When Steam Reignsby StapleCactusChaptersPrologueChapter 1Cancellation noticeChapter 2PrologueThe smell of burning coal, the tinks and whirs of gears and sprockets turning, the blinding light of the fire boiling water above it and its reflection off multiple copper pipes lending a kaleidoscope of colors upon the walls. All of this did nothing to help the stallion sitting in the middle of it all to think, to dream, and to create. His countenance was one of calm, but a fire raged within him, one that desired more to burn. His mind trailed months ago, when he saw a machine churn out a rich, savory amber liquid from fruit, powered by steam and magic. He wanted that and more. Without the magic. Without the two bumbling fools who thought they knew what they were doing with it. Without the constraints. Through the stallion’s efforts, he had found the answers, but not the questions which would allow him to use those answers. Every one that he could think up didn’t sit right with him. Would it, could it, will it? He knew it could and it will and it would. His math was never wrong when it came to this technology. A howling whistle blew through the air, drawing his attention. The pressure gauge had reached its peak, but he turned away from it. If there was nothing he could make with these trinkets, what was the point of allowing them to exist? And as the needle struggled beyond the gauge’s limits, the walls of the tank began to swell. The fire beneath went out, but the heat was still there, pushing the brass and copper device to its breaking point. One rivet, then two, then three, then more and more shot out from the metals, every one of which avoiding the stallion sitting calmly in the middle of it all. Steam poured out of the cracks the missing rivets created, but the heat beneath continued to build the pressure. Finally, the behemoth had had enough. The walls could no longer hold the gas within and blew outwards, sending shrapnel flying with more force than a speeding train. Thousands of smaller shards dug their way into the side of the stallion, eliciting a scream of pain, until the concussive forces behind them threw him against the opposing wall. Scalding hot water splashed upon him, cauterizing the wounds but burning him to a degree beyond consciousness, and the pain forced him into sleep. The destruction continued, blowing pipes and toppling large devices connected to them. His workstation, covered in notes and beakers, was thrown about the room by the pressures finding any way out. Various chemicals mixed in the air, some of which volatile enough to add more strength to the whirlwind. More and more, the power continued to grow until the foundations of the house above him buckled upwards. The damage spread, tearing through fabrics and wooden furniture without stopping. It was only when the windows shattered after a particularly violent blast that the pressures waned, but craters left in the cellar floor created a basin for the chemicals to continue mixing. Fires alighted within the cesspools, burning everything it touched indiscriminately, instantaneously, without building new flames, but raising the temperature further. A lone tank that had withstood the first event began to boil the liquid within, and again the pressure built. However, this one had a different purpose, and used the steam it created to spin various gears and pulleys. Faster and faster they spun, turning fans which threw up dust and debris until they could no longer. The strain became too much for the machine and it, too, burst, forcing the parts to fly apart and tearing into everything they touched. One of the fans stabbed itself into the staircase, while another cut through the dirt below, heading straight for the stallion. In a second, the blades had gone through his legs and embedded itself in the wall next to his head. With a great sigh of escaping pressure, the second bout of destruction ended, allowing a shard of copper pipe to fall from the ceiling in which it was pinned. And pierce straight through the pony’s abdomen. The commotion brought the attention of the town. Citizens and authorities alike rushed to the scene, where a house had been blown apart from the inside. Though some wanted to rush in to assist, they were held back until the all-clear was given. It was not. Walls that had enough buckled, and the house tilted away from the crowd. The wall they were facing crashed down over the hole, letting the roof twist and fall directly above it and crush whatever was beneath it. Authorities waited, expecting further collapse, but none came. When the dust settled, they let a few strong ponies in to find anyone buried in the wreckage. Digging and pulling debris away, they didn’t find him for hours. Beneath a large part of the wall, he lay broken and bloody, still unconscious and breathing, but barely clinging to life. And when they finally pulled him from the house, the mortician was there waiting among the crowd. He took a step forward, but was held back by a shout for medical assistance. A stretcher was brought over and the stallion was laid upon it, then carted off to the hospital as quickly as possible. He was brought to an operating room where the damage was assessed. The weight of the home had pushed the pipe further and pulled through most of his abdomen. Two limbs were missing and multiple holes from the shrapnel coated his pelt. Various lacerations were set about his body and his blood loss was greater than anything they had seen before. Nopony could survive this, they believed. But let it not be said ponies will not try. They poured magic into him, working and struggling to keep him alive. Again and again his heart would give out, only for them to restart it at great cost to themselves. After hours of operations, they finally stabilized him, though only through the work of constant attention through medical magic. When asked why anyone would let him suffer, they would only say he had not chosen yet, and until he deemed himself otherwise, they would not stop trying. As they struggled, the stallion’s gears were turning, his mind lost in the void of his coma. Images flashed into being, only to be snuffed out by another and another. Vast arrays of steam-powered machinery and ideas occupied his brain, keeping him from realizing his predicament and showing him new ways he couldn’t believe possible before. His notes were intrinsically part of him, and his mind fought against them during the prophetic natures of the images. The strength of the metals and the power of steam raged against the colossal giants that were summoned: pony-like constructions larger than life or smaller than he thought possible, homes generating their own power to move wherever the owner desired, and intricate machines of which he could not fathom the purpose. Again and again these images assaulted his mind, forcing him to see what could only be made if he dreamed them, yearned for them hard enough to find a way. It continued with no quarter until the void behind the images turned bright, signalling the end of his dream. When consciousness began, pain erupted from everywhere on his body. He squeezed his eyelids tighter, furrowing his brow, and attempted to move. Constraints held him still, constricting and panic-inducing. The fear threw his muscles into overdrive and pumped his body with adrenaline. He didn’t care about the pain anymore; he just wanted free. Flashing his eyes open, he was met with a transparent blue shield above him. Beyond it, he could see a white-tiled ceiling, but he disregarded it for his struggle. Pulling, pushing, and curling his body and limbs, the straps holding him still budged, but held. He tried moving limbs that didn’t respond and the worry only added to the fear. Something had happened, and now he was pinned with unresponsive appendages. The pain returned stronger than ever, piercing through his rush to freedom