Gerhardt sat down at the desk where he left his stack of papers and took out his pen in preparation for writing down his and the Equestrians' respective alphabets and such. Twilight walked over to one of the shelves and a purple aura surrounded her horn and a large book as she used telekinetic magic to levitate it out of the book shelf. She then walked over to the table and sat down in the chair directly next to Gerhardt and set the large book down on the table between them, opening it up to the first page. While Gerhardt couldn’t read any of the words he immediately recognized the format of the book. It was very clearly a dictionary.

“May I record the contents of this dictionary? I believe it should speed things up quite a bit and judging by the dimensions of the book and the average size of the lettering I estimate that recording the entire thing should only take approximately 3.25 seconds in total. After that we can begin.” Gerhardt asked in an effort to be polite. He believed it may be rude to just snatch it off the table and flip through it without at least asking first since Twilight had been the one to retrieve the book from the shelf in the first place.

She gave him a curious look. “Sure, I did notice you were flipping through all those books pretty fast. Though I do have to ask, how do you know this is a dictionary if you can’t read our language. Also how can you possibly read that fast?! Are you using a spell or something and if so, could you explain to me how it works? Being able to read that fast would be unbelievably convenient and would save me so much time! Also, it doesn’t look like you have a horn so how is it even possible for you to use magic at all?”

The moment he got approval a bright copper aura engulfed his hand as he picked up the dictionary with a telekinetic spell and rapidly began flipping through it while Twilight continued to speak, setting it back down on the table on the first page as soon as he was finished.

“While I can’t read any of the words, I could tell this book is a dictionary because the overall format and layout appears to be extremely similar to the dictionaries my species use, and considering the context of our conversation it is only logical that we would be using a dictionary. I can read as fast as I do because my augmentations allow me to process information far faster than would be possible for anyone whose brain is entirely organic, as yours is. The only magic involved is the magic energy my body runs on and the various enchantments in my brain augmentations. As for horns, I fail to see why I would need one. The ability to use magic has to do with the conditions present during the formation of an individual's soul prior birth. It has absolutely nothing to do with biology whatsoever.” He explained while taking a single sheet of paper off the stack of papers next to him, taking the cap off of his pen, and proceeding to write down the human alphabet.

Twilight looked at the fountain pen curiously as he started writing. “What are augmentations exactly? Also, you do realize that souls don’t actually exist, right? Furthermore, it has already been proven that there is a link between biology and magic. That’s the reason why earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns all have different types of magic. It’s also why alicorns can use the magic of all three races as they are something along the lines of a hybrid with the features of all three. Other species also have their own unique forms of magic that we don’t.”

Gerhardt turned his head and stared at her for a moment. Considering this was a completely different universe he had fully expected there to be differences in how things worked here, but if this was true and magic really was related to biology here — at least for the most part considering he had exceedingly little in the way of biology and he had not lost his abilities upon his arrival here — it had some particularly interesting implications. He wondered how difficult it would be to replicate the biological components of this via augmentation. Hopefully it would only take a few months to a decade or so at most for him to figure out. During his time as a High Lord he had grown to absolutely loathe long term projects as he had tended to need almost all of his projects to be finished as soon as physically possible.

It also meant certain fundamental laws of physics worked very differently here than they did in his universe thus throwing into question absolutely everything he knew about magic. If magic was biological here then what else might have changed about it that he didn’t know about? How much of his centuries worth of knowledge of magic might potentially be wrong, inefficient, or outright useless in this world? He would have to run numerous experiments to see exactly what was different and what was the same between this universe and his, and he would have to do so as soon as possible. This took precedence over damn near everything else except what he had to do in the immediate future, a.k.a. replacing those eight changelings limbs and starting development on those love generators.

After a second or two of thinking silently to himself Gerhardt finally said, “Fascinating. If what you claim about all life in this world having a biological connection to magic actually turns out to be true then that would certainly explain all of the anomalies my sensors have been experiencing ever since my arrival here. It would also have several other very interesting and potentially disastrous implications which warrant investigation on my part as soon as possible. Anyways, to answer your questions, almost my body is almost entirely made up of augmentations so you need only look at me to understand what they are. I hope you realize that I was not always made of metal. I am or was originally an organic being not some sort of sapient golem. In regards to souls, I have reason to disagree with you but believe what you will, I suppose.”

Sliding the paper with the Human alphabet and his fountain pen over to her he continued, “Now, we should begin translating your written language, wouldn’t you agree? I only need help learning the very basics. Mainly the alphabet, a few fundamental words, and basic sentence structure. After that I should have enough of a start to be able to decipher the rest on my own. Since you do not appear to have a writing utensil of your own with you at the moment, you are welcome to use my pen. I only request that you be careful not to break or otherwise damage it as I only just built it a few minutes ago and it is currently the only one I have.”

A purple aura enveloped both Twilight’s horn and the pen as she used telekinetic magic to pick it up and examine it for a moment, very clearly having never seen one before and seemingly curious as to how it functioned. “This looks waaaay different from any quills I’ve ever used before…” She muttered half to herself half to Gerhardt.

“That’s because it’s a fountain pen, not a quill. It has an internal reservoir that stores ink which allows it to write continuously for hours without ever needing to dip it into an inkwell before it eventually needs to be refilled. It’s a bit primitive but it's comparatively easy to make, it's refillable, and it's still much more efficient than a quill.” Gerhardt explained in disinterest. He knew Equestria was extremely primitive compared to all but a select few countries from his world but he failed to see what was so fascinating about a pen, of all things. Granted, it was likely Twilight had never seen one before but it was still just a simple writing utensil, not a piece of hyper advanced world changing technology or something to that effect.

