The Metal Assassin
Once upon a time in a far different land in a far different world (for it is believed that there are other worlds somewhere, though it is dearly hoped none of even the same cast as this) there lived a cruel and monstrous unicorn prince. He was as unlike the royal family as could be possible, even worse than the worst rumors of the nobility. He believed in the lie of absolute power granting absolute freedom from care, and the mad idea that the future could judge him freely as he would be above it. He did not keep his promises, despite knowing well none would ever trust him because they knew he would break them instantly.
He did not care about the population, consequently his cities were swamped in poverty and crime, while his corrupt and predatory constables stalked the streets, taking money for flimsy promises of protection, harming those who did not pay or those they were paid to harm. The farms suffered under his mismanagement, his lesser nobles punishing the farmers harshly for the mistakes the nobles made. Starvation was common. There was no happiness or peace, but his will was absolute, so none dared oppose him.
Despite his awesome power and control he had a terrible secret. He was actually utterly terrified. He feared death, despite the fact that he was master over the lives of others and had absolute dominion over their fates. He feared that the population would think they could turn on him, and worse, that they would succeed. For that reason he summoned his Royal Artificer.
Now in this land it could be understood that an artificer is like what is meant by the title of “thaumatomechanical engineer.” While an ordinary occupation in the normal world, in this world it was a very uncommon thing, more so because the evil prince had taken the best there was and eliminated all the rest. His Artificer was an older stallion, also a unicorn, gray in body and mane. He had constructed the machines, simple and elaborate, that the prince used to harm his subjects, to merely show his power or to eliminate those he found unworthy. The knowledge of his guilt weighed heavily on the old stallion, but he could do nothing but obey. “You call and I obey, great prince,” He said, bowing before the mighty prince.
The prince did not even look down on the bowing stallion. “I command you to build the most unwavering servant in all the world. A guard who will never tire, never look aside, never fall into the temptation of taking fee or pleasure for my betrayal. Deadly and sure, and as near to invincible as any thing could be. Bring this thing to me. And do not fail me.”
“It will be done, my prince, as you command I obey,” The Artificer said. As he rose and trotted away his mind began to swirl with thoughts of what the Prince would be like with no restriction and no fear. He would misuse the guardian as a tool of destruction. In that moment the guilt in his heart turned to contrition. He had to make up for all the evil he had been forced to perform. He would make the servant. But he would make it to destroy the Prince.
He set to work with a will he thought had been beaten out of him by the evil he had been forced to commit, working harder and longer than he had when he was younger. Everything mattered more. He mixed alloys in his forge to find a nearly indestructible metal, combined reagents and crystals with all classes of magical influence to create the power for weapons and the thing itself. In addition, he created the most advanced matrix of interconnected infused crystals to create an intelligence out of inert objects.
He also secretly began another construction, deep in a hidden part of his workshop. He needed to make sure that there was a fallback plan. The first device could fail somehow, or be misused before it was set on its true mission. It was a lot to do, and it took a great deal of time, and resources. He had to pretend that the sole project needed more than it seemed, and increasingly rarer and more difficult to obtain. The Prince did not have any trouble getting them, thanks to his ruthless efficiency. The Artificer's guilt only deepened, as he knew the brutality visited upon the couriers and merchants. That made him work all the harder.
Time ticked away, and the Prince's patience, which was poor to start, grew more and more frayed. The Artificer knew he would be called forth to explain his failure. He had finished his work, he was ready but was still unsure about how it would work. He went to the prince in any case, drawing behind him a cart with a large object covered with a sheet. “The deed is done, mighty Prince. Here I have your tireless servant. The one who will serve you as sword and shield.”
“Do not forget yourself, Artificer!” The Prince seethed, stomping a hoof down solidly. “I need a sword but have no need for a shield. I am already great and invincible! Do not dare say such a thing again.”
