Piston

The morning was bright and sunny, as most mornings in Ponyville are.  Most ponies in Ponyville greeted the morning with a smile. Maybe a pony wished to not see the morning so soon, but were happy nonetheless. In all ways the morning was a new day. One pony however, growled as the sun came in through an open window.  His bed lacked a frame and was simply a mattress on the floor.  As the pony struggled to remove his covers he haphazardly managed to climb out.

Piston (the pony in question) did not typically hate the mornings. However, he did not foresee a day with new possibilities, and more or less anticipated a large number of events that would grind on his nerves.  The first of which was a window that should be closed.  As he walked closer to the window he could see outside to the dead tree in his yard.  This was not exactly Piston's doing as the tree had been lifeless for a very long time.  Typically the work of a blacksmith or a glass blower involves very hot fires furnaces and oils.  These things tend to disagree with nearby plant life as they often output harmful chemicals and gases.

Today however a gift of life blessed Piston's morning as there was a single bird sitting on the limb of the tree.  It was small and red. It seemed quite content with chirping a happy little tune.  Piston however, was quite content in snorting and sharply closing the window.  However, as Piston started to walk away his gaze was caught by a large blue feather.  It rested loosely in the window frame, only its meager weight holding it in place on the rough un-sanded wood.  Interested, Piston picked up the feather. It was much too large to be from any bird and was lightly scented as if it was sprayed with cologne or perfume. As he reopened the window to throw it outside he found the scent  that was on the feather was also emanating from himself, heavy and thick as if he was vigorously doused with the stuff.

Though Piston treated the encounter with curiosity, he found it to be irrelevant, so he continued his day.  Half asleep, he stumbled into the bathroom.  For a room of such great importance it was quite alien to Piston a common side effect of just moving into a new home.  Many of his toiletries were still packed away in boxes and it was required for him to liberate a towel from the bottom of a box labeled, "Fragile".  Eventually he was able to make his way into the shower.  As he looked up at the shower head he found it was corroded and slightly clogged with calcium.  Realizing that the pipes had not been used in quite some time he got out of the shower and turned the faucet on.

With a terrible noise the pipes spewed out a gush of rust colored water and corroded bits of metal.  The pieces gathered up in clumps at the bottom of the shower. Slowly they made their way down the drain after a while of running rampant throughout the white surface.  Once the pipes had been cleared Piston was finally able to take a shower.  As Piston bathed he felt an inherent sense of paranoia especially as he washed his more sensitive areas and took care of some needs best done in the bathroom, preferably in a shower.

Finally freed from the dirt oil and grime that is typically so deeply burrowed into Piston's coat he stepped out and dried off.  Despite the hot shower, he did not yet feel fully awake.  He felt as though there was a voice calling him back to bed, but he knew the cure for this.  Rummaging through the kitchen he found most the appliances old and broken but it was no matter, for he knew exactly what he needed to start his morning.

Carrying a package of vegetable noodles he walked into is new workshop.  He had inspected the place and actually did not have that many complaints.  As Piston was well aware glass and metal furnaces once turned on can never be turned off. This is because the components inside them would shrink and crack.  Luckily this set of furnace equipment, bellows and various other implements, seemed to be powered by natural magic. No doubt some form of solar power, feeding off the excess energy the Princess so generously bathed the land in.

Putting the noodle's water and vegetable flavoring into a small iron container he then screwed on its heavy duty lid.  This was not quite in invention of his but more of a way of making do.  He often enjoyed a hot meal and drink to start the day however he did not like to leave his workshop in order to enjoy one.  He quickly realized that by putting a bowl of noodles into a metal cup he could quickly heat them inside one of his hot furnaces.  From that day on, it became a daily ritual of his.  He drank the noodles down fast. Then he looked at his new home.

He was still very bitter about the move. Supposedly his old home was too close to a well-populated area and the princess was happy to pay for him to move to a more suitable location.  What he could not understand is why that location was so far away.  He pondered different possibilities as he left his home and workplace to get to know the lay of the land.  Though Piston was not necessarily a social pony he was above all a business pony.  By inspecting local farms, markets, and businesses, he could guess what types of objects the ponies would buy the most.  In Canterlot he made clocks, jewelry, and armor. He imagined that this would not be the case in Ponyville.

