//------------------------------// // Tree Insurance // Story: Gears in the Void // by Lab //------------------------------// When the day had started, I'd expected it to be just like the previous two. The weather would be mostly pleasant, a fair amount of clouds in the sky, and a bit of a nippy chill in the early morning. I would check on the pack and make sure things were still running as smoothly as possible with half the pack injured. Then, I'd wander into Ponyville later in the day with samples of aluminium and tungsten in order to run some experiments on them with Twilight Sparkle. For the most part, the day met my expectations. The news of Appleloosa's destruction was a slap to the face with a cold cod. All I could do was blink dumbly at the buffalo who had shared it with me. The scant few haggard ponies and buffaloes moping around the caravan were all that was left, save for a couple that were explaining things in the town hall. The sheriff? Gone. He'd been jumped at the beginning of it all. Chief Thunderhooves? Also gone. His ill-fated charge had brought his doom. Appleloosa had already been suffering from a drought, and as such the usually dry area was as parched as the deadest desert. A single dropped torch was all it took to set the town ablaze, and in the chaos, this little band of covered wagons had slipped away with its precious cargo, travelling nonstop to reach Ponyville. Applejack looked panicked as she rushed past, taking only a moment to look over the survivors before rushing into the town hall, almost losing her trademark Stetson as she galloped up the stairs. She was probably looking for Braeburn, who I could only hope had made it. My hooves moved of their own accord and led me away from the dismal area while thoughts drowned out everything else. Appleloosa is lost. I'd heard that phrase before with a hundred other cities. Chicago, Madrid, Delhi, and so many others fallen to a horde they stood no chance against, and despite my previous experiences, the news of Appleloosa was a fresh wound separate from the old patch of scars. Much to my chagrin, it wasn't the loss of life that saddened me. It wasn't grief I felt—it was despair. Despair that this was just the beginning. My melancholic thoughts were interrupted when I headbutted a tree. I blinked and looked up at the arboreal library, which had been abruptly placed in my path. From within came the sound of rustling papers and a muffled "Coming!" "There are better ways to knock." With an amused smile, Dave leaned against the rotund tree. Unlike me, he'd remained unscathed from last night's skirmish, and his jacket and hat were as clean as ever. The chuckles made my muzzle ache even more. "Maybe, but it gets old." An alicorn with bags under her eyes picked that moment to open the door, and a loud yawn interrupted her forming greeting. "Sheesh, Twilight. You didn't go back to bed last night or something?" She slowly shook her head and yawned again. "Couldn't fall back asleep. There's so much to look through. Did you hear about Appleloosa?" She stepped aside to let me in, almost stumbling over a wayward pair of books. "Yeah, saw them outside the town hall on my way here. There had to be something we could have done to stop it." "Ponyville would have likely been attacked as well if your pack had been overrun. Everypony owes all of you for their safety." The two of us took a seat, and when Twilight noticed I didn't have anything to add, she asked, "So, what brings you here today? Did you think of something else from your old world you wanted to discuss? Or should we pick up right where we left off on research?" "Nothing like that." Twilight's pout was a sucker punch to the heart, and I quickly averted my attention to remove the metals from my bags. "I still haven't made any progress on developing a way to store magic, so I brought some samples to test how well they conduct energy. Unless there's already a battery for it." "There are a few extremely rare crystals that can, but you have practically no chance of getting your hooves on them. I can help for a bit, but I need to get back to researching the voidlings." "Voidlings?" "Right, you couldn't have known yet. Luna coined the term during her studies. It's actually quite a fascinating creature. Just think, a creature that resides in the dreamscape." "I'm not as fond of it as you are," I said with a chuckle. "The name fits though." Twilight flinched like something had just been thrown at her. "I'm sorry, I should have—" "Sheesh, Twilight, relax." I set the two hoof-sized lumps of metal on the table and pushed them towards her. "If we can figure this out, I'm sure I can find a way to give blasting rods more dakka." I was a little worried when she didn’t bat an eye at “dakka.” "Not to mention all the other applications this could apply to." "I'll focus on those after these things are gone." She sighed and levitated the samples, examining them with a magnifying glass. "I suppose you have a point. It's just a shame to see all these breakthroughs immediately applied to weaponry. There's so much that could be done." "What are you going to do to test them?" While there was no fixation on weapons in general, I still had a soft spot for my previous creations. The glow around the aluminium intensified for a few moments, and when it dimmed the tungsten lit up. "Just a little bit of channelling. Did you happen to bring any thaumite with you? I'd like to make some comparisons." “Never leave home without it.” She took the tiny spool off my hooves, asking why I always had some. Honestly, I only had it so there’d be something to play with when boredom struck. Not that Twilight needed