Shining Gears

by Space Wizard Novablast

Chapter one: Life in the state of W

Trottingham

One of the most magnificient cities in all of equestria, its glory and lights creating pleasure not only for the eyes, but the magnificient music, be it blues in the Inner City States, be it classical music in the central theatres, or be it dubstep resided over by Dj pon3 or her fans and colleagues, created pleasure for the ears.

The City itself was art, proof of how pegasi and earth ponies had worked together and overcome their differences, that they could truly be United in a common goal. Celestia her self had praised the masonworkers for their excellent, she had named the city: home of sky and earth.

So therefore the beautiful ironi of a unicorn noble as mayor rubbed a great many people off the wrong way.

Flare, a unicorn with a great many contacts had been personally chosen for the job as mayor by Celestia, at least that was the story that covered up the herendous truth. The unicorn nobles wanted influence in every single city on the earth. So they had pressured Celestia to make one of the nobles mayor of the new city.

If you were to ask any pegasus or earth pony in the entirety of Trottingham, they would tell you that Flare was an oppressive and cruel tyrant with no compassion, they would say that they wished for a pegasus or an earth pony mayor.

That is, except one.

Gearhead, like the majority of Trottingham's population, was an earth pony. He had an incredibly light brown coat, with a slightly darker brown mane, he had a cutie mark which resembled a wrench crossed with a screwdriver, for some giving off the illusion that he was a mechanic. But for those who knew him, which wasn't exactly a lot, he was something much more.

Gearhead, was a special case for an earth pony, because while most earth ponies never got into the refined arts of music or writing, some special cases did. But as far as he knew, Gearhead was the only living earth pony inventor.

He had found out at an early age, when he had made his night lamp into a flashlight for reading daring doo without his parents noticing. The next morning he had woken up with a wrench and a screwdriver on his bum, and he had gotten a scolding from his parents at the same time.

Ever since then he had worked to better his skills as an engineer. He had a doctorate in advanced electronics. His main study course had been demolitions, mainly for when things went wrong. And he was even the man behind the magic storage unit, something he had chosen to name 'Batteries'.

But none of this helped with his current jobless state.

He hadn't been in the mood to do anything after the automatic cleaner has exploded and left his cellar in a pretty poor state. So the bits he got from the batteries selling we're getting fewer and fewer. He had finally gotten into the mood to actually find a job. But before that, he had to get a drink.

Currently he was with Samuel, friend and esteemed colleague.

"Look here Gearhead, I've recently been fired." He took a small moment to burp from the beer before continuing, "and I think you would love it. It's a job as a teacher at a university."

Gearhead took another swig of the whiskey. "Heh, I'll take a look at it Sam, but I dunno if it's gonna do anything for me, I've never tried teaching before."

"It ain't hard, you just have to tell them what to do, and if they're ever doing it wrong, correct them, it's easy peasy." He said, chugging down on the glass until it was empty.

"Alright, alright, I'll take a look at it. But for now let's just relax." He said, emptying his glass and started walking towards the door. "I'm gonna go home, see ya later Sam."

Although Sam heard absolutely nothing, he was sleeping ever so peacefully lying over the table snoring.

Luckily, for Gearhead at any rate, the bar was one the exact same street as him. But in his current state, even getting home was a challenge best faced sober.

He immediately rammed into one of the lamp posts wrapping his forelegs around it, holding on for dear life. Until he heard a voice call out to him.

"Oh my Celestia, are you alright?" Said a cute and definitely feminine voice.

Gearhead looked in her direction, he couldn't see her all too clearly, but it was definitely a mare. However, more subtle features, or even blatant features like colour, was kind of hard to differentiate when your eyes see everything in a Grey haze.

"Yes, I'm fine." He stammered, "I've just had a bit too much to drink."

"Can I help you?" She asked worried.

"If you will that'd be great. My house is the big one at the end of the street just down there." He said, pointing a hoof towards the familiar destination.

"Okay, you can support yourself on me." She said, motioning closer towards him.

