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// Chapter 72: Thoughts 
// Story: A New Point of View 
// by Cyber V 
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“Wait, you did you what?” I asked in disbelief, wondering if I heard Subtle correctly out of all the hammers falling and forges roaring.
“I signed us up for the Iron Heart Tournament,” Subtle repeat what he had told me when I had clocked in for my shift this morning. “You showed interest in it the last time I mentioned it, so I signed you up as well when I signed up.”
I let out a sigh of frustration as I rubbed my forehead with a hoof to stop the rising headache. “Then can you explain to me about the noticed I found at station when I arrived, saying thanks for the donation and that my pay is going to be deducted?”
“Oh yeah, knew that I forgot to mention something,” Subtle said sheepishly. “For those that are participating in the tournament, a portion of our pay is deducted to support the tournament’s activities,  events, and prizes. But don’t worry, those that participate will also get a small compensation at the end of the tournament.”
“Subtle, I needed that pay so that I can finally get a place of my own.” I explained as I lowered my hoof after stopping the headache before it can form.
“I’m sorry Aceiro, I didn’t know,” Subtle ears fell when he said that. “If you’re having trouble looking for a place to stay, you can stay at my place.”
“No no, that’s okay Subtle,” I said, politely turned down his offer. “I’m actually already staying at the castle.
His ears immediately perked back up when I said. “You’re staying at the castle with the princesses? That’s awesome, but why would you want to leave then? It’s an honor that’s only reserved for nobles and ambassadors and rarely to others, well aside for Princess Celestia’s personal student and her friends.”
“It’s a long story and I’m not even sure how much I can tell, sorry.” I said, not wanting to reveal to much of my past as a former human. That, and to be observed for any problems, I thought as I gave a quick glance to the duel elements hiding as tattoo marking on my forelegs, primarily the Entropy Element. Subtle nodded in understanding to the answer, but I then saw a look of admiration in his eyes, as if looking me in a new light. I rolled my eyes at him, he probably thinks I’m some kind of secret agent for the crown… does Equestria even have secret agencies like that? “Well anyway, the reason I want to leave the castle is that I can have a place I can call home and I can’t get that while I’m staying at the castle, even if I am a guest to the princesses.”
Subtle nodded as he saw eye to eye to my personal philosophy just as Thunder, the zebra-like pegasus, walked up to the both of us. He said something in Latin to us, but usual, only Subtle understood what he said, “of course we’re going to get to work. I was just telling Aceiro here that I signed the both of us for the Iron Heart Tournament.”
Thunder looked at me surprised and said something to me in Latin that sounded like a question.
“No I didn’t, Subtle signed me up without my consent,” I guessed what he’s asking. Thunder spouted something in Latin angrily before smacking the back of Subtle head with a hoof, followed by more Latin, making me wish to know what he’s saying other than the few words I can pick out, ranging from jerk to stupid.
“I said I was sorry already,” Subtle interrupting his friend before any more Latin swears come his way. He looked back at me as he rubbed the back of head with a hoof. “How did you know what he said anyway?”
“I didn’t, I just guessed when he said your name,” I revealed.
When Thunder started to speak more Latin at me, I looked to Subtle for a translation, “he said he’s sorry that he didn’t catch on what I was doing till it was to late, and that you won’t be reimbursed unless you participate in the tournament to the very end.”
I sighed at the recent predicament. “I figured as much, well thanks for telling me Thunder, and Subtle, everything’s okay. I’ll just take me longer to get a place of my own.” This got me another look of disbelief from Thunder before turning his attention back to Subtle and started spouting Latin. I just shook my head at those two and decided to just leave before they break out in the Stooge act.
I walked across the indoor courtyard to my station, hearing the sounds of forges igniting and hammers starting to pound at metal as the day shift of the day started to get into the swing of things. When I arrived at my station, I made my pass the cold forge and towards my desk and pulled out a canister from the message tube to see what’s my quota for today. I was relieved that I don’t have a lot of complex orders to do, just a few repairs and a refit for a helm.
