(A/N What's this? A story by Dark? that doesn't have the romance tag?!?! WHAT SORCERY IS THIS?!?!?!?! Enjoy my friends. before any of you ask in the comments or in PMs TH, SH and the rewrites aren't cancelled, I'm just taking a break from them and my Naruto fic, though I've still got stuff to upload with that one. And yes, it's supposed to start on Day 30.)

“Some people think survival is fun, that challenging themselves in life or death situations is a blast. Those people don’t know what it’s like to actually survive. Sure, hiking in the wilderness could kill you... But they’ve never been through true survival. Twilight Sparkle, Day 30. Thirty days it’s been since that damn experiment went wrong. Everything living is changed by now. They’re either dead or monsters. I don’t know why I’m any different but I still have my intelligence. I’m making these recordings, now that I’ve found a working camera that has an automatically recharging battery, to document anything of importance I’ve found or figured out. I’ve just found this camera so it’s battery is low, I’ll do these every few days.” Twilight said into the camera. She switched it off and cracked her neck.

“Thirty days...” She said softly as she looked up at the magic barrier.

Thirty days ago, Celestia’s best doctors had discovered a terrible disease. It would infect the victim and turns its insides to acid within days. On that day, those doctors had also manufactured a cure. Supposedly it would eliminate the virus. It eliminated the virus alright, and turned it into a toxin that did the same thing. But instead of only affecting through touch, it went airborne. In high quantities the toxin would do what the virus did in minutes, seconds even. Canterlot was quickly evacuated, though it’s population was devastated.

Celestia and Luna had stayed within the city to make sure everyone got out, using their magic to create a barrier around Canterlot in order to stop the toxin from getting out, as well as using their magic to help the living escape. Because of this, they were burnt out before they themselves could evacuate. Twilight wouldn’t let her mentor and best friend die so she used her own magic to get in, get them out and seal the barrier.

She had accepted her fate and allowed the toxin to overpower her. She passed out as it reached her lungs and had somehow awoken. She had fallen into a pool of acid though and found most of her arm was gone.
---
Twilight looked at her right arm which appeared to be made out of machinery, gears, valves and the such. Canterlot had recently come across steam power and had just reached the peak of that technology before the incident. She had been forced to amputate the arm. Using books and a few prosthetic examples she constructed and attached the appendage on day 10.

Suddenly, there was a noise nearby. The sound of movement she had grown to recognize and be wary of. She slipped a mask on under the black hood she wore and looked towards the sound. The mask had been made by combining Royal Guard-grade optics and the remains of a gas mask. The toxin no longer affected her, but it still made it hard to breathe.

Twilight had modified the optics with her magic to sense magic and life. With them, she saw a small pack of mutated canines heading her way, chasing down a humanoid.

That’s another thing about the toxin. It didn’t always kill the victim, it had similar effects to strong radioactive material on occasion and mutated the living things it didn’t kill. Twilight was a prime example of this. It had been nearly impossible to get her mechanical arm to work because of it. Her blood now had a slight red glow to it and acted as acid. It hadn’t been all bad, considering, though. She didn’t have to eat or drink as often, her first meal since the accident was on day 20, and she had much greater strength and speed.

“Shit, I knew I should have brought something.” Twilight said as she leapt ten feet into the air, swinging on a street light slightly and landing on the roof of the building she was in front of. She looked towards where the humanoid and canines had burst through a weak wall of debris. The humanoid was bigger than a normal human and sported decayed skin. As it reached where she had recorded her log it tripped on the cinderblock she had used as a chair. The canines pounced on it and began ripping it to shreds with their teeth and tearing chunks off of the creature and eating it. She turned around and sped off across the rooftops.
---
Twilight arrived at a small building near the palace. The doors and windows had been removed and what looked like metal walls took their place. She jumped over the ten foot fence surrounding the entrance and slid a panel aside. There was an odd junction there where the doorbell used to be. She turned the small valve next to it a few times and pressed her palm into it. She had designed it so that only her Mechanized palm would seal the steam powered mechanism and unlock the door. If she didn’t have access to her arm though, namely it getting smashed to pieces by falling rubble one time, she could rearrange a few pipes.