and crippling him. He screamed and lay still once more, wishing the torture to end, but it would not relent. His body fought against him, telling him that even lying still will not save him from the pain. It would push upon his mind until he was sure death was better. He could only scream, waiting for it or the sweet, if confusing, comfort of dreams. But he was beyond the tolerance of sleep. Where before his mind collapsed into itself to avoid further damage, now he could only pray that could be true. His cries echoed within his prison of magic, making him yell louder and louder until his voice gave out. Finally resigning himself to his fate, he stopped his struggle entirely and merely whimpered. Slowly, ever so slowly, the pain faded, bringing his mind back to when he first woke up. He rolled his eyes around to see what he could to avoid increasing the torture again. Medical devices could be seen from his peripheral view, but their use could not be understood through the blur. Across from the edge of the bed, a steel door with copper wire mesh stood shut, connecting it’s patterns with the ones on the walls. He followed them to the ceiling, where they vanished along the edges to undoubtedly continue. Knowing where he was, but not what the purpose of it all served, he turned his gaze to what he could see of his blanket-covered body. The lump beneath the cotton stretched down to the end, but there was a missing half of the symmetry after the abdomen. Pushing the pain down for a moment, he tried to move each limb. His left foreleg rose at his command, but the right did not. The same occurred when he tried his rear legs. He relaxed the muscles feeding the appendages and lay in quiet. Two limbs were gone, he deduced. Thinking back, he tried to find out why, but the fog of memory was unforgiving and kept him from the truth. The last thing he could remember, outside of the dream he had, was sitting within his workshop and pondering what he could do with his knowledge of steam. He could only speculate on events, and they were not pretty. The door opened before him, a grey-coated stallion wearing a white lab coat entering. His brow was furrowed in concentration as he studied a clipboard in his magic field. With a sigh, he brought his head up and trotted by the stallion, marking down various readings from the equipment in the room. When he turned to the pony on the bed, he noticed the patient's eyes were open. In a shout of surprise the stallion could not hear, the doctor rushed out of the room, dropping the clipboard in the process. A moment later, a team of medical professionals walked in: nurses, doctors, and magicians alike. They crowded around him, one picking up the clipboard while others messed with the equipment or studied the stallion. Another closed the door while a magician in a blue robe probed the shield. It opened a hole, allowing a doctor with a unique badge to enter, before warping shut. He walked up to the stallion, not saying a word before shining light into his eyes. With a gentle touch, the doctor pressed against his neck, counting the pulse and comparing it to what a machine was reading outside the shield. Then, he pulled the sheet off. Bloody bandages were wrapped across the stallion’s abdomen, stumps where legs should have been, and in patches all over. Tubes ran beneath the wrappings, various colored liquids either entering or exiting the wounds. Assessing the work and watching the patient’s chest rise and fall, he finally spoke. “You’re lucky to be alive.” And then he went quiet again, slowly unwrapping various bandages until the exposed wounds could be seen. Metal patchwork held the fringes of his abdomen together, but didn’t close it fully. Most of the tubes ran into this network of flesh and steel, connecting to various organs, but a few ran into the stallion’s chest, controlling the flow of blood. Holes from the shrapnel left black divots in his coat while the stumps of his legs ended with a wrapping of fake skin. Seeing the damage, the pain returned stronger than ever, and the stallion tried all he could to avoid screaming. The added tingle of air touching the exposed wounds increased it further until he could hold out no longer. His whimpers escalated into a constant scream that echoed once more off the shield. The ponies outside saw this, but looked down in pity. They had given him all they could to relieve the pain and this was only the beginning. The patient would suffer for the rest of his life and there was nothing they could do to help him. Everything hinged on his strength. Chapter 1Time was fickle for the stallion in that hospital room. Some days it passed slower than an animal traversing a tar pit and the pain would remind him of every second that passed. Other days moved so quickly, he could have sworn it was yesterday still. And then, in very rare times, a pony would visit, be it a doctor or resident of town, and time would ease by while his pain was forgotten for a few hours. During one of those visits, the local clocksmith stopped by and left him an odd bird. It seemed like a wind-up toy for foals, but there was a clock face where its stomach would be and it would chirp at the oddest of times. With no way to move, the stallion stared at that construction for hours, contemplating its design and function. Solving the conundrum of that bird became a constant ritual for him, as it was the only tangible object he could turn his focus towards. His pain still attacked his mind, but it felt surreal more than anything else when he was lost in his thoughts. Occasionally, medical personnel would stop in to check readouts and his condition and attempt conversation. The stallion never answered their tries, not that he could carry one with the way he felt. Some nights, when staring at the clockwork bird began to bore him, he would attempt speech. His mouth felt like a desert and any sound he made was worse than the bird’s mechanical chirps. He would give up on those nights. On days that felt particularly easy, he thought of his condition and how he had become so damaged. From what little the doctors had told him, the event that brought him to this point leveled his home and the destruction of his body most likely forced his mind to bury the memories into his subconscious. That didn’t stop him from planning his recovery, and his thoughts ran wild with ideas from magical constructs he could be gifted by the newest princess to using his own knowledge to create a steam-powered core for a metallic limb-like system to replace his missing legs. He never gained much ground on either avenue, mostly because of his inability to discuss ideas or write down notes and letters. All he could do was stare through that blue-tinted shield and wait for the hospital to decide for him. When he thought about how his fate was tied to someone else’s decision, he quickly turned away from that line of thinking and stared at the bird once more. The stallion woke up with the sound of tingly chirping. At first he assumed it would stop after the first or second sounding, but it persisted. Curiosity compelled him to turn towards it, but a feeling of malaise worked alongside the pain to tell him not to. Chirping filled the shield again and again as his head began to pound. Sooner or later, he would have to do something about that bird, he decided. As if the gods themselves heard his thoughts, a nurse chose that time to enter the room. Unlike most of the staff he saw on a daily basis, this one had both the ability and the permission to enter his sterilizing shield, and she heard the racket as soon as she did so. “My, what a cacophonous bird you are today!” she said over the noise as she hurried over to the only table allowed for gifts inside the bubble. “Now, why are you backwards?” Her question finally pushed his curiosity beyond his stillness and he turned his head to watch. The clock had somehow