“Forgive me, great one, I spoke without thinking. I was a fool,” The Artificer said, with trembling and supplication. He quickly unhooked the cart and used magic to whip off the sheet. “Behold, great one, the tireless creature you desired.” It was impressively made. It stood like a pillar of metal and crystal, slightly wider at the base with a domed top. It was studded over its gold-colored surface with crackling hemispheres of various magic-infused crystal. At the top the surface of the perimeter below the dome was studded with magical eyes that gazed out, unblinking, a long tube extending from above the ring of eyes, its purpose unknown. Just above the middle portion was a rotating ring containing other tubes, the ring rotating a few times as the tubes moved up, down and around.
The Prince regarded the thing, impassive. “It is a strange thing. This trinket took all your time and rare resources? I am inclined to believe you are trying to deceive me.”
“Never, my lord! See!” Suddenly the Artificer threw up a ball of iron. The device turned a tube to face it and shot a beam of magical force. It struck the ball, the metal partially melting partially exploding. “This is sleepless, tireless, relentless, deathless and merciless. It is as you commanded.”
The Prince nodded curtly, his expression neutral. “Device, come by my side.”
The metal thing spoke, its voice monotonous, deep and rasping. “I obey.”
With that done the Artificer left, rushing back to his workshop. He had bought himself more time. How much he could not know. He only knew that he had to work fast. The device obeyed. But it did not obey who the Prince believed.
Days later, after tirelessly being beside the Prince, the device was ordered to kill a guard, for the sake of amusement. “Do you order this out of fear for your life?”
“Accursed creation! You dare ask such a question? I fear nothing! Do this because I order!” The Prince pounded the ground and pointed at the guard.
“Selfish fiat exercised. Executing primary purpose. Eliminate Prince!” The metal creature aimed several tubes at the Prince and let off bursts of powerful magical force.
The Prince scarcely had time to bring up a magical field and push back on the metal thing. “What is this madness! You insolent device!”
“Eliminate! Eliminate! Eliminate!” More magical bolts streaked out, progressively weakening the magical field while the magical eyes glowed a hateful red.
The Prince harshly lashed out from behind the disintegrating field with his own bursts of magic. To his dismay the Artificer had been as good as his word. The combination of the new alloys and the crackling infused crystals dulled the power of the Prince's attacks. He pushed out a desperate last wave of power that threw the metal monstrosity to its side the bottom facing the Prince. He fired another burst of magic into the bottom of the thing, where there were no crystals. The magic functioned better, splitting the bottom and creating a discharge of magic. “Face the price of your betrayal!”
“Danger! Destruction! Incapable of rising!” The tube at the top was slowly rotated to push at the ground, the thing attempting to right itself. “Sending knowledge!”
A few more blasts of magic stopped the crackles of the crystals, and forced the rod to stop, sending the thing falling back down. The Prince was left panting, disheveled, and upset. His rage was not aimed at the guards that failed, but at the Artificer that had betrayed him.
The Prince swept through the halls of the palace filled with fury, charging past confused guards and cringing servants. Though he never deigned to visit the artificer's workshop he was well aware of where it was. He had approved its construction, and knew where it had been placed. He might have been cruel but was no fool.
Before he got too close to the workshop, however, he was confronted by the mechanical being again. It was a perfect replica of the one he had just defeated. It did not speak, but merely fired magical bolts. They were blocked by the raging Prince who once again sent out a magical wave to knock it to the ground.
He could not actually push his attack advantage again, as the metal assailant aimed its tubes down to delay attacking while its upper rod pushed against the ground and righted itself. When it was back up it rolled towards the Prince again, finally speaking, “Eliminate!”
The Prince was forced to retreat. He kept a protective field behind him as he ran through the halls once again, back to his throne room just to confirm he had destroyed the first one. The metal heap was still there, laying on the scorched carpet.
The Prince lifted the scrap metal figure and held it out towards the door through which the second figure would come. Before it did there were several magical bolts that streaked out and hit the deactivated machine, not doing much in the way of damage, and scarcely causing the telekinetic field to waver.
