Chapter II
The next day Steam was basically forced to work late because one of his co-workers, another pegasus stallion by the name of Left Hooves, broke one of the cloud making machines, again.
‘How that pony keeps his job I’ll never know.’ Steam thinks to himself as he examines the machine. He opens part of it up to see that the gears are jammed with, well jam. Steam just facehooves.
“How does that even happen!” He exclaims as he removes his hoof from his face.
After removing some parts of the machine, cleaning out the jam, and putting the gears and such back inside, he turns it on to see if it’ll start working again. Thankfully it did.
After turning it back off, Steam packed up his tools and decided to call Clem to let her knew that he’ll be on his way home home.
He takes out his cell phone and presses the speed dial to call up Clementine. The other end rang six times before going to voicemail. A little odd, but she may not have heard it. So Steam left a message for her anyways.
“Hey babe, I’m done with what they wanted me to fix, no thanks to Left, but anyways I’ll be home in a little bit, maybe even before you check the answering machine. Okay, I love you, bye.” He hangs up and puts his phone away in his saddlebag.
While on his way out of the factory he passes by the head weather manager’s office. He heard voices inside. This wouldn’t normally grab his attention, but when he heard a banging sound he walked back a bit to hear what was going on. He pressed his ear against the door.
“Now, I think we can come to some sort of understanding.” The manager said, sounding worried.
“Well that depends.” said a voice that Steam didn’t recognize, “Do you have the money you owe us?”
“Well no, but I promise I’ll have it soon. I just need two more days, three at the most.”
“I don’t know. Our boss is getting tired of waiting, and trust me when I say that Mr. C isn’t the most patient of people.”
Steam was shocked to hear this. He’d heard of this Mr. C before. He knew that Mr. C was a notorious mobster and one of Equestria’s most wanted. Yet, the thing about him that made him kinda more infamous than anything was that no one knew who he really was or what he looked like. Because of this, there were many rumors about him. Some say he’s really disfigured, others would suggest that maybe he’s really female, and some would even think that he doesn’t really exist at all and is just a fake figurehead to intimidate others.
Despite if any of that was true or not, Steam knew one thing. He had to get the buck out of there. Steam moved away from the door and began to rush his way to the nearest exit. He quickly looked back to make sure that no one saw him or anything, but while doing this he bumped right into somebody, dropping his toolbox on the floor.
He stumbles back a little and looks to see who he bumped into. In front of him was a tall and bulky grey minotaur with a white mohawk wearing a dark grey suit and tie. The difference in their height made him seem even more intimidating.
The minotaur looked down upon the engineer and asked, “Did you see anything?”
“N-No, nothing at all sir.” The pegasus responded nervously.
The minotaur looked him right in the eyes and said, “I don’t believe you.”
“No really I literally didn’t see anything. Okay I heard someone talking to my boss, but if it’s a big deal I won’t tell anyone. I swear.”
“Well we can’t really trust that. Even so, our boss doesn’t like witnesses.”
Steam jumped into the air ready to try to fly away, but before he could try to, he felt something smash against the back of his head. He fell to the floor, and the last thing he saw before sliding into unconsciousness was the minotaur and a red unicorn stallion holding a baseball bat in blue aura.
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Back at Steam’s house, Clementine was sitting in the living room repeatedly glancing between the clock and front door. It had been quite some time since she got the message that Steam left. Surely he normally would have been home by now.
She was getting kinda worried about him, so she decided to fly to the phone and call him to make sure he was okay.
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As a grey minotaur placed a tired up and knocked out pegasus into the back of a cart he heard a phone ring.
“Do you hear that?” He asked the unicorn with him, who was red with a greasy greyish-blue mane.
Said unicorn levitated their captive’s saddlebags, where the ringing was coming from. “I think it’s best to assume it’s his cell phone, Brass.” he said.
“Oh sure say my name out loud, Ro...”
“Don’t. You. Dare.” The unicorn said, knowing full well what was about to come.
“Rosey.” Brass said, sticking out his tongue like a child would.
The unfortunately named unicorn stallion glared at the minotaur as the phone stopped ringing.
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“Hello this is Steam. I can’t talk right now or I may have missed you call. Either way please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
Clementine signed and then spoke, “Hey Steam, ummm... you called a while ago, telling me you’d be home soon, and I’m just making sure if you’re okay. Please call me back if you’re not home by the time you hear this.”
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Back outside the weather factory, a third being flew up to the minotaur and the unicorn. It stood on two legs, had blue scales, large wings on his back, and long black hair tied into a ponytail. This creature was a gargoyle, and he was not happy.
He pointed his finger at the knocked out pegasus and said, “Okay just one question. What the fuck is this?”
“A pegasus.” Brass answered.
The gargoyle faceplams, “I know that you imbecile, but why is his tired up in the back of the cart?”
“Well, he was inside the building while we were and...”
“You decided to knock him out and kidnap him for no good reason. What the hell! How stupid are you two?! We can’t just do that to everyone in the area we do a job.” The gargoyle said in an angered tone. He pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger and mutters, “The boss is so going to have our asses for this, thanks to you two dick wagons.”
“Hey no need for insults.” Rosey said.
“Whatever lets just get out of here.”
With that the Gargoyle and unicorn get in the cart while the minotaur starts to pull it away from the factory.