//------------------------------//
// Aichmophobia 
// Story: The Artificer 
// by Rennoc215 
//------------------------------//

	Twilight smiled, the curve sneaking up her face. While watching the stand had been fun, it also brought to mind yet more questions. She looked up at the setting sun, and sighed wistfully. Soon, she would have more answers. She spared a glance at the clock, watching the second hand draw ever closer to the twelve at the peak of the dias. She could hear herself counting down the time with the ticks. Ten... Nine... Eight...
It was then that a voice distracted her. "Excuse me, Princess Twilight? If you are busy, I can come back later..."
Twilight looked down and saw a sweet little green filly, and smiled. "Of course I'm not busy. How can I help you?"
The darling child smiled, and asked "Do you have fun stuff in there?"
Twilight sighed, and chuckled softly, "Of course we do. Let's see..." she murmured, rummaging through the stuff down below the counter. There, hidden away, was a small gyroscope mounted to a pair of wings, a little crown, and another variation of his unusually popular "Seeker" model. She pulled out the dragonfly-shaped seeker, and brought it up. "How does this look?" Twilight asked, watching the filly's eyes light up.
"Oh, it's beautiful," The leaf green filly whispered, and Twilight's smiled broadened. "How much is it?"
Twilight glanced down at the tag, and another smile faintly appeared. "Ten bits," She replied, the money practically flying towards her face. She lowered the delicate looking device, which was carefully taken from her, and the Filly's smile grew even larger. "Take care, now," Twilight called out to the disappearing filly, who waved back at the storefront.
With a relaxed sigh, Twilight glanced at the clock, and her jaw dropped. She was a whole five minutes late for closing time. Quickly, she flipped the switch, closing the place down, and stepped out of the cart, carefully locking the door behind her. She quickly turned, and blinked out of reality, rapidly teleporting across town, so that her arriving at the hospital five minutes late would probably be overlooked as walking time.
When she arrived at the door, she paused, took a deep breath, and stretched. Now, she was presentable, as she carefully strode into the meticulously cared for building. Nopony knew why Ponyville had such an efficient hospital, but everypony was grateful nonetheless.
The nurse glanced up from her deskwork, and then returned to writing, only to pause and look back up. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, Princess! I didn't recognize you! How can I help?"
Twilight held up a hoof reassuringly. "No worries, Redheart. It must be large responsibility, working at the hospital nearly 24/7 like you do. I'm just here to see Mr. Nition home."
Redheart quirked her eyebrows, nodded, and looked down at the paperwork before her. "All right, let me see what room he's in... Nition, Nition, Nition..." After a few pages of shuffling pages, Redheart looked up at Twilight, slight confusion in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Princess, but we haven't had a Mr. Nition check in here."
Twilight incredulously looked at the medical practitioner in front of her. "Not... here? Then where?"
Nurse Redheart shrugged. "How am I supposed to know, Princess? I'm just a nurse."
Twilight shook her head, thanked Redheart, and quickly left the over-sterile building. Soon, she was popping up all around town, and nopony knew where the craftspony had disappeared to. Even Pinkie Pie, who knew almost everything about everypony, couldn't tell Twilight.
Disheartened, and worried about her new friend, Twilight returned to the cart, and walked back inside. She was sitting there, alone, glancing about the room, when she spotted a brown paper bag. Cog didn't use those for the objects he sold, so Twilight carefully stood up and lifted the bag.
It was sealed, and atop it was a note. Cautiously, Twilight opened the note, and read it aloud out of habit. "Use this if you need to contact me while I'm out," She read, before looking down at the bag. "Better now than never," she whispered to herself, unwrapping the device within.
It was the original Seeker, the one from the day he first displayed his wares. Twilight looked around, and couldn't find the device's box, before a grin grew on her face. "Oh, you sly dog..." She whispered, before taking the beetle outside, and winding it up. Quickly, it took to the sky, and flew off deeper into the Everfree. Smiling, she galloped in after it, making sure she could see it at all times.
