Lyra Heartstrings trotted up to the table, waving to her friend Bon Bon as she approached. She sat down, giving her order to the waiter who materialized out of nowhere.
"Sorry I'm late," she said, drinking from a cup of water, "Construction work."
"It's alright," her friend replied, "I only got here a few minutes ago."
Their food arrived rapidly, a pair of fairly large sandwiches. For what must have been the millionth time, Lyra sipped her drink and asked her friend, "Any more news about the human?"
Bon Bon sighed in response for the millionth time, but instead of saying no, responded, "Yes, actually. I met her."
Lyra spewed liquid a distance of ten meters, hitting some random passerby as she demanded, "What?!"
Bon Bon didn't even bat an eye, "She was leaving the hospital on crutches, and called me over."
"What'd she say?! What'd she say!?" Lyra demanded, leaning over the table.
Her friend's obsession with ancient fairy tales had surprised Bon Bon the first time they met. Despite being completely satisfied with her current job, Lyra had an odd obsession with some legendary, possibly non-existent creature known as a human, and pursued an anthropology degree for this reason. The stories varied wildly, ranging from humans portrayed as benevolent heroes, to cruel villains.
Most ponies let Lyra be, figuring it to simply some sort of phase. After all, human fossils had never been discovered, and the majority of the(quite vague) stories were well over a thousand years old. There had been numerous searches for records in other countries, but most of the searches turned up much of the same, leading credence to the idea that they were simply myth.
The aquamarine pony's obsession returned with the appearance of a real human several months prior. Lyra had been positively ecstatic, but her mood quickly grew into fear. At being confronted with such a great being as a human, what does one say?
Lyra quickly became disillusioned for several days after she had finally worked up the courage to talk to the human. He didn't seem to possess any of the great knowledge of the stories, only a single piece of technology that quickly became useless, and was prone to smugly making extremely obnoxious references to his own culture that nopony could understand.
When it finally seemed as though her obsession had faded, it quickly reignited with the arrival of the second human. A human with far more technology and information.
Lyra had been unable to even see the human during the party(though not for lack of trying, Bon Bon thought, I thought she was going to assault that unicorn!), and was in no way prepared for a one-on-one conversation either.
Thus, she resorted to asking every passerby and friend if they had any news of the human.
"She wanted to know where a flat wide open stretch of unused land was," Bon Bon replied, recalling the human woman's words, "Said she wanted to use it for...something."
"What else did she say? Was she nice?" Lyra demanded, sliding back into her seat.
"She seemed exhausted, and was kind of distant, so she didn't say much. She only said that she needed it for something called a...plane. Yes, that was the word."
"Wait, isn't a plain exactly what she was looking for?"
"Yeah, I thought it was weird too. Oh, something else a bit odd, she asked about you. You specifically."
Lyra's jaw dropped, "What?"
Bon Bon shrugged, "Apparently, she wanted to know if you were as into anthropology as she'd heard."
The aqua-colored unicorn didn't respond. She simply ate her food in silence, stunned.
Bon Bon snorted, recalling a funny bit of gossip overheard in the marketplace.
"What?" asked Lyra distantly.
Snickering, Bon Bon asked, "Do you think Andrew's gonna date her too? I hear he's got a place at Fluttershy's and Twilight's!"
Lyra giggled, "Oh, I wonder! They're both human, so maybe..."
Bon Bon abruptly looked behind Lyra, out at the busy marketplace. "Hey, there she is!"
Looking behind her, Lyra squinted for a moment. Her eyes bugged, and she grabbed Bon Bon, dragging both under the table.
"Lyra! What the-"
Lyra shushed her friend, and watched the human hobble her way across the courtyard. She wore a black jacket, and those strange-looking pants humans wore. On her left hind leg she wore a tall tan boot, while her right hind leg was wrapped in a bandage; she galloped along on a pair of hastily-made crutches, clutching several pieces of paper in one hand.
None of these attributes were what made her panic. It was the fact that she recognized the human. Or the pony pretending to be a human.
There was nopony else who had that mane, that flowing, thick red and gold hair. There was no one else with that demeanor either, that "I'm smart and I know it" bearing that the pony known as Sunset Shimmer had made her own. Her air of arrogance wasn't the same though. Probably due to the injury messing with her posture.