worked itself backwards and rose its bottom upwards, somehow proudly showing the winding key to the nurse. He marvelled at the complexity such an action would require from the clockmaker and wondered why he was given such a gift. The nurse understood the pose as well and picked it up to begin winding it. “What a wonderful little invention this bird is. I wonder if old Springs could make one for me?” she pondered as she wound it and set it back on the table, hushing the object. With a small nod at the newfound silence, she turned towards the stallion. “Well, I best get you ready, then.” Though he was curious why he was being made ready, his voice was still not ready, and he stayed silent. “Oh, come now, Vapor. Surely, you want to know why I’m doing this,” the nurse said with a huff as she began delicately sliding the blankets off him. That name, again. The stallion was told his name was Vapor Trail, but it didn’t feel right. Whether it was from him forgetting it, or because he didn’t think that name matched his new condition, he couldn’t be certain. All he could do was accept that he was called Vapor until he could find his identity again. Unfortunately, the medical staff was unaware of how deep his memory loss went and continued to use that name freely. “Well, Lily will tell you, even if you aren’t going to respond,” she said as she shut off the few machines she could without assistance. “The doctors believe you are well enough to get some of these machines removed and help you learn to move again. If you hope to have that heart of yours be strong enough to support you, we need to get it pumping on its own much stronger than it is now.” Thoughts of walking again filled him with hope, but it was crushed when he was reminded of his missing limbs as Lily removed the sheet covering his right side. Upon seeing the pained expression on his face, she spoke up again. “Oh, don’t concern yourself with that, dear. Even now, the medical community is finding ways to give ponies their lost limbs back.” After pulling one last IV out, she was left with nothing else she could do and gave a pitiful look to the stallion. “We’ll think of something. I have to get a few of your doctors in here to take care of the rest, so be patient.” A light touch on his shoulder later, she turned and headed out of the shield, then the door, leaving it open. It looked like his fate was once again tied to somepony else’s decision, he thought as his eyes studied the wall beyond the door. For once, he let the idea simmer in his mind, not wanting to dwell on the slowly building pain from the loss of his IVs. He wasn’t sure which ones she removed, and that made him feel worse. If she did stop his morphine drip, his pain would get even worse, but if she didn’t, the escalating agony was either in his head or due to the loss of some medication his body had gotten used to. Or maybe it was the fact that he could see his condition clearly again, he mused, and an odd smile grew on his lips. The idea that he could smile in such a situation turned his mind again to confusion. Perhaps laying in that bed had turned him morbid after all this time. The sound of gears whirring drew his attention to the small clockwork bird once more. Its brass beak was open as if it would chirp again, but only the sound of the gears came forth, until it got louder. “...Why…” it seemed to ask as the sound slowly dissipated. “Why?” This time, the sound was more distinct, almost like it really was designed to speak. Then, it truly started to do so. “Did… you… find… why?” it said, using a series of clanks and whirrs to pronounce the syllables. “Can you do, now?” The stallion furrowed his brow, wondering how it was possible the bird could speak and what it was talking about. Such ingenuity from a clockmaker seemed impossible, and yet here it was… talking. “Steam.” The bird went silent. He was silent. In the quiet of the room, he waited for more. None came, and he was lost. “Mr. Vapor—” “Gah!” The stallion’s body seized and the first sound he made in the presence of others announced his shock. Whipping his head in the direction of the voice, he found two doctors and Lily looking at him in shock. They spoke to each other in a series of glances before one cleared his throat. “I believe that was the first conscious sound we’ve heard from you, Mr. Vapor. I admit we were getting worried your voice was lost in the accident as well.” He spoke with authority and had the gait of one who had served in the military as he came up to the bed. “I hope to hear you speak clearly, though we have something more important planned for you today.” He waved the other two over and they began preparations to remove a few more devices from the stallion. “It’s a big risk we are taking, trying to get you up and off a few of these machines, but you have been in here long enough that we fear risking even more if we leave you be any longer” Oddly enough to the stallion, their ministrations did not cause much further pain than he was already experiencing. He chalked it up to the healing process finally getting around to that aspect of his condition. They delicately removed stitches and plates from his abdomen while leaving others behind, and the mesh cage around his chest was avoided as much as possible for last. “We’re going to try letting your heart take the full workload. Stay calm, and don’t move… no matter what happens,” the other doctor, a blue stallion with grey hair, ordered. There was a small amount of sweat building on both doctors that the nurse quickly wiped away without a word, and all of them nodded to another for confirmation. With a quick glance at the stallion, which he answered as a nod, they began. They shut down the machine attached to his heart first, and he finally felt the beating he didn’t realize he had missed. It was weak, but the doctors seemed confident. After a few seconds, they shut down the auxiliary heart… and waited. His heart beat harder as it accepted the work to which it was tasked and even he started to hope his life could get better. They crimped the tubes running into his chest and stalled again before disconnecting one, then the other. His body accepted the load. Ten seconds. A minute. Blood pressure was holding steady along with his heart rate. They all sighed in relief as one as everything went well. Feeling joy like he never felt before, the stallion finally tried to speak. “Th… ank. You.” The words were hard and he had to pause often to continue. A small smile stretched his skin as the doctors and nurse looked down at him with their own. “That’s what I wanted to hear!” the militaristic one replied. “Glad you could join us. Give us a minute to set you up and we’ll be tearing down the aisles in no time.” As one, they each removed a wire or tube from the stallion. With the biggest grin the stallion had ever seen on her, Lily stepped forward and pressed a button to tilt the bed upwards. “It’s about time you spoke! My, if you stayed silent any longer, I would have thought myself insane for talking to a mummy!” A small chuckle echoed between them at the morbid joke to which they could all relate, and the stallion spoke up again. “Sor… ry, Lily.” “Well, now that we’ve all had a few jokes at our patient’s expense, perhaps we can see if he’s up to trying a few exercises?” the doctor to his right asked, a bit of a smile still on his lips. “Ready… whe—” The stallion fell slack and the dreaded sound of a flatline filled the room immediately. “Shit! Lily, get the others,” the military doctor ordered as the two professionals got to work hooking everything back up. As soon as the rest of the team entered the room, they began different attempts at restarting the stallion’s heart and the auxiliary one to reawaken him. They couldn’t do chest compressions with the cage protecting the heart, so they used a defibrillator with smaller pads to reach in and shock it while starting