[Canterlot]

Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had just returned from visiting Twilight in the hospital after Isabelle had healed her. Normally this would be a happy time since Twilight was healed. However they were both more concerned than anything else.

“Sister, we need to talk about Mr. Mechanica’s behaviour after learning we used to be mortal. I found how eager he was to gain god-like power to be highly concerning.” Luna stated in a serious tone.

Celestia sighed and nodded in agreement. “I know. Based on the way he reacted I fear he is in danger of ending up going mad with power should he actually succeed. And we both know there’s no way he’s just going to give up on it just because we asked him to. Unfortunately we can’t really do anything to stop him. However we can’t just let him go unchecked either. Discord, Tirek, King Sombra, Queen Chrysalis during her invasion, and even you during your time as Nightmare Moon never went so far as to actually kill anypony. At least, not intentionally. He, however, has no qualms about such a thing, as he has proved on multiple different occasions. So if he succeeds in his research and ends up becoming a megalomaniac like them as a result then he would be by far the most dangerous threat we have ever faced. We can not allow it to get to that point under any circumstances. We have to act preemptively to prevent such a thing from ever occurring. However, what can we really do? It’s not like we can just arrest him and throw him in Tartarus. He’s done nothing to deserve such a thing and it just wouldn’t be right after everything he’s done for Equestria.”

Luna frowned. “You’re right. We can’t do that. However, we have to do something! At the very least we have to keep an eye on him somehow so we can regulate his actions and intervene if we ever think he’s going too far.”

“I suppose, but the only way we could really keep an eye on him is if we were actually directly involved in his research in the first place.” Celestia said. She then huffed in frustration. “Harmony, I wish we could just trust him so this wouldn’t be an issue to begin with. And it’s not like I don’t empathize with him or don’t understand his point of view. His entire species is in danger and this is the only glimmer of hope of saving them he’s had in all the time he’s been here. Sweet harmony, if I were in his place I would wish to do the same! It’s just that such power can be corruptive. After all, the old saying goes, “ultimate power corrupts ultimately.””

“I agree. It is quite frustrating. Regardless we are the diarchs of Equestria above all else so we have to set aside any personal frustrations or grievances and look out for the best interests of our little ponies. So, we will have to be directly involved in order to keep an eye on him? I suppose that means we have no choice but to assist him. However if we are going to do that we will have to make it very clear that we refuse to be treated as lab rats. We will only participate in tests or experiments that we agree to after he explains them to us. Also we still have our normal responsibilities to attend to so we will only occasionally be able to participate in his research. It obviously can’t be an everyday occurrence, or every night in my case.”

“Right. In that case, tomorrow I’ll send him a letter apologizing for our refusal earlier tonight, and offering our assistance in his research. Hopefully he won’t find our shift in attitude too suspicious. For now though I need sleep. Good night, Luna.” Celestia stated.

“Good night sister.” Luna replied as Celestia turned and headed back to her room.

[Ponyville the next evening]

Gerhardt was working on researching the mechanism behind which the princesses became demigods in the underground portion of his lab. Having nothing to work with he had gone to Twilight’’s library, which was currently being maintained by Spike, and had read every last book they had on alicorns. Some of the books were obviously fictional, highly exaggerated, or were steeped in superstition. So he was going off of information that seemed consistent between all or at the very least most of the books. Especially the ones that seemed the most scientific in nature as he trusted those a bit more than the rest.

Currently he was trying to figure out tests or experiments he could run to figure this out, which was no easy task considering he had absolutely no idea what the fuck he was doing. So he was running some tests on the alicorn amulet while he thought. This was for more than one reason. Not only was he still trying to figure out how it functioned but he was actually considering using it in his research into the mechanism behind becoming a demigod. Specifically because it would grant any mage who used it power equivalent to that of a demigod. That was assuming they were in magically fit condition since the power it granted scaled with the power of the user, at least as far as he could tell. Other than the amulet itself he was also considering using discordant magic in his research considering it was what the amulet was enchanted with.

It was his hope that if he could unlock the secrets of the amulet and discordant magic then they would prove to be the key behind the mechanism required to become a demigod. Then he hoped he could alter and improve that mechanism to make himself a god so he could return to his universe and kill Silvanus. Even knowing that discordant magic and the alicorn amulet could corrupt whoever used them, he honestly didn’t care. He was determined to find a way around that as well. And if he couldn’t? Too bad. Ensuring the safety of the Human Kingdom was far too important. If being corrupted was the price he had to pay then he would gladly pay it. After figuring this out he could just write a program to terminate himself after Silvanus was dead and he could write it in such a way that he would be incapable of altering or deleting it. So even if he was corrupted, who cares? He would be dead immediately after he defeated Silvanus anyways so it wasn’t as though he would even have a chance to do any significant damage.