to know. If she did, she might come to the conclusion it was me behind the occasional burst of noise around town. Accidental or not, I didn't need that much attention. While Twilight did her thing, I grabbed the nearest book and dove into it without looking at the title. I had no idea what I was reading, but I wouldn't let something as trivial as an unfamiliar language stand in my way. The aluminium sparked as her magic ran through it, behaving like it would in a microwave. I idly wondered if I could have built a magic microwave. Twilight's battery of tests took the better part of an hour, during which neither of us talked. Finishing, she worked the kinks out of her neck and broke the quiet. "You can read Zebrican?" "Nope." The book was tossed aside, landing neatly on top of two other books. "What'd you find out?" She wanted to say something, but let it pass with a roll of her eyes. "Thaumite's properties come from its base components. aluminium provides the conductivity, but becomes far too fragile with a current running through it. The tungsten, while incapable of holding a charge on its own, is incredibly resilient to the effects of magic. The resulting alloy takes the strengths and results in a material that can conduct magic without being destroyed by it." "So the aluminium is what we should be focusing on?" "Correct. What stops you from storing energy in extra thaumite?" "If I used that much thaumite it screws it up. It acts as if the entire thing is a single pattern and throws it off. Maybe stuff can be enchanted?" "I don't believe there's a way to actually have it just hold magic though. All the enchantments I know of have an effect." The brainstorming continued for a few hours. Spike threw together some sandwiches for our lunch and was amused when he had to remind us of their existence half an hour later. Twilight and I tore through books fervently, communicating only when we had another idea that needed to be mercilessly struc down. I think Zecora left the basement at one point and rhymed at us, but we were in the zone. Nothing short of a bear on a unicycle was going to break us out of the groove. No matter what, everything led to a dead end. We couldn't make any headway on enchanting or additional ways to reinforce aluminium without interfering with a spell pattern. The only reason I was able to near Twilight's frenzied pace was Dave's assistance. Nothing like having an extra mind to bounce ideas off of. Out of nowhere, he sighed and spoke with the an exaggeratedly bored tone, listing off gibberish. I raised an eyebrow at the bizarre—yet strangely familiar—string of letters and numbers coming from his mouth and disregarded the fact I wasn't alone. "You alright there, Mr. Roboto?" "What did you call me?" Twilight blinked as she looked up from the three tomes she was perusing. I waved her off. "Talking to Dave." "...Right." She’d made it perfectly clear on several occasions she considered my continued contact with Dave detrimental to my well-being, but she was purple so what did she know? "Come on, kid. You know what those are. I wouldn't have told you if you didn't." He sat back and smiled like the cat who ate the canary. It sounded like it was just gibberish, but if Dave said there was more to it, there was more to it. "Kind of sounds like a chemical formula. Oh, of course. Al is aluminium." Now Twilight was interested, leaving the safety of her book fort to see what lead I was following. "When you say chemical formula, do you mean like water is H2O?" She’d taken to my elementary chemistry skills with her usual dedication, and all that stopped her was what little I’d remembered about the subject. "Yeah, he told me these four." My writing was barely legible, but it was a dramatic improvement from a week before. After explaining what elements I’d written down, I said, "They all have aluminium as you can see, but I don't know what they could be the formulas for." "Some geochem major you are." "I went to college?" It was hard to remember much of anything from before, but this didn't even disturb the silt at the bottom of the pond. I could remember the typical childhood memories—I winced a bit when I remembered Anna—and the dull blur of things while trying to eke out an existence in a still-living world, but no focused education. "You were in your second semester of classes. Night classes in fact." Dave clenched his fists in frustration, eventually releasing them in a defeated sigh. "Who am I kidding? What'd you have for breakfast?" "Food?" I shrugged, frowning and adding, "If you know what they are, why don't you just tell me?" "Gears, maybe you should take a break. We've been at this for quite a long time." With the telltale glow of violet magic, the book in front of me slowly closed, like it was trying to avoid provoking a wild animal. "Because you know this. You told me during the first weeks we were together, when you were constantly going over everything you'd learned in order to hold onto it. Fat lot of good that did it seems." "I'm fine, Twilight. Dave wants me to figure it out on my own anyways." The elements mocked me as they sat on the page, and pictures of samples floated through my faint memories. "aluminium is slightly less common than dirt. In fact, none of these are especially rare except for Be… beryl? No, beryllium." "Where does one find beryllium?" "Come on, kid. You've got this. Sparklebutt doesn't know it, but she's leading you in the right direction." "I thought Be was beryl first, but beryl's a gemstone… Gemstones!" Twilight's eyes rolled in their sockets as I excitedly shook her. "They're all gemstones!" Pointing to each one in turn, I said, "Sapphire, ruby, topaz, and