the mechanical one up. They had to be sure they worked as a pair or it wouldn’t work. As three doctors forced his heart to start, the rest of the team hurried to reconnect the other components. Then, just as the oxygen pump started up, the heart monitor beeped. Again. Again, this time in sync with the auxiliary. They held steady and the group sighed in defeat. They all knew what happened and what it meant. The stallion would never be free of the hospital again. Author's Note Sorry for such an extended delay in getting this chapter out. I had planned on writing it in September, but I was in an accident and only now got situated to write again. You can check my blog posts if you want to see what happened specifically. Cancellation noticeAuthor's Note This story was really fun to write, but every chapter became harder and harder to justify. It became this sludge of fun dilution or something. Every word brought me joy, but the overall plot kept smacking me up the head like, "What the hell you think you doing?" Enfan got me into this steam-punk genre, and I just really wanted to put my own spin on things. Below is what I had written for the next chapter, only for my head to tell me I'm an idiot for skipping so much plot just to get to the happy times. There really was no ending to this one. He got better through the power of steam and helped other ponies missing parts. That was the end goal. No real big bad other than his own struggle to survive, then get accepted by the community after becoming 50% metal and steam. For a little more info, click here. Cancellation notice “Vapor! How’s the ol’ heart tickin’ these days?” Old Pony Springs called as the bell to his shop rang and the stallion walked in. He couldn’t grasp why the townsfolk called him Old Pony Springs, as the pony sitting behind the counter looked more spry than a colt. Maybe it was the wrinkles beneath the pony’s grey eyes, or the thinning yellow mane, but his coat still shined with the youth of a younger generation, so the stallion gave up on that conundrum. “Good as can be expected, Twisted Springs,” he replied as he stepped around a massive ticking grandfather clock with a tock of his own. “This should be my last winding, I should hope.” When he reached the counter, the olden pony stretched out a dexterous hoof and opened the panel covering the stallion’s chest with a quick twist of a key. “Finally figured out the pneumatic formulae for cardiovascular and thaumaturgical circulation, did you?” Springs asked as he fished around under his counter for the winding key. “It’d be a real shame to not see you in here every few days.” “I’ll be sure to stop by whenever possible, my friend.” With a final twist, the clockmaker completed his winding, then removed the key and dropped a set of magnification glasses over his eyes. “Oh, I’m sure, I’m sure,” he replied as he used a small pin to slide or prod within the cavity. “Have you given any thought on how you’ll install it?” A wince from the stallion was the only indication the clockmaker had slipped part of his machined heart back in tune. “I was hoping you could assist me this time. After we worked together on these two legs of mine…” Springs’ eyes drooped, then. “You’ll be wanting to change those away from my designs as well, won’t you?” He asked as he closed the stallion’s chest and instructed him to turn with a wave. Chapter 2The stallion had a visitor. He couldn’t recall if the visitor was with him now or had visited earlier. Ever since his failure, time stopped having any meaning. His struggles became nothing but memories as he shut himself away in his loneliness, but he had a visitor. They conversed for a time, though it was mostly her doing the talking. Upon reflection, the stallion thought he could have said something to her, but he couldn’t find the words anymore. She mentioned his condition. It reminded him of what they were discussing. She said she watches over ponies’ dreams, and how she hadn’t seen a ripple or tremor from his part of the dreamscape in months. At first, she wrote it off as a pony at peace. Then, she learned of his situation and grew worried. She mentioned being concerned at that point, now that she could see him. He recalled a sad smile gracing her lips when she proposed an idea. Two choices were given, and neither would end happily ever after. So, she left, asking him to think, to give her an answer when she visited again. The clockmaker’s gift chirped. She was gone, or had been gone for hours. It mattered not to the stallion. He brushed the visit off like he did to the doctors and nurses. But… There was that choice she gave him, one that could change everything with a single word. For the first time in days, he felt like trying. For the first time in forever, he couldn’t remember what he was supposed to be trying to do. The first thought to reach him was one of suicide. Certainly, the choice would help him with that, and he really did feel like ending his struggle, but something called against that plan. Something deep within him screamed for him to think harder, to do something else with this choice. ‘Gift’ was the word that reached him next. He was being given a gift, just as he had been given many throughout his stay in the white room and blue bubble. He was gifted with caring neighbors who pulled him from his destroyed home, with hard-working medical staff who slaved tirelessly to save his broken shell, with— The bird chirped again. He let his head fall to the side to view the contraption again. There was a time he tried to solve its purpose. A time he cared to keep his mind strong with puzzles and formulas. A time he still had hope. Motivation. He wondered if he could find that again. His gaze wandered over the sheet covering him, over where his bare chest would be, then back at the bird. Maybe he could… Clockwork wasn’t his field, that much he remembered. With the medical staff calling him Vapor Trail, he deduced his trade earlier. Was there much difference, he wondered. The machine chirped again, and he noticed the name on its clock face: Twisted Springs Clockworks. Wherever the voice originated within him throbbed. The name was familiar. It called for him to find the pony who made the bird. It wasn’t much, but he had something to do if he chose. The mare gave him two choices. She could transfer his soul into a ponnequin, or leave him to fight for his survival. If he chose to be a machination, it would last twenty-four hours, but the separation of his soul from his body would doom him to never heal. If he chose to continue as he had been, he could grow stronger, and she would grant him a small boon to increase his chances. The first choice was more of a death sentence, but he could move and do as he pleased for that final day. There were stories of some who took that option who then fought to survive because of the renewed hope they received, but most merely withered in their beds. She gave him a projected zero-point-one percent chance of living after the swap ended. The second choice gave him nothing new to see or do. He would have to lay in his bed, strapped to all the machines, for the rest of his days. If he fought, his chances were higher. With the mare’s help, they rose further. The chances of him making a recovery with this option were still a paltry fifteen percent. He recalled an old mathematical statement involving percentiles. It didn’t mean anything in the world of academics, but those ponies living day by day would know its usage. “If your chances are low enough, one and one-hundred makes no difference.” Still, he remembered being an academic, and how that statement couldn’t be farther from the truth. But if he thought about it, the scenario he was in now couldn’t be saved with a bit of mathematics. The way he felt now, he couldn’t see himself fighting much longer, if at all. With nothing to lose, or as little to lose as he could recall, he made his choice. He had a visitor.
