Chapter 16: The Keys of Return

The Apples managed to stretch their Zap Apple business over the next seven days, since the apples that were harvested did not disappear, only the ones that were still on the trees. With Dusty helping out, they only missed a few trees’ worth of apples, and business was incredibly good. This was helped along by the simple expedient of adding sturdy wheels to the bottoms of the baskets. According to Applejack, the profits from the Zap Apple harvest, combined with the expected profits from Cider Season should carry them through the next winter easily.

After every Zap Apple confectionery and bottle of jam was sold, it was back to business as usual for all of Ponyville, wheras the entire town seemed to focus on whatever the Apples were producing if it was a seasonal specialty. Everything else in town came to a complete stop, and since everything stopped, nopony got ahead or got left behind.

Except when foals were born, then certain ponies went to Ponyville General to have a look. The Elemental Six went when the Cake twins were born. They spoke of little other than the Pegasus Pound and the Unicorn Pumpkin for a whole week, so Dusty was relieved when the novelty died down three weeks after that.

Dusty was reading from a set of books that Princess Luna had sent over when somepony knocked on the library’s front door. Usually patrons just came on in, so this was obviously other business. Twilight left Spike balancing with cards and charts stuck all over himself to answer the door. There were Carrot and Cup Cake, their month-old foal twins, Pumpkin and Pound, in slings.

“Sorry to bother you, but could you look after the twins for the evening?” Carrot asked.

“Normally I’d be happy to,” Twilight said, “but I have to finish this report to the Princess summarizing all my other reports to the Princess.”

“Oh, that’s a shame, but we understand.” Carrot said.

“I can do it,” Dusty said, walking to the door.

“Aren’t you a little young to be foalsitting?” Cup Cake asked.

“Perhaps, but I’ve got younger siblings, and the older ones always look after the younger ones, right? So I’ve got some experience in that matter.”

“Still, to handle the twins on your own may be a little much..?” Cup Cake said, and Carrot nodded.

“In that case, at least let me help out whomever you choose. I’ve the flight and magic to keep up, after all.”

“A back-up sitter? That could be smart,” Carrot said. “But we still have to find a main sitter.”

“I can be the main sitter!” Pinkie Pie said, and Dusty realized she’d been behind the Cakes all along. Obviously they did not think she was up to the challenge of looking after Pumpkin and Pound even though she played with them all the time. Given what was involved in looking after a pair of new foals, one a Unicorn and the other a Pegasus, and both not yet having discovered the capabilities of their tribes, Dusty was inclined to agree.

Dusty followed Carrot and Cup Cake as they approached the rest of the Elemental Six to ask them if they were available. Even Fluttershy had to turn the offer down, and from Angel’s expression Dusty was afraid of what might happen if she kept him waiting for too long. Dusty did not believe Fluttershy deserved such abuse, nor Angel such an understanding owner. But there it was.

That also left the Cakes with just Pinkie as an option, which seemed to make them glad that they had not completely rejected Dusty’s idea. Pinkie would be the main pony responsible for looking after Pound and Pumpkin, while Dusty backed her up when things got difficult, and kept her on-track otherwise.

Back at Sugarcube Corner, the Cakes gave Pinkie and Dusty their list of responsibilities. Pinkie kept repeatedly assuring the worrying parents that everything would go just fine, while Dusty sat between the twins and watched, one eyebrow raised: it was not as though a foal stayed fed, cleaned, or in bed once one took care of that the first time. Their state changed all the time, and you had to keep up with the changes. Even then, it was impossible to keep them from crying or whining. That was the state of being a foal. Gearhead knew it well, from helping to take care of Rosie, Bean, and Cori. It had been much the same for Vines and Big Sister Ivy taking care of him.

Once Carrot and Cup Cake were out the door, Pinkie turned back to face her audience, who had seen the whole thing. Dusty thought it was a big mistake to let foals see their parents leave, because then they would wonder where 'Mommy' and 'Daddy' had gone, and why the foals themselves were being left behind. And then the reality that 'Mommy' and 'Daddy' were no longer present would hit the foals, and in that moment – right on cue, right in Pinkie's smiling face, Pound and Pumpkin started crying. Pinkie immediately started to try to distract them with toys, and then her go-to game for entertaining them. Unfortunately this game was 'Where's Pinkie,' the natural consequence of which would be to remind the foals that their parents were gone. Oops. The crying intensified.

