They arrived at the Expo a little after ten, later than they expected- but nopony seemed to mind. They were too busy making a fuss over Babs, and getting in a tizzy over planning her cuteceneara for that very day. Even the Roughnecks had been in a celebratory mood, joshing her, tousling her mane (which got a few indignant shouts out of her) and congratulating her on her big day. The moment they had arrived Applejack had arranged things with the Expo staff and reserved a space for the party for after hours.

The director of the Expo, an over-energetic teal and brown earth pony named Dime Shift, ("Short for Paradigm, your Highness, but please call me Dime") was more than happy to help out. "Having you here for The Annual East Equestrian Farming and Industry Trade Expo is a real feather in our cap, your Highness," he gushed as they trotted along. "We're more than happy to set aside a corner of the pavilion for your niece's-"

"Er, cousin, not niece," Applejack corrected.

"-Your cousin's cuteceneara," he said without missing a beat. "There's certainly more than enough room to spare."

"So I see," Applejack murmured, looking around. The Expo was being held in what Applejack's countrified mind could only think of as an enormous greenhouse, right in the heart of Baltimare. Its glass and steel framework reached high overhead, three, four stories easily, more than high enough that Rainbow Dash could have done some of her better stunts under the vaulted dome, and branched off North, South, East and West. Most of downtown Ponyville could have fit inside the pavilion with room to spare. Even with the conventioneers setting up exhibitions everywhere, there was room to spare.

"Yes, well," Dime Shift laughed self-effacedly, "the E.E.F.I.T.E. isn't really what the Glass Palace was built for," he said. "It's meant for the World Expo coming next year. Wait till that comes in, then you'll see this place packed. We're just taking advantage of the early completion, renting the space for cheap for our own humble little convention, don't you see."

"...Glass Palace?" Applebloom asked. She and Babs were trotting along, doing their best to keep up with the longer-legged adults.

Mr. Shift cleared his throat and tugged at his bow tie. "Well, um, they were going to call it the Crystal Palace, originally," he said. "But then the Crystal Empire returned with it's real palace made of crystal, and well, it um, seemed kind of pretentious to keep the name after that..." Applebloom made an 'oh' with her mouth and nodded.

They had reached the central dome of the pavilion, where the stands for the convention's opening ceremony were located. They were brought up short however by a rather odd decoration on display. Standing on a pedestal behind the podium was a startlingly familiar looking statue.

"Discord?" Applebloom yelped.

It was an easy mistake to make; at first glance the creature carved in stone did look a great deal like the notorious draconequus; misshapen, disproportionate, with cockeyed eyes and mismatch limbs. It was only at second glance that the differences became obvious; the head was larger and more dragonlike, with enormous flaring nostrils. Instead of antlers it had large, pointed gremlin ears. Its six arms- or were they legs?- were crooked and had way too many joints, and where Discord's body was long and sinuous, this creature seemed to be made of crooked, jammed-together segments, like a crashed railroad train. It stood in a stooped over position, bound to its pedestal by dozens of chains. It was flanked on three sides by statues of ponies, one from each tribe, who were wielding sledgehammers as they staked the chains binding it to the ground. It had an expression of absolute frustration and rage on its face. It was so unsettling that the Roughnecks actually hefted their weapons when they saw it.

Dime Shift laughed. "Oh no, though I can see that's an easy mistake to make," he said. "This is a classic statue by the classical Neightalian inventor and artist, Bold Lion... "Malfunziona." It's a portrayal of scholars, artists and inventors, and their constant battle against damage, dysfunction and disrepair." He gave the words a dramatic sweep of his hoof.

"Heh. Old Malfunziona has been on display at every World's Expo since Bold Lion carved him 500 years ago. According to legend, every World's Fair, his face gets just a little bit angrier..."

Applejack and Applebloom shared a furtive look. Dime Shift saw it and laughed. "I assure you, this isn't another draconequus, Highness," he said. " He climbed up on the platform and tapped a hoof on the statue. "Look. If you look closely you can see the chisel marks. This statue started out as a lump of stone, not as a chaos monster."

The Apple sisters and their entourage didn't exactly look more confident. There probably wasn't a pony in Canterlot or Ponyville that hadn't been traumatized by Discord's first rampage. But for them it had been personal.

