Chapter 1: To Test Your Metal

“Whoa!” Rainbow Dash had to push extra hard to climb out of range. The blue Pegasus flew a loop to get reoriented before hovering at a safe height. “For a horse without a head, this thing moves pretty fast!”

“I told you it’s called a Dullihan,” Twilight Sparkle said, trying to regain the mythical beast’s attention with a salvo of magical blasts.

“All I know is it’s headless and it’s a pony. That makes it the Headless Horse,” Applejack said as she sprung past the Dullihan so she could aim a swift double-kick at it. The Earth Pony’s bucking kick sent the Headless Horse more into Twilight’s range, and she started to score more solid hits. Applejack took out her lasso and started to get ready to go after the creature’s legs.

“Whee! Over here!” Pinkie Pie continued jumping around the small clearing, constantly redirecting the Dullihan’s attention. “This is fun!”

“No, it’s terrifying!” Fluttershy was frozen to the ground, surrounded by the bravest of her animal friends, all similarly frozen with fear.

“What I find frightening is this thing’s lack of fashion sense,” Rarity the Unicorn said. “If one must haunt, at least do it in style!”

“It’s not doing anything by choice,” Twilight said. “According to my books, Dullihans were once warrior ponies who became cursed to search for eternity for a head to replace the one they lost. They can get minor injuries, but they can’t get killed, and some of them even have mystical attacks.”

“So how do we deal with this?” Rainbow Dash asked, diving in across the Dullihan’s flank again.

“With the same plan as before,” the purple Unicorn said.

“H-h-how much longer?” The yellow Pegasus asked.

“Unfortunately,” the nearby earth-coloured Earth Pony stallion said, staring between the sparks that danced from his unshod forehooves, “this sort of thing tends to take awhile. If you can distract it a little longer, I will have the next step in the plan ready.”

The Earth Pony in question was Thirdson Gearhead, something of a mechanical genius, blacksmith, and geomancer. He had come to Ponyville to sell his wares and to find out as much as he could about his ‘knack,’ which he was now using to shape the minerals in the ground below him into a form of containment for the indestructible Dullihan. Gearhead’s ‘knack’ was to understand the relationship between the different materials of an inanimate object he touched, and thus to change and optimize it.

Despite growing up on a farm like Applejack, Gearhead was smaller and physically weaker than the head of Sweet Apple Acres. He had a brown coat, a reddish-brown mane and tail, green eyes, and a telescope for a cutie mark. He was wearing his usual green vest of many pockets, geomancy-friendly horseshoes, two daggers, and one black pouch.

One of Gearhead’s daggers was one which he had forged from carbon-steel using his best metalworking methods, so it was highly durable, but otherwise ordinary. The other dagger was made from a variety of gemstones, and responded to Gearhead’s needs on the battlefield. It could enlarge to the size of a sword, and he could even use it to absorb and fire ambient magical energy.

Gearhead’s most powerful item, though, had to be the orb contained in his black belt pouch, which sealed much of its magical signature so it would not be easily detected by a greedy pony, and stolen. The orb fit comfortably in one hoof and contained a living flame. It shone gold and orange, red and pink, green and blue. It was the Fireheart Gemstone, and it contained power gained from Shadow Wright the Black Firedrake, Princess Celestia and her little sister Luna, and Celestia’s pet phoenix, Philomena.

At the recent Grand Galloping Gala, the others assembled and fighting to contain the Dullihan had found out Gearhead’s best-kept secrets: he was the third son of a farming family so old it predated the formation of Equestria, and naturally the rule of the Two Sisters. This family contributed a large portion of foodstuffs to ponies across Equestria, and Gearhead’s ambitious big brother, Vines, wanted to control it as the next Patriarch.

Because Gearhead’s ‘knack’ had been unpredictable and dangerous before he had mastered it to the current degree, he had been slapped with the title of ‘Black Sheep.’ By Herd law, this title protected him from most physical and emotional harm, as well as preventing him from being forcefully excluded or exiled from the family. It also was a brand that he would have to earn his way out of, because it was a black mark against him, and it had precluded him having a normal childhood. Because he was a Black Sheep, Gearhead would not use his Herd’s name of Verdant, although he was one. Because he was a Black Sheep he was constantly seeking ways to be useful to his family and to other ponies, despite being far away from Hoofington and Verdant Fields.

