Cause, Effect, and Consequences

by Coltsguy

Oi, This Guy

"Fffffuuuuuuck!!!"

"Language!" Rarity admonished. "And keep your voice down!"

"We have no magic!" I whispered harshly. "I thought we were out of range but we weren't! If they see or sense us it could really mess up the timeline."

"You didn't seem too concerned when you were running around all willy nilly in those other places."

"How would you even know?"

I didn't get an answer as we both felt the footsteps of something large making its way over presumably towards their group. We ventured a look over the edge of the stall to see it. Unlike everyone else, I knew what to expect. This was the big fight of chapter twelve of the story Ungrounded by Sandcroft. Ironic seeing as how there was a character in the story called that too. I had written the story off as a self insert. I was the ass in assume on that one. But I digress...

Despite knowing what was coming, it didn't make the sight of the massive metal horse any less impressive. It was a hulk of a thing too. Not much bigger than a regular pony, but the fact that the ground was cracking with every step told us all of how massive it probably was. It honestly reminded me of a horse styled in steampunk kind of like that suit from the cave in Iron Man but suitable for a pony. It was a bronze monstrosity that just almost leisurely, but purposefully, walked up to the group in sight.

As the metalwork machine stopped a short distance away, Applejack and Rainbow Dash bolted straight at it. That did nothing to deter it as it casually backhanded the two of them away. In response, Fluttershy picked up Spike and the two moved over to the fallen ponies' sides. I was going to watch the whole thing, but a slight burning sensation in my pocket distracted me. I reached into my pocket and pulled out Eris who was glowing slightly.

I was greatly surprised to find out that Eris had been unaffected by the EMP. I had thought that it eliminated all magic in the area. I'm not sure how it didn't affect Eris, but I knew not to try and figure that out on my own. Besides, it probably had something to do with it being an artifact and not an organism. The same applied to Lucien's weapon after all.

I grasped Eris tightly as I pulled some magic from her into myself. The warm, yet a bit prickly sensation flowed throughout my body for a few moments as I was re-energized. I looked back and noticed that Lucien, Twilight, and Bronze Gear, the pony in the suit, were conversing a bit. However, the talking was too quiet for me to hear at that distance.

Eventually, the sword he was holding let off a flash of blue and turned into a pair of chakrams. Don't know what a chakram is? Go watch Xena: Warrior Princess then come back. He hurled one of them at the face, but she brought up a metal hoof to block it; shattering the chakram on impact before it reappeared in his hand. That hadn't happened to his weapon before so it ended up distracting him enough to catch a metal hoof to the face. After a short flight, he took a moment before slowly sitting up. I was impressed since a normal person probably would have suffered a concussion after being rendered unconscious.

At that point, I had to grab Rarity out of the air as she tried to jump out of the stall. I made sure to grab her magically. I was not going to get yelled at for messing up her tail. I was going to get yelled at for something else entirely.

"What are you doing? We need to help them!"

"Nooo, we need to let this play out the way it's supposed to go."

"Those are my friends! Even if we are in some different version of Equestria I'm not just going to abandon them!"

I set her down and grabbed her horn to turn her invisible alongside me.

"You are my friend and I am not going to risk you getting hurt to change a fight I know will come out alright!"

"How do you know it will?"

"I just know!"

As I said that, the hand I was using to hold her lit up with a deep blue glow. I didn't have time to react as it expanded to cover her entire head and made her eyes glow a soft white. I immediately let go and the blue glow went away as well. The white glow in her eyes persisted for another five seconds before it too went away.

"Rarity? Are you alright?" I asked tentatively.

"I... think so... What did you just-"

"Rarity, I need to check on something. Alright?"

"Now? But Lucien is fighting Bronze Gear all alone right now!"

"...Rarity, how did you know that?"

"Because I-" Rarity started but stopped short. "...I just... knew. It's like I had read about it before and I knew that he was in trouble."

I looked over to the battle and saw Applejack trying to talk to him while they were pushing him off of his back.

"Did I just stumble upon Twilight's memory spell?"

"It does indeed feel like it. Not quite the same I believe but it just has the same... sameness. Not very eloquent I admit but I don't really have Twilight's expertise in the field of magic."

There was a yell from Lucien, but I ignored it.

"I still need to check something. It might be important."

"Well, now that I seem to know what you know I suppose I can wait."

