Grinding Gears

by Speven Dillberg

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy, Slice of Life, Human, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 3372

A dead man in a clockwork pony.

In a bout of boredom, Twilight Sparkle decides to make a clockwork automaton. When she tries to give it limited sentience, enough to follow basic instructions, she is more than a little shocked to discover that she has inadvertently put the soul of a living being within...

Now, Twilight has to cope with a living machine.

A silly little thing, not meant to be taken too seriously.

Published 2012-08-15 12:04:02 UTC
Last updated 2012-08-20 11:30:40 UTC

The Prologue

Is it what you were expecting?

“Honestly, not really.”

Two figures stood outside a small building, a funeral home. One of them was dressed casually, in jeans and a plain red shirt. His brown hair looked as though it needed to be cut, and his shoes were old and riddled with holes. Half of his face looked to be covered in blood and bruises, and his left arm was mangled beyond belief. Yet, he didn’t feel any pain. Or rather, he couldn’t. The reason for that was his companion.

This fellow was completely different. A skeletal figure wearing nothing more than a hooded black cloak, and clutching a large scythe in his right hand, he stood at close to eight feet tall. As Death, it was his job to ferry the departed from their lives into what lay beyond.

How so?

“I expected something a lot smaller. Didn’t think they’d spend so much for me.”

They truly loved you. A shame your time had to come so early.

“I also didn’t expect you to be so friendly,” the man added, turning to the skeletal being with a smile.

Death shrugged. I am known as the Grim Reaper for my duty is not a pleasant one. It has nothing to do with my personality.

“And someone has to do what you do,” the dead man answered. “Didn’t actually think the whole ‘skeleton with scythe’ thing was accurate, either.”

I am able to determine what you expect to see and alter my appearance to suit. Strangely enough, your kind’s fiction seems to enjoy describing me as you see me now.

“Yeah, I don’t know what’s up with that.”

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“Aaaand... done!”

Twilight Sparkle put down the spanner and admired her work. It had taken the lavender unicorn close to a whole month, a whole month spent working in her basement alone, but she felt it had been worth it. Yes, using gears and boilers was nowhere near as efficient as pure magic, but this was more a proof of concept. And she knew that not even she was capable of keeping the pony-shaped automaton operating all day.

It was an incredible thing to behold. Taller than her by around half a head, it was made almost solely from gleaming brass. Many of the actual mechanisms that allowed it to move were hidden behind plates to make it seem more streamlined. In place of a mane and tail was old cloth she had attached after dyeing and enchanting it. It was also as anatomically correct as she could make it, including a mouth and voicebox that was actually capable of speech. It could even see, through the use of enchanted glass in the same place as the eyes were on an actual pony.

It was nowhere near as fast or agile as an actual pony, but she was sure that she could improve on the design. After all, this was simply the protoype.

The most significant part of the automaton, though, was the large gem in its head. It was widely known that gemstones were capable of holding magical charges, but what she had planned was much more ambitious. She touched her horn to the automaton and focused.

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“I don’t wanna leave them.”

No-one ever does. It is only natural.

The dead man sighed and watched as a simple casket was carried out into a waiting hearse. His casket. “Well, I guess that’s that, then.”

Indeed. Well, I gave you your last request, now you must - Hmm?

A pillar of lavender light had enveloped the spirit of the recently deceased man. “Err...” he said worriedly.

What is this?

“What’s going on?” he asked, looking around in panic.

I - I don’t know. This has never happened before.

Before either of them could say another word, the beam became even brighter and obscured the man from Death’s sight. Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, it vanished. So had the dead man.

Hm. Well, that was new.

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Twilight Sparkle sat on her haunches, breathing heavily. The spell had taken a lot more out of her than she had expected. At first glance, it seemed as though the spell had failed. Eventually, though, the eyes seemed to glow with light that came from within. She drew a breath and held it, waiting for the moment of truth. A whole month of hard work was about to pay off, she knew it.

Eventually, the eyes shone bright enough to act as small torches. She frowned slightly and made a mental note to find a way to tone that down a bit. She watched as the automaton’s mouth opened, as though it was trying to say something. Her eyes went wide as she realised that it was about to say its first words.

“What the hell!?”

“Bwuh?”

Twilight Sparkle didn’t know what she had expected, but it certainly wasn’t that. The deep metallic voice rang through the basement as its owner seemed to look around in panic.

“Where am I? What’s going on? What are you!?” the automaton screamed.

