The Mare from the Moon

by Evilhumour

Chapter Twenty Four

Twilight followed her up the stairs, wondering what she would see from the Lady of Technology although when she got onto the landing, she did not expect what she saw.

Twilight supposed it was formerly a loft that had looked over the factory but it had clearly been converted into a private workplace with a small corner closed off for living quarters, including a bed tucked into the corner with a table and fridge beside it. Everywhere else had drawing tables and benches with numerous designs and blueprints covering them, and several half-built machines littered the floor. The sheer presence of it all was breathtaking and even a bit overwhelming. It was a testament that Gear Shaft could walk without stepping on anything, while Twilight was forced to teleport herself over to the table after a few false attempts at navigating her way through led her to almost walk into some planning table or piece of machinery.

Gear Shaft flashed her a coy smile as she sat down at her table; her face stumbling for a moment as she saw the leftover meal on the table before chuckling at Twilight.

“If you will give me a moment, Twilight?” she asked as her horn glowed a metallic gray and the entire mess was shunted off before an almost completely clean white tablecloth was put on and a tea set levitated over onto it that was heated up by the mare’s magic. Sitting down at the table, Gear Shaft flashed Twilight a smirk and said, “You look surprised.”

“I-,” Twilight stammered, caught off guard by the fact that Gear Shaft was using her magic.

“Something you should be aware of, Twilight, is that while you are the Lady of Magic, that Role does not mean you are barred from using Technology any more than I am barred from using my magic,” she said as she poured both of them a cup of tea before bringing out a plate of biscuits. “Like the Ladies of the Sun and Moon, our two Powers don’t have to be enemies - we’re fully capable of coexisting peacefully depending how we decide to move forwards.”

“What do you mean by that,” Twilight asked, taking a sip of her tea and wincing slightly. It was bland and very weak, but proper manners kept her from speaking up on it.

“You see Twilight, times are changing and a new Age is upon us,” she said, holding a biscuit in her hooves, taking a small bite before spitting it out. “Gah, I ate some damn oil and grease again!” The mare rushed to the sink to wash her mouth out with Twilight lifting the biscuit to her mouth and taking a bite, only to wrinkle her nose as it was stale.

“Let me guess, hard as a rock?” Gear Shift asked as she came back, leaning into her chair. Any pretense of sophistication was gone. “Sorry to say that while I’m great at technology, my cooking and baking skills are considerably lacking.” She snorted, and shook her head. “That’s an understatement, Gear, you could give a dragon indigestion,” she muttered to herself before her horn glowed metallic gray again and the fridge opened up to have several bags of Hayburgers fly over to the table. “Here, something with more substance.” She tore open one bag, popped open the carton, took a big bite of her burger and forced it down her throat. “’might like acting like a noble, but damn don’t I like this grub.”

“Yeah,” Twilight said slowly as took her Hayburger and started to eat it too. “Me too.”

“That shows that you’ve got a good noggin on ya shoulders, Twilight,” Gear smirked at her. “As I was saying, time are changing and we need to discuss how we’re going to move along. There’s three ways we can do it; two of them suck and one of them decent. The first two are that we don’t get along and fight and do our best to hinder each other,” she said as she used her magic to bring out two bottles of hard Apple cider, holding one out to Twilight with a quizzical look as if Gear was asking her if she actually wanted to drink now. Twilight shook her head with Gear nodding and putting them back into the fridge. “Can’t drink now Gear, you’d be working now,” she lectured herself before looking at Twilight again. “As I was saying, we could be at each other’s throat, with either Magic or Technology ultimately winning but the loser doing their best to still hamper the winner which would be nasty and ugly and bad for everyone, and I don’t think either of us wants that.”

“No, I do-”

“Right; that leads us to option three,” Gear said as she pushed herself upright. “We work together; you endorse my work when it comes time for me to push this much needed revolution to the world,” Gear’s smile fell for the first time, a frown on her face as she walked over to the observation window with Twilight following her. “If you’re half as smart as Celestia says you are, then you’ve noticed how incomplete, patchworked, hackedjob, slapdash our technology is; things are all over the place, no reason or rhyme to how things are. We’ve got things as advanced as electronics while still relying on steam trains instead of diesel engines, we’ve got light bulbs yet half the world still uses candles!” Gear spat with such anger that it took Twilight aback. She then looked at Twilight and gestured a hoof to the floor below. “That is right, that is filling in the gasps our world is missing, that is what I see the future should be.”