PrologueThe smell of burning coal, the tinks and whirs of gears and sprockets turning, the blinding light of the fire boiling water above it and its reflection off multiple copper pipes lending a kaleidoscope of colors upon the walls. All of this did nothing to help the stallion sitting in the middle of it all to think, to dream, and to create. His countenance was one of calm, but a fire raged within him, one that desired more to burn. His mind trailed months ago, when he saw a machine churn out a rich, savory amber liquid from fruit, powered by steam and magic. He wanted that and more. Without the magic. Without the two bumbling fools who thought they knew what they were doing with it. Without the constraints. Through the stallion’s efforts, he had found the answers, but not the questions which would allow him to use those answers. Every one that he could think up didn’t sit right with him. Would it, could it, will it? He knew it could and it will and it would. His math was never wrong when it came to this technology. A howling whistle blew through the air, drawing his attention. The pressure gauge had reached its peak, but he turned away from it. If there was nothing he could make with these trinkets, what was the point of allowing them to exist? And as the needle struggled beyond the gauge’s limits, the walls of the tank began to swell. The fire beneath went out, but the heat was still there, pushing the brass and copper device to its breaking point. One rivet, then two, then three, then more and more shot out from the metals, every one of which avoiding the stallion sitting calmly in the middle of it all. Steam poured out of the cracks the missing rivets created, but the heat beneath continued to build the pressure. Finally, the behemoth had had enough. The walls could no longer hold the gas within and blew outwards, sending shrapnel flying with more force than a speeding train. Thousands of smaller shards dug their way into the side of the stallion, eliciting a scream of pain, until the concussive forces behind them threw him against the opposing wall. Scalding hot water splashed upon him, cauterizing the wounds but burning him to a degree beyond consciousness, and the pain forced him into sleep. The destruction continued, blowing pipes and toppling large devices connected to them. His workstation, covered in notes and beakers, was thrown about the room by the pressures finding any way out. Various chemicals mixed in the air, some of which volatile enough to add more strength to the whirlwind. More and more, the power continued to grow until the foundations of the house above him buckled upwards. The damage spread, tearing through fabrics and wooden furniture without stopping. It was only when the windows shattered after a particularly violent blast that the pressures waned, but craters left in the cellar floor created a basin for the chemicals to continue mixing. Fires alighted within the cesspools, burning everything it touched indiscriminately, instantaneously, without building new flames, but raising the temperature further. A lone tank that had withstood the first event began to boil the liquid within, and again the pressure built. However, this one had a different purpose, and used the steam it created to spin various gears and pulleys. Faster and faster they spun, turning fans which threw up dust and debris until they could no longer. The strain became too much for the machine and it, too, burst, forcing the parts to fly apart and tearing into everything they touched. One of the fans stabbed itself into the staircase, while another cut through the dirt below, heading straight for the stallion. In a second, the blades had gone through his legs and embedded itself in the wall next to his head. With a great sigh of escaping pressure, the second bout of destruction ended, allowing a shard of copper pipe to fall from the ceiling in which it was pinned. And pierce straight through the pony’s abdomen. The commotion brought the attention of the town. Citizens and authorities alike rushed to the scene, where a house had been blown apart from the inside. Though some wanted to rush in to assist, they were held back until the all-clear was given. It was not. Walls that had enough buckled, and the house tilted away from the crowd. The wall they were facing crashed down over the hole, letting the roof twist and fall directly above it and crush whatever was beneath it. Authorities waited, expecting further collapse, but none came. When the dust settled, they let a few strong ponies in to find anyone buried in the wreckage. Digging and pulling debris away, they didn’t find him for hours. Beneath a large part of the wall, he lay broken and bloody, still unconscious and breathing, but barely clinging to life. And when they finally pulled him from the house, the mortician was there waiting among the crowd. He took a step forward, but was held back by a shout for medical assistance. A stretcher was brought over and the stallion was laid upon it, then carted off to the hospital as quickly as possible. He was brought to an operating room where the damage was assessed. The weight of the home had pushed the pipe further and pulled through most of his abdomen. Two limbs were missing and multiple holes from the shrapnel coated his pelt. Various lacerations were set about his body and his blood loss was greater than anything they had seen before. Nopony could survive this, they believed. But let it not be said ponies will not try. They poured magic into him, working and struggling to keep him alive. Again and again his heart would give out, only for them to restart it at great cost to themselves. After hours of operations, they finally stabilized him, though only through the work of constant attention through medical magic. When asked why anyone would let him suffer, they would only say he had not chosen yet, and until he deemed himself otherwise, they would not stop trying. As they struggled, the stallion’s gears were turning, his mind lost in the void of his coma. Images flashed into being, only to be snuffed out by another and another. Vast arrays of steam-powered machinery and ideas occupied his brain, keeping him from realizing his predicament and showing him new ways he couldn’t believe possible before. His notes were intrinsically part of him, and his mind fought against them during the prophetic natures of the images. The strength of the metals and the power of steam raged against the colossal giants that were summoned: pony-like constructions larger than life or smaller than he thought possible, homes generating their own power to move wherever the owner desired, and intricate machines of which he could not fathom the purpose. Again and again these images assaulted his mind, forcing him to see what could only be made if he dreamed them, yearned for them hard enough to find a way. It continued with no quarter until the void behind the images turned bright, signalling the end of his dream. When consciousness began, pain erupted from everywhere on his body. He squeezed his eyelids tighter, furrowing his brow, and attempted to move. Constraints held him still, constricting and panic-inducing. The fear threw his muscles into overdrive and pumped his body with adrenaline. He didn’t care about the pain anymore; he just wanted free. Flashing his eyes open, he was met with a transparent blue shield above him. Beyond it, he could see a white-tiled ceiling, but he disregarded it for his struggle. Pulling, pushing, and curling his body and limbs, the straps holding him still budged, but held. He tried moving limbs that didn’t respond and the worry only added to the fear. Something had happened, and now he was pinned with unresponsive appendages. The pain returned stronger than ever, piercing through his rush to freedom and crippling him. He screamed and lay still