“Calm down!” Twilight screamed back. She winced when her pet project lost balance and fell over with a tremendous crash. “Oh no,” she moaned, worrying that a whole month of work was being undone in moments. “No no no...”

“What the - !? Am I a horse?” the automaton asked loudly, the panic replaced with confusion. It seemed to be staring at its metal hoof, though the lack of pupils made it hard to tell. “Why am I a metal horse?”

Twilight was simply speechless. She hadn’t meant this. She hadn’t meant to give her creation true sentience.

“Oh my god, I’m a freaking horse!” the automaton rambled. “Why? Why? What did I do to deserve this?” Then, it seemed to catch sight of Twilight Sparkle herself. “What in the name of all that is sane is going on?”

First Steps

“Aaaaaaaaaaah!”

“Stop struggling!”

“Put me down put me down put me down put me down!”

Twilight winced as her telekinesis gave out and the flailing automaton fell to the ground with enough force to put a large dent in the basement’s floor. She hadn’t expected this when she woke up this morning. It was quite safe to say that her plan of “finish the automaton and get it to clean the library” was now not going to happen.

The brass pony picked itself up before losing its balance again, ending up on its side. “I’m just going to stay here until everything makes sense,” it said, sounding eerily calm. “I’m going to close my eyes and when I open them, everything will be how it’s meant to be.” There was a short silence. “I can’t close my eyes.”

“I didn’t make you with eyelids,” Twilight said.

“I can’t close my eyes,” it repeated. “I can’t close my eyes. What kind of cruel bastard does that!?”

Twilight flinched at the language her creation was using. “I didn’t think it was necessary.”

The automaton rose unsteadily to its hooves. “Okay, then at least give me some answers as to why God seems to be doing this to me.”

“Who?”

“God. Tell me why God put me in the body of a metal horse and why I’m seeing a purple unicorn.” The complete lack of emotion the automaton presented was starting to unnerve Twilight, and she resolved to find a way to make it more expressive. For her sake, and for whoever had the misfortune to stumble upon it.

“I don’t know who this ‘God’ pony is, or why you think he’s responsible,” Twilight said cautiously, content with keeping her distance from the clearly unstable metal pony. “Um, I think I’m responsible.”

The automaton stared at her. At least, Twilight thought it was staring at her. For all she knew, it could have been doing whatever it was Derpy was able to do. “You’re a talking purple unicorn,” it said, making it clear from its tone it didn’t believe what it was seeing.

“Yeah, and I made the body,” Twilight retorted, pointing a hoof at it. “Didn’t mean to make it sentient, though,” she added.

“Wait, wait,” the automaton said, raising a hoof as it wobbled dangerously. “You think you gave a machine life?”

“Umm... yes?” Suddenly, Twilight felt a lot less sure of herself. Just how did something she had just given sentience know how to talk?

“Woah!” it yelped as it fell over again. “Okay, I’m getting sick of that,” he muttered. “At least I can’t feel pain.”

“Really?” the lavender unicorn asked, her worries temporarily forgotten.

“It’s not like I have a nervous system,” it said harshly, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“True,” Twilight muttered. “That might explain why you’re having so much trouble staying upright, too.”

“No, I know where my feet - ”

“Hooves,” came the automatic correction.

“ - are, I just don’t have a sense of balance anymore.” The automaton tried to stand up again. “Well, at least I’m not dead.”

Twilight Sparkle blinked. “I’m sorry, what? Are - are you saying I saved your life?” she asked, sounding alarmed.

It seemed to look in her direction. “No, I was already dead,” it said, the metallic bass of its voice calm.

The unicorn tilted her head in confusion. “You were a ghost?”

“No.” There was a pause. “Maybe.” Then another. “I don’t know. I was dead, and now I’m not.” Yet another. “Or maybe I still am and I’m just possessing this thing,” it said pensively. “Doesn’t explain why I’m here, though.”

What resulted from that last, seemingly-innocent statement, was a half-hour long, mind-numbingly confusing explanation of how the metaphysical realm interacted with the physical, the incorporeal with the corporeal, magic with - and everything else just sort of became a dull animal bleating. Sadly, the lack of expressive features made the poor spirit inhabiting the automaton unable to display just how utterly baffled he was by everything. Every time he opened ‘his’ mouth went unnoticed as the mare rambled on and on and on and on...