She slid the metal wall aside, revealing what looked like an industrial workshop

“Ugh, I thought I got rid of that.” Twilight said to herself as she tossed a canine head that she had been examining outside and closed the door. She didn’t lock it though, she was only here to pick up a few things. She walked over to a rack and picked up a sleek gauntlet that resembled her arm. She detached her arm to reveal a sort of port at her elbow and replaced it with the gauntlet. She strapped what looked like a series of pipes mashed together to her back. She made sure the two things worked before she left though.

The gauntlet had claw-like fingertips and had small holes scattered around the palm and fingertips. Everything she had was enchanted with magic so it didn’t need a spell to activate, but rather her own will. A blade slid in an arc forward and extended at three places, creating a blade that was up to four feet long. Satisfied, she retracted the blade and pulled the thing from her back into her hands. She aimed it at a metal plate with holes in it and turned a few valves and pulled a trigger. A small but satisfying puff of steam shot a spike at the metal plate, ripping right through it. The dark purple spike evaporated and was absorbed by her. A steam powered rifle that shot spikes created by her magic. She smiled under the mask and inspected her clothes.

She wore a sleek black hoodie with the right sleeve missing and black royal guard pants she had salvaged. Finding a hole she quickly mended it with her magic. Finding herself ready to go, she slung a backpack onto her back and strapped the rifle on vertically. The door opened as she walked to it and she turned off the valves from the outside and replaced the panel, locking the door once more. She checked her mental checklist to see what she had planned for today.

“Search the magic equipment store for a magic camera? Check. Get ready for some real exploring? Check. Let’s see, I have two options... I can either check the sports store for salvage, or I can check that fast food place on the other side of the city for food... Hm... I think I’ll check the sports store, I have enough food to not be hungry for at least three days.” Twilight said to herself. She tended to do that. She didn’t know whether it was habit or the need to hear a human voice every now and then though.
---
“Hm... looks like some acid corroded the locks... These doors are surprisingly strong for a sports store... All I need to do is get rid of the lock though.” Twilight said. She turned a small valve and flipped a small switch hidden underneath a small panel and put her hand on the lock mechanism of the door. The slightly glowing red tubes that were going throughout her mechanical arm showed signs of movement as it slowly flowed out of the holes in the hand. With a metallic hiss the lock was soon dissolved and she flipped the switch and turned the valve again. Another perk of being mutated was that her blood regenerated extremely fast, to the point where she was only slightly dizzy after amputating her arm and not having it heal for nearly six hours.

She did an impressive kick right where the two doors met and they swung inward, not nearly enough to open all the way but far enough to allow her entrance.

“Oh look, some of the lights are still on.” She said as she noticed flicker magic lights. She snapped her fingers and sent a bit of magick into the ceiling, turning the lights on in full. She found the place rather bare, though as she sifted through some of the shelves and debris she found things like pipes or strong metal she proceeded to put in her backpack, which had a spell on it to allow it to hold exponentially more than what it looked.

“Oh? What’s this?” She hummed as she found a piece of the plaster wall looked out of place. She knocked on it a few times and knew there was something behind it. Extending the blade on her arm, she retracted it to as short as it would go at 1 foot long and carefully put it in the wall between the odd plaster and the rest of the wall. She could probably pry the wall out, but she didn’t want to risk damaging the gauntlet so she searched around the the wall. Finally she decided to use a scanning spell.

What she found was a steam mechanism in the wall connected to a long gone something under the counter, probably a valve. She activated it with her magic and the wall slid forward a bit before falling over. She looked into the long corridor and saw the walls were shelves lined with illegal prosthetics and the sort. There was a dirty paper with illegible writing attached to one of the things on a podium, but she pulled the optic visor attached to her mask down to her eyes and was able to tweak them to see ink.

‘They don’t suspect a thing! Funny what a bit of royal magic can do to hide prosthetics. That Daft aunt of mine doesn’t even think to check the nobility for black market dealers like me. You have your shipment and I received my fee, though this here is a prototype military prosthetic so be careful with it. Good luck living among the peasants as you have been.

