Gears of Life

by GalacticJam

Escalation

As night fell once more, several watchponies patrolling the town with their lanterns lighting up the night; almost making night into day. Several calls could be heard across the town as construction workers hauled wooden stakes and planted them in the ground next to each other to create a palisade. Guards patrolled outside of the town in pairs as they held farming equipment like spears, their lanterns lighting up the darkness on the plains just outside the town.

Two watchponies patrolled through the dark alleyways, lighting up the path ahead of them. As they passed, three pairs of orange eyes lit up in the darkest corner of the alley.

click click click

The figures came out of the shadows and stealthily dashed through the street into another alleyway. Another pair of guards walked past the alleyway but suddenly stopped.

"Hold on, I gotta take a leak," one of them informed.

"Dude! That's gross," the other hissed in disgust.

"Well, if you've been on patrol for as long as me non stop you'll realise that opportunities like this are rare," he spat back. The guard walked down the alleyway and concealed himself in the shadows. He began to whistle a tune as he did his business, he looked up and saw three tall figures looking down on him hanging from the roof. His eyes widened in surprise and he breathed in to shout but was interrupted by a blade stabbing him in the face.

"Shield? You alright," the other pony called as he raised his pitchfork towards the alley. "Come on man, stop playing around". Suddenly he heard a noise of something landing behind him and sharply stopped. He turned around slowly to find a small cat staring up at him. "You scared me there for a second," the guard sighed in relief as he stroked the cat's head. Suddenly a pair of orange eyes appeared in the distance, the guard tried to dash out of the alleyway but was pulled back into the darkness by a large, metal claw.

The three figures appeared from the darkness, their identities still concealed by the shadows. One of them pointed a long, thin finger at the palisades. The other two figures jumped up to the roofs while the last remaining figure picked up the two carcasses and dashed off back into the darkness.

"Keep those stakes coming, we need this wall up by morning!" A gravely voiced pony shouted as carts hauling wooden stakes drove along the outskirts of the town.

"Well, if you were helping us out then maybe we will finish by morning!" A cart driver yelled back.

"Hey, I'm here to make sure this wall actually gets built!"

"Well, I don't know about you but this is one job I don't want to rest until it's done. Celestia knows what may be waiting out there for us!"

"Then get moving!"

"I'm on it, keep your tail on!" The cart driver mumbled as he stopped and unloaded the wooden stakes onto a large pile. Several workponies began picking them up and then planting them into the ground one by one. The two remaining figures lay on the straw rooftops as they observed the steady construction of the palisades. As the sun began to climb over the hilltops, the two figures began to retreat into the darkness once more.

---

The light pierced through the windows, lighting up the dark and dusty cottage. Walking around in a circle was Bolted Steel, mumbling to her self while looking frequently at the two unusual items that Twilight had brought in on the workbench. She sat on a wooden stool and looked over some blueprints. She shook her head and slammed her head on the desk. However her rest was short lived as she heard a banging on the door.

"Who's there?" Bolted groaned.

"It's me, Twilight Sparkle!" Twilight called through the door

"Hold on," Bolted sighed as she stood up and opened the heavy wooden door. "So what do you want?"

"We've made a bit of a breakthrough!"

"Breakthrough?"

"Yes, when the new walls were being built, a guard spotted an unusual figure on the roof".

"Interesting, what did this figure look like?"

"Well the finer details were hidden but we managed to get the overall shape. Here," Twilight gave Bolted a piece of paper which had a hastily drawn figure. The figure had two large legs with a small torso and two large arms connecting to it with long claws on the end of it. On top of the torso was a small spherical head with circular eyes.

"Interesting, from the figure's physique it looks like it is used for infiltration. Quite obvious seeing how we barely know anything about it, what we need is one of these deactivated so we can see how it works".

"Yes, it's weird how nopony has heard of technology this great in Equestria before. This is far more than just a rouge, we should not underestimate what will happen next".

"Yes, and the sky is blue," Bolted mocked.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm saying that you are stating the obvious once more. Of course this pony is far more than a rouge, they've built what seems to be a fully autonomous mechanical being!" Bolted walked across the room and picked up a small mechanical device. "This is something I've been working on. If we want to defend ourselves we need to catch up with the enemy, meaning we create our own mechanioids".

"Why would we need such a thing?"

"These things are merciless, they lack empathy for all living things. Meaning they won't think twice before ending you, so we need a lot more firepower than just pitchforks and spears".

"I see your point," Twilight sighed. "Anyway, I was wondering if you would like come down to the castle to see if anything like this has happened before?"

"That's a good idea, it will allow us to figure out what our predecessors did if such an event occurred in the past," Bolted agreed. "Don't think of this as a social activity though, I have no time for such things".

"You just say that," Twilight grinned as she opened the door. "Shall we?"

"Lead the way".

---

A short and silent walk later, Bolted and Twilight entered the large crystalline castle. They walked up the spiraling staircase that was housed within the trunk that lead to the hall containing six chairs in a circle facing inwards.

"How grand," Bolted complimented.