However, late into the afternoon he received a letter from Celestia. He took a moment to read it. Apparently she and Luna had talked about it after they returned to the castle the previous night and decided that perhaps they had been a bit too harsh in their judgement. Thus they had decided that they would indeed help Gerhardt with his research into becoming a demigod. However they would only participate in tests or experiments that Gerhardt explained to them beforehand and they agreed to. She also apologized for not coming to tell him this in person but she claimed to be very busy today and thus didn’t have the time. Gerhardt couldn’t care less about the fact she hadn’t come to tell him this in person.

Upon reading the letter he was immediately suspicious. He remembered everything the princesses said about the matter the previous night, so he found it highly suspect that they would change their stance so suddenly. He took a few moments to think about what their goals may be and determined that they likely didn’t trust him and were only agreeing so they could keep an eye on him. It was the only thing that made any sense. It was the exact same thing that he would do in their situation if he couldn’t just throw the potential threat in prison or execute them on the spot.

He frowned to himself and sighed. He found this entire situation highly annoying. Still he wasn’t about to refuse. Their assistance should help him in the long run, to an extent, plus he doubted he would need their assistance for very long. All he needed to do was gather a bit of information to gain some potential clues into how the process works. After that he wouldn’t need them for anything any more thus he wouldn’t need to run anymore tests and they could no longer keep an eye on him. Not that he really cared if they were watching him or not since he had nothing to hide. Well that wasn’t technically true but what little he did have to hide was relatively simple for him to hide so they would never learn of it. He mainly just found it annoying.

Regardless he already had a few ideas for experiments that did not involve the princesses. Apparently the alicorns had the biological magics of all three breeds of pony. Perhaps that had something to do with their ascension? Or was it merely a byproduct of it? Or was it somehow both? He didn’t know but he decided that it was worth experimenting with to find out. Pixel already had the wings of a pegasus so he could just give her a couple upgrades so she would have all three. Of course he wouldn’t give them to her all at once. He would only give her one upgrade at a time and would observe her for a few weeks to see if there were any conflicts or if anything went wrong so he could fix it immediately. If she had all three augmentations all at once then it would be more difficult for him to find, isolate, and either fix the issue or remove the new augmentation all together. He doubted there would be any such issues since her pegasi augmentations didn’t seem to conflict with her natural abilities at all, but better to be safe than sorry. Which to start with though?

He only really had two options since he didn’t plan on giving Pixel anything even remotely related to the changelings, so the choice should be easy. Unicorns or Earth Ponies? He thought about it for a bit and ultimately decided to leave it up to chance since he honestly didn’t care either way since the choice really wasn’t all that important. Opening up a random number generator inside his head he ran the program. The random number generator ended up deciding on Earth Pony augmentations. He accepted this result without issue and thus got to work building the parts he would need.

This took much longer than it normally would have as Gerhardt was intentionally taking his time to make them to the highest quality he possibly could. He was intentionally putting an inordinate amount of effort into the crafting of these augmentations because he wanted to ensure the highest possible chance of success in his experiment. Thus he had absolutely zero tolerance for even the smallest and most insignificant margin of error. If he could have made them completely perfect down to a quantum level he very much would have. Unfortunately he hadn’t had the chance to build tools that would allow him to do that just yet, though he planned to in the future. Was he being overly perfectionistic? Most definitely, and he knew it, but so what? This was all to save his species.

When he was finished he checked his internal chronometer and saw that it was a few hours past when Pixel should have returned home from school. Thus he opened a portal back to the upper levels of his lab and stepped through it. His sensors immediately informed him that Pixel was home and presumably so was Isabelle. It was difficult to tell as the magical energy signatures of mages and unicorns were pretty much identical, however he didn’t think anyone else had any reason to be here at the moment so he could only assume it was her. Pixel was a bit different as not only did he have a tracking device hidden inside her so he could always find her but she had the energy signatures of both mages and pegasi, so he would always know it was her no matter what.

Walking into the living room he saw the two of them sitting on the bench. Isabelle’s hand had a cut in it and was bleeding and Pixel had her hands raised towards Isabelle and seemed to be casting a spell of some sort. As they appeared to be in the middle of something, Gerhardt decided to just stand off to the side and watch.

After a few moments Pixel frowned and lowered her hands with a frustrated sigh. “I’m sorry, Miss Isabelle… I can’t seem to heal it no matter how hard I try…”

Isabelle smiled at her and said, “That’s perfectly fine. I didn’t expect you to get it on your first try. In fact you did surprisingly well! You actually managed to stop the bleeding which is an excellent achievement for someone who just started learning biomancy. Most recruits struggle to do that for at least the first month or two. Some of the most talented ones are able to get that far as fast as you did but that is quite uncommon. Granted, while they may have some augmentations their brains aren’t fully artificial so you have somewhat of an advantage over them in that regard, but the point remains. So with some practice and dedication I’m sure you will become an excellent medical mage!”

Pixel smiled back at her and said, “Thank you. I’ll try my best.”

“So, I see you’re teaching Pixel biomancy. What brought this about, if you don’t mind me asking?” Gerhardt inquired.

