//------------------------------// // Harnessing Unbridled Power [IN EDIT] // Story: Rocket-Powered Pony // by bronyZ //------------------------------// Harnessing Unbridled Power “Thanks so much, Twilight, this might just work!” Whirlie exclaimed one afternoon as Twilight brought in a stack of notes she had taken. Whirlie had been working on her project for months now, and Twilight enjoyed working with her from time-to-time, delving into a new magic theory and providing the engineer her expert advice. The work often meant spending some days in the library, and some in Whirlie’s workshop; Twilight frequently made trips back to Canterlot to visit the Royal Library. Today, the pair were at the workshop, which had gone from its pristine state when Whirlie moved in, to a complete mess. Bits of metal, cable, glass, gemstones, paper, and canvas were strewn about on the floor and the tables lining the walls. While Twilight complained every visit, Whirlie insisted there was a great deal of organization involved: everything was precisely where she meant it to be. She needed the mess to assemble her ideas, consider the materials, and design all the gear. Besides, she explained, if Twilight didn’t believe that Whirlie was naturally organized, she should look at the bookcases. The bookcases were, miraculously, perfectly straight with the texts sorted by topic and notebooks labeled and sorted by date. “I guess I just have to give in to your ‘organized’ chaos here, huh?” Twilight one day admitted. Today was a big day. Twilight had uncovered and had been studying a method for siphoning energy from a unicorn’s horn. The text from which she derived it was an old one and had been under lock-and-key deep in the Canterlot special collections. The reason for the high security was that the text in question was the journal of a unicorn sorcerer named Darkmane, and the purpose of the device was not to power machinery, but rather to render powerless a captive unicorn. Twilight had been working on adapting it, because the device drew out magic efficiently, precisely what they needed. She had been poring over the text for weeks, being an avid academician, and collected notes on the parts relevant to their work. Twilight had assembled a list of special materials needed for the project. From her list, the two had been gathering what they would need. As Whirlie pulled out a number of boxes, Twilight stood by with a clipboard with checklist and pencil levitated in the air before her. “200 grams of high-quality sapphires,” Twilight called out. “I picked up 500 grams from Rarity today,” Whirlie explained, pulling out a small box with her teeth. “Check. 1 gold ring, 25.0 millimeter inner diameter, 27.2 millimeter outer diameter.” “Right here!” Whirlie explained, lifting up two rings with her telekinesis, “I made two.” "And the measurements are exact? The texts are very clear that that size is essential to bend the horn's spectral field," Twilight explained. Whirlie snatched a pair of calipers and a ring-measuring stick off one of the tables and confirmed the size of the two rings for Twilight, who nodded in agreement. “Oh, when you made them, did you infuse the molten metal with that sap from Everfree Forest I brought by last week?” Twilight inquired. “Yup! Just like the recipe called for and simmered for the required 32 and a half hours,” she pointed at an hourglass and then at a clock. “Check! Okay...platinum wire,” Twilight looked up and around the room, “plenty of that around...so check.” And so on, down the list. -/- It now came down to assembly. This was the part where Whirlie stepped in, and Twilight observed and commented, adding her asides from what she had researched. Her part would come later, when the device needed to be enchanted. Whirlie set to work, firing up the forge outside, gathering crucibles, tongs, tweezers, magnifying glasses, and other equipment. Under the close eye of Twilight Sparkle, Whirlie followed the diagrams she had derived from Twilight’s notes. To begin, they needed sapphire dust. Whirlie used her telekinesis to wield a heavy hammer, crushing the gemstones. Moving to a small mill, she ground the smaller stones until they were powder. Collecting the variety of dusts and oils that Twilight had brought by earlier in the week, she mixed all of it in a bowl. Setting the bowl on a table near the front door, Whirlie moved on to the golden rings she had forged and infused. Her horn glowing, she lifted them and set them spinning, such that they rotated about an invisible line that ran tangent to the midpoint of their inner- and outer-diameters. As she looked at them, she applied more and more momentum, until they looked like golden tori, floating in the center of the workshop. She aligned them to the center of the room, one on top of the other. Whirlie's focus shifted into the distance as she entered a trance-like state. Twilight stepped out of the way as the engineer started to walk backwards across the room, without taking her eyes off of her work. She stepped over and around the materials laid out on the floor, each hoofstep landing in an open space. From a nearby table, she used her power to pluck up a spool of platinum wire. It drifted into her line of vision, although she clearly did not focus on it. Carrying the wire near her face, she nearly pranced her way in a circle around the floating rings. She began unwinding the wire in mid-air, trailing it behind her