//------------------------------// // VII: Put to the Test // Story: Tinkermane // by Razorbeam //------------------------------// Gearrick's brain wasn't working very hard, still doing its best to catch up with the situation as Myla's lips finally parted from his, the beautiful young mare pulling back even less than an inch and smiling smugly as if waiting for his reply. All of the shallowness of his male being knew that she was beautiful, and wanted that. But everything that made him a gentlecolt rebelled against it. He didn't know her name, he didn't feel anything for this mare, and he didn't understand any of what was going on. There was everything with Twilight now, he recalled, finally beginning to think instead of just react. No matter how pretty this mare was, he had his budding relationship with Twilight. Infinitely deeper, with more possibility than a night of passion. It never even crossed his mind that she would be returning soon, only that the mare sitting atop him and brushing her lips against his to coax a kiss out of him wasn't what he wanted. She wasn't there to wreck the Nomad... only to destroy something that was just as important to him. Myla stopped her teasing act with a look of surprise as a hoof pressed firmly into her chest, pushing her back. Her fur stood on end suddenly as she looked down into Gearrick's face. It was a mask of carefully contained anger, his scowl and the subtle twitch at the corner of his nose showing just how deep that displeasure ran, a barely controlled desire to bare his teeth at her. The realization of what this situation really was had kindled his normally carefree spirit into a passionate fire, and not the kind Myla had been hoping for, he knew. "Get off of me," he said sternly, his tone holding no bite other than a sense of foreboding that sent a visible shiver up Myla's spine. That coldness was the obvious calm before a storm, a storm she was about to call down if she wasn't compliant. Gearrick would never hit a mare, but he wasn't above throwing her out. Myla practically tumbled off the couch in her haste, her face showing confusion and worry. She backed away from him to the far end of the couch, not looking at him as he got up, the fierce look in his eyes, the anger, clearly not having abated in the slightest despite her obedience. "Get out of my house," he commanded coldly, glaring at her. He was not in the mood for a debate. She looked back at him finally, tears in her eyes as if he had slapped her. But it did nothing to him, not a twinge in his heart. His anger was too justified and ran too deep to feel remorse for the tears of this mare. "But... I..." she replied weakly, sniffling through the words. "Get. Out," Gearrick dictated, his tone now taking on a bite of clear anger, no longer cold and empty. "No!" Myla shouted suddenly, tears flecking away from her eyes as she shook her head. "You need me!" Her own face now seemed caught between the sorrow she had been clearly showing only moments before, and anger. "I don't even know you," Gearrick growled back. She took another step back, her face shocked. It took her a few moments to recover, her heavy breathing turning to tears again. "You... you don't recognize me?" she asked quietly. "I've never seen you in my life," Gearrick said with a glare. "And I never want to again." "But you have to remember me!" she shouted, walking closer and pointing a hoof in his face, her own twitching with combat between anger and her tears. "I always remembered you! I loved you from the first time I ever laid eyes on you, and even after all of that happened to me and Phyla, I only loved you more!" she screamed, getting right up in his face, clearly more angry than sad now. Gearrick didn't react, his own conviction and anger too strong to so much as blink. "I don't know you." "I don't care!" she fumed, pushing him roughly, though she was badly off balance and had almost no chance of moving him. In the end she was the one who stumbled for it, Gearrick having only taken a half-step back for all her fuss. "I don't care... You still need me. The guild... I can... We could..." she sobbed, laying where she had stumbled to, and not looking at him. "I'm not afraid of the guild," Gearrick said fiercely. "I'm not afraid of your sister. I don't care about winning this contest if it means letting you walk in here and ruin the first great thing in my life since I got to this damned city!" he shouted, raising his voice at last, tired of being shouted at. "I don't need you to protect me from them. If anything I need to protect myself from you!" he growled. She was still crying on the floor, all the harder as he yelled at her. "I know..." she sniffed, doing her best to stem her tears to talk. "I know you don't need me... You've always been clever, you always come out on