The pony who had disappeared two years ago, leaving a trail of destruction behind her. What is she doing here? What did she do to herself?
Her horn was gone completely, her ears were as well...No, they were just tiny and on the side of her head now. Her snout was so small, did she even have a sense of smell anymore? Her hooves...well, those hands might not be so bad. Maybe it had been some sort of magic experiment gone wrong...
"Lyra? What are you doing?" Bon Bon hissed, snapping the unicorn back to reality.
"Don't you know who that is? That's no human!"
"What are you talking about?" Bon Bon sighed, looking from her friend to the human, and back again.
"Didn't I tell you about Sunset Shimmer?"
Bon Bon thought back for a moment, "That crazy unicorn? The one who went behind Queen Celestia's back?"
Lyra nodded vigorously, "I knew her! She was always pretty rude and never wanted to spend any time with us."
"What do you think she's here for?" Bon Bon asked, suddenly serious.
"No clue! Last I heard she beat up a bunch of palace guards and escaped Canterlot!"
"She must be really powerful if she was able to escape Canterlot's police and the Household Division…" Bon Bon muttered, and began to quickly scribble notes on a notepad, "Are you sure it's her?"
Lyra squinted intently at the figure moving amongst the marketplace stalls. Sunset didn't stop at any of the hay stalls, but being human-like, that wasn't surprising. She did stop at the apple stalls though, as well as a handful of others, the traveling ones that would be there only for the day; in particular, a seller who was displaying various types of pretty rocks and metals. Sunset had always liked apples, and exotic things. She also had an intense interest in the elements, for both pleasure and in school assignments.
As she watched, Sunset dropped a hoof-full of bits on a counter and walked away, not stopping at all to talk with the vendor. How rude!
There was no doubt about it. That was Sunset Shimmer.
"Yes, I'm sure. What do we do, Bon Bon?" Lyra asked, fear creeping into her voice, "She must want revenge! We've got to do something!"
"We are doing something. We're observing, getting info."
"We have to tell somepony though!" Lyra insisted.
"We can't."
"What?" Lyra demanded, "Why? She's dangerous! Why shouldn't we tell anyone?"
Bon Bon stopped writing for a moment, and looked at her friend for a long moment.
Lyra had no idea what Bon Bon's previous job was. She couldn't say anything. Few knew that the agency had even existed, its missions highly classified, and the dissolving of the department had destroyed every shred of evidence left. She made an oath to Equestria's security, she had orders!
It was just one little lie, but it was worse than any of the others she had told over the years.
"Lyra," she said, resting a hoof on her friend's shoulder, "You're right. I'll let somepony know, but don't tell anyone else. Remember people have trouble believing you about...certain things. Don't ask anypony about this, either."
Lyra rubbed her face, giving a shaky exhale, "Okay. I gotcha."
Bon Bon smiled a little, and climbed out from under the table. She still had contacts left in the government, who could get the information to the queen rapidly.
XXXXX
"Black powder and alcohol, when the states and the cities fall…" Melissa sang, tapping her pencil against the piece of paper she was writing on. The sheet was covered in scribbles and had been folded several times. She was leaning against the smoothest wall she could find, trying to recall where she had been before…
"So...you're sure you don't need any help?" Pinkie Pie asked, holding up the remaining odds and ends Melissa had dropped, "Didn't mean to surprise you like that."
"Ssh! I'm concentrating! When your back is against the wall, black powder and alcohol..."
She began to write again as she continued to sing, "Gimme water, yeast, and some veggie trash. Leave it sittin' in a slurry mash. When it's ready put it in the still. If you can't heat it then the sunlight will. Draw the alcohol away and then ya put the slurry back and start it again!"
Melissa glanced at Pinkie for a moment, "Where's the nearest compost pile? With veggies, mainly?"
"Out behind the French cafe, 12 feet away from the back door, 9 feet and three inches to the left."
She was about to write that down, but looked back at Pinkie, "Why…?"
Pinkie Pie shrugged happily, "You never know. Compost emergency!"
"Excuse me while I resist the urge to vomit."
"Well you brought it up!"
"Never mind...Booze will clean your cuts or run your car. You can make it anywhere you are. Black powder in your cartridge shell, will send the robbers runnin' clean to hell. You can make 'em if you just know how, so kids remember what I'm teaching you now…"
Pinkie Pie quickly read over what Melissa had written down, and her brow furrowed, "What is this?"