Despite this, her eyes seemed to light up with excitement after hearing his explanation. “Say, Mr. Mechanica, would you be willing to build one of these fountain pen things for me? After all, I am helping you translate our written language and I would really appreciate it!” She asked with a huge smile on her face.

“No.” He stated bluntly causing Twilight’s smile to fall and an expression of disappointment and surprise to take its place. “Not this very instant anyways. I have very few materials with me at the moment and I would prefer to save them as much as I can in case I end up needing them later. You will simply have to wait to request one from me after I open my new business here in Equestria and have more resources at my disposal. Since you are assisting me at the moment and I am not completely unreasonable, I can build you one for free then. So please just have patience until that point. Now, shall we get started or will I have to attempt to translate your written language on my own after all?” He asked in slight annoyance, his patience starting to wear a bit thin.

Twilight still seemed slightly disappointed but nodded. “Okay, I guess that’s fair. Though I had no idea you were planning on starting a business! Where will you be setting up shop and what will you be selling, if you don’t mind me asking?” She asked as she began writing alien letters on the paper that made absolutely no sense to Gerhardt but matched the letters he saw in all the books he had recorded earlier.

“Yes, well, it is impossible for me to return to my world and it would be completely pointless if not outright suicidal even if it were possible. As such, I have absolutely nothing better to do then to just continue my research here in this world and for that I need funding. Thus I decided the best way to gain said funding for my research would be to start a business selling my technology. As for where I will be “setting up shop” as you put it, I honestly have no idea. At the end of the negotiations Princess Celestia made a business deal with me and she offered me a house with an attached storage shed that I could convert into a lab, among other things. However, she never informed me where it will actually be located.” Gerhardt explained while he waited for Twilight to finish writing.

“Wait, it’s impossible for you to return home?!” Twilight exclaimed, making a very obvious effort to keep her voice down to a reasonable level for a library. “That’s terrible! I’m so sorry, Gerhardt. It’s hard for me to imagine what that must feel like... It must be absolutely awful knowing you’ll never see any of your friends or family ever again.” She gave him a sympathetic look.

“Actually, no, not at all. Fortunately for me, the only family I’ve ever had were my parents and they died fighting a small cult of rogue mages 856 years ago. I do still miss them dearly, but I’ve long since moved on. Friends, on the other hand, are nothing but a waste of time that serve no purpose other than to hinder one’s productivity. Worse still, they are a weakness that one’s enemies can easily exploit. Family is a weakness and a distraction as well, which is exactly why I say it is fortunate for me that the only family I have ever had were my parents and they are already long dead. As such I have never once bothered to waste my time on such trivial matters as having friends nor do I ever plan to do so at any point in the future.”

Upon hearing him state his views on friendship Twilight let out a quiet gasp and gave him an absolutely horrified and slightly hurt look. Not understanding the reason for this odd behavior Gerhardt decided to ignore it and just continue what he was saying. “The only thing I will really miss are my tools and unfinished experiments, but I can easily replace those given enough time and resources. No, the worst part of all of this is not what I lost. It is the horrible situation my kingdom is in at the moment due to the unfortunate circumstances behind how I was sent here and by whom, and how I am now completely powerless to do anything about it.”

He sighed in resigned worry and frustration. “Anyways, I would prefer to not have to think about this and I want to discuss it even less… So, since it appears you have finished writing down your species alphabet, shall we begin? I shall start by telling you my species alphabet and the sounds associated with each letter, then you shall do the same for your alphabet. Then we can move on to fundamental words and basic sentence structure. Agreed?”

“Yeah… Sure… Sounds good.” Twilight said, seemingly somewhat upset and distracted by something or other. Gerhardt still had no clue what the issue could possibly be, and since he was not a god and was thus completely unable to read minds he decided it would be best to just ignore it. As long as it didn’t affect him, he honestly didn’t care. He was here to learn their language, not be Twilight’s friend.

The Equestrian alphabet had nearly twice the amount of letters as the Human alphabet, and none of the sounds associated with them could be produced by natural human vocal cords, at least not properly. Rather unsurprisingly they sounded more like the vocalizations of horses than anything else, albeit significantly more complex. The ways their individual words were formed were about as complex as how individual words were formed in the language of the Elves. Finally their sentence structure was fairly similar to the language of the merpeople.

After teaching him all of that Twilight began reading him the definitions of several key words from her language. In return Gerhardt would teach her the equivalent word in the Human language, though there were times the human language didn’t have an equivalent for him to teach her. Human language had always been known as one of the most limited languages in his world after all, and that seemed to hold true even here in a completely separate universe. Thus the reason he typically recorded his notes and blueprints using the language of Elves when dealing with arcane concepts and the language of the Dwarves when dealing with technological and scientific concepts. Their respective languages simply had more words for those respective topics that the human language simply didn’t have an equivalent for. Twilight was absolutely fascinated by this fact when he informed her of it.

After about ten minutes of going over the dictionary with Twilight, Gerhardt finally learned just enough words to begin deciphering the Equestrian language on his own. A process that was sped up significantly thanks to Twilight’s assistance. As he deciphered more and more of the language he was able to start decoding the books he had already recorded, most of which turned out to be books on history. He found some of the information contained within them rather interesting. However that only seemed to apply to specific major events as the majority of recorded Equestrian history appeared to be nothing but peace and effective technological stagnation due to an extreme over reliance on magic and was thus extremely uneventful and boring to him. He made a mental note to not bother wasting his time reading any more about Equestrian history and to instead focus on significantly more relevant matters such as their laws and etiquette.