Applejack had gone toe-to-hoof with the draconequus alongside the other Bearers of the Elements, and hadn't come out the other side without having her self-image shaken right to the core by his head games. It had rankled deeply when Celestia had released him on parole; it was Applejack's rather vehement protestations that had pushed the Princess to forge the power-dampening manacles that the draconequus now wore, before the Element of Honesty would cooperate and help release him. Even now she probably trusted the "reformed" Discord about as far as she could spit lying on her stomach.

Applebloom, for her part, had suffered differently. Celestia had made it repeatedly clear that the reason Discord had escaped was that the spell imprisoning him had slowly weakened over thousands of years till it had finally given way . But thanks to the coincidence of a school field trip and an ill-timed squabble, she and the other crusaders had to endure the gossip of more superstitious ponies who'd blamed the Cutie Mark Crusaders for the Chaos Monster's escape. It was pure coincidence, but that hadn't stopped the whispers by the more foolish. Or the undeserved guilt.

Understandably, neither one of them were particularly thrilled with the idea of a second monster-turned-statue lurking about.

Applebloom suddenly ran up onto the stand and squinted hard at the statue, her nose an inch from the stone. "I... think he's right," she said uncertainly. "It sorta looks like a chisel's been at it, real faint-like..."

On an impulse Applejack called up her Element. To her considerable relief, she could sense the truth of the matter; Dime Shift wasn't merely confident this was the truth, he had the sort of confidence that came from being extremely well-informed on the matter. Not only did he know of the statue's origins, she could sense his connections to others by their own connection to the issue. She could follow the statue's past through those connections. Through him she could see that he knew ponies that knew ponies that knew the statue's past and origins-an unbroken chain tracing all the way back to a vague, smoky image in the mists of the pasts of a sturdy Neightalion stallion patiently working on a block of stone with hammer and chisel.

She sighed in relief... and got up and took a squint at the statue from close range for good measure. Yes, there were the chisel marks; faint ones, she wouldn't known what to look for if she hadn't caught a glimpse of the ghostly hoof of the original craftsman making them. "Ayep, I can see," she announced out loud. "At ease, fellas, this statue ain't gonna be gettin' up to walk around." Behind her the Roughnecks accompanying her visibly relaxed and returned their weapons to parade rest.

"Heavens, you do take this seriously," Dime Shift said with a nervous laugh.

"Y'all would too; Me an' my family were on the front lines when Discord had his little coming-out party."

"Oh. Well, um." Dime Shift was at a loss for words for that.

"Babs, Applebloom?" Applejack said. "Mr. Shift an' I are gonna be busy preparing for the official Grand Opening, a lotta meetin's and stuff. Why don't you two go and look around the fair for a few hours? Meet us back here at five."

"Sure, Cousin Jackie!"

"Sure, Applejack. But..." Applebloom paused. "Could I kinda go off on my own?"

"Whaaat?" Babs said, grinning and giving her the elbow. "Ya don't wanna hang out with yer cousin?"

Applebloom giggled and beeped her on the nose. "Well I can't hang out with you and buy you your cuteceneara present at the same time," she said.

"Aha! Bribery will get ya everywhere," Babs said. The two fillies giggled.

"All right then. " Applejack said, amused. "Lockheed? Grunt?" The gryphon and the diamond dog stepped forward and saluted. "Would y'all be so kind as to accompany my sister an' cousin while they tour the Expo? If that's all right, that is," she said as an aside to Dime Shift.

"Oh, certainly. Nearly all the venues are already set up for the early public," he said. "This is probably the best time, anyway, ahead of the crowds."

"Go on, you two," Applejack said. She summoned two coin purses full of bits; the girls snatched them out of the air and galloped gleefully off in opposite directions, their chaperones trotting after. "Five O'Clock, you two!" Applejack called after them.

"Okay Applejack!"

"Okay Cousin Jackie!"

Applejack smiled as she watched them gallop away. They were growing up quick; one of them with a cutie mark and she wouldn't be too surprised if the other one found hers before the end of the week. Soon they'd be off into the big bold world. She was glad she was there to watch them explore a little of it before they grew up. She sniffled a little and turned her attention back to Dime Shift. "Now, Mr. Shift," she said brightly. "Y'all were going to tell me the schedule of events?"