once more, wishing the torture to end, but it would not relent. His body fought against him, telling him that even lying still will not save him from the pain. It would push upon his mind until he was sure death was better. He could only scream, waiting for it or the sweet, if confusing, comfort of dreams. But he was beyond the tolerance of sleep. Where before his mind collapsed into itself to avoid further damage, now he could only pray that could be true. His cries echoed within his prison of magic, making him yell louder and louder until his voice gave out. Finally resigning himself to his fate, he stopped his struggle entirely and merely whimpered. Slowly, ever so slowly, the pain faded, bringing his mind back to when he first woke up. He rolled his eyes around to see what he could to avoid increasing the torture again. Medical devices could be seen from his peripheral view, but their use could not be understood through the blur. Across from the edge of the bed, a steel door with copper wire mesh stood shut, connecting it’s patterns with the ones on the walls. He followed them to the ceiling, where they vanished along the edges to undoubtedly continue. Knowing where he was, but not what the purpose of it all served, he turned his gaze to what he could see of his blanket-covered body. The lump beneath the cotton stretched down to the end, but there was a missing half of the symmetry after the abdomen. Pushing the pain down for a moment, he tried to move each limb. His left foreleg rose at his command, but the right did not. The same occurred when he tried his rear legs. He relaxed the muscles feeding the appendages and lay in quiet. Two limbs were gone, he deduced. Thinking back, he tried to find out why, but the fog of memory was unforgiving and kept him from the truth. The last thing he could remember, outside of the dream he had, was sitting within his workshop and pondering what he could do with his knowledge of steam. He could only speculate on events, and they were not pretty. The door opened before him, a grey-coated stallion wearing a white lab coat entering. His brow was furrowed in concentration as he studied a clipboard in his magic field. With a sigh, he brought his head up and trotted by the stallion, marking down various readings from the equipment in the room. When he turned to the pony on the bed, he noticed the patient's eyes were open. In a shout of surprise the stallion could not hear, the doctor rushed out of the room, dropping the clipboard in the process. A moment later, a team of medical professionals walked in: nurses, doctors, and magicians alike. They crowded around him, one picking up the clipboard while others messed with the equipment or studied the stallion. Another closed the door while a magician in a blue robe probed the shield. It opened a hole, allowing a doctor with a unique badge to enter, before warping shut. He walked up to the stallion, not saying a word before shining light into his eyes. With a gentle touch, the doctor pressed against his neck, counting the pulse and comparing it to what a machine was reading outside the shield. Then, he pulled the sheet off. Bloody bandages were wrapped across the stallion’s abdomen, stumps where legs should have been, and in patches all over. Tubes ran beneath the wrappings, various colored liquids either entering or exiting the wounds. Assessing the work and watching the patient’s chest rise and fall, he finally spoke. “You’re lucky to be alive.” And then he went quiet again, slowly unwrapping various bandages until the exposed wounds could be seen. Metal patchwork held the fringes of his abdomen together, but didn’t close it fully. Most of the tubes ran into this network of flesh and steel, connecting to various organs, but a few ran into the stallion’s chest, controlling the flow of blood. Holes from the shrapnel left black divots in his coat while the stumps of his legs ended with a wrapping of fake skin. Seeing the damage, the pain returned stronger than ever, and the stallion tried all he could to avoid screaming. The added tingle of air touching the exposed wounds increased it further until he could hold out no longer. His whimpers escalated into a constant scream that echoed once more off the shield. The ponies outside saw this, but looked down in pity. They had given him all they could to relieve the pain and this was only the beginning. The patient would suffer for the rest of his life and there was nothing they could do to help him. Everything hinged on his strength.
Chapter 1Time was fickle for the stallion in that hospital room. Some days it passed slower than an animal traversing a tar pit and the pain would remind him of every second that passed. Other days moved so quickly, he could have sworn it was yesterday still. And then, in very rare times, a pony would visit, be it a doctor or resident of town, and time would ease by while his pain was forgotten for a few hours. During one of those visits, the local clocksmith stopped by and left him an odd bird. It seemed like a wind-up toy for foals, but there was a clock face where its stomach would be and it would chirp at the oddest of times. With no way to move, the stallion stared at that construction for hours, contemplating its design and function. Solving the conundrum of that bird became a constant ritual for him, as it was the only tangible object he could turn his focus towards. His pain still attacked his mind, but it felt surreal more than anything else when he was lost in his thoughts. Occasionally, medical personnel would stop in to check readouts and his condition and attempt conversation. The stallion never answered their tries, not that he could carry one with the way he felt. Some nights, when staring at the clockwork bird began to bore him, he would attempt speech. His mouth felt like a desert and any sound he made was worse than the bird’s mechanical chirps. He would give up on those nights. On days that felt particularly easy, he thought of his condition and how he had become so damaged. From what little the doctors had told him, the event that brought him to this point leveled his home and the destruction of his body most likely forced his mind to bury the memories into his subconscious. That didn’t stop him from planning his recovery, and his thoughts ran wild with ideas from magical constructs he could be gifted by the newest princess to using his own knowledge to create a steam-powered core for a metallic limb-like system to replace his missing legs. He never gained much ground on either avenue, mostly because of his inability to discuss ideas or write down notes and letters. All he could do was stare through that blue-tinted shield and wait for the hospital to decide for him. When he thought about how his fate was tied to someone else’s decision, he quickly turned away from that line of thinking and stared at the bird once more. The stallion woke up with the sound of tingly chirping. At first he assumed it would stop after the first or second sounding, but it persisted. Curiosity compelled him to turn towards it, but a feeling of malaise worked alongside the pain to tell him not to. Chirping filled the shield again and again as his head began to pound. Sooner or later, he would have to do something about that bird, he decided. As if the gods themselves heard his thoughts, a nurse chose that time to enter the room. Unlike most of the staff he saw on a daily basis, this one had both the ability and the permission to enter his sterilizing shield, and she heard the racket as soon as she did so. “My, what a cacophonous bird you are today!” she said over the noise as she hurried over to the only table allowed for gifts inside the bubble. “Now, why are you backwards?” Her question finally pushed his curiosity beyond his stillness and he turned his head to watch. The clock had somehow worked itself backwards and rose its bottom