top. It's what I love about you most. It's me. I'm the one who needs you to need me. You could take your whole life on without anypony's help, but every little girl has a dream of going through hers with a stallion like you," she finished quietly, almost too quietly for him to hear. Gearrick didn't know what to make of that. Her words ached a little even through the armor of his anger, which confused him. The confusion quickly abated though as he realized she had played him like a fool to get him into this situation in the first place, and he wasn't going to let her do it again. "If you won't leave, then I'll make you," he said coldly, his outburst from a moment ago now spent, the anger contained once more. "I'm done asking nicely. Leave my workshop." Myla rose slowly, her face hidden from a waterfall of hair. "No," she said coldly, her sadness replaced with anger once again. "I'm not leaving. Not until you remember who I am," she growled. Gearrick opened his mouth to reply, but another voice cut him off, one that set his fur standing on end and froze him in place. "He told you to leave," came an annoyed, female voice. Myla turned to look at the entrance to the bedroom, and Gearrick watched as she promptly vanished in a flash of purple light, violet sparks still lingering in the air after the glare had settled. Dreading what he was about to see, he turned to the entrance of his bedroom. Standing in the doorway was Twilight, and though the coat under her eyes was clearly wet from tears, they had stopped some time ago. The magic around her horn was fading, as was the scowl she had fixed on Myla as she sighed and looked his way. She closed her eyes and collected herself for a moment before locking her gaze with his, and though she didn't look happy, she didn't look angry. "We need to talk" was all she said as she shut the bedroom door behind her. Myla gasped as she resurfaced, paddling frantically in the unexpected depths of the Manehattan river. The shallows near the breaker wall were only a short ways away, but the icy chill of the river's flow and the suddenness with which she had been thrown into it left her shivering as she did her best to swim in. At last she climbed into the shallower water, spotting a dock further up the bank where she would be able to return to the streets above. But that sensible sentiment was the furthest thing from her mind as she recalled the fierceness of Gearrick's shouting, the rage with which he had reacted to her advances. How could he? She was beautiful, she was his. All for him. He didn't have to do anything, he could have been safe from the guild and had her in all her beauty, and she could have had him, the stallion of her dreams. It was so simple! There didn't even have to be an attachment, so why had he rejected her? It was all she had ever wanted, ever since she could remember. Even before all of the mess with Discord, before the terrible fate she and Phyla now shared. Not even Phyla had known about Gearrick, it had been a secret; her secret. His words, the most hurtful anyone had ever said to her, rattled the shards of her shattered glass heart. "I don't know you." "How is it that I've thought of him over and over since I was just a girl, and he doesn't even know who I am?" she sobbed, her legs trembling and nearly giving out from the combination of nerves and the cold. "What did I do to deserve this? Is everything I love in my life just a waste of time?" she cried, any semblance of control gone as she kicked and pounded at the water in her fury, splash after splash raining back down around her shaking and panting form. Another set of angry eyes, the eyes of that mare in the doorway, the mare who had magicked her away into the river, lingered in her memory. That furious female, ordering her out of Gearrick's home. She was the reason he had turned her away, the reason he didn't want her like he should. He had some other mare giving herself up to him, that had to be it! She had gotten to him first, that little snake, and stolen his heart. A heart she had waited ten long years to come searching for, a heart she had tricked her sister and betrayed the guild for. Myla continued to shiver on the bank as the wind whipping across the river only made her all the colder, as cold as her confused and broken heart. The tears streaming from her eyes blended with the waters of the Manehattan river that dripped from her coat and down to her hooves that still wallowed in the waves. "How dare you..." she sniffled quietly, the image of that purple mare burning in her mind like the fires of hell. She clenched her jaw tightly as her throat constricted, shutting off her next words until a shout of rage and sorrow finally broke free into the night. "You bitch!" Gearrick shuffled uncomfortably in front of her as she shut the