Author's Note

This here's yet another practice/study type chapter for Fractures/Project Emphenom. It works around the concept of "emulating 'magic' through crude technology". It's also partly a more lighthearted character practice piece.

Also, callback to Lab Horse!

Project Emphenom #4: "Magic" Study

"Whatcha doin?" Twilight peered over Gadget's shoulder. Dozens of assorted bits and bobs littered the desk--bits of brass tubing, wire segments... was that a disassembled lighter?

Gadget grinned as she spun around. "Making my own kind of magic! Look at this--" she held up her hoof-mounted monstrosity of tubes and wires. Twilight raised a brow at one particular tube that snuck down her foreleg to a tank tied to her waist by a belt. Gadget cut her off before she could say anything. "--it's my homemade flame magic! Y'know how I wasn't ever really learnt how to do anything besides floating stuff around, right?"

Twilight nodded slowly.

"Well, everyone I asked kept telling me that I'm too old to learn fire magic because at my age, not knowing what I'm doing is very dangerous. So, I made my own kind of fire magic!"

"Gadget, that's a flamethrower. A hoof-mounted one at that. I think there'd be more concern over a filly walking around with something like that than one who is late to learn some spells. Who were you asking to teach you, by the way? You could've asked m--"

"You," Gadget spun her hoof in a circle. A series of clicks rung out from the device with each cycle before a small flame flickered to life from the nozzle mounted just above her hooftip. "You told me that. And I promise that I made this extra safe!"

"This one?" Twilight's gaze drifted to the heap of discarded parts--many of which were visibly singed.

Gadget waved her hooves in front of Twilight to bring her attention back. "'Inventing and building new things is a process filled with failure', that's what you told me. I wanna make cool stuff like you!"

"I don't remember making anything recentl--"

"You left your grass-touching machine on the kitchen table again, Twi," Spike trudged past the open door, dragging the aforementioned machine behind him.

"--right. Probably should've put that away."

Gadget turned a dial on the side of her flame-gauntlet device. "And watch this, too!"

A low hum gradually filled the room as a stream of grey shot from the nozzle. She pointed the device at a piece of scrap on the table, nudging it along without ever physically touching it. "See? It's kinda like using my magic to move it, except instead of magic it's tiny little explosions coming out thousands of times per second! And then--" she turned the knob even further before lifting up a water bottle with her magic. "Watch this. You know how it's usually really hard to float around water using magic since it kinda just drips everywhere?"

Twilight gave a nod.

Gadget grinned as she activated the gauntlet again. Once more, the hum filled the air as she slowly tipped the water bottle over her hoof. A sort of blob of water gurgled out, rippling from the bottom up as it sat on a cushion of air.

"See?" she set the bottle back on the table. "I can make water float just like anything else!"

Twilight rubbed her chin. "Very interesting. How much control do you have over the water?"

"Not that much," Gadget idly bounced the water with measured movements. "And none of this is very long-range either."

"How about we tinker with it a little more together?"

~~Celestia was then rather rudely picked up off her throne by a string of millions of tiny explosions and gently placed three paces to the side. To this day nopony knows exactly how this happened or who committed the act.~~