But it was not all doom and gloom, because Gearhead had these six friends backing him up. That was why he had gone back to ask them for their assistance when he had first encountered the Dullihan.

As the owner of Gearhead’s Gadgets, Gearhead had to gather the wood, metals, and gemstones he used to build and repair the gadgets he sold (and one or two he was not selling). He often mined the area around Ponyville for resources, and this included the Everfree Forest, which did not behave according to the same rules as the rest of Equestria. The Forest was also home to a number of dangerous creatures, from Cockatrices to Timberwolves. This time Gearhead had ventured northeast of the mountain where he had encountered Shadow Wright to investigate rumours that a rare metal was buried nearby.

Those rumours had included hints of the place being haunted, but Gearhead had not gotten any hints until he was well within the Dullihan’s territory, and then he was able to confirm it for himself. As methodical as he was, Gearhead could not pass up an opportunity to test the creature when it stopped pursuing him past a stand of trees. Gearhead had slowly worked his way around the area, and discovered that the Dullihan only came at him if he entered within a roughly circular range of something. Which meant the Dullihan was guarding something, and being limited to a certain distance from that something.

Thus armed, Gearhead had returned to Ponyville to see if any of his friends would be willing to help him investigate what the Dullihan was guarding. Naturally they had dismissed Gearhead’s encounter with the creature, as the Headless Horse was a common enough ghost story. Twilight had brought one of her books on legendary creatures along anyway. Gearhead had another such volume, which he had brought along in his wagon, having driven it along a track that was barely wide enough to accommodate it. But Gearhead had not wanted his friends to be more fatigued than they had to be when the ‘fun’ started. Plus, if there really was a rare metal to be found, he wanted to be able to take back as much of it as was possible.

The first sign the group was entering the Dullihan’s territory was that the forest critters accompanying Fluttershy suddenly became rooted to the ground. Gearhead had already had to leave his wagon behind, so they had continued moving alertly until they first saw the grey pony who had only a thin trail of mist where its head should be.

Now, because they could not completely flank the creature, they were fending it off and trying to contain it. As their fastest member, Rainbow Dash would swoop in and just barely buzz it, while staying away from the Dullihan’s powerful counterattacking swings. Pinkie Pie was a constant distraction, with her ability to pop out anywhere, and even to defy gravity while she was at it. Twilight harried the Dullihan with her magic, while Applejack supported her with physical blows. Rarity provided a light source, but she had discovered that she was not fast enough to get out of the way if she let the Dullihan get too close to her. A sprained hindquarter was the result of her troubles. Fluttershy had become all but useless in this case, except as a detector for the supernatural creature they were facing. And it was Gearhead’s job to come up with a method of containing the once-warrior.

“Clear on my mark,” Gearhead said, focusing. More blue-green lightning shot out along the ground all around them. The other ponies redoubled their efforts, causing the Dullihan to come to a complete stop. “Mark!” The others leaped away even as great slabs suddenly grew out of the ground, pinning the Dullihan from each of the cardinal directions all about its forelegs.

“Finally!” Rainbow Dash said, coming in for a landing.

“I hope it’s strong enough,” Twilight said, seeing the Dullihan struggling in the earth’s vice-like grip.

“It probably will not hold for more than an hour, but we should have enough time to complete our investigation,” Gearhead said. He and Applejack went to collect Fluttershy, although they had to lean in under her to keep her on her feet even as she shivered uncontrollably.

“Lets get this over with,” Twilight said.

“I just hope this’s worth trekking though all this gloom and gunk,” Rarity said, looking back at the three closely-packed ponies with an odd expression.

“Ooh! I hope it’s a big rock,” Pinkie Pie said.

Earlier Gearhead had used a map to calculate the rough center of the Dullihan’s territory. The group approached the location to find it occupied by a short black tower, whose only windows occupied the top and bottom floors. “It’s a lotta rocks,” Pinkie Pie said.