“Thank you, Miss Twilight. You have been of immense help. Thanks to you I have already begun deciphering the rest of your language and should soon be completely fluent. Now, please excuse me as I must begin writing a few things for Princess Celestia if I wish to get it done by tomorrow morning.” Gerhardt stated before picking up his fountain pen, grabbing another sheet of paper, and starting to write the list of materials he needed.

“Oh? What do you need to write for her?” Twilight inquired curiously, not taking his hint to leave him alone.

Gerhardt sighed in slight annoyance and said, “The first thing I need to write is a list of materials that I require to build the augmentations to replace the limbs of the eight changelings that I dismembered earlier today. The second Princess Celestia has requested I keep classified until she is ready to disclose it to the public in a more controlled fashion.”

“I see.” Twilight said in slight disappointment. “Well, I have a bit of a question that I’ve been meaning to ask, if you wouldn’t mind answering me while you write. It’s about something you said earlier that I find a bit… concerning.”

“Very well… What is it?”

“Well do you remember when you told me about your views on friendship earlier?” Twilight asked.

“Indeed.” Gerhardt confirmed.

“I was just wondering, why is it exactly that you view friendship so negatively?”

Gerhardt was silent for a moment as he thought about it. “I suppose it's a mixture of two things. The first was the way I was raised and the second was my role as a High Lord and the many risks and responsibilities that came with it. You see, my parents had taught me from birth that friendship is nothing but a distraction from your work and never allowed me to have friends Thus to make them proud I became… obsessed, for lack of a better word, with my work as a technomancer. Nothing else mattered to me except my work and my duty to my people. They were extremely proud of me... for a time. Then they began growing older and kept bothering me about finding someone in the Research and Development branch to marry and have children with. I never did as I realized by that point that family, like friendship, was but an unnecessary distraction to one's work and I enjoyed my work greatly. The rest, as they say, is history.”

“Oh… Well... Normally I would have a lot more questions about your home world and such but I suppose it’s getting late and you’ve already given me quite a lot to think about… Good night, Gerhardt, hopefully I can talk to you again tomorrow.” Twilight muttered dejectedly before getting up off of her chair and walking away.

“I’m afraid I will likely be quite busy tomorrow. Good night, Miss Twilight.” Gerhardt said in an attempt to be polite.

He quickly finished his list of materials and started writing what was for all intents and purposes a guide book on proper training methods for mages and how to maintain magical fitness. At some point in the night he ran out of paper and had to go request more from the librarian that was taking the night shift, which was another breed of pony he had not seen before. This one had several bat-like features. He didn’t bother conversing with them other than to request more paper or ink.

Eventually night turned to morning and Gerhardt finally finished writing what was essentially a whole tome. He had originally intended to write some short notes on the subject but it had somehow turned into this. With a mental shrug he raised a hand and cast a spell to punch three holes in the side of the “notes”. He then took out his tools and a couple sheets of steel cast a noise dampening illusion spell and began crafting a metal binding for the pages so they would not get mixed up in the event of an accident. When that was finished he quickly cleaned up and began searching for any law books he could find, which he proceeded to read immediately and put back when he was finished with them.

Once he was confident he was familiar enough with Equestrian law to not accidentally end up getting himself arrested, he began looking for books on etiquette, then he moved onto books on magic and spell books. That was where he got hung up. Nothing any of the books said made any sense to him whatsoever. All of the purely academic books on magic were filled with what he saw as nothing but complete and utter superstitious nonsense. The spell books were even worse. They were filled with terrible poems about “harmony”, “friendship”, and other such nonsense. The use of equations was far and few between but even those equations always related to some superstitious nonsense. It was completely ridiculous.

He was still reading through some of the completely useless spell books when he felt something tap him on the leg. Looking down he saw a maid looking at him a bit nervously. “Er… Princess Celestia is requesting your presence in the dining hall. She would like for you to join her and the others for breakfast. If you would, please follow me.”

Having already put away the useless spell book he had just finished reading, he quickly cast a spell and levitated his list of materials and his so-called “notes” over to himself and grabbed them out of the air. “Very well.” He said, deliberately motioning for the maid to lead the way.

Turning around the maid began leading him to the dining hall. Once they were there, she motioned to the door and said, “They should be waiting for you inside.”

“Thank you.” Gerhardt stated before pushing the doors open and walking inside. His sensors told him there were eleven presences inside, three of which were demigods while the rest were not. This was quickly confirmed when he saw all three princesses, Prince Shining Armor, and all six of the civilians from yesterday sitting at a long dining table in the middle of the room. There was an empty seat with an extra plate between Prince Shining Armor and Twilight Sparkle, which he presumed was for Queen Chrysalis.

As he walked inside, all eleven of them ceased their conversations and turned to look at him. The rainbow maned pegasus and the orange hat wearing pony were both glaring at him, the yellow pegasus seemed completely terrified of him, the white unicorn looked nervous, the pink pony looked happy, the lizard had a curious look on its face, and Twilight was frowning slightly. Prince Shining armor looked calm but having been in the military for centuries Gerhardt could easily tell that he was on guard and ready to attack him at the slightest provocation, while Princess Cadence seemed rather nonchalant. Princess Celestia and Luna were both smiling at him.

“Mr. Mechanica, I’m glad you could join us this morning. Have you finished the list of materials you’ll need and those notes I requested?” Celestia inquired.

