Clockwork Dreams

by Dark0592

The Arcane Engine, Part One

Twilight grumbled to herself as she used a bit of magic to open the door at the knock as she left the living area of her massive office. It was really an old astronomy tower, but the Princess had given it to her since nobody used it and she had turned it into a small library with how many books were crammed in here. The coffee machine- bless its inventor- was slowly grinding the beans and pushing water through them to create the wonderful bliss that was morning coffee as Spike carried a rather large covered tray inside.

“Ooh, this smells like a new blend. I see you fixed the blown seal.” The young dragon commented as he entered. Twilight grumbled a few more moments as she took a seat at her desk. She decided to properly answer as a plate of food was placed in front of her.

“Yeah, turns out trying to use the water the boiler used to make the new steam power work was just waiting for it to break down. I’ve swapped the grinder back to clockwork, never tasted quite right anyways.” The industrious mare answered her assistant as said assistant poured two cups and it was placed next to her plate of fresh eggs and a couple pancakes. “And I’m trying Zebra roasts, even if they are a little controversial.” She added after taking a sip and humming in delight. Much stronger than its equestrian counterpart!

“Hey, I thought you cleared your week of invoices so you could focus on the arcane engines.” Spike said questioningly. Twilight gave him a confused glance as she took a bite of her breakfast. Following his gaze, he saw the book in her tray. She attempted to say something, but almost choked on the piece of pancake. She quickly swallowed, downed some coffee to wash it down, and cleared her throat.

“I did, this wasn’t here last night…” She said, levitating it effortlessly and bringing it over to her. It was a rather beautiful tome, but the style of it screamed old equestrian. There were actual gems inlaid into the cover, five different colors, though their magic seemed to have seeped out of them long ago. The title was also in old equestrian, though that was one of the first languages Twilight became fluent in. What really drew her attention was the way the cover looked like the night sky, and the vague outline of an imposing unicorn was indented into it.

“The Elements of Harmony and the Mare in the Moon?” Spike read. Twilight smiled and nodded, patting him on the head.

“I’ve never heard of anything like a mare in the moon, however I know Celestia has mentioned the Elements of Harmony before. I’ll have to ask her more about it next time we see her…” Twilight started, but started slowing down after mentioning the princess.

Celestia had been trying to teach Twilight more about harmony, and suddenly this book appears after they spend most of the night here together? She cracked a little smile.

“Spike, I think the Princess is trying to guide me in her usual mysterious way, to what I haven’t the slightest clue. Whatever it is it’ll have to wait until after the test today, though.” The mare said, her grumpiness from before erased by a new mystery as she continued her breakfast.

Five hours, lunch with the Princess, a visit to her peers at the university, and one long elevator ride down into the testing caverns saw Twilight in the testing chamber she practically built with her own hooves- if levitation counted as your own hooves at least. The last grumbles of the piping faded after the elevator ride and she was happy to see Spike and Celestia behind the abhorrently reinforced glass nearly two hundred feet above in the observation room.

The Chamber itself was almost completely covered in steel reinforcements and various framework from previous tests. The far corner was currently occupied by a structure consisting of far too many wires and pipes leading out of an encased sphere with grounding pylons in place. The sphere was currently open on the top and sticking out of it was a mass of copper and gold and some steel plating that looked like what those doomsday conspirators would call a death ray. Twilight adjusted her reinforced safety suit to be a little more comfortable as she levitated over the fifty pound chunk of sapphire that was to be the thing’s power supply. The energy consumption would of course be far refined and reduced in the future, but for now it would have to do.

“Be Careful, Twilight. Have you done your mental exercises?” Celestia called, her voice passing through the glass like it was nothing thanks to an enchantment to do just that. Twilight rolled her eyes behind the goggles.

“Three times, actually. Calm down and please don’t interrupt… if I get startled while hooking it up something may go terribly wrong.” Twilight called back. She couldn’t help but let a little smirk form as she moved towards her device, it was strangely satisfying to be able to scold the princess without fear of punishment. This was, after all, her experiment. Celestia would never punish her anyways, but she wouldn’t dare pull that in the middle of court for example.

She could hear Celestia’s nervous grumble as Twilight slotted the lumpy chunk of gemstone into its place and many things started happening at once. First, the sphere closed with a hiss and a thunk. Then, many of the wires began to glow softly as many more hydraulics and mechanisms started whirring and chugging and hissing. Boilers started doing their thing and the sound of lubricant could be heard sloshing in the pipes into the sphere.

