From Beyond the Veil

It's been about three months now. The first grand reveal of my work on that Sunday was a smash hit! It blew away all the guardsmen that showed! (or is it guard ponies? By the elements, I hate terminology!) Princess Celestia personally showed up to inspect the quality of my work, which wasn't a first since she occasionally stopped by to check in on me specifically. Always asked if I was adjusting well and such, and I showed her the progress on my work most times. Although I wasn't there half the times she showed since I was out doing social bullshit on Romulus's orders. That irked me, but there wasn't a thing I could do about it now. But still, the absolute positivity I've been getting from the guards who got revamped armor and weapons has not stopped even to this day. Hell, even Celestia gave me props, saying this was some of the best craftsmanship she's seen in her lifespan. The shit-eating grin I had for the rest of that week was so fucking stupid looking.

After that, I did the same thing for the next week, except I did it for the other half of the guardsmen on the shifts I couldn't take the orders for. My first half was the midday and swing shift guardsmen, which were out of the way and done. The second set was the grave and morning shift guards, so I pretty hard-swapped my sleep schedule around. I slept all day and worked all night. This put me out of the way of Celestia and right in the crosshairs of her sister, Luna. She often visited me in my dreams to talk and catch up. She said it was better for me as it let my body rest while we could talk. Which was fine by me as her natural presence seemed to keep my ever-plauging nightmares away. She was very kind but was definitely different from her sister. She appealed to logic more than anything emotional, which was the complete opposite of her sister. But we hit it off. Other than that, I actually got to work on the orders rather than getting ordered out on social trips by Romulus. I was done ahead of schedule because of it. And those shifts were just as pleased with my work as the previous ones. Im glad I didn't lose my touch in Everfree, that's for sure.

After that, Celestia asked if my skills extended beyond the field of armor and weapons. I told her that what she had seen was the midway portion of my skills. I could make practically anything from molten metal. However, it would have been easier to do if I could get access to better tools and such, which needed more money. Suddenly, my forge was on Celestia's personal royal ledger, and she had me open my services to the public of canterlot. She had a construction crew come in and extend the forge into the wall that separated the royal grounds from the public. I had a new long window to access and take orders from the public. On top of that, the whole forge got a major overhaul to my personal specifications for maximum efficiency. Big fancy new forge, a new resource storage vault built into the rocky mountainside, a testing yard for armor and weapons for the guards, and a full landing pad for my poor aircraft that had been basking in the sun just out in front of the forge for almost as long as I'd been in Canterlot.

After that, orders from the public peaked for about two weeks, then dropped to a nice steady flow. Mainly rudimentary stuff along the lines of construction tools and mass work orders from certain businesses. At that point, I was practically drowning in bits, this world's form of money, which were pretty much just gold coins. Celestia cut me a pretty nice deal compared to other business of mine on the tax and bill side of things. She wanted me to kick up a mere five percent of monthly income when most others were around ten to fifteen. I insisted on paying the normal amount as I didn't want to be treated any differently than the others native to Equestria. She then reminded me that I was extremely different in both case, culture, and species. She respected my commitment to my beliefs and will to respect pony-kind's ways. She had a point there; as much as I stayed true to my world's laws and beliefs, I did not force them on the ponies. Granted, I have explained and told others about it. I wasn't like, "conform to my world's standards or perish! yargabar!" Or anything like that. I was understanding and made sure to keep my practices separate from the ponys so as not to be disrespectful. But she had nothing but respect for my humility, and she wanted to show that in some way. Safe to say, I didn't argue with her.

Most of my time, though, is focused on my damaged aircraft rather than the storefront. It was one of my first priorities if I planned to solve some of the other issues that the ponies were having. Mainly the dispute between them and the dragons. But I was not going to make that journey on foot anytime soon. So, we focus on fixing the plane first. Speaking of which, I still gotta name that fucking thing. Referring to it as "aircraft" or "plane" has kinda grown stale at this point. How about "The Frontier?" This aircraft was designed to be the first craft to take us beyond our planet and to the stars. Albeit it was a prototype, that was the goal in the end.

