The sun had already gone over the horizon and Luna's moon was now looking down at them from the sky as Twilight along with Particle Bit made their way to the warehouse District. By now most ponies were in their homes and the streets clear with a couple of exceptions, notably a young, grey feathered, female, Griffin.
“Hello Gabriella, glad to see you're on time,” Twilight greeted as she approached the griffin who jumped around in surprise.
“Miss Berry!” the griffin said, excitement gleaming in her eyes. “Is this the friend you were talking about?”
“And colleague, yes,” Twilight nodded, Particle Bit stepped forward and held out his hoof to the griffin.
“Professor White, glad to meet you, Miss Gabriella,” the professor politely said, getting a squee from the young griffin.
“I’ve never worked with a professor before! Call me Gabby by the way, that’s what my friends call me!” she jumped around in excitement but stopped as a new thought entered her mind. “What are we actually going to do? You needed help with a machine but didn’t tell me what kind...”
Twilight smiled as she lit up her horn. “You’ll see soon enough!” The light engulfed the three creatures in a bright flash, pulling them out of reality only to throw them out into a different position a fraction of a second later. Gabby stumbled, her stomach churning as it wasn’t used to teleportation, unlike the two unicorns. “That’s the machine we need your help with.”
The large relay stood proudly in the center of the hangar, surrounded by the many machines that Twilight had developed along with the griffins in her time researching at the Everfree site. The griffin stumbled forward as she looked at all of the machines but most predominantly the large, alien-looking device in the center. “T-This is… AMAZING! Did you build this?! How does it work?!”
Twilight chuckled as the young griffin went off in excitement prodding and studying the various machines. “Professor, you go hook up the separator to the device. I checked and it has been disconnected.”
The professor gave a quick nod and ran off to connect the various hoses to their appropriate slots while Twilight went to collect Gabby who had taken an interest in the relay itself. “Like it, Gabby?”
“It’s amazing! Did you build this? It’s soooo smooth and shiny!” Gabby squealed as she turned to the smiling purple unicorn.
“That it is, shall I show you the machine I needed your help with?” Gabby’s eyes lit up and she nodded greedily as Twilight pointed her towards a large piece of griffin engineering. The professor was also moving about the machine and checking parts, he gave the pair a smile as they walked up to the controls.
“She’s good to go, Tw-Berry!” he stumbled. “I’ll start re-calibrating the device to account for its change in position.”
“Good, if we’re lucky we can get this thing running within half an hour,” Twilight grinned, the professor making a beeline towards the main control console.
“Miss Berry, why is he in such a hurry?” Gabby asked as the stallion galloped away, Twilight suppressed a grimace.
“He’s just excited, don’t worry about it,” the unicorn answered and quickly pulled a handle on the particle separator to make it buzz to life. As hoped, this drew the griffin’s attention wholesale, drawing it away from problematic questions. “This is the machine we need you to operate.”
“Oohhh, what does it do?” Gabby checked all of the gauges but refrained from pulling any handles or pushing buttons.
“It takes water and makes fuel out of it,” Twilight casually said, making the griffin’s beak drop open in awe. “What I need you to do is keep the machine in balance, see those gauges?” Gabby nodded. “You can increase and decrease the pressure in the various systems with these knobs to keep them well and balanced and when the reservoir is filled you hit that button here to send it into our machine and power it.”
Gabby let all of this sink in as she gently turned the knobs to get a feel for them. “So why doesn’t the professor operate this machine?”
Twilight chuckled darkly. “Last time we tried that, the fuel got lit by our magic somehow. Wasn’t a pretty sight after the entire machine had blown sky-high, that’s why we get a griffin to control it.” Gabby paled slightly and nodded in understanding.
“So no second chances. Got it.” She mumbled. “I can do this, turn it on!”
“That’s the spirit!” Twilight laughed as she pulled a couple of handles and the machine began humming. “Good luck, I need to check up on some other machines to check if they’re running well.”
“Uhm, Miss Berry? You still haven’t told me what we’re doing exactly,” Gabby asked while keeping an eye on the gauges.
Twilight cursed, she knew she’d have to tell her something at some point. “Well, it’s much more spectacular when you see the result in a couple of minutes.” It wasn’t exactly a lie but it would stop any further questions for the moment.
The device rumbled for a moment as it rotated on its platform and angled itself slightly. The professor let out a cheer of excitement while Twilight nervously looked around the hangar to see if they’d roused any attention from the guards that were patrolling outside. “Device is good to go, Twilight.” Particle told the other unicorn as they listened to the particle separator humming in the background.
“Good. Now for the hard part.” Twilight lit her horn again and teleported up to the metal construction that held up the roof, grabbing a hold of the roof panels right in the way of the path of the device and wrapping a magic field around them.
The metal whined for a bit but then screeched as it ripped at the edges and was flung off of the building, revealing the clear night sky outside through the massive new hole. Twilight winced as the torn roof slammed onto the ground outside. This was definitely the point of no return, they’d have minutes at most before the guard would show up.
“Miss Berry, what are you doing?!” Gabby shouted up, astonished at the sudden but violent move from the purple unicorn.
“Is the tank full Gabby?!” Twilight asked as she teleported down and ran up to the separator.
“Y-yes, b-but!...” Twilight slammed a hoof onto the button that allowed the created gas to flow into the device. A mighty buzzing came from the thing as the rings in its center started turning and a bright blue light formed in the center of them as material was let into it.
"TWILIGHT SPARKLE!" A thundering voice came from the entrance of the hangar at the same time as a wave of magic flew through the building nullifying any and all spellcasting other than that of the caster. Gabby dove behind a couple of crates to shield herself as the princess of the night walked into the building. Twilight herself growled as she didn’t waste a nanosecond rushing towards the humming device. "Stop this madness!" The princess teleported herself in between the rogue unicorn and the device that was gently humming and awaiting a pony to enter its sphere of influence.
Twilight skidded to a halt in front of the princess as Guards started entering as well. “Get out of my way princess, I’m not letting Dash alone out there like I did with Fluttershy.”
“Thou knoweth of what will happen if we let t-you go, Twilight.” Luna didn’t look angry as she interposed herself between her sister’s student and the device, she looked scared.
“Do you really? We know the...” Twilight winced as the magic placed upon her prevented her from speaking further. “If it fails that the projection of it fails. But what are we hiding from in the first place!” Luna wanted to speak up but her words got stuck in her throat as she tried finding an answer, eventually stopping as she couldn’t think of one.
“I do not know,” She settled with. “I only know what Celestia has told me...”
This made Twilight pause as that didn’t make sense. “But… you were there with her, right?”
“That may be but after what you and your companions did with the Elements… I remember so little Twilight Sparkle. It’s as if I am a child again but simultaneously drowning in the knowledge of a past life.” Twilight’s eyes widened in shock of this revelation but couldn’t inquire further as the relay started spinning up.
“Uhm, miss Ber- Sparkle! What’s this thing doing?!” every Eye in the room fell on the struggling griffin that was being lifted into the air by means of the charging device. Particle Bit took this as his chance to sprint past the princess and into the influence of the device as well. Luna turned back to look at Twilight, expecting her to do much the same...
1. [Regardless of what the elements did, you owe me… you owe them.]
2. [Tackle Gabby out of the device’s range, she shouldn’t be caught up in this even if it costs me the trip]
3. [Tackle the princess out of the way, that machine isn’t going to wait.]