//------------------------------// // Mr Smarty Pants // Story: Lets Talk // by odeeyou //------------------------------// It was early morning enough that if anypony came looking around they would probably be looking for Applejack or Applebloom. Any deliveries made would go straight to the house and Grannysmith. Given the number of fields they had it was easy for him to disappear and ponies would just assume he was working in one of them. Not completely untrue. It just depended on what your definition of work was. With a grunt of satisfaction, Big Macintosh turned around and made for the farthest field in the east side property. Unaware of the purple alicorn pony that just entered the gate, whom having not spied any other ponies, followed him. Twilight followed leisurely as she figured Big Mac was either headed toward whatever part of the orchard Applejack was working in, or he could tell her where she was. At a seemingly random tree, he stopped and carefully kicked one of the roots. Not even hard enough to shake the leafs from the trees. A sod covered trap door rose from the earth and he quickly stepped down a flight of stairs into the darkness, lit by oil lamps that he lit as he passed. The door normally closed itself but not before she had halted it with her magic. Curiosity piqued, she looked down the stairwell and wondered if she should follow him and see what this was. Perhaps it’s some secret of the Apple family? Certainly it was not a distillery. Closed spaces were downright dangerous at the pressure those things operated at. Indistinct murmurings flowed up the stairs to her ears. Now her curiosity was DEFINITELY piqued. Big Mac was talking? Outside of a song and dance number that didn’t happen very often. Maybe AJ was down there? Stepping softly, she crept down the stairs and peeked around the corner into the room… A dropped jaw of amazement caused her to step fully into the room. It was MASSIVE. The room must have covered the whole east orchard and was supported by concrete walls, ceilings and pillars. On one wall stood dozens of six foot crystal spires and on the other side of the room were large vats of some shifting luminescent liquids vaguely reminiscent of lava lamps, only she could feel the magic rolling off it. Next to it a liquid rainbow churn (that she knew required a license to even own) turned itself silently. Cost of the substance itself was cheap, but the cost of maintenance to keep the machine running smoothly was expensive. At the far end of the room stood several machines she couldn’t even identify save a few. Most of them were found only in universities or research laboratories. It made her own basement lab look like she were little more than a dabbler. In the center of the room on the dirt floor was an enormous six layered polygonal magical rune array. It was active, and glowing a pure white that filled the room. Covering it were script of at least five dead languages including Old Equish, Griffindore, and Minotaurian. At its center a crystal pillar that stood from the earth to the ceiling.She was still learning how to do triangle runes! Big Mac stood to the side, moving across three chalkboards and writing mathematical formulas that made her eyes spin just trying to read. Next to them were a couple chaotic looking charts that, though she didn’t know what they represented, knew were monitoring the progress of whatever experiment was going on. “What it that?” “That’s the Lyapunov Fractal.” He answered absentmindedly. Having somehow lost his accent and not looking away from the equation he was writing. “It’s showing the regions of stability and chaotic behavior in the trees depending how much earth magic is pushed into the ground.” “And that?” “That’s the Dragon Curve.” He finished an equation and began another on the next chalkboard. “It’s interesting how it shows a self-similar fractal from the pegasus magic given from the water, isn’t it?” Satisfied with the equation on the second chalkboard, he moved to the third one, drawing a large curvature and mathematical formula in Minotaurian math, known for its whole numbering system of eight rather than Equestria’s four. “It will be interesting to see what undirected unicorn magic will do in comparison. Given what we know of unicorn magic is that it shortcuts the quantum mechanical curve that, when undirected, could classify as chaos magic. It undermines our basic understanding of the universe to this day. Against all rational thought, ‘out of order chaos is born.’ “But unicorns bring order to magic!” He snorted and finished the equation with a sharp tap. “Perceived order you mean.” He stood back and looked over the equations with narrowed eyes looking for errors. “As is evident by before the age of Discord and long before Ponies began to tame the wild magic of the lands. The world got by just as fine then as it does now. Less orderly but no less structured.” He dragged five crystal spires and set them up around the magical array. Slipping on a pair of gold shoes to act as a focus, he stomped on the ground sending a charge of earth pony magic into the array, surging into the crystal spires and rebounding back into the center crystal pillar where it shot upwards to the orchard. “Tell that to the universities though.” He grunted in annoyance. “Bunch of old farts clinging to an outdated system.” “I WANNA HAVE YOUR FOALS!” Big Macintosh blinked and looked down at the purple Princess that was now wrapped around his forelegs. “Wha-?” “Please! Please! Please!” “Twa-light?” His accent came back in full force. “When-dja even get here?” “I followed you don’t here while you were lost in thought and explained what you were working on absent minded when I asked. Please let me have your foals! Think about it! With your intellect and my magical talent, they could discover the mysteries of the universe!” Big Mac tried to shake her off from his legs. “Let go!”