//------------------------------// // 10: Fashionably Smart // Story: Pony Versus Machine // by Smoker //------------------------------// 6:43 P.M. 42 hours and 17 minutes remain XXXXXXXX “Augh!” Rarity growled as she trotted into the basement. “Why that-“ She cut off, her jaw dropping as she saw the state of her basement. She’d insisted the Engineer at least set his stuff up down here, but now she was regretting even that. Spare wires and oil grease was everywhere. The Engineer sat on a stool, reaching his greasy gloves deep into a compartment of his Sentry gun. “C’mon, you sunuva…” The Engineer grumbled as he wrenched his arms around in the compartment. Then there was a flash of sparks, and the Texan grinned. “Hoo-wee! That’s how it’s done!” He closed the compartment back up, and spotted Rarity. “Oh, well howdy, Miss Rarity.” He stated, tipping his hat at her. “What. Is. This.” Rarity growled. “What’s what?” The Engineer questioned. “ALL of this!” Rarity roared, stomping over. “There’s wires covering everything, these oil stains will take months to buff out, and… DEAR CELESTIA, why is there a turny-portal on top of the shelf?!” “That’s a teleporter, ma’am.” “I don’t give a damn if it’s a slice of red velvet cake! You could at least use a coaster for the bloody thing!” Rarity let out a loud groan, and flopped to the ground. The Engineer stared awkwardly at her. “Well… I’m sorry, ma’am. I could always just clean this stuff up-“ “No, no, it’s… it’s fine…” Rarity grumbled, standing up again. “It’s just… now there’s all this nonsense on top of what I’ve been doing all day.” “What, has Spy given you a hard time during your training?” Engineer questioned. “In a word? Yes.” Rarity replied. “That man is running me absolutely ragged. ‘walk backwards faster’, ‘stab a quarter inch to the left’, ‘No, no, never disguise as a heavy’… he’s been doing nothing but complain about my performance the entire day!” “Yeah, I admit, Spy has one of the trickier jobs among us.” Engineer said, going back to fiddling with his Sentry gun. “Bastard has to act exactly like a member of the enemy team, and at the same time worry about what disguise to choose. Not to mention, If he doesn’t do a sap-and-stab exactly right, he’s dead, and don’t even get me started on the corpse dropper…” “Oh yeah, like you’ve got it a lot easier.” Rarity said, gesturing to Engineer’s contraptions. “you have to position your machines in all the right places, not to mention worry about all of those electronic whatevers!” “Eh, the positioning ain’t hard.” The Engineer said, yanking out a tangle of wires from the sentry gun and rearranging them. “You just gotta know the layout of the map. You know where the enemy’s going, you can get there before them. As for the mechanical parts of it, well, that’s no trouble at all if you know what you’re doing.” “But… but it’s so dirty!” Rarity said, recoiling as the Engineer grabbed a bottle of oil and dripped a few drops onto a component. Engineer chuckled. “Ma’am, you have no idea how much of a mess the spy’s knife makes when he stabs someone. This is nothing compared to that. Wear some good tough gloves, and you’ll be clean as a whistle.” “Well… at least the Spy is mobile! You’re weak as a toothless rabbit without your sentry gun!” Rarity said, desperate to prove her point. “You got that right.” “In fact, I - …wait, what?” Rarity cut off as what Engineer had said registered. “I said you’re right.” The Engineer said. He stopped fiddling with the tangle of wires, nodded, and shoved it back into the sentry gun, connecting the wires with his hands. “Ma’am, do you know what I do on this team?” “You… build things?” Rarity guessed. “That’s but the surface.” The Engineer closed up the compartment of his Sentry gun, and turned to Rarity. “Y’see, Miss Rarity, this whole team is like… like a Thanksgivin’ dinner. All of us mercs, we’re like different foods. You got yer turkey, yer gravy, yer cranberries, yer drinks…” “And what are you?” Rarity asked curiously. “Well, I’m the table under it all.” The Engineer said, pride in his voice. “I’m the one behind the scenes. You may not even ever see me – at least, not without my protective tablecloth.” The Engineer patted his Sentry gun. “Though, if you ask me, I’m easily the most important part of the whole shebang – without me, everyone would have to eat on the floor, and that’s just downright unsanitary and unpleasant.” “Y’see what I’m getting at, Mrs Rarity?” Rarity paused. “Actually… I think I do.” She said, smiling. “You’re like the glue that holds the entire team together.” The Engineer blinked. “Y’know, that’s a much better analogy. I’m gonna have to remember that one.” He and Rarity shared a chuckle. “Now, I’m sorry, but I really should get back to work.” The Engineer continued, pulling over his dispenser and opening up a compartment of it. “Oh, my, yes, I’m terribly sorry to be a bother.” Rarity said, leaving the basement. “Don’t be. It’s good talkin’ ta someone. Gets lonely when I can only talk to my devices.” Engineer replied, not looking up from his work. Rarity closed the door to the basement behind her. Then she headed over to the kitchen to make dinner. She opened the cupboard, and frowned. “That’s odd… where did all my frying pans go?” She asked herself. Then she shrugged it off and got some ingredients out of the cupboards to make dinner. She hadn’t even gotten started on dinner, though, before there was suddenly a loud cry from downstairs. Rarity turned, and rushed back to the basement door, throwing it open. The engineer sat at a desk at the basement, banging his fist on the table. “Damn dagnabbit dammit-nabbit-daggit!” He growled. “C’mon you piece of cow crap – work!!” “Is something wrong?” Rarity asked worriedly, and the Engineer’s head whipped to face her. He put on an enormous smile. Rarity may not have been the element of honesty, but she knew a fake smile when she saw one. “Nothin’ to worry your pretty little head about, ma’am.” The Engineer said, standing up. “I just got a little rip in mah glove. Nothing to worry about.” Rarity