The hardest part about fixing it was the fact that I didn't have the machinery nor the tools besides the repair drones to put it back together, not to mention the cockpit was fucked up beyond repair and had to be rebuilt entirely. So, I dumped about half of our total earnings thus far into processed materials and very specially made parts made by other companies from other key cities, the main one being Manehattan. Thankfully, being on Celestia's royal ledger gave me access to a special kind of mailman, or male pony for that matter, that stopped by every Sunday. He took stock of what I needed and took the percentage of earnings for that month if it was the last Sunday of the month. He also took my personal orders and requests straight to Celestia, and she saw to it that I got what I needed. The look on his face when I said I needed raw gold, diamond, lithium, and a metric shit ton of copper and silver, among a lot of other shit, was priceless. He asked me what I needed all of that for so he could put it down in his notes to the princess. (and I assumed to satisfy his own curiosity.) All I did was point at the Frontier in its fucked up state on the landing pad and say, "It's to build the shit I need to fix that piece of work."

After around two to three weeks of having Romulus and I tag team making all the sit we needed to make the parts. I commissioned the construction crew to put a very sturdy crane on the roof of the building so we could properly address both the cockpit and ruined wing, respectively. Of course, it was a design from my homeland, and I had to help them build it since they needed clarification about its wonky design, but we got it done in the end. Then, finally, I could get to work on something more my speed than just bending iron into the shape of a blade.

Speaking of something more my speed, my Bi-weekly ventures into my people's culture with Twilight has been something I've grown to look forward to. She has such a creative mind on her, and she understands concepts of my people better than any pony I've met so far. It was very clear why Celestia chose to take her under her wing versus anyone else. Of course, she wanted to learn about my people's magic right out of the gate, but I had to inform her that knowing the history of how that magic came to be and the Quadrinty's ideals would let her better grasp the concepts when we got to the actual teaching of the magic. She didn't argue against it, thanks to the elements. As a matter of fact, she was overjoyed to learn the history of magic, one of her favorite subjects according to her. I guess she and I like the same things. As I said, it was one of my favorites as well, aside from actual history. We both proceeded to go back and forth, gossiping about the historical idols we looked up to. Hers being Starswhirl the bearded, and mine being Merlin Andromadus Maximus. Greatest mage in Equestria and the man who discovered the Elementals along with the Quadrinity and by far the best mage ever to grace the earth. They had a lot in common, surprisingly enough, especially their lack of friendship knowledge, but at least Merlin had Starswirl beat overall in that regard as he actually got married and had kids. Even then, his family relationship was second when it came to his work.

Other than that, Twilight has been nothing but a joy to be around. Shining Armor has been great as well. We go out for drinks every now and then, and he often hangs out on his slower days on the job at the forge while I worked on The Frontier. He has been probably my closest friend in this new world, and his sister Twilight has been a close second. Those two have been a sort of gateway into the social norms of this new world, and I couldn't thank them enough for it.

Still, I had work to do, and today was the final day of work I had left on the Frontier. I was standing on top of The Frontier, using my hands to signal Romulus, who was Controlling the crane that held the newly refurbished and repaired left wing. I directed him so that we could reattach it to the main chassis of the aircraft. I had Shining down below, watching the bottom while I watched the top and gave Romulus directions.

"Little more... Little more... Alright, stop, that's good!" I yelled, giving a thumbs-up. I went to the side of the craft and looked down to Shining armor. "Does it look good down there, Shining?" I asked, Yelling down to him.

"All lined up how you showed me it should look!" He responded, yelling back at me.

"Alright, float me up my toolbox. Now the real work begins." I added. I turned my head to the slew of repair drones that stood unmoving on standby next to me. "Well, what are you all waiting for? Get to it!" The small spider-like drones chirped in response and, perked up at the order and began scattering towards the wings, welding and connecting it to the chassis.

