The Grey Path of Arcane Gears

Her eyes were still open. In the gentle indigo light of a clear starry night Arcane’s stare focused on an old brass alarm clock. It read 2am. In spite of her aching body and the warmth of her lover at her back she couldn’t sleep. So many thoughts, far too many to count. Silent Brook’s letter. This other world’s Celestia. The words of General NorthStar just today.

It all felt as if it were leading up to something and she was just a character in their story. In this reality’s story.

She rose and carefully untangled herself from Alloy, accepting the chill of night about to assault her pelt. Shivering, she fetched her housecoat from the closet and covered her nude form. Careful hoof steps followed as she made her way out of her quarters, down the hall, and into their laboratory.

It looked like a factory now. Less than an hour after the Generals left, a decent number of Earth Ponies in red jumpsuits swept up the contents of every work station in the lab, leaving only the most essential things. In total, fourty eight of the fifty desks were set up with an upgraded ‘crystal printer’. The device had a rectangular base with a cube made of thick high-pressure glass and a titanium frame. In the base of the cube was a set of nozzles and a domed lense. To the side was an odd device Arcane had to be trained to use once her clearance level was high enough. These ‘computers’ consisted of a flat glass panel and what looked like a type-writer’s keyboard. Only half a year ago was she told these came from a reality devoid of active magic. One filled with evolved apes called ‘Humans’.

“In one reality we are apes, in another we are dragons. What’s next? Spider ponies?”

Tubes ran in thick bundles along the floor from three giant vats of mineral solution. They split like veins to the various devices now working furiously to mass produce the emulators. Red, blue, or green solutions floated in a clear fluid under immense pressure. It was slowly crushed into a single point as thin lazer light shot from the glass lenses to direct the pressure and guide the crystalline formation.

Arcane sat down in a row of three workstations with a very specific job. All three solutions were shot into the chambers to merge into a single point. The colors shifted wildly from purple to green to brown and all over the spectrum. As the colors changed she typed away at the computer, imputing varied pressures and formulae to stabilize the fusion.

“I don’t care if you put on wax wings and fly into the sun. Get it done”

The Unicorn General’s words repeated in her mind.

Age 14

“Come on! Feathers, foam, clouds… fluffy, light, airy.”

She muttered to herself as she ‘stood’ in her parent’s backyard. Well, not quite standing so much as hovering. Her hooves glowed bright pink as she willed that odd Earth magic to lift her higher, maybe even defy the laws of physics to make her lighter and allow her to take off. She was only a thumble’s height off the ground yet it took everything she had to maintain it. Her stomach was cramped with hunger and her throat burned with a need for water. Her body was withering yet she didn’t care. She’d pass out, eat, and try again. Try a hundred times just to feel that freedom of flight for just another minute.

“Damn it, why can’t I… why..” her eyes burnt as they tried to make tears. There just wasn’t anything left in her to shed. Soon the world tilted and flickered out. She could hear her father cry out.

A little chime came from the far left computer. Arcane snapped back to the present and rolled her chair over. The little ball of solution shifted from black to white and didn’t change color after that. Her eyes went wide as the lasers went to work slowly crafting it into a pea sized rose bud. She swiftly copied that formula into the other two machines.

Arcane made her way back to her bedroom and took her scroll phone from her nightstand before walking back to her lab. She let the scroll open as she typed a message out on its magical qwerty keyboard.

“General Rockbreaker, The two Special R.E. Units will be complete by this afternoon. I hope Queen Celestia is doing well. We will have her on her hooves in no time.”

She closed her phone and went to one of the untouched work spaces. A jewelers bench was set up with several empty mountings of Alloy’s design. She turned on a magnifying lamp and set out tools just as a small chime could be heard a row away.