---

"So what do ya think I should get Babs for her Cuteceneara?" Applebloom asked Lockheed conversationally as she trotted down the midway.

"Um, I wouldn't know, gryphons don't have Cutesy whatevers," Lockheed said idly. He strode along confidently, scanning the crowd visually, his long lion-eagle legs keeping up easily with the trotting filly. "Are they like birthday parties?"

"More or less," Applebloom confirmed, looking over the displays. "I'm thinkin' maybe a fancy groomin' set?" She took the change purse out of her pannier and regarded it critically.

"Are they likely to have anything like that here?" Lockheed said.

"Mr. Dime Shift said they had all sorts o' businesses and inventor exhibitions here," Applebloom said. "There's probably somepony with a hair care company somewhere." There certainly were a lot of exhibitions. Despite being far from capacity the midway was crowded with booths and displays; the fine arts shoulder to shoulder with the industrial, clever gadgets and exotic magic devices next to innovations in humble tools...She soon found herself half-forgetting her quest for a cutie mark gift in her fascination with the tools, inventions, and displays all around her. The staff and booth bunnies, bored with the early thin crowds, were eager to get her attention.

"... This, young miss, is a fountain pen," one enthusiastic young unicorn in a straw boater said, holding one of the display pens up. "Can even be used by earth ponies- without getting ink in your mouth. Or getting a feather up your nose." He chuckled at his own joke. "Writes like a quill, but without the inky mess. Uses a metal nib, and stores the ink in a replaceable internal reservoir you activate by pressing that little lever..." he demonstrated, writing fluently with his mouth on a pad. "The pen itself outlasts a thousand quills."

"Nifty," Applebloom said, delighted. "Princess Twilight would eat these up. She goes through quills faster'n a porcupine covered in hair remover! Here, hold on-" she flipped open the compact mirror hanging around her neck. "Twilight Sparkle," she announced in a clear voice. The mirror fizzed for a second, and the face of Equestria's fourth most famous princess appeared.

"Hey Applebloom," the mirror said. "What's up?"

"Got a feller here with an in-vention you're gonna love," Applebloom said. She held up the mirror so Twilight could see the fountain-pen pony.

The youth's eyes went round. "P-princess Twilight ?"

In five minutes the young inventor had a brand new contract with the throne for a thousand fountain pens, a lifetime supply of little ink refills and pen nibs, and the promise of a royal seal of approval on his product- once Twilight had sampled a few herself. Applebloom left him alternating between filling out forms for a bulk shipment to Canterlot Castle and going into giddy hysterics.

"Well, you made his day," Lockheed noted. "And his fiscal year."

---

"...Strongest glue ever invented," the booth bunny chirped with a toothy smile. She held up the bottle for Applebloom to see, then pointed to the various ridiculously heavy objects behind her- anvils, cast iron safes, wrecking balls- dangling from a steel I-beam by a single drop of glue. "Sticks to anything! Wood, metal, glass, plastic..."

Applebloom squinted. "Then what's the bottle made out of?" She said suspiciously. "If it sticks to everything, then it shouldn't be able to come out of the bottle at all!"

The booth bunny's eyes glazed over. "Uhhhh..."

---

"Oh we've got op-por-tuni-tee

In this muni-ci-pali-tee..."

"Introducing the Super Fruity Squeezer 6000!"

She didn't even need a second chorus. Or a second look. "GUAAAAAAAARDS!" Applebloom shrieked.

"Agh! Time to make our getaway, brother!"

"Floor it!"

---

"...And as you can see, Sunflower Alchemical has been in the field of high quality potions and alchemical products for over a hundred and fifty years," the unicorn mare said, tossing her short-cropped black mane as she pointed out the array of bubbling beakers, tubes and burners arranged all around the company booth. "Using nothing but the highest quality equipment and state of the art facilities. Of course they are always recruiting; perhaps some of you will be working for us someday yourselves. We have brochures available for those wishing to apply..." she noticed a butter yellow filly with a ribbon in her mane in the front row. She was accompanied by a stern looking gryphon in Guard armor, and was waving a hoof at her. "Yes, little filly? Do you have a question?"