On queue, a large black and blue toolbox floated up beside me, enveloped in shining armor and pink magic. I looked back down at him and said, "Thanks, and when you come up here, make sure you bring the cooler as well."

"You know I can't drink while on duty Rye-Rye!" He responded (Rye-rye, it's a nickname Shining gave to me around a month ago. It bugged me at first, but it quickly grew on me.)

"Doesn't mean I can't enjoy a cold one while I work! Not get your no fun havin' ass up here already!" I said, taking the toolbox, sitting down on the wing, and opening up a panel filled with wiring and circuit connections.

"Alright, now to get you wired up and connected while the drones do their thing," I whispered to myself as I opened my toolbox and got to work. Shining joined me shortly after with a cooler on his back.

"Why don't you just use your magic? It's easier on your back." I asked, looking at him as he set the cooler down.

"It's a good workout. I'll take every chance I can get to stay in shape." He responded.

"Fair enough, I guess. Do me a favor and hand me a twin-prong wire solderer, would ya?" I asked, gesturing over to the toolbox with my head while I made some of the basic connections.

"Sure!" he said as he walked over to the toolbox and peered inside. "What does it look like again? You got some weird-looking tools in here." He asked.

"it looks like my gun, L-shaped with a trigger, but has two very thin copper prongs on the end." I described.

"Oh, okay, gotcha." He said the desired tool was out of the toolbox. "Here ya go," he added, handing it to me. I pressed the trigger, and a bright white line of electricity sparked between the two prongs, crackling like a tazer. I used the tool to solder the connections together with the main hub of the aircraft.

"So," Shining started again. "You think this thing is gonna fly today?" He asked, looking over the refurbished craft.

"I don't know, really. In order to run a test flight, we gotta make sure the thruster on this wing runs well and is synced up the cockpit controls along with the other thruster. I could do it, but I will leave it to Romulus since he's better at that than me. I may be an engineer, but im not that good of a coder. Then there's a whole system diagnostic and bla bla bla. A whole bunch of stuff Romulus has to do before we could even think about flying this thing." I explained.

Shining scoffed, "You know, you've been working on this thing for so long. I figured you'd pop the wing on and be done with it."

"Yeah, I wish. But when it comes to tech like this, we HAVE to do every test and diagnostic before anything. It's a safety thing. Im not going to skip a bunch of testing synching to fly this thing, no matter how much I want to. It'd be more work and effort if I did that. The thing fails and crashes, I get hurt or worse, and there's ten times more work to do than before. It's just the smarter option." I responded.

I leaned back and wiped the sweat from my brow. "Alright, power couplings are connected." I pulled up my wristpad and opened a call with Romulus. "How are we looking on the rest of the wing, buddy?"

"Sir, the drones are just finishing up now. Once that's done, there gonna crawl inside and door the more precise work, get that panel finished up, and I'll get started on the digital work." Romulus said over the speaker.

"Sounds good. I just got done with the couplings, so it shouldn't be too long." I said, returning my attention to the panel.

"alrighty, sir, I'll leave you to it. Shall I start running the power cycling through the wing now that the power is connected?" Romulus asked.

"I still got my hands in the wires of the panel here, Romulus. You think it's a good idea to run power through them?" I asked sarcastically.

"Fair enough, sir." He ended while hanging up the call.

"Shining, pass me a beer and my dynamic torque wrench," I asked, reaching out my open hand.

I felt a cold bottle hit my hand. "Don't worry, it's already open for ya," Shining said. I took a sip of the booze and set it beside me.

"Now, the wrench," I said, turning back to see Shining already handing me the tool.

"Already grabbed it." He said with a smile as he handed it over.

I worked on the wires in silence for a few minutes in silence before shining spoke again.

"Romulus... what's his story?" He asked out of nowhere.

"Why the sudden curiosity?" I asked casually.

"Well, I know a lot about you, but I don't know a lot about him, and you guys seem very close," Shining responded.

