I loved poking around places I didn't belong—it was not just my favorite pastime, I was also good at it. That finding and appropriating things at such places as I frequented also paid my rent and bills meant I could spend all my days focused on what I loved.
It wasn't illegal, kinda. The places I visited were always run-down, abandoned, and ignored. Like the building I was at right now. I looked at the door of the factory and laughed. "Master Lock? Practically holding the door open for me."
There were so many ways of attacking the entrance—picking the lock, using my breaker-bar on the chain, kicking the door in, but I liked the silly (and fast) methods. Taking two light hammers from my bag, I tapped the lock rapidly on both sides and it fell open. "Pieces of crap." Putting away my tools (and dumping lock and chain into my bag), I stepped inside.
"Freakin'—jackpot." The factory still had all its machinery in place. I could spend months going over this and taking it apart bit by bit for sale on Ebay. Rolling my shoulders, I pulled out my head-lamp and turned it to a medium-wide beam.
Most places like this had their machinery sold off to recover cash, but even in those there were still treasures. Here? Here was a feast for my pockets. First thing to check was power.
It wasn't hard to locate the switchboards on a place like this. You trace back the huge cables coming off the machines to junction boxes, then trace those back to the main power cabinets. The oddest thing was there seemed to be two sets of conduits coming off everything—one looked like regular cabling, whereas the other looked almost like small steam pipes. Ignoring the latter, I traced the cables along until I found the main breaker cabinet.
Factories don't use little circuit breakers like a house. Heavy-duty fuses that looked like solid steel cans sat in a line at the bottom of the cabinet, and I had to throw the heavy switches to isolate the circuit before I could open the final casing to put them in. Yeah, I'd done my research on this stuff.
One. Two. Three big fuses shoved back in and the mini cabinet closed. The lockouts on the supply switches would now be released. Input power switch on. Output power switch—
I swore out loud. Normally the machines in these kinds of setups are all powered down. I'd been hoping for lights, I got freaking Disney Land. The machines slowly shifted and clunked, and that odd extra piping seemed to tremble in place—definitely steam.
So this equipment was likely all so out of tolerance it was useless as is, but I wanted to get an idea for what I was looking at. Looking around, I spotted the power switches for the lights and a ladder that went up to an overlooking platform. Flicking all the switches, I was disappointed to find that only one or two of the big overhead lamps started.
Climbing the ladder anyway, I looked down. "Okay, normally whatever gets processed comes through on some kind of conveyor, chain, or something continuous. The end of the line nearest to me had some kind of fenced-off area with its own special lamp above it that didn't seem to be working. On one side of the area was a chain-drive with cuffs attached to it about every twenty feet.
Back down the ladder I went, and when I reached the bottom I turned for the dim part of the factory where that fenced area was. There was a marked safety area around the pen, but whatever was the reason for it I couldn't tell. Was it the old, busted light? I stepped right up to the bars at the edge of the pen—well within the warning area—and leaned forward while looking up.
*flash*
The light wasn't just broken, it was flickering.
*flash*
*flash*
I squinted up at it and reached my hand forward—trying to touch the globe.
*flash*
Toppling, I felt a little silly as I tumbled over the safety railing and into the pen.
*flash*
*flash*
*flash*
*flash*
There was something so fascinating about the pulses of light. They came about every second, and it was like—
*flash*
There was something so fascinating about the pulses of light. They came—
*flash*
There was something so fascinating—
*flash*
Clack clack!
That was odd. I'd been holding my hands out to one side of the pen when two cuffs came down on them and—
*flash*
I was lifted off my feet by my wrists and jerked forward. The light that had been flashing stopped, and my thoughts slowly started to stop swirling. "What the fuck is this? Let go of me!"
Struggling to pull my wrists apart, I guess I didn't notice where the cuffs had carried me until I was sprayed down with something that felt kinda prickly. The stuff, to my horror, went to work fast.
The soft fabric of my shirt literally began to fall apart. I gasped in shock, and the horror of my shirt literally melting off my body—exposing my bra—gave me the impetus I needed to seriously start struggling.