-Blueblood’

“I knew there was something up with that bastard. Oh well, a deal’s a deal. Even if I’m not the one who made it.” Twilight said, looking around the secret room. The prosthetics weren’t too different from her homemade one, but they were more bulky and most likely used for sporting events. She remembered what the note had said and looked at the one on the pedestal. It was sleek and black and looked very impressive.

Using her acquired analyzing skill and a spell to reinforce it, she found the metals were infused with magic to be nearly indestructible. There was a much more professionally done blade that was certainly more sturdy and would probably hold up under immense pressure. There were also what seemed to be imitation veins on the interior, among other things.

“Now this is really nice, I’m going to have to modify it and see if I can use it.” Twilight said as she put the arm into her pack, along with a few of the other ones. She carefully tucked the note into a side pocket of the pack and left the corridor.

“Shit!” She hissed as she saw two humanoid creatures sniffing about on the other side of the room. She had started calling them Ghasts. “I should have closed the door!” She whispered to herself angrily as she quickly entered a side room she hadn’t noticed before. It was dark and she didn’t want to risk them seeing the light, so she adjusted her optic visor to the standard night vision that was initially programmed into the magic device. What she saw made her grin. A new sport had erupted in the steam powered technology’s peak. Air racing, using high powered thrust-based devices. They were called ‘Steam powered jet wings’ but people just said wings for short. She had read all about them when looking through her extensive library on all things steam powered she had acquired in the last three months before the incident.

The devices consisted of canister-like packs that would be attached to surgically implanted ports, similar to her arm, in the shoulders that also connected to the spine. Once attached, they would lock there and be controlled by either magic or the user’s own will via enchantments and the connection to the spine. Once activated, the canisters would open and wings would extend. They wouldn’t be flexible or be able to flap, they would be more like those new plane wings than anything, but the canisters and cylinders along the wings would be able to double as thrusters through pressurized steam being blasted through them.

Just like with everything else steam powered she kept on her person, Twilight was able to use her magic to create steam. At this point it used up virtually none of her energy and she never even noticed the drop no matter how much she used. She didn’t have the time or the equipment to do a successful surgery, even with magic, so she improvised. She used adhesive spells to attach them in their proper place and activated them. The wings were short, only about two feet long each, and looked like odd triangles sticking out of her back. They didn’t stick straight out, but nearly straight to her sides with a slight angle. An odd set of grooves appeared in the wings.

“Hm, judging by the way the wings seem like they can move and how pressurized I can probably get these... These are made for high speed.” She said, remembering watching an air race where the people had the wings parallel to their arms, which were locked into the grooves she now saw.

“Here goes nothing.” Twilight said as she sprinted out of the room. The Ghasts noticed her almost immediately and charged after her, but she was slightly faster. She burst out of the building and leapt into the air. With a burst of steam, she shot upwards. Manipulating the currents of steam and the pressures they were blasted at she managed to bring herself to a hover. She had nearly smashed into the top of the barrier, but now she could see the city. Her home was in view and she shakily made her way towards it, nearly plummeting downwards numerous times.
---
“Alright, the modifications are done!” Twilight exclaimed the next day. SHe had stayed up for hours modifying the prosthetic arm. She had found the name ‘Longsword’ engraved into the side of it. It was fitting, seeing at the arm was nearly a foot longer than her own total. She had managed to put together a replacement for the longsword’s port so that it matched the one on her arm and easily installed the arm. After two hours of checking to make sure everything worked right and exactly all of the features, as well as her modifications to allow her acidic blood to be used like with her gauntlet, she turned towards the wings. She had been awake for three days straight now and was rather tired so she smiled as she grabbed the device and turned towards a large cylinder in the wall. She removed her mask and put it on a table nearby and stepped towards it.

With a touch of magic, the wall of the cylinder unlocked and slid up to reveal bedding. She pulled her pants off to reveal thin shorts-like boxers and pulled her hoodie off, as well as the tank she had on underneath. Now clad in nothing but her boxers, she got on the bed on her front, used the adhesive spell to put the wings in place and started weaving a long and complicated spell. She had cast it multiple times though, it would use her memory to know how to do a surgery and then automatically operate. As the spell started she felt the familiar feel of her own magic at work and was lulled to sleep by it.