven ponies who had stood up for her as well as the human at the back.

“Thank you.” She managed in a soft voice as she closed her eyes and willed tears not to show up, Inventor saved her from that as he dropped his hand on the top of her head, she looked up at him through watery eyes as he smiled at her.

“Let’s get you home shall we?”

(Hope you enjoyed the chapter, I did. As always I encourage any constructive criticisms that you may have in regards to this work that will help me improve in future chapters. Thanks again - N64Fan)

Chapter Fourteen

(So some people have been talking about how they see Inventor, I was quite interested by the different ways people viewed him as I didn’t really have a comparative I could say I thought of Inventor as. Anyway, this brings me to the request I wanted to ask of the readers, if any of you more artistically oriented people reading this would like to draw some cover art I would more then happily replace the current cover art with a more 'Inventor-esque' one. I will, of course, give you credit for the work. -N64Fan)

After Inventor had escorted Crimson back to her shop he and the rest of the group that was left after the party formed up at a small hotel for the night in Canterlot, all except for Trixie that is, she went to go talk to her parents for the first time in the several years that she had been gone. They had sent her letters occasionally telling her that they missed her but she never returned any messages and figured that they must be worried sick about her.

Inventor had no plans on sleeping this night though, he still had something he needed to correct and fix in the city, things he had done that he now regretted. So as the moon moved slowly across the sky the man waited patiently as one by one the rest of the companions. Each of whom were spread across a cluster of rooms on the same floor of the hotel, fell asleep.

When all of them had fallen asleep the man slowly raised himself from the bed, fully clothed as always. With a smile to the sleeping bodies of his companions the man left the room carefully as to not disturb the sleep of Scootaloo who lay on a separate bed with her music box playing its peaceful tune into the still night air as the orange pegasus lay curled on her bed in a peaceful sleep.

The man walked quickly and quietly down the stairs of the hotel and out into the chilled night air that greeted him as he exited the building. He briefly stopped to inhale the cold clean air that composed the atmosphere of the town as he smiled to himself as the simple act brought peace to his heart. There were other things that needed doing this night by the man however and he picked up his pace as he began to head in the direction of the castle.

On the approach to the castle doors the man noticed several guards who were beginning to shuffle as he closed the distance between himself and them, with a shake of his head and another smile the man slowed his pace and calmly approached the gate, the guards eyed him cautiously as he approached but made no attempt to stop him as he arrived at the gates.

“I just need to talk to Celestia.” Inventor said as he looked to the two armored ponies who stood as still as they could manage. Both of them were scared, Inventor could see, they had seen what he had done to a single one of the guards with a single glare and they were afraid to death of what he could do if he actually tried.

One of the guards, a unicorn, raised a hoof in hesitant objection before he was cut off by the man. “It’s to apologize to her.” he said with a smile in the direction of the guard who had raised his hoof, the guard couldn’t quite place it but he felt that this man wasn’t lying right now, and so with a silent nod to him his magic activated and opened the door to the castle grounds.

The man entered with a thankful nod of his head and the heavy door was closed behind him, the man silently walked through the dark garden in the freezing night air, the ponies who were still out and about were protected by their coats from the cold night air but Inventor felt the chill cut through his worn clothes, he had never found time to switch into the clothes Rarity had fixed and now he was paying for it, as he once again brought his mind to the matter at hand however the chill was forgotten and Inventor continued his journey into the castle.

As he stepped through the castle doors he felt the warmth from the castle drift lazily over him and heat his cold body and he continued on his way at his brisk pace, his heels clicking loudly against the stone floors. Occasionally he would stop and ask a guard where Celestia’s chambers were, the answer would come hesitantly if at all and Inventor would smile and thank them for their help before he set off again.

Despite being almost completely lost in the castle Inventor managed to make his way to the rooms of the celestial princess. With a deep breath the man hazarded a knock on the solid white stone that composed the door to the room. Only a second passed before a yellow aura surrounded the door and it opened without a sound. The white alicorn sat within behind a small desk that faced in the direction of the door.

As the door opened Celestia’s face took on a bemused expression when she saw the man standing on the other side, he waved slightly as he entered the room with a his usual smile on his face once more, the man saw the confusion in her eyes and the small amount of fear that was hidden behind her carefully composed expression.

With a sigh the man sat down in front of the royal princess as the ticking of his arm kept the time as the sparse moments passed without words, Celestia remained composed realizing the man had something on his mind that he needed to talk to her about and he was composing the words in his head.

“Celestia,” The man said then paused “I just, I wanted to apologize for yelling at you all that time ago, I... I wasn’t myself. I understand, now at least, that you were only doing it for the protection of your citizens, something that I envy, I really do. I just, I’m sorry.” Inventor said as he hesitated every now and then in his words to even it out.

Celestia was about to nod but Inventor continued, “But if I find out that you suddenly became corrupt and you begin to do things that are more for yourself then the ponies you care for now I will find you and we will talk.”

Celestia finished her nod slowly before smiling kindly back to Inventor, “I would want it no other way.”

An awkward break in talking filled the air as Inventor rose to his feet, as he did so the white alicorn stood as well in respect and Inventor grinned at her, “Its been a pleasure.”

“Indeed it has Inventor, indeed it has.”

As Inventor turned away from the alicorn a unicorn opened the doors and burst into the room, he wore different armor from the others and Inventor raised an eyebrow as he looked at the unicorn, something about him seemed, familiar.

“Your highness, I heard about an intruder that made it past my guards and I was immediately worried for you, I will dispatch of this creature quickly enough and he will regret ever arriving and making his way past the guards.” He spoke quickly, a spell began to form at the tip of his horn and Inventor reflexively grabbed a small ring from his pocket, just before he was about to make his dash and cancel the spell a voice interrupted both of the males.

“That won’t be necessary Shining Armor, my kind acquaintance Inventor just came by to finish some business that he hadn’t taken care of last time we talked, I assure you that he is here with only the best of intentions.” She said as she looked at both of them, she noticed a glint of metal as Inventor pocketed the ring when the man saw Shining Armor begin to stop his spell, but she decided not to press the issue.

“You’re Inventor?” The captain of the guard replied incredulously, “The creature that stared one of my most trusted guards into submission? It’s nice to meet you.” The white unicorn held out his hoof in offer for a shake,Inventor smiled at the unicorn but ignored his offer as he nodded once more to Celestia in parting before he walked out the door.

He hadn’t gotten very far when Shining Armor ran upon alongside, and then in front of the madman, “Here, let me escort you out.” He said as he slowed his pace and began to lead the man to the exit. Inventor didn’t say anything, didn’t even pause a moment to indicate he had heard what the unicorn had said, he just walked on.

Neither of them spoke as Shining Armor led the way to the exit, the man following slightly behind, occasionally a curious gaze would be drawn to the duo but they were largely left alone by the various other members of the castle staff. Inventor seemed to be lost in thought as he followed the guard captain down the hallway.

Eventually they reached the exit to the castle and moved onto the opening of the castle grounds. Inventor paused briefly as he looked out into the gardens that were shining under the crescent moon that hung above the scene. Shining Armor took only a few steps before he realized he was no longer being followed, he turned back to the human and stood by his side as he looked into the distance.

“What do you see?” Inventor asked, surprising the captain who took a few moments to calm himself before gazing out into the garden that was spread out in front of the duo.

With a hesitant, unsure voice Shining spoke “I see flowers, it reminds me of Cadance she loves to walk through the flowers when she doesn’t have to be doing anything else, she says its calming and I have to say I agree with her there.”

The guard was smiling as he turned his gaze back to Inventor who looked lost in thought.

“And you?” Shining asked “What do you see?”

“I see ashes and tinder, fires that are trying to be hidden under bushels of dry leaves and I see death and devastation that follow me wherever I go. I see that this world will end simply because everything had to end and in the wasteland that follows there will only be one leaving thing, me. I don’t know why the universe refuses to let me die, regardless of what I try.” Inventor looked once more at the guard captain whose smile had quickly disappeared and was replaced by worry.

“But, I also see firefighters, i see men who would kill themselves to protect this world. I see ponies such as you who would trek through all the fiery pits of the eternities to protect the ones they loved, so even though this world will end someday I know one thing for sure, there will be more survivors, and it may take them awhile but they will recreate this world and the planet will prosper once again. That is what I see.” Inventor said and the captain looked into the man’s eyes. He thought that for the briefest moment he saw flames flicker behind his eyes but it was gone as quick as it came and Inventor smiled.

“That’s enough rambling for me tonight though I think that I should ge-” The man was interrupted as a scream pierced the air, without a word to each both man and stallion were off in a dash, as they approached they saw a black winged creature that had somehow made its way past the outer walls of the castle grounds attacking a helpless mare.

Without a word to each other both males sprung into action, as the creature swooped in low to attack it ran headfirst into a shield that had been conjured up in between the predator and its prey. The surprise had just faded from the beast’s face as a metal fist connected with the jaw of the beast, it was sent tumbling backwards as Inventor landed on the ground, his metal hand exposed. The creature feigned death while both males approached, at the last second it launched its attack, aiming for the stallion.

