The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Some Better Than Others

"So what interests you about the gravity machine?" Anemone asked as the group walked through the halls of the space department, Sea Star having departed to go do professor things. "You said your friend missed the air? Your airship, I presume."

Valey winced a little. "Uh... yeah, that."

Shinespark shook her head. "My cutie mark formerly allowed me to fly. But it needed my horn, and that no longer functions."

Valey stared at her. "I thought we were keeping that mostly under wraps...?"

Shinespark shrugged. "While in the Empire, and only to prevent news of who Braen was from reaching Ironridge. And it's been long enough that it wouldn't matter anymore, anyway."

"I'm sorry, fly?" Anemone interrupted. "Could you clarify that a little?"

"Not really," Shinespark said. "I could surround myself with magic and fly. Move around through the air. There isn't an obtuse meaning to it."

Anemone stared for a moment. "I've never heard of a cutie mark that can do that before," she mused, shaking her head. "And yours reacted unusually earlier..." She glanced at Valey. "Cutie marks must work differently up north than they do down here."

Valey flicked her tail. "Or we wound up traveling with each other because we all had stuff in common."

"They do work differently," Starlight interrupted. "Most ponies never get one. It's not like here where it happens to everyone."

"Speaking of Sparky's mark being unusual," Valey cut in, nodding, "doesn't it have this thing where it generates way more of what we call harmony up north than most ponies? What do you call the magical stuff generated by ponies' cutie marks?"

Anemone blinked at them. "What?"

"You know..." Valey patted her butt, showing off her mark. "The stuff that... like... does useful stuff? Bananas, I don't know how it works."

Shinespark shook her head. "It isn't relevant. We won't be doing anything with it any time soon, and if you want me to move on you aren't going to change that."

Anemone paused. "Does that mean you'd rather I not show you the gravity machine?"

Valey gave Shinespark a look that dared her to go see it. Shinespark averted her eyes. Starlight and Nyala awkwardly stood nearby.

"Oh! Hello!" an vaguely-familiar voice called from down the hall. "It's you!"

Everyone looked. Starlight blinked, slowly recognizing one of the student nurses from the hospital. "Hi," she greeted, realizing the others weren't going to be as fast. "What are you doing here?"

The nurse's ears flopped. "Moving your catatonic friend. We were told to give her an ice water bath, and this facility has a temperature stress-testing chamber. Do you know anything about that? Because it seems like a bad idea to me..."

"Uhhh..." Valey frowned. "You mean Meltdown? Isn't her thing usually extremely high temperatures? She's called Meltdown for a reason."

The nurse shrugged. "Your friends told us to do it. Felicity and Amber?"

Anemone was staring. "Why are you putting a catatonic mare in the temperature test room?"

Nyala cleared her throat. "Well, you could always go see her if you're not enthusiastic about the gravity machine." She looked considerably more comfortable now that they were out of the underground, and her voice was stronger, too. "None of you have paid an extreme amount of attention to her over the last month. Speaking for myself, maybe she's fine with that, but she also might be lonely, too."

Shinespark frowned. "She doesn't usually have a lot to say."

Starlight was already walking off in the direction the nurse had come from.

---

"This is a temperature stress-testing room?" Valey stared around at a wide-open space. "I sorta figured it would be a sealed thingamajig, but this looks like an industrial swimming pool."

Vats of water separated by metal catwalks were recessed into the ground, with a system of beams and cranes overhead. Most of the vats were filled, and one near the center was steaming heavily.

"I wonder if that's hers," Shinespark muttered.

Anemone gave the vat a perplexed look. "But you said an ice bath, and that's steaming."

Valey shrugged. "Look, I've seen this mare drop fireballs and shoot gigantic pillars of flame. My money is not on your ice bath, here."

Anemone blinked. "You have a lot of very curious friends."

"That's how it goes," Shinespark sighed.

Nyala was already halfway along the catwalks, and Starlight followed along. The steam from the steaming vat was slowly starting to clear, aided partly by gigantic fume hoods that covered the ceiling, and a trio of nurses and scientists were staring at the vat, boggled, as Meltdown treaded water in the middle. "Colder!" Meltdown called. "Can you increase the flow!?"

An engineer stallion Starlight hadn't met stared at her and Nyala. "Do you have any idea what this even is?" he asked, a clipboard hanging slack on a lanyard about his neck.

"...It's you." Meltdown's eyes briefly met Starlight's. "I see I have visitors already. They can work the controls. Thank you for your efforts. You are dismissed."

The trio all blinked. "Yikes," the other scientist said. "No disrespect, but no need to be bossy. We're risking turning you to a popsicle to do you a favor."

"My apologies." Meltdown closed her eyes. "I've had a very unpleasant span of time."

The ponies awkwardly stepped back, nodding in understanding but not leaving fully.

"Hey, you're awake," Valey greeted, arriving and seating herself by the edge of the pool. "Long time, no... uh... whatever we used to do together. Sorry. Most of what I remember you for is that pirate ship where you dueled Puddles..."

Meltdown slowly blinked. "Weren't you dead?"

Valey shrugged. "I got better. I don't really remember it, but I've heard it wasn't the greatest."

