Chapter 6: Past Memories and Promises
"Would you care to tell me what in Equestria just happened back there?" a shell-shocked silver colored unicorn standing next to the automaton demanded after finding him laying in the grass and nearly having a panic attack at the sight of his leg and the already scratched and dinged up body of her wasted hard work. She quickly threw off her saddlebag as her horn quickly ignited and various tools wrapped in the silvery glow of her magic quickly floated out of her saddlebag at her hooves and drifted over Jace till they came to a stop above Jace's frozen leg. "Because I definitely don't remember anything like that in your blueprints," she explained as she started working on removing the leg's armor plating to get at the inner workings, but not before giving them a quick glance and wincing at the current sight of them. "And what did you do to your leg and plating?" she added, sounding a bit annoyed about the condition of her labor.
"Well you see Clockwork, before you had kindly woke me up, Karma gave me something that looks like a set of gears that he called a Key and that it's a source of my powers, and now that I think about it, what the heck happened to it?" Jace questioned the unicorn if she knows anything, but she just shrugged in response. "As for what happened to my leg, I told you earlier that my joints needed oil," he pointed out just as Clockwork successfully removed the plating off of Jace's leg and then reached inside to unfreeze it.
"A set of gears called a Key?" Clockwork repeated as she looked up at the line of tools floating in the air and then a pair of pliers and a wrench drifted out of it and into Jace's leg under the control of her gaze and resumed working. "Do you know what it unlock's and how is it a source of your powers?" she asked Jace as he felt something in his leg slightly give away to the persistent mechanic in his leg, causing it to kick up into the air and nearing hitting Clockwork in the face. "Oops, sorry, wrong set of gears."
"I don't know what it unlock's, but I think it created the sword for me to beat whatever that thing was," Jace replied as he looked behind him at the remains of the monster timberwolf that is slowly turning to ash as if an invisible fire is slowly consuming it.
"So wait, you're saying that it was this Key thing that created your sword?" she excitedly asked as she fiddled with something inside of Jace's leg and it responded to her fiddling by lowering itself to the ground. "Do you know if it could make anything else just like it did with the sword?"
Jace shrugged in response. "Nope sorry, I don't even have a clue where this key thing is now."
"Well that's kind of reckless," Clockwork commented as she stuck her head into Jace's leg.
"What do you mean by that?" Jace asked the unicorn inside his leg.
"A god had basically probably given you something that is very powerful and you somehow ended up losing it before you even woke up, that's kind of reckless and stupid on your part if you ask me," she explained as she pulled her head out of the automaton's leg. "I mean come on, how's that even possible?"
"Hey cut me some slack, I was just basically dumped off into this new and crazy world without even a hint of it, so I'm just running and acting on instinct here till I get a solid footing of what I am actually supposed to do," Jace clarified.
"Call it whatever you call it, I still think you're reckless and stupid." Clockwork said as her tools started to drift out of Jace's leg. She then raised her hoof and brought it down onto Jace's leg with a bang, causing a series of clicks and clanks to be heard and then soon followed by Jace feeling his leg unfreezing. "There I fixed it," she announced as she started replacing the armor plating. "But your joints still need oil, so be careful on how you move or you might end up seizing up again," Clockwork promised as she attached the last of the plating back on.
She stepped away from Jace as he started to push himself off of the ground and stood up straight. "Thanks Clockwork," Jace said, feeling grateful to the unicorn engineer as he stretched, but at the sound of gears moving and straining, he stopped and remembered what he is now. He looked down at his hands, remembering what he just did moments ago and that he's no longer human, but a soul now encased in metal, I'm not human anymore and I never will be again, he thought as he clenched his hands.
"Is everything alright Jace?" Clockwork asked, startling Jace as the unicorn's question brought him back to the world around him.
"Huh, what?" Jace asked as he looked down at the unicorn at his feet. "I said, is everything okay Jace?" she repeated the question as she pushed aside a lock of her golden mane, revealing the look of concern on her face.