Rarity and Twilight shivered, but fortunately Fluttershy was, once again, mobile enough to move on her own. Gearhead closed his eyes for a moment to shift his focus. “There is a concentration of dark magic here,” he said, thinking about the dark Unicorn whom the ice dragoness had said had trapped her in the mountains behind Canterlot.

“I don’t like this feeling,” Rarity said.

“Me neither, but now I have an idea of what kind of pony’s here. This could be very dangerous, if it’s true,” Twilight said.

“Oh, it’s true,” a new voice, a little like nails on a chalkboard, said. “And you’ll never get in here!”

“In where?” Just then, Rainbow Dash collided with a hitherto invisible force field. At the impact, red-black energy coursed from everywhere else on the spherical field to intersect where the Pegasus had ‘landed.’ It shot through her painfully, and ejected her back in the direction in which she had come. Thinking quickly, Twilight managed to use her magic to grab ahold of her friend and guide her safely down to the ground beside her.

“Ha-ha-ha! Even a dragon can’t pierce my barrier. So go away and leave me alone, afore my Headless Horse comes back to nab you all.” The pony witch cackled.

“Your Dullihan?” Gearhead asked. “You are responsible for the curse?”

“Well yeah: curses come from witches and other dark Unicorns, not from thin air.”

“Do you happen to know anything about a curse to trap a dragon in a mountain?”

“Ooh, that would be a doozy. I wonder if it’s something I can do… to you!”

“We’re here to look into rumours of a rare metal,” Rarity said. “If you would be so kind as to let us look, we’ll soon be on our way.”

“Absolutely not! What you see here is all mine, so go away!”

“Will you heal our friend first?” Gearhead asked.

“That flying foal? It was her own fault she got hurt, so answer’s ‘no!’”

“Actually, we can’t just go away,” Twilight said. “I have a mandate from Princess Celestia herself to investigate some black magic that’s been spreading around here, and I believe you’re responsible for it. So we’re responsible for taking you in!”

“I never heard about that letter,” Applejack said.

“I was waiting until we had some form of confirmation on the black magic. Now we do, and everything we’ve seen since we got into the guarded zone matches up with what the Princess wrote.”

“You’re still not getting in here,” the witch said. “Remember?”

“’Not even a dragon,’ that is what you said,” Gearhead said.

“Exactly! Which means you ponies better turn ‘round and go home! And apologize to your precious princess for your failure.”

“Ooh! I could crack this thing wide open if I had a sharp enough implement to act as a chisel,” Twilight said, clearly frustrated.

“In other words, you can provide the hammer, Miss Twilight?”

“I think so,”

“Then I shall do,” Gearhead said. He drew the geargem dagger and turned it flat-up in his mouth. At the same time, he took the Fireheart Gemstone out of its pouch with his tail and tossed it into a low arc. The dagger extended to sword length, the half-gear guard rotating around and parting to accept the stone. The sword immediately became a little bigger. The blade split open, and the gemstone started to charge with energy, wings of light and lightning extending from the stone in both directions past Gearhead.

“Huh? What? No, impossible. Stop this right now!” The witch started to run down the stairs of her tower to the bottom floor.

“Get ready,” Gearhead said past the pony-style hilt of his weapon as it continued to charge.

“Ready!” Twilight called, forming a purple mallet high above her own head.

Gearhead fired a single spiralling javelin almost directly ahead. The tightly-packed and helical Fire, Light, and Lightning energy dug into the energy shell cast around the tower, sending shockwaves out with each impact. The spiral shell peeled away, revealing a core of charged energy underneath it. At the head of the javelin was a core of Fire magic, held to the Lightning aft section by Light energy. This core layer dug into the shield again, and then Twilight hit the back with her mallet.

Everything exploded. The javelin shot through the hole the impact had made, buried itself a ways in the ground on the other side of the barrier, and then exploded again. The seven friends were watching, still somewhat shocked, as the force field shattered and fell apart from the hole, outward. Gearhead was the first to move in, sword still ready, and look down the impact crater.

“What have you done?” The witch railed at him, marching out the front door of her tower. “You coulda killed us all if that’d been just that much off!”

