Test flight 1...

Icarus shook his head. "T-Thank you, B-But I p-promised I'd m-meet up with I-Intel a-at the Bar. Y-You wanna come t-too?" He asked, trotting toward the bar, and unwittingly to where Shala and Intel were having their Staredown.

Shala looked horrified. Her hyperventilation from her fear and now this confrontation with Intel had her in total lockup. Her face was turning blue as she still could not find herself to breath. It was several long moments before her lungs burst into gasps for air and finally broke eye contact.

There was a long awkward silence before she caught up enough of her breath to speak. "I...Have to go..." She squeaked, tears began to well up in her eyes and she quickly turned and ran at full sprint in the direction of her home.

"..."

Intel was completely lost. He didn't know what to do. It was the feeling of helplessness mixed with utter confusion. He hated the feeling, and it only happened to him once before. His brain completely shut down and went into autopilot. This was worse than ramble mode. At least he had some control over that. Here, and now, he didn't.

He knelt down and started drawing figures and writing equations in the snow. To a pony that didn't study advanced magical theory, half the scribblings he did would be meaningless. But meaningless was the state he was in, and figures were the only thing Intel could be sure of.

Reel saw Shala run away. He became worried. "Hey dude!" He said. " Are you ok? What happend? Why was Shala running away?"

Indigo quickly follows him.

"And leave the glider in the middle of the street? Am I the only sane pony here?"

He stops dead in his tracks when Shala bolts off away from the broken down Intel. He sits down in the middle of the street with a great heavy sigh.

"Yep, the goofiest looking pony here is the most sane pony..."

Icarus, noting he left the Glider, floated it over. "A-Alright... I-Indigo, P-Please W-Watch over I-Intel, A-And my G-Glider. I-I'm g-gonna s-see what's w-wrong with S-Shala." He said firmly, dropping the glider in front of Indigo and galloping off after Shala.

*scribble scribble scribble*

Indigo looks back and forth between the glider and Intel.

You've got to be kidding me.

First things first, nopony does well in the cold. Look for nearest warm building. The garage, could be locked. The tavern. Hm... It's hardly the best place to bring a broken minded pony. His own home was across town... Decisions decisions... After making up his mind Indigo gently prods Intel's side with his hoof.

"Hey... You alright?"

Intel paused.

"...a few more minutes, dad, I'm at a major stage..."

He continued scribbling.

Indigo blinked in surprise.

"Dad...? Come on Intel, it's cold out here, let's get you someplace warm, alright?"

Reel followed Iccy to see what was wrong with Shala.

"No, you don't understand, this is vital! I'm on a roll, I need to get this down."

*scribble scribble scribble*

Indigo planted his hooves firmly on the ground and soon Intel was covered in Indigo's magical aura... And he wasn't as heavy as he suspected. He then quickly lifts the blabbering brainiac toward Icarus's workshop.

Reel saw Indigo."Hey!" He said. "Iccy sent me to help you. He told me to take his glider and Intel to his garage and that it is unlocked."

"NO!NO!NO! DON'T TAKE ME AWAY! I NEED TO WORK! IT NEEDS TO BE DONE! FOR SCIENCE! FOR PONYKIND! I TRUSTED YOU! YOU WERE ON MY SIDE! YOU'RE HOLDING US BACK! ALL OF US BACK! CEASE NEIGHSAYER! I! MUST! WORK!"

Horn glowing alight, a lot of snow in the vicinity was levitated, formed into snowballs, and hurled at the two ponies.

Indigo watched as the snowballs came toward him. He had expected Intel to possibly squirm or struggle, but he hadn't expected him to retain the level of thought necessary to actually utilize magic to drag himself back to his snow calculations. Two snowballs landed inside of his mane before he dropped Intel from his magical grasp and ducked. The snow immediately in front of him rose up to provide cover against the torrent of weaponized snow.

Reel saw the snowballs fly toward him. He duct out of the way and hid behind Indigo's snow wall.