The first place he thought to go was the nearby farms. Though farm equipment is very basic in nature he wanted to make sure he was right in putting money into it.  He poked around the gardens and farms and manage to catch a glimpse of several ponies working.  For the most part many of the plows tools and farm equipment was as old as Celestia.  Seeing the ponies struggled with the outdated equipment was music to Piston's ears. Not only was it guaranteed that they would need to buy a new one, it was guaranteed that they would buy it from Piston as he had a monopoly on the area. Save that of the ponies willing to order from mail order catalogs.

Piston spent a great deal of time observing all the farmlands and remembering the roads along the way but, it was only a matter of time before his stomach began disagreeing with him.  Piston was not exactly a fan of restaurants. For this some explanation is required.  Piston likes professionally cooked food just fine, however, in Canterlot most if not all the menus were written completely in cursive.  A difficult art for most ponies but a completely foreign language to Piston.  He hoped that Ponyville's simple nature would offer a simpler menu however even that did not change the fact that excluding several occasions with family this would be his first time reading a menu.

Against Piston's normal demeanor of being very loud and aggressive at the thought of simply ordering his food he became very shy and passive.  He looked around all the ponies within the restaurant and for the most part they were well distracted by the music playing inside their brains and did not notice him.  He sat at the furthest table from everyone else completely alone.  When the waiter arrived he ordered the hot chocolate.  This drink he both enjoyed and found as the perfect hold up in order to give him more time to read the menu as it takes much longer to pour a cup of hot chocolate than it does to pour water.

Piston was well aware that there was no time limit for ordering. However, he did not like the waiter hovering over him and waiting for him to decide.  Piston's process of reading was that of a child’s.  Using techniques screamed at him by counselor’s teachers and many other authoritative figures’ pretending to care about his well-being he began deciphering the puzzle of this restaurant’s menu.

Piston could remember many of the Special Ed classes he had been in.  The only real thing teachers ever prove to him was how much they didn’t know what they’re doing.  For every student there’s a new challenge and a new set of rules that that student uses to help them learn.  For the student that sat beside Piston, the lines of words were often double spaced in order to keep the words above and the words below from mixing together.  For the student in front of Piston, the words were all lowercase as that student did not understand the difference between upper case and lower case.  Finally, the student behind piston in the special Ed classes often needed help deciphering the difference between numbers and letters.

All of these problems were different. However, the system put in place to treat these problems require them to be very much the same.  The same rules were constantly screamed over and over.  I.  After E.  Except before C.  Or when sounding like A as in neighbor or way.  (with the exception of half the words in the bucking language)  Either way, these rules did not very well help especially when they conflicted with the basic needs of the student, something Piston was forced to accept.

Eventually however his hard work at stalling the waiter and reading the menu before he came allowed him to order a simple meal of grilled cheese and fancy fries.  Piston never liked hay fries. However, the day he learned hay fries could be made with potatoes was one of the best of his life.  He ate his meal quietly and alone being sure to not attract any attention to himself.  Though many ponies avoided him due to the magical curse put upon him there was the occasional pony who wished to speak to him about it.  No matter what the motivation for this encounter, Piston avoided it at all costs.  It always seems like other ponies expect Piston to justify and explain everything he does which makes him paranoid and defensive. So as soon as he was able to finish as meal he paid his bill and slipped out the door.

Once outside, he intended to inspect the center of Ponyville before taking a more leisurely walk towards the lake.  However his intended plans were shattered when he heard a voice from behind him. “Excuse me,” she asked  'Is your name Piston?”  Piston sighed in frustration his attempts at neither being noticed seen or wanted had failed.  Disgruntled he turned around and asked the pony behind him as to what she wanted.   "Can I help you?" Piston groaned, hoping that this encounter would not last long.

The maroon mare caught up to him, tailed by a much larger read stallion with a green apple on his flank.  “Excuse me, my name is Cheerilee. I’m the teacher at Ponyville Elementary School. I couldn't help but notice by both the way you read the menu and the theme song that seems to follow you around that you have some rather severe reading troubles.”