“No he couldn’t,” Rainbow Dash said, finally recovered.

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because our friend here’s a geomancer. That means that if it’s in the ground, he can sink or float it easily. There’s no chance he’d let this stuff get blown up.”

“Do you know what this is?” Gearhead asked, still staring down at the red and blue glowing boulder the explosion had unearthed. When nopony answered, he said, “Dragonstone. It is no wonder she was so confident that a dragon could not break it. Dragonstone comes from the living flesh and fire of dragons. With even a little of it, I could learn the process behind dragonfiring metals and woods. Even adamantine.”

“Oh, you must think you’re so accomplished. But you ain’t gettin’ any of my Dragonstone, ya hear me, ya daft ‘mancer?”

Gearhead turned to the witch, in the process bringing his sword into line. “I heard. And you heard what Twilight Sparkle had to say. You are coming with us.”

“I ain’t!” Red-black energy started to coalesce around the witch’s horn, but Gearhead tapped the horn with his sword, and the energy fizzled.

“You are, and you may as well come quietly to avoid injury.”

“Fiddlesticks!”

The seven friends returned to Ponyville aboard Gearhead’s cyclic wagon, which was laden with as much Dragonstone as it would carry, nearly the entire boulder, plus one crotchety dark witch. Her language had been so foul that Twilight had decided to gag her before they had even passed Zecora’s hut.

Gearhead drove the wagon over to the Golden Oak Library first. Twilight went inside to send a letter to Princess Celestia through her baby dragon assistant, Spike. Spike could send any paper letter directly to Equestria’s ruler by breathing his green fire on it. The Princess’s swift response was that she was sending a detachment of the Royal Canterlot Guard to escort the witch to the city dungeon. That would take about an hour, so the ponies would have to watch the witch in the meantime.

The friends did not want anyone in Ponyville to come to harm, so they set up a tent that Rarity brought from Carousel Boutique in a field. Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Gearhead took turns keeping careful watch of the witch because they did not know the extent of her power. Anytime she started to charge up her horn, somepony leaned over to flick it and disrupt the spell. Finally, the guards arrived, and the witch was no longer the friends’ problem. Thus relieved of guard duty themselves, the ponies returned to their respective homes. Gearhead drove back to his shop and proceeded to take his new material down to his workshop for examination.

Gearhead’s Gadgets was a spacious building with two floors above the ground. The main floor was the shop floor, with small- to medium-sized gadgets on display. In the back, a stairwell led upstairs to Gearhead’s living quarters, which he also used to display mid-sized gadgets like his telescopes, and downstairs to his standard workshop and forge. A waterwheel drove the forge, while a wind turbine on the roof drove a press. Material bins held all kind of metals from iron to carbon-steel, wood, and gemstones. This was not the workshop to which Gearhead took the vast majority of his new find.

Gearhead had built a second, ultimate workshop well belowground underneath the border between the river and the Everfree Forest. To get to it he had to use his geomancy to reveal a short staircase, unlock a door with the signature of his geomancy, and take four elevators, with specific stops, and again use his signature to unlock a door. Without the proper count for the vertical and horizontal cars, a pony could quickly become lost in the maze of false tunnels Gearhead had excavated, and by lining the tunnels with iron alloy sheets, he prevented other ponies from detecting precisely what was inside, and hopefully fowled up any attempts to find the tunnels in the first place. But one could never be too careful.

Gearhead’s ultimate workshop was lined in a double-layer of sheet metal, one iron alloy for counter-detection and the other in adamantine. The forge and press were also adamantine so they could process any material under the sun (or moon). Gearhead had only recently come to completely understand how adamantine was structured so he could produce more than the dragonfired samples Shadow Wright had left for him. Now he could come to understand how to dragonfire metals to make them even stronger.