"Huh? Oh, yeah everything's okay Clockwork," Jace quickly assured her.
"Alrighty then, just checking," Clockwork replied, however, she wasn't fully convinced of Jace's answer, but she decided to not question him anymore as she started to put her tools away, decided to let Jace to tell her some other time willingly.
As Jace moved around, liking the feeling of being able to move once more, he felt the eerie presence of multiple pair of eyes staring at his back, He looked towards where the feeling was coming from and there he saw a crowd of ponies standing there several yards away, looking frightened and ready to run at any moment. "Hey Clockwork, how come those ponies over there are looking as if they're ready to run like a herd of deer?" Jace asked his mechanic as he looked down at her and saw her putting away the last of her tools back into her saddlebag and snapping it close.
"Huh?" Clockwork said as she levitated her saddlebag back onto her back. Jace pointed to the group of ponies and they quickly responded to Jace's action by swiftly turning around and running away scared. "Oh," Clockwork hesitantly started as her ears fell down, now looking as if hurt. "Well you see Jace, the reason why everypony is scared... is well because of me."
"Because of you? Why?" Jace questioned. "As far as I can tell, you're not the type to cause others to be afraid of you."
"Thanks Jace," Clockwork said as she smiled up at him, but her smile didn't last long as it soon disappeared. "Well you see Jace, everything I make has a tendency to be dangerous," as soon as she said that, a panic look quickly formed on her face. "Sorry, I meant harmful dangerous, but you one the other hoof is that you're kind of, um."
"I get it Clockwork," Jace stopped the unicorn's thought process. "They're nervous because they think that you might have created something that's more dangerous than that Iron character and the super timberwolf combined," he concerned her worries. "But there's something you need to know," he started as he knelt down in front of Clockwork. "I always hated violence, so I try to find solutions without resorting to throwing fists," he explained as he looked at his hands once more. "But now that I'm some kind of war machine though, that's going to be a little harder to keep."
"Clockwork!" a voice cried out right before the mentioned pony was tackled by a fury of white feathers. "Thank Celestia that you're alright," Jace watched the same Pegasus that had insulted him earlier today, cry out in relief as she's now pinning the now stunned unicorn to the ground. "I just heard what happened from the others, are you okay?" Frosting asked as she got off of Clockwork, allowing her to pick herself up from the grass.
"Yeah Frosting, I'm okay," Clockwork confirmed as she fully stood up and shook some bits of grass out of her mane. "And you have Jace to thank," Clockwork said as she pointed towards the automaton that's still kneeling there, observing all that just happened.
"Wait, Jace?" Frosting questioned as she finally noticed him kneeling there.
"Hello Miss Frosting was it? I'm Jace," he greeted himself to her as he crouched down in front of the two ponies, making himself comfortable just in case of an inquiring.
"Clockwork, the robot you made just spoke to me," Frosting said in disbelief towards the unicorn mechanic. "And I think it just introduced itself the pony that you said you've been helping for the past year."
"Well Frosting," Clockwork started. "You do remember how I said that I have been working on a project to help Jace?" she asked her Pegasus friend, which she nodded in response. "Well the project I have working on is to give Jace here a new body and a second chance of life after he'd died," she finished, not mentioning that Jace had to make a deal with a god to get that second chance or that he wasn't a pony in his past life to spare the automaton of any questioning that might be coming his way.
"So wait a minute here," Frosting spoke, sounding as if she realized something. "The reason why Clockwork and I are still standing and talking to each other right now is because of you Jace and that body that Clockwork made for you?" she asked the automaton.
Jace thought it over before answering the Pegasus. "If you put it that way, then yes."
"Holy moly," Frosting said, suddenly excited as she turn back to Clockwork. "Clockwork, do you know what this means?" she asked the silver unicorn, but she quickly answered before she can. "It means Clockwork that your wish came true."
Wish? Jace thought as he stood up, feeling that he's no longer the center of the conversation, and looked towards the now stunned unicorn.
