//------------------------------//
// Chapter 24 - Discovery 
// Story: Twilight Daylight 
// by thedarktome 
//------------------------------//

Arcadia and Madun, along with Sunset Shimmer walked back over to the group of Royals and Representatives with surprise all over the royals faces. The representatives from both sides were speaking with each other about something that Arcadia couldn't hear before they approached. Cadance spotted her first and offered her a sad smile. "Bad huh?" She asked sadly.

Arcadia sighed loudly and nodded when they stopped in front of them. "It's terrible," she responded. "The ponies of Equestria rarely get in fights. But now it's apparently so common that there are clean up teams on standby at the corner. That shouldn't even be! What else is there that we should know about?"

Celestia tapped a hoof against her chin. "That is pretty much all at the moment. But I must show you what happens to the metal when we try and weld." Celestia began the transportation back to Canterlot, intended to actually go past it and head for Manehattan. Along the way Arcadia was speaking with Madun above her about something important on her mind. He couldn't get beside her, her wings were too big.

"These talks have gotten in the way of the tryouts," she explained. He looked down and hummed in thought while the wind blew his mane back. Arcadia thought he looked pretty handsome like that.

"We can reschedule for a week from now," he advised. "To give the contestants more time to prepare and you time to go all science-y." Arcadia chuckled and looked at the dark and dead ground below them, following Madun's gaze. "When I first heard of Equestria nearly a year ago...I was under the impression of flowers and roses. I was not expecting barren landscapes lined with tents."

"Nopony was," Bold Shoulder stated from underneath Arcadia. She looked around and noticed all her guards had created a protective sphere around her and Madun. "Just precautions. I didn't like that Bluebird guy."

Cadance and Celestia shared a smirk when they heard that. "He has been watching you, Lady Arcadia," Gardeen informed her. Arcadia looked down at her in surprise. "I have seen him...appearing in flashes of light here and there every now and then."

Arcadia groaned and threw out her hooves. "He...is so....ANNOYING!" She yelled. "Sweetheart could you—"

Madun raised a hoof, stopping her mid sentence and said, "If he attempts to woo you again, I am dropping him personally from thirty thousand feet." Everyone sort of shot him a surprised look, especially Molten Ice. Madun looked around and scoffed. "What? No one goes after my fiancee, and think I'm not going to do anything about it."

Shining chuckled and whispered to Cadance who was carrying him in a bubble, "I think my sister's in safe hooves." She smiled and rolled her eyes.

"Thank you Madun," Arcadia responded. The two shared a nuzzle that caught everyone's hearts.

"That is so adorable!" Cadance squealed. "Ooooohhhh....when are you gonna have a foal?"

"WHAT?!" All the Pserateps yelled.

Celestia blanched and yelled, "We're here! We're here!" Trying to disperse that conversation before it even started. She pointed towards a dark gray warehouse down below. "This building is used to create all the materials in Equestria. We have more but they are much smaller than this." They came in for a landing on the only concrete in front of the building, then released the Earth ponies and Unicorns they brought with them from their protective bubbles. "The minerals produced here are usually steel," Celestia added. "Copper, gold, and others are melded here, but in smaller quantities while steel is highly abundant."

The Equestrian guards strode forward and pulled the doors open for the large group with a groan. Next Arcadia and Celestia slowly walked in first, walking down the empty entrance hall, followed by Madun and everyone else. Arcadia looked closely around the area, taking note that it was empty here, but obviously busy farther up, based off the loud clanging. "As you can hear, the workers are currently working hard to take down the materials needed to increase our rations of metal," Luna commented.

"Wait, you're tearing down the welding?" Arcadia asked quickly.

"Er, no. No, we're tearing down some of the less needed materials. Such as rusted out beams, doors that are irrelevant. Things like metal closet doors, controls, and are replacing them with much more simple items that work in the same function. Anything from this building itself." Celestia walked through a doorway and into a large area that has definitely seen better days. It was obvious that's where all the magic happened. Both metaphorically and literally. There were unicorns walking around moving metal and more items to different locations. There was a pony at the door who bowed to them as they stepped inside the large warehouse. He was big, like Big Macintosh. Even looked like him a little bit too. Get rid of the black beard, replace his green coat with red, change his cutie mark, and you have Big Mac. That would be a lot of changes.

"Hello, Princesses," he greeted with his face to the floor.

"Hello, Buff," Princess Luna greeted back while he rose. "We want to show our foreign visitors the welding process of this facility. Along with what happens to the metal."