"I can relate."

The remaining nurse looked sympathetic, and both science students disturbed. "Did you just casually say you got better from being dead?" one asked.

"Yep." Valey rolled her shoulders, glancing back at them. "Listen, I know the adventuring lifestyle is super glamorous here, but just take it from me, don't be too jealous."

The scientists looked at each other and blinked.

"I think it's hard to call what we spent the last month doing living," Shinespark cut in. "You laid in bed all day. I sat in the hold all night. It's a month we aren't going to get back."

"Only a month?" Meltdown folded her ears. "It felt like forever. How is Gazelle?"

Starlight and Valey both winced. "Not too stable..."

"Figures." Meltdown looked vaguely cross.

"Not to intrude," Nyala said, "but it could stand to be a little less tense in here... Is there anything we can do for you?"

Meltdown's eyes flicked to the students. "There are too many ponies here for my comfort."

"Alright, fine, I can take a hint..." One of the students grumbled and wandered off. "Hope you don't suddenly realize it's freezing in there, or anything. You find the one adventurer who actually needs your talents, and they aren't impressed at all..."

The others hesitantly followed, and Meltdown sat a little easier in her tank. Valey frowned at her. "You know, I'd ask if you're alright, but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't appreciate me not guessing for myself."

"I am not alright," Meltdown replied curtly. "And you should be aware that I don't like being around ponies when I'm... vulnerable. Thank you for treating me as well as you did. I didn't have a good time."

"Would you prefer to be left alone now, then?" Nyala hesitated. "We just heard you were here, and I just suggested you might enjoy company."

"Thank you for the thought." Meltdown closed her eyes. "If you would like to help, what I would enjoy most is a way to regain my autonomy. I require my brand to do most of the things one would associate with being alive, and the heat is a byproduct. I don't expect you to be able to create a coolant suit matching the entire Griffon Empire's technological prowess, or even to know the first thing about them, but the effort I would appreciate."

Shinespark stared at her in thought.

"So that's a yes on being left alone?" Valey momentarily frowned. "...Well, alright then. Back to Plan A, I guess. Come on, let's go check out that gravity machine."

"Well, it's nice seeing you talking again." Nyala waved, turning to leave as well.

Starlight wanted to be the last one to leave, certain there was more that Meltdown had left unsaid, something she was saving for the very end... but Shinespark proved more determined than her, and so she followed on Valey and Nyala's heels, looking over her shoulder as she left.

Shinespark had caught up by the time they returned to the hallway. "Who was that?" Anemone asked, glancing back at the closed doors. "I'm guessing her story wasn't a happy one."

"None of ours were," Shinespark grunted. "She was high up in the Griffon Empire. Helped us fight a monster that was about to destroy the place. We all lost, and we took her with us when we evacuated."

"...She was a teenager. Tell me she wasn't." Anemone gave her a look.

Shinespark shrugged. "That didn't stop me from leading half of Ironridge. The north doesn't work the way things do here, apparently."

"Hellooo, gravity machine?" Valey waved a wing to distract them. "Come on, trust me, this is going to be awesome."

"Why?" Shinespark stared at her. "Aside from positivity for the sake of positivity, what do you know about it? Because I have other things on my mind."

"That's the point." Valey bumped her flank with her own. "To get your mind off those."

Shinespark frowned.

"Come on, you used to love this! Right?" Valey shoved her along down the hallway. "At least, you have a cutie mark in it, so I hope you did. If I were you, I'd be kicking myself sideways over spending the last bajillion years coming up with excuse after excuse to limit my use of it. I know I'd be ticked if I had a cutie mark that gave me a horn, and then I never used it and lost it. You know what I'd do if I had a horn? Lay on a couch, and not even need to get up to fetch more fruit from across the room when I got hungry."

"I don't have a horn either." Shinespark's look darkened. "Please don't rub it in."

Valey backed off and sighed. "Okay, if I'm not helping, I get it. I really just wanna see you smile."

"...Does this work?" Shinespark tried something that, if seen for a split second through a telescope, could be interpreted as a genuine smile.

"...Thanks for trying." Valey smiled back, hers much less burdened.

"So what am I doing?" Anemone interrupted. "For ponies who talk about fighting monsters and making life-and-death decisions, you all are some of the most indecisive I've ever seen."

Starlight stepped right through the trio of arguing ponies, forcing their attention to her. "It turns out that when you have a lot of important decisions to make, every decision feels important," she said. "And so you spend too long on the ones you can afford to because you're afraid of the consequences. Well, I'm not afraid of losing a few hours by going to see a gravity machine and having it be boring, so I'm going even if no one else is."

"That's... the spirit?" Anemone looked slightly worried, but nodded, leading her on.

---

Meanwhile, halfway across the island...

"Well, darling, I think we've learned a very important lesson from all this," Felicity said, standing in a brightly-lit street somewhere in College Town and brushing down her coat.

Amber grinned and winced at the same time. "Don't say the pickled cucumbers are delicious when they're actually awful to avoid offending the one whose idea it was to get them, because there's a good chance she's doing the same for you?"