door, and she added compassion to her list of confused emotions as he refused to look at her and took a step back. She could tell he was afraid of her, afraid of what she was going to say, afraid to know how much she had seen. The coat on the back of his neck was still standing on end from when she had first spoken. "Twilight, I'm sorry..." he said quietly, his ears going flat in his worry, only making Twilight's heart ache with pity more, despite the lingering sadness and anger in her heart; neither of which were aimed at Gearrick. She sighed, preparing herself to speak. She was still shaking from having cried, and the overall shock of what had happened, and she needed to calm down. "No you're not," she said at length. "What?" Gearrick asked, finally bringing his eyes back to hers, clearly taken aback by the bluntness of her words, words Twilight now realized she should have phrased more gracefully. But everything in her heart and her head were a jumble, and she didn't even know what she wanted to say, much less how to say it. "I just mean you can't be sorry... there's nothing to be sorry for," she said quietly, shaking her head. "I didn't mean it the way it sounded." "How much-" Gearrick began, but Twilight cut him off unintentionally, already on her way to what she was trying to say. "I saw the whole thing," she admitted quietly, giving him a sad smile. "All of it." "I didn't..." he began, trailing off, not sure how to defend himself, and not realizing that he didn't need to. As far as Twilight was concerned, he already had. She had watched him yell at that mare, had seen how angry he was. The fury in his eyes then had startled her, surprised her. That other mare had been beautiful, more beautiful than Twilight, and she never would have expected any stallion to turn somepony like that down, not locked in a kiss like that. "I know you didn't," Twilight said with an exasperated sigh. "When I showed up I froze at the door... I came back to a mare in your room, and then all of a sudden she was on top of you, and... I-I couldn't think," she admitted quietly, her throat tightening up at the memory. "All I could think to do was run away, but my legs wouldn't move. I just stood there, and I hated it..." she stopped, closing her eyes and trying to reign herself in before she lost track of her thoughts and said something improperly. "I'm glad I didn't leave. I got to see how you really felt, what was really going on. If I'd run, I never would have known." She let out a shaky laugh, not sincere but a laugh all the same. "I didn't know what was happening. I didn't know what to think." Gearrick let out a heavy sigh, and whether it was one of relief or not, Twilight couldn't tell. "I wish you hadn't seen it," he said, closing his eyes and shaking his head. "I wish it hadn't happened!" He stomped a hoof in frustration, eyes still closed and the muscles in his jaw standing out as he clenched it tight. "That mare ruined everything..." he muttered quietly. Twilight's eyes widened as she realized something that she should have noticed the minute he had said it. "I don't care about winning this contest if it means letting you walk in here and ruin the first great thing in my life since I got to this damned city!" He'd been screaming about the guild, and she'd been in so much shock and so angry that she hadn't noticed it, not the way she now knew he had meant it. "It won't ruin anything," Twilight replied quietly. "And certainly not 'the best thing that's happened to you since you came to this city'." Now it was Gearrick's eyes that widened, a blush coming to his cheeks as he locked eyes with her. "You heard that?" he asked sheepishly, but he didn't look away. "At first I thought you were talking about the Nomad," she admitted, and somewhere deep down her selfish side wanted to hear him say it, to have him validate the conclusion she had come to. Gearrick sighed, realizing it was too late to take back that bold statement. "No... I was talking about you," he replied quietly, still looking at her, but seeming nervous. As if he expected that a statement like that so early into their relationship would only upset her. Twilight's heart fluttered above the lingering cold feeling she had had only a moment before. She knew that when he had said that to the other mare he had meant every word of it. He hadn't just been saying it to get rid of her. Twilight, the best thing that had happened to him in the last two years. "Gearrick... Thank you," she said at length, blushing and walking closer. "I know that that was all as surprising for you as it was for me. I'm not angry... In fact, in a way I'm happy." Gearrick shook his head in disbelief as she walked closer still. "How can you be happy about that? It must have looked terrible-" he said, but she cut him off by wrapping her