"Of course. Follow me and I'll get you ready." He walked towards a separate room on the far side of the building with the large group right behind him. Along the way, Arcadia took note of all the metal being moved around and torn apart by unicorns. That was all that was in there. Unicorns. Must've been because they could handle the hot heat without making contact with any of the hot metal. Wise.

"First up, we're going to have you put on some protective material," Buff instructed. He motioned towards the suits hanging on hangers in the corner. "Theses were made for Unicorns. But...I see our guests are....Pegasi I guess?"

Arcadia chuckled and nodded. "Yes. They are a type of Pegasi. I'll protect them from the heat with a spell when it's time. What else is needed?"

While the others were putting on the protection, Buff motioned towards the welding masks. "You need to put these over your faces and horns. It protects your face. And after that you grab these cones." He motioned towards the cones beside it sitting on a table. "And you place them over your horn. You will still be able to use magic at your full capacity, it'll just be protected while doing so."

"We have things like this in Psera," Madun commented. "Just...a lot more shiny." Arcadia flapped her wing over his head to get his attention. Then motioned towards the Equestrians around them. He got the jist and nodded as she put on her helmet. Once again, Cadance and Shining Armor heard the alarm bells. The Pserateps were definitely hiding something. And it was big. They would speak on it later. After Arcadia fitted herself with a cover for her face and cone for the tip of her horn, because her horn was too long, they made their way back out into the facility. Buff led them over to a table that had a large box on the left of it with an open side. It was made out of metal and really thick. He pulled on a lever on the floor and went into another box by their hooves, and pulled out what looked like a small metal sheet.

He presented it and said, "I'm going to demonstrate what happens when we put in a sheet of metal, and then take it back out." He used his magic to grab hold of the sheet and put it into the furnace. "I'll keep it in there for a while and let it heat up to about nine hundred thirty degrees for this example. And then I'll take it out and start the fireworks."

"While we wait," Cadance muttered. She turned to Twilight and Madun with an impatient smile. "How did you two meet?" Celestia sighed and shook her head.

"Well," Arcadia recalled with a smile. She walked over to Madun and pressed up against him, making him smile. "It was when I first arrived on Psera's soil and began to demonstrate my abilities in magic. The Pserateps were intrigued."

"Big time," Bold Shoulder added. His soldiers were around the facility watching everything.

"I guess somepony decided to go to Madun to grab him," Arcadia continued. "I didn't realize he was there until he was right behind me. And he just couldn't stop staring for a few seconds until somepony told him he was drooling." Madun groaned and hid behind his wing. Arcadia chuckled and rubbed her hoof through his mane. "I thought it was cute. Anyway, he introduced himself, I introduced myself, he asked what I was doing, where did I come from, and how did I create grass again. I told him that I was a mage in magic."

"The only pony that knows it is Arcadia," one of the Psera diplomats inputted.

"That is correct. Along with a bunch of other skills. Madun asked if there was anything I could do to help his people. Of course I agreed to help them. Without anything in return. He was reluctant that they weren't paying for my help and wouldn't stop offering to pay me back. So I appeased him and at least asked if I could stay the night. He immediately accepted. The next day, I started the process. Of course with a checklist. I never go anywhere without that. We started small with nature. Grass, trees, lakes, rivers, overall plant life. Then we started on the homes and buildings. During that time, little Madun here—"

"I'm not little," he muttered.

"—started making advances. Then finally, he decided to ask me out on a date. We had it in the Castle's Grand Dining Hall and learned about each other a lot more than before. We went on a few more before I met Her Majesty Molten Ice and learned about her role in Pseratopian Royalty. Madun's mother. I think I met Merry some time before that, and she directed me to her."

"We went on a few more dates," Madun added, taking over. "Then finally, Hearth's Warming. We never actually had a Hearth's Warming thousands of years before all of this. Never even heard about it. But my mother introduced it to everyone after she visited Equestria. So I took us on another date atop of the Mountain Range surrounding Cop later on during Hearth's Warming afternoon and presented her the ring she's wearing." He motioned towards the Diamond flooded ring band that was around Arcadia's neck. "And I proposed to her."

"I yelled out yes then gave him the biggest kiss and hug I could manage. The first one to figure out we were engaged was Merry, who took on the duty without anypony asking to tell everypony in Psera within an hour. Then...all of that mess happened, we tell the Pserateps about the tryouts to showcase their skills and shoot off their business in Psera. Unfortunately it's going to be rescheduled and pushed back for a week until we get Equestria's establishment situation taken care of. After the wedding will be my inauguration as Queen of Psera."

