Group Precipitation

by FanOfMostEverything

Compatibility Issues, by SaintAbsol and FoME

(SaintAbsol)

"Ah, Miss Shimmer. So glad you could make it." Bright Idea smiled in what he hoped was a confident manner. While by no means a Shimmerist himself, the unicorn aspect did feel a sense of awe that he hadn't really been expecting upon seeing the ascended pony-turned-human. It wasn't even something she seemed to be doing, it just was; he was starting to see why so few of her worshipers actually listened to her insistence of not worshiping her.

"Not that hard," she said, her words snapping him out of his thought process. "Though I'm dividing my consciousness between here and a math test at school, so I'd like to get this over with quickly."

"Right, right," Bright Idea murmured as he turned away and lead her toward his work space, no pressure then. "Now, I've been dabbling in the more... practical aspects of magic, for lack of a better term, for some time now." His voice got a bit more steady and confident as he fell into the 'sales pitch' that he had practiced and rehearsed many a time before. "As you know, enchantments have been used almost since we started using magic, and they've been quite the boon to various aspects of life.

"However," he continued, finally moving a covered box into view. "I think there's more that can be done with it; and, what's more, I think I've managed to do it." He removed the cover form the box, revealing two small metal bars. "Would you please pick these up and tell me what you notice about them?"

Sunset raised an eyebrow, glancing at the two bars, before picking them both up at once. After a few moments, she looked back at Bright. "Well, this one," she moved her hand to indicate which one she meant, "is lighter. I'm guessing that has something to do with the magic I can feel in it."

"Exactly!" Bright Idea was grinning to a level that Sunset had only seen on Pinkie Pie before now. "I have, after so many tries, managed to make what I believe is a new branch of magic. You see, those bars are made of the same material, with the same dimensions. The reason one is is lighter is I was able to... infuse it with the elemental essence of the air itself!"

Sunset blinked several times, before looking back at the topic of their little discussion and raising an eyebrow. "Um... okay? Gonna have to admit, even coming from a world where magic's always been a thing, I'm not really sure I follow here."

Bright's grin never faltered as he moved toward the back of the workshop, forcing Sunset to follow him through piles of various electronic and mystical items. "I have to admit, even I'm struggling to fully understand a lot of what I'm doing or why some of it works. My processes are far from refined at the moment." He eventually stopped at a collection of four jars that held various colors of liquid within them; to Sunset's senses, each seem to be radiating various magical auras, including one that matched the feeling of the metal bar. "The process of distilling elemental essence alone is a chore," Bright continued. "It took me nearly six months to get even this amount, and that's not even counting how long it took me to work out the process in the first place.

"And the process of infusion itself... Well, suffice to say I'm very lucky a friend of mine is a barber who knows a spell for accelerating hair growth, otherwise my eyebrows would be gone still." He chuckled a bit, grabbing a jar and leading Sunset over to what could only be described as an altar of some sorts. Metal spires constructed from scrap metal loomed taller than either of them, and a strange cube sporting complex runic symbols that hurt even Sunset's eyes to look at too closely hovered in the center, supported in a magnetic field. Thick power cables snaked around the base and even more runes could be found there as well. "Took me ages to find the right combination so that the reactions were even remotely stable, and I still have the occasional catastrophic failure." Sunset's eyes wandered to scorch marks around the workshop as Bright placed the jar and another heavy bit of metal on the alter, started to feel slightly uneasy about the whole thing.

As Bright headed to a switch on the wall, his grin was definitely more 'Mad Scientist' than 'Overly Excited' by now. "Here's hoping this isn't one of those times!" And he threw the switch.

Sunset almost screamed though both her avatars, and the one still at CHS actually incinerated her pencil in a reflexive burst of power. The feeling she got when Bright Idea's machine started its process was just so utterly wrong that she was surprised that she hadn't felt it before. And, judging from the metaphysical distortions she was getting from her various other levels of consciousness, Magic didn't like it any better.

And, just as suddenly, the feeling was gone; she could still feel the trepidation of Magic, but the newly created material before her wasn't giving off any of the same feelings as the process of making it had.

"Well, that was lucky," Bright's voice cut into her thoughts, his grin more relaxed as he strolled forward. "For a second there, I was afraid it was going to bl—"

Bright Idea suddenly found his collar grabbed and himself dragged face to face with an angry goddess. "You are going to give me any and all of your notes and schematics so I can figure out how to fix this thing so it doesn't completely violate the whole concept of magic every time it's used," Sunset all but snarled, her power out and on display as this avatar morphed into something much more 'divine' than her usual appearance. "Do I make myself clear?"