“Stop!” he eventually yelled in desperation. “Stop, please! If I still had a brain, it’d be coming out of my nose!”

This was enough to shake Twilight Sparkle from ‘Lecture Mode’, and she smiled awkwardly. “Eh heh, sorry, I get carried away sometimes,” she said.

“I never would have guessed,” it said sarcastically, though how it managed that she had no idea. She was deciding more and more that she didn’t really like whoever it was that had taken residence inside something she had laboured over, even if they did have a good reason for acting the way they were.

“Do you have a name?” she asked, endeavouring to remain polite.

“Yeah, I’m Jeremy. Well, I was.”

Twilight Sparkle blinked. “That’s not a pony name,” she said redundantly.

“Well, I wasn’t a pony,” Jeremy said, just as redundantly. “I was a human.”

“Human?” she asked. “You mean a tall, bipedal hairless ape?”

“Yep.” Jeremy’s tone changed. “How did you know that?”

“We have stories about them. Myths and such.”

There was a short silence. “And things were starting to make sense...” Jeremy muttered.

“So how am I seeing, exactly?”

“Your eyes are made from enchanted glass. I’m not actually sure how they work, I had to buy them.”

“Okay, magic glass. And the reason I can talk?”

“A speaker linked to the gem that, well, houses your soul.”

“Which is in my head.”

“Yes.” Twilight Sparkle turned to the automaton. “Are you sure you don’t want help?”

“I can do this,” Jeremy said confidently. “I can do this,” he repeated, with much less confidence.

“You’ve been standing at the base of the stairs for five minutes,” Twilight oh-so-kindly pointed out.

It was now close to an hour since the automaton sprung to life, inhabited by the spirit of a recently-deceased man. They were yet to leave the basement.

“If you don’t move soon, I’ll just teleport you up here,” Twilight threatened from her place at the door into the library. “We don’t have all day.”

“Don’t rush me,” Jeremy said, sounding irritated. “I still have trouble walking, you know.”

“Then why don’t you let me teleport you?”

“Because I don’t want you to,” came the answer.

“Ugh,” Twilight groaned with a roll of her eyes. “And I don’t want two and half tons of metal to put an even bigger hole in my basement floor.”

Jeremy paused, his left forehoof hovering above the first step. “I weigh two and a half tons?” he asked, shocked.

“Well, closer to two point three, but that - ” she cringed when he lost his balance. “Okay, that’s it.”

The brass pony was enveloped in a blanket of purple light and, with a popping sound, disappeared before reappearing a moment later next to Twilight on his hooves. He promptly fell over. “Argh!”

“Come on,” Twilight said unhappily, walking into the library.

“Little help?”

“What?” she asked angrily, turning to still see him lying where she had left him.

“I’m missing a leg,” Jeremy answered, sounding as though he was trying to remain calm.

“What!?” Twilight rushed to him and saw that his right hind leg had been left behind. “Urgh...” she growled as her hoof met her face.

Ground Rules and Other Pleasantries

“What kind of idiot can’t walk on four legs?”

“One who’s been on two their whole life,” came the unhappy response. “And why did you do this?”

“Because I didn’t want you to kick me or something by accident,” Twilight answered as she inspected a bolt, now cut cleanly in half from the improper teleport.

“You pulled my head off my body!” Jeremy yelled from his place on the small coffee table. “You can’t tell me that this isn’t a bit much!”

There was indeed a disembodied brass pony head, everything from the neck up, sitting on the table. There was a wire protruding from the stump leading to a small gem that acted as a power source. Twilight and the rest of the metal pony were on the other side of the room, where she was digging through a small cardboard box trying to find enough parts to repair the damage.

“Since when was it your body?” she asked absent-mindedly, levitating a bolt and trying to get it to fit through the hole.

“From the moment you accidentally sealed me inside that thing,” Jeremy answered harshly, far from happy with the treatment he had endured so far.

“Technically, the only thing you’re inhabiting is the head. I could just leave you like that,” Twilight answered, now tightening a bolt.

“No no no no! I’m gonna go crazy if you do that!” the body-less head yelled. “I’ll be good, I promise!” he pleaded.

Twilight’s smirk was hidden as she leaned over to make sure the leg was properly secured. She probably shouldn’t have been so happy, but it was so easy to control him. She made a mental note to keep the threat of decapitation ready for whenever he became unruly. “Okay, that should do it.”

“Finally!” came the reply from the other side of the room. “Put me back on. Er, please.”