"How do you know about my wish?" Clockwork questioned her friend, her eyes wild open as if a personal secret was just told.
At this, Frosting suddenly became sheepish. "Heh heh, well you see Clockwork. I kind of sometimes overhear you talking once in a while when you're having one of your 'deprived of sleep state' that you're sometimes get in when you walk into my store." The Pegasus explained as the engineer unicorn let out a moan of embarrassment as her face is becoming red to match her current feelings. "Sorry Clockwork, I mostly tried not to listen, but I can't help it sometimes," Frosting apologized as her sheepish face suddenly became an excited one. "Now if you'll all excuse me, I have to tell everypony who'd saved us all."
Before Clockwork or Jace can say anything stop her, she quickly spread her wings and took off into the sky, and flew off in the direction where the crowd of ponies from before had ran away to. "Um, excuse me," a small voice spoke up that was soon followed by something tapping Jace's metal leg, creating an echoing metal sound. Jace looked away from the pink and white blur that's Clockwork's Pegasus friend and down at his feet, and there he saw the same filly that he'd saved from being stepped on by the monster timberwolf.
Jace crouched down to her eye level and said, "hey, I know you. You're the filly I saved from being crushed, am I right?" The filly nodded her head in response. "Are you okay, not hurt are you?"
The filly shyly looked away from Jace's concerned gazed and there he saw a tiny horn barely sticking out the filly's mane. So this one's a unicorn as well, he thought as she looked back at him. "Yeah, I'm alright, thanks to you mister robot."
"Please call me Jace," he suggested to the filly, which she nodded in confirmation. "Alrighty then. By the way, what's your name, because I was a little busy at the moment to learn it there and then."
"My name is Arcana."
When she said her name, Jace felt a deja vu feeling stir inside of him in response. "That's a nice name," he said trying to make sense of what he's feeling.
"It's alright I guess, but at least it's better than being called Magi like my brother," Arcana spoke her thoughts.
"There you are Arcana, I've been looking for you everywhere," a voice called out about them, causing Jace and the mentioned unicorn to look up and to see a white and silver Pegasus colt gliding down towards them. When the little Pegasus shakily landed, Jace saw that the most notable feature of the colt is a pair of oversized goggles resting on his forehead that looks like it's threatening to fall down over his eye at any moment. "I'm so glad that you're alright Arcana, I was worried that something might had happened to you when the timberwolves attacked."
"I'm glad to see that you're alright as well Star." When Arcana said the colt's name, the same deja vu feeling feeling once more stirred within Jace. Arcana looked up at the automaton towering over them and pointed at him. "I was just thanking Jace here for saving me from that freaky timberwolf."
Star the Pegasus looked up and finally took note of Jace standing there. "Thank you for saving Arcana's life. I wouldn't know what to do without her," the colt said to him. Jace picked up the gratitude in the colt's voice as well as a hint of something else that he couldn't place, but he didn't paid much mind to it as he stood up and towered over them.
"It's no problem, I'm glad to help in any way I can," Jace said as he looked up and took note of the evening sun in the sky, this has been one very interesting day, as well as very long. "Now I suggest that you two best be going now," he started as he looked down at the two foals at his feet and suggested to them, "Your parents are probably wondering where you two are, especially after what just happened today."
He saw the two foals nod their heads in agreement to what he said. "Yeah I think you're right about that," Arcana said as she turned to look at Star. "Let's get home quick, your mom's probably losing her feathers, worried and sick about you and I don't want to know what's going through my parents' and brother's head right now." She looked back up at Jace and added, "Bye Jace and thank you again for saving me."
With that final goodbye, she and Star quickly left him standing there as they ran off and made their way home. Jace stood there and tapped his chin as he watched the two foals ran in the distance, causing the tapping sound of metal on metal as he tried to understand what he felt from learning the two's names, like as if he had meet them before, but that there's something those two are missing. "I see that you've met Arcana and Star Streak," Jace heard Clockwork announce herself as she walked up next to him when the two foals disappeared from sight. "There's something about them that gives everypony around the idea and feeling that they're going to do great things."