Isabelle and Pixel turned their heads to look at him. “Apparently she’s still coping with what happened with the manticore that attacked her so she asked me to teach her biomancy. I saw no reason to refuse so here we are. We just finished talking about what happened to her and the fact that she had been forced to kill the manticore in self defense, so I decided we may as well have our first lesson.” Isabelle explained. Then a red aura surrounded her hand as she proceeded to heal the cut in the middle of her palm. She then cast a spell to get rid of the leftover blood.

Pixel nodded in agreement. “I’m sorry, daddy… I still want to learn technomancy but I really want to learn how to heal people too…” She said in a guilty tone.

Gerhardt shook his head. “There is absolutely no need to apologize, dear. I understand. Well, to an extent at least. I am well aware that you are far kinder and more empathetic than I am or will ever be. Thus I am not the least bit surprised nor upset that you wish to learn biomancy as well as technomancy. In fact, if that is what you desire then I encourage it. I will still be teaching you technomancy, of course, but that shall in no way conflict with your desire to learn to be a medical mage as well. In fact, you can actually use what you learn of biomancy and incorporate it into technomancy as almost any form of magic can be utilized in technomancy.”

This cheered Pixel up immediately, and her guilty expression was immediately replaced with a large smile.

“Anyways, I actually have somewhat of a surprise for you. Well, to be honest it’s a mixture of a gift and an experiment. You know how you have augmentations based on the biological magic of pegasi? Well I have made you augmentations based on the biological magic of earth ponies. That is, if you want them. I won’t force you to accept them if you don’t want them, of course.” Gerhardt offered.

Pixel seemed surprised by this but not really opposed to the idea at all. “Oh! Hm… I’ve never thought about asking for earth pony augmentations before… I guess it would be interesting. Sure! Why not? Thank you, daddy!”

Gerhardt nodded. He was still getting used to using body language again after spending centuries without using it at all. “Of course. They are ready now, so would you like for me to install them now or later?”

“Now would be okay. Unless there’s more you want to teach me, Miss Isabelle?” Pixel looked at Isabelle inquisitively.

Isabelle shrugged. “While I do think you should practice a bit more, I believe that’s an okay place to stop for the day. Go ahead. It’s around the time I should start making my dinner anyways. We can continue where we left off tomorrow after I finish my shift at the hospital.”

“Alright, thank you Miss Isabelle!” Pixel said before getting up and rushing over to Gerhardt.

Gerhardt opened a portal back to the underground portion of his lab and led Pixel into it. After helping her up onto an empty table he asked her to set herself to low power mode and began the installation of the earth pony augmentations. The process took about an hour. When it was over he set her back upright and brought her back out of low power mode.

As she blinked awake she almost immediately began to examine herself to see any differences. However, unlike the pegasus augmentations the earth pony augmentations were purely internal. As such there was no change in her outward appearance.

Gerhardt gave her a concerned look and asked, “How do you feel? Is there anything painful or particularly strange?” He needed to know if there were any critical issues as soon as possible so he could put her back into low power mode and remove the augmentations again. After a moment Gerhardt received a quick burst of data that let him know everything Pixel was feeling along with a quick diagnostics of her systems. He was relieved to find nothing out of the ordinary.

After sending him that burst of data Pixel looked up at him with a smile and said, “I feel fine.”

“Good, good… One moment.” Gerhardt said as he grabbed an adjustable gravitic weight he made to help him stress test some of his devices. It was relatively small, about a foot in diameter, so its maximum weight was only twenty tons, but that was well beyond the capabilities of the strongest military grade augmentations which could typically only lift ten tons max. And those augmentations were typically limited to individuals who were expected to do some very heavy lifting due to how much bigger and slower they were than standard combat augmentations. So if she could lift this weight then that would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the augmentations were functioning as intended.

He then helped her down from the table and handed the weight to her. “Here, hold on to this for a moment. We’re going to test to see if the augmentations function properly. We’ll start slowly to ensure you are not injured by mistake but brace yourself, this device is about to get extremely heavy.”

Pixel nodded in understanding as she held the gravitic weight in one hand. “Okay.”

Gerhardt wirelessly connected to the gravitic weight and began gradually increasing the weight. Once he reached the maximum acceptable threshold of standard military grade augmentations, five tons, he slowed down the weight increase a bit. “If you start to strain to hold it or if you feel like your arm is about to start bending under the weight, tell me immediately.” He said in a very serious tone.

Pixel shrugged casually. “It’s fine so far. How heavy is it? I honestly can’t tell.”

Gerhardt frowned upon hearing that. “That’s odd… It’s also really bad. I’m going to have to recalibrate your weight and pressure sensors so you don’t hurt someone by mistake. Anyways, I’m just now bringing it up to six tons but if it's really that easy for you to lift, let's bring it up to ten.” He increased the weight all the way to ten tons, the maximum acceptable threshold for the strongest military/construction grade augmentations.