"It's a song." Melissa replied, taking back her remaining papers, picking up a bag that lay near her feet, and hobbling off.
"About?" Pinkie asked, trotting alongside.
"It's a folk song about making black powder and alcohol from the basic ingredients."
"Cool! Even your schools must be better than ours! I wish my school house had taught math in song…" Pinkie sighed wistfully.
"Actually, our schools haven't changed much since 1815. Still sitting in chairs, leaching brain cells out through our orifices, being depressed, and finding that someone's pissed all over the bathroom floor just to be a dick."
"Now who's being disgusting?" Pinkie asked rhetorically.
"Oh, bite me."
She caught her crutch on something, and stumbled. Again.
Melissa kept a tight hold on her papers this time, but her cloth bag jumped a few meters away. Several blocks of wood, a pile of rocks, a roll of copper wire, and a wooden box came dancing out.
Pinkie Pie went to pick up the items, then tried to help Melissa to her feet.
"I'm fine." she grumbled angrily, shoving the pony away, but softened her tone somewhat when Pinkie offered the bag, "Thanks."
"What's that stuff for anyway?" Pinkie asked, ignoring the rudeness, "You spent nearly a hundred bits on it."
"Hopefully, the key to victory."
"What?"
"They're the ingredients to a bunch of basic stuff that I can build, which are the stepping stones to the cooler stuff." she checked a spherical glass test tube for cracks, and opened the wooden box to examine a set of glass syringes, nodding to herself confirming that they were intact, "Hey, who do I have to talk to to get a look at that hydroelectric dam down the river?"
"Probably the mayor. Why?"
Melissa glanced at a dormant street lamp on the corner. It was a large black pillar, with a four-sided glass lantern on top. One of the panels was open, and a step ladder propped against the side. A colt stood at the top with a load of tools. He had both hooves inside the lamp, and muttered a curse when there was a zap noise from the arc lamp within.
"No reason."
Pinkie soon left, having her own errands to run.
Melissa kept going toward the center of town. As she turned the final corner, headed for the Tesla model X, Melissa noticed a certain purple unicorn standing near the vehicle.
She patted herself down, and found her keys. Trying to act nonchalant, she clicked the trunk door on the little model of her car attached to the chain.
Melissa put her bag in the vehicle, and pulled a binder out of her backpack. Within were pages of notes scrawled with chemical formulas as well as the word "bored", underlined, capitalized, and with several exclamation points. She put her papers inside, taking much longer then she should have, avoiding Twilight's gaze.
I got all my porn off the tablet, she knows about nukes...I think. Is it my video games maybe? X-COM? Fallout New Vegas? No, it's gotta be the novels…
"Melissa?" Twilight asked politely.
The human rubbed her eyes, damn, I'm tired…"Where's Andrew at?"
"He's out with Fluttershy at the moment." she almost winced at the mention of her friend, but Melissa took no notice.
"Did you need something?" Melissa asked, adding some citations to a schematic.
"Yes...Can you tell me what these are?"
Melissa turned to see a plastic bag hovering next to Twilight, modern technology of course. It was filled with a variety of bottles, orange, white, the colors didn't matter. It was nearly every single bottle of medicine she had. Benadryl, ibuprofen, her ADD medication, everything that wasn't from the medical kit.
Immediately she snatched at them, but the bag drifted gently out of the way.
"Give. Those. Back." Melissa ground out.
"You didn't answer my question." Twilight said neutrally.
"It's medication. Give it back."
"Is there something we should know?" she asked with concern, still keeping the bag back, "Medicines like this are for those with mental illness, according to Andrew."
"None of your business. Give it back."
"If there's something wrong with you, we need to know!"
"Oh, real nice, Twilight!" Melissa stopped trying to grab the bag, and rolled her eyes, "Why don't you mock my busted knee, next?"
Twilight cringed, "I'm sorry, that was-"
"Out of line? You have no idea how far." Melissa hopped on one leg over toward the unicorn. Angry, she used her full height to stand over Twilight.
"I didn't mean any offense!" Twilight replied, staring Melissa down, "I was just concerned for your well-being!"