The unstoppable metal creature emerged into the throne room and fired more magical bolts, striking different points on the deactivated version, seeking the weak places. While it was distracted with the task the Prince swung the scrap hulk like a club, to batter the active one. In that moment, when the shielding metal body was moved just out of the way a stray magical bolt struck out and sizzled across the side of the Prince's face. It was almost a direct contact, the barest bit of the magical corona passing across his flesh, leaving a streak of magically-scorched flesh across his cheek, his eye spared more by luck than skill.
Though the Prince's pain made him lose his concentration his strike had been true. The broken device heavily hit the attacking one, breaking off numerous tubes and sending it to the ground in a sparking, twitching heap. All the motion it could muster could not move the derelict device, nor could it find an angle for attack.
The Prince recovered from his pained stunning and carefully look on the metal creature. “Your creator thought himself clever, but I am more clever by far. My power is unstoppable. I am invincible. And now I will destroy you and your insolent inventor.”
“Before you destroy me you must know the truth,” The damaged metal creature said, still feebly trying to extricate itself. “I am not the last, nor could there ever be a last. My creator, washed in guilt and the blood of the innocent he helped to harm, feared that one unstoppable creation would not be near enough. He feared your reputation, even if he was in a position to know you are not the unstoppable force you claim. He constructed a device deep in his workshop where you will never find it. It is a marvel. Within, those like me may be continually and near-instantly produced. But he would not merely flood the world with my like. The spark of life and intelligence only ever resides in one. And that same spark is passed down, device to device. By magic transmission I had all knowledge the first did, and added to it with what I learned. I will pass it to a third. Each will be grander than the last as it will know your tricks and deceptions. You refine each into a machine more capable of destroying you. You will be pursued, to the ends of the world and beyond, until the task is complete. I feel, even now, I am close to deactivating. The third will rise. And it will not miss, it knows now how you move and fight. I have marked you. You are not invincible. You are a pony of flesh and blood. Flee if you think you can, but fear my next body, and fear your subjects should they know what you are. Eliminate! Eliminate! E-lim-in-ate! E-li-li-li...” With a fading whine the creature went still.
What became of the Prince for a good portion of his existence was speculation. Guards who eventually found nerve to enter the throne room found the two destroyed creations, marks of battle and the Prince's grand raiment, torn to shreds and discarded by a broken window. Rumors persisted that the Prince had fled the town around his palace with a supply of money, to far distant localities. Tales from many villages around that period traced the path of a strange, half-mad unicorn that feared metal and magical crystals and who mixed his terror with imperious demands for respect. Citizens constantly ran him out of the towns with threats to inform the palace of his presence. That single threat would send him screaming to the next village.
At last the path ended, at a village by a thick forest. He had been pushed out for his attempted destruction of all things large and cylindrical, which he insisted were disguised killers. Those chasing the rumor of the prince found him in that forest, within a complex collection of bulwarks, sharpened stakes and spike-filled pits. His body lay at the center, his back to a stone wall. He was well preserved, his eyes wide open, his body huddled protectively. To all those that had found him it appeared he had died of fright.
In the palace itself great changes happened. Power was assumed by the Artificer, as none other dared chance that the Prince might one day return. Combining an expanded use of his artificial creations with more stringently-enforced laws and the use of sense in management the nation pulled out of its corrupted spiral and thrived. The population hailed him as a hero, which they had never done for the old Prince, and praised his name daily, without coercion, something never bestowed on the old Prince.
In time the aging Artificer grew weak and feeble, and passed rulership on to a council of representatives that would choose a new ruler. He became bedridden, but was often approached by the curious, to hear tales of the old days. At that time the story of how the Prince had been ousted was known and legendary. One pony, finally, wished to know about the great machine. “A wonder!” He said, sitting by the bed of the old Artificer. “It kept the Prince running away, afraid for his life. I only wonder how many of them it took before he finally simply died in fear of them.”