“Electricity output stabilized, heat levels well below safe levels. I wouldn’t want to try that with a ruby, but I’d go as far as even sticking a topaz in there and calling it safe.” Spike called out from the little bunker nearby. He was looking at various meters and gauges that were attached to most of the wires and pipes coming out of the thing.

“These readings look very good, Twilight! I’m proud of you!” Celestia called out over the hum and mechanical noises of the room, she was getting the printed version of most of them rather than another analytical machine like Spike’s. Twilight responded with a little bow to show she had heard before she started throwing a few levers and turned a few knobs on yet another machine connected to the structure.

“Output is starting to increase, heat levels still under the safe limit. It isn’t turning off is it?” Spike asked, a surprising lack of concern in his voice.

“Eenope. Going for the first emergency shutdown procedure.” Twilight called out as the hum started growing louder. She threw the final much larger lever and some of the mechanisms stopped.

“No Dice, the heat levels haven’t moved but the output is increasing much quicker now.” Spike called in response, a small amount of worry evident in his tone.

“Secondary shutdown procedure then.” Twilight said, mostly to herself at this point, as she tried to keep herself calm. She proceeded to gracefully unplug most of the wiring and turn a few valves on the piping. Most of the noise, aside from the hum that was getting louder and louder, ground to a halt. The hum wasn’t stopping, she knew it wasn’t working. She still looked back over to Spike for confirmation and had to read his scaly lips.

‘Temperature getting too high, output way too high, abort!’

She took a deep breath and turned back towards the thing. It wasn’t quite at the catastrophic failure stage, that would all depend on what happened next. She let the breath go and closed her eyes in concentration. Her horn lit up behind its reinforcement in the helmet she was wearing and suddenly the room wasn’t humming anymore.

She wasn’t in the room anymore.

Apparently she wasn’t even on the planet anymore, because that’s definitely what a planet looks like. Apparently the cartographers were pretty accurate. That was Equestria, the griffonlands, Draconis, Zebrica… Where was she?

She tore her gaze from the planet and looked around. Endless black, but there were stars. She was definitely in space. The great Aether not even the mighty pegasus could come close to flying through. Something wholly undocumented, not a single soul had experienced it. Well, here she was.

The almost painfully white surface below her told her exactly where she was. Was she the mare on the moon now?

The hum was back, and it was loud. She turned towards it as she blinked and the stars were gone. The sky was gone. The moon was gone. She was staring at the cold shell that was her grounding structure for the arcane battery test. The room seemed significantly brighter, however.

“Wha-!” She started, about to ask what happened, but her voice sounded… different. It rang through the cavern. It reminded her of the time someone tried to Assassinate Princess Celestia in the middle of her own birthday party and she had laughed so loud the zebra’s ears bled. She looked over to Spike, he was pressed against the glass of his bunker with a look of both concern and awe. His eyes were glowing!

Actually no, that was her reflection of her in his eyes glowing. Why was she glowing? Twilight Sparkle didn’t actually sparkle!

Deep breath.

Release.

Think.

Scanning spell, definitely do a scanning spell.

Her horn lit up as she tapped into her reserves and immediately the hum stopped again. She hadn’t realized it was still humming, really. In fact, it startled her and she lost concentration. The hum returned when she stopped channeling. Then it dawned on her, the hum wasn’t really a hum. It was a phantom of the sound the power made when it was in the engine.

The scanning spell started again, the humming stopped. Her eyes widened.

The idea behind shutdown procedure two was to envelop the wild magics contained in the arcane engine in her own and ‘calm it down’ to be diffused back into the original power source, or at least harmlessly into the surrounding area as ambient energies. Instead, she had drawn the wild energy into her own personal pool of arcane energy and assimilated it. This normally wouldn’t be that strange of a thing to happen, but her reserves were almost completely full just in case. Instead of overflowing and slowly bleeding the excess energy off, it had expanded her reserves. Exponentially.

“Princess?” Twilight asked shakily. She didn’t even need to yell, her voice was carried on the winds of arcane potency she now possessed. She looked up to where Celestia was in the observation room and saw something she never thought she’d ever see before.

There was fear in her eyes, in her posture, her expression.

Fear of her.

Author's Note:

A bit short but I stand by my decision to end it there.
I might just be evil.
Hope you enjoyed!

Comments

[Commander Darklight]

hot damn one supercharged twilight coming right up

[Commander Darklight]

also edge.papercutpm.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/evil-monkey.png
EVIL

so what celestia go tyrantlestia now

[LostArchivist]

Oh, bugger. This will be good.