upwards, somehow proudly showing the winding key to the nurse. He marvelled at the complexity such an action would require from the clockmaker and wondered why he was given such a gift. The nurse understood the pose as well and picked it up to begin winding it. “What a wonderful little invention this bird is. I wonder if old Springs could make one for me?” she pondered as she wound it and set it back on the table, hushing the object. With a small nod at the newfound silence, she turned towards the stallion. “Well, I best get you ready, then.” Though he was curious why he was being made ready, his voice was still not ready, and he stayed silent. “Oh, come now, Vapor. Surely, you want to know why I’m doing this,” the nurse said with a huff as she began delicately sliding the blankets off him. That name, again. The stallion was told his name was Vapor Trail, but it didn’t feel right. Whether it was from him forgetting it, or because he didn’t think that name matched his new condition, he couldn’t be certain. All he could do was accept that he was called Vapor until he could find his identity again. Unfortunately, the medical staff was unaware of how deep his memory loss went and continued to use that name freely. “Well, Lily will tell you, even if you aren’t going to respond,” she said as she shut off the few machines she could without assistance. “The doctors believe you are well enough to get some of these machines removed and help you learn to move again. If you hope to have that heart of yours be strong enough to support you, we need to get it pumping on its own much stronger than it is now.” Thoughts of walking again filled him with hope, but it was crushed when he was reminded of his missing limbs as Lily removed the sheet covering his right side. Upon seeing the pained expression on his face, she spoke up again. “Oh, don’t concern yourself with that, dear. Even now, the medical community is finding ways to give ponies their lost limbs back.” After pulling one last IV out, she was left with nothing else she could do and gave a pitiful look to the stallion. “We’ll think of something. I have to get a few of your doctors in here to take care of the rest, so be patient.” A light touch on his shoulder later, she turned and headed out of the shield, then the door, leaving it open. It looked like his fate was once again tied to somepony else’s decision, he thought as his eyes studied the wall beyond the door. For once, he let the idea simmer in his mind, not wanting to dwell on the slowly building pain from the loss of his IVs. He wasn’t sure which ones she removed, and that made him feel worse. If she did stop his morphine drip, his pain would get even worse, but if she didn’t, the escalating agony was either in his head or due to the loss of some medication his body had gotten used to. Or maybe it was the fact that he could see his condition clearly again, he mused, and an odd smile grew on his lips. The idea that he could smile in such a situation turned his mind again to confusion. Perhaps laying in that bed had turned him morbid after all this time. The sound of gears whirring drew his attention to the small clockwork bird once more. Its brass beak was open as if it would chirp again, but only the sound of the gears came forth, until it got louder. “...Why…” it seemed to ask as the sound slowly dissipated. “Why?” This time, the sound was more distinct, almost like it really was designed to speak. Then, it truly started to do so. “Did… you… find… why?” it said, using a series of clanks and whirrs to pronounce the syllables. “Can you do, now?” The stallion furrowed his brow, wondering how it was possible the bird could speak and what it was talking about. Such ingenuity from a clockmaker seemed impossible, and yet here it was… talking. “Steam.” The bird went silent. He was silent. In the quiet of the room, he waited for more. None came, and he was lost. “Mr. Vapor—” “Gah!” The stallion’s body seized and the first sound he made in the presence of others announced his shock. Whipping his head in the direction of the voice, he found two doctors and Lily looking at him in shock. They spoke to each other in a series of glances before one cleared his throat. “I believe that was the first conscious sound we’ve heard from you, Mr. Vapor. I admit we were getting worried your voice was lost in the accident as well.” He spoke with authority and had the gait of one who had served in the military as he came up to the bed. “I hope to hear you speak clearly, though we have something more important planned for you today.” He waved the other two over and they began preparations to remove a few more devices from the stallion. “It’s a big risk we are taking, trying to get you up and off a few of these machines, but you have been in here long enough that we fear risking even more if we leave you be any longer” Oddly enough to the stallion, their ministrations did not cause much further pain than he was already experiencing. He chalked it up to the healing process finally getting around to that aspect of his condition. They delicately removed stitches and plates from his abdomen while leaving others behind, and the mesh cage around his chest was avoided as much as possible for last. “We’re going to try letting your heart take the full workload. Stay calm, and don’t move… no matter what happens,” the other doctor, a blue stallion with grey hair, ordered. There was a small amount of sweat building on both doctors that the nurse quickly wiped away without a word, and all of them nodded to another for confirmation. With a quick glance at the stallion, which he answered as a nod, they began. They shut down the machine attached to his heart first, and he finally felt the beating he didn’t realize he had missed. It was weak, but the doctors seemed confident. After a few seconds, they shut down the auxiliary heart… and waited. His heart beat harder as it accepted the work to which it was tasked and even he started to hope his life could get better. They crimped the tubes running into his chest and stalled again before disconnecting one, then the other. His body accepted the load. Ten seconds. A minute. Blood pressure was holding steady along with his heart rate. They all sighed in relief as one as everything went well. Feeling joy like he never felt before, the stallion finally tried to speak. “Th… ank. You.” The words were hard and he had to pause often to continue. A small smile stretched his skin as the doctors and nurse looked down at him with their own. “That’s what I wanted to hear!” the militaristic one replied. “Glad you could join us. Give us a minute to set you up and we’ll be tearing down the aisles in no time.” As one, they each removed a wire or tube from the stallion. With the biggest grin the stallion had ever seen on her, Lily stepped forward and pressed a button to tilt the bed upwards. “It’s about time you spoke! My, if you stayed silent any longer, I would have thought myself insane for talking to a mummy!” A small chuckle echoed between them at the morbid joke to which they could all relate, and the stallion spoke up again. “Sor… ry, Lily.” “Well, now that we’ve all had a few jokes at our patient’s expense, perhaps we can see if he’s up to trying a few exercises?” the doctor to his right asked, a bit of a smile still on his lips. “Ready… whe—” The stallion fell slack and the dreaded sound of a flatline filled the room immediately. “Shit! Lily, get the others,” the military doctor ordered as the two professionals got to work hooking everything back up. As soon as the rest of the team entered the room, they began different attempts at restarting the stallion’s heart and the auxiliary one to reawaken him. They couldn’t do chest compressions with the cage protecting the heart, so they used a defibrillator with smaller pads to reach in and shock it while starting the mechanical one up. They had to be sure they worked as a pair or it wouldn’t work. As three doctors forced his heart to start, the rest of the team hurried to reconnect the other components. Then, just as the oxygen pump started up, the heart monitor beeped. Again. Again, this time in sync with the auxiliary. They held steady and the group sighed in defeat. They all knew what happened and what it meant. The stallion would never be free of the hospital again. Author's Note Sorry for such an extended delay in getting this chapter out. I had planned on writing it in September, but I was in an accident and only now got situated to write again. You can check my blog posts if you want to see what happened specifically.
