“Luna? Luna, I have some questions. Some tough questions… like, student asking their teacher questions.” Bucky sat down in a chair beside Luna, who was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a few slices of zucchini bread and drinking coffee.

“I see.” Luna’s demeanour shifted and she went from smiling to looking serious. “You look troubled… what is bothering you?”

“I’ve been giving something a lot of thought. It’s been bothering me… when I was in my comatose state… I dreamed. I can’t remember what, though. Well, not very much, anyway.” Bucky, using his magic, poured himself a cup of coffee, opened the fridge, got milk, levitated it over to the table, and then began to prepare his coffee to his liking. “I got to thinking, Luna… about those lessons in conspiracy and control. How to control what ponies think, what they believe in, and how you can control them, should you choose to do so.”

“You intend to have a heavy conversation.” Luna’s sides heaved as she sighed.

“I got to thinking about you… what if you are being controlled through dreams?” Bucky asked, his eyes narrowing as he stirred his coffee.

“I am not certain I understand what you are getting at,” Luna replied.

“You’ve seen other realities… ones where I have become the alicorn of war… what if those are false? While I am aware that there are other realities, like the one with good king Sombra… what if you saw a manufactured dream… a nightmare, something that influenced your thinking, your decision making abilities, thus manipulating you towards a desired outcome?”

Luna’s eyes widened and she stared at Bucky open mouthed.

“It is what I would do. Spread disinformation… look, I overheard you and Celestia talking while I pretended to be asleep. I know that both of you think that whatever he is was inside of my head. And he might have been.” Bucky took a deep breath. “But what if you’ve been inside of his head while he dreamed? What if he showed you other worlds that didn’t even exist, but you believed that they existed? For that matter, how do we even know how many of these so called realities are even real or just elaborate illusions created by some pissed off god that wants to wreck his own sandbox just because his toys rebelled against him?”

“Buckminster, your paranoia is unsettling to say the very least.” Luna shook her head.

“A campaign of misinformation. Half truths, half lies, total falsehoods, false leads, we already know he’ll feck around with Celestia’s mind to undermine her confidence and self value.” Bucky paused and took a deep breath. “What if the future you saw where I became the alicorn of war is a total falsehood? What if it never happened? But the illusion of it happening was powerful enough to influence your decision to help me? What if we are all being played?”

“I am at a loss for what to say,” Luna admitted in a small voice, her brows creased in concentration as she tried to process everything being said.

“I don’t think we can fight it, Luna. What do we do? How do we fight an enemy that creates reality as we know it?” Bucky asked.

“I do not have your answer, Buckminster… I am sorry.” Luna, scowling stared down at her zucchini bread. “I will be returning to Canterlot soon. There is much to be done. You will be needed in Canterlot as well… do not look at me in such a manner, my apprentice, it does not become you. My sister insists that you are in attendance… if it were up to me, I would leave you be.”

“I’m not going to Canterlot.” Bucky lifted his coffee cup in his talons. “I understand that I have duties and that I need to deal with the opening of the tower and that I will have to go south to deal with the problems that have been growing worse down there.”

“Had I my way, I would not return to Canterlot either. I have grown to loathe that place. Alas, I am required to be there.” Luna made a dismissive gesture with her hoof.

“I shall send my squire in my stead.” Bucky raised his head and peered at Luna, as if daring her to tell him that he could not. “Sentinel shall go in my stead. I am guessing there will be some sort of victory parade or celebration or some such event. I want no part of it.”

“Buckminster… I doubt my sister’s needs would be placated.” Luna gave Bucky a sympathetic glance. “She wants for you to rub shoulders and get to know other—”

“No.” Bucky’s refusal was firm.

“No?” Luna stared at Bucky in disbelief.

“No.” Bucky shook his head and then said it again. “No.” As he spoke, his mouth formed a perfect little ‘o’ and his ears perked forwards.

“Buckminster—”

“No.”

“But Buckminster, Celestia just wants for you to have a better public image—”

“No.”

“But this is for your own good—”

“Negatory.”

“Buckminster—”

“Nope.”

“Fine… since you insist on being unreasonable, you can deal with Celestia. I wash my hooves of this issue. You are such a stubborn little pony.” Luna rolled her eyes and then decided that a change of subject was needed. “So… tell me… are you ready to make more Shadowbolts?”

During moments of intense concentration, Lyra’s tongue stuck out of her mouth. She was doing that now as she fiddled with a project. Using a screwdriver, Lyra attached a long handled crank on a flexible hinge that allowed it to be folded away.

What she held in her magic defied description. It was long, appeared to be a collection of gears, copper, iron, wires, discs, and a small glass globe was near the front end, the end she kept pointed away from her. Extending from the front of the device was a long, flexible, silver looking antennae with a round knob on the end that protruded from a round dish.

Lyra slurped in her tongue. “Okay, got the hoof crank, that’s set to a gearbox, that spins up a high speed flywheel for momentum, that turns a camshaft, and that turns several banks of stators and rotors. All of that leads up to the supercapacitor, the thaumaturgical agitator, and a reserve of liquid mana.”

Lyra grinned, a terrible, mad looking grin.