“Not yet,” she replied. “I don’t want you to keep falling over. Need to find a way to - ”

“Oh come on!” Jeremy yelled angrily. “I’ve been stuck here for a whole hour now!”

“And you’ll stay that way until I figure this out,” Twilight said, trying to remain calm.

“Twilight!” came a male voice from outside the library. “I’m back!”

“Who’s that?” Unfortunately, Jeremy’s head was stuck facing away from the library’s door, leaving him unable to see who was now opening the door.

“I got the groceries,” the voice said again, its owner obscured behind a large paper bag, with vegetables poking out of the top. The bag disappeared into the kitchen, walking in front of Jeremy. He saw the back of a small bipedal reptile, with purple scales, green spines and a spade-like tail.

“Thanks, Spike,” Twilight said, not looking from her work. She had a hoof to her chin, deep in thought.

“Okay, seriously, this is stupid. Put me back already.”

“Who was that?” Spike asked from the kitchen, where the sound of tins and jars being moved could be heard.

“You know how I was building that clockwork pony?” Twilight asked.

“And you remember how I said it’d be easier to just find a stallion instead of building one?” came the response.

“S-Spike!” Twilight yelled, her face burning up. From his place on the table, Jeremy laughed.

“I like him already,” he said happily.

“I told you not to joke about that!” the unicorn yelled angrily at her assistant. She turned to Jeremy. “And don’t encourage him,” she admonished. “The last thing I want is him ending up like you.”

“Like who?” Spike asked, poking his head out. His emerald eyes met the glowing orbs that were Jeremy’s. “Woah, creepy.”

“Says the talking purple lizard,” the disembodied head muttered.

The talking purple lizard backed away slowly. “Did that thing just talk?” he asked as he pointed a shaking finger at the head.

“No, it was the table,” Jeremy replied. “She’s not happy with the number of coffee stains she has, you know that?” he continued happily. “You really should clean her more often.”

This strange comment was enough to confuse Spike enough to get him to stop backing away. His expression changed from fear to confusion. “Err, what?”

“Seriously, Twilight, put me back on my body, this is frustrating,” the head complained.

Twilight did eventually reattach Jeremy’s head to his body. Unfortunately, she still hadn’t figured out how to give him a sense of balance.

“Why can’t I move?”

“Um, I don’t want you falling over, so I kinda... disabled your legs,” Twilight replied timidly.

Jeremy gaped at her. Or rather, his mouth hung open loosely as his beacon-like eyes stared at the unicorn. The general effect was the same. “Why did you put me back together!?” he screamed.

“Well, you kept asking me to, and I thought - ”

“There’s no point if I can’t move!” he yelled, his tone somewhere between anger and sorrow. He would have been crying, were that possible. “This is sick and cruel!”

“Twilight, just what is going on?” Spike asked, eyeing the bawling automaton warily.

“I’m not sure, but I think I put a dead creature’s soul inside there by accident,” she whispered as Jeremy continued to ramble.

“Err, what?” Spike asked as he scratched his head.

“This is hell, this is hell and you’re my torturer, you’re gonna drive me insane, I can’t escape, I’m trapped here forever, I’m - ” All four of his legs were suddenly enveloped in a strange, lavender glow as he fell forwards. “Argh!” He exclaimed from his place on the floor. “I can move! Freedom!” he yelled happily as he wriggled his legs.

“Yes, you can move, but remember that I can disable them again,” Twilight said threateningly. “After all, I don’t want you - ah! My floor!” she exclaimed as Jeremy picked himself up.

He looked down and saw that two and a half tons of metal impacting wooden floorboards tended to do bad things. A good chunk of the floor had been gouged out, leaving a large ugly gash. “Whoops,” Jeremy said, not sounding very apologetic.

“Okay,” Twilight muttered, doing her best to keep her temper under control. “Don’t try to move unless me or Spike are there to catch you.”

“I dunno, Twi,” Spike murmured. “He looks pretty heavy. He might crush me,” he said, eyeing the metallic pony carefully, as though it was liable to fall over at any moment. As if to prove him right, that’s exactly what happened.

“Woah!” the possessed automaton exclaimed as he was wrapped in magic and held upright. “Thanks,” he said shakily as Twilight put him back on his hooves.

“Just... sit down and read or something, I need to figure this out,” she said warily as she descended back into the basement.

There was a brief silence as dragon and automaton stood there, not sure what to do.