"Well, if you want the 'me and him' story, I can sum that up pretty well. Romulus is and always will be, the second to the king of Romulios. He was my dad's personal advisor and assistant. He also ran the digital half of the kingdom, while my father ran the people half. I grew up alongside him in the castle, although he was older than most mountains by his standing. My parents were often busy with royal duties or just simply not at the castle on an important trip to another kingdom or other parts of our territory. So it was mainly me, my sister Devon, and Romulus in the castle. We joked and called him our 'Cool robot uncle,' But later on, I saw him as more of an older brother than another servant or distant family member. We talked a lot, and he was my personal tutor for most things I know how to do today. Yes, I may have surpassed him in the blacksmithing and engineering department. But he was the one who set me on the path and showed me the ropes." I Paused for a second and looked over at the forge building. I saw Romulus down at the window, tending to a pair of ponies. I couldn't help but smile. Then turned to look at Shining. "He is my brother now. We've been through hell and back together. We have a saying back home. 'The bonds of life are often forged stronger than the bonds of blood.' It means that sometimes, the relationships you forge in life are stronger than those of your family. I fully believe in it."

"Hm," Shining said as he nodded in approval.

"If you want, I could give you a two-hour-long lecture on his origin and how he came to be?" I asked jokingly with a laugh.

Shining laughed and said, "Respectfully, no."

"Eh, suit yourself," I said, finishing with the torque wrench. "Alright, last part, and we're done here," I said, taking another sip of my beer and grabbing both of the tools I had with a few clicks and a hissing of melting metal. I heard a low electronic vroom and a creaking of metal as the flaps and folding bits on the wing relaxed. Causing the wing to shift slightly and knock my beer over as it went rolling off the edge. I tried to save it, but I wasn't fast enough.

I stood up and put the tools back in the box. I went to the edge of the plane and called out to Romulus. "GO AHEAD AND DO YOUR THING. SHES ALL SET TO GO!" Romulus turned and gave me a thumbs-up.

I grabbed the handle on my toolbox, turned to Shining, and said, "Alright, time to get off this thing. It's best not to be up here when Romulus tests the thrusters." He didn't question me and jumped down easy peasy, landing on the ground with a clack of his hooves. I was pretty much two stories up, so I needed to slow my fall with a spell. I used it dozens of times before, so it shouldn't have been an issue.

I stepped off the edge and put my hand outspread, facing the ground as a bright white sigil appeared under my feet as I slowly floated down. Then, the sigil began to flicker slightly. I was confused at first, then refocused myself and projected more of my will downward into the spell. That only seemed to make it worse as it faded out, and I fell straight down for a few feet before it reappeared. Slowing my descent again.

"What the FUCK?!" I shouted in frustration, sending a bulk of energy to the spell. Causing it to implode on itself, and a shockwave blasted me at an angle. Knocking me into the underside of the newly attached wing, and I fell to the ground with a loud thump.

"Fuck!" I said, muffled, with my face on the ground. I was aching and sore in more places than one.

"Riley!" I heard Shining say worriedly as I heard his hoof steps approach. I felt his magic lift me, and as I was hoisted high enough to put my arm around his back for support. "Are you okay?" He asked.

"GODAMMIT! What is going on with my magic?!" I said, ignoring him. "Ever since I got out of Everfree, my magic has been getting weaker and more finicky, and I have no fucking clue why?" I ranted as I was slowly carried inside.

Romulus saw me limping and immediately went into medical treatment mode, or mom mode, as I called it. "By the elements, what the hell happened to you, sir?" He said as he rushed to my side and sat me down on a chair.

"I tried to use a spell to slow my fall and stepped off The Frontier. The spell flickered and kept turning off, so I got annoyed and shoved too much energy into it. It imploded and sent me first into the wing. Then I faceplanted onto the ground." I explained while Romulus scanned me with his eyes, checking for broken bones and such.