gasped. “But if your glove is ripped, then your hand will get stained with oil and grease! Oh, I absolutely refuse to allow you to work if you get your hand all dirty!” “Er, no really ma’am – it’s fine, I –“ “I insist that you allow me to fix it!” Rarity said, and before the Engineer could stop her, she levitated the glove off of his hand. Then she gasped. Her magic cut out, and the glove dropped to the ground. “Happy now.” The Engineer said, in a voice barely above a whisper. He raised his hand, or rather, what had appeared to be his hand. Where the Engineer’s hand was supposed to be, was instead a robotic hand. “Now y’see why I wear my glove.” The Engineer whispered, picking his glove off the floor and shoving it back onto his hand. Rarity saw the fingers twitching. “God dammit, work already.” “So, um…” Rarity said, still in shock. “Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re gonna ask.” Engineer said, sitting back down. “Let’s just say I was young and foolish, and I thought this would be a good idea.” Rarity was silent, then she slowly walked out of the room. Engineer sighed. He honestly couldn’t blame her. XXXXXXXX A few hours later… XXXXXXXX “All right, that just about does it.” Engineer said to himself, standing up. He had finally finished repairing his devices. Whacking his devices with his wrench only did so much, after all; if he really wanted to get at the fine components, he needed to go in manually. He turned his head as he heard the door open. “Well howdy, Mrs Rar-“ He said, but stopped when he saw the bizzare device Mrs Rarity was levitating with her magic. It looked a little like an old canister vacuum cleaner, with a large compartment with wheels on it that was dragged around, connected by a hose to the vacuum’s head. Where the vacuum nozzle should be, though, was instead a small device which looked almost like a hot glue gun. “Darling, do I ever have a surprise for you!” Rarity said happily, walking up to the engineer with her strange contraption. “You just close your eyes, and when you open them, I promise you’ll be pleased with the results!” “Um… is this gonna hurt? It looks like it’s gonna hurt.” Engineer said, eyeing the device. He could actually see lines of intense heat radiating off the head of the glue gun. “Nonsense, darling!” Rarity said, levitating the Engineer’s glove off of his robotic hand. “Now just close your eyes and hold perfectly still, and we’ll be done in no time!” Engineer sighed, and closed his eyes. He then heard a short hissing noise, and jumped lightly. “Relax, darling, I know just what I’m doing.” Came Rarity’s voice. The hissing came at regular intervals for what felt like forever. Engineer was about to impatiently open his eyes when Rarity’s voice rang out again: “Okay, darling, I’m done. Open your eyes!” Engineer obliged, and looked at his hand. Then he blinked, and his jaw dropped open. His robotic hand was bedazzled with glimmering red rubies. They covered most of the flat surfaces, and yet were strategically placed as to not restrict movement. “What… how…” Engineer stuttered. “Yes, I’m sorry it took so long for me to whip this device up.” Rarity said, scuffing her hoof. “I had to make do with what I had, and connect my vacuum to one of my glue guns. Then I had to crush my spare rubies into sufficiently small pieces, and get them into the vacuum bag. Not to mention I had to pressurize the whole thing, and calibrate it. Don’t even get me started on changing the size of the gun’s nozzle…” She smiled up at Engineer. “But I figure it’s all worth it, to have that rusted old hand of yours spruced up so nicely, don’t you agree?” Engineer didn’t respond; he just continued to stare at his robotic hand, flexing and rotating it. “What’s wrong? Don’t you like it?” Rarity said worriedly, then her tone turned to apologizing. “I’m so terribly sorry, I really thought you’d like it, I mean, the rubies are just the right shade to perfectly compliment your uniform, but if you really don’t like it I can get Twilight to-“ “No!” Engineer said, looking at Rarity. “No, it’s just…” He sighed. “This is… the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me. I mean, these gems must have cost you thousands, if not millions…” “What, those? Oh no, I’ve got plenty of gems, entire cases full. I go out hunting every week with my little Spikey-wikey.” Rarity said, smiling in relief. The Engineer looked at her, shocked. “What?” Rarity asked. “Are these gems more rare on your world?” Engineer sighed, and shuckled, placing his good hand against his forehead. Then he pointed at Rarity’s bedazzling device. “So… you put that together all on your own?” “Why, yes. Yes, I did.” Rarity said, glancing at the machine. “I mean, it’s not quite my finest work – I’ve worked much harder on my dresses, so it wasn’t hard to attach some things together and manipulate some shapes and sizes. I had to borrow a book from Twilight to figure out some of the more technical bits, but yes, I did all the work on my own.” “Ma’am…” Engineer said after a moment of thought, “How’d you like to become an Engineer with me?” “Who, me? Oh, no, I couldn’t-“ “Miss Rarity, if you can build somethin’ like that, then you can easily learn how to work one of these.” Engineer continued, patting his sentry gun. Rarity blinked. “Are you going to be as harsh as Spy was?” “No need – you’ve already got the hang of the important part.” Engineer replied, smiling. “Then… I suppose I don’t see why not.” Rarity said, smiling. “Excellent.” The Engineer said, smiling back. As the Engineer began to teach Rarity how to work the Sentry Gun, neither of the two noticed the light shimmer in the shadows. the Spy, standing invisible in the corner all along with his Cloak and Dagger, slipped up the stairs and out of the basement, uncloaking. “Just as planned.” He whispered to himself, grinning. “I work alone.” He walked off, leaving Engineer and Rarity to their machinations. “Will the wrench work if I bedazzle it?” “Well, a shade of amethyst would go beautifully with your eyes.” “Oh, you flatterer.”