Making a coil-gun is pretty simple. You need some pipes, wires, some other electrical components, and some magical components to replace electrical components that you might not have.

Making one was, unsurprisingly, completely legal...

Well, there was no law, provincial or state, against it since this world has only very recently learnt how to make breech-loading spell slingers while I was making sci-fi weapons, and since there was no law saying otherwise, it was alright to assume that it's perfectly legal for me to do so. Even if it wasn't, I could just claim to be a dumbass and probably get away with a fine. Better to be perceived as a dumbass in court than to actually be a dumbass in jail. That won't be a problem though if I get a weapons permit, which might be easy since pony me has had one in the past for a job and also because I live close to the Everfree forest. I might deal with that tomorrow though.

So, as I was saying, making a coil-gun is easy. I already had some of the stuff I needed, like the copper wire. The rest of the stuff, I had to get. I had to get amethyst, quartz, amber, glass, iron nails, lead, diamonds, and some other less important stuff. Well, I had almost all of the gems, though not as many as I needed, but the problem was that they had to be in certain shapes for them to be useful for me, and I didn't exactly have the tools I needed to make them into those shapes.

I didn't know what tools I need, let alone where to get them, nor did I know if there were any jewellers, or whoever you go to get your gems cut, in Ponyville. Of course, I could ditch the magical parts of the coil-gun and get capacitors and light gates but I'm sure that those things weren't sold in Ponyville either, at least not the kind I wanted.

I could get the other stuff though. I just had to go to the local Stable Depot where I got the copper wire spool yesterday.

I just had to get through work, which would last about an hour. I could have just left early, cutting bad health, but I didn't since I had already spent three weeks not working and I don't want to be more of a lazy bitch.

"Hey Anya, are you feeling alright?"

I looked up from staring at my desk to see that Twilight had come up to me and was looking at me with slight concern.

"Yeah, just thinking," I replied as I looked around. Not many people were in the library before I had zoned out and started thinking, and not many people were there after Twilight interrupted my thoughts. Today was a rather bad day to be in a library since it was kinda hot and stuffy in here.

"About what?" Twilight continued, sitting down on the floor next to me.

I thought about how I needed gems that were cut in a certain way for an improvised weapon, and figured that I probably could not tell her that. However, she was my friend and she wanted to help, and it wouldn't hurt to let her.

"Magically active gems," I began, getting all of her attention at the 'magical' part. "I have some at home and I need them to be cut in certain shapes to be useful for projects. However, I don't have any tools to cut them with, nor do I know if there's someone in town who could help me with that."

"I could help you with... well, I know somepony who can..." Twilight said, making me feel better even though I was sure that she was going add a 'but'.

She smiled really wide and said, "But, you have to tell me more about your projects — they sound really interesting."

"Sorry to disappoint you, but 'projects' actually means 'vague ideas that might not work' and not anything solid like you're imagining," I lied. Twilight's interest was mostly crushed at hearing that, and seeing her like that with her ears drooping and her smile fading made me feel bad. I didn't relent though and didn't tell her about my plans.

Now, it was just waiting.

"Well, you could tell me about those ideas then!"

Or maybe not.

The chat I had with Twilight went a lot better than I had expected. For starters, she was happy again, and I didn't reveal my plans either. That was probably because it was mostly her info-dumping everything she knew about magically active gems and the branch of magic it fell under — artifice. It might have been a bit boring but I listened to it all. That's what friends do, I think.

That chat had lasted a while and eventually, the clock struck five. We had closed the library and then Twilight said that she'd lead me to the person who could help me with gems. After a little detour to my house to get the gem box, we were on our way.

To where exactly? To her friend, Rarity.

It was a bit of a surprise since as far as I knew, she was a fashion designer, and not a jeweller. Twilight had seen my confusion and explained to me that Rarity had her own personal style of putting gems in the clothes she makes, which sounds pretty cool even to a fashion-ignorant person like me.

So, that's how we ended up at the most peculiar building in Ponyville: the Carousel Boutique.

I had seen it when I was put into this world but I had never been to it, not that I would have any reason to — fur covered up the stuff that had to be covered up, and it also provided some (not a lot in my case) protection from the elements, and I could get jackets and boots at some other store, although, I hadn't seen any such store anywhere in town. Does Rarity have a monopoly?

We entered the boutique, making a bell above the door sound.

The first thing I noticed was how pink and purple and bright everything inside was — I had expected the usual off-white walls and minimalist design that all boutiques seem to have.

The second thing I noticed was that a cat was coming towards us, and behind said cat was Rarity. She was white furred and kinda fat with messy hair — the cat, NOT Rarity — and had an expensive looking collar and a purple bow.

The cat stopped at Twilight's hooves and immediately started batting at them aggressively, making Twilight start backing away from her slowly. Rarity was quick though. She swooped in and picked up the cat, saving Twilight from it.