Dusty walked around Pumpkin, to loop back around to circle Pound as well. Curious, the foals quieted a bit to watch the colt move about the room, and in doing so he made them move closer together. Dusty picked up his pace slowly, and started to move in figure eights with one loop circling the twins, while the other took him through empty space. The twins spun so they could continue to track him visually, but started to get confounded and frustrated when he reached a trotting pace. Dusty popped up from behind them, finally, and looked down at their faces from over their shoulders. From their perspective he was upside-down, and getting closer as he leaned in, a completely neutral expression on his face. The twins gave back stare for stare, silence for silence. When the ponies' snouts barely had any space between them, Dusty puffed out his cheeks, pointed his ears straight out, and stuck his tongue out between his cheeks, and then started to quickly shake his head as though he was wet and trying to dry off.

The foals burst out laughing at the upside-down, multi-eyed silly face, and since they were laughing they could not also be crying. Dusty kept it up as he backed toward the living space behind and above Sugarcube Corner, leading the twins to where Pinkie watched. Finally Dusty had to sit down to recover, because even that simple motion, repeated, had him disoriented and tired. "All yours," he said, panting.

Thanks in part to Dusty's foaling around, Pinkie was able to bring the twins into a game rather easily – until both the foals' stomachs growled. "Food time? Okay!" Pinkie lifted Pound, and then Pumpkin, into their highchairs before going to the preserver to see what Carrot and Cup Cake had left for the twins to eat. Wherever you go, though, baby food is almost always a variety on mush, and so it becomes very challenging to make it seem appetizing.

Pinkie brought half-full bowls and set them on the twins' trays. "Alright, dig in!" She said. "Like this: num-num-num-num-num!" And she mimed holding the bowl between her hooves and shook her head side to side. Dusty would have done a facehoof, but knew that would set an even worse example for the foals. Instead he stood in front of Pumpkin and used his tail to manipulate her spoon. In order to feed the Unicorn, Dusty found that he had to use a few minor tricks to distract her a little. The odder the action, the more her mouth hung open in awe or puzzlement, so into that literal and figurative opening, he would sneak the spoon.

Dusty heard something go 'bang!' and looked away from Pumpkin to see Pound's bowl go flying, dumping its contents everywhere. Dusty would have reached out with his telekinetic magic but he thought that Pound needed to learn that when you dumped your food on the floor, it was not that easy to recover. Then again, everypony there was a horse, so what difference was there really in eating from the floor? Dusty demonstrated himself, using Pumpkin's spoon, since he already had control of it – and a fascinated Pound stopped crying.

“You’re eating off the floor?!”

“Out of everything, this is strange? B’sides, we’re all horses here.”

“Oh yeah!” Pinkie snorted. “Let me grab a spoon and I’ll help Pound out.”

Once the twins refused to take in any more food, Pinkie and Dusty traded places a couple of times. One would do clean-up while the other played with the foals. Dusty was cleaning while Pinkie played quietly with the foals when he heard the mare say “some pony-wony needs me to change their daipy-wipey right now-wow-ow!” The baby talk alone made Dusty cringe, but he cantered into the room to see how Pinkie was handling things.

Getting the diapers off of Pound and Pumpkin seemed to be the easier part, and it stood to reason that that would be the case: the foals would be uncomfortable with the messed-up diapers, but once they were off and their bottoms were clean, they would be comfortable again – more comfortable bare-bottomed, one might suggest, than clad in fresh diapers. The twins racing off, in any direction that would get them away from Pinkie, only confirmed this guess, as well as Gearhead’s memories of trying to deal with his younger siblings without help from his elders. Was I this bad too?

