The lights over the door flashed to indicate a potential danger- one of the fiercest, most feared combination of creatures could potentially be released right now, and not a lot of ponies could do much to stop it. Or her, as the case may be.

Her pelt is shimmering in the lights flickering above, a rich, Earthy color ondulating with almost golden hues under the spinning yellow lights. Patches of dark brown and dark green leaves ruffled as the somewhat colder air rushed in her "cell", a synthetic forest ground with a few trees and a burrow, in the corner. Her eyes twinkled with an alarming, predatory intelligence- and i know that, with the proper vocal chords, this creature could speak as many languages as i knew existed.
With the proper talons instead of hooves, this creature could even build things beyond my imagination- i know she has that intelligence, cause i've seen it.

It is an equine, timberwolf, and bugbear chemical cocktail of DNA, and after quite a few generations of the species being bread in our labs, they somehow got able to rewrite their DNA themselves. In the past, one of them was able to change her skin's color, pattern, and even shape not unlike an octopus- another had chamouflage abilities witnessed in certain reptiles, and one of them was even able to produce a web stronger than steel cables used in modern construction work.

But this specimen was particularly special. She had an adaptative DNA strain- which meant she had everchanging abilities. Once, i had opened her cell to find her aloft, apparently able to control her buoyancy through the air itself. One night, i found her leaves glowing a deep red color, illuminating her full cell (which was kinda massive, by the way- almost 12x20 feet).

One time, i even found her with a live deer, calmly tearing apart it's flesh and slurping her blood as a rare delicacy meal. When i asked around, nopony knew how she had obtained it. The logs on her cell told us back then that someone had forgot to feed her...

Did she produce the deer through magical means? Did she leave her cell, somehow, and went on an hunting spree in the forests down the mountain, only to come back? To this day, it is a question i believe best left without answers.

At least, she hadn't preyed on ponies that day.

Closing the door behind me (and the distance between us, carefully) i lifted a hoof towards her, slowly, and let her approach it. The relationship between us wasn't unlike that of a dog and it's master- although this dog could shoot acid and razor-sharp barbed darts by it's bulbeous romp and tear me in half without much effort- and at times, it felt as if i lost the master ownership title with her. Some days, she wanted to be the alpha, and have her way. Other days, she was surprisingly docile and submissive, almost afraid of ponies even. It led me to believe that some of the workers here weren't as patient with her as I was, and some manner of foul emotion almost bubbled up into my brain, were it not for my sheer willpower: i couldnt show weakness before that creature, or i could end up on her menu if i lost her respect.

Of course, being an immortal being with hundreds of years of experience, i was able to keep my emotions in check... When my life depended on it.

I let her sniff my frog a few times, and when her eyes softened into a happy look of recognition, i went to pet her, stroking her coarse pelt softly. She angled her head, so that i could scratch her behind the ears- i obliged, and watched the ribbon of drool dribble down her chin, andnher eyes glaze over in a pleased expression of relief. I let go of a breath i didnt know i was holding, and kept petting her for a few minutes, loosing myself in the moment, showing her the attention she was clearly lacking.

In the future, she would become my valorous steed and irreplaceable friend. For now, however, she still needed to grow into adulthood, and grow her bug wings. This fascinating species made a chrysantemum out of her thick saliva, which became a kind of silk if they dried it up in a certain way, and in a matter of hours would grow two wet set of dragongly wings, not unlike a butterfly. It was a really interesting process to witness, one i had the pleasure of seeing once. The wings of the bug-like timberpony would have unique carvings and patterns, not unlike ponies' cutie mark magic, and they would etch themselves under the light of the sun, it was one of the most impressive works of synthesized nature we had developped here.

Welcome to Unity Labs, where magic and science blend together like in the days of the Centaurs- a feat made possible by sharing my knowledge with Celestia, which shared it into the good hooves of her capable ponies. A lot of the science is still lost to time, but thanks to modern thinking, we were able to adapt things that were still working- and we were pretty close to understand them, by regerse engineering it. But things like the bug timberpony were still far too complex and above our real understanding- we were able to splice the DNA on remains found in Centaur ruins, and stabilized it with Pony DNA- leading to the smart, probably sentient creatures we have today.

I made sure she didnt need any more water or food in her feeder, and excused myself from her cell- she wasn't shook from the explosion, and was faring pretty well. I'm glad my Father seemed to like her as much i did. I wasn't worried the random technicians of the lab would mistreat her when he's around, at least.

Making my way towards my Dad's temporary workplace, Lab 5, I yet again had to pass in front of the secretary. She barely batted an eye this time, but slid forward a note on her counter. Without having to read it to know its contents, i pocketed it as i passed in front of her, and nodded to acknowledge her slightly pissed mood, and for good reason. That was the third receipt for broken equipment I had the pleasure of shoving in the princesses' faces this month.

There was no great leap in technology without a few broken machines, Dad always says. But I know the actual truth behind those words- my Dad was a stupid bird, and he didnt know how half the machine he theoretically owned worked, or at least how to properly operate it. We both shared the same 'curse', as i call it, in which our knowledge came instinctively to us. We didnt have to study lile other ponies, or read a book over and over to memorize it. It's a peculiar kind of genius that is actually an hereditary disease, one that I had in my very first life- one that i passed down to a few branches of the family, sadly. It has a few advantages, for a scholarly sort- but it made one socially inapt and questionably sane.

