Mecha was walking back to his shop after having a quick lunch, when he saw Spike running through town. Curious, Mecha stopped to ask what was wrong, only for Spike to keep running past him, screaming, “Woods, Rarity, Diamond Dogs!”
At the last word, Mecha's eyes went wide, flashing back to his last and only mission as a scout. Seeing the gates of Hell, the first battle, everything. He recalled his friends, and their fallen forms on the battle field. Visions of the demon that cut off his leg floated in his vision, as he shuddered violently. The cold glazed look in Harbuu's eyes, as she laid before him, having taken a lethal strike in his stead. All because the disappearances were thought to have been from Diamond Dogs in the area. As a memory of his comrades violently convulsing on the ground went through his sight, he collapsed, blacking out.
LINEBREAKER
Opening his eyes, Mecha noticed that he was once more in his bed at the hospital. Standing near his bed was Snips, Snails, his aunt, and Cheerilee. “What happened?” he asked, sitting up.
“Snips and Snails found you passed out in the middle of the street when they got worried when you didn't show up after a half-hour after you normally do,” Cheerilee told him. “They found me shortly afterwords, and we took you straight here.”
“You've been out of it for almost three hours,” his aunt told him.
Groaning, Mecha recalled having lunch, walking through town, and Spike running, mentioning...
Seeing Mecha start to shake, Cheerilee grabbed him, and said, “Mecha! Calm down!”
Taking in several deep breathes, Mecha slowly stopped shaking, saying, “Thanks for that.”
Nodding her head, Cheerilee handed him a glass of water, asking, “Are you going to be okay?”
Taking a long drink from the glass, Mecha put it down while sighing, saying, “I should be. It's just... When I heard screaming about Diamond Dogs earlier,” he quivered a bit, the flash of memories less violent this time, “I was overcome with visions of my last mission.”
Eyes going wide, Mayor Mare asked her nephew, “Do you want me to get you a professional?”
Knowing that she was talking about a therapist, Mecha replied, “No, no need to go that far. As is, I think it's just the fact that I haven't thought about it much that caused such a violent reaction.”
Snips and Snails looked deeply concerned for their boss, but weren't sure what to do. Glancing at each other, they both brightened up as an idea struck them. Turning to Mecha, Snips said, “We'll be right back boss!” before quickly running out of the room.
Chuckling at their behavior, Mecha said, “Gotta hand it to those two, they know how to cheer a guy up.”
Smiling at her students, Cheerilee added, “That they do. I don't even think they realize it.”
Shaking her head at the young colts' actions, Mayor Mare told the two, “I should go ahead and let your parents know you're okay. They've been worried sick!” as she walked towards the door.
Blinking, Mecha said, “My parents are here?”
Nodding her head, Mayor Mare replied, “Yeah, Big Mac and Whisked Mix arrived at my house about an hour ago, right when the message that you were in the hospital arrived. I'll go ahead and send them in, okay?”
Giving a general grunt of consent, Mecha settled back into his bed, relaxing. After a minute or two of silence, the door to his room opened and two ponies walked in. The first was a large dark blue stallion pegasus, with blue eyes, a green and red mane, and a target for a Cutie Mark. The other pony was a dark purple unicorn with dark green mane, brown eyes, and a whisk in a bowl for her Cutie Mark.
“Hey mom, hey dad,” Mecha said, giving them a wave.
“Hey there Mecha,” said the stallion, most likely Big Mac if Cheerilee had to guess.
“Are you okay?” inquired the mare, Whisked Mix if Cheerilee recalled what Mayor Mare said.
“I'm fine,” Mecha said. “Just a little shaken up from flashbacks.”
Nodding his head, Big Mac said, “I warned you about the possibilities of that before you joined the military. In fact, I believe it was a three hour conversation about them.”
“Yes, you did,” Mecha agreed, before continuing with, “Although you left out the part about entering Hell.”
Raising her eyebrow, Whisked Mix said, “No, I heard him mention that combat life was hell multiple times.”
Chuckling to himself, Mecha said, “No, I mean literally entering Hell. Didn't you get the debrief?”
Eyes going wide, Big Mac said, “You mean they were serious about that?”
Nodding his head, Mecha told him, “Yeah, they were. Anyways, enough about that. Guys, I'd like you to meet my date for the Grand Galloping Gala, Cheerilee. Cheerilee, these are my parents.”
“Nice to meetcha!” Big Mac said, turning to shake her hoof.
“Likewise,” Cheerilee replied, smiling politely.
At this point, Whisked Mix, who'd been eying Cheerilee asked, “What do you do for a living?”
Caught off guard that that was her first question, Cheerilee said, “I teach all the fillies and colts at the school here.”
Nodding her head, Whisked Mix walked up to her to shake her hoof, and said, “Then if my son screws up the date like he normally does, I won't have to worry about him being blasted to Manehatten again, or having his bed explode from under him!”
Blinking, Cheerilee heard Mecha groan, as his said, “Of course you would mention those two! It's not my fault Nova's friend decided that explosives would be the best way to avenge her after I got between her and the stallion she was fighting! And, Vinyl Scratch didn't know her bass cannon went that far, she only meant to knock me out of the city!”