Dusty grabbed a fresh diaper with his mouth, and as he passed the dresser where they were stacked, he thought to grab a back-up with his tail. His weapons secure, he looped around to head-off Pound, thinking of leaving Pumpkin to Pinkie. The twins were running together, and seemed to come up with the same evasion techniques, whereas Pinkie and Dusty were jumping in each other’s way and stepping all over each other. Dusty had the lesser mass, so he always tumbled backwards, and sometimes ended up under Pinkie.

After two such collisions, Dusty finally had had enough to apply some of his magic to the problem, although ideally he did not want to give Pound or Pumpkin an idea of what they could do that Pinkie could not. Ultimately, through, Dusty believed it was more practical to nip this short-term problem in the bud, and contain any fall-out as it came, before they had any other messy fall-out from the foals. He called upon his Pegasus magic to accelerate more swiftly as he and Pinkie tumbled.

Dusty swept out from under the mare, and although he was flying close enough to the ground to trot, he was still using his powers, closely emulating what he had done on his first attempt with his core prototype. While Pinkie was still recovering her feet, Dusty curved toward Pound. This time when he tried to quick-step out of the way, Dusty beat his wings and caught up to the smaller colt. With movements made expert by handling some very energetic younger siblings, he managed to get the diaper onto Pound so he could spin vertically, spring off the wall, and then land, placing the smaller colt on the floor in front of him. “Yay!” Pound said, waving his forehooves in the air.

Without her brother to act as her double, Pumpkin seemed slightly slower. Pinkie was wearing two products of previous failed attempts, one on her head, so she was already in a mood for success this time around. She pounced from closer, and Pumpkin’s hesitation finally gave Pinkie the victory. Soon both foals were ready for bed.

Or not.

Instead of being tired, the twins were too keyed-up for sleep. They wanted to stay up and play, but the Cakes had set a specific bed time. As a responsible pony, Pinkie was set on sticking to it. As mere month-olds, the Cake twins were up for whatever they considered fun in their limited experiences. While most of that was shared, Pumpkin did not share her brother’s proclivity toward hitting things, nor Pound his sister’s desire to chew on things.

Dusty watched from the doorway as Pinkie walked away from the occupied cribs. He stepped back as she came through, only to look back. Somepony giggled, startling them both just a bit. “Hey Dusty, I put Pound Cake in the crib just now. Right?”

“Right,” Dusty wondered what Pinkie was getting at.

“You didn’t see him get out, right?”

He’s out? But – “One: Foals can’t just get out of their cribs on their own. They’re designed that way.”

“Foals or cribs?”

“Both, but the cribs are designed to be too tall for foals to climb out.”

“Oh, okay. Did you have another point?”

“Two: You blocked my line of sight as you moved through the doorway. I lost sight on Pound and Pumpkin for four or so seconds.”

“But you just said foals can’t climb out of cribs, and at least Pumpkin’s still where I put her. So where’s Pound?” The giggling came from down the hall, toward one of the windows that looked out onto the street below. Both ponies reflexively looked in that direction. Then they heard something squeak from within the foals’ bedroom: Pumpkin was chewing on a rubber chicken, which Pinkie had put in a closet earlier, before closing the closet door.

“No, no, no,” Pinkie trotted over to Pumpkin and took the toy away again. Now is time for sleeping, not playing, so—“ The giggling came again. “Where is that coming from?!”

“I’m honestly surprised you’ve not looked up yet,” Dusty said. Now Pinkie did look up, and instantly regretted it, by the expression on her face.

“Pound Cake? I didn’t know you could fly. Why didn't you tell me this sooner?” She asked turning to Dusty.

“To be honest, the fact his wings are strong enough to pin him, upside down, to the ceiling, is news to me too. I wanted to be sure I wasn’t seeing things first.”

“Well, as a responsible pony it’s my job to assert my control here,” Pinkie said. She grabbed the rubber chicken and put it in a chest. Then she tried to bring Pound back down to earth by jumping up and grabbing him, but he remained out of reach.

“Which one do you want to handle?” Dusty nodded toward Pumpkin, who had used her magic to open the closet door, and was telekinetically moving her toys to her crib side, and from there to her mouth.