“Indeed, I have them here. The list is on top of the notes which turned out to be quite a bit longer than I had originally intended.” Gerhardt said, levitating the stack of papers over to her. “Have you found a place where I can work on building the augmentations for the Changelings?”

“Indeed I have. It's a large storage room here in the castle that apparently hasn’t been used in years.” Celestia confirmed. “I will have a servant show you there later.”

“Excellent. Then I believe I should head to the hospital to get the measurements I need right away. If you could please have one of your servants show me the way, it would be greatly appreciated.” Gerhardt stated.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Actually, I would like to bring you there myself after breakfast, if you don’t mind. Please sit down and join us.” She said motioning to the empty seat.

Gerhardt sighed impatiently, but said, “As you wish. However, please forgive me if I do not eat as I am physically incapable of doing so.”

“WHAT?! THAT’S TERRIBLE!” Shouted the pink pony who seemed to have appeared as if from thin air directly in front of him. “If you can’t eat how can you enjoy yummy food like cake, cupcakes, donuts, or ANYTHING?! Even if you can’t eat you have to be able to at least taste right?!” She said, jumping up on to him, somehow grabbing his shoulders with her front hooves, and shaking him.

“No. I have not required sustenance to survive for over eight hundred years so why would I have given myself the ability to eat or even taste? It is completely unnecessary.” He responded, extremely confused by this.

“Unnecessary? UNNECESSARY?! WHAT ABOUT WHEN YOUR FRIENDS THROW YOU A BIRTHDAY PARTY?! YOU CANT EVEN EAT THE BIRTHDAY CAKE! Wait… DID YOU JUST SAY YOU’VE BEEN LIKE THIS FOR OVER EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS?!” The pink pony shouted in his face as if this was the most terrible thing in the world.

A purple aura suddenly enveloped the pink pony and she was pulled off of him and levitated back to her seat. “Pinkie! That’s very rude! Sorry about that Gerhardt, Pinkie Pie can get a bit… excited at times. Especially when it comes to things like sweets and meeting new ponies.” Twilight stated apologetically.

“It is no issue, Miss Sparkle. I have dealt with worse.” Gerhardt stated before approaching the table and sitting down in the empty chair. An awkward silence filled the room. This stretched on for about a minute until Princess Celestia cleared her throat and said, “Well, Mr. Mechanica, my student Twilight has told me all about your conversation with her in the library last night. I’m glad to see she helped you learn our language, though I will admit I had no idea we spoke different languages until she told me. Though there are other things she told me that I found somewhat concerning. In fact, it actually helped me decide what your punishment will be for mutilating those changelings yesterday.”

“Yes, I only sounded as though I spoke your language due to my universal translator, which operates on mental illusion magic working in tandem with several other forms of magic. I won’t bore you with the details. Unfortunately it only translates speech not text. As for my conversation with Miss Sparkle, what worried you if I may ask? Nothing I said was of any real significance. And I stand firmly by my actions yesterday. They were hostile soldiers and they attacked me despite my warnings to just allow me leave, so I acted in self defense. I know you remember the videos I showed you of my past so you know full well that I could have done far worse had I any reason to.”

Celestia winced when he brought up the videos of his past. Raising a hoof she said, “Ugh… Yes, please don’t remind me The things you showed me gave me nightmares that even my sister had difficulty with and I would rather not lose my breakfast, especially this early in the morning.”

“Your past? You were one of the leaders of your kingdom’s military right? Cadence told me. What could have been so bad about your past?” Shining Armor inquired.

“Prince…” Gerhardt leaned over to whisper to him so Celestia and the rest of the table wouldn’t hear him. “Have you ever watched a child, or I suppose in your culture, a foal be skinned alive by a Spirit that is quite literally the physical embodiment of the concept of evil? Have you ever seen soldiers hung from nooses made from their own entrails and watched them writhe in agony while you could do nothing but kill them to put them out of their misery? Have you ever watched hordes of ghosts and reanimated rotting corpses tearing innocent civilians apart and devouring their flesh only for that civilian’s bloody bones and even their very soul to be reanimated and enslaved through dark magic but mere moments later? Have you ever seen families be torn apart because it was too late to save a parent, child, husband, or wife from said ghosts and reanimated corpses? Because I have.”

Shining Armor’s expression turned to one of horror and disbelief with the very first sentence out of Gerhardt’s mouth and that expression only grew in intensity the longer Gerhardt talked.

“I have witnessed all of those things and far worse still. I cannot show you these memories at the moment as there are civilians present who I’m certain could not handle witnessing such horrors just based on their reactions to seeing those Changelings lose a couple of limbs. So for now just try to imagine it and what that’s like. I have seen things, experienced things, survived things that would drive all but the most jaded and heartless of individuals to utter insanity and have only remained sane because my brain augmentations have redundant fail safes that prevent me from going mad. So do you still wonder what’s so bad about my past?”

“O-oh… Uh… No… That… uh… That definitely answers my question… and ruined my appetite.” Shining armor responded sounding rather shaken.

“Wait a minute! What did he say?!” The rainbow maned pegasus demanded.

“Just… Just trust me, you really don’t want to know… It’s actually pretty hard to believe…” Shining Armor stated.

“Well, uh… Whatever he said, I sorta get the feeling he was being completely honest with ya… Sorry, don’t know if that helps any.” The orange pony with the strange hat said with a rather odd accent.

Shining Armor didn’t respond as the orange one’s words clearly brought him no comfort.