"So you went through my fucking car?!" Melissa glanced at her keys, not recalling them going missing, "How'd you get in, anyway?"
"...You left a door open." She explained with some hesitation.
Melissa smacked herself in the face, "Oh, god damn it! This place is worse than Detroit!"
Twilight stomped a hoof hard on the ground, getting angry herself, "Look, Melissa, I didn't mean any harm by this! You were acting very strange on the painkillers the hospital gave you, and that is normally the result of several drugs not interacting well with the nervous system! I didn't disturb any of your personal items-"
"Other than my meds! Jesus, what do you people define as privacy?!"
"Listen! At first I wanted to know if there were any medical requirements that needed to be met, but once I found out about a possible mental health issue, I had to ask you about it!"
A notepad appeared as she spoke, "Now, I need to know. What is the nature of your...uh…"
Melissa facepalmed, "Trapped in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Great…"
She leaned against the car, glaring daggers at Twilight, "It's nothing bad at all. I just have trouble focusing, and the pills help with that. Ibuprofen is for pain, and benadryl is to help me sleep. I have allergies."
Twilight stopped writing, and looked up, "...That's it?"
"What were you expecting?"
"Well, to be frank, I thought maybe, something worse…"
Melissa gave her an incredulous look, "You thought without my pills I'd be a raging homicidal maniac bent on wiping out all life on the planet, correct?"
"Uh…"
"When will you people discover Freud?!" she demanded, "Not all mental illnesses are that bad! Attention Deficit Disorder is something really minor! Every single type of mental thing is on a scale, from mild to serious. Actually, ADD doesn't qualify as a mental illness! It's just a neuro-atypical brain difference. It's pretty common back on Earth, and I actually didn't take one of those pills the first day I came here! Nor did I take them the days I was in the hospital!"
Twilight's face looked quite guilty. The bag hovered closer to Melissa, and she grabbed it.
Taking out the orange bottle, she took one of the white and green tablets and swallowed it, "Now if you'll excuse me…" with that, Melissa stormed off, taking a second to ram her point home by remotely closing the trunk, and locking it.
XXXXX
Still seething, Melissa limped across town, heading towards the smithy.
As she approached, she was surprised to find that all the green, fresh grass and plants typical of the area disappeared in a large radius around the building. Scorch marks, a distinct outline of another building's foundations, and dead ground occupied the space instead. Clearly, it had been rebuilt several times.
Further proof was the tree growing around the remains of a boiler, that had become embedded in the trunk decades ago. The boiler hadn't been placed there either; judging by the angle it was at.
A sign on the door read "open", and she pushed it ajar. Inside was a fairly typical smithy of the late 19th century. That the equipment was designed for there wasn't too much to be surprised by. Muskets, armor, carriage frames, tools, and other equipment filled the wide building, as well as work benches and desks.
"Hello?" she called out, seeing no one.
When nopony answered, she guessed they were out on a lunch break or something. Melissa glanced around, looking for anything interesting.
She found a table in against one of the walls, sloped with a lantern above it to provide ample lighting. A classic designer table.
Peering over the notes, she understood only part of it. Her engineering experience was based on terminology, symbols, and techniques a century more advanced.
However, she did recognize one thing.
"Aw, you idiot." She muttered, shaking loose one schematic and glaring at it. "No, wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong."
"Hey," a gruff voice said from behind her, "You're the new human? Mel-something?"
Melissa turned to see a fairly tall earth pony standing behind her, a dark pelt underneath typical blacksmith equipment; a smock, utility belt, and a newsboy hat.
"I'm Melissa. You're the smith?"
"Yep. Name's Smokestack. You want something?"
"You mind telling me what this is?" she held up the blueprint and shook it at him.
"It's a piece of paper. What's the problem?"
"Lever-action? Lever-action?! Goddamn lever-action firearms?!" she roared, "That's what you went with?!"
Unlike any of the other ponies, he didn't back down. Calmly he replied, "Better name than what I came up with. I just gave it a patent number."
"Whatever. Why the hell did you pick this?!"
He shrugged.
Melissa made a face, "You got it from him, didn't you."
Before Smokestack could answer, she cut him off, "Okay, I am going to tell you several things. First off, he's not the brightest bulb in the chandelier if you know what I mean."
"I don't, but go on."
"He's not that intelligent."