"Not really," Applebloom said. "I just thought I oughta tell you that brew you got going over there-" she pointed"- is cooking at too high a temperature. And your assistant put way too much powdered pepperbloom in."

The mare's smile got strained. "Well, I'm sure our highly trained alchemists and potion makers know what they're doing better than an un-trained filly who hasn't even earned her cutie mark yet," she said with a patronizing laugh.

Applebloom shook her head. "It's just that Zecora always says you never let that mixture reach a boil-"

The booth mare's smile got even more condescending. "Zecora? Is that a zebra name?" she laughed louder, scoffing. "My dear filly, what Sunflower Alchemical does is way beyond what any tribal guru brews up in a cauldron over a wood fire. I have a degree in potioneering, and I assure you that I and my assistants know what they're doing."

Applebloom's eyebrows tabled and her eyes half-lidded. "Fine, whatever. Your funeral, lady. Let's go, Lockheed." She trotted off as the demo lady continued her spiel.

"Now what?" Lockheed muttered to Applebloom.

Applebloom kept right on walking. "Give it a sec," She said. "Three... two..."

BOOM! green foam fountained into the air back the way they came.

"AAgh! My HAIR!" Shrieks of outrage and dismay filled the air.

"Guess she got her potions degree at the school o' hard knocks," Applebloom said, not even looking back while her guard doubled over with laughter.

---

"...New seed drill, cuts planting time to a fraction..."

"...Self propelled plow..."

"...Refinement of the amniomorphic spell..."

"...Fifteen new shades of weather-resistant paint..."

"...New wonder material, nylon..."

"...fine potions ingredients for over fifty years..."

"...Our factory now produces a whole new selection of artificial flavorings for the aspiring candy maker, including pineapple, cherry, kiwi, snozzberry..."

"...Geodesic dome..."

"...magically powered tools for woodworking and carpentry..."

" Crystal Cube! Will NOT roll off the table, unlike the traditional outdated crystal ball..."

"... It's called airbrushing- in skilled hooves produces marvelous artwork- we have t-shirts for sale..."

"...These gorgeous black velvet paintings of Starswirl the Bearded..."

"...Rapid fire artillery for use in the Canterlot military..."

"...New strain of blight resistant potatoes, making over 800 new strains of potato, plums, prunes, berries, trees, and flowers

"...Latest in pest control..."

That last one brought her up short. It hadn't been that long since her rather unpleasant dream where she'd been saddled with a pest-pony cutie mark, and this particular booth was triggering some memories. Standing in a collection of tools and gear of his trade was a tired-looking earth pony stallion with a striking resemblance to the pest control officer from her dream, explaining his trade to a couple of vaguely interested passersby.

Some sort of morbid curiosity drew Applebloom over. She perused the nets, sprays, and traps scattered over the counter. "Hey mister," she said. "Where's your Twittermite Gun?"

The pest pony, annoyed at the interruption, looked over at her in confusion. "My what?"

"Your Twittermite Gun," Applebloom repeated. "For sucking up twittermites." She sketched the rough shape out in the air with her hoof. "Had a bell barrel. an' a model 4 vacuum pump, an... an you... don't know what I'm talkin' about," she finished, suddenly realizing with dawning embarrassment that she was describing a tool she'd only seen in a dream. She stammered to a halt. IT was confusing; she could remember every detail of the bug gun, how the parts went together, everything. But it had never existed. "Ah don't suppose you've heard of twittermites, either," she said, resisting the urge to either facehoof or turn tail and run.

"Dunno, describe 'em," the pest pony said.

Applebloom rolled her eyes at herself. "Well, small, blue, glow in the dark, and they shoot off sparks... the farther apart the swarm flies, the bigger the zap they let off...?"

"hmn. Yer thinkin' of the fella in the next booth over," the bug pony said, pointing.