a few feet off the ground. She made two circuits around the room, resulting in the wire looping twice around the workspace in a perfect circle. Lifting a pair of wire-cutters, she snipped the wire from the spool, and then snipped the floating part in half. Whirlie stepped off to the side, continuing to stare, blank-eyed, at the spinning gold. Twilight frowned, feeling unsure about what was going on. Whirlie continued to stand, her horn gently glowing, off to the side. Taking this to be her cue to start the enchantment, Twilight began muttering the words of power she had found in the journals. As she closed her eyes, her horn sparked to light. Glowing runes appeared under the spinning rings. This process continued for hours, as Twilight chanted the spell. Throughout the process, Whirlie stood, transfixed, rarely blinking. Twilight announced, a clear trace of exhaustion in her voice, "There, that should finish the spell." She looked over at her cohort, "Uhh... Whirlie? You still in there?" She waved a hoof. Whirlie responded by stepping from her vantage point and continuing her strange dance-like progression around the mess of the room. As she did so, the wires came to life. Their tips each moved toward a ring, each like the head of a snake. With a flash of power from Whrilie's horn, the wires coiled in on themselves, tighter and tighter, until they became small spheres. The spheres began orbiting the same points as the rings, until they, too became glittering blurs. Whirlie stepped close to the center of the activity now and, with deep concentration on her face, the spheres disappeared into the golden blur of the rings. Tilting her head, Whirlie continued to work the assembly. From the outside, it appeared that the golden rings were slowly turning to platinum. As she finished, the two rings slowed, revealing that they were now wrapped, tightly, precisely, and completely, with platinum wire. One of the two had a bit of the wire sticking straight out, the other did not. "All done with the hard part!" she announced to the watching Twilight. "Now we just need to coat them in glass." -/- The two unicorns worked through the night, and, by the next morning, they finished the devices. The two gold rings, wrapped in the platinum wire, had been coated in blue glass infused with the sapphires and other components. They hung in the air before the girls, a line of fine cable dangling from one of them. Whirlie started to get nervous; Twilight had gotten this thing from a dark text. But its entire purpose was to efficiently draw out magic energy. It was precisely what she needed to make the rocket pack work. With it, she could soar with the pegasi. “Well,” Twilight announced, “the moment of truth!” “Aren’t you a little nervous,” Whirlie asked, noticing her hoof was trembling as she held it up to point at what they had made. “I mean... there’s no telling what this thing might do...” “Sure there is!” Twilight went on, pacing, “We designed it based on sound magic theory, we didn’t just build it from nothing. Consequently, it should be at least a little predictable. If there were any tests I could run on it, I would, but the only thing to do is to put it on. Besides,” she smiled at Whirlie, “you’ve got a friend here. I’ll make sure you’re safe.” Whirlie nodded at this. “Right!” she exclaimed, stamping her hoof and trying to hide her nervousness. “Time to do this!” With that, her horn glowed gently as she lifted the ring with the cable toward her head. Her eyes crossed as she tried to follow its slow, drifting motion closer and closer. As it cleared the tip of her horn, the ring shot out of her control, the simple telekinesis spell ending with a *SNAP*. Moving under its own force, the ring flew down until its inside edge clacked against the wide part of Whirlie’s horn. The ring made an awful screeching noise as it continued to drive itself down, sparks flying off. Twilight looked on, stunned momentarily, and could see that the ring had scraped her friend’s horn where it had pushed farther down than the inner diameter should have allowed. As all this happened, Whirlie's eyes twirled in confusion, then she started to wobble. As her dazed friend started to topple, Twilight sprang into action to hold her up. “Are you alright?!” Whirlie blinked, then tried and failed to focus her eyes on Twilight. “Whirlie! Hello? I think something is wrong,” alarm entering her voice. “Uhh... alright... just dizzy,” Whirlie explained in a high, sing-song voice as she collapsed against Twilight. Whirlie’s chest was heaving. Twilight led her over to a chair. Whirlie sat in the chair, blinking, as her horn started to glow. The cable trailing off of the ring sputtered sparks. "Can you take it off?" Twilight asked. Whirlie closed her eyes, then made a frown of concentration. Her horn glowed brighter and sparks sprayed off the end of the cable, illuminating the room and lighting a nearby stack of parchment on fire, which Twilight promptly stamped out. “I’m going to take it off,” Twilight explained, trying to get Whirlie’s eyes to focus on her. Twilight's horn lit up as she used her own telekinesis spell. The ring took on the same purple glow, but nothing more. Twilight tried to pull the ring off again. Despite her telekinesis, the ring did not budge. She dug in her hooves and tried again, and again, her eyes shut tight as she put her entire body into the motion. “Umm...” Whirlie started, “I think... I’m