Shining Armor gasped as the creature scraped its claw along his side, opening a large shallow wound across the length of his body, it raised another claw and was about to repeat the attack when a loud bang echoed through the air, Shining Armor’s head was ringing from the loud explosion. The beast fell to the ground, lifeless, with blood running from a circular wound in its head.

The stallion glanced to his side to see Inventor with a device that had smoke drifting from the barrel, he looked between the beast’s wound and the device Inventor held and all thoughts that the wound may have been caused by something else fled from his mind, he heard a scraping as the mare they had saved got up from the ground and ran away from the scene as the crimson liquid of the dragon-like monster pooled on the normally pristine cobblestone of the streets.

With a scary amount of familiarity Inventor spun the device and placed it in its hidden holster under his cloak, after it was in place his hand swung around to grab something from behind his right shoulder, something he didn’t find. Closing his eyes briefly in sad memory Inventor instead pulled an orb from a pocket that had been sewn into his jacket. The orb glowed toxic green and Inventor placed it on top of the chest of the dead creature.

The orb clicked loudly twice before the top began to spin. Several seconds passed while it spun, neither male speaking during the time. Eventually the top stopped spinning and a third click was heard, a small click emanated from the device and the corpse turned into black dust that was blown away on the wind, as the corpse disappeared the blood began to bubble and evaporated into the air. With a brief pause Inventor looked into the wind as the dust was taken away in the wind before he picked up the still spotless orb from the ground and slid it back into the pocket of his jacket.

Soundlessly the man leveled his gaze off into the distance once more before he spoke to the pony who lay on the ground behind him, “You going to heal yourself or do I have to take you to a hospital, because honestly, hospitals are getting very cliche for me.” He said over his shoulder to the wounded unicorn who was still looking at him slack jawed.

Shaking his head to break himself from his stunned silence Shining Armor channeled magic for a brief moment before casting his healing spell on himself, the shallow wound healed from the magic and the unicorn stood from the his laying position. He glanced at the man standing silhouetted against the horizon that was just beginning to brighten with daylight.

“You killed it, you didn’t even hesitate you just killed it with whatever that strange contraption was, you didn’t even flinch, you just killed it immediately. There was absolutely nothing it could have done to save itself from dying.” The captain of the guard said as worry leaked into his voice. This man had just killed another creature in the blink of an eye and now there was nothing left to prove it, he had disposed of the body quite quickly and there was nothing left of it, what frightening power that was to the guard of the castle as he realized that the man could have done that to anypony, anypony at all and not even the princess would have been able to stop him.

“You’re wrong, there is one thing it could have done.” Came the voice of the man as it intruded on Shining Armor’s thoughts, “It could have never shown up here, it could have never threatened a pony’s life, it could have stayed deep in the dark forest of the Everfree or wherever it came from and not have tried to kill a helpless mare.” The man turned to the captain of the guard and in his eyes the captain saw what had made such a trusted pony as his guard flee.

In those eyes he saw fire and death reflected over their somewhat glossy surface as he looked at the man, “Tell me Shining Armor, can you feel the heat?” Inventor said before turning his gaze away. “Two things changed about my body when the radiation flooded over me, the most devastating of them was that it burned the image of the apocalypse into my eyes, every time I’m angery my vision is flooded with the fires and the death from the end of the world.”

The man fell silent and Shining Armor released a breath he hadn’t realized he had been keeping, the captain slowly gathered the courage to speak again in the interlude of the man’s words, which was somewhat difficult after what he had just seen as he wanted to ask a question that he feared the answer to. “And the second thing, what was that?”

The man didn’t respond to the question but instead changed the subject, “Let’s get you back to the castle before they start worrying that I’ve killed you and skinned your leather for book covers.” He said, his words sending shivers down Shining Armor’s spine, the stallion nodded in return and the two made their way back to the castle. “Of course if I did do that, I guess Twilight would really be able to read you like a book eh?”

The stallion looked at the man with morbid horror scrawled across his face, Inventor quickly recovered what was left of the stallion’s relief by continuing, “Look, Its been like seventy-five years since I last told a joke to someone who wasn’t me, and even then it was a skeleton that I had found leaning against a wall, made a stupid diet pun, not important.”

The stallion smiled at the madman’s words, if only because of the weird way he spoke, “I was meaning to ask you, just what exactly is that device you used to end the life of that creature?” Shining Armor asked.

Inventor paused as he looked down at his hands, “I killed it Shining Armor, no need to dance around that subject. Regardless though, It was an old invention, I always did have an odd obsession with old tech, my co-workers called me insane for it but I didn’t mind, by that time I probably already was. It was designed as simple as possible, point and kill.” the man said as he reached under his jacket to touch the gun that sat there, “I used to have two of them, but I destroyed one recently so all I have left is this one. I hadn’t used it to ‘end a life’ in about twenty years now I suppose.”

Neither male spoke as the two finished the trek to the castle where, surprisingly, the mare they had saved earlier was waiting for them. As they approached she ran towards them and Inventor turned to the stallion at his side. “Have a good day, I would love to stick around and chat with the admirer but I really need to get going.” After saying these words the man waited until an object blocked the view of the approaching mare, in this case a pillar, and he ducked into the bushes at the sides of the cobblestone road before running quickly to the gate.

The mare continued her approach but slowed as she realized that out of the two saviors who had been there mere moments ago one was missing, “Where did the other one go? The odd creature?” She said as she stopped in front of Shining Armor.

The stallion smiled in response as he turned to look at the gate where he thought he saw the man slip out of the exit. “He has some fires that he needs to fight.”

“Oh well, if you see him again soon tell him to stop by my shop, ‘Bread Breaker’s’ on the main street. I would like to give him a few loaves of bread or something, to repay him for saving my life.”

“I’ll make sure to inform him madam.” The stallion replied.

“Alright well, thank you for saving me, if you would like some bread make sure to come by sometime and I’ll send ya home with a loaf or two, can’t have the captain of the guard starving now can we?” She replied with a smile before she left.

Shining Armor continued on as he entered the castle, he made his way back to the sun princesses castle with a purposeful stride, he knocked briefly and heard a call from within. Opening the door with his magic Shining Armor made his way back into the room and heard a polite call from the balcony, “In here Shining.”

He made his way onto the balcony to see Celestia resting after having just raised the sun for the day, “I just came by to do my usual check-up Princess Celestia, anything you would like to report for me to take care of?” he said respectfully as he bowed to the princess.

“I am fine, thank you for asking. However a minute or so ago I heard word about a wyvern attack inside the castle walls, apparently it attacked a defenseless mare?” She said with a curious tone.

“The mare is fine and I assure you that the soldier responsible for not being at his post will be severely reprimanded.” The stallion replied formally.

“Oh, did you fight off the beast? I saw a shadow head off in that direction before I rose the sun.”

“Indeed your highness, me and Inventor defeated the beast, the crisis was swiftly ended and nopony was hurt in any permanent way. Which I may have to thank the human for, he defeated it when it attacked me while I was unaware.”

“How did he defeat it?” The celestial ruler said as her voice took a keen edge to its tone.

“I’m not entirely sure how his invention worked but it seems to have killed it with minimal effort on his part.”

“He killed it?” She asked with a curious voice as her sharp tone fell away, wyverns had notoriously rigid scales that were more like armor then skin and he apparently had just ended its life easily. “We will need to burn it in order to prevent a spread of the wyverian plague or some other disease.” She made to rise but Shining quickly dispersed her worries.

“He already took care of that too, turned it to ash to let it float away harmlessly on the wind.” He said as he speedily reassured the alicorn.

“And then what happened?” she asked in response as she settled herself back into her previous resting position on the balcony. She was mildly surprised by the amount of power that Inventor apparently held and yet had never used, not even when he had been immensely angry toward the her when she had tried to work with Twilight to get him to fall into a trap.

“We talked briefly, mostly about how he easily ended the life of the creature, but If I may impose my opinion here your highness, It may have been easily physically for him to do so, but if you had seen him after he had done the act I think you would realize that he despises the power he wields.” The stallion said. Celestia nodded in response before speaking once more.

“Well, if that is all, I dismiss you to your activities for the day, recently Cadance came in and told me she has a gift for you, something about a magical set of armor.” The princess smiled as the guard quickly bowed before heading to leave the room as he rushed to pick himself up off the ground, the stallion had been awaiting this particular experiment from his wife for a few days now and he was beginning to grow anxious about the results.

As he was about to leave Shining Armor walked back out onto the balcony, “I almost forgot, we talked briefly about the gardens and what we saw when we looked at them. He said he saw ashes and tinder, Once again if I may add my opinion here, I think that he tries to avoid deaths at all costs, but if worst comes to worst that he will do whatever is necessary to protect those he cares for, regardless of the cost to himself and without hesitation.” The stallion nodded once more to the alicorn before he left to go see what Cadance had enhanced his next set of armor with, leaving the princess to think on the information she had received.