Applebloom turned to look and found herself nose to nose with a puce-colored earth pony stallion with an alarming grin and an even more alarming mint-white mane that stuck out around his head like a dandelion cloud. She let out a yelp and hopped backward. Totally unperturbed, the pony took her hoof in his and shook it so enthusiastically his lab coat flapped in the breeze. She caught a brief glimpse of a lightning bolt cutie mark. "Wattz is the name, Kilo Wattz! I happened to overhear, young filly, and I understand you're looking to learn about the energy source of the future?"

"P-l-l-e-as-ed t-t-to me-e-e-t y-o-o-u," Applebloom stammered as his hoofshake rattled her molars.

"Hey, hoofs off!" Lockheed barked. He pushed the pony back with the butt of his spear. There was a loud crack and a flash of static electricity jumped from Kilo Watt's hair, up Lockheed's spear and into his gilded armor, knocking the gryphon back on his tail. He pulled off his helmet; his feathers stuck out around his head in every direction. He gave the inventor a glare.

"Oh terribly sorry," Kilo Wattz said. "I must have built up quite a static charge." Sparks danced around in his mane.

Applebloom looked at her hoof. "Why didn't you shock me?" she asked.

He held up a hoof. "Rubber hoofshoes," he said. "Anyway I heard you were asking about-"

Applebloom looked over his shoulder at his booth. "Twittermites!"

Indeed there was. Four enormous glass canisters with perforated lids stood there, each filed with a swarm of glowing, sparking insects so thick and bright it lit up the booth even in broad daylight. "Oh, is that what they're called?" Kilo Wattz said. "Where I come from, they're called Fizzing Whizbees. I've been breeding them ever since I found a few out on the edge of the Uberwald. They generate an amazing amount of highly stable electric current. Well, so long as you keep them from flying wild. Perfect for my experiments."

Briefly, Applebloom wondered where she'd heard about them to dream about them. "Experiments in what?"

"Why the power source of the future," he said. "BIO-ELECTRICITY!" His voice echoed and an enormous lightning bolt arced from one enormous Tesla coil behind him to another. "It's all around us, in living things great and small. The Fizzbees are only the most obvious example." He reached behind the counter and pulled up something that looked like a cross between a countertop appliance, a string of holiday lights, the inside of a radio and a garden spud. "Did you know that the common russet red potato can power a small clock or flashlight?" He clicked the lights on and off. "Well, with a little crossbreeding I've made a spud that can run a kitchen blender!" He flipped a switch and the blender whizzed to life.

"But that's nothing!" He tossed the contraption away; it landed somewhere with a crash. He hopped over the counter into the booth and caressed one of the glass cylinders lovingly. "With my innovations in Fizzing Whizbee power, soon we'll be able to light every city in Equestria!"

Applebloom looked into the cylinders; they did sort of look like bees, actually. She wondered if they made honey. "Why glass jars?" she asked.

"Glass, like rubber, is nonconductive," Kilo Wattz said. "In fact one can build up a massive electrical charge and store it in a special glass container called a Leyden jar."

"But don't the Twitter- I mean the Wizzbees have to spread out to make a bigger jolt of electricity?" Applebloom said.

Kilo Wattz held up a hoof. "Ah, a common misconception," he said. "Now, I assume you've learned in school about positive and negative charges?" Applebloom nodded. "Well now, Fizzing Wizzbees want to cluster together. But as you know, electricity happens when a massive negative charge of electrons builds up in one place, until the energy leaps from the negative charge to a similar positive charge elsewhere. As the Wizzbees steadily build up an electrical charge, they become more and more negatively charged-"

"Ohh, and they push each other away!" Applebloom said.

"Got it in one! So the trick isn't to let them spread out... it's to keep draining off that electrical charge as they produce it so that they don't." He pointed to two short rods attached to thick wires, sticking down through the lids of the cylinders. "These poles drain off the Wizzbees continually, keeping all these gadgets-" he waved at the rest of the booth, which was full of flashing, beeping, whirring electrical devices. "Powered and running... even then I have to let most of the charge ground out into the floor." He took a moment to admire his own display. "Truly the wave of the future-"

"Well that's fine," drawled a voice behind them, "If you don't mind dealing with all the problems." They turned around. Standing to one side was a muscular, heavy set stallion. He was was peach colored, with a brown mane, and was wearing coveralls, a red shirt with rolled up sleeves, a pair of tinted goggles and a bright yellow safety helmet. A utility belt stuffed with tools was strapped around his middle.