Maximizing the strength even of adamantine, the strongest metal known to many beings in Equestria from ponies to dragons, was a critical step in Gearhead’s latest project, the core turbine system. Using seven rings constructed of only the highest-quality gemstones in a conical configuration, he would generate and focus a high quantity of high-quality energy, which he would then harness both as a general power source and as a source of propulsion, and perhaps even flight. Gearhead already had assembled the gemstone rings, but he wanted to dragonfire the adamantine he was using for the frame and unit housing and harness. Once all that was done, Gearhead planned on trying to activate the system by connecting it to the waterwheel. If that did not work, and only if it did not, he would use the Fireheart Gemstone to ignite the core.

To get that far, Gearhead had to first analyse the Dragonstone he had confiscated from the dark witch. He carefully placed a set of five ingots onto an examination table and, using his blacksmith tools, began to subject them to stress tests, using his geomancy in between each test to get a read for any changes that occurred. For that to have any relevance, of course he had to take a read before anything else so he would have a benchmark with which to work. Once he had that, it was a simple matter of trial and error. By following a methodical process, Gearhead would have an understanding of the Dragonstone, perhaps even in a matter of days.

Naturally there were other things Gearhead had to do in a day: There was no way he could allow his business to go under, so he had to have his shop open to make sales. He always needed material to make his gadgets, so just as he had done earlier that day, he would go out and collect them, using his geomancy to unearth useful minerals and remove timber without damaging the environment.

Gearhead had to continually observe the ponies around him in case they had a need that was not being filled, and which could be filled by another of his inventions – which he would then create. Occasionally ponies came to him with special orders, and then he only had to design and create them.

Whenever possible, Gearhead used his skills as a blacksmith to create his gadgets, because the resulting devices would be stronger, unless they were made of gems. When he made something with gems, such as the gemstone daggers, or when he needed to make something quickly, he resorted to using his geomancy. And occasionally he could mix the two methods to create something of mixed quality. Still, everything he made was of highest-quality, wearing extremely slowly and almost never breaking down. Such was the case that he sold everything with a subscription service fee that activated after three months, and was ongoing. Gearhead had to do these things and maintain his reputation because he was competing with other businesses, such as Rich’s Barnyard Bargains.

But Gearhead’s main concern was being able to send much of his profits back home to Verdant Farms, to be used to improve his family’s lifestyle as much as was possible. Gearhead kept whatever he needed for living, material, and travel expenses and sent everything else. He did so so he would be able to contribute to his family’s successes beyond simply equipping them with his innovations.

One of the unforeseen consequences of these personal policies was that Gearhead’s father, the current Patriarch of the Verdant, had decided to use much of the funds Gearhead had sent home to expand the farm’s East Field into the east. This meant that Father was backing Gearhead as a candidate to succeed him as the next Patriarch, and this despite Gearhead being a Black Sheep.

This was a great risk, although not as great as the action Father had taken in asking Gearhead to join him for a conversation in Verdant Fields – where the former showed the latter some very interesting pages from The Codex Verdante, the near-sacred book on Herd genealogy and law.

What Gearhead had seen showed him that somepony had done something to a pony in every generation of the family to impair or reverse their Earth Pony ability to grow crops. Somepony powerful had meddled in the parts of his family’s blood that made them who they were in order to make them something different. Until now, they had not manifested abilities quite like Gearhead’s geomancy, although they were all disastrous on some level. Gearhead meant to discover who had done this, and to do so he meant to ask Princess Celestia the next time he went to Canterlot for training.

Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had taken a keen interest in Gearhead’s geomancy and his potential as a caster, despite his complete lack of a Unicorn’s horn. So far they had discovered that he could manipulate magical energy, although once he had taken it within himself, he could no longer direct it back outside in any way that was meaningful or useful. He could, however, use the absorbed energy to enhance his physicality or to heal himself. What was more useful was his ability to manipulate energy he kept external to himself, through a spell medium such as his geargem dagger – just as he had done in using the Fireheart Gemstone. The Fireheart Gemstone’s element was, of course, Fire, and just with a flame, it could be applied to something and spread to that other object, and regenerate itself over time.