Cancellation noticeAuthor's Note This story was really fun to write, but every chapter became harder and harder to justify. It became this sludge of fun dilution or something. Every word brought me joy, but the overall plot kept smacking me up the head like, "What the hell you think you doing?" Enfan got me into this steam-punk genre, and I just really wanted to put my own spin on things. Below is what I had written for the next chapter, only for my head to tell me I'm an idiot for skipping so much plot just to get to the happy times. There really was no ending to this one. He got better through the power of steam and helped other ponies missing parts. That was the end goal. No real big bad other than his own struggle to survive, then get accepted by the community after becoming 50% metal and steam. For a little more info, click here. Cancellation notice “Vapor! How’s the ol’ heart tickin’ these days?” Old Pony Springs called as the bell to his shop rang and the stallion walked in. He couldn’t grasp why the townsfolk called him Old Pony Springs, as the pony sitting behind the counter looked more spry than a colt. Maybe it was the wrinkles beneath the pony’s grey eyes, or the thinning yellow mane, but his coat still shined with the youth of a younger generation, so the stallion gave up on that conundrum. “Good as can be expected, Twisted Springs,” he replied as he stepped around a massive ticking grandfather clock with a tock of his own. “This should be my last winding, I should hope.” When he reached the counter, the olden pony stretched out a dexterous hoof and opened the panel covering the stallion’s chest with a quick twist of a key. “Finally figured out the pneumatic formulae for cardiovascular and thaumaturgical circulation, did you?” Springs asked as he fished around under his counter for the winding key. “It’d be a real shame to not see you in here every few days.” “I’ll be sure to stop by whenever possible, my friend.” With a final twist, the clockmaker completed his winding, then removed the key and dropped a set of magnification glasses over his eyes. “Oh, I’m sure, I’m sure,” he replied as he used a small pin to slide or prod within the cavity. “Have you given any thought on how you’ll install it?” A wince from the stallion was the only indication the clockmaker had slipped part of his machined heart back in tune. “I was hoping you could assist me this time. After we worked together on these two legs of mine…” Springs’ eyes drooped, then. “You’ll be wanting to change those away from my designs as well, won’t you?” He asked as he closed the stallion’s chest and instructed him to turn with a wave.
Chapter 2The stallion had a visitor. He couldn’t recall if the visitor was with him now or had visited earlier. Ever since his failure, time stopped having any meaning. His struggles became nothing but memories as he shut himself away in his loneliness, but he had a visitor. They conversed for a time, though it was mostly her doing the talking. Upon reflection, the stallion thought he could have said something to her, but he couldn’t find the words anymore. She mentioned his condition. It reminded him of what they were discussing. She said she watches over ponies’ dreams, and how she hadn’t seen a ripple or tremor from his part of the dreamscape in months. At first, she wrote it off as a pony at peace. Then, she learned of his situation and grew worried. She mentioned being concerned at that point, now that she could see him. He recalled a sad smile gracing her lips when she proposed an idea. Two choices were given, and neither would end happily ever after. So, she left, asking him to think, to give her an answer when she visited again. The clockmaker’s gift chirped. She was gone, or had been gone for hours. It mattered not to the stallion. He brushed the visit off like he did to the doctors and nurses. But… There was that choice she gave him, one that could change everything with a single word. For the first time in days, he felt like trying. For the first time in forever, he couldn’t remember what he was supposed to be trying to do. The first thought to reach him was one of suicide. Certainly, the choice would help him with that, and he really did feel like ending his struggle, but something called against that plan. Something deep within him screamed for him to think harder, to do something else with this choice. ‘Gift’ was the word that reached him next. He was being given a gift, just as he had been given many throughout his stay in the white room and blue bubble. He was gifted with caring neighbors who pulled him from his destroyed home, with hard-working medical staff who slaved tirelessly to save his broken shell, with— The bird chirped again. He let his head fall to the side to view the contraption again. There was a time he tried to solve its purpose. A time he cared to keep his mind strong with puzzles and formulas. A time he still had hope. Motivation. He wondered if he could find that again. His gaze wandered over the sheet covering him, over where his bare chest would be, then back at the bird. Maybe he could… Clockwork wasn’t his field, that much he remembered. With the medical staff calling him Vapor Trail, he deduced his trade earlier. Was there much difference, he wondered. The machine chirped again, and he noticed the name on its clock face: Twisted Springs Clockworks. Wherever the voice originated within him throbbed. The name was familiar. It called for him to find the pony who made the bird. It wasn’t much, but he had something to do if he chose. The mare gave him two choices. She could transfer his soul into a ponnequin, or leave him to fight for his survival. If he chose to be a machination, it would last twenty-four hours, but the separation of his soul from his body would doom him to never heal. If he chose to continue as he had been, he could grow stronger, and she would grant him a small boon to increase his chances. The first choice was more of a death sentence, but he could move and do as he pleased for that final day. There were stories of some who took that option who then fought to survive because of the renewed hope they received, but most merely withered in their beds. She gave him a projected zero-point-one percent chance of living after the swap ended. The second choice gave him nothing new to see or do. He would have to lay in his bed, strapped to all the machines, for the rest of his days. If he fought, his chances were higher. With the mare’s help, they rose further. The chances of him making a recovery with this option were still a paltry fifteen percent. He recalled an old mathematical statement involving percentiles. It didn’t mean anything in the world of academics, but those ponies living day by day would know its usage. “If your chances are low enough, one and one-hundred makes no difference.” Still, he remembered being an academic, and how that statement couldn’t be farther from the truth. But if he thought about it, the scenario he was in now couldn’t be saved with a bit of mathematics. The way he felt now, he couldn’t see himself fighting much longer, if at all. With nothing to lose, or as little to lose as he could recall, he made his choice. He had a visitor.