Kilo Watt's mood soured instantly. "Must you pester other pavilions?" he groused.

"What problems?" Applebloom asked him.

The pony shrugged in a casually friendly way. "Like feedin' the things. Or cleanin' out the dead ones. Or dealin' with the bug poop-"

"There are work arounds for those issues," Kilo Watt said frostily.

"Yep. But you shouldn't need 'em," the hard hatted pony. "Now don't get me wrong, this is all quite intellectually stimulatin' in its application of scientific innovation, but it's been my observation that ponykind's push has been to get away from dependin' on muscle power. Not that I know whether Fizzing Whizbees are flexin' anything to do what they do, but point made." He leaned casually against a post.

Kilo Watt scoffed; electric sparks crackled in his mane. "As if you were blazing new trails in your devotion to steam power," he sneered. The hard hatted pony shrugged. Kilo Watt turned away and retreated into his mini-pavilion, sulking. "As if the wretched glory hog didn't have an overblown exhibition of his own to babysit," Applebloom heard him mutter as he disappeared through the curtain in the back.

"He don't seem to like you too much," she said soberly to the hard hatted pony. He gave another shrug.

"I would suppose that he would have a bit of a reason or two," he admitted. "My name's Red Fort, by the way." He extended a large hoof.

Applebloom shook it. "Applebloom," she said. "And what reasons?"

"By coincidence or design, it would seem my own exhibition is kind of overshadowing pritnear every other mechanical type contrivance in the Glass Palace," he said, pointing back to the center dome. Something enormous had just been rolled into place. Applebloom heard the blast of a whistle. Her eyes went round as she realized what she was seeing.

"We gotta see this!" she squealed, and galloped off, leaving Lockheed doing double-time to keep up.

She reached the center of the pavilion. She was right: it was a train engine. Not any train engine; this long steel beast was an enormous freight engine, the biggest she'd ever seen. It would eat the Friendship Express engine for a snack and not even burp. It had not one but two boilers. It towered nearly two stories high, all pistons and wheels and rivets and gleaming blue-black metal. It had been rolled into the pavilion on tracks laid down especially for it, and it now stood next to the bandstand, chugging contentedly. Applebloom could feel the thump of the engine through the bottoms of her hooves. Worker ponies were swarming over it like bees over a hive, poking and checking and resetting things, hanging decorative bunting from its sides.

Red Fort ambled up beside her as she looked on, enthralled. "The Thunderhead's quite a sight, ain't she?" he said. "My best work so far, I reckon."

"You built this?" Applebloom said, amazed.

"Designed her," he corrected. "Putting her together, well, I had a bit more help." He grinned suddenly. "Now... betcha can't guess what's so special about her."

Curious, Applebloom looked the iron beast over. There was something odd about the Thunderhead, but she couldn't place her hoof on- "Wait. Where's the smoke stack?"

"Got it in one," Red Fort said. "The Thunderhead is the first steam train to not run on coal. Instead, it has a special magic rock inside called a Sun Stone. It draws power straight from the Sun- sorta like Princess Celestia does- and uses it to heat the boilers. No soot, no smoke, no coal car... just water and a sunshine siphoned straight from the sun." He tipped his hard hat back. "Means we can build her bigger, with a more powerful engine, too. The Thunderhead can probably haul twice as much cargo as a regular coal-burner her size. In a few years we could see every train in Equestria replaced with engines like her. Maybe even the world."

"Wow..." Applebloom thought it over. "But... won't that hurt the Sun if everypony's running their trains and stuff off it?"

Red Fort smiled. "Where do you think the energy in the coal comes from in the first place?" he said. "Everything in the world runs off the sun; The plants soak it up, and we eat the plants. Or the trees turn it into wood, the wood turns into coal, and then we burn it. This just skips a few steps. Besides the sun produces more energy every second than all the factories and engines and trains and boats and campfires in the world combined would produce in a year. We could put sunstones in every train on earth and it would be like drinking out of a lake with a sippy straw."

