Techno-Babble in Equestria

by LucidTech

Chapter Four

(Chapter 4, because who needs sleep right? -N64Fan)

Inventor slowly awoke in the cushioned bed as the familiar scent of dusty tomes reached his nose and the rhythmic noise of clockwork drifted into his ears. Despite all that had happened the previous day Inventor couldn’t help but smile at the entire situation. “I got away.” Inventor smiled even wider as he said this and he began to fall back to sleep before a memory jumped to the forefront of his mind. “Twilight”

Standing up from his bed Inventor brushed his clothes off in a vain attempt to flatten them. After a couple beatings of his clothes he exited the guest room only to hear a familiar voice ringing in from the bottom floor where he and Twilight had spent most of the previous day. “How did Celestia manage to follow me here?” Inventor thought to himself but then shook his head in doubt and disbelief. With his left hand he reached into his coat and pulled out his pocket watch, with a turn of the winder and a click his invisibility disguise covered him once more.

With this camouflage active Inventor made his way downstairs for a closer look at what was going on. Spike sat with Celestia at the table, Spike taking the chair while Celestia sat on the cushion, Twilight was standing off to the side of the table. Celestia stood to leave as she finished her visit. As she left she turned back to Twilight “Make sure that Inventor is the first one to exit the building, we’ll take care of it from there.”

“I will Princess,” Twilight said with a nod, the princess smiled back to Twilight and left the tower. When the door was closed Twilight sighed heavily, “I don’t know if I can do this Spike, I offered to be his friend last night. And my first act of that friendship is going to be to send him out to get captured by the princess.”

“But Twilight, if he’s really as dangerous as Celestia said then how do we know he wouldn’t do something bad to us as soon as we were outside the city?” Spike asked as he walked over to comfort the lavender mare.

“I just don’t know Spike, this is such a tough decision for me. Honor the princess or destroy a friendship I just made.” Twilight shook her head back and forth in indecision as a look of sadness came to her.

Inventor remained silent through the exchange between the dragon and the unicorn. His hands were now clenched tightly into fists as he made his decision. “I am done running.” Inventor said to himself as he threw open the door to the tower and marched out into the ambush. With his invisibility cloak on Inventor walked harmlessly through the danger zone as many rushed whispers danced through the foliage of the park about the door opening but no one coming out.

Around a bend in the road Luna and Celestia came into view who were looking at the door with confused looks. As he approached and his tell-tale clockwork ticking increased in volume Luna began to look around wildly with a knowing smile. Even more confused Celestia was about to begin to do the same when Inventor turned off his cloak directly in front of the sun princess.

Celestia was stunned, as were all the hidden royal guards in the bushes. “If you have a bone to pick with me, You talk to me, got it? YOU DO NOT PUT YOUR STUDENT INTO A SITUATION LIKE THAT!” Inventor shouted at the sun princess, rage blatant if every word, he had had a bad day yesterday and this recent act of Celestia's didn't help the matter. Back at the tower Twilight stared on in awe at the fact that someone had just shouted at one of the princesses for her sake.

As Inventor finished his rant a guard bolted out of the bushes and ran at him fearing for the safety of the princess, Inventor turned the look he was using on Celestia to the charging guard, The result from this act was a display of the sheer anger in his eyes as the guard was not only cowed backward, but also ducked back into the bush he had come from.

Inventor leveled his gaze back at the princess, “Now then, I believe that you wanted to talk to me? Let’s go then shall we.” The man said impatiently as he looked expectantly at Celestia who returned the gaze to the man before her albeit with curiosity rather than anger. It took a jab in her side by Luna to get the white alicorn to start acting again.

After a quiet and short trip back to the castle they arrived in the conference room that was headed by two thrones, one of obsidian, the other of gold. The princesses took their respective thrones while Inventor stood in the middle of the court. There was silence for a minute before Celestia spoke, “Inventor, me and my sister have a proposal for you.” Her voice echoed around the acoustical hall. “We will let you be free and do what you will with your life, within the pre established laws of course, if you will accept our one condition.”

“and that condition is?” Inventor said, unimpressed by the hall or the thrones, he had seen grander things fall.

“We read your memory to determine if you are good or bad at your core.” Celestia said, Luna nodded in agreement with her sister’s words and looked expectantly towards Inventor, awaiting his answer. They didn’t have to wait long.

“I decline.” Inventor’s eyes were level and his voice flat as he responded to the princesses and Luna had a feeling she was somehow being stared at evenly despite height difference from the stand and the thrones.

“On what grounds?” Celestia asked, curious as to what had made Inventor’s decision so soon.

“On the grounds that I would rather not be held responsible for the insanity of the figure head that almost everyone in the entire country looks up to. Not to mention that I recently read a history book for this world. Luna needs you more than you think Celestia.”

Luna blushed slightly at this but Celestia continued on unphased “I am several thousand years old, there is little I haven’t seen Inventor. I very much doubt your memories would drive me to insanity.” Celestia replied a little too quickly, confidence in her voice.

“Oh really, My apologies I hadn’t realized you had seen first person a man killing countless souls to protect his own, or for that matter, the only person you have ever loved melting into a puddle of SLUDGE!” Inventor choked as tears began to force their ways to his eyes as his memories came to him causing him to relive them. “I wasn’t aware that you lived by yourself for a hundred years plus some having all the incidents repeating themselves mercilessly in your sleep. AND THAT, DEAR PRINCESS, IS JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG!” His head snapped up looking first into Celestia’s eyes and then into Luna’s.

What Luna saw in those eyes almost made the moon princess cry as well, There was sadness and loneliness and such horrible feelings that she didn’t know how the man had avoided killing himself. There was so much self-loathing in those eyes, so much pain and anguish. ‘He must be telling the truth, there is no other explanation for what I see in those eyes’. Luna thought to herself.