Twilight looked out the window and saw lines of ponies working on machines and something about it made her flinch inside of herself. It looked harmless enough but the sight of ponies working like golems reminded her of some of the alternate worlds she’d seen, even before her visit to the Valley of Alicorns, and she shuddered at the memory.

“I won’t argue with you,” she said cautiously. “But there has to be a balance. I’ve seen what happens when a world gets completely overtaken by industrialization and pollution and they neglect the more organic side of things. It was horrible.”

“As is a world that has no desire to expand its horizon, seeking only to expand one aspect of themselves, rather than trying to improve in general,” Gear shot back, leaning into her face. “I am fully aware of the dangers of what could happen if I do not seek to curb my Power; the question is are you aware of the dangers of uncontrolled Magic?”

Twilight’s coat bristled at this, but she did her best to keep herself calm. “I can imagine-”

“I don’t want you to imagine, I want you to know,” Gear cut her off, eyes narrowed. “I visited other dimensions in the past with Celestia and I saw firsthoof how both our Powers could get out of control. Worlds where everything is controlled by machines, ponies that have abandoned everything that made them ponies for false bodies and lives. And I’ve seen worlds where magic has run wild, changing and manipulating everything in its path, where life for anypony is impossible.”

“You think I haven’t seen that too?” Twilight snapped back. “Admittedly, it wasn’t a very long look, but even with what little I saw, just imagining what the rest of that world was like was enough to terrify me.” She began taking deep breaths, trying to force her anger down. “As I said, I understand what you mean. But there still has to be balance, both sides working together. I’ve seen plenty of technology that helps and revolutionizes the world, but they need to handle it responsibly.” She waved a hoof. “That world I saw where Flim and Flam were just rampantly destroying and polluting, all so they could build their big factories? That was one example of a world out of balance that I know of. Likewise, that one I saw of Discord’s magic gone completely wild - it was a nightmare too.”

“Hence our need to talk and plan how we will work together for the betterment of our world, Twilight,” Gear smiled at her and led her back to the table. “I’m glad to hear all of that, to be honest; shows me that Celestia did you right and helped you get ready for all this. I couldn’t ask for a better equal for myself.” Twilight frowned at the wording but chose not to say anything. “So are we in agreement to work with each other, Twilight?” she asked her again, holding out her hoof and Twilight could tell that this was something different, that what she did next would have lasting impacts.

But Twilight knew that only she could do this and she would only have this one chance.

So the Lady of Magic took the hoof of the Lady of Technology and shook it.

Nothing happened; no fireworks, no cosmic winds of change, nothing. But there was a change, an important change.

“Good,” Gear broke out into a cocky grin. “Glad that’s done with, Twilight.” Slapping her on the back, she led her back to the table and tapped it. “We can talk shop now,” she said as she leaned back in her seat. “I suppose that Celestia gave you the complete rundown about all the Powers and the whole backstory?”

“Yes she did, she and Princess Luna were adamant about making sure that Cadance and I knew everything,” Twilight said as she took her seat again.

“And I’ll buy a bridge in Baltimare when I believe old Tia told someone everything,” Gear snarked and shook her head. “We’ll go over what you know to see if she actually did it.”

“I should get mad at you for that, but…” Twilight let out a sigh.

“But we both know how she likes to mother hen, the oversized swan,” Gear spat and then winced. “Stupid Gear, you’ll need to clean that up.”

Twilight nodded. “There was a time when I’d have defended her,” she said. “But… after everything I’ve experienced, especially recently, I have to wonder.” Then she cocked her head. “Speaking of things she’s kept from me… just how long have you known her?”

“Ah Twilight, a true lady never reveals her age,” Gear grinned at her before shaking her head. “But long enough that I’ve got my hoof in all of the latest technological growths across the planet thanks to her. Not legal per se, but then again, when you’ve got a lesser Power supporting and covering for you, ya kinda are confident in what you do.”

“Lesser Power?” Twilight repeated. “How-”

“I knew it! I knew she didn’t tell ya everything,” Gear slapped the table before leaning across it to pull Twilight into a hug, knocking everything on the table to the ground. “Old Bit Collector owes me an expensive dinner now, ha ha!”