"Why's that?" he asked as he looked down at silver unicorn.
Sensing him gazing at the top of her head, Clockwork looked up and met his gaze and answered, "well for Arcana, she would be drawing strange symbols that gives me and other unicorns shivers whenever we looked at them. While as for Star, he promised, or more liked vowed, in front of his whole class that someday he's going to 'fly faster than a shooting star in the night sky'." She shook her head in disbelief. "His classmates just laughed at him and his dreams, but he didn't let that get to him, because whenever I see him, I get a strong feeling of conviction from him, even astronomers swore that the stars were shining brighter that night when he made the promise."
"That's very interesting." Jace said intrigued. "But for some I was getting the feeling that there should be a third one." At his words, he saw Clockwork's ears droop down close to her head as a sad look quickly formed on her face.
"Well you're right Jace, there should be three of them, but not anymore. Aceiro, a young earth pony colt, had died in an explosion about several months ago at one of the town's furnaces. We don't know what was the cause or how it happened, but the whole building was nothing but a pile of charred wood and burnt stone by the time the rescue team arrived, so the thought of him surviving were pretty slim, however they never did found his body though." She looked away and gazed off into the direction the unique foals disappeared to. "So Arcana and Star, as well as Aceiro's father, are hoping that he's still alive out there, somewhere. But the rest of us just thinks that the explosion just didn't leave anything behind to be found."
These ponies acts and feels like a human would, Jace thought as he felt great sorrow for the colt that he had never met and just learned, as well as the grief from Clockwork. In fact, I think they're more human than a human. "Well, what's in the past is in the past. There's no point to grieve some more for those that already passed on," she said as she raised a hoof and wiped her face of any forming tears before looking back at Jace with a sad smile. "Let's go, I want to check up on a friend of mine to see if he's going to be okay," she then started making her way out of the park.
Jace stood there as he observed her. Maybe just a little more human, he thought before he started to follow the silver unicorn.
...
Frosting must have told most of the townsfolk about Jace and Clockwork by now, for when they left the park, they were met by a large crowd of murmuring ponies. As soon as they saw Jace's large automaton form standing behind Clockwork, they all fell silent as one. The unicorn was starting to feel the familiar uncomfortable feeling from their gazes that she had received multiple times whenever one of her inventions had run amok in town. Clockwork nervously cleared her throat before addressing to her friends and neighbors, "hello everypony, I'm sure that some of you might be wondering of what just happened a few hours ago. So if you'll take a moment, I'll explain-"
"We all know what happened," Clockwork heard a familiar voice announce from the crowd, "we just don't believe it, especially me." Clockwork then recognized the voice just as the owner of it stepped forward, causing the crowd of ponies to part for him; Taunt Line. "And I refuse to believe that I was saved by the pony with the glichiest talent in town and her freaky contraptions."
"Well deal with it, because you just were," Jace finally spoke up, startling the crowd of ponies.
"It could talk?" Taunt questioned as Jace saw him take a few steps back away from him and Clockwork, I guess Clockwork's friend didn't mentioned that I could.
"Yeah, I could talk," Jace confirmed as he stepped around Clockwork and towards the ungrateful pony, who's now backing up away from him as fast as he can, but he then fell onto his haunchs as Jace towered over him. "If it wasn't for Clockwork and her talents, she would've been taken to who knows where, while you and those that has the same opinion of her would been killed or being killed," he said to the cowering pony at his feet.
"Jace stop it," Clockwork ordered, causing the automaton to look back at her. "Let's just go, I believe he'd gotten the point," she said as she pointed to the now scared Taunt Line.