Must I remind you that my Father actually loves my Mother? That they've been married for over twenty years? Can you believe how a single pony could ever be able to withstand the raging fury of my mother, and ask for more?

Lost in thoughts, I suddenly realised I was back in the lab, and just about to step in a sharp looking piece of broken glass- With a thankful nod to Silence, I carefully treaded to the pod- my father still working inside. "Hey, you done yet? I've got to go see the princesses today, and would like to get there before the line is too long." I brushed my long mane out of my eyes, and stared at the softly moving form of my father tinkering with the wires hanging on the ceiling of the pod.

"Yeah, give me a moment and I'll be right out. How about neighponese for lunch?"

----------//----------

"Ugh... Remind me not to eat fish with you ever again, Dad. Honestly, how can you eat so much? You're a pegasus for fuck's sake!" I was scolding the not-so-much older birdbrain, runbing my swollen stomach while walking- quite a feat for a four-legged creature-, holding the most baleful stare i could muster in mock-indignation. Every time we went out for lunch, my immature Father would call out a contest and, in something in my somehow-still-young-and-immature mind would make me compete with him. Every time, he would somehow win, for he has such a deep and intense willpower, he would always take two more bites just to prove he still had some room left in his stomach, and would proceed to walk away like nothing ever happened- like right now, he was casually strutting around with his half-stretched wings, like pegasi often do to boast their wingspan, as i was almost stumbling around and kept hugging the walls, leaning a bit on them to support my massive overweight. My mother said i had both an Earth Pony and a Unicorn's Stomach- something she was actually proud of. A Unicorn's Stomach was made to be able to handle a boatload of carbs, "glucides", a nutrient that can be quickly burned to produce massive amounts of energy, compared to fat, "lipides", which Earth Ponies were able to store massive quantities of, and then burn them slowly as they worked for sustained periods of time. So actually, my stomach was closer to that of an Alicorn's- except mine couldn't switch as easily, they are made to fall into ketosis at their convenience- thus burning the stored fats to produce just as much energy, just as quickly, then carbs did. The result- a stomach that could quickly loose it's accumulated weight, and produce massive amounts of energy to produce spells of admirable amplitude.

Why am i telling you all of this? Because, i just said it- my stomach couldn't switch as easily. As such, i was now stuck waddling as a pregnant mare for the next hour or so, even though I was stretching my magical senses as far as i could in order to expand my "stored food reserves" as fast as equinely possible- a handy trick i picked up by having been fused with more than one exoskeleton in the past, is the ability to know quite a lot about one's bodily functions, and how to optimise them.

And, with a mad flicker in the eyes, I breach the fourth wall to tell you this- I am a creature of peak optimisation.

We somehow quickly made our way to the TransLift, which communicated between the "Floors" of the city, and rode our way to the Royal district- where the Canterhorn stood proud, and the Castle of Canterlot could be seen. Celestia and Luna still resided there, even though they had abdicated the Throne to Twilight a few years back- but my contract was binding me to the Diurnal Princesses, not the Friendship one- and as such, even though could occasionally take orders from her, my loyalties were lying to the Sun and Moon first and foremost- just like my Dad's, Mother's and most of my Family's.

Don't get me wrong- the system Twilight works to bring down is far from the kind of world I wanted to live in, in fact, I've been trying to make the system change way before Twilight did. Ok, maybe not quite that long, like a year or two, but i disgress, the point is: While I hold a lot of admiration and respect all of her accomplishments, while i believe she is a perfect host for the Ink, I don't quite think she was ready for the Throne quite yet. There are some things one can't ever quite be ready for until you've been through it, and the Equestrian Throne is just that- something so grand, so complex, is quite a task to organize, manage, and run. It requires a lot of trusting staff, of experience, and grease in the gears. With the world on a tipping edge towards mad chaos, I just didn't trust Twilight could be able to make good decisions in a timely manner. She has a great mind, and tremendously creative ideas, but they take a little time and contribution from her friends to truly emerge.

That, and the base feelings of jealousy of course. After all this time following Celestia around, doing all kinds of tasks for her, after all the time I've spent getting to know everyone in her circles and her specially selected teams, there was even a time i was on her school's board of directors! I can't believe she didnt sought my approbation before putting Twilight in the spot like this.

As if, now that Starswirl was back, now that her teams were all ready, I didn't matter enough anymore. True, I had gotten lazy. Especially in this life- I had asked a lot out of my order in order to make me this host, i had carved quite a future for myself, and aimed quite high. I had ambitions.

But the process took time. Me and Silence took years to merge, before we were finally born. And in that time, my parents had grayish hair, and Celestia was strolling on some beach, while Twilight ruled in her stead. It all happened so fast. And i still needed like at least 15 years to grow up into my body, and attune myself to the new anchor that was this body. All in all, this seventh rebirth took 19 years to happen, and i was now 26. I was in my prime, and my good years were wasted away waiting for something, anything to give me a purpose again.

And that was when it happened. When the Princess finally gave me my real job.

Author's Note

New Perk!
-Instinctive Knowledge: your mind holds so much information, some of it could get buried in there. So we'll reveal parts of it when you need it, accordingly! No more laying around in bed at night, mulling over your past regrets- though sometimes you'll notice a little latency in the knowledge sharing part of your brain.
(Harder knowledge rolls, but expanded spell list and access to more simultaneous knowledge types.)