Celestia cleared her throat once more, “Mr. Mechanica please at least try to refrain from telling anypony else about those parts of your past and I outright forbid you from actually showing anypony any of those memories. It’s for their own benefit that they never see such things. Now to pick back up where we left off, what concerns me about your conversation with Twilight is what she told me about your views on friendship.”

“What? That it’s nothing but a useless distraction from one’s work and an easily exploitable weakness?” Gerhardt inquired.

“Yes. That and your self proclaimed obsession with your work. That’s why your punishment will be learning about friendship from my student Twilight. Thus you will be forced to step away from your work and actually interact with and try to become friends with others.”

“You’re joking…” Gerhardt said disbelievingly.

“No. I’m dead serious. That’s your punishment. I’ve already asked Twilight if she would be willing to help teach you and she agreed. Plus your new house will be in Ponyville so this works out perfectly.” Celestia explained.

Gerhardt shook his head. “No... I refuse to waste my time on such a thing! Keep the damn house! I’ll mine all the resources I need and start my business myself!”

Princess Celestia looked at him in surprise. “My word, you’re reacting to this even worse than I thought you would. Well no matter, it wouldn’t be much of a punishment if you liked it. My decision on this matter is final, Mr. Mechanica.”

For the first time in a century Gerhardt actually gritted his teeth in rage. Normally it took quite a lot to make him angry let alone this angry, but interfering with his work in such a ludicrous fashion as this just managed to get under his skin, metaphorically speaking. Unfortunately he currently wasn’t in any position to refuse unless he wanted to flee the country, which risked making both Equestria and the Changelings his enemies which he simply couldn’t afford at the moment. “Grrr… Fine…” He hissed. There was significantly more mechanical reverberation in his voice than usual with the faint sound of static in the background. “Unfortunately it seems as though you are leaving me no choice in the matter…”

[Meanwhile on Earth]

Silvanus was in tears laughing as he watched Gerhardt through the tether he had tied to his soul just before throwing him into that vortex, just in case the Greater Gods learned of his actions and sought to punish him for it. They shouldn’t as there was nothing in their rules that said he couldn’t do this, but it was better to be safe than sorry. He was effectively exploiting a loophole after all and there was always a chance they may take exception to that. With this tether he could always pull that bastard Gerhardt back if he needed to, and hopefully minimize the punishment the Greater Gods would give him were he to receive one.

Time seemed to move quite a bit slower wherever Gerhardt currently was but that was simple enough for him to deal with. As he watched Gerhardt suffer in some strange world of pacifistic ponies however, he was in the middle of fighting the Army branch of the Human military. Not that it was very difficult. They had been thrown into complete and utter chaos the moment Gerhardt had disappeared.

He was the longest lived High Lord in human history and had been in office for centuries. Thus his disappearance disrupted an equilibrium in the R&D branch that had been stable for almost a millennia and had left a massive power vacuum that they couldn’t decide how to fill, throwing it into absolute anarchy as they scrambled to fill said vacuum but no one could decide who would step up to take his place as High Lord. Most of the particularly highest ranking members within the R&D branch that had the best chances of being chosen didn’t even want to take his place. For some it was out of loyalty or respect, their families having served under him for generations. Others didn’t want the job because they didn’t want all the stress or responsibility of being the High Lord of the R&D branch, and that was to say nothing of the massive shadow he cast to which they would be compared for the rest of their lives were they to take his job.

Needless to say this threw the entire human military into disarray as the other branches relied on the R&D branch quite a bit and the other High Lords were now having to manage most of Gerhardt’s responsibilities on top of their own until someone replaced him all while trying to put out about thousand different fires at once while trying their best mitigate as much of the chaos as possible.

Had it been any other High Lord, it would have been dealt with in short order as each had very clear successors. Gerhardt didn’t. He had been in office for centuries, which no other High Lord to date had managed to do, and thus no one had bothered to think of who might replace him were something to happen to him as his existence as the high lord of the R&D branch had been a constant throughout a huge portion of recent history thus his death or disappearance was practically inconceivable to most of the Human Kingdom. Many had just assumed he was immortal and would reign as high lord of R&D until the end of time, or at the very least that he wouldn’t die or disappear anywhere near their lifetimes, or the life times of their children, or their children’s children. Most of the Human Kingdom were dead wrong. And now, they were paying for it.

Silvanus had not been expecting Gerhardt’s disappearance to have anywhere near the impact it did, and he was fairly certain Gerhardt hadn’t either otherwise he likely would have set up systems and procedures in order to minimize the damage as much as possible. Not that he was complaining. It all worked out amazingly well for him and he was loving every minute of it. The only thing that really disappointed him about how this all turned out was the fact Gerhardt hadn’t messed up in that wedding venue and made enemies with one or both of the countries. It would have been even more entertaining to see him being hunted down like a dog.

Then he was hit with the blast of the main battle cannon of a super heavy combat golem that somehow managed to catch him off guard and his good mood was instantly ruined as said blast actually hurt… a lot... Very thick vines quickly enveloped the offending combat golem and began tearing it apart as Silvanus turned all of his focus entirely to the battle.