Swinging, I had to pivot at my wrists to get any kind of momentum, and in the process swung past the jets again as they fogged me with more of the stuff. My bra fell apart under that assult, and my pants started to weaken too (the denim literally falling apart at the seams).
That's when I saw the first glob of my hair fall to the ground. "Grr!" I didn't exactly have long hair, but the few inches I'd had were now melting and falling free.
More determined to get off this ride than ever, I swung as hard as I could and hooked my legs up and onto the chain that held the cuffs. "Ha! Got it!"
Residue of the sprays was working a number on my panties and my socks and shoes picked then to melt off me too, but the biggest worry was when my backpack lost its integrity and fell from my shoulders to the ground with a hearty clank.
"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. C'mon. What are you bastards made of? Where's the hinge-pin?" I was trying to get the cuffs to part when the chain slipped back into gear and pulled me forward. In the back of my mind, I counted how long the first ordeal had taken—being a factory, that was likely the longest timing of all the machines.
I found the hinge-pin, but without so much as my finest lock pick, I was not going to be getting it out. Not just wanting to give up and let whatever this messed up place do whatever it wanted to me, I angled my head to the side and tried to catch the end of the pin in my teeth.
The chain stopped, and I did my best to keep pressed against the chain. Turning my head back to look at the machine, I saw it was the first to have the steam pipe going to it as well as electricity. Movement caught my attention, and I looked down in time to see two long tentacle-things approaching me. "Oh hell n—"
Well, on the plus side they weren't some kind of Japanese cartoon maker's wet dream. They did however sink their needles into my thighs and inject something into each. Something that felt hot.
What else was this one going to do to me? Injecting hell-knows what into me—probably poisonous after all this time shut down—was hopefully the extent of it. The drug that was bubbling in my thighs didn't seem to be rushing through my veins toward my heart, however. The heat was focused just there. I tried to get a look at one hip, but my ankles twisted too far and I swung back vertical.
But, I saw my hip. There was something—like a tattoo—forming. Whatever was in the drugs they shot me with, either I was hallucinating or they had the best way ever to get a tattoo. On my hip, slowly becoming more and more distinct, was some kind of thundercloud with a bolt of yellow lightning coming out of it. It was huge!
"Look, I like tattoos as much as the next girl, but that's just about enough fo—" The chain began to haul me forward again, and in the back of my head my counting confirmed it was a timer. One minute per machine. Yay, small victories.
The chain turned a corner and jerked me right. I tried to grab for a passing supporting pole with my feet, but just missed it. The next machine looked ominous. It was mostly empty except for my upper body and head. I tried to judge it, but near as I could tell there were grippers on each side that would hold my—Sure enough, when the chain reached the machine, a pair of arms swung out and clamped down on each side of my head. I tried to twist and pull free, but all I did was pivot about by my neck.
A pair of further, smaller arms swung out and came toward my face. Each had a little cone with the pointed end aimed right at my eyes. I might not be a little girl, but damn did I scream like one, even after they stopped far too close to my eyeballs for comfort.
The end of the cones had a pinhole in them, and suddenly there was light pouring out of those pinholes. Rainbows of color seemed to melt through my eyes and sink deep into my brain. I felt myself go limp in the restraints and just stare into the lights.
Panicked thoughts were the first to go. What was this thing do—How was it inside m—Why'd this have to ha—One by one the light seemed to break up those worrying thoughts until I was smiling, calm. Whatever it was doing was better than any drug or relaxation technique I'd ever tried. Fears, worries, even minor annoyances just slipped out of my head. All my life I'd been terrified of spiders—not anymore. When I was a kid, I'd accidentally touched the hotplate on my dad's barbecue, but now it wasn't a traumatic experience—heck, I couldn't even remember it anymore.
I'd lost count, I realized, of how long the machine had paused. I racked my mind as the cuffs carried me forward, trying to remember how long I'd worked out each machine should take. An hour? A day? I smiled and breathed a happy sigh as the chain hauled me into the next machine. To my surprise, the cuffs let go once I was over it, and I fell into a hopper and down into some liquid.