Pixel’s arm barely budged a millimeter or so. “It’s still pretty light.” Pixel said moving it up and down with ease.

Gerhardt nodded in satisfaction. “Good, then let's bring it up to its maximum weight.” As the gravitic weight started reaching its maximum weight, the granite floor began to crack beneath Pixel’s feet. It appeared the floor of Gerhardt’s lab gave out before Pixel’s augmentations did. Thus as soon as the floor cracked he immediately stopped a few tons short of having the device reach its maximum weight and returned it to its default weight, which was only a single pound.

Taking the weight from Pixel and setting it back on the rack it belonged on he said, “Alright, well I suppose that is confirmation enough that your new augmentations function properly. Though now that I know they work I must give you a few warnings. First, while I have no idea what’s wrong with your pressure and weight sensors and am going to recalibrate them to compensate for your augmentations you are still going to have to be extra careful. Previously you could casually rip a man in half without exerting too much effort, now you are many times stronger than that so you can imagine how dangerous you can be if you really wanted to hurt someone. Other than that you are never to use the earth ponies abilities to control plants. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. For example, I could stick my hand inside a plasma furnace or a vat of molten tungsten but obviously I shouldn’t. Same premise here. I don’t want you to anger any nature spirits otherwise they might attack you and you could get hurt. Do you understand?”

Pixel looked at her hands and nodded. “Yes, daddy… I promise I’ll be extra careful not to hurt anyone and I’ll try not to mess with any plants. Though, um… I’m not sure how to use earth pony magic to affect plants in the first place.”

Gerhardt raised a hand to his chin in thought. “No, I imagine you wouldn’t. Just because you have the ability now doesn’t mean you know how to use it. Though in the same vein, if you don’t know how to use it then you may use it by accident without really knowing… Unfortunately I can’t really help you in that regard since I have no idea how you would use it either. From what I understand based purely on how it functions it should be very similar to how pegasi can touch clouds and control the weather or can choose to go through said clouds at will. Does that make sense? I don’t have such augmentations myself so I genuinely have no idea.”

Pixel nodded. “Mhm. Ever since you gave me wings, I’ve gotten lots of practice touching clouds and I think I’m starting to figure out how pegasi control the weather. Just the other day I managed to get a cloud to spark with electricity. I haven’t managed to make a cloud rain or shoot lightning yet but I think I’m getting closer. If controlling plants is like that, I think I could avoid it pretty easily.”

Hearing that Gerhardt grimaced. “I suppose as long as you limit it to a single cloud at a time and the cloud isn’t very large it might be alright but I would very much prefer it if you didn’t try to control the weather either. Also, as you know lightning is extremely dangerous. If you’re going to cause any, be sure to do it somewhere you know it won’t burn someone’s house down or start a wildfire.”

“I know. I always mess with clouds really high up, way beyond the point where pegasi can breathe, just to make sure if I do ever make lightning it won’t hurt anyone. Unfortunately clouds don’t form all the way up there naturally since there isn’t a whole lot of moisture that high up so I always have to bring one with me every single time. It also takes a really long time to get up there and to get back down afterwards. Still, it's really safe and that’s the point!”

Gerhardt blinked at her in surprise. “You actually spend time in the stratosphere? Huh. When I gave you those wings I never thought you would fly so far up. Well, I suppose I myself have flown that high up in vehicles before. In fact I’ve flown to other planets and moons in the solar system on a handful of occasions in order to protect human colonies or conduct a bit of research. So I suppose it isn’t too surprising that you would do so in order to conduct experiments of your own. Just be very careful not to drop anything from that high up.”

Pixel’s eyes grew brighter in excitement. “You’ve been in space before?! What was it like?! What did the other planets look like?!”

Gerhardt shrugged. “It was work so except for the times I had to protect colonies it wasn’t particularly different from being on Earth. I mean the lack of gravity the first couple of times I went into space back before we invented gravitic generators was a bit difficult to get used to. Otherwise I suppose it was interesting enough. I personally had very little interest in the planets or locations themselves so to me it wasn’t much different than what I normally do, except for the fact I had a much smaller and more limited space to work since the ships were very small and cramped. I also had to go in a body with a gold exterior due to the radiation whenever I went outside of the ship to repair something or another.”

Pixel frowned at him, clearly disappointed with his explanation. “Mmm… I want to go to space someday.”

Gerhardt gave her a dubious look. “I mean, I could bring you to space after building a ship for it. However I must warn you that it will be a very long and boring trip. If you think it will be fun or exciting then you severely underestimate just how far a distance away even the closest planet is from this one. It would take days if not weeks depending on how far we were going. There wouldn’t be much for either of us to do the entire time. Most of it would be spent inside a ship in the mostly empty void between planets with very limited tools and resources.”

“I don’t care. Even if the trip itself is boring I think it would be really fun to see other planets!” Pixel stated.