I gave the papers a quick sign to accept the jobs, but before I sent them though, I paused as I stared at the name of my pony form. Am I still Jace, or have I been completely replaced by Aceiro? I shook my head at that that as I placed the forms back in the canister and sent them back up into the message tube, which quickly disappeared with a whoosh of air. I’m still me, as Jace or as Aceiro, I thought as I left my station and headed towards the pickup station across the forge. I arrived at the station just as a line started to form with workers starting on their quotas and couldn’t help but feel lucky just this time.
After waiting for those before me to get their projects, it was finally my turn. I walked up to the counter and to the only diamond dog working here in the forge; Ruff. “Hey Ruff, how are you doing today and how’s the family doing?” I greeted the golden retriever-like diamond dog with a smile and was rewarded with a toothy grin from the bipedal canine.
“They are doing good. Thanks for asking,“ Rough answered behind from the counter as he turned a few pages of the ledger in front of him till he found my name. “I see that you haven’t been getting much requests as of late, is everything alright Aceiro?”
“Yeah, it’s just that with my reinforcement forging techniques, anything I’ve made doesn’t break that easily, so they tend to last longer and thus doesn’t need to be repaired as often.”
“Oh wow, that’s amazing. So how come you’re not being overflowed with requests then?” Rough asked with a tilt of his head.
“That’s because I’ve stopped doing my reinforcement techniques,” I revealed, which earned me an even more confused look from him.
“Why would you do that?”
“Well, if I continued on with the technique, I would be probably taking jobs away from the unicorn ponies doing the armor enchantment to make them durable.” This got me a nod of understanding from the diamond dog. “Also, as I said before, if more of my near indestructible items are out there, then that would mean that they’re won’t break as easily and thus no need to get them repaired, which in the long run would mean fewer jobs here for everyone else.”
“Ah, that now makes sense, but now the pieces you did make are going to be treasured. How many did you make before you stopped?” Rough asked as he disappeared behind the counter to retrieve my jobs for the day.
“About a dozen or so, but they’re mostly armor pieces.”
“Then I guess we’ll be seeing some future nobles wearing them as regalia or some other, huh?” he teased in response as his sharper hearing heard me over the raising sounds of forging as the Iron Heart started to stir and beat. He reappeared with a small crate filled with bits and pieces of armor and gear. “Then I suppose that they’ll try to enchant them so that they’ll last longer, or to do some crazy and random thing.”
“Good luck with that, for some weird reason; they can’t be enchanted. This happens with almost everything I made with the technique repelled the magic.” I said as Rough rotated his ledger and pushed it towards me to sign off the paperwork as he held out the pen for me to grasp in my mouth. With a quick flourish of the pen and signed paperwork later, Rough reached over and placed the crate filled of my orders for the day on my back. I then said a quick goodbye to Rough as a line started to form and I didn’t want to hold up anybody from their jobs that they need to finish as well.
I made my way back to my station and started working on today’s tasks, and luckily for me, there wasn’t much for me to do today, just from simple altercations of a royal guard’s sabaton, to repairing a few armor plates from a set of armor of a Pegasus’ guard. As I picked up the next piece of armor, I paused when I saw it as it brought up a faint memory. “This looks like a helmet of a…”
“Oh wow, that’s a helm of a Thestral,” Fe’s voice suddenly called out, shaking me out of my trip down memory lane. “I can’t believe you’re holding one.”
“A Thestral’s helm huh?” I said as I remembered the Nightmare Night episode when Thestrals first made an appearance, and the concept of batponies has been born because of that. “So Thestrals are part of Princess Luna’s personal guard, right?”
“Yup, and they also make up a part of the Night Guard, although they are rarely seen by the public,” Fe clarified some points.
“That’s what I thought,” I said, thankful that some fan stories I’ve read from back on Earth had some points right about these species of ponies. “So why are you surprised to see a piece of armor from the Nightguard?”
“Well, like I said, the threstal guards are rarely seen, that includes anything related to them, like pieces of armors and such.”