(You may think that I am setting up a plot for a later chapter that I already have planned out, maybe I am, maybe I'm not, guess you'll just have to stick around to find out. - N64Fan)

Story Conclusion

It had been several weeks since the immeasurably important incident involving Insight, and the past few days had gone extremely well for the trio of a family that included not only the nearly solid blue pony who had recently entered the world of the living a few years ahead of usual, but also had an alien from another world named Inventor as well as a flightless pegasus holding the name of Scootaloo. It was an odd family to be sure but they loved each other nonetheless in the face of each others oddities, or perhaps because of them.

Every since Insight had started going to school with Scootaloo a few weeks after he had joined Inventor and her inside their home she found Diamond Tiara picking on her less and less. Apparently having a pegasus brother who could cast shadow magic put some ponies on edge. Yet, despite the general unease and tenseness of the other ponies around him Scootaloo was always the first to stand up for her brother in his times of need, a blessing beyond measure for the blue colt.

The two had quickly bonded after Inventor had arrived back at home with Insight by his side and now they were almost inseparable from each other. Even when Insight went to the library for his magic training with Twilight (Which was going surprisingly well) Scootaloo was mere steps behind reading one the many adventure fictions that lined the walls of the building. Starting, or course, with the Daring Do series.

It was amazing as for the longest time no progress was being made; then, just when Twilight was about to call it quits, he started making remarkable progress from out of the blue. After this sudden epiphany Twilight began constantly sending notes to Celestia about the astounding growth that the pegasus was showing in his control and usage of shadow magic. She assumed that it was her carefully planned out training schedule that was helping him along and it definitely had an impact. But the real reason for Insight’s sudden adeptness in magic was due to a secondary source that nobody was aware of.

It was only in the middle of one dark night of a new moon that he finally felt the need to divulge the secret that had started to tear at him. Inventor lay still in his bedroom gazing up at the ceiling, after a moment he sat up in bed and looked squarely at the corner of the room. “You going to say something or are you just going to stand there awkwardly Insight?” Inventor asked the empty air.

After a moment the darkness peeled out of the air to reveal the blue pegasus standing in the exact spot where Inventor was currently starring. “How did you know I was here?” Insight asked as he looked to the man.

The man smiled in return, “I would hope I’m not fargone enough to miss noticing an inconsistency in my own house.” The man replied, “Now, I believe you had something you wanted to say Insight?”

“I don’t want to bother you, it’s just...” Insight paused as he looked to Inventor who merely waved him on. “It’s just that I’ve been having some outside help with my shadow magic recently.” The colt explained ominously as he subconsciously shivered to some unfelt chill. After the shiver he stopped and merely looked ashamedly towards the man.

Inventor smiled and stood from his bed, “Let’s have a nice cup of that calming tea I bought last weekend to calm our nerves, eh? I’m sure we could both use a drink to settle ourselves.” The man walked steadily over to the door of his room and opened it silently, with another glance to the blue pegasus the human exited the room and proceeded stealthy down the stairs in hopes of not waking Scootaloo.

Upon arriving at the bottom of the flight of stairs the man immediately set towards the kitchen and started to busy himself with the preparations for the hot drink. A creak from a chair behind him informed the man that Insight had made his way down behind him. With this comforting knowledge the man carefully set the pot of water over the stove and made his way over to the table, seating himself across from the blue pegasus..

The minutes ticked away as the steady beat from the man’s arm flooded the room, usually this sound made Insight feel protected, right now however it sounded like war drums on the horizon. As time passed the man leaned back in the seat and waited, after a few moments he stood from the seat and checked on the water on the stove. With a flick of his wrist the man pulled off one of his gloves and slipped a singular digit into the steaming liquid.

Deciding that the water was of suitable temperature the man took the pot off the stove and filled two mugs with the steaming liquid. With both full he set the pan back upon the still working stove and opened one of the surrounding cupboards. From within he drew out a small packet of herbal tea and threw one across the open air to Insight. The pegasus deftly caught the small package and waited patiently as Inventor made his way over to the table with both cups in his hands and his own herbal tea held between his teeth.

With a carefree smile to the blue colt the man opened the thin paper packet that contained the potent herbal mix and carefully dumped its entire contents into the water. Due to the carefully maintained packaging and composition of the herbal mix the separate powders mixed seamlessly with the water of their own accord. No need for stirring. After a moment or so the pegasus accomplished the same act and received the same result.

For a moment only the man was taking small sips from the hot drink on the table in front of him and was pointedly looking around the house. This allowed for his gaze to run across the familiar setting of the house that he had grown somewhat attached to. His attachment wasn’t due to the upfront appearance of the building, though it was quite cozy. No, the reason for his attachment was because it represented a new part of his life, one of joy.

As the man was steeped in his memories the colt across the table took a sip of the tea that sat in front of him. As it touched his tongue The colt’s face turned purple as the red on his skin mixed with the solid blue of his coat and he fought to swallow the steaming drink. Managing the task he looked pointedly at the man across the table. “You call that a good temperature? I don’t think I’ll ever have taste buds ever again.” Insight proclaimed as he panted.

Inventor laughed silently to himself as a jovial smile crossed his face. “Oh just wait for it to cool Insight. I tend to like my drinks hot enough to melt steel. I thought I toned down my expectations of the heat enough for you but it seems I miscalculated.” The man said as he looked briefly towards the blue pegasus that sat across the table from him.

A few more minutes ticked away to the ethereal ticking noise and Insight tried the tea in front of him once again. It had cooled significantly and the colt closed his eyes as the pull of the relaxing agents in this brand of tea pulled at his strung nerves and untangled them. The colt couldn’t help but lean back as the tea soothed his mind and smile as he took another sip.

Unfortunately the moment wasn’t fated to last long as Inventor spoke once again. “So you were talking about some outside help you’ve had with your shadow magic.” the man took a thoughtful pause as he took another sip of the tea. “Would you explain what exactly you mean by that?”

“Well,” The blue pegasus nervously began, “About a week ago when Twilight told me to search within myself for my magical power I felt something that I hadn’t found before.” The colt could almost feel his nerves starting to tighten once more from stress so he took another sip of the refreshing hot liquid from the mug in front of him. The colt paused once more now that he had stopped and lost his momentum, regardless Inventor waved the colt on and after another sip of the tea the pegasus managed to continue.

“Anyway I attempted to cast a spell but failed just like I had before. That was when I heard a voice in my head that told me how to cast the magic correctly. I was hesitant of it at first so I didn’t follow the advice of it but when I tried it outside the spell worked perfectly and I decided that maybe the voice could help me afterall. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner but I was afraid I would get put in an asylum or something.” Insight said, almost blurting out the words as he finished. His expression turned to one of relief as he took another small sip of herbal tea, quite happy to have the confession of his chest.

A few beats from the metallic clockwork kept the time until Inventor spoke up again. “So what changed?” He asked simply as he took another sip of the tea. All happiness seemed to have fled his face as he adopted a serious, yet reflective, expression.

“W-w-what?” The pegasus stuttered as he looked at the man, sweat once again beading upon his forehead.

“What changed? You just came to tell me this information and I doubt you would snap if it were giving you helpful advice so what changed Insight? Why did you feel the sudden need to have closure?” Inventor asked softly as he raised his eyes to meet those of the blue colt across from him. The pegasus met the gaze for a moment before looking away from the sad eyes across the table from himself.

“The voice started telling me to do things that didn’t have anything to do with my shadow magic.” Insight admitted, still avoiding the gaze of the man.

“Like what?” Came the soft reply.

Insight stopped himself for a moment, a look crossing his face like he was deep in thought but the blue colt shook his head and turned to look once more towards the man. “Like kill Twilight Sparkle.” The colt admitted with a hang of his head.

The human remained passive though his facial pattern changed from sad to unreadable. “I see.” Came the brief reply. Once again a pause in the spoken words appeared and Insight began to feel very uncomfortable across from his adoptive father.

“How is your training with mind to mind connections coming along?” The man asked as he looked towards the foal.

“I’ve learned how to link the first few layers of two people’s minds. Both have to be willing though.” The colt replied.

“I see, would you mind linking minds with me so I can hear this voice that torments your mind?” Inventor asked.

“I-I-I guess, it’s a pretty scary voice though.”

“On a scale of one to my memories?”

“One, maybe two.”

“Thought so.”

With a silent agreement both males looked at each other and Insight flared his wings to trigger his spell. Shortly following the act darkness from the surrounding environment coalesced and formed a solid thread between both of the participants’ heads. Both bodies went limp but remained upright in their seats as the spell was cast and Inventor soon found himself falling within the darkness of his own mind.

You’ve come to talk to me Inventor? Came a voice that echoed through the shroud, its words laced with a mocking tone.