Gerhardt shrugged. “Alright, if you say so… Regardless, that won’t be happening for quite some time, though I will keep it in mind for future reference. Anyways, I’ve just finished recalibrating your weight and pressure sensors.” He picked up the gravitic weight again, set it to exactly 25.28731 kilograms, and handed it to Pixel. “So can you tell me how heavy this is in kilograms?”

Pixel held the weight for a moment before looking back up at him and saying, “About 25.3 kilograms, if you round up.”

“Alright, that’s good but please be a bit more specific.” Gerhardt requested.

“Uh… 25.28425 kilograms?” Pixel said a bit uncertainly.

Gerhardt frowned slightly. “0.00306 kilograms off… Hm… One moment.” He reconnected to her systems and once again began recalibrating her sensors. When he was finished he changed the setting on the gravitic weight. “Alright, what about now?”

“15.002153 kilograms?” Pixel inquired.

Gerhardt nodded. “Perfect. Well, with that out of the way you’re free to go. I still have a few things I need to finish before tomorrow morning. If you experience any errors or conflicts between your augmentations be sure to inform me as soon as possible.”

“I will!”

With that Pixel opened a portal back up to the surface and stepped through leaving Gerhardt alone.

He looked at the crack in the ground and sighed. “Well, I’m going to have to fix that now… Oh well, it was worth it. Maybe I should make the floor layer a bit thicker so this doesn’t happen again…”

A few days later he received a knock on his front door. As he was underground he didn’t hear the knock, but the sensors he had installed informed him someone was at the door. Going up to see who it was he saw Twilight standing there. “Ah, Miss Sparkle. I see you are finally out of the hospital. How are your augmentations? Have there been any issues with them?”

Twilight shook her head. “No. They’ve been perfect! Thank you for that, by the way… If my horn had stayed broken and I lost the ability to use magic… I… I just don’t know what I would have done…”

“Of course. It is my job after all. Now, what brings you here today?”

“Well, before that whole thing with the manticore Pixel and I had just finished a project we had spent a while working on together. I’ve been talking with the princesses about when a good time to unveil it would be and we decided on today in a few hours. I just wanted to ask if you had time or would be willing to attend?”

Gerhardt gave her a curious look. “I was unaware that you two had been working on something together. Very well. For Pixel I suppose I can reschedule a few things, especially if this is truly important enough to warrant getting the Princesses involved. Where will this unveiling be taking place?”

“At the train station around noon.”

“Understood. Does it matter if I am in my work uniform or should I wear my formal attire?”

“It’s up to you. This should be a fairly revolutionary piece of technology, at least by this world’s standards, but it's not really a super formal event or anything like that. And it should only take a few minutes.”

“Revolutionary? In what way?” Gerhardt inquired, tilting his head curiously.

Twilight smiled at him. “You’ll see! All I’ll say is that you’re going to be impressed with our work!”

“Hm… We shall see. Well I had best finish what I was doing and get ready. I will see you in two hours.”

“Alright, thank you. See you later, Gerhardt!”

Gerhardt closed the door and immediately stepped through a portal back into the underground portion of his lab.

Walking over to a couple of cloned rats he had in a cage, he examined them for a moment. One was running on a little wheel he had made for them to entertain themselves while the other was eating some of the food pellets that had just been produced by their food dispenser. Perfectly normal behavior for rats.

“Project divinity. Experiment log. Entry number four. Lab rats 0007 and 0008 have finally finished maturing just earlier this morning.” He spoke aloud, recording his own voice. Raising a hand he cast a quick biomancy spell to search for any signs of cancerous growths. “No signs of physical abnormality or degradation caused by the rapid aging process. They are completely free of any cancerous tumors. There are no issues that should have any impact upon the experiment whatsoever. I shall proceed as planned.”

He quickly set up the device he had been using to experiment with discordant magic without actually having to use it himself and risking being corrupted by it, connecting it to the top of the rat cage. A small silver spike based on the biological magic of unicorns was inserted through a specially designed hole in the top and was thus protruding down about halfway into the cage. When that was done he stepped into a small observation box made of the same black crystals King Sombra had used to incapacitate his limbs back in the Crystal Empire. As the crystals the box was made from blocked all magic he was completely safe from any discordant magic that might leak from the cage while the device was active. It was difficult to see out of the semi-translucent observation window since it was also made of the same black crystals, but it was worth it for the sake of ensuring his own safety.

“The device is set. Activating it now.” He sent a wireless command to the device to activate the device. As this wireless command operated on radio frequencies rather than magic, the black crystal observation room did not block the signal.

A bloody red aura surrounded the spike and engulfed the two rats. The two of them then looked at eachother squeaked furiously and bolted towards each other before attempting to maul one another. Crimson arcane energy surrounded them and they began casting extremely crude and animalistic combat spells. The barrier generators installed in the cage flared to life immediately, preventing their spells from escaping and destroying anything else in his lab. Moments later they were both reduced to little more than red splatters and smears all across the cage.

Gerhardt sent another signal to deactivate the device. Once it had shut down completely and he was confident any traces of residual energy from the machine had dissipated, he stepped out of the black crystal observation box and examined the now ruined interior of the rat cage.