"Opalescence! That is no way to greet a friend, let alone a customer," Rarity scolded the cat, making it face her. The cat, Opalescence, just meowed in response. Rarity held her anger for just a few second before she broke and quietly apologised to it before putting it down. Opalescence walked off like nothing had happened. Classic cat behaviour.

Rarity then faced us, smiling, even though her ears were held down and her smile seemed desperate. Was it because of me?

"Good afternoon Rarity," Twilight greeted.

"Hi," I also greeted.

"Hello to both of you," Rarity said, her voice slightly shaky. "Twilight dear, are you here for your dress?"

Twilight was going to answer but Rarity kept talking. "I couldn't work with the dress that you gave me; it was simply too... unsuited for the gala, and as a result..."

She paused dramatically, making Twilight lean in towards her with her ears perked up. Then, with a flourish, she continued, "I made you a new dress entirely!"

Twilight pulled back and said, "Oh, thanks Rarity! Can I see it?"

She was going to say more but stopped and frowned. Then she said, "Wait, actually, we can do that later. Right now, I have some work."

"Ooo, what is it? Perhaps a new dress for a different occasio–"

"Actually, Anya here needs some help with gemstones."

Rarity looked to me and her cheerful attitude faltered. I remained mostly impassive — she probably doesn't like me much and I can't really blame her for it. I didn't like me much anyway.

"You guys can go ahead. I can wait," I said, deciding that I'll let them do their thing first. Pretty sure that seeing a dress will take a lot less time than gemstones, and I didn't want to hold them up with my crap.

"But Anya, we're here for your thin–"

"Yo, Rarity, what takes less time: seeing a dress or cutting gems?"

"Um, seeing a dress."

"Cool, you're gonna do that then."

"But–"

"Twilight, I can wait a bit."

Twilight looked at me with wide eyes and she kept opening and closing her mouth like a fish as she tried to say something. She looked over to Rarity, who just shrugged. Twilight finally gave up after that.

"Alright, but I'll try to keep it short," Twilight said, to which I gave a nod. "Okay, Rarity, let's see the dress."

Both her and Rarity went to a different room with the latter taking about she made dresses for everyone and how they had given her feedback and something else I didn't hear, leaving me to wait in the main area. I took a seat on a sofa-thing by some mannequins and just looked around. I have to say, these dresses and suits that Rarity is selling look pretty good. Bet they're expensive to match.

A soft meow caught my attention and I looked down to see that Rarity's cat had come back into the room. I looked at it and it looked back at me, meowing at me again.

"Salam," I said to it. It continued staring at me with a dumb look. Then, it jumped up to the sofa-thing and sat to my left. I paid it no mind and continued looking around, or at least I tried to. I was forced to look back down to the cat since it pawed at my thigh to get my attention. It saw that it got my attention and meowed at me while looking up at me expectantly. When I didn't do anything, it pawed at my thigh again. In response, I pet the cat, which it approved of since it made some happy cat noises and nuzzled my side.

The bell sounded as the door opened.

The cat stopped nuzzling me and I stopped petting it simultaneously. Both of us looked over to the door and saw that a person had come in.

It was Bon Bon.

Two birds with one stone.

Bon Bon loved that saying quite a lot. She loved it even more when a situation happened to fit the saying.

She had been going to Rarity's boutique to pick up two dresses that Lyra had ordered after she had recieved a ticket for the gala that would let her take a plus one. Naturally, Lyra took Bon Bon as her plus one because of course, she would.

Then, as Bon Bon was nearing the boutique, she saw one of the resident witches of Ponyville going into the shop with the element of magic.

At first, she had paused, thinking about why Anya would be going there. She wasn't the type of pony who'd wear anything fancy, if Bon Bon went by the information she had on her, and she knew that Anya was not on the list of ponies who had been given a ticket for the gala. It was something else for sure and she had the perfect opportunity to know what it was.

She had entered the boutique, looking as casual as she could. She immediately saw Anya sitting with Rarity's cat next to her. Besides the fact that Opal was being friendly to a pony besides Rarity, nothing looked to be out of the ordinary. Bon Bon kept her guard up regardless.

Anya waved at her while Opal sneered at her. She preferred the cat's response since she could say without a doubt that it was true. In her mind, Anya was most likely only pretending to be nice. In reality, Anya was genuinely being nice. Too bad that Bon Bon couldn't see that.

"Hey Anya, where's Rarity?" Bon Bon began, walking up to Anya but not sitting next to her since Opal was still glaring at her.

"In there," Anya answered while pointing to the door to the room where Rarity would work and store her projects. "She's showing a dress to Twilight."

"Ah, for the gala, right?" Bon Bon replied, getting Anya into a conversation. Beating around the bush sucked but she'd have to do it. Asking her directly what she was doing would come off as unfriendly.