Cheerilee was caught off guard by what she heard, and asked the first thing that came to mind, “What city where you in at the time?”
Startled at the question, Mecha replied, “Canterlot.”
Cheerilee did some quick calculations, before her eyes widened and said, “She shot you over 300 miles with a bass cannon!”
Nodding his head, Mecha said, “314 miles to be exact. Needless to say, that was one trip I won't be repeating.”
Looking between the two, Big Mac asked, “So how'd this lug ask you out? Knowing him, it probably involved either a giant billboard, a megaphone, or him doing a mock attempt to ask you out with you standing behind him.”
Thinking back to the night, Cheerilee laughed, while saying, “None of the above. He got drunk during poker night, and asked me out then. Although, apparently he'd tried to use the billboard and megaphone options before in order to try and avoid the poker night tradition.”
Quirking his eyebrow, Big Mac turned to Mecha and asked, “You started poker night here? And made it a tradition to get drunk and ask out mares?”
Nodding his head, Mecha responded with, “The second part came about by accident. First time we did poker night, I helped Doctor Whooves get over his nerves to ask out his crush.”
Interrupting, Whisked Mix asked, “Doctor Whooves? The little brown Earth Pony with the fascination with time?”
Nodding his head, Mecha continued, “After he got a yes, the next night was supposed to be just poker, but it ended early when Solaris won all the bits.”
Big Mac's eyes widened at this, saying, “That is not a good omen.”
Chuckling, Mecha told his dad, “That it was. Turns out that Big Macintosh, and yes mom, the same one that I went to the fairs with, had been considering asking out a friend of his sister's for a while, and decided to emulate Doc. Finally, on our third poker night, I asked Cheerilee out. My concern is what happens after Solaris and Shining Armor have their nights, as we'd have run out of single stallions at that time.”
Rubbing his chin, Big Mac told his son, “Don't worry about it. I had something similar when I started poker night with your two uncles and my two friends. Basically, each time we had poker night, one of us would randomly get the urge to do something along the lines of cliff jumping. After all five of us had done so, and each broken something in the process, we stopped. I think it's just a side effect of poker night. Although, now I'm looking forward to see if you go through the other traditions we had during poker night.”
Paling at the thought, Whisked Mix said, “Oh no, he is not doing target practice!”
Confused at the looks that were given at the last statement, Cheerilee asked, “What is the target practice tradition?”
Shuddering, Mecha said, “Something horrible, and that's all I'm saying about it.”
LINEBREAKER
Mecha was in market square, looking at the various stalls. He'd been released earlier that, and his parents had already left to go home. Inspecting a bushel of asparagus, he heard a lot of gasping, causing him to turn to see what the commotion was about. His jaw dropped as he saw Rarity and her friends walk in, each with a cart absolutely filled with gems being pulled behind them. Staring, Mecha could only think one thing as he watched them go by: 'I've got to step up my game!'
LINEBREAKER
“Why'd you need me again?” Spike asked, as he and Mecha walked towards a mountain near Ponyville.
“So I could use your nose to locate raw ore,” Mecha said, pulling a large cart filled with a pickaxe, hammer, and minor explosives.
“And you think I can smell metals why...?” Spike replied.
“Cause you're a dragon,” Mecha told Spike. Stopping at the base of the mountain, Mecha pulled out a scrap of metal from the saddlebags he was wearing, and handed it to Spike. “That,” he started, “is an alloy of gold, silver, copper, and iron. Should you smell anything from this mountain that smells similar to that scrap, point it out please.”
Sighing, Spike said, “I still don't think this is going to work,” before taking a long whiff of the alloy that Mecha had handed to him. Suddenly, his eyes went wide, and he said, “I stand corrected. There's several scents that smell similar to this.”
Grinning, Mecha unhitched the cart before grabbing his gear. “Point to the spot,” he told Spike, quickly digging into the part of the mountain that Spike had pointed at, to reveal a nice sized deposit of iron ore. After around five minutes, Mecha threw the haul into the cart, saying, “Next spot please.”
LINEBREAKER
Okay, maybe Mecha shouldn't have gathered up so much ore. But Rarity had come through town with her carts of gems, and he couldn't just be up-showed like that! Granted, he'd gone overboard when he filled a cart over ten feet high with ore, but still.
Sighing, he fired up the smelter, and threw the gold ore in first. Gold always was easier for him to smelt, just throw it in and wait. Sitting down, Mecha watched as it slowly heated up, separating into different materials in the specially designed smelter, when Twilight Sparkle walked in. “Hey there,” he said, throwing in more gold ore.
“Hey Mecha. I heard you collapsed earlier, so I came by to see how you were doing. Although, now I'm curious as to why you have so much raw ore here,” Twilight said.
Pitching the last of the gold ore into the smelter, Mecha replied, “I'm fine. As for the ore, I felt like I needed to try and up-show Rarity's display with the gems. I know she uses them in a lot of her dresses, but did she really need to show off her supply like that!”
