Doctor Bright is Very Bright

“What does it say, Hard Rock?” The coal dusted pony asked another slate grey earth pony, a hint of worry present in his tone.

“Not sure…” The pony known as ‘Hard Rock’ adjusted his mining helmet and scratched his chin with a hoof. “Though it looks like one of those dead languages I studied in Canterlot.” Hard Rock turned his head, illuminating the darker unicorn with his headlamp. “It’s got a knob, a key, and two doors. Some kind of machine obviously. Why don’t you see if it works, Pyrite Streak?”

“I-I don’t know.” Pyrite nervously stuttered out. “What if it comes to life and eats us? Could be one of them discordian types!” His teeth chattered in fear, reminiscing on a much worse archaeological experience.

Hard Rock chortled, a deep booming laugh resounding off the wet cave walls. “What’re you kidding? It’s a machine! Has a bunch of gears! It looks so heavy it can’t even move!” The pony walked closer to the huge contraption, examining it. “Golly, these gears aren’t even rusted! Looks like they just came off the factory line.”

Pyrite sighed, and looked at the machine, trying to get a sense for how it worked. “Well… What does it even do, and how do we run it?” He nervously glanced at Hard Rock, who had entered one of the doors. “D-don’t go in! You might hurt yourself…” His words were lost on the larger pony, who was busy studying his ‘find of the century’ as Hard Rock had put it earlier.

“I won’t get hurt, I promise, but…” Hard Rock squinted his eyes at what he thought may have been a pneumatic tube of some sort. “Hey… Hoof me a stick of dynamite.” Rock stuck his hoof out of the door, and waited as Pyrite levitated a brick red cylinder of high grade explosive into his waiting appendage. “Alright.”

“What are you gonna do with it?” Pyrite spoke up, thinking that maybe they would blow this machine to kingdom come. “Don’t blow it up, this could be studied!”

“I’m not gonna blow it up you dingus!” Hard Rock criticized as he stepped out of the machine, with minus one stick of dynamite.

“Where’s the dynamite then? Did you light it!?” Pyrite yelled out, pointing at the grey pony accusingly.

“No, of course not!” Rock sputtered, aghast. “I just have an idea.”

The only item legible on the huge metal machine was that the dial was turned to the 1:1 setting. The rest of the options were illegible, but Hard Rock was determined to figure out what this big thing did, and how he could monopolize it. Tapping his chin with a hoof, he gestured to the metal key that he presumed would do something when turned. “Hey, Pyrite, why don’t you turn that key?”

Pyrite trotted closer to the machine, nervously glancing at the intake door he let out a weary sigh. “I guess, fine.” His horn suddenly shining alight with a golden aura, Pyrite felt the key with his magic. It almost seemed to resist for a split second, but then relaxed, as if the machine was somehow… alive. “I-I don’t know about this Hard Rock.” He stuttered, “This could be dangerous.”

Hard Rock chuckled and patted Pyrite on the back. “Nothin’ to it buddy, just turn it and see what happens, dumb thing might not even work after being down here for Celestia knows how long!”

Pyrite smirked with a bead of sweat trailing down his temple, “Y-yeah, you’re probably right. Okay… Here we go.” The dark unicorn’s horn glowed brighter as he forced his magic to make the key turn, closing his eyes and straining as the key resisted, possibly from years of rust. Pyrite gasped as the key gave way, a resounding clunk sounding out throughout the cavern they were in.

Immediately the two backed away as the intake door slammed shut, the visible gears within the machine sung, screeching as they shook violently, not having been used for many many years. Hard Rock was stunned as each gear flowed, thousands turning at a slow pace as various sounds came from the machine. Banging, screeching, shuddering, and finally the sound of a steam train whistle that made the two ponies jump back in surprise. The whole orchestra of noise came to a grinding halt as the gears stopped spinning, and both the intake and outtake doors opened.

Neither pony volunteered to look inside the door, until Pyrite nudged Hard Rock. “Y-you put the dynamite in there, why don’t you go see what came out?”

The grey pony snorted, and carefully trotted over to the outtake door. Not sure what to expect. As the machine loomed ever so far above him, getting closer and closer, he was startled by a loud BANG. He jumped into the air like a startled cat, and screamed like a 5 year old filly. After cowering under his hooves, he heard the familiar annoying laughter of his partner, Pyrite.

“You should’ve seen your face!” Pyrite laughed out loud, “Oh my Luna that was good…” He wiped a tear from his eye, and snorted at the larger pony’s intense glare “It was just magic, Hard Rock, don’t get your hooves in a twist!”

Hard Rock mumbled curses under his breath, and continue his trot to the machine, unperturbed now by Pyrite’s incessant pranks. When he looked inside the outtake door, he yelled in surprise. “By Celestia! Pyrite! Did you do this?!” The grey earth pony glared back to his compatriot.

Pyrite grew confused, and trotted over to where Hard Rock was standing. “Noooo? I don’t even know what you’re talking abo-”

Inside the outtake door were 100 small firecrackers, Pyrite ran back over to the intake and saw that there was no stick of dynamite inside. He looked up at a stunned Hard Rock, and whispered “It’s gone.”

After a minute of silence and the grinding gears in both the mining pony’s heads, they both exploded with ideas. Of course the conclusion that both of them made was that it had to work on some kind of magic, but they wanted to throw more items into the intake door to see what else would happen. So that’s what they did.

First they threw in a mining pick, and kept the dial on 1:1. Pyrite turned the key excitedly, and after a few minutes of hearing grinding noises, both doors once more opened wide. Stumbling forth to examine their new item, they grew confused.

“Really? I was expecting something like 100 miniature pickaxes.” Hard Rock asked.

“Beats me.” shrugged Pyrite

It was a spade. Much like the spades they had in their supplies cart.

As Hard Rock took the spade and threw it behind him, Pyrite turned the dial on the machine all the way to the right, and carefully placed a stick of dynamite inside the intake chamber.

“Wonder what this will do?” Pyrite wondered aloud.

“Heck if I know, this is starting to get interesting!” Hard Rock smiled.

Both ponies jittered with excitement as Pyrite turned the key. The doors closed, and then there was a bright white light, as both ponies suddenly felt nothing.

Elsewhere, an astronomer on the Canterlot mountain was looking at the stars, noticing that one of them had been coming closer to the planet Equus at an extremely alarming speed, almost with hostile intent. It was just a star however, so it would take millions of years. As the astronomer wrote in his notebook about this strange star, his telescope rattled violently, as did the entire room. A bright white light flashed the entire mountainside, forcing his eyes closed. “Celestia’s sake!” He exclaimed.

He blinked his eyes, and quickly adjusted his telescope to the source of the flash. The Smokey Mountains, of course, they were supposed to be the Smokey Mountains, instead there was what appeared to be the site of an extremely large crater in between two mountains, with rubble raining down intermittently. Gulping, the pale white astronomer backed away from the telescope and dashed out of the observatory, shouting “Guards!”