Piston ground his yellow teeth together and pulled out one of his cigars.  He’d smoked many of them while walking through the farms, but it was obvious that by the end of this conversation he would need another.  Striking his tail against the ground, the tip of it quickly caught fire which he used to light his cigar.  With a flick of his tail it went out again.  “What of it?” Piston asked as he began smoking.

Miss Cheerilee was slightly put off by Piston’s abrupt use of nicotine.  However she soldiered forward and asked if he would care to attend weekend classes for adults.  "No." Piston said with an angry frown.  The local teacher tried to insist.  “Please Piston, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, many ponies in Ponyville take these classes.  Life can be hard without basic reading skills, and I’m just trying to help you.”

Piston's face turned red. He began snorting out smoke from his cigar.  He boomed at the teacher. “How would you know?”  He screamed.  “You have been able to read your whole life!  When I deal with this every single day of mine!  So don’t you ever tell me what I do and do not know, you bitch!”

“Hey!” Big Mac intervened as Miss Cheerilee retreated with eyes full of tears.  “There is no reason to treat someone who’s trying to help you like that, and there’s especially no reason to use that kind of language.” Piston was not moved by Big Macs words. “There’s no reason to be as ugly as you are, but that’s not stopping you is it?”  Big Mac kept his head held high through Piston's insults. “Very well, I see I’ll have to be the bigger pony.”  With no sharp words or rude gestures he began walking away, guiding Cheerilee along with him.

Finally left alone, Piston huffed and puffed smoke as he continued walking.  Each step of his grew heavier and his face contorted into a frown which quite efficiently cleared a path for him to walk through the crowds.  Piston mumbled and growled to himself.  “Stupid teachers even when I’m out of school…  Why can’t they all just leave me alone?” Piston as an individual was very uninterested and bitter to other ponies. However, this description was inaccurate to explain exactly how much he despised any authoritative figure given powers that he felt was undeserving.

As a child he often noted that much of his life was not within the realm of his control. Adults who barely knew him have far more control over what happened in his life. Even his parents have less control than some of these individuals.  Many school counselors would spend much of their time declaring Piston as a danger to other students, a claim he hated. Though in truth he himself admitted to his violent tendencies and wished for more control.  Of course at the wish for more self control he gained it.  One of pistons most prominent quirks, or buttons as you will, was when people with higher authorities refuse to listen to him about things that concerned him.

The art of reading was well known to be Piston's worst subject in school. However, as the genius No Pony Left Behind Act was passed this forced reading to be larger part in all other subjects causing the grades of those other subjects for Piston to be very inaccurate.  He was put into several Special Ed math classes, something Piston did not require as his brain was already very mathematically inclined.  He tried explaining that he required no math tutoring as it was only the abundance of literature based math problems confusing him and that the teacher saying, "Read the book." does not qualify as help.  However they did not listen to him, and he spent what he felt was wasted time in Special Ed math classes which he passed easily.

Piston had finally walked to the lakeside he was hoping that this would be a quiet and enjoyable time as he got to one of Ponyville's more natural sites to see.  Unfortunately he could not block out the raging voices in his mind.  He did not like the way other ponies treated him, and he especially did not like moving to a new area where so many closed to wounds from his past were reopening deep in his subconscious.  All he could think about was the words.  The same words he keeps hearing other ponies say to him.  It’s as if the words were flammable, adding to the fires of his hate for the rest of Ponykind.  Slow, help, lazy, try, special, dumb.  All the words spun around and jumbled inside his head until he heard something to break the silence.

It was an all too familiar sound, it was the sound of crying.  Though Piston was primarily a loner, basic Pony nature still shined through.  He looked around the lakeside, but he couldn't see anypony.  Listening closer, he followed the sound until it led him to a group of bushes.  Peeking his head around, inside he came face to face with a young crying pony.  “Excuse me little one but might I ask as to why you are crying?” the little orange blank flank crawled out of the bushes and stared up that Piston.  “I’m not crying she said” Piston raised an eyebrow at the small pony before pulling a tear off her face and showing it to the filly.  “You were saying?” the little pony bent her head down low and pointed off across the lake.  “Do you see those two girls over there having a picnic?”