And, like any sane man, Bright knew better than to argue. "Y-Yes, Goddess, of-of course!"

(FoME)

Twilight very carefully set the elemental infuser onto a stand in the NAHTI, then huffed out a deep breath. "I'm torn right now."

"How so?" said Sunset, not taking her eyes off the device.

Twilight licked two fingers and pinched out one of the tiny flames burning on the tips of Sunset's hair. "Easy there. On the one hand, I remember how it felt when that..." She directed her own glare at the infuser. "When that thing scraped against the edges of my soul."

Sunset's hand found Twilight's with neither looking. They squeezed as Sunset said, "But?"

"But this feels like the lightsabers all over again. I'm not at all comfortable with you swooping in and squashing someone's research, even if you do have a good reason for doing it."

"I'm not squashing the research; I'm perfecting it." Sunset finally tore her gaze from the infuser to offer a wry smile to Twilight. "You know, so we can get the benefits of this stuff without the soul scraping?"

"That would be nice, yes. But still, what will be the long-term consequences of you putting the fear of yourself into magical researchers? What if you cut off entirely safe avenues of research just because people are afraid of how you react?"

Sunset shrugged. "I can do a vlog on it. Make my position on the matter clear."

Twilight took a step back from Sunset, crossing her arms. "Vlogs are not the solution to all life's problems. Neither are knee-jerk reactions to minor existential threats."

"There's no such thing as a minor existential threat."

"This device might have felt off, but did it actually damage anything?"

Sunset just stared at Twilight for a moment. "Yes! It harmed you on a conceptual level. The way it currently works, it shouldn't be. Same reason twenty-four-hour news networks can give Applejack headaches, only times a million."

"Ahem." Both girls looked at the observation bay, where Mr. Discord was speaking into the microphone and smirking at the two of them. "Would now be a bad time to mention that I believe I understand what went wrong with this novel device? If you'd rather continue your lovers' quarrel for a bit, that's fine by me."

The two girls blushed. "Go ahead, Mr. Discord," said Twilight.

"Yeah, if I'm being honest, it's not like I'd have a lot of time to look into the thing," added Sunset.

"Splendid. How about the two of you go do something adorably twee together? I should have the infuser well in hand."

Twilight bit her lip in thought. "Want to go make fun of more movies with Rainbow Dash? We might get her to admit she enjoys it this time."

Sunset beamed. "Now that I'll always have time for."

Mr. Discord smiled as he watched them leave. The smile curved into a grin most wicked as he turned back to his test subject. "As for you, you're going to teach us all so much about what not to do with magic."

"Is that really necessary?" said Aria Blaze, whose turn it was to be Mr. Discord's "obligatory beautiful assistant" this week. "We both know you're not actually going to do anything interesting with it."

"No," he admitted, "but it is fun."

Author's Note:

Here's a link to what SaintAbsol was referring to. No word on any higher prevalence of right angles around Bright Idea's lab, but given time...

Comments

[Eroraf86]

Yeah, Sunset really doesn't like it when mad scientists hurt her girlfriend.

[blastdragon]

As soon I read about the jars filled with Essence I knew it was about Thaumcraft. Guess the soul scraping is Taint?

[Maran]

I guess magic can only bend the laws of physics so far before magic rebels.

Also, I might borrow Thaumonomicon for one of my fics someday.

[wanderingmagus]

At least we have three gods on standby to deal with taint and warp. That being said, as Mr. Discord said, we might actually want to study this as a case study of what NOT to do, and how to fix that.

[BenRG]

Let's put it this way: If something feels unnatural in a magical world, then it's probably 11/10 bad news.

[Snowdrifter]

Also, Aria is best snarky but beautiful assistant murder fish.

Is that oddly specific? Yes, yes it is.

[RantingPirate]

And here I'd thought of RuneScape at first. The lack of extradimensional shenanigans should probably have clued me in sooner...

[SvenFoxx]

So, she pretty much threatened him into giving up his research... and left? I mean, I understand why she was upset, but she could have at least explained to him what was going on so he didn't try and continue this in secret.

Or worse, tried to actively harm the Concepts out of revenge.

[Aurora Dimmet]

8789771

He built a machine that can hurt the fabric of the universe and its guardians/gods. He was going full mad scientist. Giving him full transparency of the Heavens, that his mortal self could twist All That Is and Those Who Watch... is not only not necessary, it's how you make a supervillain.