“But they don’t completely make up of the night guard though, right?” I asked as I remember seeing some guards patrolling the grounds that don’t resemble anything like the batponies, just an opposite color scheme.
“That’s right, most of the night guard is made of the usual unicorn and pegasi and earth ponies as there are rumors saying that there aren’t a lot of batponies left. So most of them are assigned to Princess Luna’s personal guard.”
“Most of them?”
“Well, there’s also another one, but it’s kind of silly if you ask me,  but the rumor is that there are secret groups under the authority of the Princesses that’s supposedly hunt down threats to Equestria and Thestrals make up a majority of one of these groups. However, there are no records to this being true though so it’s just a silly rumor floating about.”
“Don’t quickly disregard rumors, some could be true,” I said as I placed the helm down on the table and looked at the request for this piece of armor. Before I can though, there was a rush of air as a red canister shot out the income tube and into my ‘to do' tray. It took me a moment to remember the color system for the type of urgencies that the message network uses, red being the most urgent of them all and needs to be addressed immediately. I got a few reds before, but it’s usually for ceremony armor sets that got damaged.
I pulled out canister and popped off the lid, dumping the scroll within it onto my workbench, which I then unfurled it and gave it a quick read. I let out a sigh after I finished reading it and Fe must have sensed my annoyance, for she leaned on my gave my neck a small reassurance rub. “What’s wrong?”
“Just the main office calling me because of the Iron Heart Tournament and that they need to confirm some information,” I explained the meaning of the notice and earned a small frown from her is response. “What?”
“I just don't like how violent the Iron Heart Tournament is, but why are you joining it Aceiro?”
“Subtle was the one that actually signed me up without telling me, so I was pretty annoyed when I found out this mourning that I’m going to be in the tournament.”
“If you didn’t want to be in the tournament, can’t you just drop out of it?”
I shook my head at that, “I wanted to, but then I’ll lose some of my pay that I really need. So as much as I don’t want to participate in this tournament, I going to join so I can get my money back and finally get a place of my own to call home.”
“Alright then,” Fe reluctantly agrees, but I can tell that she still doesn’t like the idea of me in something that’s apparently dangerous and violent.
“It’ll be alright Fe, I promise that I’ll be careful in this thing, okay?” I promised as I gave her a small nuzzle to the cheek, which caused her to blush slightly at the show of affection. I can see that I had eased some of her worry, but I can still see that there is still a small doubt hiding in her eyes in concern of my safety.
I quickly tidied up my workspace so that I can quickly get back to work from whatever the office wanted from the participants of the tournament. I made my way through the Forge, being careful not to collide with any of my fellow coworkers that are rushing by, carrying or pulling carts full of metal or finished products to be shipped off across Equestria. I would have never thought that there could have been something like this from just watching the show, I thought as I followed signs that’ll lead me to the main office as I remembered what Subtle had mentioned a few days ago. The Equestria Games, hmm… that maybe is a future episode for a possible new season. I arrived around after the “MMMystery on the Friendship Express” episode and I think that was episode twenty-four of the second season, so the royal wedding could’ve been the second season finale from how big of an event that was. So there might be more “seasons and episodes” coming soon… jeez, I’m starting to think like Star now.
My train of the thought came to a stop when I found myself at the main office. I filed those thoughts away for later as I walked inside and up to the reception desk. The mare behind the desk glanced up from her paperwork, pencil freezing mid-word. She dropped the pencil and sat up straight to look at me fully. “Good morning Aceiro, how can I help you today?” she asked. I wasn’t surprised that she knew my name, because after all, you’ll kind of lose the anonymity when you’re the only Earth pony in the entire forge with metal wings grafted on, which frankly, I kind of miss the anonymity all things considering. “Are you here because you feel like vomiting, pain in your abdomen, experiencing diarrhea, or extreme lethargy?”
I shook my head at everything she listed the symptoms for Iron Poisoning, if anything, I’m likely to suffer from Iron Deficiency Anemia if I use my abilities in rapid successions.