“Results: Partial success. The rats did indeed kill each other as all previous groups had. However they are the first to display signs of being able to use magic. This suggests that the discordant magic did indeed alter either their biology or souls somehow allowing them to perform feats of arcane might that were previously beyond their means. Further experiments will be required to determine exactly how the magic affected them, and to hopefully help me determine how to best reduce the corrupting effects of discordant magic.”

“Note: Install a self cleaning mechanism into the rat cage for when future lab rats inevitably obliterate each other as these two did. This is a fucking mess and I would rather not have to clean up such things myself in the future. Also install a significantly stronger barrier generator, maybe multiple, and make another cage out of King Sombra’s cursed crystals. If my experiments succeed and the lab rats do end up becoming demigods, then I don’t need two insane rat demigods escaping and ruining my lab, and likely causing mass destruction all across Equestria. Also, the cage being made from the crystals would partially reduce the need for me to be in the observation box during future testing. End of recording.”

Having finished, Gerhardt proceeded to spend a few minutes cleaning up after the experiment. When that was done he activated the device that would clone the next pair of lab rats for him. They wouldn’t be ready for experimentation for another two days.

After that he moved on to the next device he had built. This one appeared to be something akin to a remote control with a singular button on it. It would change his dimensional Z axis to the W axis. He had already made a device that pulled a three meter by two meter by two meter cube of dirt out of that axis — which was replaced by a bubble of air so the cavity wouldn’t instantly collapse on itself — so he wouldn’t immediately be killed by pressing this button. He then promptly disposed of the same way he disposed of the rest of the dirt he had dug out to make his underground lab,

He then stepped into the area he had dug the dirt out of and pressed the button on the device. Suddenly he found himself in a very small, very dark cubical cavity that was, presumably, deep underground. He hadn’t tried using the dimensional axis shifting device above ground for fear of dying if there were either a tree, boulder, hill, mountain, or anything else that existed in that location on the W axis that did not exist on the Z axis. So he honestly had no idea how deep underground he was on this particular axis.

To rectify this lack of information he attempted to open a portal several thousand feet straight above him. Looking through it, he didn’t see a mountain on top of him, which was fortunate, but he did see a fairly large forest a few thousand feet below the other end of the portal.

“Ah, good. That means I can build an actual lab right where my house would be on the Z axis. Though, I have to wonder if any sapient species evolved on this axis. I will have to look for any at some point later on. For now though, I suppose I can start by making a small clearing for my lab.”

He closed the portal and opened another one just below the treeline where his house would have been. After that he spent the next hour and forty five minutes cutting down trees and ripping their stumps out with magic, making a clearing that was approximately one hundred feet by one hundred feet and piling up the logs in one area for future use after stripping the branches off of them. He wasn’t worried about angering any nature spirits by doing this as he was only making a small clearing. He wasn’t conducting mass deforestation or anything like that. Unfortunately, he did not finish making a clearing that large in such a short amount of time, but he did make some very decent progress.

Finally he walked over to a spot he knew was empty and pressed the button on the remote--like device again. He found himself standing in his backyard. Going back inside he changed into his more formal attire, since his work uniform was a mess from trying to make a clearing in the middle of that forest.

Once he was ready he opened a portal to the train station and saw Pixel standing next to a single very large object covered by a large tarp, presumably so no one could see what it was just yet.

“Daddy, you came!” Pixel exclaimed happily upon seeing him. She rushed over and gave him a big hug.

Gerhardt gave her a small smile and patted her on the head. “Of course I did. I am curious as to what the two of you have built. What I was doing can wait for the moment… May I inquire as to the whereabouts of Miss Sparkle?”

“Oh, she’s in Canterlot.”

Gerhardt gave Pixel a confused look. “Why? Since you two worked on this together, I assumed the two of you would have wished to unveil it together.”

“We’re going to! Just trust me. In exactly ten minutes and thirty seven seconds it will all make sense, I promise.”

“Very well…” Muttered Gerhardt, still a bit confused but starting to piece things together in his mind based on context clues. The fact that they were at the train station instead of town hall, the shape of the object underneath the tarp, and Pixel’s words all suggested this object was likely a portal generator linked to another that was likely in Canterlot at the moment.

Slowly a crowd started to form around to see the object. Eventually the crowd grew surprisingly large and Pixel finally stepped up in front of the object, turned to face the crowd, and said, “Hello everyone! I’m really glad all of you could make it today. Miss Twilight and I have something really exciting we want to show all of you. Let me present to you all the newest and most revolutionary advancement in travel!” Pixel then pulled the tarp off of the device and revealed it for everyone to see.

It was a large golden arch, exactly like Gerhardt had expected. Well, he had actually expected it to be made of silver or at least copper since they were both more conductive, but for purely aesthetic purposes he supposed gold worked too.

