BridgeWorld

[993AB Day 375]
"Pr-Princess Celestia!?" Spitfire exclaimed, surprised by the visitor who stepped into her office. "What brings you here!?"

"Good morning, Spitfire," the tall alicorn greeted. "I'm just here on a social call, and to check on how one of your crew, Wingnut was doing."

"Not well," Spitfire sighed as her face fell. "It's been eighty days—since—as you know, his—his wing had to be amputated. He appreciated your visits, but—he's not coming out of his funk."

"Yes, I remember it well," Celestia said. "He even asked me to stop coming to see him. I had to respect his wishes."

"I do apologize, Princess," Spitfire said. "That kind of—mutilation—to a pegasus. It's worse than even blindness! At least, the recruit who caused his accident won't be able to do anymore damage. He was summarily dismissed—"

"That recruit is why we're here," another voice spoke out as a dark brown earth pony with black mane stepped out from behind Princess Celestia. He was a pony whom Spitfire knew from numerous business news reports and from more or less indirect supplies requisitions.

"Thomas Mane!" Spitfire exclaimed. "Well, this is an honor, sir! To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"The honor's all mine, Captain," Mane replied, as a couple more figures joined him in filing into her small office: a pegasus mare of whom she had a vague recollection, and a fox who had three tails. Confused, she shifted her gaze among all four of the intruders in turn again before settling upon the Head of Mane Industries once more.

"I'm—at a loss to understand," she ventured.

"The Wonderbolt recruit whom you had dismissed," Mane explained. "He sought employment with my company last week. He explained that he was kicked out of the Wonderbolts, and why. He told us he was responsible for his instructor losing a wing due to his having lost control during a training flight and his instructor had to risk his own life to save his and those other Wonderbolts he nearly crashed into. He went on to express tremendous remorse over the incident. He also showed amazing insight into some of our—less well known—and still highly and strictly theoretical—projects."

"I'm—glad he's at least acknowledging responsibility for the harm he's caused," Spitfire growled. "I hope you turned him down."

"Now why would you hope that, when as part of the conditions of employment, he was offering to donate his own wing as a transplant limb to restore Wingnut's ability to fly?" Mane asked.

Spitfire was utterly shocked to hear that.

"Wh—h—he what!?" she stammered.

"The idea of using a donor's living wing for such a transplant is theoretically possible, given the tissues already have all the required mana channels needed to assist in flight," the fox said, cutting into the conversation. "However, there are numerous factors that make the idea beyond our capacity at this time: tissue rejection, the progressive danger of necropsy setting in from the moment the wing is removed from the donor until it is completely tied into the recipient's blood supply, sensory and motor nerve connections not matching up, resilience of the mana channels if the donor wing can't handle a stronger flyer's normal magic flow—that being especially a risk to consider in this case, for one—and numerous other factors that all add up against the idea being viable."

"Spitfire, this is Lucius, one of my top researchers at Mane Industries," Mane said by way of introduction. "And this is Alfalfa Ponyworth, my Butler and Aid."

"Alf—Alfalfa—Ponyworth!?" Spitfire choked, instantly recognizing who the mare was now. "You're a BUTLER, now!?"

"Surprise," Alfalfa said waving a hoof.

She snapped her glare at Princess Celestia. "You evidently keep friends in high places, you know that!?" she accused the alicorn.

"It tends to happen," Celestia replied, smirking, "but I have no idea why."

"And—Lucius—Fox?" Spitfire asked.

"Kitsune, actually," Lucius corrected her. Spitfire blinked and then glared at Thomas Mane.

"…You do know, 'kitsune' is Neighpony for 'fox', right?" she asked him.

"He does that all the time," Alfalfa muttered. "Don't encourage him," to which Lucius gave Spitfire a toothy grin.

"Well, which brings us to why we're here," Mane cut in. "While we're not able to effect pegasus-to-pegasus wing donations at this point, we do have a project that we've been researching at Mane Industries for quite some time, a project in which we've had considerably higher success."

"Oh?" Spitfire asked, intrigued.

"A magitech bionic replacement," Lucius explained. "Essentially, a metal wing, with the proper enchantments, that we've had a better than an 85% success rate."

"Whoa!" Spitfire exclaimed.

"Of course, it has its own set of drawbacks," Mane circumspectly added. "There are considerable lack of sensory signals, responsiveness is not nearly as quick or as finely tuned as it has to be for high performance flying, and it draws a greater pull of mana from the pegasus when in use than his living wing normally does, making for some rather lopsided flying for the pegasus—"

"But it can get a pony into the air," Alfalfa finished.

"Oh, my!" Spitfire whispered. She looked up at Princess Celestia.

"We'd like to see Wingnut and speak with him, if it's at all possible," the Princess told her.

"Of—of course!" Spitfire exclaimed, jumping out of her chair. "Oh, this news just might save his life!"