"Okay Clockwork, but just one more thing though." Jace looked back at the pony at his feet and lowered himself to Taunt's height and whispered, "If I hear anything more about you insulting Clockwork or her abilities..." he trailed off as he reached down and picked up a golf size rock from between the earth pony's front legs and brought it up to his face. Jace applied some force on the rock with his fingers, hoping to shatter it. However, there was a sudden cracking sound as the rock was suddenly pulverized into dust, causing Taunt and a few ponies, even Jace, to flinch. Whoa, that's to much, Jace thought as the dust slipped through his metal hand, but he was glad to see that the pony in front of him wasn't paying attention to him as his focus was on the remains of the rock trailing from his automaton hand. "Do you get me?"
A now pale looking Taunt looked back up at Jace, managing to say in a somewhat controlled voice. "You're b-bluffing, there's no way you're going to do that just after you saved us all."
"Are you willingly to take that chance?" Because you probably were there when I took down that timberwolf monster." Jace then stood up and looked down at the pony at full height. "So you know I can do it," he finished as he then turned around and walked back to Clockwork's side, which she then started walking off towards town as he neared her, compelling him to follow behind her.
When Clockwork estimated that she and Jace are out of the hearing range of the still shocked crowd behind them, she looks back at Jace and said, "Were you really serious back there?"
"Yes and no," Jace answered the unicorn as they passed by several ponies that he gave a quick wave at them and they hesitantly waved back at him. "Because you see here Clockwork, there are people back on my old world with that same superior attitude that that same pony has, which by the way, what's his name?"
"It's Taunt Line." Jace just shook his head at the name.
"You ponies sure do have weird names here," he commented, which Clockwork responded back with a pouting look.
"Looks who's talking, Jace is even weirder by our standards, for it has no meaning behind it whatsoever," she retorted.
Jace was about to argue with the unicorn when he realized that the ponies here in this world might have never heard a human name till now. "Touche madam," he admitted. "Well anyway, continuing what I was saying from before. People, or ponies in this case, who thinks that they're better than those around them, then thinks that gives them the right to step on them just annoys me to no end. However, he was right back there about me bluffing, because as I told you earlier; I hate violence and would try to find another solution without throwing fists. Heck, even the sight of blood makes me a bit queasy, but that Taunt Line character doesn't know that now, does he?" Jace said as he gave Clockwork a mischievous wink.
A smile formed on Clockwork's face as she realized what Jace had done for her. "Thanks Jace." However, her smile didn't last long as it disappeared and was replaced by one of concern. "Although I hope that they won't use that as a reason to dismantle you bolt by bolt, and trust me, they have done it with a few of my inventions before."
Jace just shrugged his shoulders in response. "What done is done and besides, I'm sure that you'll out for me like I did for you, because after all, it's what friends do." Silence immediately fell between the soul bound machine and the unicorn engineer as Jace and Clockwork suddenly stopped in the middle of the street, thinking over what he just said. They looked at each other with the sense of confusion hanging in the air between them, compelling Jace to break the silence, "we are friends, aren't we?"
Clockwork thought the question over in her head. "Even though I'm still a little mad at you for the humiliation that you'd put me through the past year, you did save us all of our lives and possibly risked yourself to be dismantled for defending me even though you don't know a lot about me. So yeah, I think you're friends, not the best of friends mind you, but still friends nevertheless."
"Well that's good to know," Jace said assured as Clockwork resumed walking, making her way towards a destination unknown to him. "Because I'll probably going to need some if I'm to survive in this crazy world," he added as he started following the silver unicorn.
...
As Jace followed Clockwork, they made their way through neighborhoods filled with ponies, some of them looking scared at the sight of the tall automaton walking among them following the silver engineer pony that made him whose reputation is questionable, but most of them approached right up to them and thanked them for saving them and their love ones before moving on with their lives.
"You ponies are sure friendly," Jace observed as a mother thanked the both of them as she passed by them with two foals in a baby carrier saddle hybrid on her back, Both of the baby ponies looked at Jace and waved at him, compelling him to wave back. "As well as a bit adorable. So why would anyone want to harm, let alone kill you all?"
"I don't know Jace, but that minotaur was looking for something in this town that must be very important if he's willingly, or desperate enough, to kill everypony in search of it," Clockwork theorized. "And for some strange reason, he thinks I knew what he's looking for and can lead him to it."