“Now, I’m sure all of you are wondering what this arch even is or how it is in any way supposed to revolutionize travel. Well, allow me to demonstrate.” Pixel then pressed the activation button. Suddenly the golden arch flared to life and a portal to Canterlot opened up in the middle of it. On the other side they could see Twilight standing in front of another even larger crowd, at the head of which were Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.

“Are there any volunteers who would like to be the first to go through?” Pixel inquired. On the other side of the portal Twilight asked a very similar question.

Gerhardt walked forwards immediately. “Good work, dear. I am very proud of you.” He muttered as walked past her, causing her to smile happily.

Gerhardt walked past the princesses, who had also apparently volunteered to go through the portal and crossed over to the other side.

“Well, Miss Sparkle, when you said you two had been working on something, I was definitely not expecting something like this.”

“So, are you impressed?” She inquired with a smile on her face.

“To be perfectly honest? No, I’m not. I was already aware that this was well within the capabilities of you and Pixel. Who do you think taught you two technomancy in the first place? I am aware of everything you both know about the subject and much of what can be done with that limited information. That is not to diminish your accomplishments, however. You have both done excellent work. I personally would have made the arches out of silver to make it as energy efficient as possible, but that is a minor complaint all things considered.”

Twilight frowned at him but sighed and nodded. “Alright… I guess I should have expected that. Well, we can talk about all of this later.” She looked back towards the crowd and offered to answer any questions anyone in the crowd may have. On the other side of the portal Pixel did the same.

The two of them then spent the next hour answering questions. The most prominent of which was what would happen to the train if they could just step through a portal and go wherever they wanted to. The two of them eased the ponies' concerns. The portals couldn’t just go anywhere as the arches were directly linked to each other and Ponyville and Canterlot were the only two places in Equestria that had portal arches like this, so the train station wouldn’t be going out of business any time soon.

As this was going on, the princesses both approached Gerhardt. “So, this was quite unexpected. Though if we can get a few of these portal arches in every major city in Equestria it will trivialize travel which would be quite beneficial, wouldn’t you agree?” Luna inquired.

“Yes and no. Yes in that it will make travel and transporting cargo from one place to another quite fast and efficient. No in that you can only have so many portals unless you wish to waste a large amount of resources and build a fairly large building that will be very crowded. So having only a handful of portals in each city that connect to other portals in other cities at different times for a set amount of time on a set schedule, sort of like the train, would be better. However that would result in slower travel as individuals would have to wait several hours before the portals open again. This problem only gets worse if you try to have a portal not just in every city but every population center in general from the largest city to the smallest town. So ultimately I do not believe it will be all that beneficial or revolutionary in the long run. My world most certainly had automated portal systems like this, but we still relied quite a bit on traditional methods of travel and cargo transportation due to how impractical portal systems can truly be. And it gets even worse and more complicated if you start building cities along other dimensional axis, which we have done.”

“Hm… Those are actually some very good points. I suppose the idea of portal hubs are better in theory than they are in practice then… Wait, you have cities in other dimensions?!” Celestia exclaimed, surprised by this information.

“In? Dimensions are not places, they are directions. And yes, we do. Or we did. I’m not sure of their status at the moment, considering what’s happening on Earth… Well, that’s besides the point.”

“That’s amazing! So do you think you can create such technology here?” Celestia asked.

“Hm… I’m not sure… The laws of magic are somewhat different here than they are in my world so I will have to conduct significantly more experiments to find out. Don’t expect any results any time soon. I have no idea when I will have time to conduct such experiments or how long they will take” Gerhardt lied.

He wasn’t ready to give up such a huge advantage at the moment. If things went really badly and he knew Pixel was in active danger then he could bring her to another dimensional axis where no one in this dimensional axis could harm her, save for beings like gods, spirits, demigods, or fae. He couldn’t keep her there forever as he knew she had friends along this dimensional axis and was a very social individual and thus extended periods of such extreme isolation would be bad for her mental health, but still. It was his last option if hostilities broke out between him and the Changelings and he was having difficulty protecting her. Plus he could have dozens if not hundreds of hidden labs and factories in every possible combination of three dimensional axis.

The only real issue he could face would be if he somehow seriously angered the princesses, got into a war with Equestria, and they figured out how to use their natural ability to shift their dimensional axis. Fortunately the chances of any of that happening were very slim. Though given how they reacted a few days ago when he brought up the possibility of reverse engineering how they became demigods, those chances were no longer zero.

“Well, please look into it. Such technology would be extremely useful!” Celestia requested.

Gerhardt nodded respectfully. “Of course.”

“Well, Mr. Mechanica, since we’re already here I suppose we should get the first of your tests or experiments on us out of the way.” Luna stated.

“Oh? Very well. This should only take a few minutes. Please follow me.” He opened a portal to the underground portion of his lab and stepped through it. The princesses followed close behind him.

“Well, this is certainly an upgrade over using your kitchen as a makeshift lab.” Celestia said, taking a look around.