“I’ve come to tell you that I want you out of my son’s head!” Inventor shouted loudly back into the abyss.

And why would I ever do that?

Inventor’s attitude shifted once again, “Because I have a deal that you can’t refuse.”

Insight found himself deep within his own mind. Unlike Inventor’s however it was much more colorful, to be specific the edges of his sight were composed of a rich purple that seemed to shift steadily between red and blue.

Inside his mind that colt was surprised to find himself alone with no Inventor in sight. More surprising though was how silent it was currently. “What happened to the voice?” The colt asked himself, his voice echoing across his mindscape as he floated guideless through the fog of his own mind.

What seemed like an hour passed before the spell came to an abrupt end and the blue pegasus found himself once more in his own body with the same madman seated opposite him. After a moment the man raised his own head and opened his eyes. For a split second the colt saw he saw something behind the man’s eyes. Darkness and Fire. That’s what it looked like but it was gone in the next second and Insight wasn’t entirely sure he had seen it in the first place.

The man looked at Insight with his usual carefree grin and spoke. “I suspect that it isn’t absolutely vital right now but I would recommend you talk to Twilight about it tomorrow during your training with her.” he said. With the words spoken the man stood from his seat and finished the small remaining amount of tea that was left in his mug before putting it into the sink.

Insight nodded slowly before taking another sip of his tea and looking at the still half-full cup that sat before him on the table. Inventor smiled at him, “Go ahead and take as long as you need, I’ll be right upstairs if you need me anymore tonight.” Both of them bid farewell to the other and Inventor retreated to his room for the remainder of the night. Insight remained up for another hour as he finished his drink and ran over the thoughts as to the events of the night. Just as the blue pegasus had finished his drink and deposited it alongside Inventor’s he realized something was different, the voice was gone.

Overcome with this revelation Insight had to restrain the urge of running upstairs and asking Inventor about it. After all it could just be a trick, the voice could still be there and was just being silent for some reason. With this sobering theory in his mind the colt silently made his way into his shared room with Scootaloo that now sported two beds. The filly dozed heavily on an orange bed at one end of the room while Insight carefully made his way to his own blue bed at the other end. With only his thoughts and the occasional creak as the house settled to keep his attention the colt swiftly found himself asleep and dreaming easily.

In the early morning both foals woke to a house devoid of their father and a note that rested on the table on the first floor. Scootaloo picked it up and read it briefly before shrugging and handing it to Insight. The note detailed how the man would be going to see Rarity about getting a new top hat, something he had neglected to do since the events of Insight’s welcome to the world. Insight saw nothing suspicious of the note and put it back on the table before joining Scootaloo in a bowl of sugary cereal.

The cereal was quickly finished and both foals left the house and set off towards the school. All the distance Scootaloo moved along on her scooter at a slow pace that allowed Insight the ability to walk alongside here. They spoke about some of the new toys that were coming out as children were wont to do but all in all the trip to the school, as well as the day at school, passed without much ado.

Inventor smiled as he looked at Rarity through one eye, her face displayed puzzlement and shock as she returned the gaze. Swiftly the return gaze turned into an angry leer. “You did what?” She asked in a cold, deadpan tone.

“I blew it up, well okay it kinda was my fault, kinda wasn’t. Hard to explain. Anyway yea, the top hat exploded.” Inventor said as his grin widened.

“Never a dull day with you is it?” Rarity asked as she turned away from the man and made her way to the back room.

“I don’t know, yesterday was pretty normal. Really dull.” Inventor said as he remained standing in front of the counter that had only recently been installed.

“You’re lucky that I’m as thorough as I am generous Inventor, I suspected something like this might happen so I prepared a back-up top hat for you.” Rarity said as she exited the backroom, a box levitating alongside her. She gently lowered the rectangular box on the counter in front of Inventor. The man gingerly lifted the lid off the hat box and examined the contents with his one good eye. Discovering the hat within to be almost identical to the one he had blown up Inventor smiled and replaced the lid.

With a new air of energy about him the man placed five bits upon the counter and made to take the box when Rarity coughed pointedly. Inventor glanced toward her and noticed she was looking between him and the money he had recently placed. “What, that’s how much the hat was last time I bought it from you.” Inventor said as he looked once more at the money and double-checked that there were in fact five bits on the counter.

“Insurance cost on the fabric, three additional bits please darling.” Rarity said politely as she looked to the man. The man nodded and took out three more bits that he placed with the other five and nodded to Rarity.

“Thank you, I’ve been meaning to get this replaced and now is a better time than any other.” Rarity returned the nod and thanked him for his patronage. On his way out the man opened both eyes and looked at the one he had kept closed in the reflection of the glass. Almost instantly he closed it again and hastily exited the boutique.

Inventor looked around after he exited the building to make sure nopony was looking, after he confirmed that not a soul was watching him the man fully exited the perimeter of the building and set off towards the Everfree forest at a brisk pace. He was spotted by Twilight as he made his way towards the mysterious wood but he ignored her greeting and continued on his way. The indigo mare passed this off as another oddity that the man seemed to have far too many of and returned to the library, her shopping done for the day.

After school finished Insight was excitedly making his way toward the library with Scootaloo once more at his side. The entire day at school had gone by and he hadn’t heard that haunting malevolent voice since his talk with Inventor the night prior. With joy in his heart from being free of the corrupting voice the blue pegasus felt like he could fly to the library on the rivers of relief that he was currently riding on.

When he arrived Twilight was surprised to find him in such good spirits, he had originally showed up mopey realizing he had to take additional schooling. The past week had been different in that regard as when he showed up he looked nervous and high strung. This reaction though, this reaction was completely knew. The magic teacher looked to Scootaloo for an explanation but all she got in return was a shrug.

Shaking off the surprise of the new attitude of her student the mare once again began her lesson on control and flow of magic. She had originally wanted to teach him via books but when she found the supply of texts on shadow magic to be completely non-existence it had been decided that experience was his only choice for learning magic.

With this hands-on approach the results had been slow at first but had picked up exponentially. Today however the librarian noticed that the colt seemed to be lagging a bit more on the new spell then he usually did. She was attempting to get him to learn a simple spell that allowed the wielder to cast multiple shadows when only one would normally or even to completely block a light source. Eventually he worked it out by himself and smiled when he saw the three shadows that sat around his body despite the singular light bulb that hung in the middle of the room. The colt felt a joy of achievement go through his body at having succeeded without the help of a voice in his head.

After his success Twilight looked to the nearby clock she kept on hand and clicked her hoofs together. “It seems that we’re done for the day Insight. Have a good night.” The mare said with finality and much to her surprise the blue pegasus looked somewhat downtrodden at the new but his expression quickly brightened.

“Okay I have to ask, what’s going on that has you so excited?” Twilight inquired as she looked curiously to her student.

The colt seemed momentarily confused by the question before understanding covered his features.“Oh, that’s right, Dad told me to tell you but I forgot. Sorry.” After that introduction Insight quickly detailed the events of the previous night and the secret of his sudden success. Twilight grew more and more curious as the tale went on, it certainly wasn’t natural.

Though she really hated to worry the princess Twilight decided it best not to risk anything that regarded both Insight and Inventor and sent a brief summary of the events that the blue pegasus had described. After having Spike send the note Twilight managed to keep both energetic fillies within the library until either a return note was sent or an hour had passed. The time was passed with a board game and a study session, Scootaloo opted out of the latter and went back to reading her book.

Both princesses were both in a meeting together when the scroll materialized in the air in front of Celestia. The white alicorn caught the rolled paper with practiced easy and immediately opened the scroll, excusing herself from the conversation as she did so. A moment went by as she read the note, After reading it Celestia felt a pain in her gut and reread the parchment, trying to convince herself that she had read it wrong at some point. Luna picked up on the feelings of her sister and turned to see Celestia looking at the paper with blatant worry on her face. Without warning the princess of the sun stood from her seat and hurriedly made her way toward the door.

“Sister wait, what is the matter?” Luna called after the retreating form of the white alicorn as she too stood from her seat and looked to the ponies who were now sharing worried glances.

“We asked the wrong question, Luna. We asked the wrong question.” Celestia said darkly as she flung the stone door wide open and took off down the hall.

Without a pause Luna quickly excused herself from the meeting as well and took off after her sister. After a few turns through the hall Luna figured out where the white alicorn was going and her worry only grew. Taking the first chance she could the lunar princess cast a short range teleport to take her around a corner just as Celestia turned down the same hall. Now running side by side Luna saw a very real fear on the face of the alicorn.

“What do you mean we asked the wrong question sister? What are you referring to?” Luna said, almost breathless.

“We asked him how Insight could use shadow magic, that’s not what we should have asked. We should have asked WHY he could use shadow magic.” Celestia said, her own voice quite strong despite the running.