"Yeah, pretty sure about that."

"You're here for a dress as well?"

"No, I have some other work."

"Other work?"

Anya could not elaborate as Rarity and Twilight came back into the room. Twilight looked cheerful while Rarity looked like she had seen her house burn down.

"Dear, are you sure you want everything on your dress to be like that?" Rarity asked Twilight as she trailed behind her, referencing something that could only be dreadful if one went by her voice or expression.

"Mhm." Twilight didn't even look back despite how unsure Rarity sounded.

"Even the stars?"

"Yes, even the stars. They're going to be the star of the show AND the dress." Twilight giggled at her joke.

Rarity went through the five stages of grief in the span of two seconds, knowing that making Twilight's dress to her demands would ruin her image greatly, especially since she had planned a fashion show starring Twilight and the rest of the elements.

She had hoped that at least Twilight would be happy with what she had made– that she would have at least one pony looking good, especially after the other four had asked for terrible changes to their dresses, but no! Even Twilight wanted terrible changes to be made to her dress. However, she didn't voice her concerns. Those were her friends' dresses after all and she had promised them 100% satisfaction, and so, she could not object to their choices.

"Anything else, dear?" Rarity asked, her voice hollow as she came to terms with the inevitability of the fashion show's disaster.

"Hmm, nope. Just Anya's work now. I'll go and get the rest of the girls like you said."

I'll admit this now, I am not exactly a great friend. I forget crap, I make shitty jokes, and am not really a great person either. However, I could at least see if I'm stressing someone out and work to fix that if that happens. Twilight clearly could not see that she was stressing Rarity out.

It was not my business to intervene though, and my work here was just to get gems. Whatever Twilight had asked of Rarity was between them, and me butting in would not be appreciated.

"Okay," Rarity said to Twilight as she left. She then turned to me, looking defeated. "What can I help you with?"

"Uh, yeah, I was told that you also work with gemstones," I began, getting up from my seat. Bon Bon moves aside while looking more interested in my work. The cat, on the other hand, looked annoyed that I left her just like that and jumped down from the seat to go elsewhere. "I have some that need to be cut into certain shapes."

"Yes, dear, I can do that. Come on over to the counter so I can take your order," she replied, slightly less defeated, as she walked to the other side of the counter.

I came up to the counter just as she laid out a paper on it. The paper had various gemstone shapes on it, all of them fancy looking, but none of them looking useful to me.

"You said you have the gemstones you want to be cut?"

At that, I pulled out the box I had from my saddlebags and put it on the counter. "I have most of them."

I opened it, and the first thing that Rarity said was, "Oh my, that's quite a lot of amber."

"So that's what those are called," I commented, making Rarity look at me weird. At least she didn't look defeated now, I guess. I picked out four of them and put them on the counter. "I need these to be cut into a cone shape."

"That's a rather... simple shape for jewellery. Are... are you using these for jewellery?"

"No, they're for artifice."

"Oh," Rarity said, clearly relieved to hear that.

"So, could you do that?"

"Actually, could you wait here for a moment. I have something you might like."

I nodded, and she turned and went into a room behind the counter. Immediately, Bon Bon came up to my side and said, "So, artifice?"

"Yeah," I answered, ignoring how suspicious she seemed of me when she asked that, and how weird it was since it didn't line up with her earlier friendliness.

"Why?" she continued, less suspicious.

"Sounded interesting," I lied. "Plus I had magically active gems lying around."

"So... there's no real point behind doing it?"

"Yeah," I lied again. Then, I added as a joke, "That's... how I roll."

"..."

"..."

"So, what are you going to make anyway?" she asked, saving me from the cringe of the joke.

"No idea right now, I'll just see what works," I lied once again. Bon Bon didn't look too convinced of the lie but thankfully, she didn't press me any further.

"Y'know, I know a thing or two about artifice," she said all of a sudden, making me turn my head. "I could help you with stuff, if you want."

"Uhh thanks for the offer," I replied, finding the offer rather strange. We didn't know each other very well, and it was weird to offer that kind of help just like that. What was she up to?

I didn't ask her that since that would be a bit rude, especially since she was probably just being nice... though, I couldn't shake off the feeling that she had some other motive. I think I'll keep my distance from her for now. Weird, considering I'm the one with hidden motives.

Eventually, Rarity returned. She carried in her magic, a large wooden box that was a bit dusty. She put it down on the counter and opened it, letting us see its contents: a lot of gemstones that were cut in simple shapes.

"I've had these sitting around from when my sister tried to get her cutie mark in cutting gems. I'm pretty sure that there's gems that you want in here..." She pulled out four ambers and put them on the counter to let me see them. The stones were roughly cone shaped, differing in height and quality by a little bit, but they were pretty close to what I wanted.

"These are what I want. Could I take a look in the box? I need some other gems as well."

