Author's Note

Electrix, I see that you have made a grave mistake (typo) in your comment.

You know what comes next.

This version of Gadget is now canonically a slightly-alternate version of Zoey that appears in my incomplete 2023 NaNoWriMo draft of Fractures, where rather than finding her way back to Lisa, she remains lost and makes her way into Equestria instead. I'll post the rest of that someday.

What is Gadget invented Gadget named Gadgets after Gadget? (PE#6)

Gadget tapped her hoof on her desk. What is she, anyway? A pony filly, yes, obviously--but is that it? Is that all she really is?

This could've been so much easier.

She is. Was. Gadget.

Right?

Maybe???

Her taps quickened to a light rap on the desk before she stopped, pushing herself away with a breath for a stretch. The sound of something clattering to the floor caught her attention.

"Mm?" the filly hummed, bending over to pick up her little shard of sky. She must've knocked it off the desk with her sudden movement.

Right.

This shard.

She traced a hoof along its edge. This thing was what got her into this predicament. If she'd just...

She held the makeshift blade out in front of her. Not with her magic, but with her hooves. She held her eyes shut, recalling that moment.

That...

She tensed her hooves, clenching fingers that were no longer there.

Maybe if she could just...

She thought back. She was in the kitchen, opening a can of beans. Lisa was too tired to do anything that night, so she went to heat something up for herself in the meantime.

At some point, she'd lost her balance, fell backward, and...

Darkness.

That was the first time she'd fallen into the void.

She'd... found her way back once or twice, but things were never quite right. Other versions of herself were out there. With different lives.

Gadget opened her eyes, shifting her gaze to the old plushie of Gadget... er, herself sitting in the corner.

Different friends. Even if they were no longer there.

Different families.

Family.

Right.

She has a family, somewhere out there. She... her mom...

Something splattered between her forehooves. She glanced down at the wet splotch beside the sky shard.

So close.

She was so close.

She'd found home. Yet...

Gadget closed her eyes again.

The flowers were beautiful.

She could feel the warmth of her mother's hands, but...

Gadget lifted a hoof, pressing flat against the air. Back then, it felt like she had a chance to return. She could feel the resistance when she pressed back against her mother's hands.

But then, just like now, she in the end passed right through them. A living ghost, not fully present in reality anymore.

At least her mother knows now that she's still alive.

That's what matters most.

It'd been almost a year since then.

She opened her eyes again, drawing the plushie of Gadget closer.

Gadget.

She'd almost forgotten, somehow.

This was meant to be the life of a different her. One who had a father dead-set on her banishment, and a mother whose identity she still didn't know.

That version of her wasn't here anymore. Not physically, at least.

"So, how'd you get in here? Rocket exploded as well?" her words rung out in her mind. She was one of her very first companions in that strange space between worlds. One who'd given up on returning to her home world, because she could no longer exist in that world.

In other words, she was living a dead filly's life.

Or... wait, Gadget was meant to be human in this world, but when she herself entered...

She turned the plushie in her hooves. Once upon a time, it was nothing more than a stuffed animal; a toy she'd made during one of those birthday parties where you customize a plushie. Gadget, the actual Gadget that once lived in this world, took on a form identical to this toy when she herself was once trapped in a foreign world.

The banishment her father had attempted on her had worked. And she died, just short of finding her way back.

And now she was forever trapped in limbo. A guardian of sorts, and a guide when she needed to be.

Gadget... no, Zoey, buried her face in her forelegs. Was she going to die here eventually, too? Unlike Gadget, she already has a tool that can get her in and out of the space between worlds sans rocket explosion.

The issue was that for whatever reason she couldn't fully return home. Something about her had changed, and she was no longer tangible to most things there.

Here, at least, provided that base requirement of physicality. Here, she could eat, and sleep, and make new friends, and...

And feel.

She missed Lisa.

She missed her parents.

Her small frame shuddered under her quiet sobs.

None of this seemed real. She was supposed to be enjoying summer break! And trying out that new weird ice cream flavor that she saw with Lisa! Not... not...

Zoey lifted her head, her teal coat glistening with fresh tears.

The written assignment Twilight had given her to practice her telekinesis on by writing was thoroughly soaked.

All of this was a front.

Posing as a lost little filly who happened to stumble into Ponyville. Taking on her identity and history as her own, just to find a place to call home in the meantime. Night after night she'd been cutting back into that void realm, searching every pinprick of light she could find until hopefully, eventually, she'd find the one that at least led back to Lisa. She didn't even care anymore if Lisa called herself her babysitter! Yeah it sounded weird 'cause she was DEFINITELY not a baby anymore, but she'd take the weirdness for the rest of her life over this.

She even had a collection of those glowing orbs now in that place, just like Gadget before her. Ones that showed funny moments on repeat, some that gave a glimpse into the lives of versions of her that never had the same misfortune. And of course, the crown jewel of the collection was the one that she was certain led back home.

At the very least, she could still find enough fun in interacting with other versions of herself from time to time. She wasn't alone in this, thankfully. Or... unthankfully, she supposed.

She wiped her tears. The Gadget stuck forever in the void was an anomaly as far as she could tell. There were many others like her--either native to or stuck in Equestria, for one reason or another. Of the latter, very few others had the benefit of the sky shard as a tool to traverse with.

Still, at the end of the day, they returned home through portals she cut open.

So what was... is she?

Her former life as Zoey mattered little here.

And so, to continue living, to continue searching, to continue hoping, this invented identity of Gadget is who she is. A Gadget, one of potentially infinitely many versions of the ephemeral concept of "Gadget".

She had to play the part.

Gadget, a human girl banished by a warlock of a father to a version of Earth that she'd never seen. Named by the researchers she was discovered by. Crafty by circumstance, building little namesake gadgets and tools here and there.

Died by instantaneous full-body incineration via engine failure on the eve of what was supposed to be a triumphant return.

Gadget--the real Gadget, told her to enter this world at that exact moment of detonation. To take her place in just a way such that it wouldn't seem like anything had ever occurred.

Neither of them had realized that transformation into a blue unicorn filly would come with that entrance.

But, she had to make do with what she had.

Has.

Zoey... no, Gadget, rubbed her eyes. She stood up from her chair and paced to the mirror Twilight had provided.

It was weird seeing herself like this. Bits and pieces of her were still there. That high ponytail she liked to wear--she liked to call it a 'roostertail' for the way it looked, the color of her eyes...

That was it.

Her dark brown hair was now a curly dirty blonde. Where there was once human skin, there was now the fuzzy coat of an Equestrian filly.

She opened her mouth, checking her teeth again. Pony teeth there, nothing different from yesterday.

She lit her horn, watching her own reflection shimmer for a moment before disappearing, replaced by an illusion. An effigy of herself, puppeteered by her own awkward attempts to balance on her hind legs.

In this universe, this was the closest she could possibly get to her old body.

She fell back to all fours with a sigh and let the illusion dissipate.

Maybe one day she'd tell Twilight the real reason she was so late to learning even basic spells.

Maybe.

Gadget forced a wide grin. The version of herself she imitated day after day was even more spontaneous and happy-go-lucky than she herself was even before all of this happened. Came with being a native to a world filled with magic pastel ponies, she supposed.

She let the grin fade back into the tired face she'd been wearing since nightfall.

Tomorrow will be another long day of living a lie.