"Did he say what this thing is or what it looks like?" Jace questioned the unicorn, which she shook her head in response as they turned down onto an adjoining street, Jace's heavy metal footsteps causing the the ponies ahead of them to look back at them with wide eyes filled with surprise before quickly parting aside for them to walk by.
"He didn't even know what it looks like himself, for he had device with him that's probably a scanner of some kind to help him."
"So why was he kidnapping you?"
"Because whatever this thing is, it apparently emits a unique magic signature and I'm completely soaked in it."
"What's a magic signature?"
Clockwork came to a stop in the middle of the road at Jace's question, nearly causing Jace trip over her. She looked back at him with a look of realization on her face. "Oh, that's right, you're from another world. So you probably never heard of magic."
"Hey there's magic on our world, but it's either in fantasy stories or it's bogus done by illusionists," Jace clarified. "So I know of magic, just not the signature part."
"A world where magic is just fantasy," Clockwork skeptically said, not hearing Jace's question. "How do you survive if you don't have magic to levitate and move heavy objects, defending yourselves, or just to change the weather? You must be living like savages."
"Hey! Just for your information, my race is the most intelligent and dominate race back on my world," Jace said defensively, protecting his dignity and honor of his old home.
"And yet, you got yourself killed." Clockwork stabbed through his defenses and right into his dignity and honor. "And if I remember correctly, it was some by some annoying song and lack of insight," she added, her words stabbing into Jace's dignity and honor again before kicking it and leaving it on the ground to bleed and die where it laid.
"...Can we get back to you telling me what a magic signature is please?" Jace depressingly asked as he averted his eyes away from the hurtful unicorn and hung his head in shame and defeat.
"I'm sorry Jace," Clockwork immediately apologized when she realized what she said to him, meanwhile trying to suppress some forming giggles at the sight of the depressed machine standing before her. "Alright then, back to the magic signature. But first, there are some things you need to know here Jace, everypony as well as other creatures that's living here in this world has magic flowing through them, every single one of them different in their own way.
"Now I don't remember much about this subject from school, but I think that Earth ponies can extend their inner magic into the ground, causing the surrounding land to become fertile for life to grow around them very easily as well as draw magic from the earth, giving them more strength than a Pegasus or a unicorn. As for Pegasi ponies, my friend Frosting gave me a brief understanding of the inner workings about her race, that their able to get their inner magic to flow through them and into their wings, allowing them to fly as well as interact with clouds and the weather."
"Let me guess here, Pegasi are the speed demons on this world because their able to draw magic out of the air like an Earth pony on solid ground," Jace guessed and Clockwork nodded in response.
"Yeah, you're right. In fact, there's this one Pegasus that was able to go so fast, she broke the sound barrier and somehow the light spectrum, which created a rare occurrence called the sonic rainboom, and so far she has been the only one to do it. Well the princesses could possibly do it easily though, but hey, it's a big thing since it was a normal Pegasus that did it."
"Princesses?"
"I'll get to that later, so for now just wait." Clockwork filled her lungs with a deep breath of air before continuing with her explanatory session to Jace. "Now for unicorn, like me," she emphasized as she tapped her horn with a hoof. "Are unfortunately not the strongest or fastest ponies out of the three races, but we are the only ones able to bring out our inner magic into the physical world around us and bend it to our will. Although I've read and heard that deer are able to use magic from their antlers, but that's kind of hard to prove due to the fact that deer are nomadic and don't stay in one place for long, especially around towns and cities."
Deer could talk and use magic here too? This is a crazy world I've landed in! Jace thought as Clockwork resumed talking. "Now, not all unicorns' magic, as well as Earth and Pegasi ponies, are not the same even though if two ponies are from the same race. They all defer in ranges of strength and type of talent they have, for example; one Pegasus will be faster than anypony while a same Pegasus of the same build and gender might be a weak flyer, but has a talent that could make up for that weakness that makes that pony unique in her or his own way.