emerald. Ruby is just sapphire with a small chromium impurity." That last tidbit was something that felt familiar, like which steps creaked in the house I grew up in. I should have guessed gems first—it was always gems that held magic. She looked up from her notes with a nervous smile. "I hate to burst your bubble, but magic can't travel through gemstones. They can't possibly contain aluminium." "No, they do, I know this." I saw Dave shoot me a knowing smirk. "What if—what if they don't block it, they just keep it out? Is there a way to fuse thaumite into a gem?" "An interesting idea. Maybe I could use a teleporting spell, but with the safeguards removed. In theory it should work, or it might just backfire." "The fun stuff always does. Get a sapphire—they have the simplest composition." A few minutes later, we'd cleared an area and placed a medium-sized, deep-blue gem on the table. Twilight had grabbed her own eye protection, a pair of safety goggles, and took deep breaths as she intently stared at the small length of wire. We were two lab coats short of looking like a pair of scientists. I made a mental note to buy lab coats. There was a small flash of purple light and one end of the thaumite was embedded deep within the sapphire. "Well, that was anticlimactic." A smirk crossed her face. "Only you would be disappointed by things going smoothly." "Now try running magic into it." "I'll take it slow. Starting at one arc per second." Her horn gave off an extremely weak glow, like the dimming filament of a lightbulb. Nothing seemed to happen, but Twilight was still excited. "Remarkable! The thaumite bypasses the barrier without compromising it. Your idea is actually working!" "You can't be that surprised." Boredom set in as Twilight continued to feed magic into the gem. "Crank it up a notch. Or five." "Increasing rate of transfer to five arcs per second." The aura surrounding her horn was nearly as bright as when she usually used magic. Deep within the gem, a mote of light appeared and with a shocked gasp, Twilight dropped her spell. However, the blue-tinted light within the precious stone refused to go out. "Spiffy." A poke revealed no notable change how the gemstone felt. "Let's fully charge this sucker." "Increasing rate of transfer to fifteen arcs per second." Sweat beaded on her brow. "Twenty-five." "Forty." Twilight could barely speak through her gritted teeth. The tiny flicker graduated into a radiant core that bathed the library in azure light. It didn't burn to look into the gem, to see the hypnotic depths in the contained maelstrom of eldritch power. Twilight grunted with the effort of continuing to feed the gem. "Almost… done…" I thought the magic couldn't be any brighter, but that was far from correct. A miniature sun blazed within the stone, practically humming with the energy. The delicate chime of a glass bell tweaked my ears as a hairline crack appeared on the gem’s surface. "That's probably not a good thing." My words went unnoticed, and another fissure appeared. "Taking cover sounds like a good idea right about now." "I can… hold it together." The power she focused through her horn tried to force her down, but Twilight was not one to be bested by a spell. Three cracks, three strikes. I tackled Twilight away from the imminent meltdown, but cutting off the spell did nothing to postpone the gem's failure. There was barely any time for me to turn a tipped table into an impromptu barrier, scattering its contents with a dismayed protest from their owner. When the gem failed, it was like Luna had entered a belching contest after consuming Diet Coke and Pop Rocks. The roaring shockwave spread through the library in a heatless explosion. I found myself, as well as the alicorn I protectively huddled over, forced backwards by the barricade as it pushed us to the wall. And just like that, it was over, gone in an instant. Two shocked muzzles peered over the edge of the table after they untangled themselves from a blackmail-worthy position, squinting their eyes to see through the cloud of dust. My skin tingled from the energy permeating the air, and judging by her shudder, Twilight felt the same thing. Where a table, sapphire, and research materials had once been, scraps of paper fluttered around a sizable hole revealing the basement. A stunned zebra looked up at us from behind a debris-filled cauldron, her mouth and eyes wide with shock. Spike, who stood in the entryway of the kitchen, had a similar expression. So did Dave, who warily peered out from behind a bookcase. "Do not overcharge gemstones," Twilight muttered as she wrote with a singed quill before underlining her words in triplicate. Thinking for a moment, she added another line underneath and circled the whole thing for good measure. "I am definitely remembering this for later." Oddly enough, the affected area surrounding the missing floor wasn't as large as expected. With how large the blast looked, there should have been damage spread throughout most of the tree. As she beheld the lonely chunk of a book's cover, the damage finally sank in and she sniffled. "My books…" The next few hours were spent consoling the library's other occupants and the multitude of worried ponies who frantically knocked to check on their princess. In the small bit of time between ponies, we cleaned up the worst of the mess and laid a sheet of wood—it didn’t come from a tree, but it definitely wasn’t plywood either—over the hole. Only with Spike's help was I able to convince Twilight she wasn't going to get removed from the library and banned from all the others. Rainbow Dash, the only other pony who ended up seeing the damage, flew