The remainder of the week went by quickly as Scootaloo as the Cutie Mark Crusaders were filled to near bursting with excitement at the prospect of a trip to Canterlot. Applejack and Rarity had agreed on letting their younger sisters go on the trip as long as Twilight and Rainbow Dash we’re going to be going since both older sisters had to stay behind for their jobs.

Twilight had planned on going to see how Inventor’s seminar would turn out and had arranged to leave Spike in charge of the library while she was gone. The cyan pegasus herself had plans in the capital as well in the form of going to see a Wonderbolts show, apparently this one was going to be a race followed by a stunt show afterwards. She had managed to convince Fluttershy to cover for her in any unlikely emergency weather conditions that were unlikely at best.

With the chaperones decided the three adventurous fillies had spent the majority of the week planning what they were going to while at the city on the mount. Sweetie Belle insisted on going to a musical performance, Scootaloo demanded they watch the Wonder Bolts with Rainbow Dash, Applebloom suggested that they go to a theatrical performance. All of which were fit into the schedule by Inventor as he planned out the trip.

Sooner rather then later the day came and the five ponies with the human counterpart were on their way to the Canterlot by train. It was still early morning as the group travelled the rails to the place where Inventor had met Twilight a week before. The wheels clicking on the train tracks repeated a strange melody with the clicking that followed Inventor around creating a haunting song that seemed to encourage the silence that reigned over the train car.

The silence was broken by Applebloom as she struggled to get some kind of conversation started, “So, Inventor, ah’m curious, what will you be doing a seminar on in Canterlot?”

Scootaloo spoke before Inventor had even opened his mouth, “More importantly, what’s a seminar?” the orange pegasus asked as she began to pace across the floor in anxiety.

“A seminar is an educational meeting Scoots, as for your question Applebloom the topic of my seminar will be application of, and ideology on, magical theory.” Inventor said as he began to stretch in his seat. “Which, in less advanced terms, basically means that I will talking about things that magic may be capable of doing under the hemisphere of plausible terms which I have discussed with Twilight that haven’t actually been done yet.” Inventor paused for a breath as he looked at Applebloom who had a confused look on her face.

“Not enough basic? Let me try again,” Inventor coughed and then continued “What can and can’t magic do.” Inventor settled back into his seat and looked over the room.

Rainbow Dash chose now to speak up, “Why do you do that?” Inventor responded with a quizzical look on his face. “Why do you go into extremely long and complicated explanations when you could just say a few words to say the same thing?” They cyan mare clarified.

Inventor smiled in the semi-silence that followed before he spoke, “There is a saying I used to say quite a lot that I applied to my life.” Inventor sat forward in his train seat before he spoke again, “Everything in life is clear as clockwork.” The train car lapsed once again into the cryptic melody from earlier as the car fell silent with the quiet thoughts of the passengers once again.

A few choruses the of song later and they had arrived at Canterlot, climbing off the train the trio of fillies with the trio of chaperones made their way toward the hotel that Inventor had booked for the weekend. As they walked through the city Inventor received one of two looks. Either people would look at him with confusion or, more commonly, with looks of fear.

Inventor was about to do something to encourage less fear but decided against it. Those ideas never worked out anyway. All the while, completely oblivious to the looks they were receiving for being with Inventor, the three fillies ran circles around their elders talking excitedly amongst themselves about everything that they had planned.

As they walked through the streets the normally crowded path was quickly vacated in front of the approaching party. “If I knew you got the entire world to part before you I would have come to Canterlot sooner just to meet you first.” Rainbow Dash joked as she walked alongside the man. “This is much nicer than being pushed around in a crowd.”

It was at this point that a stallion darted from the side streets and made his way hurriedly toward a building on the other side of the row. The old stallion was looking at his feet when he ran into the leg of Inventor. The pony fell backward onto his rear from the collision and looked up confused, “I’m so sorry sir, I didn’t see -” his speech stopped.

Inventor clutched his leg in pain, a pair of fillies slowly meandering into him was one thing, a fully grown stallion running headlong was quite the other. “Shoot, probably a break.” Inventor said with a grimace as he reached slowly into the bag that hung at his side, he was still wearing the same pair of clothes he had been wearing when he first arrived but he had found time to wash them when noone was looking, he never had taken Rarity up on that offer.

As he pulled a small green metallic orb from his pocket the crowd that had gathered around him inhaled a collective gasp, he sighed as he tapped that device against his leg. A green glow slowly spread across the injured limb, when it had covered the entirety of the wound a soft muffled grinding noise filled the air, Twilight gasped and Inventor grimaced in pain as the device did its job.