Though the sun was nearly gone, Twilight's heightened senses allowed her to pursue the beetle deep into the woods, in the black of night, before the two arrived at a small little shack in the woods. For a moment, Twilight thought they might have been at zecora's shack, but the lack of it being a tree kinda threw that thought out the window.
The abode sat humbly before her, the beetle furiously ramming into a closed window, furiously trying to reach the golden cube within the dark, eerie structure. Quietly, Twilight approached the ramshackle structure, and knocked on the door. "Cog," she called. "Are you in there?"
The only reply she got was a soft groan, but that was all she needed. Her system went into overdrive, because that groan conveyed more than a hundred words could have; It was the sound of a dying animal, one weak with hunger, and exhausted. Twilight blinked, and realized that the sound could have come from only one being: Cog. Quickly, she went up to the door, and pushed hard.
But it stayed stuck shut. "Locked," Twilight sighed, before thinking through her repertoire of spells. Soon, she remembered the  correct spell pattern and shortly after, she could feel the more complex spell forming, barely contained by her horn, before unleashing it at the door. There was a soft click, and Twilight smirked with victory, before pushing the door open.
The inescapable darkness had her reconsider, however, and she found herself riveted in the doorway. Come on now, Twilight, she chided, a little darkness never hurt anypony. Besides, Cog is in there, and needs help. With a grunt, Twilight took her first step inside, and lit up her horn warily. A soft violet light washed over the inside of the cabin, and Twilight gasped.
The inside looked like some mad scientist's workshop, tools and scraps of metal and Celestia-knows-what discarded all across the floor, gathered around a few work tables and the odd machine. As she started to press forward, she really started to notice all the discarded mechanisms, half incomplete and half destroyed.
She could feel doubt creeping up into the dark corners of her mind. That noise from earlier, her traitorous thoughts whispered, could it really have come from a living thing?
Her thoughts were broken by a raspy sound coming from down the stairs. Listening closely, her traitorous thoughts were seemingly less traitorous by the second. In fact, the sounds did sound less natural and more like... air shrieking around metal. Twilight shivered as the shrieking grew louder, but she pressed on, descending the stairs to find find a room where the cloying darkness was so heavy that the light from her horn only illuminated a few feet around her.
Down here, the clutter was almost deep enough that she had to wade through it, slowly drawing closer to the source of the pained moan. That's when she passed near a superbly cleaned table, and something reflected her light in a matter she had yet to see. Slowly she turned, and looked upon the glass case. Or more accurately, what was inside it.
There, connected to an unusual apparatus, were two reflective green slabs of meat. Transfixed by a terrified curiosity, Twilight inched closer, curious as to what they were, when it became all too apparent. They're lungs! Twilight realized with terror, and in a fit of panic, let out a bloodcurdling scream 
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Cog awoke with a start. His senses were screaming at him that something was amiss, and then he picked up on it: The dying warble of a scream. A scream so bloodcurdling that it had awoken him from underneath all the heavy drugs he had used. He dared not move, for fear of interrupting the procedure going on in his body, and he carefully looked up to see the machine still operating above him, the nimble arms darting around, cautiously slicing into his body, peeling away layers of muscle and fat to have clear access to the bits of him that it was told to deal with. He noticed that one of the implant trays were clear, and he smiled as he realized that his torture was almost over.
He heard the sound of something blindly stumbling around, and almost flinched. Something was in his workshop. That thought, though normally worrisome, caused his eyes to widen in fear. The device was instructed to preserve the organs, so if somepony had stumbled into his workshop, he risked discovery. His carefully crafted persona would shatter in an instant, and his meager but fulfilling life might come to a grinding halt.
He looked at the machine above him, and sighed internally. He watched with an almost detached interest as the device's blades slowly sliced through his horrid green musculature, and he closed his eyes. Soon, the procedure would end, and he would be that much closer to safety.
After all, no one could love a monster like him.