legs around his neck and hugging him tight. "I'm happy because even though that mare was all over you, and you didn't know I was here, you chose me," she whispered, giving him a gentle squeeze. Though the shock hadn't worn off, and that memory of another mare kissing him would never really fade, neither would the memory of him honestly defending their relationship. "Even though she was prettier than me, you-" Twilight began, about to applaud him for his chivalry again, but he tensed up suddenly. "No, she wasn't," he said sternly, pulling out of the embrace enough for her to catch sight of the serious look on his face. "She may have looked beautiful, but she hasn't been beautiful. Not like you have," Gearrick said firmly. Twilight couldn't help a smile as the smirk she enjoyed so much found its way onto his face again, some mischievous joke making its way through the tension and into his mind. "But if you mean just in terms of looks..." Gearrick said, pausing just long enough to make her wonder if he really was kidding before he continued. "You're still prettier," he chuckled. Twilight reached up between them and bopped him on the nose, scowling at the tactless joke and slow recovery. "Too soon?" He asked, rubbing his snout, and though she couldn't see his mouth behind his hoof she could tell he was still smirking by his eyes. She sighed, unable to keep pretending she was offended instead of flattered. The two of them went back to simply holding one another close as the remaining tension faded between them, leaving behind only whispers of a difference in the embrace they had lately shared. A strange thought came to Twilight, a thought in line with the jealous twinge that mare had set in her heart. "Gearrick?" Twilight asked, blushing but not able to keep the question out of her head. "What is it?" he asked, catching sight of her blush as she pulled away from him, shuffling uncomfortably. "I was wondering," she mused quietly, kneading her front hooves back and forth, "why can't we kiss like that?" She realized as she said it that the reason was obvious, that it was just too soon in their relationship to be that overt. Or it was supposed to be, right? But her female pride and her jealousy wouldn't permit letting some other mare step ahead of her, foolish as it was, and now it was too late to take the question back. Gearrick looked shocked at first, but the way his smirk widened had Twilight blushing deeper in short order. "Well, that kiss wasn't all it's cracked up to be," he chuckled. "But you know, I imagine that with you it would be so much better." "I was just-" she started, but she had no choice but to stop as Gearrick kissed her suddenly, deeply. Her heart ignored a few beats as she melted into the most intimate kiss of her life. Wrong or not, too fast or not, all became irrelevant as she closed her eyes and kissed him back, until at last it ended, some unknown thing between them letting both know that it was time to end that kiss. But that didn't mean there couldn't be another one. "And to think a minute ago I was going to run away," Twilight whispered, lost in a daze of bliss. Gearrick just chuckled warmly, his lips still brushing hers as he spoke. "I'm glad you didn't." Twilight smiled slightly to herself, her eyes opened to slits in the dark as her mind hovered on the fringes of sleep. The bedroom door was open just a crack, the plain, yellowish light beyond blending with the rainbow of lights flowing through the glass clusters and coming in from the river outside. The beams danced around the steady stream from the hallway, a stream broken by the long shadow of a pony's figure. Gearrick had gone back downstairs to finish his check-up on the Nomad, and to ensure that nopony else would come from the guild tonight to try and sabotage his work. Though Twilight had laid down nearly an hour ago, she hadn't been tired at first. He had come to check on her twice in that hour, and both times Twilight had pretended to be asleep. At first she thought he was just checking to see if she were asleep, for he would just poke his head in and look around quickly before closing the door again. She had decided in short order that he was guarding her, not just checking on her. Even with the door closed, the light beneath it was broken by the shadows of his hooves for many minutes before at last he would walk away to watch over the lower floor of the warehouse instead. It was flattering, but deep down she knew it wasn't necessary for him to watch over her. She could take care of herself, had been on adventures and fought battles that he'd probably only ever heard in stories. She knew there was a lot she hadn't told him; about being the Element of Magic, Celestia's student, a close friend to the king of the changelings. Twilight hadn't had to tell him. Even