“Good then, we just had our fifth case of Iron Poisoning come in today and I’m sure that there’s going to be more before the end of today. They think that since that they’re feeling great that they can just skip a checkup and be fine for the rest of the month until the come in puking the next day. Oh sorry, I’m rambling, so what can I help with you then?”
“I was called because I’m participating in the Iron Heart Tournament.”
“Ah, ok then. The lead supervisor is in his office.”
“Thanks and have a good day,” I said as I walked past the front desk and towards the back which has more rooms for offices, but most of them are nurses offices and sure enough, just as the receptionist said, most of them are occupied with ponies holding buckets looking very ill, or in a single case, attached to an IV that’s most likely a chelation treatment for the heavier metals if I remember correctly.
I arrived at the lead supervisor’s office and gave it a solid knock, which was quickly responded back with a “come on in”. I pushed open the door and there I saw the Lead Supervisor, a dark red-ish brown Earth pony by the of Flow Banding sitting behind his desk. His mane which had done it in a simple ponytail and let it grow to crazy lengths had spooled on his desk, while the rest of his mane that wasn’t done in the ponytail have been shaved off. Overall, giving me the feeling that he’s an equelivant to a Polynesian or some thing like that.
Flow Banding, or Banda he likes others to call him, looked up at me and gave me a smile. “Ah Aceiro, you’re just the pony I wanted to talk to.”
“What is it that you want to talk about sir.”
He gave me a quick wave of a hoof at the formalities. “Please, need to be stiff around me. Here, take a seat, I just wanted to confirm some information regarding your participation in the tournament, so it won’t take long,” he said as he waved to an empty seat in front of me.
I took the seat as he looked back at the paperwork in front of him. “Now Aceiro, the reason I called you is to confirm some information as well as to fill in some missing portions.”
“Like what?”
“Well it says that you’re an Earth pony, but what about those, um…” He trailed off as he motioned a hoof at a folded metal wing against my side.”
“The wings have no flight capabilities anymore since the incident, but I’m still able to freely move them though.” I confirm this piece of fact by shuffling the wings, the sound of twinkling metal was brief in the office. Imagine my surprise when the doctors told me that they had somehow fused into my nervous system and they confirm this by tugging one of the feathers, which caused a feeling of discomfort up my spine.
“Okay then, I’ll just leave that as it is,” he said as he looked back at the paperwork. He then looked back at me with a raised brow. “Now for the final thing; where are you from actually?”
My heart did a skip at the question in such a serious manner, did he figure out what I am actually. “Uh, what do you mean.”
“The thing here Aceiro, is that you’re clearly not from Canterlot for your accent doesn’t match here. It’s more northern style, so where are you from, Fillydelphia, Manehatten? Because there’s no information on any of your former places of living.”
My heartbeat returned to normal at what he actually meant by that question. “I’m actually from Trottingham.”
“Really? Huh, would have never guessed,” Banda said surprised.
I let out a small sigh at that as I recalled a conversion I had with Celestia regarding my dad’s and I background, she had recommended that I choose Trottingham as they had a city fire that had nearly burned down their hall of records, but at the process damaged most of their files and records and the process in restoring them is still ongoing at a slow pace to make sure everything is validated. With the Royal Sister’s approval though, it would make it passable without as much as a second glance, all in thanks for dealing with the Nightmare Moon incarnate.
“Well since that’s all I actually wanted to discuss with you, you can head back to work while I get this processed and you’ll be officially registered for the tournament,” Banda said as he looked back at the paperwork as I stood up and said my thanks before leaving his office. I made my back to the reception desk and waved back at the receptionist when she waved at me as I walking past her.
When I left the main office, I nearly bumped into another pony passed me looking very ill as he quickly walked into the main office. When he entered the office I can hear the receptionist started her usual greeting, “Hello, how can I help you today? Are you feeling like you need to-“ She didn’t get finish as the sound of vomiting stopped her midsentence and then soon followed by a loud shriek.
“NOT AGAIN!”