"That...is such...a WONDERFUL STORY!!" Cadance cried. She went over and pulled the both of them into a tight hug, crying all the while. Madun shot Arcadia a questioning look from the other side of her.

"Princess of Love," she announced. "Cadance gets emotional whenever a pony she knows falls in love. Cadance where's Flurry Heart?"

"I-I-In the C-Crystal Empire with y-your parents~!" She replied, still sobbing.

Arcadia grinned and nodded her head in approval. "Ahhh, okay. How is she?"

"S-She misses her a-aunt!"

"Awwww!" Madun and everyone else was confused. Must've been a closeness thing.

"Alright, it's done," Buff announced. The trio let go of each other and made their way towards the welding table. "Make sure your masks are down, this stuff is hot." After they lowered their masks and everyone was prepared, he pulled out a glowing piece of slab metal with his magic, but held it slightly in the furnace. "Alright. Watch this." He pulled it out all the way and held it for a few seconds. Then it suddenly broke down. It just turned into liquid and went straight through the table, creating a molten puddle on the floor.

Celestia motioned towards the puddle and pulled up her helmet with her magic. "As you can see, whenever the metal comes out of the furnace, it instantly breaks down. No warning and no explanation. Our scientists cannot figure it out. We believe the minerals inside the metal has morphed somehow when exposed to extreme temperatures to cause a chemical change. An unstable chemical change."

Arcadia hummed and looked closely at it. Something was extremely off about the way that metal had melted. It just happened so abruptly. "Put in another piece please," she asked. "A small one. I may have an idea about why your metals are changing like this."

Buff reached into the crate underneath the table and pulled out a small steel coin. Then held it inside the furnace for a few more minutes. While they waited, Arcadia lit her horn and fired a small stream of magic into the air like water, changing a certain space above the table into the color purple. "Okay, here you go," the welder announced. Buff pulled back the coin and held it over the table. While they were staring at that, Arcadia was looking at the glowing mass. Which suddenly flew towards the coin and enveloped it. Then the coin melted with the magic.

"Just as I thought," Arcadia muttered. She took off her helmet and face everyone else. "Your scientists were wrong, Princesses." The Equestrians shared a glance while she continued. "It's not the metal. It's what's around it. Do you know how rusting works?"

"When metal begins to oxidize due to moisture that sits on it too long. It takes years," Cadance answered. "I remember you talking about that when you were a filly. She's grown up so fast." Cadance began to tear up again before Celestia wrapped a wing around her shoulders.

"Er...y-yeah," Arcadia confirmed. "Well your metal is going through a similar process. But it's been boosted. Look here." She pointed to the first mass of metal on the ground that they attempted to weld first. The group trotted forward and looked down at it. "This metal was falling apart by pieces. It wasn't melting, it was rusting. I used a spell that I first learned alongside the teleport spell—"

Cadance sniffed and cried, "When you were a filly~!!"

"Yes, Cadance. When you used to foalsit me. I used that spell to highlight the air molecules around us. When that metal came out of the furnace, it zipped right over to the coin and rusted it. Something in your air is activated through heat. Then rushes towards the heated up metals and completely destroys it. No warning."

"So it's the air," Luna asked. They all looked around and sort of wafted their hooves through the atmosphere.

"Yes. Not the metals. The metals are fine, so far as I can tell. It's the air around them. I"m not sure what would happen if a fire started in here." She fired her magic at the currently burning furnace to light it up completely. "See? The furnace is even undergoing a change. However, because it's so thick, it's not doing anything. Not to mention the molecules inside are already burning and it can't escape, because...well, it's a furnace."

"So what can we do?" Sunset asked desperately. "It's the air."

"You might need to recycle and burn it," she recommended. "As well as research to make sure it never happens again. Try to find the cause of this and wipe it out. Of course it will take some time to figure it out, but in the meantime we want to be able to detect the molecules and find out how to spot them in the air. Not to mention get rid of them and bring in some new air. I have a feeling that if we don't it will be worse than right now."

Celestia nodded in agreement. "At least now we have an explanation for this nonsense. Thank you so much Arcadia for figuring it out...in a matter of a few seconds," she added with a smirk.

"You're welcome. Now we have to discuss relations with Equestria. Madun will be taking over."