"Mind, sun stones have limitations. They have to be a certain size; you aren't gonna run your pocket watch off one. That's part of why the Thunderhead's so big. And it takes a real long time to make one, and a lot of expensive alchemical ingredients. Still, it could make a lot of difference in the world. Yep, a lot of difference."

He leaned on the railing around the exhibition and seemed to ponder things for a moment. Then he looked down at Applebloom. "In the interests of full disclosure, I ought to let you know that I've been watching you for a bit since you arrived."

"Is that so?" Lockheed said, a hint of warning in his voice. His tail lashed.

Red Fort gave him a half-grin. "Kinda hard not to. A little yellow filly being tailed by a full grown gryphon in gilded battle armor does have a predilection for drawing the eye." Lockheed looked mollified and backed down.

"Now, as I was indicating, you had a certain look in your eye," Red Fort went on. "Like you were trying to find something."

"A gift for my cousin's Cuteceneara," Applebloom admitted.

Red Fort shook his head a little. "No, not that- though I'm sure you were window shopping on the side," he said. "You were looking for something more.

"I've been to a dozen of these things, and I've seen hundreds, maybe thousands of colts and fillies- blank flanks like you- with a certain look in their eye. You know, you just can't help but know, they're looking for their cutie mark. Heck, I've seen more than a few get their cutie marks at one of these shindigs. Sakes, 'S how I got mine, after all." He pointed to a logo on his coveralls; three gears and a wrench.

"I watched you; you had that same look in your eye. You'd walk up to each booth and I could see the wheel's turnin', like you were trying each one on for size in your head, to see how it fit.

"Then... you'd get this expression on your face that just about screamed: 'almost, but not quite.' Carpenters, potion makers, architects, machinery- it all got that same look from you." He turned his gaze back to the Thunderhead. "I know, I had that same look myself, when I was your age. Leastwise till I finally decided what it was I really was. That's the day I got my cutie mark."

"An' what did you decide what you were?" Applebloom asked.

"The same thing everypony here is, to one degree or another," he said. "What ol' Proud Lion there was." He pointed. A statue was there, one that Applebloom had overlooked in her alarm at the statue of Malfunziona; a stout limbed stallion in Neightalian garb. " Painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history,cartography... he did it all.

"But none of those was what he was."

"What was he?" Applebloom said.

"What I am. I might be an engineer first, but above all, I'm an INVENTOR," he said. "That means I solve problems. Not problems like 'what is Beauty,' mind... because that would fall in the purview of your conundrums of philosophy." He put his hard hat over his heart. "No... I solve practical problems. That's what everypony here does. Whether they work with paints or chisels or carpenter's tools or steel rivets. They fix things. Make them work better. And maybe once in a while bring somethin' completely new into the world. At the end of the day, we're all in the same family." He plunked his hard hat back down on his head. "A lotta fillies and colts are kind of scared of that. Afraid that they'll 'just be a nerd,' or all be lumped in together with all the other gear-flanks out there."

Applebloom cringed. "I'm... sort of scared of that myself," she confessed. "I- I belong to a club... the Cutie Mark Crusaders. I'm scared of just- just bein' nothing more than that," she said, shamefaced.

Red Fort nodded. "I suspect I can understand that," he said. "But look at me and Kilo Wattz, back there. Do we even seem remotely alike?"

Applebloom giggled. "Not hardly," she said.

"Got that right," he said. "We're both inventors. Both engineers even. But we couldn't be more different if one of us had flippers."

Applebloom cocked her head. "D'you think I could be an engineer?"

He seemed to think it over. "You certainly got the spark, and that bump of curiosity about everything. Or you could be one of anything that caught your interest out there. Whatever you end up pickin', though, you might take Proud Lion's example. Him, he was an inventor, and an engineer, and a sculptor, and a painter, and a writer- if there was some way out there to make thing and create new ideas, he tried his hoof at it. Didn't matter to him what his cutie mark was, or wasn't. Don't let anything tell you what you aren't. You own your cutie mark; Your cutie mark don't own you."

"It's been a treat talking to you, Duchess," he said. "But I got to get back to work..." With that, he sauntered off.

"Huh." Applebloom watched him go, a thoughtful expression on her face. A minute later Babs came running around the side of the Thunderhead, Grunt the diamond dog huffing and puffing along behind.