"Unicorn magic is a little more tricky to explain, but I'll try my best," Clockwork warned Jace. "Unicorns' inner magic matches to the pony's strength of will and strength of their talents, as well as appear in the color of the unicorn's aura." Her horn glowed in a silvery light of her magic as a series of tools floated out of her bag and started to circle around the caster. "On rare occasions, a unicorn's aura will change in color or strength if something life changing happened to the caster, but that rarely happens." Her tools started to float back into her saddlebag. "Now this is where magic signatures comes in, because you see here, all magic leaves some residue or print behind as a result since unicorns can't be a full hundred percent efficient in casting spells, but they can work on it to be as close to a hundred efficient when casting so that they leave very little of their signatures behind."
"Ah, so it's like a fingerprint then," Jace compared as he understood what Clockwork is saying.
"A fingerprint?" Clockwork questioned as she gave Jace a confused look that's being accompanied by a slight tilt of her head.
"Oh right, you ponies don't have fingers. So you wouldn't know what a fingerprint is then," Jace said, suppressing the urge to slap himself for missing the one obvious fact about ponies; no hands, just hooves. "Alright, a fingerprint is a tiny print left behind by fingers like these," he said as he crouched down and held out a hand in front of Clockwork, spreading out his fingers for her to see, which she raised an eyebrow at the sight of it, causing Jace to suppress another urge to slap himself with the same hand for not acknowledging the fact that he's no longer human anymore.
"However, since it appears that I'm now a machine and not made out of flesh and blood anymore; I don't have them anymore to show you," he said as he stood up, feeling slightly embarrassed at what he just done. "But they're same and are filled with spirals, loops, waves, and on some rare cases hook shapes, creating a unique print that no two are the same, which everyone back on my world had ten of."
"That's very interesting. So as I was saying from earlier, whatever this thing is that Iron was looking for, it must gives off a lot of magic signature to coat me in it for Iron trying to pony-nap and kill everypony here in Ironwood Falls."
"And you have absolutely no idea what this thing is?" Jace inquired, which Clockwork shook her head in response.
"Not a clue, but I think that there's a certain somepony I know that might knows something of what's going on here though," Clockwork said as she turned around and walked up to a building that Jace had unaware followed the mare to. When the unicorn walked through the double doors and closed behind her, Jace saw the familiar red plus sign painted in the middle of the doors.
"Oh great, a hospital. I don't like hospitals," Jace shuddered as he ducked down and followed after Clockwork through the doors.
...
Clockwork breathed in the smell of disinfect and rubbing alcohol as she walked down the halls of the hospital, passing by doctors and nurses as they rushed past her and a bowing automaton to tend to patients that had arrived that evening. "Move aside!" a voice called out from behind the two, causing them to quickly press themselves to the nearest wall just in time for a group of ponies rushing past them, wearing the traditional white coats that doctors wear, pushing a trolley with a pony on it that's covered in scratches and teeth marks. "Quickly get this one taken care of," one of the doctors ordered. "We still have others more injured than this one that we need to get, blasted those darn timberwolves." The doctor and the others quickly soon vanished out of Clockwork's sight as they turned down another hallway, leaving them and a few other ponies alone in the hall.
"I'm sorry for all of this mess." Clockwork was surprised to hear Jace apologizing for some reason, causing the unicorn to look back at the automaton to see him looking down at the ground as if he's the one that caused those pony's injuries.
"Why are you apologizing Jace, you're not the blame for all of this?" Clockwork questioned as she turned around and stepped into Jace's view of sight. "It was Iron and his timberwolves, not you."
"Yeah, but if I had been faster at destroying those timberwolves and stopping that minotaur, many or maybe none of you ponies wouldn't have been so seriously injured."
"But it's thank to you though that this is the only thing that everything had gotten from that frightening situation," Clockwork pointed out. "So if it wasn't for you, everypony would have died while I would have been taken to who knows where."