Piston gazed over to see a pink and a gray pony sitting down enjoying a picnic.  As he squinted his eyes he noticed there apparel did not seem that a picnic but more of a fancy dinner party.  “One of them?” Piston asked.  The little orange pony pointed to her wings. “They made fun of me because I can’t fly very well.  It’s my wings, they're too small.  You’re probably going to say you know what I’m going through right?  That’s what all adults say. ” Piston stared at the little pony and said something very different than her hypothesis.  “I have no idea what you’re going through nor could I even try to imagine it.” The orange Pegasus looked up. “What?” she asked. “I said I don’t know what you’re going through nor could I even try to imagine it.  For starters I’m an earth pony, therefore I don’t have wings, and I never even expected to learn how to fly.  Even on the ground, I don’t know what kind of difficulties you would face trying to do something like flying, so even if I have problems similar to yours it’s impossible for me to empathize with anyone else because like it or not, my problems were different.  To say otherwise I would just be lying to you.”

The little orange pony was very surprised by Piston’s words as they were not what she was used to hearing from other adults.  “Aren’t you going to try to convince me that anything is worth a try and I can accomplish anything I set my mind to?” the small pony asked.  At this, Piston actually laughed. “No little one, believe it or not there are some things that are impossible.  Can you bring the dead back to life?  No. Can you move a mountain of the blink of an eye?  No so why bother obsessing over when you CAN’T do and why not focus on what you CAN do.”  The little orange pony was even more surprised and more interested in what Piston was saying. “What, you mean I don’t need to learn how to fly?” to her next question, Piston pointed at the lake. “Do I need to learn how to swim?  Do I need to be a carpenter?  Do I need to know how to make a dress?  No to all of those.”  Piston said stomping his hoof on the ground.  “The only thing anypony needs is to make themselves happy and to be good at something that they want to do.  And not because someone tells them to do it, but because you want to do it and you’re good at it. That’s all you need to learn in life, anything else you can work on naturally at your own pace and eventually you get it. Or, maybe you won’t. It’s not going to affect you that much to not be able to fly.  Just as nothing stops a blind pony from making statues.  Now quit this crying and go do something you want to do.”  The little orange pony, excited by Piston’s words stopped and looked back. ”But what about those bullies?”  she asked.  “Are they you? Do they control you in any way?  No. Then then forget about them and leave them behind in the dust. You have no time for ponies like that, you have places to BE and things to DO.  Now run along little one, crying in a bush is no place for you.”

With that the orange filly finally ran away, leaving Piston alone by the lakeside.  It felt good to give that filly advice, but he wished he could give himself the same advice long ago.  He began quietly staring out onto the lake when he noticed the pink and gray fillies bullying another small child from the comfort of their picnic area.  As the child ran away Piston thought to himself about what to do.  "Well," Piston said to himself, "I’m certain I'll feel bad about this eventually, but for now I think it’s time that I taught some ponies a lesson."

Pistons mind quieted as the ground beneath his hooves started to quake and shake.  Then from beneath the lake a bubbling mass of purple slime arose right in front of him.  The small purple mass was actually not very intimidating.  It went only to Piston's knee and seem to be made of the water inside the lake. “What do you need boss?  You haven’t called on us for ages.”  Piston rolled his eyes at the little puddle of slime, and bent his head down to talk to it more intimately. “That’s because I used to live in Canterlot, and last time I checked you’re not very good on large hills.  Now then I need you to do a little something for me.”  Piston then whispered something to the little pile of slime before tilting his head back up and pointing over to the small fillies across the lake.

Without any warning or signs a large wave washed over the little bullies leaving their picnic soggy and their spirits broken.  As they walked away from lakeside, Piston cannot help but laugh.  “Anything else you need boss?  We’ll do anything for you.” The small form of slime asked.  “No, no." Piston said, "That will be all for now, thank you very much.”  Before the puddle of slime retreated back into the water, he looked back at his master and squinted his eyes.  "Wait a minute boss, you got some magic stuck to you. How about I get that off for you?”  Piston thought about it for second and nodded his head in agreement. It was about time he knocked off this accursed music that followed him everywhere. “OK here I come boss.”

As Piston was washed clean of any magic traces left on him Twilight Sparkle was thrown back, along with five of her friends, all of them landing in a circle formation around a small crystal ball.  With a great amount of panic and surprise they all got back to their hooves as Twilight shouted,

“Piston can already control the Shmooze!”

(Edited by G3k0771)