She gave her device a once over, grunted with satisfaction, put on protective eye goggles, rose out of her chair, and stood for a moment, feeling triumphant. She stomped off, heading for the front door to test out her new device.

As Lyra conjured up a hay bale from the carriage house, she realised that she was not alone. She gave both Bucky and Luna a sheepish grin. In a somewhat shy sounding voice, Lyra said, “I bet both of you wonder what it is that I am doing.”

“I will admit, I am curious. That looks like an electrical motor,” Bucky replied.

“Oh, it is!” Lyra’s eyes took on a manic gleam. “I was studying electro-cannons, like those used on airships. While you were gone, since I had some spare time occasionally around the house, since I wasn’t working in the candy store with Bon Bon, I started using my noodle to design this.” Lyra held her device over her head.

“But what is it?” Luna asked.

Lyra’s eyes blinked behind the lenses of her goggles and she let out a faint, wheezing cackle. “The portable hoof cranked electro-cannon.”

“Why hoof cranked? Why not just have a flywheel that could be turned with magic? Why have a mechanical device at all for that matter… Lyra Heartstrings, you can cast lightning bolts from your horn.” Luna shook her head in befuddled confusion.

“I can… but a griffon can’t.” Lyra gave Luna a smug, self satisfied smile. Lyra began to turn the crank with her telekinesis, causing the device to make a soft whirring sound.

“Lyra, what have you done?” Luna asked, her eyes wide with alarm as she began to back away.

“Science!” Lyra cried in reply as the crank began to turn faster. She tossed the hay bale with her telekinesis and it landed almost one hundred feet away, tumbling down into the snow. “I got my idea from making sandwiches… I made flat stators and rotors. They’re thin. The rotors spin with the flywheel and the stators are stationary. I put a whole bunch of them in here, one after the other, so this thing builds up a massive charge.”

All around Lyra, the air crackled and Lyra’s mane was starting to stand up.

“I gave it an agitator and made a closed system thaumaturgical system… I milked myself for my own mana using a school science kit I had lying around. The excited mana flows through the long tube that holds all the stators and rotors… it gathers the charge and becomes super-excited. All of that goes into a supercapacitor I pulled that off of an airship electrical turbine engine I found in a scrapyard a long time ago.”

A long, low whine came from the device that Lyra was holding, a terrifying anus-puckering sound that even made Bucky back away from Lyra, a hideous look of fascination, curiousity, and arousal upon his face.

A little blue light turned on. It blinked. Seeing it, Lyra clucked her tongue. “Will you look at that. It’s ready to fire. I wonder what is about to happen...”

Taking no chances, Luna threw up a protective shield bubble and then cast a grounding spell. Beside her, Bucky was doing the same.

“Sandwich science pays benefits!” Lyra shouted as she pointed the device at the hay bale. The antennae at the end of it quivered, the whole electro-cannon was vibrating in Lyra’s magical grasp. Squinting, Lyra peered down the crude sights.

When Lyra hit the release switch, there was a brilliant flash of light followed by a clap of thunder. A stream of lightning spewed forth from the front of Lyra’s portable electro-cannon, it crackled and super-heated the air around it. The snow melted along the ground and the hay bale exploded on contact, sending flaming hay in every which direction.

Wisps of plasma floated around in the air, making hissy-fizzle sounds, then popping out of existence like punctured soap bubbles. A stream of smoke trickled upwards from the end of the antennae.

“IT WORKS!” Lyra screamed. The fuzzy pelt on her face and strands of her mane were smouldering. “SEE WHAT SANDWICH SCIENCE HAS WROUGHT!” A long maniacal cackle slipped from Lyra’s lips.

Luna, her eyes wide with terror, looked over at Buckminster and then immediately looked away, squeezing her eyes shut. “Buckminster… how uncouth! You are not wearing your cloak! Cover yourself this instant!” Luna began to sidestep away from the visibly aroused unicorn beside her.

Ignoring his dangling bits, Bucky rushed to Lyra’s side, a crazed rictus upon his face. He kissed Lyra on her smouldering, somewhat blackened cheek and then looked down at the electro-cannon. “I want to fire it! Please, please let me shoot that!”

Lyra, excited by her success, seemed oblivious to the fact that Bucky was excited and aroused. She bounced up and down, flexing her knees, and then, in her excitement, kissed Bucky on the lips, a hot, wet, saucy kiss that did nothing to help Bucky’s current problem.

“I made a weapon for our griffons to use!” Lyra said to Bucky.

“You did, you did make a weapon that our griffons could use,” Bucky replied. He wrapped his foreleg around Lyra’s neck and pulled her in for another excited, lusty kiss.

After a moment, Lyra pulled away, panting. “Here! You can shoot it! We’ll need another hay bale. Start winding the crank and I’ll get the hay bale.” Lyra passed the gun off to Bucky’s waiting telekinesis.

Luna rolled her eyes and thought about telling Bucky that his lightning rod was on full display. Seeing him this way reminded her of Sombra… during his moments of excitement, he was known for slipping free and causing present mares to faint.

Bucky was nowhere that gifted.

Author's Notes:

Behold, unicorns in their natural environment, experiencing mutual attraction for one another.

What has science done?

I hope this brightens up at least one person's day. Mine's been downright shitty.