Luna paused and let Celestia run on without her. Slowly the pieces began to link together in her head. Given where her sister was going and what she had just said to her there was only one possible circumstance that could even be plausible. Taking a deep breath to calm herself the blue alicorn began to channel her magic for a long range teleport. With the spell prepared all it took was a cast and the lunar princess moved instantaneously between the castle at Canterlot and into the library.

Twilight was surprised when Luna appeared out of nowhere but she didn’t have time to question it as the alicorn turned to the studious unicorn and gave a simple, yet powerful, command. “Gather the elements.”

After Celestia had retrieved the elements from the vault in which they were stored she immediately began her teleportation spell to Ponyville. Due to the extra baggage she was taking with her the white alicorn took a moment longer to prepare her spell then her lunar sister had. Nonetheless the spell was prepared quite quickly and Celestia soon found herself inside the library alongside Twilight Sparkle.

The white alicorn was about to command that the other elements be gathered when she noticed that they already had. Each of the elements wore a sad, determined expression as they stood next to each other. Behind the elements Luna stood a tear was falling down her face, nevertheless she smiled at the white alicorn and put on a bold face. “I guess you could say great minds think alike.” Luna said, “I already received the summary from Twilight and provided my own knowledge. We are ready to do what needs to be done.”

Inventor stood at the edge of the Everfree forest with his top hat resting lightly on his head. He had been there for the past few hours, alone. "Man to stone and dust to ashes. How appropriate." The time had passed slowly as he looked toward the leafy foliage of the forest with both his eyes wide open. He had watched the shadows drift lightly across the floor of the woods as the evening had approached and left.

As he stood looking into the forest he heard the crunching of leaves behind him and smiled to himself. “You’re late you know?” he asked the pony behind him. The indigo pony shook her head sadly at the remark, her tiara jingling as she did so.

“We would have been here sooner if you hadn’t felt the need to play a game of riddles with us.” Twilight replied

Ignoring her comment Inventor continued, “Eternal night is a really stupid goal, don’t you think? Everything would die. I think it's about time the creature behind it be sealed away permanently without hope for escape.”

“Indeed it is Inventor, indeed it is.” This time the reply came from Luna who was looking at the back of the man’s head. “Would you mind turning around, I don’t like talking to someone’s back.” She said as she stood idly trying desperately to keep her emotions calm.

Inventor slowly, shakily turned around to look at the ponies who had gathered to see him off. Among them the man noticed the shocked faces of his son and daughter. All of those gathered looked on in awe as they saw the man’s eyes. It was like the color had been reversed. What was supposed to be white was black and vice versa. Inventor sadly sighed to himself, “Of course my kids are here, dying guy can’t get a break can he?”

“D-dad? What’s going on? Why are your eyes weird?” Scootaloo asked as she recovered from the initial shock of what she was seeing. She knew exactly what was going on in all reality, she just really didn't want to believe it.

“I took in a bit too much darkness it seems, turns out that the magic carries the soul of Nightmare moon under normal circumstances. I volunteered to take that burden from somepony and it seems I finally bit off more than I can chew.” Inventor said as he once again turned away from the gathered ponies.

“I’m sorry it has to end this way Inventor, if there were any other option-” Celestia began.

“Don’t say another word, believe me when I say there is no other option, this is none of your faults. That includes you Insight. Balance in all things right? So in order to take down a great evil something of equal value has to be lost.” Inventor paused as he broke into a short barking laugh that suddenly turned manic.

Realizing the change in his laugh the man stopped and paused before he continued. “That sounds like I’m calling myself a great good, ha. I’m just so humble aren’t I?” He paused once more as he ran thoughts through his head. “Hey Scoots, if anyone tells you off about not having a dad just tell them that he saved Equestria okay?”

Another unnatural, tense pause filled the air before another pony spoke up from the group, one that Inventor hadn’t expected to see there and had somehow managed to miss when he had looked back. “And what of me Inventor? What is the only living pony inventor going to do alone?” Crimson Turn asked.

“If you feel like you owe me you could adopt Insight and Scootaloo to keep an eye on them when I’m gone.” Inventor said, resisting the urge to turn around and look once more into the eyes of the pony he had the closest tie with. “Of course that’s not what you're asking is it? Alright, you seem to have forgotten something Crimson. You aren’t alone. Not after what's happened since you met me. You have Trixie who will come by Canterlot sometime I’m sure, not to mention you will always be friends with the elements.”

Though Inventor couldn't see it he could easily imagine that each of the other gathered ponies was smiling at Crimson Turn. He smiled to himself at the thought, when humans were in a bad place they would turn away from others. Ponies were quite the opposite, socializing and friendship was the core of their society after all. In times of trouble they would always go see there friends.

There was another pause as Inventor waited for the final of the gathered ponies to speak, Eventually his wait was rewarded as the blue unicorn spoke up. “Curse you and your noble demeanor Inventor. Trixie was hoping to get through this without crying.” He detected the choked up tone that came with the voice but opted not to mention it. “You came out of nowhere and blessed Trixie’s life and now you just decide to leave? What gives you the right to do that to Trixie, to all of us?” The blue mare said as anger flooded her voice.

“AND WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO STOP ME?!” Inventor shouted into the air, a stillness settled into the air and Inventor placed his head into his hand as he started to rub his temples. “Sorry about that, I didn’t mean it. It’s just ...this voice is really getting to me. We need to wrap this up as quick as we can.” Inventor said in a much calmer tone as he straightened his back and looked calmly forward into the forest.

"You'll have to forgive me Luna, it seems I'll be taking my leave sooner then anticipated." The man said with a grin.

“I take it you are ready then?” Celestia said as she approached the forefront of the assembled ponies. Inventor crossed his arms in front of him and gave a barely perceptible nod. With a delayed nod in return Celestia turned to gathered ponies and gave them each a tap on the shoulder.

With the magic prepared in each of the elements the six ponies reflected back onto the happy moments that they each had with Inventor. By the time that the magic had started to wrap itself around the separate artifacts that were being wielded there wasn’t a single dry eye in the vicinity bar Celestia who remained composed with use of her royal mask.

The magic coalesced into the six separate streams of magic that composed the normal rainbow of energy that the elements caused. The technicolored beam shot high into the air and hesitated briefly at the height of it's curve. After a moment it dropped back down at a much faster speed and crashed into the ground around the man's feet. After a pause once more it began to wrap themselves around the man. As the colors danced over his skin Inventor smiled and said his last words.

“Oh that’s right, almost forgot. Make sure to take care of your brother, Scootaloo. As long as you two have each other you can't possibly be lonely.” With those words the man smiled his carefree grin and returned to his previous pose. The magic went on unabated as it curved about him and encased him in its multichromatic shell. The magic wound tighter and tighter until it disappated as it rubbed against his skin.

When the magic had entirely vanished from sight the spell left a statue of a man standing and looking into the woods. Pinkie immediately began to tear up and for what seemed like the longest time the only thing that occurred was grieving and comforting. After each of the ponies had recovered themselves Celestia looked at the statue.

“I think that he would like to be placed at the center of our labyrinth don’t you think?” Celestia said as she glanced around. “A potent tombstone indeed, we only need an official funeral and an epitaph to sort it out now.

“I-I think that I can help you with half of that.” Came the soft reply of Insight as he pulled a paper from the grasp of the stone man. Celestia looked at the paper and levitated it to her normal eye level.

After reading the paper she smiled, “That will indeed do nicely.”

A week later there was a new addition to the canterlot gardens, few would make it to the center of the maze to view it but those who did would find its engraved saying to be quite confusing. It read as follows.

‘The elements of harmony work upon a scewed wavelength that sits both perpendicular and parallel to the normal wavelength of magic, This allows the artifacts to both negate and amplify the various aspects that compose a spell. Hence the reason Nightmare Moon couldn’t escape them when she found herself at their mercy both the first and second time. Yet despite the seemingly simple aspects of the elements we can’t simply ignore the more complex.

I refer of course to the fact that the elements only work when used by the selected six. This took me a few weeks to work out but I theorize that when a magic spell is cast that the force that brings it into existence is, in fact the emotions of the caster. Now if the spell were so selective as to require a pure emotion of some kind only those in possession of such an emotion could wield that particular spell. Meaning that the pure honesty of the element wielder is attuned to that of the element itself. This also explains several other magical inconsistencies I seem to have noticed as well.

Regardless of these facts however there is one thing about the elements that is the most important. The wielders of those elements in this day and age are perhaps the happiest most deeply caring mares ever to grace Equestria and I wish them prosperity from wherever I am right now.’

Chapter Fifteen

(Consider the insane length of this chapter as an apology for the prank I pulled on you all earlier. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about I replaced this chapter with a rickroll. Also, I think I finally figured out why the huge stories have pre-readers, because this was insane. -N64Fan)

It had been a busy week for Inventor as he now lay in bed back in Ponyville, he heard soft snores coming from Scootaloo’s room across the hall and noticed that she was sleeping peacefully without the melody of the music box floating through the air. “I guess she has gotten over her nightmares, that’s good. They seemed to drive her insane.” The man smiled to himself as he laid his head to rest on the pillow. He had been more than insane once, and now that he was finally recovering with the help of these ponies the last thing he needed was his daughter to follow in his footsteps.

