Assassin: Savior of Canterlot

Niko took a steal ingot he made and placed it in his furnace. He watched as the metal slowly turned orange under the blazing heat. Using a set of steal clamps, he removed the ingot from the furnace and took it to the power hammer to start drawing out the length of the blade. The small ingot became gradually flatter and longer, until he got the required length. Once he finished drawing out the blade, he reheated the piece to do further work on it. When the metal was glowing a bright orange again, he took it to an anvil. He hammered away at one of the squared ends, giving the blade a few extra inches of length to work with. The blade was starting to take shape, and it had a nice point to it. But it was missing something. A set of cutting edges, or bevels for short. He quenched the blade in the same oil from before, repeating the process of removing and re submerging the piece. Now that the blade was cool enough to handle with gloves, he took it to a belt sander to grind the bevels into both sides.

He slowly moved the blade side to side against the grinding surface, gradually working a nice cutting edge into the blade. He carefully plotted out each move, so he would not make any mistakes. After fifteen minutes of grinding the bevels into the blade, Niko turned the machine off. He waited for the belt to stop moving, before removing the current sanding belt from the machine. He replaced it with a belt of a finer grit, something that would barely take anything off. He turned the sander back on and slowly ran the flat sides of the blade against it, giving it a cleaner look. From there he took the blade to the buffing wheel, and started polishing the blade to give it a nice finish. The blade was now complete, but it was a few inches too long. He measured the blade and made a mark at the square end of the blade. He took the blade to a specialized rotary saw and cut the excess of the blunt end of the blade, bringing it to the appropriate length. He felt a little creative, so he decided to try his hand at engraving.

He opened his laptop and looked for designs to engrave into the non-beveled surface on the blade. He also decided to put some tunes on, so he when to his YouTube playlist and clicked on a random song. The first song to come on was Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train. Niko started mentally nodding his head as he searched for designs to engrave. He found what looked like a vine pattern, he thought it looked pretty neat. He saved the image and opened it up. He grabbed a tiny chisel and a small hammer. Because he didn't have any machines to do the engraving for him, he would have to do it the old fashioned way. He also decided to just eyeball everything instead of printing an image to work with as a stencil. The first song finished, and a song called Heretic by Avenged Sevenfold came on.

He slowly hammered away at the chisel, removing small amounts of material at any one time. He worked diligently, being extra careful not to make any mistakes. He gradually carved the detailed curves and contours of the vines into the blade. He kept his hands and his heart rate steady by letting himself become submerged into the music he was listening to. He generally liked a mixture of genres, all of them were branched off of rock. He liked genres like hardcore rock and roll, Heavy Metal, Punk rock, Opera rock and standard rock and roll. Each song helped him achieve the natural looking flow and curve of the vines. After an hour or two of engraving, Niko had finished work on both sides of the blade.

Next up was the second blade. Niko pulled out an even smaller ingot then the previous one, and threw it in the furnace. The smaller ingot became hot a lot quicker than the first one. He pulled it out with the same set of clamps and took it right to the anvil instead of the power hammer. The ingot was small enough that he could draw out the blade by hand with out aid. He hammered the ingot down until it was just as thin as the first blade. From there he reheated the ingot to make it malleable again. He took the flattened ingot back to the anvil and began to work the point into one of the square sides. Once the new blade had a point on it, he quenched it in oil to cool it.

He repeated the process of working the bevels into the blades outer edges, giving it the required cutting edges. Due to the small size of the blade, Niko had to hold it with a pair of pliers so he wouldn't accidentally hurt himself on the belt sander. Once the bevels were done, he once again replaced the belt on the machine. He ran the blade against the sander once again, effectively cleaning up the surface for polishing. He took to the buffing wheel, making the blade look nice and pretty. He engraves the blade, which took significantly less time, and places it and its larger counterpart in a wooden crate to take to Rarity's the next day.