The blacksmith raised an eyebrow, "He's a bit odd, I'll give you that, but he's not stupid…"
"Whatever. He's not an engineer. I am. You're going to need to make some changes, pronto."
"What's the big deal? I thought you two would be happy to have some more modern weapons…"
Melissa facepalmed, "Not modern, actually. Looks good on paper, I know. Much faster firing rate, but that's about it."
She put it down on the desk, "Look. The round fires, you push the lever to put the next round in, so you need something to keep the unspent shell from going out, something else to stop the others from all going out at once, and a spring to keep pushing the rounds forward until the magazine's expended. Then you need to be able to fire the shell, and work that in with all of this."
Melissa took out a pencil and circled each spring and notch for each function, "All those are all things that can fail, break, and malfunction. Too many moving parts. If you moved the lever too hard, all that comes crashing down. You tilt the weapon wrong and it doesn't work. Lever-action's just a mess!"
Peering at it, Smokestack scratched his chin, "Huh. And you have a better idea, I assume?"
Without hesitation she whipped out her Glock 17, and slammed it down on the desk. "single shot, semi-automatic, and/or bolt action."
She grabbed a piece of blank paper and crudely sketched out the inner workings of an rifle. "This one might be a bit advanced, but it's the only semi-auto rifle I can think of right now. The M1 Garand, issued 1936, still in use today by other countries. It's gas operated. You feed in a clip, so already it's better. When the round goes off, there's a hole in the barrel that vents the exploding gases back and pushes the bolt back into place, readying it for another shot. As the magazine goes up, once it's empty, a spring knocks it out of the way."
"That the operating principle on your own weapon?" he asked.
"Not exactly, this concept began production around 1920, I think. Phased out by the 50s, replaced with the M14, and the M16 after that. Gas-operated weapons are still in use today, but usually they're automatic weapons or sniper rifles...I doubt we can make these at the moment, though. Forget it."
Smokestack nodded regretfully, "I think you're right. I had to call in some favors from Colt's Manufacturing to get the stuff I needed for the cartridges alone, since I couldn't get all of it locally,." he commented, "I doubt I could get extremely complicated weapons going any time soon."
"Wait, what?" Melissa scratched her head, "Colt?"
"Yeah…" he confirmed, confused.
To his mild surprise, she chuckled, "Coincidence. What do they make here?"
"Cannons, muskets, and fine machine parts, mostly."
Her smile faded to confusion, "You said cartridges?"
"Yep."
"You've made those?"
"Yes," he trotted over to a large metal container, opening it to reveal several rows of massive cartridges.
Melissa came over and picked up one.
"You got a foundry here?" she asked offhandedly, studying the ammunition.
"Yeah, a small one."
"Good. Can you do steel?"
"You need something in particular?"
"Yeah, hold on a second."
The things were huge, like that of an M79 Grenade Launcher. They appeared to be centerfire rounds, a bit crude but at least it didn't seem like it would explode upon pulling the trigger.
Examining the shell itself, she noticed that there wasn't a fuse. Upon knocking, there was no sound. They weren't shells. They were simply giant bullets.
Impractical, over-expensive, to say the least. Melting just one down could probably make three rounds, at least, cartridge and all.
"What the heck are these for?" she asked.
"This." Smokestack replied, and retrieved a weapon that looked very similar to the M79 the rounds could have belonged to.
She squinted in confusion, "What the hell? Why on Earth did you make that thing?"
The smith's left eye twitched, "For the record, I didn't have the idea."
"Oh, that was the firearm he was talking about...Did they make the primer?"
"No, they got some nutjob in town to. Don't know how he did it without blowing himself up. We've been trying to make cartridges practical for years and he figured it out in a week."
"Remind me to go find that guy. Wait...for years? I thought you only got firearms when Andrew showed up!"
The blacksmith looked at her like she was crazy, "...Of course not. We've had firearms for centuries! Your friend only provided some help on that breechloading monster and the flamethrower."
Melissa scratched her head, and spoke as if reminding herself, "Right. Obviously."
She looked back at him, "Anyway, this design's wrong, just plain wrong. Even elephant guns aren't this high-caliber. You've lost pretty much all of your potential returns by making big rocks like this It does fix a whole lot of shit though. This means it won't take long to make bolt-action!"