Well, through some liquid. It was like there was some kind of film of liquid—like blowing a soap bubble—and when I fell out I was coated in the stuff from my toes to the top of my bald head. I landed on something soft, a kind of rubber mat.
Holding up one arm, I looked at it and watched as the film turned dark gray. Lifting my other hand, I tried to wipe the matt gray stuff off, but to my horror my skin felt perfectly dry. Dry and dark gray. "What the—" I cut short as the rubber under me started to move. Something in my head tried to urge me to get off, now that I wasn't clamped in place, but I couldn't think of a good enough reason.
As the conveyor carried me to the next machine, I felt my body start to—well—shift. Bones moved around, and my muscles seemed to writhe and squirm about under my skin. Anyone else would be horrified by the changes, but I could only watch as my fingers pulled together and my arm reshaped itself into a long, thin limb.
The next machine was more liquid. This time I was rained on, like a summer storm. It felt good. I lifted my head up and opened my eyes, staring into the droplets of rainbow-hued water as they fell down over me.
Stretching my arms out, I cycled them up and down a few times—it just felt right. When prickly fur started to sprout all over me, I actually let out a pent up laugh. "Just like my skin. This is pretty cool." But while the fur grew over almost all of me, it was the two parts that it didn't that got all my attention.
My arms no longer looked anything like human arms, and as feathers began to sprout, I realized what they looked like. "Chicken wings!" I fell forward and started laughing my head off when the water shut off and the conveyor moved on.
The fur continued to grow, and so did feathers, but it was two new growths that had my attention. Two rounded limbs sprouted from my shoulders and aimed forward. I looked at them, then my eyes traced upward to my torso. "Where did my boobs go?"
The conveyor split three ways, and just as I reached that intersection a pair of paddles pushed me down the middle rout.
I rolled onto my back and looked down my body. Joints and muscles seemed to move differently now, and it just made it all the more odd to look down my body and see a penis. "Fuck. I'm hung like a horse!"
Peals of laughter caught me up as the belt stopped again. More rain hit me, but there was something different about this one—it tingled. Then it tingled a lot more, and finally I realized there was some kind of electrical fault.
That's when the yellow spark of electricity arced down from a silver ball above me, through me, and into the belt under me. I shivered as the electricity buzzed in my body, but it didn't hurt like it should. Another jolt, and this time I just giggled. I reached up to the silver ball with my wing so that when the third came, it ran through me completely.
Plasma danced between the feathers of my wing, but I was perfectly fine. I laughed a bit more because it felt good.
The belt moved again, and this time I braced myself on those new limb-things and then stood up with my legs—back legs now. "Huh. This is kinda cool. Hey, what's that flashing…"
The flashing light, as I neared it, cleared away more thoughts than ever. I felt myself relaxing and calming down more.
"Thunderlane."
I didn't say the word. It just appeared in my head.
"Virile. Pegasus. Wonderbolt."
I tried to turn my head, but the flashing was coming from everywhere. Spreading my wings, I tried to climb out of the machine, but more flashing made my wings heavy, hard to lift.
"Strong. Brave. Masculine."
Well duh. I was a freakin' stud. Of course I was all those things. I struck a pose and lifted my chin. "Hey, when did I get a muzzle?" The muzzle in between my eyes moved with my words. "You're an idiot sometimes, Thunderlane. Of course your muzzle moves when you talk, it's your muzzle!"
Damn it was fun to be a sarcastic bastard, even to myself.
"Loyal. Weatherpony. Big brother."
Where was Rumble, anyway? I stepped out of the strange machine and looked around. There was a door in front of me with a note pinned to it.
Turn off all the machinery before you leave. Take this door to get home.
Huh? Well, that was easy enough. Trotting over to where I vaguely remembered the breakers were, I ran through the procedure of shutting down power in the factory and set the breakers down. "Damn, I better head home." Trotting back to the door, I opened it and stepped out into Ponyville.