if she did, he wouldn't have seen her any differently. Even if he knew all of that, knew how powerful she was or how easily she could defend herself, he would still be out there keeping watch. Even though she was perfectly fine, it warmed her heart to know he worried so deeply, that he would look out for her, even though he didn't have to. She knew he would be up all night, unable to sleep for fear that somepony would come for the Nomad, or perhaps that the other mare would come back, angry at Twilight. The two of them had talked about it for some time, and Twilight had mentioned that she'd sent the other mare quite a ways up the river... and into it. She could remember the look on his face, his shock at how devious she had been, and it brought a small smile to her lips. She didn't regret it, not really, and they had eventually laughed over it. "He's a good stallion." she whispered, pulling the blankets tighter around herself, and nuzzling into the pillow that smelled so much like him. "A little strange... but good." Myla walked quietly to the chess table in the middle of the room, taking the same black chair she always took, the one that matched her coat. Her sister's blue eyes followed her every step, but Phyla couldn't see her eyes for the way her hair hung limply around her face, obscuring everything. Myla mechanically reached for a pawn, uncharacteristically silent. "You ruined our mission," Phyla said evenly, a statement and not a question. Myla's hoof froze over the piece, but she didn't react beyond that. Simply held stock still, her hair obscuring her face and hiding the emotions Phyla knew to be churning there. "Mick is going to-" Phyla began, but she never got the chance to finish as Myla stood up slowly. In a sudden flurry of action the black pony grabbed the edge of the chess board and tipped it as hard as she could, throwing it to the floor and shattering the glass top to bits, the black and white pieces bouncing away with a clatter. In that commotion, Myla's hair finally flew far enough out of the way for Phyla to see the tears staining her black coat, the puffiness of her violet eyes, and the twitch in her lips that was a battle-zone of anger and anguish. "I don't care!" Myla roared. "I don't care about what Mick wants! I don't care about the mission! I don't care about what you want!" she screamed, stomping the table back into pieces even as it tried to rebuild itself before her very eyes. "For once, just once, why can't it matter to anypony what I want?" she asked futilely, giving up on the table as it pulled itself together and righted itself, the pieces all floating back to their respective places. "Myla... Myla, please calm down," came Phyla's voice, just a hint of compassion in it. "Calm down?" Myla asked with a deprecating laugh. "I can't calm down... I waited ten years for this! I played this stupid game with you for five of them, just waiting for my chance to get what I wanted, because I knew you'd never let me have it! If I had ever told you what I wanted, you would have done everything you could to stop me..." she sniffled, sitting back down in her chair. "What are you talking about, Myla? I've always cared about what you want," Phyla said quietly, leaving her chair and walking over to her sister's side. "Why would I have stopped you?" "You wouldn't understand," Myla huffed, turning away from Phyla. "You don't know what it's like to be in love with somepony. That's why I never told you." "Told me what?" Phyla asked, placing a hoof on Myla's shoulder. Myla looked at her sister in surprise, fascinated to feel the hoof on her shoulder and see the compassion in those eyes, eyes set in a face that couldn't smile or cry or laugh. Phyla wished she could smile, just to show her sister how much she loved her. Even though loving Myla was illogical, even though Myla's very existence made Phyla's life harder, it had been the one thing Discord couldn't take away from her. The illogical love for her sister, a quality that ran too deep for even the magic of chaos to touch. "Tell me," she said quietly. "I want to know what troubles you." Myla took in a shaky breath, clearly unsure if she should. But eventually that same love for her sister won out. "When we were younger, do you remember where we lived?" Myla asked quietly. "Of course. Tackton," Phyla replied evenly. "I remember." "When we were just fillies, I went out one day because you and I had had a fight. I was so angry that I just ran, and ran, until finally I tripped on the dirt road outside of town," she said, wiping the tears off her face. "I cut my knee up pretty badly, and I couldn't get back up because of how badly it hurt. A colt who had been playing on the edge of town saw me bleeding and ran off to get something to help. He came back and washed the dirt out of my