Melissa returned to the piece of paper, sitting down in the uncomfortable pony chair. "Put in a clip, rack the bolt forward. Pull the trigger, round goes off, move the bolt back; while the spent cartridge is ejected another moves up to take its place, pushed by the spring in the clip. Easy-peasy!"
She drew another design, "Then there's single shot. Open a trapdoor, put the round in, close, fire, rinse and repeat. Not pretty, but it works."
"What does your pistol use?" Smokestack asked, picking up the weapon. He demonstrated good muzzle control as he turned it over, his hoof unable to fit in the tiny trigger guard. He raised an eyebrow at "Glamdring" along its side, but said nothing.
"It's a semi-auto, but not gas operated. It uses the energy of the explosion to lock the bolt back, letting you fire next time you pull the trigger."
"Quite different from the army's sidearms..." he commented.
"You can borrow it for a little bit, if you need to," Melissa offered, "I probably need you to make more bullets anyway, I can give you the owner's manual."
"The what?" he asked. Oddly, Melissa noted that his speech pattern, previously fairly intelligent, descended into a stereotypical blacksmith's.
"You know, the manual for operation. How to take it apart, some operating principles…"
He blinked in surprise, "Wouldn't you just remember it?"
"Well, we do, but this isn't my primary weapon to begin with, and it's still a big help to have the manual around to provide a refresher."
Going back to the paper, she drew out a third design, "The Glock 17's concepts were based off of the Walther P38 sidearm, made in 1939 by Nazi Germany...unfortunately. It's a good gun though."
She didn't react to Smokestack's blank expression, "The P38's short-recoil, closed breech, very close to the Glock. However, it's a bit less complicated. No ceramics, plastics, only a single row of bullets. Might be better to stick with revolvers for now. Maybe advance to M1911s instead…"
The smith pulled the paper over, "I might be able to pull something together at some point. This single shot sounds doable, though."
"Really?"
"Yeah, I reckon so. Might have to substitute in some parts, but…"
"Thank you so much," she cut him off, a genuine smile stretching across her face, "You have no idea what this means to me."
Flipping the paper over, she continued with happiness, "A couple more things. One, the thing that we can probably build in a couple days with paper or pinfire cartridges. I know some people make their own ammunition for this sort of weapon, a triple-barreled shotgun. Much easier than regular cartridges. You have timber wolves hanging around here, right? Big problem?"
"Lost one of the last smithies to an attack, actually."
"Jesus, this place gets more dangerous all the time...Okay, you know flares?"
"'Course."
"Alright, this weapon uses them. It was designed for cosmonauts. When coming back to Earth, the crew of Voskhod 2 crashed in the middle of Siberia, just about one of the most dangerous places on the planet. They only had a pistol to defend themselves against bears, regular timber wolves, and other creatures. So, the Soviets developed the TP-82, it can fire two shotgun blasts, and the third barrel is slung underneath the other two, not a shotgun blast," she hastily drew out the calibers of each barrel, "meant to fire rifle rounds, or flares."
"A flare launcher on a regular firearm? Huh...could get some help from the nutjob for this one, but it might be possible."
Melissa stopped writing, and looked up at Smokestack, "Are you serious? About all of this?"
He shrugged, "Been doing pretty well so far."
She shook her head, "Now that I think about it, I'm wondering how the heck you were able to make any of this. What else have you made?"
"A few things, explosives, a flamethrower..."
At Melissa's dropped jaw he shrugged again, "Everypony needs a hobby."
"How did you know how to do all this? I mean you're just a blacksmith!" dramatically she clapped a hand over her mouth at the last sentence.
He snorted a little, "I get that a lot. People don't think about blacksmiths much, but you'd be surprised at what we can do. Anyway, I did have to get some help from the rest of town in certain areas, and had to put in some special orders from a few cities."
Shaking her head, Melissa began writing again, "Got it. Oh, what do you have in the way of standard-issue firearms?"
Smokestack trotted over to a corner of the workshop, Melissa hot on his heels. The small area was filled with equipment for maintaining and manufacturing firearms, several racks of the weapons lining one wall. There were a variety of types, muzzle-loaders, flintlock, percussion cap, even a few matchlock. All were designed for pony hooves, shorter and slimmer than human versions.
"Wow…" Melissa breathed, I should've known. I should, I should have known.