The Equestrians turned to King Madun, who was making his way to Celestia. "We want to do a trade," he explained. "We have way more than enough metal for your ponies."

"What do you need?" Celestia quickly asked.

"Gems." Celestia stared at him blandly for a few seconds before she snorted and laughed into her hoof, taking the Pserateps by surprise.

"I'm sorry, it's just....I was expecting something a lot more....I don't know, hard to get. Equestria is riddled with gems. We practically walk outside our doorsteps, go to the front yard and can grab at least five gems in the process. But the rare ones are hard to find. What types of gems are you looking for?"

"Any that hold high value," he clarified. "Psera does not have a lot of diamonds, which could be very useful in our industrial industry. Not to mention the fashion industry. Along with Red Beryl."

"The pony you are looking for to find gems like those would be Rarity, whose special talent is locating gems for her fashion design."

"Oh, I met Rarity," he recalled with enthusiasm. "She's nice." Arcadia quickly trotted over and whispered in his ear. He jumped a little but nodded his head upon recognition or his fiancee's words. "Ah...that was the other one I met."

Arcadia nodded and pulled back. "Okay. We'll talk to Rarity and have her search for the gems."

"Excellent. Can I speak to your Fiancee while you are out searching?"

"Only if she agrees." They looked up at Arcadia who was fixing her dress. "Arcadia, would you like to speak to Celestia?"

"Of course," she responded without looking up from her dress. "I'll have Gardeen with me and a few guards. You take the congress ponies, as well as some guards, and gather those gems that Psera's desperate for." Madun nodded and made his way towards the door with most of the guards, the congress, and some Equestrian guards. Leaving Arcadia alone with the princesses, her brother, and a few of their guards. As well as Gardeen and Sunset. They all stared at each other for a moment before The Equestrian Princesses burst out into tears and pulled Arcadia into a bone crushing hug. Arcadia's guards and Gardeen nearly had a conniption.

"You're so grown up!" They all cried, soaking Arcadia in tears. She groaned and just let them have their fun for a moment, trying to ignore her assistant, as well as her guard's laughter behind her. They were squashing her long wings and pinning them to her sides. After a few minutes, Cadance pulled back and wiped away her tears then said proudly, "Next thing you know, you're going to be walking down the aisle."

"Yep," Arcadia replied unamused.

"Living it big in the castle."

"Uh huh."

"Managing Psera."

"That's right—"

"And carrying a foal!" They all cried in unison.

"Yep...wait, what?!" Sunset fell on her back, laughing at Arcadia's declaration. She couldn't wait to tell the girls back on Earth.

Luna walked over and placed a wing over Arcadia's back, trying to calm her down. "Don't worry. I'm sure Madun will be gentle." Gardeen blushed while the guards snickered. "He doesn't have to rut you too hard—"

"And the end of that conversation is now," Arcadia interrupted. "Luna, we're too young to be having a foal. Besides...I'm saving myself for...the honeymoon."

"Awwwww!" Everyone fawned. Arcadia blushed and hid behind her giant wing while Cadance walked over.

"I have to help you with that," she declared quickly. She put down her hoof and smiled determinedly at Arcadia. "And your anger towards me is definitely not going to stop me."

Arcadia gasped and lowered her wing, glaring at Cadance. "Cadance—"

"Shut up, you're taking this one, Twilight. I'm going to teach you how to woo a stallion...the Princess Way." The Pserateps and Alicorn-Pseratep nearly fell off their hooves. "I hope you got a checklist because you are going to be taking so many notes on a Stallion's Physiology, Anatomy, and..." She leaned in and whispered, "Their pleasure points."

"Oh my Faust, Gardeen! Help me!"

Cadance chuckled and nodded towards the assistant. And said, "She's going to have to write this down. Are you ready?" Sunset was biting her lip so hard, trying not to make a sound. Or to bust out laughing again.

"Er...." Gardeen looked towards Arcadia, who was hiding behind her wing. No instructions going on there. She figured she'll just take these just in case. Arcadia was prone to academics and knowledge, so she might want to learn about a stallion's "Pleasure Points". Gardeen pulled out her notepad and prepared to take some notes. Finding her ready, Cadance cleared her throat.

"Number one. Get straight to the business. A stallion loves foreplay, but nothing is better than getting it on. When I did it with your brother, he was gone for days." Arcadia had her mouth wide open in shock. Madun just couldn't grab those gems fast enough.