cut, and bandaged it up for me. He even carried me home," she said, her words turning into a short laugh, though there were still tears in her eyes, and her gaze looked far away. "I remember that. Father was furious and though that the boy had pushed you," Phyla said, and if she could have smiled she would have. "That colt was Tinkermane," Myla said quietly. "I never told you. I never told anypony who he was. Mother and father never wanted to see him again because they thought he was part of that gang that always picked on us. But he was my hero that day, and even back then I was always the emotional one... I thought of him like a knight in shining armor after that. I never spoke to him again because of father, but I kept thinking of him. I used to watch him out playing, wishing I could go join him, tell him who I was. As we got older, those young thoughts grew weaker. He was two years older than us, and he was attending that steamtech school for gifted ponies, so I rarely got to see him. But I never stopped thinking about him. When he got injured fixing that train, I spent whole days outside the hospital, just waiting to make sure he was alright. Everyone was saying such terrible things about him, about how stupid he was. But I thought he was brave," she said with a sigh, the tears having stopped some time ago as she told the story. "But then they sent him away. The school wouldn't have him after that, and he took an apprenticeship in another town. I felt so stupid because I never told him that I liked him, or how I felt about him. Anytime I saw him he was helping someone or doing something foolishly brilliant. It's no surprise that my young heart fell for him. It would all over again if it could," she said with a sigh. Phyla's brain stalled, an event horribly uncommon for her as Myla spoke her next words. "I never forgot him. Deep down I still loved him those years later, when Discord came." What Discord had done to them was a terrible thing, and if Phyla hadn't had her tears stolen from her she would have been crying for Myla. In Phyla's case, all of her ability to show and act on emotion had been stripped away, a curse that she couldn't even hate because of how empty it left her. In her sister's case, it was the other extreme. Her emotions had been amplified, had been made to consume her entire life. Everything she did, every thought, was drowned in anger, or sadness, or joy. If Myla had been in love with Tinkermane when Discord had cursed them, then her love for him all of these years would have been amplified far beyond her control. What once had been a quiet, beautiful young girl's adoration had turned into an obsession. Myla laughed again, but this time she choked on the laugh. "You're the smart one. You know what happens next..." "You went to Tinkermane tonight," Phyla said, unable to feel the ache she knew was supposed to be in her heart. "It was out of control. I couldn't stop myself... I wanted him so badly, I love him so much," she said, her tears streaming down once more. "But he didn't even recognize me. Why should he? I stayed away all those years. But I wanted him to know me, needed him to. I did things I never should have done," she sobbed. "Now he hates me. If this hadn't happened to us, if I could just love him normally, then maybe... Oh Phyla," she sobbed, throwing her legs around her sister's neck and crying into her silver coat. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Phyla sighed, wishing and wishing that she could cry to show her sister she cared. "You mustn't be sorry. Discord is the one to blame for all of this. Discord is the one who has left your love failing you, running wild. Discord is the one who made it impossible for me to cry with my sister." "Phyla," Myla choked, squeezing her tightly. "It's not your fault he turned you away, not your fault you pursued him and couldn't stop yourself. Not your fault that the mission failed. I forgive you," she said quietly, stroking Myla's mane. Myla stroked hers back, rubbing her nose into the crook of Phyla's neck. "Thank you, Phyla, but I can't stop myself. There's another mare... she's the one he loves, and it burns me up inside. I don't know what will happen if I go back out there," she whispered hoarsely, the tears making her throat ache. Phyla sighed, holding Myla close. "Don't worry, sister. I will take care of her." "You'll..." Myla asked in disbelief, tensing up in Phyla's embrace. "I would do anything for you, Myla." Twilight smiled to herself as she came down the stairs, the morning buzz of the city outside and the pale beams of light coming through the wooden slats of the warehouse wall. The sight that greeted her was too predictable not to laugh at. Gearrick was fast asleep in the front seat of the Nomad, the goggles that were usually around his neck