He took down one recently-made muzzleloader and placed it on a workbench. "This here's not the latest type...in fact it's several decades old. It works though."
At Melissa's request, he stripped the weapon down, inadvertently revealing that the ponies had figured out interchangeable parts in the process.
"Great. I'm not starting from scratch. Okay, you need to keep buying breechloaders. They're the way of the future, and are going to make all this other crap obsolete. However, now you have a problem. What to do with all these shitty guns? Well, the United States Army had the exact same issue. Thousands of muzzle-loaders just lying around, and replacing them would be expensive. Mind if I borrow this barrel?"
She pointed to one of several musket barrels lying out on another workbench.
When the smith nodded, she grinned and whipped out her phone. Studying it for a moment, she went over to a milling machine in one area of the workshop. Taking a moment to adjust to a hand-crank mill instead of one that was electrically powered, she quickly and efficiently used the machine to cut a small opening in the closed end of the barrel.
"And you ruined that perfectly-good barrel...why?" Smokestack asked.
"That's exactly what this guy said in Destroyermen," Melissa replied, gesturing to her phone, "Here's the thing, I just made this into a hinged-breechblock. It's called a trapdoor Springfield back home, you carve a hole just ahead of the...action thingy on a muzzle-loader, attach a door to a hinge at the rear end of the hole, and the door keeps the cartridge still in there."
She scratched her head, "...There's more to this, I'm sure, but that's just the basic gist of it for now. It's called an Allin trapdoor design, I think. Thoughts?"
Smokestack took the barrel, peering at it, "That is a problem we've been wondering how to deal with, what to do with the remaining muzzleloaders. I guess this is better than nothing."
"That was kind of the point. It was a cost-saving measure."
Melissa went back to the design table and began to draw again, "One last thing I need, this should be the easiest."
Smokestack looked at the picture, "That's all you need?" he asked, doubtfully.
"Hey, these saved a lot of lives, "Finishing the specifications, she added, "PASGT Helmet", and underlined it, "And this steel pot will probably end up saving my life too. Don't have kevlar, but the Germans did fairly well without the stuff. I combined some aspects from the old M1, so it should fix some problems."
Smokestack frowned, "If this...pass-gat is for what I think it is, it's not going to provide much protection."
"Paz-get, Personal Armor System for Ground Troops. And what?"
"It's just a steel pot as you said. It may stop an initial hit, but the impact won't be good for your head. See, you need-"
Melissa's grin grew even wider, "Awesome! You know about the suspension system!"
Relieved that she wasn't going to have to explain how the brain can rattle around, she eagerly sketched out another helmet, with a silhouette very similar to the first. "That's exactly what this was for. Inside the main helmet, which you cannot wear without this part, you have basically a hard hat. The steel stops shrapnel, while the inner stuff keeps your brain from going all over the place."
For once, Smokestack shook his head, "I can do the steel, probably by tomorrow. Want a hard hat, talk to Rarity."
Melissa twitched in such a way that she could only describe in a quote, "'I think my cerebellum just fused'…" she moaned, slamming her face on the desk, "I missed my appointment with her!"
Looking down with growing dread, she moved her leg out from under the table, and lifted it up. The nice neat digital camouflage patterns ceased below her knee. Below the knee, the pant leg was almost completely shredded, the remaining pieces dangling loosely around the bandages covering her lower leg.
"And I need these fixed. Mother pus bucket…"
Smokestack chuckled, "Good luck with that."
Melissa hobbled outside, shutting the door as best she could. She spotted someone in the distance. Her good mood vanished, and she attempted to shuffle away in vain, as Andrew approached.
"Hey, Melissa!" He called out, "Been looking all over for you!"
"Come to lecture me or something?" She asked, moving faster.
He gave her a look, "What are you talking about?"
"I know, I know, I shouldn't yell at the ponies, and blah blah blah…."
"Seriously, what the heck are you talking about?"
Melissa gritted her teeth, "Never mind. What'd you want?"
"Heard you got out of the hospital. Thought you would've been at the library, but couldn't find you or Twilight."
"I wonder why…" She grumbled.
Raising an eyebrow, he didn't comment, "What were you doing with Smokestack?"
"Nothing much, just filling out some insurance, thinking of names for firearms, and fixing just about everything you screwed up…"
"What? I-what?"