"Go ahead, dear," she answered coolly before turning to Bon Bon. "And you're here for yours and Lyra's gala dresses, right? Come with me."

I started digging through the box as Rarity took Bon Bon to the room she had gone into with Twilight.

I was able to find about half of the gems I wanted. Four ambers shaped like cones, four amethysts shaped like octahedrons, and one quartz shaped like an obelisk with rounded edges. They were of decent quality, which was good as well. I needed three more quartz in the obelisk shape, and four diamonds shaped like a cone but with the base being rounded, like a teardrop.

I needed these particular shapes because of the properties of magically active gems. A rough gem sucked ass when it came to anything with magic except storing it, but a polished gem of the same type with equivalent mass could do that, and much more. I dug around the chest some more for but there were only gems with no use for me in there.

Just as I closed the chest, I heard Rarity and Bon Bon came back. Perfect, I can tell her what gems I need.

"Hey, Rarity, I picked out the stuff I want but I'll need some gems to be cut as well," I said to her as she went behind the counter. I looked up at her right after and saw that her brow was furrowed, her ears were halfway down, and that she kept looking between me, Bon Bon, and the floor while whispering something to herself and tapping her chin with a pen she held in her magic.

I glanced at Bon Bon and saw that she seemed just as confused as I was.

Rarity gasped all of a sudden and she no longer looked deep in thought and instead, she looked like she had a eureka moment.

"Darlings," she began, her voice eerily similar to that of someone who's presenting a scam to you. "I have an offer to make to you two."

"Uh, what is it?" Bon Bon asked.

"As you both know, I have planned a fashion show tonight at eight," she continued, her confidence slowly faltering with each word. "And it's starring the elements of harmony, minus me. However, I have run into a problem. My friends... they... I promised them that I'll make their dresses as they want it, no questions asked. The dresses they've asked me to make... they're terrible."

She actually started shedding tears at that.

"I– I– it would mean the world for me if either or both of you volunteered to go up on stage, wearing proper clothing. It'll save my image and put you in the spotlight. I'll owe you a lot if you do."

I stared at her, completely dumbfounded.

"Please." She started making puppy eyes at us.

"Uh, thanks for the offer Rarity, but I don't really think I'm cut out to go on stage, and I'm pretty sure I need a dress to go up there," I said after I managed to reign in my confusion and astonishment. Seriously, me, a model in a dress? I didn't even know there was a fashion show.

"Same here Rarity, I don't think I'm exactly suited for that even though I have a dress," Bon Bon added, making Rarity's ears droop. Then, her ears went back up and she jumped over the counter to us with a smile.

"Au contraire —" She brought out a bunch of measuring tapes and other stuff from behind the counter with her magic "— I think you both are perfectly suited for that. Er, one of you is. Anya, don't worry, I can whip up a dress in three hours, and you won't have to be on stage for long."

"Uhh..."

"The gems you want, I can give them to you in exchange for doing this."

"..."

"Bon Bon, I could cut down the cost of those dresses. Tartarus, I'll take your entry into the show as payment."

"Ehh..."

"Please."

"I... I'll go and check with Lyra," Bon Bon said, breaking to Rarity's pleading. Rarity brightened up like a lighthouse at that and I swear, she would have probably kissed Bon Bon as a thank you. Bon Bon quickly made her exit from the shop, leaving me alone with Rarity.

"Uhh, so, as I was saying, I need you to cut some gems," I said, getting back to my work.

"Oh, yes dear! What do you need?" Rarity asked, all signs of her sadness gone.

"Okay, so, I need three quartz shaped like this —" I levitated the obelisk shaped quartz from the counter "— and I need four diamonds in a tear shape, completely smooth, no edges. About twice as big as the quartz."

"Alright dear!" she replied, going back behind the counter and writing down stuff on a notepad.

"So, how much will it cost?"

"Hmmm, well, since these are all magically active gems and they're all simple shapes, it'll be relatively cheap. I could take some of your rough gems as part of payment, so..."

She pulled out a calculator and put in some numbers.

"It'll be a thousand and one hundred bits."

"One thousand one hundred bits?"

"Yes, you can make the payment today and come back on Thursday for the gems."

That was NOT cheap, for me at least. I had like, six thousand bits overall, and I couldn't take out over a thousand just like that. I almost considered dropping the coil-gun project. But then, there was her offer.

"Say, what if I volunteer for your fashion show?"

Fuck it, we ball.

I had done far more degrading work for far less — what was a fashion show compared to cleaning shit off the walls of a restroom? A walk, that was what it was, figuratively and literally. This should be rather simple.

Author's Note

15t Au

Bad puns are how eye roll.

She learns new magic, not good for Bon Bon. although, maybe them being in the show will help them get closer (Bon Bon profits easy)

I'm not entirely sure of putting Anya into the show. Any thoughts that you guys have on that subject?