[Meanwhile in Equestria]

The rest of the breakfast went rather smoothly after that. Gerhardt learned all the names of the seven civilians, counting the bipedal lizard that was apparently named Spike. Most did not seem to like him very much, if at all. Fluttershy was utterly terrified of him. Rainbow Dash seemed to either hate him or just seriously not trust him, likely for how aggressively he handled the Changeling situation, he honestly couldn’t tell which. Applejack was extremely wary of him and seemed to consider him a potential threat, likely for the same reason. Pinkie Pie was still quite distraught about the fact that he couldn’t eat and seemed to have absolutely no desire to. Rarity appeared more interested in his uniform and the fabrics it was made of than anything, she seemed particularly excited when he informed her that the silver and gold on his uniform were made of actual silver and gold wires that had been turned into a fabric that had been lightly enchanted to prevent them from growing brittle and breaking after too much movement. Spike seemed somewhat interested in his augmentations as they apparently reminded him of things he had read in certain works of fiction. Twilight, of course, was interested in his world, his kingdom, his world’s history, etc.

Otherwise they tended to keep conversation with him to a minimum and mainly just talked with each other about various other things instead, which suited him just fine. Well, all except for Twilight who continued to barrage him with question after question, which he found rather irritating especially after having learned what his punishment was. Even so, he tried his best to remain as polite as possible and answer her questions to the best of his abilities. If he was going to be stuck dealing with her on a regular basis for an extended period of time then he might as well be on polite terms with her after all, even if this completely asinine punishment was at least partially her fault for telling the princess about his views on friendship in the first place.

Eventually breakfast ended and Princess Celestia gave a servant the list of materials he needed before leading him to the hospital where the Changelings were located so he could get the measurements that he needed in order to build their replacement limbs. Fortunately they were either unconscious or too strung out on painkillers to attempt to engage him in conversation or otherwise be difficult with him while he got the measurements he needed. The only thing that truly annoyed him was Celestia hovering over him the entire time watching everything he did. He assumed it was because she didn’t trust him or something, he didn’t care enough to bother asking.

When he was finished she led him back to the castle and to the abandoned storage room where he would be working. There was already a table set up in the middle of the room and small crates containing the materials he had requested. There she left him to work. Having no hard set time limit like he had when he was building that prototype love generator yesterday, Gerhardt took his time setting up and preparing for the project. This process took about an hour

When that was finally done he finally got to work. He heated and shaped sheets of metal with a small portable magic based blow torch and several other somewhat delicate tools along with several clever applications of magic in place of other tools or machines that he needed but didn’t have at the moment. He hand made several circuit boards by improvising with some of the materials he had inside the pouches on the belt of his robes and using magic in place of proper machinery. Then he used his magic to crush several carefully weighed and measured pieces of clear cuprite until the crystals were the consistency of a fine sand, each and every grain of which would be mass enchanted and used as a crude makeshift internal sensor that would allow the limbs to feel just like organic limbs do. He also crushed several other crystals he would need for all of the processors he would have to build. All of this took another several hours.

Finally he began the long process of building all of the mechanical mechanisms, steel endoskeleton, internal machinery, and the processors. Before he was even a twentieth of the way through he was interrupted by a knock on the door before a servant opened it and said, “Excuse me, the princess is requesting your presence in the Dining Hall. She would like you to join her and the others for dinner.”

“Please give her my sincerest apologies and inform her that I will unfortunately be unable to join them as I am currently quite busy. If she asks for an estimate as to how long this will take, inform her that my most optimistic estimate is a week, though it may very well take a little longer than that as I need to make quite a few augmentations entirely by hand with extremely limited tools. Thank you.” Gerhardt responded not pausing in his work or looking away for even an instant.

“As you wish.” The servant responded, closing the door once more.

Gerhardt continued working until there was yet another knock on the door and the servant opened it once more. “Sir, I’m afraid the princess insists you join them. She says it's part of your punishment for what you did to the Changelings yesterday?” The servant said questioningly, apparently unaware of Gerhardt’s actions yesterday

Gerhardt sighed in irritation. “Gods damn it… Very well then…” For a microsecond he vaguely considered taking the limb he was working on with him into the dining hall and continuing to work on it, just to spite them. However, he ultimately decided that would be quite petty and childish of him so he set down his tools and left his work where it was. Walking out the door of the storage room he said, “I will just take a portal there to save time. Thank you for informing me. You may go about whatever other business you may have.”

He then raised a hand and created a portal to the inside of the dining hall before immediately proceeding through it. Once he was through he closed the portal behind him and said, “Princess I’m afraid I must object to this. I was in the middle of working on the replacement limbs for the Changelings. A process which will already take a significant amount of time due to my lack of proper equipment. Trivial social interactions such as this will only add to the amount of time it will take.”

“Thank you, Gerhardt, your objections are noted. Please sit down.” Princess Celestia stated, motioning to the empty seat, this time between Rarity and Pinkie Pie.

Gerhardt reluctantly took his seat. This dinner went about the same as breakfast had. Some of the Ponies occasionally tried to make a bit of light conversation with him but for the most part they just left him alone. He most certainly didn’t try to converse with any of them unless they spoke to him first. He spent the majority of his time using a program in his head to work on possible designs and blueprints for the love generators he was supposed to build for the Changelings. His main issue was trying to figure out how to make them robust enough to withstand the changelings feeding on them without them exploding in the process. He would work on tweaking the “flavor” later after he figured out how to build one durable enough to survive being fed on in the first place.

When dinner was finally over Gerhardt immediately stood up, created a portal back to the storage room he was using to work on the Changelings’ augmentation, walked through, and shut it behind him. Walking back inside the storage room, he immediately resumed his work. After a few minutes the door opened and both Princess Celestia and Twilight Sparkle walked inside. He would have said it was rude of them to enter uninvited but this was Celestia’s castle and he knew he would do the same to pretty much anyone else were he still in the Human Kingdom.