Silence echoed in the hall in an attempt to fill the shouts that the air now lacked. In a poetical way Celestia doubted the hall would ever be the same after that outbreak. That, whenever she entered the hall from then on it would sound different, even if nopony spoke. “I will not lie when I say that your words have hit me quite hard, however I can’t let you go free by those words alone.” There was a silence before Celestia continued, “But, given the circumstances that you recently came to the defense of my student Twilight, I think I can give you a free pass to go.”

Luna smiled as Inventor looked up at them, “May I ask one favor Celestia?” the madman muttered as he wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket.

“And what would that be Inventor?”

“I want you both to promise me that no one outside of this room will ever hear of what I have said. It is not a past that I take pride in.”

Luna was the first to take up the offer and she did so eagerly, “I promise never to repeat the words spoken in this room to anyone besides my sister Celestia and the human Inventor.”

Celestia made a similar promise and Inventor bowed to them, “Thank you.”

As Inventor made to leave Celestia spoke up one last time, “If you hurt Twilight I will do all that is legally in my power to make your life as horrible as possible.” her voice was cold as she looked at the man.

“If you could find it in your heart to kill me, that would be great Celestia.” Inventor said nonchalantly as he left the high arching eves of the throne room, upon exiting Inventor saw a large crowd that had established itself at the rumors of someone threatening the princess. They all gasped as he stepped out from the shade created by the overhang.

Near the front of the crowd Inventor saw a familiar looking purple unicorn. He approached the gathered ponies causing a spectacle as all the ones near the front tryed to back away, Twilight however remained still and looked at him with a sad smile. Upon reaching her Inventor spoke first to answer Twilight’s question that she was about to ask. “So, Ponyville huh? We should set out or your friends will start worrying for you.”

Twilight nodded as a tear began to roll from her eye as they began to leave, a guard called out to them before they were out of earshot. “Princess Celestia has prepared a chariot for you to take to Ponyville, Usual place.” Twilight nodded in response and they set out again.

Getting back through the crowd wasn’t difficult as everyone backed away from Inventor and before long man and mare were walking the near deserted roads of early morning Canterlot. The few earth ponies and unicorns who were out ducked into nearby houses as the biped approached, the pegasi just flew a few feet higher until he was gone.

The walk past mostly silently until Twilight spoke up, “So what did you talk to the princesses about?”

“My past.” Inventor responded as he pulled out his pocket watch to check how much time had passed since he had used it last. “Two more hours,” He muttered to himself with a sad shake of his head before turning his attention back to Twilight.

“And how did that go?” The librarian replied curiously, if the princesses had heard about his past, and had still given him a free pass, maybe his past wasn’t so horrible after all.

“Almost made Luna cry.” Inventor responded with an apathetic voice. ‘or maybe not’ thought the unicorn with a sad shake of her head, the lavender mare was about to ask about his past when she stopped herself, He obviously didn't like to talk about it, Twilight decided that she could hold her comments for a more appropriate time.

The rest of the walk to the sky carriage was silent except for the soft exclamations of the ponies who ducked into nearby houses to escape the monster and the soft clockwork ticking of unknown source.

The sky carriage was positioned near the edge of Canterlot and showed the massive overlook of the rest of the valley, as well as a thick forest off in the distance. “Where’s Ponyville?” Inventor asked the librarian. The lavender mare pointed out a small settlement of in the distance, oddly near to the forest.

“Right, you fly ahead and prepare your friends so I don’t get attacked on first sight, I’ll come into town on the next sunrise.” Inventor smiled as he began to stretch. “Oh and I don’t suppose that you have my-” he was interrupted as Twilight levitated his bag out of her saddle bags. “Thanks.”

“No problem, but how do you intend to get to Ponyville if I take the sky carriage?” The lavender mare asked her odd companion. With a smile Inventor tapped a metal spot just under the valley of his shoulder blades and his leather and machine wings clicked open at full force, almost knocking Twilight to the ground. Twilight steadied herself and smiled as she got on the sky carriage. “Now where is Spi-” she was interrupted as the scaly dragon himself came huffing up to the carriage.

When he got on he turned his gaze expectantly to Inventor until he noticed a pair of leather wings on his back. “I didn’t know you had wings, Inventor. How do you keep them flat under all that clothing?”

Inventor just smiled as he waved to Twilight, she nodded and spoke to the pair of pegasi at the front of the sky carriage. “Ponyville, please.” The sky carriage took off leaving the biped alone on the edge of the city.

With a smile Inventor jumped into the open air and let the wind catch his wings as he drifted lazily towards Ponyville. Inventor breathed in deeply, once again admiring the scent of the fresh air that seemed prevalent wherever he went. Little did either group know that a certain cyan pegasus had just set out from the same town they were heading to to look for her magical inclined friend and her spiked assistant.

Comments

[LucidTech]

Quick Question for everypony, Would you be for or against me combining chapters one and two together. I just feel like doing so would allow for a little bit more consistency between the stories as the first two chapters are about half the length of other chapters as well as both essentially being 'Luna Meets Inventor' chapters.

[VX]

I dont really mind about dat But also another thing make your stories longer please

[AppleTank]

That......was a little bit cheesy. Somewhat over melodramatic. I think a better voice for Inventor would be broken, hollow, despair. Instead of bursting into emotion, he seems more like a guy who would go emotionless and coldly state brief bits of his past.

His dark past would benefit being a little darker, and Celestia seems a bit too trusting. Court scene should try to be extended slightly.

[The Crimson Reaper]

3459252 I agree, the man has been through so much and has been spiritually broken, so it would make sense that he would sound broken, emotionless, and mechanical as well as detatched.