hanging from the steering wheel as he snored away, a wrench on the upholstery next to him. "Some guard he turned out to be," she muttered to herself, smile still in place as she trotted over. She didn't want to wake him, since she couldn't even imagine how tired he must have been after all of his late night pacing. But the third stage of the contest was only an hour away at the most, so he would just have to deal with a wakeup call. "Hey, Gearrick," she whispered, giving him a gentle shake after climbing into the front seat with him. He muttered something and rolled over, his horn hooking his goggles and pulling them off the steering wheel where they draped across his face instead. She giggled to herself, picking the goggles off of his face and hanging them around her own neck instead. "Come on, get up, you're going to be late," she said a little more loudly, nudging him again. His eyes blinked open slowly, and he turned his head to focus on her with one of them , the other blinking back shut. "Oh, hey," he yawned, shutting his eyes again and laying his head back down. "Oh no you don't," she grumbled, shaking him again. "You have stage three today." "Five more minutes," he groaned, trying to brush away her hooves as she kept nudging him. "No, not five more minutes," she grumbled. "It's as bad as trying to wake up Spike, just with less fire. If you don't hurry up you're going to be late." "What's the big deal? Stage three is just the design review, and I'm not even scheduled until after lunch," he yawned, sitting up. "Besides, stage three never draws a crowd. There aren't any demonstrations today, at the most it should only take a half an hour for my review." Though he was now sitting up, which Twilight considered a good start, he immediately put his head in his hooves and closed his eyes again. "You're hopeless," she muttered, hopping out of the vehicle and heading for the warehouse door. "I'm going to go pick up breakfast, alright?" she asked, her normally cheery tone returning now that she'd given up on her mock frustration. "Doughnut please," Gearrick called back tiredly, bringing a smile to Twilight's face. "I'll buy you one, but you don't get it if you're asleep when I get back," she said over her shoulder. "Yeah yeah..." he muttered, and she smiled to herself as she heard the sound of his hooves hitting the cement floor and heading for the stairs. Mick Magnet scowled at the briefcase Phyla had set on his desk. "What's this about?" he asked gruffly, puffing on a cigar as usual. "It is a refund," Phyla said bluntly. Mick nearly swallowed that cigar due to his shock, coughing badly until at last he had managed to recover. However, the redness in his face wasn't just from nearly suffocating. "What do you mean a refund?" he growled, glaring at her over his desk. "We were unable to complete this job. Complications with Myla prevented its completion, and so we've made an exception and are refunding your investment in our services for this time," she said plainly. "Damn it all, Phyla!" Mick roared, batting the briefcase off his desk and throwing his cigar furiously into an ashtray. "I told you no screw-ups! This was supposed to be a simple job, and you let Myla ruin-" he shouted, but Phyla's calm voice cut him short. "I didn't let her. She took control of the body on her own. It couldn't be helped," Phyla said, her already calculating eyes growing colder as Mick raged about her sister. "I am not any happier than you are." "You realize this means I can't take Gearrick out of the contest," Mick growled through clenched teeth. "I can't move on him in the fourth stage, by then there won't be enough remaining competitors to make it look like a happy accident. It would certainly end up in an investigation," he huffed, still pissed beyond all reason. The bit about Myla had calmed him somewhat, just due to sheer shock. Myla had never wrested control from Phyla before in all the time Mick had known the strange duo. This was something not in his calculations. "What if he were to withdraw from the contest?" Phyla asked suddenly. Mick shot her a scowl, not in the mood to be messed with right now. "And why in the hell would he do that? Thanks to your idiot sister, he's sitting pretty to sweep the entire thing and ruin another fine year of patent purchasing for my guild," he grumbled. The hair on his neck stood on end as Phyla's cold eyes bored into him, her tone completely devoid of any emotion, which only made the incoming threat all the more foreboding. "Watch what you say about my sister, Mr. Magnet." Mick cleared his throat, regaining his composure from that unnerving look in her eye, a look that her face didn't match at all. "Fine. Question still stands, I highly doubt Gearrick would withdraw on his own, and even if you've an idea, I certainly won't be