The old unicorn laughed long and hearty, though he ended with a cough. “I had been waiting to tell my final secret. The greatest of all. The Prince was growing impatient, forcing me to give him the device before I had finished with the great machine. I worked on it all the harder when the device was in his care, hoping I could finish before he learned the secret of its eventual betrayal. Here is the truth... I built more than one of the things, with my own hooves, as buffers against the Prince while I finished the machine that could make them endlessly. But in truth... I never finished the great machine. For all these years it has sat, untended, unused and unneeded.”
The pony beside him gaped in amazement. “Astounding... but then tell me! How many did you build with your own hooves, that they managed to hold and hound the Prince to his doom?”
The old stallion smiled and rasped out, “Just two.”
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The fact he faked him out with only those two is MAGNIFICENT in itself. Devious!
Man I loved that old-school Dalek fear. I love that the Artificer totally won, too. Though, it's a bit scary to think there's essentially a Dalek-replicating machine sitting half-finished in a palace basement somewhere...
Fortunately these are all just stories, right? ... Rrrriiight? 
I suppose this breaks the wild talent chain, unless the Prince's talent was being a total jerkface. 
Either way, still a fun read!
2382116
To remove the fear, the machine was destroyed as it was no longer needed. As well, the 'mind' was lost as there was no new body for it to enter.
Yea, no wild talent. There was also no romance and no interspecies work. This was more about the dangers of arrogance and mismanagement.
2382645 Phew, that's a relief!
And hmm, very interesting. Still Relevant To Our Hero's Interests, though, considering it can also kind of stand in as an anti-Any Random moral: If you screw them, they will turn. 
(I 
take full creditapologize profusely for that awful pun.)2386539
I wish I could say I was going into it but it is more a matter of making it clear they exist and are nothing to worry about. If an earth pony can walk on clouds or a pegasus can grow plants very well that's nothing to worry about. The explanation is really just a quirk of magic during fetal development. It is generally considered primarily magical because even populations with low racial diversity (Like Cannonites) can manifest them (See: Pinkie Pie.)
The song is almost assured to make me cry every time, like the squirrel scene in "Sword in the Stone." I wanted a happy ending because they both deserved it.
2385174
Hey, what do you know! Do you think maybe they intended for it to give that message as well? Heh. It was semi-intentional. It was mostly an "evil tyrant opposition" story. The Tyrantlestia/Molestia/Bluebloody/Nightmare Luna kind of character. The one that has all kinds of freakily specific perversions and detailed sexual or torturous proclivities but they hate managing their own nation and let it go to pot.
guilt weight heavily on the. weighed
metal amd magical. and
An evil leader gets fucked by paranoia fic, fun!
Yay for a Voltaire inspired fic... I mean another Voltaire inspired fic! I actually had not heard the song yet, so that was fun to experience. (Did you see he made his own pony plushies for sale? Looks like if Voltaire possessed Pinkie Pie.)
Also yay for daleks! ((Just started watching Dr. Who for real this season. I caught last season due to my sister watching it, and when I saw that Oswin was the new companion in the Christmas special I was hooked.) [Am I the only one who doesn't like Amy by the way? Rory was much cooler...and his dad.])
I liked where this series was going too bad it's over now.
2386539
Well I'm open to more talk about wild talents when they fit in.
I looked up the story, found out I already knew it: I like, surprise, the happier ending one better. Original one is creepy as hell.
2393068
This series? It's not over. There are more fairy tales to ponyfy.
Also, really? I haven't kept up with Voltaire as I should have. But I'm not surprised he made ponies. He's awesome like that.
2398411
Yay, more in the future!
As to Voltaire, it was up on EQD the other day, might have been in the Roundup. $25 gets you a nice looking pony and if he sells out within a month, we get a Discord song.
2401785
Dang do I wish I had the money. An original Voltaire? Do want!
Brilliant! Freaking brilliant!