We both winced at a loud explosion and the heat it generated despite the distance. The fight was now in the magic portion. I took a look over to it and got to see the ball of lava hanging in midair. That was pretty damn cool to look at. Still, I was exceedingly glad that their fight was moving away from us. I did not want to have to defend against any of that crap.

I ignored the secondary explosions and the growing abundance of flames to check on Rarity. I placed my hand just above her horn, but without touching her mane, and focused. I then felt inside her head. I wasn't happy to feel the familiar sensation of a bit of my magic suffused in her brain. It didn't have the same feel to it as when it was implanted in Rainbow Dash, but I didn't use the same method either. This was going to be uncomfortable.

"Rarity, I may have done something... inadvertently bad to you when that magic activated."

"Bad how?" she asked slowly with some trepidation.

I hesitated for a moment before pressing on with a sigh.

"I might have accidentally put a mental command in your head to make you gradually fall in love with me."

"YOU DID WHAT!?!" she yelled with newly widened eyes.

"I didn't mean to! It was an accident like I said!"

I think the shiver she let off was the most telling of all.

"I can fix it so don't worry."

"You had better fix it! I am not going to have myself fall head over hooves for... this!" she said motioning over all of me. "It just feels so horribly right!"

Yeah, we both realized what she had said pretty quickly.

"I think I better fix this now."

"Agreed," she said with a slight blush.

I once again placed my hand on her head. I felt around once again to lock on to the unnatural magic. As soon as I had a firm grasp on it I began to absorb the foreign magic into myself. There was less of it than there was with Rainbow Dash so it only took about twenty seconds to finish. I removed my hand and looked her straight in the eyes from up close.

"That's it. Do you still remember everything?"

"Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?"

"Well, I did this accidently one other time and when I fixed it there was some memory loss afterwards."

She then fixed me with a stern glare.

"Who did you do this to?" she asked in an equally stern tone.

"Rainbow Dash," I said looking away. "I didn't even know I had done it until days later when she started showing... symptoms."

"I see."

We sat there in silence for a bit. I wasn't sure when I had turned invisible, but I only noticed when Rarity had touched my chest. I didn't want to turn visible, but I knew she would want to look at me. Therefore, I simply extended my invisibility to her so she could see me.

"I suppose since it was an accident and you fixed it before anything unsavory happened then I can forgive you for it. However, only on the condition that you tell Rainbow Dash about what happened and apologize to her."

As I agreed, it made me flashback to the event. A more accurate flashback thanks to my memory spell. As such it also made me remember something. I caused the memory loss intentionally. That means I didn't need to bring it up when I did. Curse my desire to repress the whole event. While we're at it, curse my damn desires!

Rarity started to poke me about then. When I looked at her she pointed out of the stall. I followed her outstretched hoof and noticed that the battle had been concluded. That was good. With the fight done the two of us could continue on to our goal.

...Which may or may not take longer as a black spade seemed to materialize on the counter in front of me. I mean a spade like on playing cards not the one for digging. It turned a little bit and then kind of insisted on the direction it was now pointed in. I looked out to where it pointed and saw another spade materialize on a wrecked stall not too far away.

"I think we're being summoned."

"By whom?"

"If I had to guess, it's probably someone we both know."

"Is it really necessary to be so cryptic?"

"...Let's just follow them. I don't want to draw any attention to us just in case."

Rarity and I cautiously followed the spades out of the thoroughly wrecked market area and proceeded into a more residential area. Out standing in front of one of these buildings was a familiar blue stallion wearing a top hat. Like I said, it was someone who we both knew. One of us knew more than the other.

"Greeting you two," he said sociably. "I'm glad you could make it."

"How is it he can see us?" Rarity asked.

"That's a pretty good question. Would you care to answer the lady's query?"

"Apologies to the young lady. It's a trade secret. Speaking of which I must tend to some business now. It is rather important I'm afraid so if you could accompany me while we discuss your situation that would be most appreciated."

He waited there to let us respond. It wasn't something that I was expecting him to do. Rarity and I looked at each other and I simply shrugged.

"I doubt it would hurt," Rarity said.

I turned back to him and nodded.

"Splendid! Now, follow me."

Sandcroft turned around and the entire door lit up in a green glow. After hearing a few shuffling sounds, the door opened up for him. He then walked in followed by the two of us. The inside looked like a pretty normal place; a little one bedroom and one bathroom apartment-like place. The exception was a trail of rope that was leading from the door to a staircase off to the side. A quick thought made me realize that this was, almost certainly, Bronze Gear's house.