"Lever-action? Lever-action?! What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Hey, I have no idea how to design guns! I'm a good shot, but I can barely make do as a handyman! Besides, what else could we make with the technology around here? Steam engines and the Bessemer Process are about the best they can do. Sure, they have magic but…" he stopped, and looked at Melissa's bemused expression, "...What?"
"You know what the Bessemer Process is?"
"Duh, steel manufacturing, first thing that started the Second Industrial Revolution."
"...You know what the Bessemer Process is?"
"Yes, I do. Why?"
Her eye twitched, "...You know-"
"Hey, wake up!" He snapped his fingers, "What's the big deal?"
"You're probably the only person on the planet outside of my friends and my 8th grade middle school class who knows what the Bessemer Process is." Melissa explained, an odd smile on her face, "You might be brighter than I thought you were."
"Thanks?"
"Don't mention it. Anyway, lever-action's a dead end. C'mon." She got back on her crutches, and began walking.
"What do you mean a dead end?"
"Fire rate. The one advantage over bolt action, one advantage! Bolt-action is easier to maintain, can put out a faster rate of fire over the longer term, you can go prone with it, and what did most militaries adopt before the Spanish-American War of the 1890s? Bolt-ac-tion!" she sang.
"Yeah, but Winchesters were the guns that won the west, and they're cool as hell!"
"Everything you learned about the 'Wild West' was bullshit, but that's beside the point. I'll take your Winchesters, and raise you a Springfield, Mosin-Nagant, and the Colt M1911s! Those are way cooler than those junky old Winchesters! They load much faster, that's better than firing rate!"
"Wouldn't you want a faster firing rate? That's why you have machine guns."
"Well, A), fire rate doesn't mean anything if the enemy can hit you from a hidden position at long range. B) stripper clips enable for a faster rate of fire on average because you don't have to manually load every single round. Even bolt-action without a clip is faster...I think."
Andrew asked, "What do you have against Winchesters?"
"Too many moving parts! Can't use it prone! Too slow to reload! Limited types of ammunition! Just about the only military that used them were the irregulars in the Spanish Civil War. It's only good for hunting."
He huffed mildly, "I guess...maybe you have a point."
"Course I do. That's why I'm the engineer, and you're the…uh..."
"Liberal arts major."
"Yeah, that. Oh, and speaking of which...I've seen a bunch of messes that were supposedly 'repaired' by you. What the hell did they do to you? They barely function!"
"Well, you take a turn at learning carpentry on your own!"
"I don't have to, learning it is a requirement for…" her mouth suddenly snapped shut, and she shifted slightly, "...For my engineering degree."
He raised an eyebrow at the odd behavior, but said nothing.
She changed the subject, "Hey, you know that M79 knockoff you have? The very badly designed one?"
"Okay, I didn't make it. And Smokestack said it wasn't-"
Melissa shook her head, "No, not that. It's like a big cannon, that's the problem."
"Huh?"
"Giant rifles are useless! You can have high caliber, but not this high! Even elephant guns weren't that high!"
"So…"
"Don't make a big rifle, make an M79! It's easy! Actually, a Milkor MGL might be better, but given the circumstances, an M79 might be all we can do."
Andrew tilted his head, "How do you know all this stuff? You've got the strangest knowledge base I've ever seen! From Random trivia about Star Trek to guns now!"
"I've got ADD, and had access to the internet. I get bored."
Walking in silence for a while, Andrew changed the subject, "Where are we headed, anyway?"
"Rarity's…" Melissa answered with a groan, "I've gotta pick up some stuff too."
"I guess you do need it. Your t-shirt was a mess last I saw."
"Huh?" she lifted up her long-sleeve shirt to look at her Yuri Gagarin t-shirt. Gagarin's face was untouched, but the lower portion was shredded, revealing several bandages around her gut.
"Oh…Right."
"Want me to come with? Rarity's kinda odd…"
"No, I'm good." Her good mood suddenly disappeared again, as she once again saw a purple unicorn in the distance.
"Are you sure? I-"
"I said I'm fine!"
Melissa rushed off, leaving a confused Andrew behind her.
"What was that about?" he asked Twilight when she trotted over.
She sighed. "So, you know how she was acting strangely in the hospital…?"