Caught off guard by Mecha's statement, Twilight asked, “You know that almost every last one of those gems were used on one order right?”
Blinking, Mecha took a moment to process that, before face-hoofing. “That,” he started, “Explains a lot. However, that doesn't help me, as I now have a lot of extra material.”
Glancing at the pile of ore, Twilight Sparkle inquired, “Did you think of just selling it as scrap?”
Sighing, Mecha pulled out the molten gold, before replacing the container it was in, and started to shovel the copper ore into the smelter. After a few shovel fulls, he stopped, and said, “I can't. I happen to be the only buyer in this town, and I don't plan to send out order forms to sell excess materials if I'm only going to do it once.”
Thinking for a minutes, Twilight said, “Why don't you do a live demonstration with Snips and Snails then? After all, Ponyville loved it when those two did it for the talent show.”
Shoveling some more copper into the smelter, Mecha thought it over. A live demonstration wouldn't be that bad an idea actually. Could possibly drum up more business as well if he did it right. “That,” he finally said, “may just work. I might even make it into a regular event if things go well enough.”
Smiling, Twilight Sparkle said, “That's the spirit!”
Nodding his head, Mecha shoveled more ore into the smelter, planning the event while Twilight Sparkle walked away.
LINEBREAKER
Mecha took a deep breath, before releasing it. Looking at the gathered crowd, he asked, “You two ready?”
Nodding their heads, Snips spoke up saying, “Aye aye boss!”
“Yeah,” Snails added, “this is nothing compared to the talent show!”
Smirking at their response, Mecha grabbed a hammer, saying, “Let's get started then.” Looking over the crowd, his smirk deepened, before hollering, “Ladies and gentlecolts, are you ready!?”
With their roar of excitement, Mecha signaled to his apprentices to start their jobs. Snips started by levitating a couple of iron bars in front of Snails, who heated them up when Snips dropped them so that he could concentrate on the hammer next to him. When Snails brought them up to the right temperature, Snips and Mecha started hammering them into shape, being quick and precise. The crowd watch in awe as the trio worked the metal into a helmet shape, not nearly as fast as when Snips and Snails did their demonstration, but certainly much better looking. Nearing completion, Snips surprised the crowd when he levitated a copper bar onto the anvil, and started to work on that while Mecha finished with the hammer. After two minutes though, it was revealed that Snips had turned the copper bar into a flat griffin, which he moved to the top of the helmet, where it was quickly worked in.
Having finished the helmet, Mecha used his mechanical leg to pick it up and drop it into the barrel of water, before turning back to the anvil to start on the next piece. After four hours of doing this, the trio had completed an iron breastplate with a silver unicorn on the front, a golden sword with iron vines decorating it, and the grand show piece, a shield with the royal sister's coat of arms engraved into it. Wiping the sweat from his brow, Mecha looked at the amazed crowd, and smiled. After making sure that Snips and Snails would be able to keep their magic up for this next part, he turned to the crowd and asked, “Do you guys have any requests?”
The crowd went silent, as they considered this. Many of them were impressed with what the trio had accomplished, and none wanted to waste their talent on something trivial like a pair of pliers or something like that. Suddenly, a voice rang out from the crowd, coming from a hooded pony, saying, “How about a statue of the royal sisters to go with the shield?”
Grinning at the request, Mecha turned to the remaining material, and did some quick mental math. Turning back to the figure, he asked, “Any pose in particular?”
Thinking for a moment, the figure replied, “Standing side by side.”
Nodding his head, Mecha turned towards Snips and Snails, and said, “Let's get to work!” before bringing his hammer down on the gold bar that the two had already prepped. Moving faster than before, but no less precise, the trio swiftly began pounding out silver and gold sheets, forming them into the general shapes of Celestia and Luna. After forty minutes, they finished the general work, and started the precision work. The crowd oh'ed and aw'ed as they used small hammers to pound out the detail work, especially when Mecha pulled out a chisel to get the extremely fine details that most metal workers skipped due to the time it took to do. While he was doing that, Snails started to assemble the statues, starting with the silver statue of Luna.
After another hour of mostly detail work, the trio was finished, standing next to a near life like replica of Celestia and Luna, with Celestia's statue being made out of gold that reflected the sun so much that some swore it was made from the sun instead of metal, while Luna's statue was a silver so pure that it appeared to look like the moon that she ruled over. Turning the the hooded pony, Mecha asked, “Is that good enough for the palace?”
Smiling, the pony merely nodded his head, before saying, “I believe so. In fact, this almost puts your other works to shame if I do say so myself. Will 30,000 bits suffice for such a marvelous sculpture?”
Nodding his head, Mecha replied, “That sounds good to me. Send it to me when you get back to Canterlot, as two bags of 4500 and one bag of 2100.”
The crowd was in shock at the conversation the two were holding, as it wasn't everyday that you saw a masterpiece made in front of you, let alone one that sold for that much to be brought to the palace.
Thinking for a moment, the hooded pony said, “That can be arranged. I'll arrange for this piece to be brought to Canterlot then. By the way, did you know that you've gained your own wing in the gallery?”
Blinking, Mecha said, “No, I did not.”