I was in the middle of a pseudo-robbery.

Of course, I couldn't say anything about it. The whole thing was going to happen no matter what. The rope was odd since there wasn't any in the story, but everything else there would be just how I think it would have appeared if it were more detailed. We didn't touch anything either as we followed him down the stairs to the basement. Again, the door to there was lit up for a bit before he opened it and went inside.

When we followed him, what we found was quite impressive. Schematic designs, half-built machinery, a steam engine, and all sorts of other works and parts were strewn about everywhere. This was obviously a place where someone who worked with their... hooves lived. Sandcroft wasn't as impressed as I was. Rarity was simply avoiding the whole thing by staying at the base of the stairs.

"Did we really need to come to a place with so much junk?"

Sandcroft didn't answer her. He was too busy looking at some parchment on one of the tables. He then smirked and rolled up the parchment. His horn lit up and before our eyes black, misty holes appeared under everything not nailed down. Just after they appeared, everything that they materialized under started sinking into the holes.

"There we are," he said cheerfully. "With that being taken care of we can discuss the matter of your appearance here."

"As happened last time I can surmise that you know exactly the reason why we are here."

"Quite. There is a tear in the fabric of space that carries a tint of your essence. I believe you are here for that."

"Exactly. The two of us are here to seal it. Hopefully for the last time."

"Agreed. Your presence here is, despite my cheerful expression, an annoyance to my continuing plans here. Though I am grateful for your non-interference in the battle earlier. It would have... complicated things."

"Yeah, great. I doubt anything was going to happen that required any action on our part."

He gave me a narrowed gaze that was so quick that I almost missed it.

"Indeed. Now I believe we have the matter of this tear to attend to."

The black holes, which had finished removing almost everything there, disappeared after completing their task. As they did his horn lit up again. The difference this time was that his eyes glowed as well. After a few tense seconds we were utterly surprised as the tear appeared in the far corner of the room.

"What the hell?"

"Don't be so shocked. It originally appeared here. I simply phased it out of this space the minute I felt it appear. You were fortunate that Bronze Gear was out or there could have been more complications," he finished looking at Rarity.

"So is there a reason you didn't tell me about this before?"

"You neither asked about it nor even seemed aware of its existence. As such I merely kept it tucked away. Such an interesting thing it was too."

Flashes of Nightmare Moon came unbidden to the forefront of my mind.

"Don't tell me you've been messing with it," I said in a very serious tone.

"Oh all I've done is observe it. Nothing to be concerned about."

Yeah, just hearing that made me concerned.

"No need to keep dragging this along. Go ahead and seal the tear. I need to tend to a few more pieces of business before the end of the day."

It honestly felt like I was doing his dirty work more than helping out others right then. Still, I handed off Eris to Rarity. She then somewhat reluctantly went over and sealed the rift as she was asked. This brought a wider smile out of the top hat wearing pony as Rarity walked back to me.

"Magnificent! I'm glad you could take care of that little issue."

Rarity handed back Eris as we both kept an eye on him.

"Now then, there is one last thing I must say before you both leave."

As he finished saying that, I felt a presence right next to my ear. Before I could move I heard it whisper in my ear.

"Don't you or any of your kind come to this world again or there will be consequences."

"Isn't Lucien still here though?"

As the light from Eris enveloped us, I heard one last thing.

"That isn't what I meant."

Author's Note:

Once again, a big thank you to Sandcroft for giving me permission to use Ungrounded in my story. Go read all his stories while you're at it.

Comments

[Lucien Chance]

Headcanon accepted. Welcome to the fold.

In all honesty, though, I never really thought about the contents of Bronze Gear's house beyond the line "everything's gone." Similarly, I never put any thought into how my namesake actually utilized magic beyond the basic telekinesis, so the black hole bit was a nice touch. I will also add that you did a good job characterizing Sandcroft. Amicable, but still subtly threatening.

It was also interesting seeing the Bronze Gear fight from a different perspective, even if it was brief. You also totally got me on the EMP not nullifying the sword's magic. I didn't even think of that at all, and it would've been a nice touch to the fight if Lucien had to rely solely on his sword for the first half.

Thanks for the plug in the A/N!

[Coltsguy]

6739386 No problem. I originally had everything getting sucked up into his top hat, but it felt a bit contrived at that point.