“Not you too, Pumpkin!”

“Didn’t Rainbow Dash and Miss Twilight warn the Cakes about the twins coming into their gifts in sudden spurts?”

“Yeah, but who could expect something like this?”

Dusty looked up at Pound, still flying pinned to the ceiling, and then at Pumpkin, replacing one toy with another as soon as Pinkie took it out of her mouth. “I’ve got to admit that this does not look like a ‘spurt’ or ‘fit:’ It’s a far more consistant effort.”

Pinkie zipped out of the room and came back with suction cups on her feet so she could walk along the ceiling. How she was doing this, Dusty could only guess, but then this was Pinkie Pie here: to her, the laws of gravity were more like... guidelines. “Stop talking about how incredible all this is and do something!” She lunged, grabbing a hold of Pound’s socks as he turned to fly away. “Gotcha!” But he just sped off, dragging her along.

“Let go!” Dusty yelled after her.

“I’m not gonna... let him get away from me now!”

Dusty would have done a facehoof then and there, regardless of Pumpkin’s presence, but that same presence represented a conundrum for him: how far could he go in his efforts to suppress her magic? If he casted one of his few magic negation spells, would he end up causing permanent psychological or physical damage to the young caster? Not to mention, since young Unicorns had soft horns that had not fully grown in, he could end up damaging that if he used the same methods he’d used to suppress Blueblood’s casting, or so much as flicked Pumpkin’s horn. Even a suppression/holding attack would be out of the question. Dusty needed an ‘attack’ that Pumpkin could not counter no matter her gifts with magic. One that was so oblique she would not consider it an attack in the first place. What was it Mother or Big Sister Ivy did in similar situations? Not that they’d ever had to deal directly with flying or magic-wielding foals before.

While Dusty had been trying to formulate a workable plan, Pound flew back into the room, Pinkie still hanging on like a pitbull. Dusty saw Pumpkin reach up at her brother and gurgle some noises, some of which sounded like ‘up.’ And then she was using her telekenisis on herself, to give herself the gift of flight. The sight shocked Pinkie enough that she let go of Pound and fell to the ground. Dusty saw her expression, but even knowing that she must be on the precipice of disastrous tears and frustration, he still did not have any ideas.

Suddenly Pinkie leaped into action, literally. She gathered up all of Pumpkin’s toys, tossed them into the chest, and wrapped the chest in chains that she secured with padlocks. The toys secured, she leaped into the air carrying a laundry basket and used it to bring both twins down within it. Pinkie taped the basket to the floor with multiple layers, and then sat on it for good measure, literally foalsitting. If the foals could get out of this, no sensible amount of force could stop them.

Pumpkin and Pound made sounds and faces at each other, and then Dusty saw part of the mesh on the hamper that caged them glow with Pumpkin’s aqua aura, and she simply walked on through. Advanced magic? Dusty felt his jaw drop even before Pound kicked and punched outward with all four legs at once, dumping Pinkie and the basket right off, freeing himself with tremendous strength, especially given his size.

Both twins were amazing in their gifts, but Pumpkin concerned Dusty more: she was casting spells without any formal training. She did not know any magic theory, and yet she could levitate object and herself. She could phase through mesh, if not completely solid objects. Not even the Princesses could do that, that Dusty was aware, and it was not a spell in Twilight’s repertoire either. Princess Celestia and Luna had millennia of study, while Twilight and Gearhead both had only a decade of magic theory under them. None of them could do what Pumpkin, a month-old foal, had figured out how to do mere moments ago.

How? She wanted her toys, that much was clear. She wanted to be with her brother, even when he was flying, which was not considered a gift of any tribe but the Pegasi. So she merely reached out with the force of her will and made it happen through her magic, instinctively and out of desire? In other words, she did it just because she wanted to. She made it happen because she wanted it to happen badly enough, and had no idea that it should normally be beyond her abilities as a foal.