Felicity rubbed her tongue with a wing. "I was going to say, listen to the helpful students who tell us a place is no good and don't go anyway just because we think we recognize the cuisine despite being from a world away... Also, pickled cucumbers are just called pickles. Those were zucchini, which is why they were bad. But yes. That works too."

Amber burst out laughing. "Well, this day's really gone awful so far. Hahaha! What do you want to bet anyone else is having worse luck than we are? I'll raise you a pickled zucchini." She coughed furtively. "Which is what real pickles are called, by the way, cough cough cough cough cough."

"Categorically false. Have you ever even seen a cucumber? Or a real pickle? I fear for the state of Riverfall cuisine... But take heart, darling, it's barely noon." Felicity patted her back encouragingly. "We've still plenty of time to turn things around. Now, I didn't eat a particularly large meal, thanks to those terrible zucchini, so do you think we ought to seek out better fare while we're still here? They do say not to swim on a full stomach, so we could always try that bathhouse..."

Amber's eyes drifted to the east. "It's a bathhouse. What could go wrong?"

"Spoken like a true temptress of fate," Felicity grumbled, though she had a little smile as well. "For all I know today will be the day we learn Equestrian gender signs are the opposite of what they are up north and wind up crashing the stallions' room. That would be simply dreadful."

"Ick, that would be the worst!"

"Heehee! Oh, whatever. Let's try our luck. For the record, this time it's my idea, so it's on you if you pretend everything's fabulous just to soothe my feelings and get us all in trouble as a result. I can still taste it..."

"Says someone who thinks pickles means pickled cucumbers. I'm telling you, if they had actually been zucchini..."

"They were zucchini! That's why they tasted so foul!"

"Hahaha! Hey, imagine if someone left an entire crate of cucumbers laying around in the bathhouse for some reason. Or imagine if we misread the signs and thought something was the bathhouse when it was actually a cucumber warehouse! That would ruin our day for sure."

"Darling, stop digging yourself deeper, or the victor in this spat is never going to let the other live this down..."

Comments

[Oberth Effect]

No big deal for the KMCA scientists, it's just everything they knew being turned on its head. It must be a good day, because there's science to do!

Isn't Meltdown's armor on the Dream? IIRC, her armor was damaged in the fight against Chrysalis and they had to take it off after getting away. Perhaps the KMCA scientists could use it to try to make something that works a bit better for Meltdown?

I wonder what Meltdown wants to do if/when she gets her autonomy back. Curious to see what she has hidden, if anything.

[Phoenix Kitten]

9990494
Parts of her armour are, I think the turbine fans and heat sinks were torn off by chrysalis, and the rest of the armour is totalled mechanically.

...you know, if all else fails, Meltdown could possibly lend her "services" to create an artificial hotspring.

[Oberth Effect]

9990517

Hrm, so either the super important parts or the super unimportant parts are gone, depending on precisely how the armor works. I wonder how much Meltdown knew about how it works; if she was heavily involved in designing it, perhaps she could use the university's resources to build another one, in exchange for some of the tech. If she just used someone else's design, it's going to be a bit more difficult.

Meltdown is already in a not-great mood as is, I don't know that being a generic heat source would go over well.

I'm kind of curious if the laws of thermodynamics work the same in the story as they do here. If they do, I wonder where all the heat Meltdown produces goes. The armor might have helped get it away from her body fast, but if I remember how much heat she said she normally produced then it's definitely not being dumped into the environment, because everyone around her is still alive.

[Phoenix Kitten]

9990527
Well the turbine fans are what allowed her to weaponise it, the heat sinks obv kept her from melting her armour over long periods of non-combat. There was obv a radiator system somewhere in it that kept her cool. All pretty important parts I'd say.
As far it goes, it seems to me that she controls when the heat is released, otherwise she internalises it. As soon as they got her into the river after the crash landing, she was able to release the built up heat into the water, after Amber and Felicity were able to carry her there without catching fire just from contact.

[Oberth Effect]

9990649

I was more thinking important = difficult or hard to replace due to something unusual about it, not necessarily important = not necessary for the proper functioning of the suit. Heatsinks are relatively simple in principle, although perhaps fabrication would be an issue, especially if they have some kind of heat transfer fluid running through them. Same thing with the fans.

I had a different interpretation of how Meltdown's heat works. I thought the amount being actively produced depends directly on how much mental/magical/physical power she is actively using, so if she remains an invalid basically no heat is produced, living "normally" produces a fair amount of heat (for a Meltdown-appropriate level of "fair"), and actively fighting would produce a large amount. I took the river scene as her basically turning up her mental/physical processes to get more comfortable, since she doesn't like being helpless.

[KMCA]

9990494
Wrong fic. I'm not a centre for higher learning this time.

[Oberth Effect]

9990885

Ack, it's KMRA, not KMCA Sorry!

[Boopers]

Whee! I'm back in the present again. Time to science Valey's butt!

[KMCA]

9991381
I can't wait until they find out about someone's ability to hold things in their cutiemark... that'll blow their minds.

[Venlinelle]

The remaining nurse looked sympathetic, and both science students disturbed. "Did you just casually say you got better from being dead?" one asked.

I love having a whole lab full of straight mares for our insane friend group.