“Well I assume you two are here for a reason. What is it?” Gerhardt inquired neither pausing nor looking away from his work.

“Indeed, Twilight here was curious about your work so I decided to bring her here and let her see it for herself. Also, you barely interacted with anypony during breakfast or dinner. It seems like you’re not even trying to make an effort to learn anything about friendship.” Celestia explained.

“That’s because I’m not. I was unaware that I was supposed to start effective immediately. I had assumed I would at least be able to wait until I finished setting up my lab in the house you're providing me before this ridiculous punishment truly began. However, it seems as though I was a bit too optimistic in my assessment.” Gerhardt huffed in irritation, trying his best to ignore Twilight Sparkle who was standing on her hind legs with her forehoofs on the table just to get a look at what he was doing.

“Um… Mr. Mechanica, is there anything I might be able to do to help you? I know you prefer being alone, but I would really like to learn more about what it is you do, if you don’t mind.” Twilight requested hopefully.

“No. Were you a trained technomancer or at the very least a highly skilled and experienced biomedical engineer from one of the major kingdoms of my world, preferably one of my kingdom's allies, then most certainly. However, you are not. Thus there is little to nothing you can do to help me.” Gerhardt refused.

Twilight scowled at him. “I’ll have you know that I am an excellent engineer!”

“Oh? Then can you tell me how you would go about building a processor that will interpret the signals from the subject’s nervous system and move the artificial limb based on those signals only using what few tools I have here?” He asked.

“Well, no, but —” Twilight started only for Gerhardt to cut her off.

“Very well, then can you tell me how you would go about connecting each of these hundreds of grains of specially enchanted cuprite so as to allow the artificial limb to have feeling just like a normal limb, again using what few tools I have with me at the moment?”

“No…” Twilight said somewhat dejectedly.

“Then I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do to assist me. Please do not take it personally as I am not saying this out of malice, Miss Sparkle. Please keep in mind the fact that while it may not look like it right now this is indeed going to be someone’s limb. Augmentations are very complex pieces of machinery already and they aren’t something that someone without the proper knowledge and training can build and make work. Not to mention the fact that they will eventually be attached to a person and wired directly into their nervous system. Thus great care and precision must go into their construction or else they will not function properly or in the worst case scenario could even end up harming the individual they are attached to.” Gerhardt calmly explained

Setting down the tool he was currently using and picking up another, he continued. “Were I building anything other than augmentations at the moment such as a simple cleaning golem for example, I might have agreed to allow you to assist me as there would be far less danger involved if a mistake were to be made or if it were to be constructed improperly. What I am doing right now, however, is quite literally the mechanical equivalent of intensive surgery and thus I simply can not risk allowing someone who lacks the necessary knowledge or skills to build such a device to assist me.”

“That’s… actually a very good reason. I’m surprised, Mr. Mechanica, I honestly thought you were refusing simply because you wished to be left alone.” Princess Celestia stated.

“Princess, I was part of my kingdom’s military and a member of the Research and Development branch at that. While I may not wish to waste my time on such trivial matters as friendship, I am still more than capable of working with others when necessary and in fact have done so countless times in the past on countless different projects. Furthermore, during my time as a High Lord I have learned the value of delegating whenever necessary. If it saves me time so I may move on to my next project or whatever other duties that I must attend to faster than I would otherwise then I have no problem working with others in a strictly professional setting.” Gerhardt stated.

“I see. Well, I think I shall be taking my leave now. Good night, Twilight, and you as well Mr. Mechanica.” Princess Celestia said before exiting the room.

A minute passed with Twilight showing no sign that she was going to leave any time soon. So Gerhardt sighed and asked, “I see you are still here, Miss Sparkle. May I ask why? I have already told you that there is nothing you can do to assist me.”

“I know, but if I can’t help you, would you at least be willing to teach me a little about technomancy and maybe some about augmentations like the ones you’re building? Sorry, I’m just somewhat of an academic and love learning new things. An opportunity to learn an entirely new form of magic is just too tempting to pass up!” Twilight asked with a somewhat pleading expression on her face.

Gerhardt thought about it for a moment. She wouldn’t be the first person he’s ever taught. Every so often he would teach a class full of recruits about certain concepts or equations, and he had even taken several apprentices in the past though such a thing was quite rare for him. None of those apprentices were alive today, either having been killed in combat, having been assassinated, or having died of natural causes due to old age, but the point remained. Not that he had any intention of taking Twilight as an apprentice. “Hm… Very well. I suppose I could teach you some of the basics. Just do not touch anything I am working on.”

Thus Gerhardt began trying to teach Twilight the fundamental concepts of technomancy. It turned out she was a surprisingly quick study and began to grasp what he was saying very quickly. The only issue being the fact she kept referencing the utter nonsense that Gerhardt had read in those books on magic earlier that day. She suggested multiple times that he should account for “harmony” in things that had absolutely nothing to do with harmonics, or that he should try incorporating some equation or another that seemed utterly nonsensical to him, and other such things that seemed utterly preposterous to him.

He didn’t even try arguing or debating with her as he wasn’t certain just how different this universe’s magic was from the magic of his universe. He did, however, make a mental note to conduct experiments to prove whether the things she was suggesting were true or not, regardless of how preposterous the concepts seemed to him. This was the ponies’ world after all, so logically they should know how its magic operates better than him... Then again they didn’t even know how to properly train their mages nor did they know how to maintain their magical fitness or even realize that they had to maintain their magical fitness in the first place as magic was just like any other muscle… Well, either way that’s what experimentation was for. To either prove or disprove different theories and hypotheses.