Neither Pumpkin nor Pound had any self-imposed limits, because they had not learned them. That was how they did it all. Perhaps without thinking of these limits, any Unicorn could cast beyond his or her ‘natural’ abilities, or more accurately find what their true natural abilities were for the first time. Taken to the extreme, this was a dangerous line of thought, since there were limits to what one could do – for example, the amount of mana a pony possessed was fixed, however that could be increased through something as simple as practice. That was how Unicorns became stronger casters.

And so there was no reason to believe that Dusty could not turn himself back into Gearhead. He possessed powerful magic even as an immature Alicorn. He only needed to want to change back badly enough. This indicated that he had not wanted to before, but he had learned plenty and taken many opportunities he had not had before. There was nothing left to regret, and after many months, much responsibility to which to return.

But first, Dusty would have to deal with two rambunctious foals who were just discovering their gifts, and he would do so in a way that would not impinge on their respective drives to continue exploring their gifts later, if they so chose. He started humming, softly, as though to himself, and very gradually, picked up the volume. Having a higher, immature voice helped.

Just as had happened before with the patterned walking, the foals took notice that something outside of the usual pattern of action was taking place. Even Pinkie, on the verge of tears, stared at Dusty when the humming changed to singing. The foals landed, focusing nearly all of their attention on listening, and Dusty sang louder, so they could enjoy the soft tune and words. It was an old lullaby passed down through his mother’s family. One that both Mother and Big Sister Ivy had sung to Gearhead many times. One that he had helped to sing to Rosie and Bean and Cori many times.

As Dusty continued to sing, the twins started to nod off. Even Pinkie seemed like she would fall asleep for an instant, and then she carried Pumpkin to her crib, after seeing Dusty lift Pound into his using his magic. Just to be sure the twins really were asleep, Dusty continued to sing through the song one more time, before he followed Pinkie out the door. There had been about a 50% chance he would send himself to sleep with the lullaby, given how many times he had heard it, even though he was the one to sing it. Dusty was very glad that this had failed to happen, so he was left feeling somewhat drowsy, but still awake. He let Pinkie lead the way downstairs.

“I didn’t know you could sing like that,” Pinkie said, stifling a yawn.

“It’s only because I’m not full-grown. But don’t go spreading it around all the same.”

“Okay then. We have some clean-up to do,” Pinkie said. Indeed, Pound had left quite he mess during his flight through the shop. The Earth Pony and the Alicorn got to work. When the Cakes returned from their successful venture, Pinkie and Dusty had a surprise waiting for them: the twins were in bed and the place was spic-and-span. The Cakes were happy to offer to make Pinkie their go-to foalsitter. With some reservations, she accepted. She had learned a lot about what it took to look after a pair of foals, as opposed to simply playing with them.

Dusty spent the following morning in full Research and Development Mode at Gearhead’s Gadgets. He wanted his transformation serum to be as perfect as it could be, so he could avoid any mistakes, and make no mistake, he wanted to turn back to normal very badly.

That was not to say that he had not enjoyed his time, nearly six months, playing with friends in what he had to admit was his first real extended childhood, but he had responsibilities to which to return, and about 177 days was a long time in which to be essentially out of action. It was so long that Dusty had decided that the best way to avoid having too much suspicion cast on him from Vines’s direction was to send the occasional clutch of gems in lieu of the money he usually sent. But he had only decided to start doing that after missing the first few months. On top of that, Verdant Fields would not have had any news regarding new developments at Gearhead’s Gadgets. If his family was not suspicicious, they should be concerned by now – perhaps sufficiently so to send somepony to investigate matters.

In anticipation of his return to what passed for normalcy, Dusty asked Spike to send a letter to Princess Celestia to make the necessary official arrangements to account for ‘Dusty’ leaving Ponyville Elementary. He also made up flyers for the grand reopening of Gearhead’s Gadgets, to take place the day after Gearhead ‘returned’ to Ponyville, so he could believably create enough gadgets to sell. The truth was that in the many times Dusty had snuck off, he had also been quietly building up stock so he would be ready for his return. This included some of the special orders from outside of Ponyville that had been piling up over the past few moons. Now, assuming success with the potion, Gearhead would be back to sell them – and he did not have any reason to assume anything but success.