As the man fell into his sleep he immediately felt something wasn’t quite right, the normal flow of equations wouldn’t come to him and the darkness seemed to swirl around his mind. Trying to force equations into his head did nothing to help and the darkness only increased its movements when he did so, after a few moments it felt like the blackness was suffocating him and, with a gasp, Inventor forced himself into consciousness and looked around the room quickly.

The sun had started to rise but other then that nothing in the room had changed, aside from that he noticed that the snores from Scootaloo’s sleeping had been replaced with a muffled weeping noise, springing from his bed immediately Inventor dashed to the orange filly’s room and flung the door open in urgency. As he did so the filly looked up at him in fear. Beside fear there was something else in her eye, something that hurt Inventor more than anything else could. She didn’t recognize him.

The filly immediately darted out of the room and down the stairs where she burst out the front door. Inventor followed suit, making sure to grab his top hat from the hat rack before running out the door and slamming it shut behind him, he glanced around and saw a flash of orange disappear around a house. With a burst of adrenaline Inventor was running after his daughter, something was wrong, something had happened, and the scariest thing about it was that Inventor had no idea what it could even possibly be.

After a few more turns through town Inventor realized that Scootaloo was heading to Rarity’s boutique. With this in mind Inventor took a shorter route through an alley and arrived just as the door opened so Scootaloo could come in, when she saw the man approaching she quickly ran into the building and the door shut.

Slowing his pace Inventor stood at the door and knocked on the wooden entryway, from beyond he could hear the fashionista berating the babblings of Scootaloo, “There is no such thing as monsters like the ones you’re talking about, Scootaloo, honestly.” The mare said just before she opened the door with her magic, when she saw Inventor in the doorway she froze.

“Hello Rarity. Sorry to disturb you but Scoots ran out of the house and I saw her come here, I think something must have happened but-” Inventor stopped as he saw the same look of confusion on the white mare’s face, one that quickly shifted to a protective glare as she spoke over her shoulder.

“Sweetie, take Scootaloo and go to your room, then lock the door.” The white filly nodded her head at her sister’s command. A look of surprise was on the white filly’s face as the orange pegasus wore the same look of fear she had that morning. With that the two fillies went to their room.

“Rari-” Inventor tried once more as he reached to the white unicorn.

She backed away, “I know not what you are, monster. But you will not enter this house!” She shouted loudly. Inventor looked at her first in surprise but his face quickly dropped to an apathetic stare before he did something that she didn’t expect, he slowly turned around so his back was to the door and sat on the ground.

After a few minutes of confusion for the mare the man eventually spoke over his shoulder, “Aren’t you going to get Twilight so she can have the princess come and throw me into a dungeon?” He asked with a poisonous tone that seemed to cause himself hurt when he spoke. “Wouldn’t want some wild animal running loose in Ponyville would you?”

She slowly nodded and sent a magical message to Twilight, she had learned the spell recently and she had wanted to try it out. She received a brief response from the lavender mare before assuring her that the message had been sent to the princess.

Minutes later the lavender mare arrived and saw the man sitting in front of the house so she stopped to look at him. Inventor glanced once at the lavender mare and, seeing the same lack of recognition in her face as the others he turned his head back to gaze at the sky. Twilight knocked on the door and the door was hesitantly opened by Rarity, when she saw it was Twilight she quickly opened the door the rest of the way and let out a sigh of relief.

“Oh it’s so good to see you darling, this ruffian appears to have kidnapped Scootaloo and then chased her when she tried to run away.” Inventor flinched at this as if he had been in pain but remained silent.

Twilight caught the look and stood in front of the man, “Well, do you have anything to say for yourself?” She said as she eyed the human.

“It doesn’t matter what I say, maybe if you remembered me I could do something about that accusation but, as things are right now, you won’t listen to what I have to say. Regardless of how true it is.” He said as he glanced at the lavender mare once again, “But I will say that I would never, under any circumstances, purposefully harm that pegasus filly.” his eyes turned cold as he spoke and the lavender mare felt the sudden urge to leave him alone.

Twilight nodded slowly and retreated into the boutique, “Celestia sent Luna to pick him up because she will be busy with a few things today.” A crack of lightning split the air outside and both mares looked to see the black sky carriage descending with Luna in tow. As it landed the princess exited the vehicle and looked at the man who sat almost completely still outside the boutique.

“I assume this is the monster we are supposed to pick up?” Luna said as she glared hatefully at the man, “The creature that disturbed the peace and is under suspected kidnapping of one foal?” Inventor twitched again and stood from the ground, he nodded to the princess and turned to lock his eyes on the ground.

“Aboard the carriage then, we will escort you to the dungeon where you will serve the correct amount of time for these crimes as assigned by my sister and then you will be released into the Everfree.” Silent save for the ticking noise, that was once more from an unknown origin for all the ponies, Inventor boarded the flying transport and remained standing as Luna nodded once to Twilight and Rarity before the carriage was back in the air and heading for Canterlot.

The flight was without words, Luna was looking steadily ahead of the carriage as the pegasi flew the transport and Inventor remained silent as he looked at the floor. Upon arrival to the castle Inventor was taken into the dungeon and told that that night Celestia would be coming to judge him. He didn’t respond as he was placed in his cell.

The guards were hesitant of this prisoner as they went about their duties, scared by the unknown origin of the creature and fearful of what he could do. Around midday one of the cells next to the man began to get loud and was causing quite a ruckus, just as one of the guards was about to quiet down the cell the man barked a loud “SILENCE!” And the cell fell quiet, as did the murmurs that had been circulating the room, the remainder of the day was kept by the ticking that echoed off the walls, it annoyed a few of the prisoners but they were to scared by this creature to say anything about it.

Eventually nighttime ticked around and Celestia made her slow descent into the dungeon, as she arrived several of the already quiet prisoners moved to the back corner of their cells. After a few steps she arrived at the door to the man’s cell and she turned to face him, with a wave of her hoof she sent the guards out of the room to take a break while she spoke to this creature.

“Hello Celestia, how is Luna handling the whole nightmare thing?” He said as he glanced up at the white alicorn.

“She is handling it.” Celestia said, slightly unnerved by the man's knowledge. “But that is beside the point, you know why you are here?”

“I know my charges, yes.”

“How do you plead?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Excuse me?”

“It doesn’t matter, none of it matters, the reasons I was told for why I am in here aren’t even the reasons you showed up at all.”

“So why am I here then?”

“Because there are gaps in your memory, gaps that start about a month back where you can’t recall anything from a duration of time. But of course that’s not why you’re here either, no the reason you are here is because Luna and Twilight share these symptoms and that scares you. You don’t care if I did anything to you, you care that I may have done something to your sister and your apprentice. That’s why you’re here.”

Celestia looked surprised for a moment before she hid it under her impassive monarch mask. “You seem to know quite a bit about it, am I supposed to take your words for a confession of guilt?”

“That’s why nothing matters, because if I say the truth I become a suspect, if I tell a lie, I become a suspect, even if I told you right now all the different things you’ve said to me in an attempt to receive some form of trust from you I would only appear more guilty, no matter what I say you're going to keep me in this dungeon.”

Celestia was about to say that she would never do such a thing but Inventor jumped in front of her speech, “Don’t lie to yourself you would do anything to keep your sister safe. So instead lets see if I can win my freedom with a bargain, a bet if you will, one that will appear heavily in your favor.”

Celestia wasn’t one for betting but this man seemed to know quite a few things that she needed answers too, “What’s the bet?”

“I bet you my freedom that I can break out of the cell with you watching and fully able to do anything you would like to stop me.”

“I’ll take your bet but, if you fail, I would like to ask you several questions that you will answer truthfully and to the fullest extent of your knowledge.” Celestia said as she looked at him. She did not think herself overly prideful but there was no doubt in her mind that she could stop this creature from exiting.

“Oh, Celestia, I was going to do that anyhow.” Inventor said with a smile in her direction, the white alicorn felt like she had seen that grin before but the next words of the man kept her from thinking about it any further. “Ready, Set, GO!”

In a split second the man tossed a small pebble through the squares of the cell door towards Celestia, she sidestepped the rock and watched it sail by. When she turned back to face the man the cell door was falling towards her, she attempted to grab it with magic but something was dampening her spell as the door continued to fall slowly, it was at about a forty five degree angle before Celestia managed to raise it and put it back in place.

Without Inventor inside of it.

She glanced to her side and saw Inventor sitting comfortably on the ground as he looked at the ground, “How did you manage to get the door to fall?” She asked. Inventor reached into his coat pocket and pulled out three strips of metal, with a confused look she turned back to the door and realized that the pins of the hinges were all missing.