"Hey, Applebloom!" She shouted. "Can you believe the SIZE of this thing?" She skidded to a halt next to her cousin.

"Yup, she's a humdinger all right," Applebloom agreed. It was then that she noticed the ticking. She cocked an ear. "D'you hear that?"

Babs listened. "Yeah, it's coming from somewhere nearby. Sounds like... I dunno, like someone rapping on stone?"

The two guards, curious, pricked their own ears. "It's coming from the statue," Grunt said, his floppy ears pricking forward. Lockheed hefted his spear and crept toward the statue of Malfunziona. "No no," Grunt corrected him. "other statue."

He pointed at the statue of Bold Lion.

The two guards crept forward, the fillies- despite their hissed protests- at their heels. The irregular rapping was loud now, and was coming from the marble base of the neightalian statue. It sounded, most clearly, like something was trying to get out. Hesitantly, Applebloom crept forward and placed her hoof against the stone pedestal.

With a loud CRACK! A rectangular section of marble under her hoof broke loose and fell away. All of them jumped backward.

"I didn't do it! I didn't do nothing!" Applebloom panicked.

Before any of them could say anything one way or the other, a bronze cylinder, as thick around as a breadbox and patina'd with age, slid out of the open cavity, falling to the floor with a clang. As Applebloom watched in growing horror, the lid of the cylinder slowly unscrewed and fell off. Something crawled out. "Yesss... Freeeeeee!" it hissed.

It was scrawny, and barely tall as she was when it stood erect. It was translucent, almost invisible. But there was no mistaking the figure, its crooked torso, its overjointed limbs, its flared-nostril glare of hate. "Malfunziono!"

The creature didn't even give them a second glance. It glared around at the teeming Glass Palace, at the pavilions all around it, and it leered evilly, its smirk spreading up its snout. "Yes, so many things," it said. "Gears and pulleys and levers and axles, switches and buttons, so many- so many things to break!"

It didn't even give them a second look before it scurried over to the Thunderhead. climbed high up its iron flank, seized one of the enormous bolts in its crooked monkey paws and began twisting at it as if it intended to dismantle the entire engine by hand.

"Hey!" Applebloom shouted. "Cut that out!"

"Yeah, geddoffa that!" Babs shouted, chucking a candied apple at it. The Guards' two spears followed the fairway treat as well. They missed by inches, clanging off the iron flanks of the engine and scaring the hell out of some passersby.

Malfunziona gave up its futile tugging to glare at them and hiss. It ignored their further shouts and imprecations. "No, no," he said to noone in particular. "It's too big, too complicated. I'm still too weak! I need to start... smaller." The imp looked around, scanning. From its heightened perch it could now look out over the whole of the great pavilion. Its eyes gleamed evilly.

"Yesss," it said. "More things. I hear pumps and valves, feel springs and coils, smell lubricants and glues-" it paused to sniff. "Electricity..."

Cackling, it dove off the Thunderhead. It turned into a tangled streak of smoke and zipped off in a zigzag across the great rotunda. Where it passed balloons popped, stitches unraveled, knick-knacks cracked or popped apart. A cotton-candy cart spun itself to oblivion, flinging parts of itself in every direction; a hurdy-gurdy exploded in a shower of screws and springs. He vanished from sight in the growing throng.

"We gotta catch him!" Applebloom wailed.

"Stay here with Grunt," Lockheed said. "I'll alert the Princess-" he started to go aloft.

"No wait!" Babs shouted. Lockheed stopped and hovered. "We'll alert the Princess!" she said, holding up her magic compact.

"Dang," he cussed, I keep forgetting those. Fine, tell her, I'll scout for that little freak-"

"Split up and take us with you!" Applebloom said, holding up her own compact. "Grunt with Babs, you with me! We'll cover more area and we'll be able to stay in communication with each other!"

"Hah! Smart Pony is Smart!" Grunt barked. "We go South wing- You go North!" Deed followed word and Babs and Grunt ran off. Applebloom didn't waste another second. She cracked open her compact and shouted into the mirror.

"Applejack! Applejack! We're all in BIG TROUBLE!"