FLUMP! went Intel as he landed on the snow. With frenzied eyes, he stared at the wall of snow formed for protection. Bits of Intel's complex scrawlings disappeared as more snow was picked up for a mad, desperate assault. Fourteen, fifteen, the number of floating orbs breached the twenty mark.

If he was thinking straight, he would have enchanted them. Maybe he would have tried melting the wall a little bit to weaken it. Then again, if he was thinking straight...

"I'VE GOT THE BATTERING RAM! EAT UNSTABLE MAGIC, EVIL HEATHENS!"

...he wouldn't have just hurled a total of 27 snowballs all at once at high velocity at his target.

The snow wall brightly glows the color of its creator's namesake. Indigo grunts at the force of each impact, but the wall holds strong. Each snowball that strikes it serves to only increases its fortitude in thickness as well as height.

Indigo was beginning to think something was seriously wrong with the young noble. What's all this about heathens and unstable magic?

Seeing that the barrage did little to no effect, the crazed Intel closed his eyes in fierce concentration. The magical aura forming the wall turned a bit off colour as the scientist pony's horn glowed. As a student of Celestia's school, his magic was a little bit more efficient than others, but not powerful enough to hold up against two. The wall warbled as the unicorn magic competed against each other. Heat was produced, warming the barrier up. Some of the snow melted into water. A strange magical phenomemon was about to occur.

The wall started to steam up, as the wall started to heat even more, but instead of the steam escaping, it kept being part of the wall, until the wall was just a barrier of gas, swirling around, and around.

It was described as the 'sticky steam effect' and it was the first observation of the strange relationship between water and magic.

When a body of water is placed between two opposing unicorn magic fields, it will heat up into steam, but it will be trapped in the area. - The 'sticky steam' effect, in brief.

As a homeschooled country pony, Indigo couldn't believe what he was seeing. As their magical auras fought for dominance over control of the wall it had changed into... Steam? How in Equestria...? It didn't matter right now, Intel was clearly the strongest between them, there was no point in fighting over ground that would eventually be lost.

Indigo got back up to his hooves and jumped to the side, his horn grew dark as he ceded control of the steam wall to Intel's aura.

This can't go on forever, if he's not calmed there's no telling what he'll do like this...

His horn glowed once again and pushed as much snow as he could onto Intel to subdue him.

"Intel! I'm not your dad and I'm certainly no heathen! Calm down before you hurt somepony!"

As the steam cloud dispersed, Intel cried in excitement, "The sticky steam effect! I can't believe we actually- OOFF!" Intel's amazement was interrupted by a whole heap of snow slamming into him.

Poking his head out of the heap, Intel glared at Indigo, "Hey, what was that-" His glare faltered, "Wait, what?" Meanwhile, the scribblings from before were completely destroyed during the conflict.

He struggled out of the snow, "What was I-? Has Icarus done his test flight? Why were we emulating the sticky steam effect? What happened?" Indigo's questions confused him further, "Why did I think you were dad? Did I-?"

Then it struck as his face contorted into a mask of horror. "Shala was here. That's the last thing I remember."

Indigo took a deep breath.

"Finally you're calm now. After you saw Shala you kind of... broke. You started doing math in the snow and Icarus took off after Shala and told me to watch you. I was tired of standing here in the cold so I tried to get you inside, then you started ranting and raving and throwing snowballs. And yes he did his test flight, the glider's behind me if nopony stole it while I was trying to calm you down."

"Oh no!"He said. "There goes the wall. I guess it is time for kung fu." With that, Reel ran towards Intel and gave a roundhouse kick.

"OW!"

Intel fell back into the snow. He was getting punished constantly. Maybe he should stay indoors much, much more.

This time, he didn't even bother to get up. "A couple of days out of hospital, and some damn fool GOES AND KICKS ME! What is WRONG WITH YOU? Was I going to seriously harm you in any way? You are... you are..."