“But when did you-”

“First thing I did when they put me in there, I thought the maniac in the cell next to me would draw the attention of the guards and they would notice but I got him to shut up and the guards never did check the door.” Inventor said as he slowly stood from the ground. With a resigned sigh he tossed the bits of metal lightly towards the sun princess who slid them into position once again with her magic, which she found to be back at full strength. “Well, let's go have tea or something and I can tell you everything I know about the memory wipe, what do you say, can't possibly hurt any and even if I did escape where would I go?”

Still shocked by what had just happened, Celestia nodded and Inventor let her lead the way out of the dungeon. Hoping that the presence of the monarch would quell the guards.

“But, how did you remove those pins? They were sealed in with magic and made by the finest blacksmiths.”

“Cross-neutrality field created by a parallel EMP wave operating on the correct wavelength easily displaced the magical binding on the hinges, That left only regular hinges to hold me in, regular hinges that are easily trumped by a fulcrum and a fair amount of force.” Inventor said with a glance to the white alicorn.

“I am not ashamed to say that I hardly understood a word you just said, frankly I think that you were quite insane to try what you did.”

Inventor smiled in return, “Too bad this is the first time you remember me, if you recalled me from prior to the mind wipe you would think that was I just said was quite simple and that my insanity was relative.”

“What did you do?”

“Jumped off your sister’s balcony to an almost certain death, you wanted to put me in the dungeon then too.”

Celestia was silent for a moment as they began their ascent up the staircase, she looked to Inventor once and then looked back up the stairs. “What’s your name? And what are you?” She said with curiosity potent in her voice.

“Inventor, and I’m nearly human.” he said with a smile in return.

“Nearly?”

“Human.”

Taking the vague remark as a hint to let the conversation drop they continued the walk up the stairs, a few guards caught sight of Inventor following Celestia and ran off in a hurry, on the floor immediately following that one Luna met with the two.

“Are you alright sister? Is this creature forcing you to do anything?” Celestia was about to calm Luna’s fears when she was once more interrupted by Inventor.

“That string on your hoof. How did it get there?” Inventor said with a glance to the dark blue alicorn.

“Why is that of any importance?”

“Well, why would a princess such as yourself walk around with a string tied around her forehoof, surely it must be important, so why are you wearing it?” Celestia glanced first to her sister who wore a confused look on her face and then to Inventor who seemed to have a glimmer of hope behind his eye though his face remained stoic.

“Someone, important, gave it to me, I think.” She said as she closed her eyes and tried to remember who it was that had made the item important to her.

“Someone? Don’t you mean ‘Somepony’?” Inventor replied.

“No, it wasn’t a pony, it was, ugh I can’t remember, why is this important?” Luna said as she looked once more at Inventor, he hung his head slightly as he shook it back and forth.

“Nevermind, doesn’t matter.” he said.

“Sister? why are you walking with this creature?” Luna said as she shifted her gaze to Celestia.

“He said that he knows something about the memory gaps, he brought up the subject before I even spoke of it.” Celestia said as she looked at the man once more, the hope was gone from his eyes and he was staring at the ground, “We made a deal and he’s going to tell me what he knows over tea.”

“I need to return to my night duties, best of luck to you sister.” Luna said as she channeled magic into her horn before disappearing in a blue flash. The two once again continued their trek up the stairs, this time with a despairing mood that seemed to hang over the human.

Eventually they reached the floor of Celestia’s room and the two began to make their way through corridors. “You gave her that string didn’t you?” Celestia finally said to break the tension that had begun to settle in.

“I used it for a demonstration prior to me jumping off the balcony, I must have made quite an impression on her if she decided to start wearing it as a bracelet.” Inventor said with a sad tone ringing through his voice, “For a minute there I almost...” He let the sentence drop off without completing it and Celestia decided that they could talk some more once they had arrived in her room.

Not too many steps later they found themselves at the door to the white alicorn’s room, the door was sealed much like the door to the elements of harmony, she stuck her horn into the hole and channeled a brief spell that opened the door, as it swung open Celestia regally walked into the room and settled herself with her legs underneath her. In front of her was a bright white stone table that sat in the middle of the massive room.

Inventor was not awed as he shuffled in after her and took a cross-legged sitting position that brought the table mid-way up his chest, the white alicorn once again channeled magic and a steaming tea set appeared on the table, not waiting for an invitation Inventor poured himself a cup of tea and began to sip it slowly.

“Haven’t had tea in a while.” He said offhandedly. His remark was followed by silence as the white alicorn poured herself a cup, the two were silent as they drank their tea, Inventor’s ticking being the only noise in the room.

After a few minutes he finally spoke up, “Are memories connected to a person directly? If somepony were to travel back in time and make it so that someone never existed then would all the people who knew him in the future forget about him or would they retain memory of him and merely wonder where he had gone to?”

“I believe that they would forget all about him, since it would be that he never existed, of course any unicorn that uses time-travel magic is bound by certain laws that are set forth in the spell so theoretically it could only happen through some alternative timetravel source.” Celestia said as she looked at him.

“I see, and how are Luna’s nightmares? I realize I asked you already but more specifically I am wondering if they suddenly stopped altogether last night.” Celestia nodded, her sister had told her that wonderful bit of news when she had also informed her of the missing gaps in her memory. “Then I suspect I know the exact cause of why the sudden gap in memory occured.” Inventor said with finality.

“But, I am going to need you to do me a favor first, something to prove my point. Can you identify and visually show souls?” He asked, Celestia hesitated.

“I can if my sister helps me, showing a visual of a soul takes large amount of energy and it can almost certainly cause horrible side effects if done alone.”

Inventor nodded, “Then I ask that she be here as soon as she can, I suspect I can bring back the memories of the people who forgot me if I do this fast enough, and, in doing so, fill in all gaps in your memory and the memories of Luna and Twilight.” At his words Celestia felt she could trust him, she didn’t remember why she could trust him, but the feeling was there all the same. With a glance around herself Celestia grabbed a paper and pen and wrote up a short note. After she finished the note disappeared in a flash of white.

“She’ll be here as soon as she can.”

After a tired night with the crusaders Scootaloo was walking past a familiar house, she stopped and looked at it before realizing it was the house that she had ran out of that morning. The other crusaders looked to the orange pegasus as a tear ran out of her eye. “Why do I miss him so much?” She said with a breaking voice. “Why do I feel like he cared for me much more than I could ever expect anyone too?”

Her questions were met with silence from the other two crusaders as they nestled up next to the orange pegasus filly, they didn’t know anything to say to comfort her so the least they could do was to be there for her. Scoots eventually ended up in a curled up fetal position and began to cry as the moon rose slowly.

“You called, sister?” Luna said as she entered Celestia’s room, she had used her own spell to unlock the white stone door and now saw Inventor looking at the ground with Celestia sipping a cup of tea slowly.

“Indeed I did, Inventor here says that he knows how to give us back the memories we’ve been missing, he also claims its connected to your nightmares suddenly stopping dead.” Celestia said as she rose from the ground, “But he says in order to prove his theory we need to visually manifest a soul.”

Luna looked between Inventor and Celestia, she was about to refuse the idea when she noticed the string still tied around her hoof, with a sudden assurance that she could trust the creature she looked to her sister. “Alright, I will assist with this.” She turned her gaze to Inventor “What soul do you need us to visually manifest?”

“Mine.” Came the reply as he stood from the ground as well. Celestia nodded her head and looked to Luna, the moon princess returned the nod and the two of them began to focus magic through their horns. The magic in the room slowly began to build before the two alicorns cast their magic at the same time.

Both collided in midair and circled around each other before forming an odd grey magic projectile, the projectile hit Inventor squarely in the chest but he remained unaffected, after a few moments the magic swirled around the human and a visualization of his soul appeared, Luna gasped and Celestia let her gaze drop to the floor.

Inventor’s soul was visualized as what appeared to be himself but rows and rows of chains covered his entire body, long lengths of chains were wrapped tightly around his wrists and stuck to the ground. Unfazed by the apparition Inventor was looking wildly around the room, eventually he found what he was looking for.

“There.” Inventor said as he pointed his hand to the wall of the room, both alicorns moved their gaze to where he as pointing and saw something they didn’t expect to, a second soul had appeared and Inventor was looking at it gravely. It was a pegasus with a blue mane, coat and eyes, its cutie mark was a heart with pins in it and a line sewed the length of the side. The one obvious fact that made a shiver run down Celestia’s spine was the look on its face. The look was one of pure fear.

“Solidify him into existence, how much magic do you need?” Inventor asked hurriedly as he doffed his cap and peered inside it, he reached inside and looked desperately at the two alicorns.

“The amount of magic needed would be preposterous, we would need at least six times the magic we have now..” Luna said and Inventor immediately set to work, knobs were spun inside the hat and steam began to shoot forth from the cap, a loud hissing noise filled the air and he looked to the alicorns.

“Cast the spell, I’ve amplified your magic.” There was a brief pause where the sisters looked at each other. “Just do it!” He said loudly.