After quadruple checking his calculations and making certain that the preparations he could make ahead of time were complete, Dusty cast one last look toward the orb containing the dragon egg. It was impossible to see the actual egg anymore, with snowflakes swirling madly within the enclosure, and frost spreading all along the inner walls. If Dusty had to hazard a guess, the egg would be hatching very soon. If he was going to be away at all, he would need Fluttershy to keep a very careful eye on it. And, once the dragon hatched, it would need Gearhead’s help above all else in order to adjust to living with ponies – at least until he could find a way to bring it to its ancestral home in the north.

There was one other order of business of which to take care of, and Dusty trotted off to school to do just that. He would have to bid goodbye and good fortunes to Cheerilee and his school-foal friends, and that was best done with as much advance warning as possible, in the flesh. As it happened, Cheerilee received the paperwork from Princess Celestia mere moments later, sent via Pony Express.

Very few of the foals reacted to the news with anything other than disbelief that Dusty was leaving so soon after he had transferred schools. Fortunately only Sweetie Belle was visibly tearing up. The Crusaders decided to make their last full day together a fun play-day. Dusty had no choice but to go along with it. And once Pinkie heard the ‘news,’ she threw a going away party at Sugarcube Corner. It lasted until the evening hours, when the foals started to show their fatigue and had to be taken home.

With all of Dusty’s affairs squared away, the Alicorn gathered with the Elemental Six back in the living quarters section of Gearhead’s Gadgets. The Princesses, Celestia and Luna, arrived discretely to help out if their magic was needed, but Dusty wanted to involve as little new magic as possible. Besides that, it had to be up to him to return to his true form. Dusty dropped two draconic snowflakes into the open vial containing his enchanted serum, stoppered the vial, and switched on the tumbler to give the contents a good shake and ensure the perfect mix. It took mere seconds for the liquid to change from blue to a water-like transparency. Dusty turned the tumbler off and stared at the vial.

“Are you sure about this?” Princess Celestia asked.

“It’s been fun, and the time to return to myself has come. Yes, I’m sure.”

“I meant, are you sure that this potion will turn you back, instead of making you into something else?”

“We searched through everything we could find at the libraries here, in Canterlot, and at the old castle and couldn’t find anything,” Twilight said. “How can you be sure this will work?”

“Because I want it badly enough,” Dusty said. “This is how Unicorn foals can cast incredible magic, even though they don’t have any knowledge of magic theory. It’s all because they lack any sense of even a single self-imposed limit. And the irony is that I may only have enough magic in me to pull this off as an Alicorn. But I’m 100% certain that I can make the transformation I want to happen happen.”

“Very good,” Princess Celestia said.

“What do you need us to do?” Twilight asked.

“As everything will go according to plan, the only thing left for you to do is to watch the light show,” Dusty said. He did not say that in the event things got out of control, he would need the others to backstop him. That was because he had his mind set on complete success: he needed to want it badly enough to overcome his preconceived limits, and they were many, formed over ten years of studying magic theory, and eighteen years of living as an Earth Pony who misunderstood the very nature of his own magic.

Dusty took a deep breath, uncorked the vial, and called upon his full Alicorn magic. He gripped the vial in his lips and upended the whole container in order to drink all of the potion. Then he set the vial back down and made his way to the center of the room. Blinding light emanated from his body, causing everypony to shut their eyes and look away. There was a loud POP! and smoke filled the room. When it cleared, the pony looked at his reflection in the mirror, and then jumped into his nearby, waiting horseshoes.

After trying unsuccessfully to summon a globe of light the Alicorn way, the pony drew his Geargem Dagger and invoked it by saying, “Quattuor Magnae Spiritus invoco, lux!” The globe of light appeared. “I am back, and back in business,” Gearhead said.

“You really are, aren’t you?” Luna said.

“Welcome back,” Fluttershy said, and the others chimed in.

“You know,” Rainbow Dash said, “I think I’m gonna miss having such an agile flying buddy around. Just a bit.” Next Chapter: 17. A Homecoming Estimated time remaining: 7 Hours, 21 Minutes