paying you for it. Not after your recent string of failures." "Understandable. This information is free. Suffice it to say that Mr. Tinkermane himself is untouchable for me because of Myla. It turns out she's in love with him," Phyla explained. That had Mick's eyes a little wider than usual. "Well I suppose that would explain it," he muttered. "She was acting strangely when I mentioned going after Tinkermane to her. So it's because of that, eh?" he asked, pouring himself a glass of whiskey to accelerate the calming of his nerves. "It's also because of that that we can force Mr. Tinkermane to withdraw from the contest," Phyla said evenly, not batting an eyelash. "What are you talking about?" Mick asked, allowing his intrigue to leak into his tone. "He's been keeping romantic company with some mare from out of town," Phyla continued. "Myla confirmed it. You would not believe her, I am sure, but trust me at least that it is true. I have noticed that she has been hanging around him since the start of the contest, but apparently she has recently begun staying at his warehouse with him instead of in a hotel. The two are clearly invested in one another." "You think we can use her to get at Tinkermane?" Mick asked, tapping a hoof on his chin. "Yes. If she were to go missing tonight, and not reappear before the contest tomorrow, I am certain Mr. Tinkermane will go off in search of her rather than attending the competition. He would have no valid reason to request a contest delay, the judges would see his search for this girl as a personal affair. He will be forced to forfeit the fourth stage, in a manner that makes it seem completely of his own accord," Phyla finished coldly. "Tampering with someone's machine is one thing, kidnapping is another," Mick grumbled. "It's a sound plan, but I can't have my guild involved with something like that. The last thing I need is for this girl of Tinkermane's to go crying to the press," he huffed, taking a sip of his drink. "She won't. Myla and I will take care of her, even if you don't want us to. We are acting on our own this time, so this cannot reflect on you," she dictated, heading for the door. "That's very generous of you..." Mick said cautiously, clearly skeptical. "What's the catch?" "No catch. No bits, no guild. This is between myself and this mare," Phyla said, stopping and turning to look over her shoulder, fixing Mick with one deep blue eye, a gaze so cold that his heart stopped for a moment, as if he were frozen. "She hurt my sister," Phyla said darkly, her tone taking on the first bite of actual emotion Mick had ever heard. "Nopony hurts my sister. There is something I would like to borrow from you, Mr. Magnet." "And what's that?" Mick asked, resisting the urge to gulp, his mouth suddenly feeling very dry, trapped in her gaze. "I want the Markiver," she said idly. "Out of the question!" Mick growled. The Markiver was his pride and joy, a device he had developed in secret due to its less-than-ethical nature. Not even the guild at large knew of it, for it had originally come about as a military project ordered by the captain of the royal guard at the time. The contract had been rescinded, but Mick had gone too far to turn back on the machine, and had finished the project with his own funding. "This mare is able to teleport. I am not a unicorn, and have no magic. Without it, I will not be able to hold her anywhere for long," Phyla explained simply. "You said no guild!" Mick argued. "The Markiver Device does not belong to the guild. Officially it does not exist. What is the harm in lending me something that does not exist?" Phyla asked, turning to face him fully again. Mick ground his teeth in frustration, unable to find words with which to argue. Phyla had always been a schemer, and when it came to dirty tricks her mind was even more developed than Mick's; he was a mechanic, and mathematician, not a true criminal like her. "If you want Mr. Tinkermane taken care of, you will give it to me," she demanded. Mick closed his eyes and sighed. After a lengthy pause, he downed the rest of his whiskey, putting a hoof to his eyes as he prepared himself to say a few words he very badly wanted not to say. "Take whatever you need," he said quietly, turning his chair away from her, unable to look back into those cold eyes. "Now get out of my office." "Thank you, Mr. Magnet," was all he heard, and he winced as the door to his office slammed shut. He looked at his own reflection in the window, his coat still ruffled from the chill he had gotten, his mane badly misplaced from his earlier rage. "There was murder in those eyes. And if she wanted to, the Markiver would let her do it," he whispered to his mirror image. He poured himself another glass of whiskey, knowing that before this was over he would likely need many more.