After Gearhead had come to Ponyville, Twilight and her friends had also involved him in ensuring the three fillies in the Cutie Mark Crusaders (Applejack’s little sister Apple Bloom, Rarity’s little sister Sweetie Belle, and the Pegasus filly Scootaloo) did not injure themselves seriously in their efforts to earn their cutie marks. In Gearhead’s case this involved supplying them with gadgets that would allow them to complete their attempts safely. It also meant that as often as possible he would summon Fluttershy to help instruct the fillies on the safe use of a given device. The fillies listened most carefully to Fluttershy because they respected her as ‘the Stare Master,’ a title she earned by staring down a Cockatrice, to the point where she did not just stop the stoning process as it was mid way through, she completely nullified it.

Because Fluttershy was at Gearhead’s Gadgets so often, there was a rumour in Ponyville that she and Gearhead were dating. This rumour had stalled, however, because during the Gala, Gearhead had come to Rarity’s defence against a loutish Prince Blueblood. Opinions had become split on which of the mares Gearhead could be seeing. The truth was that although Gearhead liked and respected both mares, he saw himself as not being in a position to date, since he was a Black Sheep. Besides, he did not have any idea if either of them actually liked him in any manner even close to that sort of love.

Because of his efforts in Ponyville, Gearhead was finding himself in social situations more often. He was comfortable as long as there was a chance to make a sale, and for that purpose he usually brought along a sample or six, with which he could intrigue other ponies. He would have them drop by the shop later to see if they wanted to buy anything. But get Gearhead in a completely social situation without a sale on the horizon and no honour to defend, and suddenly he did not know what to do.

This was not anypony’s fault in particular: as a Black Sheep he had not been able to step outside the house without setting off a disaster with his ‘knack,’ at least not until he and Father had developed the knack-proof horseshoe. After that, Gearhead had gone into research mode on his own, and then into sales. He had not had any time to be social, or to make friends with ponies his own age, until now.

But pity was not something Gearhead was after, least of all in this matter. He wanted recognition and acceptance for his deeds, not for what or who he was. He did not care about being old blood, as long as he was helping his family and the ponies around him. That was why he risked blowing himself up to create an engine of unimaginable power – although not without safeguards without which to protect the ponies around him.

One set of safeguards was the process through which one had to go to get to the ultimate workshop. Another was the air-spring suspension system that would cushion the workshop from earth shocks, and the earth from explosions inside the laboratory. Gearhead had also memorized the core system’s complete blueprints and the formulae behind it, creating a mental maze of data, while burning the paper portions essential to running the systems, and which told of built-in safeguards. This would prevent pirated versions of the system from being able to run, even if other ponies could build them. Gearhead knew what greedy ponies could do with a weaponisable system like this, and he would not see it happen.

Gearhead returned his full attention to his analysis of the Dragonstone. As essential as this step was about to become, he could not leave it incomplete. The core system would have to be complete as soon as possible, just in case it was needed.

Rainbow Dash flew up and into her cloud castle home. Pegasi were the only ponies who could touch and manipulate cloud matter, which was what made them such great weather managers, as well as being great flyers – most of the time. Rainbow had made her castle from several clouds, binding them together along with some rainbow falls and pools. And when she took an object, even something from the ground, and introduced it into her cloud home, only she or another Pegasus could get it back out.

Rainbow opened a long drawer near her bed and took out the gemstone dagger lying within it. This was one of the first of the series, which Gearhead had made for her in case the friends needed to fight the Diamond Dogs in their rescue of Rarity. As it turned out, fighting became largely unnecessary because Rarity was able to persuade the Diamond Dogs to let her and her friends leave with several carts heaped full with gemstones.

Rainbow had used her gemstone dagger then, and then she had put it away and forgotten about it. But seeing the way Gearhead wielded his own weapon had renewed Rainbow’s interest in the item. She knew it was useful to have, but had always figured on her own skills being enough to back up her friends. Only, that hadn’t been the case against the Dullihan or the dark witch pony. Only Gearhead had been able to neutralize the monster, and only he had had what it took to break her barrier. Rainbow could only guess what would have happened if Twilight had been the one providing the nail, and Rainbow had been the hammer, using her Sonic Rainboom to boost the force of her dive. Maybe they would have gotten through, but if a situation like that ever happened again, Rainbow wanted to be a dash more prepared. She thrust the dagger back into its scabbard and strapped it on.