“Indeed.” Gerhardt agreed as he walked over and picked up two empty syringes off one of the tables.

“What is that?” Princess Luna inquired, motioning towards the black crystal observation box.

“That? That is how I experiment with discordant magic, the magic the Alicorn Amulet uses, without being corrupted by it. You see, King Sombra’s cursed crystals block 100% of all arcane energy so while I’m inside no magic being used outside of it can affect me. So I can remotely activate this device which utilizes such corrupting magic with zero repercussions on myself. Thus there is zero risk in experimenting with it. Normally I would have had to make a much larger, more complex, and more resource intensive machine to stay in to protect myself, but these crystals have made it significantly cheaper and easier. In fact it cost me absolutely nothing to make, save for a bit of arcane energy.”

“I see. Well in that case I am very glad to see you are twisting his evil and using it for something good instead, and that you are taking necessary precautions to protect yourself from such vile magic.” Luna nodded in approval.

Gerhardt walked over to the princesses and set one of the syringes down on a nearby table, holding one at the ready. “Thank you. Now first and foremost I would like to take a blood and tissue sample from both of you. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt a bit. I know a few spells that can numb pain and after I’m done I can heal you immediately. This will only be a one time procedure, I assure you. So which of you would prefer to go first?”

“I will. Luna has always been afraid of needles.” Celestia said with a smile on her face.

Luna shot her a murderous glare. “I am not afraid of needles!” She hissed.

“Suuuure… Whatever you say dearest sister.”

Gerhardt approached Celestia and inserted the needle into one of the veins in her right foreleg. He then drew the plunger back until the needle was full. When it was he set it down on a table and picked up a monomolecular scalpel and a set of forceps. Casting a spell to numb any pain he removed a one inch by one inch section of flesh from Celestia’s shoulder. When he was done he healed up the wound, set down the scalpel, levitated a small plastic container over to himself, and set the section of flesh inside the container.

Setting the container down next to the full syringe, he took out his fountain pen and levitated two adhesive labels he had made over to himself. Writing “Celestia” on both of the labels he removed the plastic from them and put them on the plastic container and syringe. Finally he placed the flesh and blood samples into a cold storage/chrono stasis unit so they wouldn’t rot or go bad no matter how long he kept them.

He then repeated the process with princess Luna. The only difference being Luna kept her eyes shut and her head turned away from the process the entire time.

“Alright, I only have one last thing to do and you two are free to go. And no, I won’t be taking any more samples.”

Levitating his scanning device over to himself he pointed it at Celestia and activated it. A blue light shot from the scanner and enveloped Celestia’s body for a few moments. When the scan was finished he did the same to Luna, just in case there was any sort of variation between the two of them. It turned out there actually was, but that variation was very miniscule.

“Alright, I have all I need from the two of you. That’s all for today. If I have need of either of you in any further tests or experiments in the future, I will let you know.”

“That was it? That was barely anything…” Luna stated, confused.

“Well, what did you expect? Did you think I would put you in some sort of machine that would subject you to various horrific arcane forces to see what would happen or strap you to a table and dissect you to see how you tick? No. Of course not! I’m a technomancer not some barbaric butcher trying to play god… Well, admittedly I am trying to become a god so I can save my species from Silvanus but that’s completely besides the point. Besides I believe this should be all I need from you two to try to reverse engineer the process behind how you became demigods. Hopefully these samples and the scans I’ve taken will speed up my research at least somewhat. Though even if they do not, thank you very much for your cooperation. I appreciate your assistance in this matter.”

Celestia nodded, though she had a somewhat frustrated and nervous expression on her face. “Alright… Yes… I suppose you’re right… I don’t know what we were expecting… Well if that’s all, we shall speak to you later Gerhardt. Good day.” With that the two of them disappeared in a flash of golden light.

Author's Note

Alright. I'm back from a bit of a break. Sorry that took so long.

So, Gerhardt's experiments into divinity are off to a wonderfully bloody start so far! Those poor rats. Still his experiments require living test subjects and this is far better than experimenting on himself or another truly sapient being.

Fun Fact: There are eleven dimensions and the Human Kingdom has towns and cities in every combination of three dimensional axis. So it is a lot bigger and has a lot more people than its borders would suggest.

Fun Fact #2: In this story dark matter is just matter that exists on separate dimensional axis.

Fun Fact #3: Gods and spirits, especially greater spirits, operate on all eleven dimensions at once. Demigods and Fae, on the other hand, only operate on three dimensions like most other mortal life but they can naturally shift their dimensional axis at will.

Fun Fact #4: Fae are essentially the same as demigods. But they are descended from a mixture of mortals and spirits rather than mortals and gods. Entire races of Fae exist as spirits mate with mortals more frequently than gods. Especially the lesser spirits.

Anyways, as always, constructive criticism is more than welcome. Please, tell me what you guys thought of this chapter and how you think I could improve if at all. I hope you all enjoyed reading this chapter as much if not more than I enjoyed writing it!

Stay safe out there everyone!