"So let me get this straight..." Astra said, moving his welding mask up his head and placing down the welding tool next to him, "You asked a mare out after saving her, might I add from a highly dangerous carnivores animal, and then simply asked her out?"
"It was a spur of the moment type of thing Astra. She was attractive, scared, a slight tease, and she smelled like rich shampoo."
"That still doesn't excuse you for asking her out so suddenly."
"What the Tartarus are you talking about? Didn't you do the same thing with Octavia?"
"Not entirely mate. We at least had a plan after we left with each other last night. Do you at least know where your taking this mare?"
Neo opened his mouth like he was about to say something. But no words came to him immediately. Astra was right. He had absolutely no idea where he was taking her, and nervous energy began to fill his body.
As if sensing his nervous energy activating, Astra spoke up.
"Look, don't stress out about it. As far as what you told me she seems to like luxury, so take her to the most luxurious restaurant you can think of."
"Like what?"
Astra took a minute to think. It wasn't every day that his friend asked him for mare troubles, and it most certainly wasn't every day that he was asked to help a friend with any type of problem what so ever. But that didn't mean he couldn't improvise.
"I have an idea..." He said, taking his hoof out from under his chin, "Octavia and I were planing on having a date night tonight at one of her favorite establishments. A japa-neigh-se restaurant. If you'd like, I can convince Octavia to allow me to bring you both along."
"Really?" Neo said, "Thanks! I owe you!"
"Your gonna owe me a lot more than you think." Astra said as he looked at the generator, a complete look of uncertainty and fear taking him over. "Let's just try to salvage what little we can from this..." He said, a sudden spark coming from the machine in front of them and catching a nearby paper on fire.
"I wonder what the financial advisors are gonna say when they realize what happened here." Neo said as he took a look around the lab, the flames now gone and replaced with scorch and burn marks. "That's why you owe me right?" Astra said, using the fire extinguisher below him to get rid of the small fire.
"Right now let's just hope we can salvage whatever's left of this generator" Astra said, pulling down the welding mask and activating the welding tool, pressing it down into into the generator and attempting to repair it. "I still can't believe it obtained less damage than I originally thought." Neo said, looking at the generator and only noticing a few dents and scorch marks.
"Believe me when I say there was more than just a few dents and burns in it mate. Can you pass me that wrench over there?" Astra said , pointing to a wrench on top of the tool box. As Neodymium went to grab it, he began to notice something odd about the case they had been trying to open for so long. Not only did the case have a control panel of sorts on it now, but it also had a large blinking button right next to some type of screen.
"Hey Astra, where did that panel come from?" Neo asked as he gave Astra the wrench, "What are you talking about?" He said, turning to look at the case and noticing the same panel that Neo had seen. Taking off the welding mask and turning off the welding tool, Astra floated over to the case and inspected the panel on it.
"Odd... I don't remember any type of panel being on this before..." Astra said as his hoof ran along the panel. "What do we do?" Neo said, looking at Astra for the answer to their predicament.
"I'll tell you what we do... We're going to start experiment 20..." He said as he quickly moved his hoof to the button and pressed down on it, a large click echoing throughout the room and making the case gleam with a pale cyan light and vibrating slightly. "Astra... What did you..." Neo barely had any time to answer as sonic wave blasted them both back from the case, it's lights growing brighter and brighter and the sonic waves pulsating at a faster pace.
It seemed to be charging...
With one last large sonic pulse, the case let steam blow from the areas of the lights, before all its pieces fall onto the ground, a cyan colored ball of bright light right in the middle of the fallen pieces, glowing like a small star. Both doctors eventually regained their composure and were absolutely stunned to see the floating ball of energy, it's majesty and grace overwhelming both of them and held them in place.
"W-What is that?" Neo said, breaking the silence the two held. Making their way closer to the orb, Astra grabbed a containment capsule and slowly moved the capsule around the orb, sealing it immediately upon entering the capsule. With a smile, he looked back at his friend and nodded, "Let's find out..."
************************************************
"I don't believe it..." Neodymium said, the screen in front of him displaying billions of amounts of data, "There are billions and billions of data banks in this single orb. How is that even possible!?"
"Because it isn't just a data bank it's a power source." Astra said, planting the capsule inside of the analysis machine, a large metallic clink being audible throughout the analysis room. "This orb isn't just able to store all types of data, it's also able to power all types of machines and tools. It basically makes the cloud factory in cloudsdale look like a battery!"
Though he himself had never gone, Neodymium had heard all types of stories about the Cloud Factory in Cloudsdale. It was always the first place to get state of the art technology or magic from anywhere, and if what Astra says is true, this orb could possible be eons ahead of its time. Probably even ahead by a millennium.
"What I want to know is what Discord was doing with this thing." Neodymium said, moving towards the capsule holding the still shining bright orb of energy.
"Well it's fairly obvious to know what the Tartarus he was doing with it, most likely using it as a power source of some type. The real question is WHERE did he get it?"
"How could he use it as a power source?" Neodymium's confusion levels began to rise. There was absolutely nothing normal about this technology that they managed to get their hooves on, and the more time they thought about its uses and origins, even more questions came to the surface. "Manticore's magic isn't precisely like your own magic my horned friend. My guess is that he used this as some type of charger for his powers. It's stupid but it's the most I can come up with. The more important question, like I said earlier, still stands. Where in Equestria did this orb come from?"
Silence fell upon the room as the two doctors thought of where it could've come from. Not very many places in Equestria had technology, especially technology as advanced as this. The possibilities of where this could've come from are endless.
And it's uses are just limitless.
Uses...
"Your thinking about it aren't you?" Astra said, still keeping his concentration on the orb. "Project OMEGA? I thought about it but that doesn't mean I'm going to go through with it. It's dangerous and unpredictable, especially with technology we have no control over yet. In my opinion, we should study it a little more before we think about any uses. Especially for things like Project OMEGA."
Nodding, Astra pressed a button on the control pad, making the orb slowly descend into the analysis machine to hide from any other scientist from seeing it. They both knew that if any other scientist had seen it, they'd find out what it was and try to forcefully commence Project OMEGA. They hated the thought of it, and both hoped that someday everypony would forget about it. But it appeared as though that day would never happen.
As the orb descended down into its new storage, the ringing of a clock was heard throughout the facility, signifying yet another end of another work day. Astra's sombre look quickly turned to a look of relief and happiness as he and Neo heard the clock. "Well then..." Astra said, wiping away the sweat on his head with his wing, "Looks like dinner is coming up sooner than we thought Neo. I'll see you at dinner?" Astra said, extending his hoof for Neo to shake, an offer he took with a smile, "See you at dinner."
With a flap of his wings, Astra took flight and exited the Science center, leaving Neo to clean everything left over from this morning, his words echoing through Neo's head like a broken record.
"You owe me more than you think mate."