"Luna bless you." He said, letting go of the lamp post and clinging to the mare.

They started walking down the street, every time the light of a lamp post passed by Gearhead found his eyes becoming slightly more focused, but then the light of yet another lamp would almost blind him again.

Finally they reached the door of his house, it was quite a bit bigger than most of the houses on discord avenue, but it was still not the biggest in Trottingham.

"Thank you," he said as his hoof reached the doorknob, "I don't know if I would've made it without you."

"Not a problem." She said, even through the grey haze, Gearhead could still see her smiling.

"May I know the name or my savior?" He asked, still not able to see her face properly.

"I'm Sun Spring, nice to meet you." She said.

"We'll Sun Spring, hopefully we meet at a later time under more pleasant circumstances." He said, smiling coyly at her, he tried to wink, but his muscles wouldn't cooperate.

"See you around." He said as he closed the door slowly, allowing her time of speech.

"Likewise." She said as she started to walk off.

Gearhead closed the door, he leaned against the wall, trying desperately to find his bed. This was one of the many reasons why he had bed on the ground floor.

He finally felt his forelegs smacking into the bed frame. He fell forwards, both hearing and feeling his body smacking down onto the mattress.

And soon all that was heard in house number 113 was snoring.

---

The first thing Gearhead found out when he woke up was the fact that he needed some of his patent pills.

"Jasper, anti migraine." He said, rubbing his temples slowly, trying to get the pain to recede slightly.

"Certainly master." Came the robotic answer at the end. The sound of gears moving and the scraping of metal against metal reassured Gearhead that Jasper still worked.

A robotic arm came down from the ceiling, in the hand was a small bottle of pills. Gearhead took hold of the lid with his teeth and twisted it slightly, it came off with a small pop, allowing a single pills to drop into his mouth.

He could feel the pain receding immediately. "That's another one for the patent." He said as he removed the sheet.

"What do you wish for breakfast master?" Asked the robotic voice of Jasper.

"Just coffee today James, I have important business to take care off, so I'm eating on the way." He said, as he got dressed, a dark red top hat was all he needed to wear.

"Understood sir." James said as the sound of the coffee machine started.

The inventor walked towards the door, trying his best to lose the nervousness he was experiencing. He had never tried being a teacher before, would they even take him?

"Here's your coffee sir." James said as a small canteen of coffee was brought by the same hand as the one with the pills.

"Thank you James, remember that the cellar needs to be cleaned after last weeks accident." He said as he stepped out the door.

"The one that involved the playmare magazine or the explosion?" James asked.

"Which one do you think you smug ass robot?" Gearhead growled slightly at the personality of his robot butler. He would need to reprogram him at some point....... Maybe.

He knew the way to the university, he had gone there himself. Although back then it had looked more like a church. Now it looked more like a huge library.

He found the huge glass doors that created the portal into the university to be a bit overkill. Personally, he thought he would've chosen something with silver outlines.

The door was opened by a pegasus in a suit, he glared daggers at the earth pony as he stepped in.

"Hats are not allowed within these walls sir." He said with obvious malice in his voice, "I need to ask you to deliver it immediately or leave."

"Hmm, yes I can see that, but I think I'll keep my hat on and keep going. How does that sound?" He said while tapping the chest of the guard.

"It's sounds absolutely credulo-"

"Great," he was cut short by Gearhead, "then I'll just keep going alright?"

He didn't even let the guard answer, he just motioned towards the principles office with a confident walk, letting students marvel, or chuckle, whatever they wished to do.

He knocked lightly on the door, causing a loud moan from the other side of the door. "Yes, yes, I'm coming." Came an exasperated voice from the supposed principal.

The door opened to reveal a dark grey pegasus stallion with half closed eyes standing in the doorway.

"What do you want?" He said in a voice that sounded like it had been dipped in venom, "we don't take any more students this year."

"No actually, I'm here for a job." Gearhead said as he tipped his hat.

