//------------------------------//
// 8: Unite 
// Story: Wily's Wittle Wub 
// by Tatsurou 
//------------------------------//

	Vinyl continued her careful work researching the two energies, trying to isolate the wavelength they had in common with her own magical abilities.  She felt certain somehow that this could be the key to finding where she came from.  She could scarcely imagine it.  An entire world of creatures like herself, who had never known humanity or the robots she'd created here with her Dad.  Somehow, she knew robotics was totally unknown on the world she came from.  Then again, it made sense when she thought about it.  If everyone on the world she came from had magical abilities like hers, why would technology develop?  Technology was developed so humanity could accomplish things they couldn't without it...and magic covered most of that.

So many idle musings percolated through her mind as she considered such a world, where magic took the place of technology.  Did the weather bend to the whims of the inhabitants?  Was the world still natural, or had nature itself been tamed?  Did magic all come from within, or was there an entire magical field that could be tapped?  If magic were such an available resource, what sort of fantastical wild beasts would there be?  How long would it take her to take over it if she became so inclined?  Could she adapt the materials she was using to keep the energies contained into an anti-magic alloy that could make her robots invincible there?  How many suns did the world have, and how many moons?  Was it a planet at all?

Eventually, she pushed past these idle musings, focusing on the task at hand.  Thanks to a call from Roll, she now knew the two energy types to be called Justice Energy and Evil Energy.  Rather descriptive, if unoriginal.  Still, it made for quicker experiment write-ups as she could use the shorthand JE and EE, rather than 'the blue stuff' and 'the purple stuff'.  It also didn't make her crave jelly crackers, which was a plus to her efficiency.

Identifying the wavelength had been relatively easy for her.  Even the standard scanning equipment could manage it.  Isolating it, however, had been far more difficult, as the available tech couldn't manage it and she was having to develop new systems just for the task.  She rated it as a reasonable investment of time and energy given her plans of terraforming Mars, since it was likely that other stellar energy sources would be encountered that needed careful handling.

Unfortunately, the only energy she'd found that could be used to separate out the wavelength from the two energy sources was her own magic, and controlled tests had already revealed that the two energies could feedback through her magic into her if she maintained the connection for too long.  She'd cut the connection off each time the feedback had started before it could reach her, so now most of her studies were trying to figure out how her magic worked so she could develop a device that could act as a surge protector on her horn, preventing any energies from going into her via a magical connection.  Progress was...less than smooth.

She was grateful she had so many samples to work with, especially since Dr. Light had been kind enough to send any excess JE Duo gave off over to her for her research.  In desperation to avoid contamination, she'd taken to dropping samples of JE and EE on top of each other and trying to separate the wavelength before the two samples neutralized each other into explosive energy release.  Unfortunately, the behavior of the energies forced the sample size to be kept small.  Not only was the amount of energy released during neutralization immense, if the samples weren't entirely consumed with trying to neutralize each other, any excess would attempt to corrupt the energies Vinyl was using to analyze in order to strengthen themselves.  This meant she had at most 15 seconds for analysis in each experiment.

Groaning after yet another experiment ended in failure with very little to show for it, she sat back and rubbed her forehead.  "Ugh..." she groaned angrily.  "Why won't this just work?"  In a fit of pique, she kicked the machine she was working with, careful not to kick it too hard even if it was reinforced to take what she could dish out.

"Having trouble?" Protoman asked as he came in to check on her.  "You've been in here a while..."

"I know!" Vinyl whined.  "Nothing I can try is working!  And the only things I can think of that might work I can't try without taking risks I'm not going to take!"  Groaning, she slumped over, pushing Protoman into a sitting position so she could slump into his lap.  "Ear scratchies, please?" she begged.

Chuckling, Protoman began scratching her behind her ears, her favorite way of relaxing.  After a time, he spoke up.  "Mind if I take a look at what you've been working on?" he asked.  "Maybe a fresh set of eyes will spot what you've missed?"

Vinyl thought about it for a time.  "Hmm..."  After a bit, she rolled over.  "If I get belly rubs, sure."

Chuckling, Protoman began rubbing her belly as he established a wireless connection to her research comp to go over what she'd managed so far.  "Hmm...what about this 'continuous pump' method?" he asked.  "You haven't tried it yet."

"That's because of the drawbacks," Vinyl murmured softly.  "It'll mean continuous generation of massive amounts of energy.  If I kept it on for much more than 30 seconds, I'd run the risk of blowing up Sky Lagoon."

"So you need to find a way of dealing with the excess energy to use that method?" Protoman clarified.

"Yeah," Vinyl confirmed.  "Either that or figure out a way to make a magical surge protector.  But to make a magical surge protector, I need to understand how my magic works, which means figuring out how to isolate the wavelength for comparison, which needs the magical surge protector to work!"  She threw her hooves into the air in frustration.  "It'd be easier if someone would just invent a time machine so I could go into a timeline where I've already succeeded and bring the results back...but that would create some sort of grandson paradox or something because the act of doing so would negate the original timeline where I figured it out in the first place!"

Seeing just how stressed out Vinyl was getting, Protoman rolled her over and pulled out a hairbrush.  "Brushie brushie?" he offered softly.

Sighing, Vinyl nodded.  She then relaxed as he gently brushed her mane.