okay now?” She opened her eyes and seemed to be focused on Twilight, but she moved as if her head were too heavy for her neck, and she sounded like she was gasping for air. “That may be, but I can’t pull that thing off of you,” Twilight responded, struggling and becoming worried. “Can’t... pick... it up,” Whirlie gasped, clearly trying to concentrate on something on the nearby table. “Made... nullifier,” she went on, going cross-eyed again. Twilight followed her gaze to what she had taken to be a duplicate that Whirlie had inexplicably constructed alongside the first. The differences between this other ring, and the one on Whirlie's horn, were slight, and she had not noticed them. She realized with a start that the coiling on the second ring wound backward and that this one had no cabling come off of it. “Of course!” Twilight exclaimed. “Maristocrates’ Theory of Counter-Enchantment! You were spinning the other ring backwards the whole time so that it absorbed a counter-spell. I'm so glad you found that book useful, but, Whirlie, why didn’t you mention--” Whirlie fell out of the chair, face-first. Twilight snatched up the ring with her magic and approached the prone unicorn, getting nervous. Whirlie’s horn was now shining brightly, and fluorescent fluid seemed to drip from it, almost as if it were melting. The ring’s cable was dancing as a spray of sparks flew from the end. Whirlie wheezed, “Put... on...”. As Twilight stepped closer, the ring flew out of her grip and snapped, with a clanging noise, onto the first ring. The original reaction, whatever it was, stopped immediately. The work room was suddenly dark and silent. As Whirlie passed out on the floor, her head tilted and the two rings sild off her horn, rolling to bounce off of Twilight’s hoof as a single unit. ---/reviewer stop here/--- -/- Whirlie slowly lifted her eyelids. She blinked, struggling with even that small motion. Her foreleg felt cold, like there was ice water running through her veins. With great effort, she tilted her head slightly to look down. She was covered in a white blanket, and something was sticking out of her foreleg. "Owwch," she slurred. “Relax,” came Twilight’s voice from beside the bed. “You passed out after the siphon ring’s uncontrolled reaction. Try not to move too much,” at this, Whirlie promptly got worried and started trying to move, finding she could barely lift her hoof. “That ring burned off a lot of your power, it’s made you weak. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize the effect would be so powerful, or that I wouldn’t be able to get it off. The text said it was used to nullify, not to kill.” “No casts,” she muttered aloud, her voice coming out a croak, but sounding pleased with herself. Twilight gave her a sidelong look. "No broken bones," she confirmed. "The power for our magic comes from within, just like any other pony. If you use it too much, you’ll get tired and hungry, just like when an earth pony tills the field or a pegasus uses her wings. When we hooked up the siphon, it pulled out too much of your energy, so you’re overtired and undernourished. I'm afraid you won't be going anywhere for awhile... and your horn...” she trailed off, sounding sad. "What about it?" Whirlie asked, glancing about for a reflection of herself and finding none. She then found she was exhausted from the effort. “That’s okay,” Whirlie responded, “I was worried that might happen; that’s why I built the anti-ring to counter-balance the first.” “Uhh...yeah...why didn’t you mention that before we started?” Whirlie looked confused for a moment, then up at the ceiling. “I guess I forgot and I just sort of figured I’d be able to do it myself anyway. It’s always kind of a standard procedure to build a counter enchantment.” “What standard procedure? You know, Whirlie, it’s important that I know what you’re up to if we’re going to work together at this,” Twilight chided. Whirlie looked dejected and nodded. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s all right. I suspect you’ve learned a valuable lesson about friendship from this. Let’s write to Princess Celestia about what happened,” she said, pulling a parchment, quill, and ink from her bags. -/- Whirlie made it out of the hospital after being held overnight. As it turned out, Twilight explained, “I think part of the problem,” Whirlie countered, “is that we didn’t have it under any load. There wasn’t anything to stop the power from just spilling out all over the place. I mean, that text you found it in was all about using it to imprison by nullifying magic, not about killing, so there must be more to the design. I wonder if we were to actually attach the phase coil to it if it would drain so quickly. And now that you, err,” and Whirlie blushed, “know how to use the anti-ring, it should be safer.” Twilight gave her a somewhat irritated look at that, but then smiled, caught back up in the discussion of arcane lore. “That’s true. The original had an additional device attached to it, probably some sort of buffer or battery. I didn’t think it was important at the time, so I focused on the siphon ring itself. I spent some time looking over the ring and the anti-ring,” she went on, “It looks like the anti-ring’s cancellation effect is dependent on its distance from the siphon. So, we could use it as a kind of a...” “Throttle!” Whirlie interrupted. “Yep!” Twilight replied, smiling. “I think you know what that means...”