The stallion that had broke the man’s leg quickly finished his run into the building of his original destination but the crowd remained watching. Inventor stowed the green device back into his bag and cautiously began to flex his leg. Twilight spoke up at this point. “Was that grinding noise the sound of your bones rearranging back into their original position?”

Inventor could hardly speak and was gasping for air as if he had just come up from drowning, after a few seconds of this he turned and nodded in Twilight’s direction she continued her query, “Can you do that to any wound?” There was silence for a minute as Inventor finished collecting his breath to answer.

“Only my wounds and even then only wounds on the arms and legs, bar a few. Such as, for example, a compound fracture, if I try and repair that I do more damage than good.” Inventor said before looking to make sure the Cutie Mark Crusaders hadn’t wandered off.

His eyes fell on an orange pegasus who was looking at him with worried filled eyes, “You are okay now though, right dad?” there was a chuckle from Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo quickly corrected her statement, “Because if you’re such a wimp that you can’t take an ordinary run-in like that..” The nervousness in her voice did little to encourage that she was serious however and with his classic friendly smile inventor nodded to the filly.

After a moment more of stretching from the techie, they continued their journey. The crowd once again parted in front of the entourage as they began to move once more. The inn was right around the corner from where Inventor had taken a blow to the leg and the group gleefully accepted the lack of staring eyes filled with anxiety inside the relative calmness of the building.

As they entered the earth pony manager behind the front desk grinned back at them, the smile was fake and Inventor knew it but decided not to bust down the only defense the stallion had between him and the ‘monster’ that was slowly approaching. “Hello sirs and ma’ams, party of six for the Twilight group?” With a nod from the purple unicorn herself to confirm the registration the manager continued. “Rooms 340 and 341.” and with a quick of toss of keys to Twilight the earth pony disappeared into a back room.

The group began getting settled into the rooms that Twilight had reserved. Inventor, Twilight and Rainbow would share one room while the Cutie Mark Crusaders took the other. “They’re never going to go to sleep while we’re here you know.” Rainbow said to Twilight, who only nodded in return.

After the rooms were set up the inhabitants thereof quickly made to do whatever they were going to do to consume the rest of the afternoon until that night when the seminar would start. Inventor and Twilight stayed at the hotel to finish the remains of the seminar while the three fillies and Rainbow Dash went out to go watch the Wonderbolts that were performing that afternoon.

Scootaloo greatly enjoyed the Wonderbolts show, mostly because she got to listen to her idol give commentary about every little aspect of the show that caught her attention. This included the flying habits of every single one of the flying athletes and all the tricks they were known for. As the event ended the group made their way back to the hotel, Rainbow was excitedly reliving the show out loud and with a lot of stunt flying while Scootaloo watched on in awe. Sweetie Belle and Applebloom were happily discussing the events the next day that they were going to attend.

Upon arrival back at the hotel they found Inventor and Twilight already in the lobby, the man had a stack of papers under his arm has he stood waiting for the arrival of the quartet. When Scootaloo entered she ran quickly up to her dad and began to ramble off the events of the show she had gone to witness. Inventor smiled and ruffled her hair, he spoke as he turned to the other three members of the outing “So, we all set to go then?”

Upon confirmation from each of the individual ponies they set out on their trip toward the seminar hall, they arrived without incident and Inventor ran through his notes one last time before he was called on stage, “Well, here goes nothing then.” He said with a nod to his three companions. They watched silently from the shade at the side of the stage as he made his way into the limelight.

With a collective gasp from the assembled unicorns Inventor nodded, “I know the vast majority of you are now looking for the nearest emergency exit at the sight of me, so I guess I don’t have to remind you of that.” There was a soft laugh in the darkness at the rear of the assembled ponies.

“I am here to discuss with you today the aspects of magic theology. I understand that many of you don’t trust me by appearance alone and I can quite agree with you. That is quite a normal reaction for you to have, however I would like for you all to put aside your stereotypes and listen with open minds.”

After a silence from the crowd that Inventor determined was an acceptance of that condition he continued, “Now, due to the basics of magic that we are all familiar I would like to discuss the extent of magical grasp and its use in the medical field, such as holding a patient’s veins to ensure that they don’t roll during an injection. -” Inventor spoke loudly and with courage as he continued his seminar.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders quickly became bored of the speech, even Scootaloo who at first had been enraptured by listening to her dad. The orange pegasus talked in low tones to her two friends, “We should go explore Canterlot at night, we might get our cutie marks for midnight adventuring!”

“Ah dunno Scoot, I think that sounds really dangerous.” Applebloom said, voicing her concerns for the shadey idea that the purple-maned filly had suggested.