Eventually Twilight began growing tired and had trouble staying awake, at which point Gerhardt suggested she go to bed. She tried to refuse at first but eventually her exhaustion combined with Gerhardt’s refusal to teach her any more in her current state forced her to relent. Thus she left.

After that Gerhardt was very reluctantly forced to adopt a regular schedule. Every morning he would be called in to attend breakfast and every night he would be called in to attend dinner while the rest of the time he would be in the storage room working on the limbs. After the next day Twilight and her friends finally left the Canterlot to head back home. Thus the breakfasts and dinners Gerhardt was forced to attend mainly consisted of the three Princesses as well as Prince Shining Armor.

They tried making light conversation with him about things like politics, history, and major events both in his world and theirs. It was usually fine whenever they were talking about the Ponies’ world, but whenever Gerhardt’s world was brought up it inevitably led to him thinking about the awful situation his kingdom was in and how he was powerless to do anything about it which would immediately cause his mood to plummet.

After about five days had passed Luna began questioning him about why she never saw his dreams in the dream world and he informed her that he had long since removed both his biological requirement and his ability to sleep. He was able to enter a low power mode in emergencies but that was vastly different than sleeping. As Princess Celestia had suggested, Princess Luna was somewhat offended by this. She didn’t get angry or do anything particularly drastic but she did make it very clear to him that she didn’t like it especially since he never bothered to take even so much as a few minutes away from his work to go outside and appreciate the night sky that she always worked so hard on.

After nine days had passed, Gerhardt had finally finished the augmentations for the Changelings he had dismembered and was ready to install them even despite all of the completely unnecessary interference by the Princesses.

Author's Note

Hello everyone! Sorry I've been away for so long. As I said in the previous chapter, life has sorta been getting in the way. I'll try to start updating the story quite a bit more frequently.

Anyways, fun fact: Super Heavy combat golems are too large to fit inside cities thus they are typically used as large artillery platforms. Most have two artillery cannons on their back, one to fire physical shells and another to fire magic artillery. They also have other weapons on them such as the main battle cannon that Silvanus was blasted with in this chapter, which are meant to destroy other Super Heavy combat golems or anything similar that their enemies may use. The one that was used against Silvanus in this chapter was arcane in nature rather than physical.

That's sort of all the facts I've got for this chapter. I've decided not to stop doing the fun facts thing, but I'll only be doing them when I actually have something to talk about rather than struggling to come up with something.

That aside, I'm not entirely sure how well I portrayed the situation in the Human Kingdom. I tried to make the reasoning behind it as logical as possible but I'm not entirely sure if Gerhardt's disappearance should have had nearly as large of an effect on the kingdom. Let me know what you guys think. Does it ruin the suspension of disbelief too much? I'm more than willing to change it if so.

Also, sorry if it seems somewhat rushed towards the end. I had to timeskip over a lot of stuff and give a brief summary of events because honestly nothing really interesting happens after Gerhardt's final interaction with Twilight in this chapter. He mostly just stays in that storage room working on those augmentations. and the few interactions he has that could be interesting, like Luna finding out he doesn't sleep, would be really short and thus it would be difficult to incorporate them in a way that feels natural to the flow of the story.

As always, constructive criticism is more then 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!

Edit: slightly altered the last line due to a very good suggestion.

Edit#2: So apparently some people have a problem with this chapter. I have no idea what that problem is since people are apparently too lazy to just tell me and immediately just dislike the story and instead of even giving me a chance to rectify my mistakes or even explain my logic behind some decision or another. That's in spite of me saying I am open to constructive criticism since I know full well that I make mistakes since I'm only human and am in no way even remotely close to perfect. As a writer I honestly absolutely fucking despise that kind of thing since it's not even remotely helpful in the least.

Is it the way Gerhardt reacted to Celestia telling him his punishment would be "friendship lessons?" Is it how the Human Kingdom reacted to Gerhardt's disappearance? Is it something else entirely? I don't have the slightest clue since apparently no body who dislikes this chapter feels like telling me or they're just too fucking lazy to bother typing two or three sentences.

I waited for a while before doing this, since I was hoping someone would specify what part or parts in particular are the problem(s). That obviously never happened and doesn't seem like it will ever happen. So not knowing what the issue is, I deleted one paragraph I found particularly cringy. That's quite literally the best I can do since I don't know what else could possibly be wrong with the chapter since no one is telling me.

PSA: To anyone who reads this and dislikes the chapter or any future chapters in the story, for future reference I'm genuinely always willing to hear what you think I did wrong so I can go back and fix it. I have literally rewritten chapters based on criticism I have received and am more than willing to do so again as many times as it takes to get it right. So how about actually telling me what the issue is specifically so I can try to fix it rather than just saying "Ugh... This is so stupid and childish." or other vague unhelpful nonsense like that or just disliking without saying anything whatsoever which is even worse and less helpful since at that point I don't even know what specific chapter is the problem let alone how to go about fixing it.

Seriously, you don't even need to try to offer me any suggestions for how to fix it or anything of the sort. Just tell me what you think is wrong and I can figure out a way to fix it on my own. But I need to know what the problem is to begin with in order to be able to do that in the first place. Not telling me my mistakes obviously won't solve anything.

The same goes for any author. If you dislike something someone writes instead of just leaving a dislike on the story and fucking off forever, how about you leave actual fucking criticism so the author knows what the fuck the problem is to begin with?

Anyways, rant over. Sorry about all of that. That sort of thing just really gets under my skin.