Twilight squawked at the sudden embrace, and she could feel the grease and oil staining her coat and feathers. “Gear, she did tell me about Lesser Powers, but not how low she is.”

“Oh,” Gear blinked and tightened her grip for a moment before letting go. “Well, I suppose he don’t need to hear none of that and I don’t need no fancy eats.”

“I can see about booking us a table at Taste of Neighpon if you want…” Twilight offered.

“Nah, if I want to do all that I’d need to do is get dolled up and go to one myself,” Gear snorted. “And a burger from the joint a few blocks down the street is just as tasty.” Gear levieted another burger over tot the table with the mare taking a big bite. “But ya should know a lot more, you and your friends, about the rest of us.” Her magic brought a stack of letters over to the table with the mare beginning to fill them out. “I’mma calling up a meeting of Powers for a few weeks from now, after Nightmare Night; hopefully everyone comes. Not sure if Tia will due to how much she’s dropped in influence.”

“What do you mean by that,” Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well Twilight, yer the smarty one, you tell me what’s changed for that overgrown duck,” Gear leaned back into her chair, only for her to almost topple over on her back.

Twilight frowned and thought about what crucial aspect had changed for Celestia and it took her a moment to realize what it was.

“Luna,” she said with Gear nodding her head, waving her hoof to tell her to go on. “She came back and took back her Role as Lady of Night?”

“Yup,” Gear said. “Life can exist with either just the Day or the Night; life’s adaptive like that but it does need one and for a thousand years, Celestia had a monopoly over that and we’d kinda had to accept what she said or… well as you know Death and Life are the head honchos but we all need to work together so she and her interests were at the top for a long time. Now that she’s just a regular Power, a lot of the others will want to take shots at her.” Gear tilted her head. “Though now that’s Luna back, she is very high up there being three Powers at once.”

“Three?” Twilight parroted the words. “She’s Lady of Night and Dreams but what’s the third one?”

“Nightmares, temporarily,” Gear said as she gave Twilight another burger to eat. “Until she can find a new soul to take up the role from the last Lord of Nightmares.”

“Wait, it was a stallion?” Twilight asked in surprise.

“Yup, ol’ Nightmare Moon was a stallion that took over Luna,” Gear snorted. “Ain’t no one pleased to learn that little tidbit; not least Celestia though I can’t blame her to learn that some stallion stole her sis’s body to try and claim the Power of Dreams.”

“I would be furious as well,” Twilight said, “If some other Power tried to steal Spike or Shining Armor’s body...”

“Yeah, I have ta give her credit, the old duck is good at what she does; as soon as she learned about ya friend down there, she warned us all.”

“Do you mean Starli-”

“No, Spliced,” Gear said. “Visitors from another dimension - and not just a side realm like the one your friend Sunset’s living in - are something that’s automatically worth checking into. Not that some of us weren’t worried about Starlight at first - Stop Watch, Lord of Time, in particular, with what she was doing, but we saw things were in hoof soon enough.” She cocked her head. “Also, speaking of Sunset, that was some impressive work you did making that gadget to keep the portal open, and if you’ve got a copy of the blueprints somewhere, I’d like to go over them with you at some point, if only out of scientific curiosity.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Twilight said.

“Wonderful,” Gear said, slapping her on the back again. “Come, let’s go see how they’re doing.” Nodding her head, Twilight let herself be led downstairs.

Comments

[Crazy the Clone]

Okay, this isn’t entirely related (really, it’s only related to an earlier chapter), but the new episode’s Out! Any thoughts?

[Evilhumour]

8949621
Have to see it first...

[LostArchivist]

Why not Time Turner? He's essentially canonical Dr. Who.

[Direct Access]

I kept silent about it, but your idea of "powers" was added with the finesse of a freight train. Even with the threads you planted in the beginning of this book.
It's horrible attempt. It barely mixes with the atmosphere of original story. It was a horror mystery; now your trying to turn it into an epic adventure.
It goes as one may expect.
While at beginning it may have had this cool original idea about trying to reform, but being treated in the way that makes you disappointed in the world, whatever it may have been has been lost in the revelations, oc's and losing most of the attention to the main, mind you, character of the original book.
I don't know where it's going, but right now, i don't like it.
Ch. 24.