"Thank you, now this way to the library," Twilight smiled as she walked through a door.

The library was a circular room with a large amount shelves of books embedded into the walls. In the center of the room were three circular tables with books piled on them.

"Now then, let's get started," Twilight smiled as she grabbed several books from off the shelves. Bolted tutted as she browsed the shelves and found several dusty old books with different eras as their titles.

"Instead of taking every book off the shelf, how about actually using your eyes," Bolted grumbled to herself. She began to thoroughly analyse the shelves, stopping to look up and down the shelves. She stopped suddenly and peered through the gaps in the books. Grabbing a ladder, she reached to the back of the shelves and pulled out an incredibly tattered and old book as well as a torrent of dust with it.

"I think I got something," Bolted called as she coughed heavily. She threw the book onto the table which landed with a heavy thud. Twilight jumped in surprise but then eagerly walked towards the table.

"Pre-Classical Golemancy?" Twilight read the title out loud in confusion.

"Yeah, may give us some insights to what these things are," Bolted stated as she opened the book which contained a large amount of diagrams, blueprints and paragraphs of text. Flipping through, Bolted stopped on a page which shown a small, circular slab with several components inside of it which were labelled. "This is something I'm kind of used to, it's an older version of the animation cores used in simple machines that I was taught".

"Animation cores?" Twilight asked in confusion. "Where on Equestria have you been studying? I've never heard of these".

"Perhaps you should start studying at actual places of education like Canterlot University. Nearly everypony rejected using animation cores because unicorns can use magic, it's unable to do pegasus work and Earth Ponies are far too stubborn. Their main use was in defense," Bolted explained. "Animation cores were the basic components to control the husk that mechanics were in".

"So whoever is responsible for these attacks, is creating these animation cores?"

"More than likely, fortunately for us the most documented versions of animation cores are outdated".

"You know of a way to disable the outdated cores?"

"No, we can construct our own mechanoids to defend ourselves. If they use outdated cores than our mechanoids are quicker," Bolted said as she flipped over to a blueprint of a quadrupedal golem. "I can make the mechanoids using this as a reference".

"We need all the help we can get. How long do you think it will take to create?"

"A week, give or take a couple of days. Actual production time after drawing the blueprints and prototyping should be three days but if I can get more space than this cramped cottage then I can reduce production time to approximately an hour per unit".

"How much space do you need?"

"I need a building with enough space to house a lot of parts and machinery, that means the structure has to be tall but wide and long as well."

"I think I can arrange that with the princess, however I think she will need you to demonstrate these mechanoids to her".

"I don't care what you do, just keep in mind that I can't work as efficient here".

"Very well, I'll talk to the princess and get everything sorted".

"You do that, now if you will excuse me," Bolted quickly picked up the book and walked out of the room. "I got plans to draw, I will see myself out".

---

Twilight sighed as she put away all of the books that were scattered across the library. Using her levitation spell, all of the books guided themselves to their appropriate areas. She walked out of the library, up the stairs and into her room. She sat down in a padded armchair and levitated a large piece of paper, an ink stained quill and a half full inkwell towards her. She rubbed her chin in thought as she dipped the quill in ink idly. Her face lit up as the quill began to scribble on the piece of paper erratically.

Dear Princess Celestia,
I have located Bolted Steel and have managed to enlist her to help us with this current crisis. However I am curious of her history, Bolted Steel is an engineer in a certain field of science that I myself didn't know existed. I can only assume she studied at Canterlot University as she mentioned it as a proper place of education. However, Canterlot University doesn't even teach mechanics. The course was disbanded decades ago as I am sure you are aware of. So I am curious to where she has gained this knowledge from, I request that we have somepony do a background check on her. On more current affairs, Bolted has said that she can draft plans for our own automated defenses. However, if we want a decently sized defensive force, Bolted requires a large property such as a warehouse.
I hope that this will not be too much trouble for you to consider.
Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle

As the quill stopped scribbling, it laid itself to rest on the side table. Twilight lit a small candle which then lit a small green flame. She rolled up the piece of paper into a scroll and lit it on fire with the candle, it turned into a green wisp and flew outside of the window. Twilight sighed as she stood back up and walked out of the room.

The green wisp sailed across the skies but was suddenly halted as a blue mist reached out and grabbed it. The green wisp struggled but it was in vain as the blue mist carried it into a small cottage. The mist disappeared as the scroll dropped onto a wooden table. Bolted Gear walked into the room and looked at the wooden table with a smirk.

"Just as I thought," she chuckled as she unraveled the scroll. She read the letter, giggling as she read it. "Wow, she even signed it as your faithful student."

She looked at a blue crystal that was suspended by a copper frame, she smirked as she looked at the letter once more. She then rolled up the letter once more and lit a candle, she burnt the letter with the green flame which then flew out of the window and sailed across the skies once more.

"Looks like I have to speed up, this is escalating quicker than I anticipated," Bolted thought as she looked at the plans of a circular slab that was suspended in a metal frame. "Luckily, I'm also growing in knowledge just as quick".

Comments

[Hekkar]

Mind twisted man. Keep it up!