Sharing another simultaneous nod the two princesses did as they were asked to and the magic they cast at the projection of a soul was amplified as it moved through the air. When it hit the blue pegasus a flash echoed around him, slowly, yet steadily the magic set to work and he entered the world of the living. He looked around fearfully until he saw Inventor, then his face turned to surprise.

The man quickly turned away as the magic amplifier overloaded and exploded, the man caught the majority of the blow with his chest as he landed on the ground next to the hoofs of the princesses.
“Inventor!” Luna shouted, “That was stupider than when you jumped off my balcony.” she said with an angry tone.

“Eh, at least you remember me now.” Inventor said. He slowly rotated his head as red wounds began to appear on his white shirt. “Hey Insight, don’t suppose you know any healing magic with the darkness inside of you?” The blue colt was much younger then he had been when Inventor had transformed into him, in fact he looked to be only a year or two older then Scootaloo.

Despite the question the colt was frozen stiff as a look of disbelief covered his face, he hadn’t heard the words of the man, the alicorns glanced at the blue colt before Celestia turned her gaze to the bleeding man at her feet, “That was interesting.” She said as she lowered her horn to his chest, the magic aura covered him from head to foot and not only did the wounds disappear but the blood stains vanished from his clothes.

“You know me, I like to keep you on your toes.” As soon as he finished speaking a scroll appeared in front of Celestia and dropped to the ground, “And that will be the letter begging you not to kill me.”

-------------------------------------------A few hours later--------------------------------------

“I still don’t understand how you managed to create a soul!” Luna said excitedly as Inventor sat, resting, against the wall. Despite that he was healed by Celestia his body was still in a fair amount of pain from the wounds existing in the first place. Insight was sitting with them, only slightly more aware of his surroundings then when he had first come into the physical plane.

“I didn’t intend to, nor did I fully expect that I could repeat it if I tried. The transformation due to magical residue had an unexpected side effect, it took a little of the rampant anti-magic of the forest and applied it to the transformation, when the shape of a pony was detected the magic created a seed a copy of the pony that somepony would see, because of that fact that it creates a copy of an already existing pony chances are that this seed would simply die off, but due to the way I transformed into a pony the seed grew and, just last night, sprouted.”

“I still don’t understand two things Inventor,” Celestia said “How did you know about this alternate soul in the first place? How did you know that the soul had been hatched last night?” She paused at this before continuing, “And how did you know that it was connected to, let alone that it was using, nightmares?”

“Because it was using magic to cut my existance off to other ponies, the only magic that exists in the Everfree, beside the anti-magic, were the Elements and Nightmare Moon. The elements are missing completely from the location so that left only one thing, nightmares. Of course I wasn’t sure of this fact until you confirmed that Luna’s nightmares had disappeared.”

“But why would he destroy all memories related to you?” Luna said curiously. Insight looked at her with a scared look on his face and the night princess regretted bringing it up at all, the question was quickly answered once more by Inventor however.

“He was only at a maturity level of, oh, probably about five years?” He glanced to the blue pegasus colt who nodded. “When you were five what did you do when you wanted someone to pay attention to you? You probably pestered them and pestered them and eventually you would cause something that would make them pay attention to you. That’s all he did and I can’t say I fault him for it. He was trapped in the darkness of me and several others that he had absorbed, I can only imagine he would want out of there.”

“But that leaves just one more question, what are we going to do with him, he’s born of darkness so I’m sure more then a few ponies will be put off by that and we can’t have him in the castle due to restrictions on the number of people, even if we could he wouldn’t be taken care of like a pony of his age should.” Luna said as she looked to the blue pegasus, she only then noticed that his cutie mark was no longer on his flank. She decided to keep quiet about it though and turned her gaze to Inventor expectantly.

“And he’ll need someone who has some knowledge of odd types of magic...” Celestia said with a glance to Inventor, Insight looked pleadingly at the man his eyes as big and pouty as they could get.

“Of course I’ll do it, I’m sure that Scoots would like a brother, but Twilight gets to teach him magic, I’m no good at it.” Inventor said with a grin.

The rest of the conversation was idle chat before Inventor declared that it would be best for him and Insight to get back to the town. The train ride was mostly silent bar the ticking noise and the wheels on the track.

It was in the middle of the train ride through the middle of the day that Insight spoke up, “I’m so sorry for causing all this mess.” he said as he looked to Inventor who returned a grin.

“You’ve seen some of my darker memories, I apologize for that by the way, you should know that this ‘mess’ is nothing to me, its just like a regular adventure, almost died, check, scared the crap out of my friends, check. Its been a busy day I suppose but look, the most important thing that happened today is something that probably slipped your mind.”

Insight looked at Inventor with a tilted head as Inventor continued, “Its your birthday and I sent a letter ahead to Pinkie Pie.” A grin spread across the small colt’s face and the train arrived at the Ponyville station, a look out the window revealed a party all set with several ponies milling around the food. Pinkie Pie called the others over to stand by the train and when the door opened they all shouted a loud surprise.

After the initial burst of happiness was out several of the elements in addition to Trixie looked at Insight with disbelief on their faces, “Hello everyone, nice to see that everyone’s memory came back, this is Insight, as I’m sure a few of you know. There was an incident with a magical backfire that I didn’t fully expect and, long story short, it’s Insight’s first birthday today!”

“It’s his first?” Pinkie said before taking a long gasp, “You didn’t tell me it was his first! I need to go get more cake!” The mare was off in a blur leaving the remainder of the elements and the showmare to approach Insight and begin to ask him questions. As Twilight was about to join the questions Inventor tapped her on the snout and she looked up at him indignantly.

With a smile he led her away from the small colt who was doing his best to answer the question that were being posed to him and towards some of the tasty confections that rested on the table. “I need to ask you a question Twilight.” Inventor said with a look to the unicorn.

“What is it Inventor?”

“Something I can’t do on my own and that I would like you to help Insight with. You see, he can utilize magic. Not unicorn magic though, shadow magic, he inherited it from my transformation at the Everfree. And since you are the element of magic as well as having magic as your special talent I was hoping that you could teach him the basics sometime after school.”

“Sh-shadow magic?” Twilight said eyeing the colt who was beginning to shrink away from the constant questions of the librarian’s friends. “But, I’m not even sure that shadow magic works like unicorn magic, let alone the safety of using it period.”

“Look, you get to learn about shadow magic, he gets to learn how to control shadow magic, it really is a win win for both of you when you think of it.” Inventor said with a smile.

Twilight let out a sigh “Fine, I guess when you put it that way it’s a good plan.” She said and Inventor smiled at her.

“I knew it was, now I’m expecting to get tackled by my daughter in a few -” He was silenced as Scootaloo jumped up and tackled him, he pretended to get hit and fell to the ground. “Ahh, Insight, help me, your sister is attacking me.”

“Sister?” Insight and Scootaloo said at the same time before catching each others eyes, Insight began to slowly back away as Scootaloo took a running leap and pinned him to the ground.

“I have a brother? This is the best day ever!” Scootaloo said as she looked at the blue pegasus she had just pinned, “He doesn’t have a cutie mark either! He can join the crusaders, right guys?” Sweetie Belle and Applebloom appeared from the crowd and ran over to the orange pegasus.

“Cutie Mark Crusaders, Recruiters, yay!” They shouted loudly, Inventor shook his head resignedly and walked to the punch bowl while his daughter initiated the new blank flank into the group. The remainder of the party went off without much of a hitch, Pinkie quickly arrived with more cakes and the CMC attempted to receive their cake eating cutie marks with their new member.

On the walk home both of the foals that Inventor had adopted were grumbling about a stomach ache and a lack of cutie mark to show for it. The man continued to smile at the antics of the children as they walked the path back to the house, as they were walking an elderly mare that Inventor couldn’t remember seeing before stopped the man in his path.

“Man to stone and dust to ashes.” She said to him before walking away, when he turned to look for her again she was missing and had left no clue to ever having been there, with one more glance around Inventor looked back to the foals and saw that they were swaying on their feet, he grabbed Scootaloo by the neck and placed her into the rest of his arm. Afterwards he looked to Insight who waved him off.

“I can make it, you shouldn’t have to worry about me again tonight.” With a nod to the resolute colt Inventor finished the trip home and led them inside, he placed Scootaloo into her bed and led Insight into his room to take his bed. The colt refused for a few moments but when Inventor told him that the bed would just go unoccupied for the night Insight reluctantly climbed into the bed and Inventor went downstairs.

The man leaned against the wall and rested his head against the cool wood, “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, death to death and rust to rust.” Were the last words in the house that night as the man fell into a sleep that was once more filled with math equations that ran hurriedly around his mind and kept the motionless darkness at bay.

(It was so long, I wasn't sure if I was going to make it, then at the end of the tunnel, the one I had entered from, I saw all of my readers who got rickrolled holding nooses and making slitting noises with their mouths, boy let me tell you was that inspiration or what! - N64Fan)