“C’mon Applebloom, It’ll be fun!” Sweetie said with a voice crack.

“All right I guess, but if we get in trouble I’m not taking the blame.” the yellow earth pony responded.

There was a moment of silence as they all looked at each other. Then, with a quiet hoof bump and a hushed call of “Cutie Mark Crusaders Nighttime adventurers yay!” they walked out the back door under the loud cover of an applause as Inventor called Twilight out onto the stage to demonstrate one of his suggestions.

About thirty minutes later the trio of adventurers found themselves on a completely unfamiliar street as odd sounds circulated through the night atmosphere. Sweetie was the first to fall the the nightmarish suggestion as she froze in her steps, the other two went back to comfort her when they too succumbed to it and all three of the fillies curled up scared on the side of the street.

A mare walked up to the three ponies that had curled up in the cold air, “Are you okay?” She asked the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Scootaloo looked up at the voice in surprise and noticed her cutie mark, a pair of crossed wrench behind a gear.

After she took notice of that she turned her attention back to the female pony that stood above her she spotted wings, announcing her as a pegasus, after she noticed this Scootaloo spoke, “Could you help us get back to the convention seminar place miss? My dad is probably worried sick right now.” With a nod and a smile from the adult they began to urge the other two fillies back to their feet, with that done they began to head out in the direction of the seminar.

The seminar had finished almost immediately after Twilight had done her demonstration, the three missing children was noticed almost immediately and the chaperones decided to split their search into three separate parts. While Rainbow Dash took to the air, Twilight teleported randomly through town trying to capture a glimpse of them, this left Inventor with only one choice of searching, running madly in one direction.

After a minute or two of running directly south Inventor spotted the trio of ponies being escorted by a pegasus mare, his speed increased and the man ran toward the newly spotted fillies, as he approached a look of concern ran across the face of the adult escorting them and before Inventor had time to say anything he had received a full force buck to the chest, as he flew helplessly through the air the stillness of the night echoed a horrid shattering filled the air. “That would be my pocketwatch, oh well, I didn’t really care what time it was anyway. No more invisibility though, I’m going to miss that.” the madman said though his voice was drowned out as the wind whistled past him.

After hitting the road and skidding a few feet of cobblestones on his back he came to a stop, he heard a familiar voice speak hurriedly from the direction he had been heading before taking a double hoof powerhouse smash to the chest, his head heard and a ringing noise echoed through his ears, “Phones for you honey,” He murmured incoherently as he laid on the road. Not one minute later his vision was filled with the outline of his assailant and his daughter.

“Why the crap are ponies so friggin strong?” Inventor said to the taller of the two silhouettes, then he turned his attention the flightless filly, “Heya Scoots, I’m going to pass out now, if you could get me some kind of help that would be great.” Inventor mumbled before blacking out as his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

The apologetic mare quickly managed to heave the unconcious man onto her back with his face up and walked him toward the the nearby hospital that glowed from the 24/7 lights inside the establishment. It was at this point that Applebloom noticed that there seemed to be metal joints attached to her two back limbs, which bent as the adult pegasus lead the way.

After a few moments of loud argument between the pegasus chaperone, who turned out to be named Crimson Turn, and the night manager of the hospital a room was finally set up for the less than peacefully sleeping Inventor, Scootaloo depressedly walked outside and sat on the bench near the entrance to the medical building, before long she was joined by Sweetie Belle and Applebloom. They sat in the still of the night for a while before Sweetie Belle spoke up, “It’s not your fault you know.” Scootaloo only managed a slow nod while she kept her eyes focused on the road in front of her.

A few moments later a pop was heard and all three of the fillies looked in front of them as Twilight Sparkle smiled back, a minute later Rainbow Dash managed to land safely in front of the hospital and the Cutie Mark Crusaders relayed the story to the two chaperones, the two mares, in turn, explained how Rainbow had seen the fillies on the bench and had managed to get the message to Twilight.

After the stories were traded by both sides both groups entered the hospital and made their way to Inventor’s room, outside of the door, sitting on the floor, was the mare who had kicked him in the first place. She was staring blankly at her legs and their metal attachments. Scootaloo nuzzled up to the mare and broke her from her silent reminiscence, and then time passed like it always does. Slowly, and in the right direction.

(I had to fight the very forces of the internet to put this up, 502 and 504 errors closed in on me from all directions. I determinedly pushed forward, "I have to bring this chapter to my readers." I repeated to myself as a mantra, even now I suspect that FimFiction is against my very soul in this endeavor, this internet will meet the full wrath of my technical genius though, never before has it experienced such an amazing combination of pressing the refresh button and patience. And now, here you are, chapter 8 - N64Fan)