Rebirth

Disclaimer: I do not own My Little Pony, nor am I profiting off this literary venture.

----

"It really simple, Spike, you see? If A is multiplied on both sides of the equation, you can divide both sides by A and remove it entirely from the problem." As Twilight explained this mathematical process to Spike, a piece of chalk was gliding across a green slate board to write out the steps as well.

"I got that, Twilight. That's not the hard part. If I keep doing that all the way down, all I get is C. It's not the answer, is it?" She rubbed the bridge of her muzzle. He was doing the work, using a lot of scratch paper in the process, and coming to the correct solution.

Which he thought was wrong because it wasn't a number.

"It's a placeholder. Alright? It's just supposed to teach you how to do the problem. What the book is trying to do is teach you how to do these kinds of problems, not just this one." She shouldn't blame him, really she shouldn't. He was doing the work right, he was coming to the right answer.

It just took him a while to get it.

And longer to understand it.

"Oh... I think I get it. It's a model of how I'm supposed to solve those kinds of things if I encounter them in the real world, right?" It wasn't his fault, she knew that.

She just felt frustrated that he wasn't picking this up as fast as she did.

"So how would I actually use this? The model is for the gear ratio in a clock." Her magic stilled for a moment as she considered how to phrase that answer.

"What the model tries to show you is that it can be applied to anything that has one thing rotating something else. Like the wheels on a train, or the propellers on ships. More complex formulas are made up of longer chains of math problems like this. And even these are actually made up of several smaller problems put together." She wrote out the original equation, putting in parenthesis marks around portions of it.

"Everything you cancel out is just another portion of a larger problem, but understanding each process that you remove gives you mastery of the process. See these?" She circled one section. "That's just multiplying one thing by another. In this case it's two variables, but if you knew what the variables were you'd get an actual number. Like, seven and nine. That parenthesis becomes a sixty-three."

Underneath of it, she wrote that number before continuing on her lecture.

"So that's how many times the gears revolve before both gears return to thier initial positions. If you were trying to figure out how many teeth those gears had and that's the number you were given, what would you need to do?" He was writing down her explanation for a few more moments, perhaps trying a few false starts in the margin of his paper before finally answering.

"I think you'd need to find the, uhh... Lowest common denominator?"

"Not quite, Spike, but you're not too far off. What we're doing is determining the whole factors, which in this case are three, seven, nine and twenty-one."

"Wait, three and twenty-one? Where did those even come from?"

"Those are the factors of sixty-three Spike. Try to keep up. Now if you're not certain of what specific factors you're using you can keep them in mind and paired off to the side. So you'd write down three x twenty-one and seven x nine over here and try to keep them in mind for later when you're attempting to discern the torque and shearing point of the given materials. It takes a lot more energy to completely move something in three clicks as compared to-"

"Wait, wait a second, back up Twilight. If the gears had three and twenty-one teeth, wouldn't they meet up back at their original configuration after seven revolutions?" This wasn't helping, he was just getting more confused.

"Precisely Spike! And because you figured that out you can remove three and twenty-one as having a lower common multiple than the given figure!" She crossed the two numbers off the board and got ready to continue.

She was, Spike thought, worse than the book.

----

Raw muscle was wrapped around flailing purple scales, fire roasting from within.

Luna had watched her experience of Garble's memory several times now, trying to piece together what had occurred.

In truth she could not get very far. Too little information, nothing definitive beyond an off duty royal guard who'd reported dark magic setting off his personal wards at home and a pair of memories.

She lightly stepped around the abomination, mimicked in her own dream, and tried to piece together what little she could.

It was certainly altering its own form, she knew. Flesh and blood had been minor features in the first memory, and in this one it had developed a skeletal structure.

More blood, the metal showing clear signs of decay and obviously wounded. It was not bothered with self preservation.

Luna pursed her lips as she stared at it.

"My word, Luna! Have you been watching horror films again?" Brilliant radiance shone down from above, an alicorn, her coat the purest of whites, floated down.

"Cut the theatrics, Celly." The light faded down to the dark ambiance of a Fillydelphia street. "This is the thing After Image reported last month."

Celestia stood tall, well above her sister as she inspected the vile thing.

"It's eating a dragon." And chose to state the obvious.

"Yes sister. It seems Spike has a most mercurial streak of luck." Celestia moved closer, giving the drake in the creatures maw her full attention. "What are you even doing here? It must be the middle of your court by now?"

"Iron Lungs has brought some new legislation regarding why the youth need to pay higher taxes. I may have found myself... Dreaming. I thought it prudent to do something useful with the time. You said has. Do you mean to say he escaped?" The princess of the sun did not even try to hide her concern. Why would she, among the one she trusted most?

"No. Something rather different occurred." The ground erupted in a shower of gray and blue, lighting up as Celestia's sun took over the place of her moon. The crystal palace Twilight resided in sprung forth, two ponies fading in with it. One purple, the other white.

"Spike was devoured, we are certain. Immediately afterwards this colt appeared. He met with Spike's employer, gathered the drakes possessions and made to Ponyville. Initially it would appear as though the entity finished transforming into a pony upon its acquisition of Spike, who then seemingly took control." Celestia was gazing upon the adolescent, a look unfamiliar to Luna in her eyes.

"You don't sound as certain."

"You know as I, Celestia. Dark magic does not breed providence." Her tone was grave as she looked upon her sister.

"Only despair."

Author's Notes:

People who just 'Get it' don't make for good tutors.