Immediately the tiredness or the pegasus left, his eyes brightened up and a smile creeped up on his lips. "Yes of course, please, do come in."

"Thank you," Gearhead said, pleased by the sudden change of mood.

"Now if you would just sit down right here." He said, pointing at a large armchair.

Gearhead sat down, inspecting the room of, who he supposed was the principal, he couldn't really know, the pegasus had informed him of nothing as of yet, not name, not his job. But that was hopefully going to change pretty soon.

"Now first or all," the pegasus said as he pushed some papers off the table and onto the floor, where they hit with a large thump, "how did you learn of this job? It only became available a few days ago, and we haven't put anything in the paper, as far as I know anyways."

Gearhead took the hat off, placed it in his lap and rested his hooves on it. He found it easier to talk with someone when he was sitting like this.

"Well, a colleague and friend of mine was the person who got fired from here." Gearhead said.

"Samuel! Really? You're friends with that flank chaser?" He asked raising a suspicious eyebrow.

Gearhead frowned slightly at the description of his friend and associate, but was determined not to fumble this up. He kept his mouth shut and simply nodded.

"We'll, hopefully you know why he was fired?" He said, once again shifting some papers.

"No, he never told me, although he did bring it up only yesterday." Gearhead said, casually looking around.

"We'll, I'm gonna put this straight mister.....?" He said curiously

"Gearhead."

"Mister Gearhead, your friend Samuel was, and is still having, an affair with one of the students." He said, scoffing slightly as he said it.

"Phew." Gearhead said in a fake whistle, "I knew Samuel was of the romantic sort, but I never imagined him having an affair with a student of his."

"I trust this will not be a problem with you, mister Gearhead?" He said, one again raising his eyebrow.

"Of course not, I wouldn't dare." He said, a bit too quickly if he was to be honest, but it seemed to convince the pegasus.

"Fantastic. Now tell me, what do you think qualifies you to work here?" He said, clapping his hooves together in an audible smack.

"We'll, I've studied advanced electronics to the point of a doctorate, my main study course was demolitions, on this very university might I add." He said, but for dramatic effects sake, "oh, and I am also an inventor, previous full time job, but I guess that's going to become more of a hobby now."

The pegasus whistled slightly once Gearhead was finished, "well, you have the qualifications. Have you worked as a teacher before?" He asked.

"No, this Is my first time." Gearhead replied.

"Well, I guess you need the job to learn and experience, you're hired." He said, smacking a form down onto the table. "Just sign this and I'll get one of the other teachers to show you around."

Gearhead quickly scribbled his name onto the form, quickly handing it to the pegasus who placed it in a basket with the word 'furnace' on it. He turned to a small pipe where he plopped a roll of paper into, before he shut the tube and pulled a lever, Gearhead could actually hear the scroll fly off.

"You called for me mister cloud runner?" Said a feminine, and for some reason Gearhead thought, familiar.

"Ah yes, come in."

And in stepped a yellow mare, she had a bright orange mane and a cutie mark of a scroll with a music note on, she had clear blue eyes and a very cute smile.

"Miss Sun Springs, this is mister Gearhead, he's going to be teaching in advanced electronics." Said the pegasus, whom Gearhead now knew as cloud runner.

"Ahh, I believe we're already acquainted." She said, smiling happily at him.

Gearhead could do nothing but just chuckle awkwardly, he had never even expected to meet the mare from yesterday again. Yet she was right in front of him.

"Well, mister Gearhead, why don't it show you around." She asked, still smiling.

"Of course miss Sun springs." He said, jumping to his hooves and following her out

"Now then, let me give you a tour of Trottingham university

Author's Note:

I wanted to try something different, and this is it

Enjoy

Comments

[TCValley]

The storyline is interesting, and so are the characters.
There are a few mistakes, but nothing big enough to kill the story.
I'll be watching this to see where it goes.

[Space Wizard Novablast]

3556149

It's always nice to know that I've moved away from killing a story with my mistakes.

Thank you