in through a blown out window and stared at the mess in fascination. To my relief, the brash pegasus recognized me and didn't immediately assume I was endangering Twilight. Before she could get roped into helping, she darted back out the window, claiming she had to water her hair. When a familiar smell drifted up from below, it brought a fair idea of what it was, and I considered joining the zebra. Spike wore himself out quickly and threw himself into his basket the moment Twilight said he was finished. "Today has been… eventful." Twilight cringed as I prepared to leave for the night. I wanted to stay and help research more, but between the lost progress and not wanting to worry the pack, there was no other choice. We could only hope the setback was worth it. "I know I had fun." My chuckles summoned Twilight’s glare. "We did discover a way to make magic batteries after all." "I still don't think it was worth it. How is your progress on the reading list coming along?" On the bookshelf at home there were two rows of books. The upper row was books I had yet to read, and when one was finished, it was moved to the lower shelf. At that moment, there were about three or four times as many books on the lower shelf. "Almost done." "Good to hear. I'm glad somepony actually reads my suggestions. Have you started the… umm…" Twilight nervously shifted as red tinted her cheeks. It still amused me how easy it was to fluster her. My curt answer was joined by a shake of the head. "No." Twilight sighed and rubbed her forehead, just under the horn. "Sterling, it's important you read that book. Why are you so adamant about putting it off? I thought you were fine with being a mare." There was barely any time between her speaking and me replying, "I am!" Swallowing loudly, I apologized for accidentally raising my volume. "I am. Like I said, a body is just a body. The little quirks of my new gender are what scares me." Fluttershy would have been envious of how quiet my last few words were. The alicorn bit her lip as she judged the time through the popular window. "What do you mean?" It was my turn to be nervous, and it took a reassuring nuzzle from Twilight to make me respond. "That prank where you told me I was pregnant made me realize that it could actually happen. And if that freaks me out, what other surprises are waiting for me?" "I'm sorry—" "Don't be. It was just a prank and I would have realized it eventually." I glanced out the window like I was checking the time, noticing Dave patiently listening to the conversation. Why didn't Twilight have a clock? "I really should get going." Magic surrounded the doorknob and held it fast as I tried to open it. "Just wait, Sterling." She leaned against me and let out another sigh. "Why didn't you tell me this was bothering you? I'm here to help, and not just because Princess Celestia asked me to. Even if wholesale destruction" —with a strained smile she gestured around the wounded library— "has a tendency to show up in the same place, I'd like to consider you a friend. Your friends will help you, Sterling. In fact, they want to help you. You just have to let them." "I don't even know why this bothers me so much. I can shrug off everything else that's happened and roll with any punch that comes my way. But this just won't leave me alone. I'm reminded of it every time I use the bathroom or every time someone calls me ma'am. I know it looks similar to just being uncomfortable with being a mare altogether, but I'm serious when I say that's not it." "I think I understand. Somewhat. Not really…" Twilight sheepishly grinned as she rubbed the back of her head. "There has to be something I can do to help. Just tell me what it is." "You've done more than enough. I just need to stop being such a bitch about it." One of the topics that had come up was cussing, and while 'bitch' was just a word for a female dog here, Twilight related it as the equivalent of calling myself a nag. "Please, you know I don't like that kind of language." "Sorry. You know what I mean though. I just need to muscle through it. The apocalypse didn't stop me, why should a little book?" Behind the chuckles and dismissive hoof waving, fear still tainted my mood, and Twilight easily picked up on it. She tried to comfort me again, and I sighed. "Thanks, Twilight. I really do need to get going though." She reluctantly nodded and held the door open. "Promise me you'll talk about this more. I can't force you to read that book, but please, it might help placate your fears." "Pinkie Promise. But in return you have to get some sleep tonight." Her chuckles followed as I set off. "You could have talked to me about this. No idea it was bothering you so much." Dave frowned, crossing his arms as he easily kept pace. "Sorry, Dave. You just aren't qualified." "And why the hell not?" "It's a mare thing, you wouldn't understand." The sound of a palm hitting a face was rarely heard in Equestria. "One of these days, kid, one of these days…" When I finally reached the caves, the pack had been getting antsy over my absence. They tried to convince me to remain underground for my safety, but I politely refused—reading that book around them wasn’t an option. After apologizing and checking on everydog, I retreated to my home for the night, shuttering the indoor lights nearly all the way. Two seconds later, the lights were uncovered. The uneasy feeling that always preceded a voidling attack was proving to be a godsend. A break was definitely in order after last night. Sighing, I pulled the dreaded, red book off the shelf, hopped onto the bed, and nudged it open. "A papercut on my nose. This is already off to a great start."