"Sir, I've told you not to rely on your magic because of previous incidents like this! We are in a new world now, with different rules. You can't expect things to work the same." Romulus said, popping my lower back back into place. Causing a groan of displeasure from me.

"Wait, this has happened before?" Shining asked, surprised.

I tried to jump in, but Romulus beat me to it. "Yes, twelve recorded times at least. However, this is the most deadly one that's happened to date, as none of the others injured him this badly."

"Here's the thing though guys, magic worked fine for me the entire time I was in Everfree! And for a while outside of it, too! That's the part I don't understand; it worked fine and then just started going off the frits, and I don't know what's causing it." I chimed in, trying to justify that I had no control of this problem.

Shining did the pony equivalent of rubbing his chin before speaking. "Well, since it imploded when you got frustrated, it could be tied to your emotions. Twilight has gone on long rants on how magic is linked to your emotions."

"NO SHIT!" I retorted. "The four primal elements that make up the magic I use all have some sort of emotional tie. That's like Elemental Magic 101. some of the first shit you learn, and on top of that, you cant tap into certain elemental runes of the quadrinity until you are at least adept in passing the trials handed down by your teacher mage."

"And from what I remember, sir, you graduated slightly earlier than the rest of your class in that regard," Romulus added.

"EXACTLY!" I responded, "Another reason why this fucking bugs me so much!"

"Sir, if I may, the repairs on my brain wave scanners and such are slowly coming, but once finished, I think it would be in your best interest to let me examine you. Things haven't exactly been the same since you arrived here in this new world, and I have a few theories on that." Romulus said. as a healing rune appeared in his hands as he mended the bruises and bumps on my chest and back.

"Theories like what?" Me and Shining asked in sync.

"Well," Romulus started. "It is purely speculation on my part, but crossing the veil between dimensions may have reset your magical mind and, in turn, your true understanding of the Elements. Causing the magic you used to be fluent in to be erratic and inconsistent."

"I guess that would kinda make sense? I said, looking at Shining. "That still doesn't explain why I was able to use it just fine while I was in Everfree Forest for around eight months."

"My guess, sir, is proximity to the dimensional entry along with residual energy from our home dimension. Suppose I was to make a suggestion to test this whole hypothesis in the meantime. Increase the number of visits from Miss Twilight to once a week, and when you get to the actual study of magic and its inner workings with spellcasting. Try to relearn and go through the steps with her yourself so you can re-find your understanding of elemental magic. If your magic improves, we found a solution. If not, well, then something else is amiss." Romulus suggested.

"Not a bad idea," Shining said, nodding in agreement. "In the times I've spoken with Twiliy as of late, she was nothing other than excited and invested in learning what you've been teaching her, Riley. So she would definitely make the time if you suggested her to swing by more often."

"Welp, I guess that settles it," I said, slapping my knees and standing up. "Romulus, go ahead and send Twilight a letter. Ask her if she is willing to stop by once a week on the usual day."

Romulus gave a playful salute and went to another room to grab a dragonfire lighter that Celestia gave me to send letters to Twilight via her baby dragon Spike, whom I've yet to meet, by the way.

"I'm gonna go investigate a few things just in case Romulus's theory on your magic is wrong. If magic is going on the frits in Equestria, something could be wrong. Better safe than sorry." Shining said as he made his way towards the door.

"All right, sounds good. Be careful Shining. I don't wanna see you here tomorrow morning with some fucked up armor like last time." I joked. Shining looked back and smiled before he left. Leaving me in the room all by myself for a few minutes before Romulus returned.

"Alright, I've sent off the letter. We should get a response back soon." He said.

"Cool, Since I'm done with my manual for the day. Ima help you with the diagnostics and coding on The Frontier. If I can't use magic properly, ima take the time to try and get better at the other skills I suck at." I said, opening up a large holographic screen from my wristband.

"Very well, sir," Romulus responded, projecting a larger yet similar screen from his eyes that he used to work with.

"Now then, LEARN ME COACH!"