When Rarity first met Gearhead on the road, she had thought him less than spectacular because he was small for a stallion. By helping her get un-stuck, though, Gearhead had made the Unicorn change her mind, and she had viewed him as being an admirable pony, if dressed a little strangely.

Since then, Rarity had seen Gearhead do a great many things, including helping her sister and the rest of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Rarity knew, as the others did, that Gearhead sometimes got called to Canterlot, but she did not know exactly what he did there. Chances were good that it all had something to do with learning how to fire the magic lance with which he had pierced the witch’s barrier, shattering it. That much power being harnessed by an Earth Pony was unheard of, as far as Rarity knew. It was frightening and enlightening at the same time, and it made her wonder what else he could do.

What impressed Rarity the most about Gearhead, though, was what he could do without his power. His sales manners were impeccable, but his gentlepony-ly manner was even more so, especially in light of his big brother’s arrogance. Rarity could believe that Vines had been a relentless bully as a colt, and that Gearhead had had a terrible foalhood, except that the Black Sheep Clause offered him some protection.

The Verdant’s other redeeming family member, so far as Rarity had seen, was Ivy. The mare carried herself with such elegance and poise that Rarity had at first been convinced that she was a real princess. At the same time, she seemed to lack all of Vines’s harsh qualities. Rarity had thought that her friend Fluttershy was the most calming pony in Equestria, but Ivy could probably make a volcano reconsider its eruption. With Ivy around, Rarity did not doubt that Gearhead could have been as happy as he wanted to be, assuming she could spend as much time as she wanted to with the colt. But since Ivy lived on a farm, she was probably out in the fields more often than not, working them as hard as Applejack did at Sweet Apple Acres. That thought proved jarring to Rarity, because Ivy had had such a polished image at the Gala. The Unicorn simply could not imagine her being down to earth and dirty!

In contrast to Vines’s snobbish attitude toward ponies not of the Verdant, Gearhead was painfully polite to everypony. He was downright chivalrous to any mare or filly he met. He encouraged colts to put forth their best effort, and he was friendly toward stallions, whether or not they had more of anything than he did.

As another salespony, Rarity knew that this attitude was a thick armour that Gearhead wore. As a result, she wondered what the real Gearhead was like. She hoped his intervention on her behalf against Blueblood, and the emotion he had shown when interacting with Ivy, were hints of what he was really like. Rarity wanted happiness for all her friends.

At the moment, however, Rarity had to continue her progress on her next designs, which she had interrupted in order to help Gearhead with the Dullihan. In returning to her workroom, she passed the drawer that contained the gemstone dagger Gearhead had made for her. She wondered if she could make powerful energy bolts like he did, or maybe something more, given that she could use Unicorn magic normally.

Twilight Sparkle was considered to be unique among the Unicorns because while most Unicorns had a very limited set of spells they could use, Twilight seemed to be able to learn all kinds of spells. She thus had high potential power, and Princess Celestia had made her her personal protégée as a filly in order to help her train.

That said, Gearhead was an Earth Pony. The only magic they were supposed to have was to enhance the growth rate on plant life. According to the story Rarity had coaxed from Gearhead himself, it was the one talent he did not have, instead being able to influence the inanimate. The power Gearhead had deployed against the dark witch had been enormous, and Twilight wanted to know what it was. She knew it had something to do with his dagger, as well as the orb he carried.

Twilight went to a chest she kept in her room and, unlocking it, took out the gemstone dagger Gearhead had made for her. She had not used it because she felt it was impractical to carry it around all the time, what with her horn being a part of her. But if it could help her learn more magic, there was not any reason Twilight could not make use of it. She strapped it to a foreleg in imitation of Gearhead, and started pacing to see if it would be comfortable walking with it. At the very least, Gearhead had been smart in his design of the belt and scabbard, so neither rubbed the wrong way as she walked.

Twilight nodded and returned to her studies. She wanted to master a failsafe spell she knew Princess Celestia used to dispel other ponies’ magic. If she could master it, other Unicorns like the dark witch would not be a problem. Next Chapter: 2A. Dissonance Estimated time remaining: 14 Hours, 35 Minutes