"So I guess that if it wasn't for you building my body and me stopping that minotaur, there wouldn't be a... What did you call this town, Ironwood Falls?" Clockwork nodded her head in response. "Then I guess that if it wasn't for us, Ironwood Falls wouldn't be on your maps anymore."
"It isn't even on our maps to begin with in the first place"
"Huh?"
"I'll explain later," Clockwork promised. "Now come on, cheer up, because it's a bit freaky for me to see a depressed looking machine."
"Then it'll be probably even more freaky for you if you'd somehow met Marvin." Jace chuckled at his joke and then noticed the confused look on Clockwork's face as she stared at him. "Err, it's a reference joke about a character from my world," he explained to her. Clockwork just shook her head at him.
"Your world sounds just plain crazy," she stated.
Says the mythical creature in front of me, Jace thought as Clockwork removed herself from Jace's face and started making her way down the hall, making the decision for Jace to continue following after her down the halls of the hospital. Clockwork made her way down the hallway, glancing around till she spotted a tired looking mare sitting behind a desk, wearing a small hat with her mane done into a bun behind it, a traditional look that singles her out from others that are not part of the hospital staff workers. "Um, excuse me nurse," Clockwork started as she walked up to the desk, gaining the nurse's attention on the other side. "I was wondering if you could possibly help me to find somepony."
"Sure..." the nurse started before noticing Jace's mechanized form standing behind the gold and silver unicorn. "Um..."
Sensing the nurse's hesitation, she followed the nurse's gaze back to Jace. "Oh, don't worry about him, he isn't a danger to anypony," Clockwork assured the nurse as she looked back at the mare behind the desk. "In fact, he's really friendly."
Discerning what Clockwork is trying to do for him, Jace gave the nurse a wave and greeted her, "Hi, nice to meet you." She responded back with a small unsure wave of her own, looking as if unsure of what to say.
"Well anyway, could you help me help find a certain somepony please?" Clockwork repeated her question, shaking the nurse's attention away from Jace and back to her.
"Oh yeah, sure." The nurse reaches behind the desk and pulls out a clipboard from the other side. Clockwork took note of the small stack of papers attached to the clipboard, there were that many? "What is the name as well as race of the pony you're looking for?"
"He's name's Archive; and he's an Earth pony."
When Clockwork supplied the name of her friend to the nurse, she started to flip through the sheets of paper of the clipboard as she muttered the name under her breath as the rest of the noises of the hospital slowly drifted into the background until the nurse came to a stop on a single page near the end. "Ah, here we are Archive the Earth pony archivist." The then nurse peered closer to the clipboard and read something under her breath that Clockwork or Jace couldn't hear. She glanced up and back at Clockwork. "You wouldn't happened to be Clockwork now, would you?"
"Yeah, I'm Clockwork." Clockwork gave the nurse a puzzled look. "Why you asking?"
"There's a note here saying that if anypony should be looking for this patient, I should ask if they're Clockwork." The nurse then placed down the clipboard before she pushed away from the desk and got out of the chair and stepped around the desk and stood in front of Clockwork and Jace. "If yes, I'm to immediately guide the visitor Clockwork-," she took a quick glance upward towards Jace, "-and any others that might be with her. So if you'll be so kind, please follow me," the nurse instructed before turning around and started making her way down the hall.
As the nurse made her way down the hall, Clockwork looked up at Jace and found him looking back at her. "Don't look at me, I got nothing." They heard a throat being cleared, causing the two friends to look down the hall to see an impatient looking nurse watching them as she had stopped a little away down the hall. I don't know what's going on here, but I want answers, Clockwork thought as she started walking with Jace following close behind her. The nurse faced forward and resumed walking down the hall with the two friends now in tow.
Clockwork and Jace followed the nurse down the hall, up a couple flights of stairs and down some more hallways, all the while passing by other doctors and nurses with patients whom had momentarily stopped in what they're doing to watch Jace walk by them before resuming back to their tasks. The nurse finally came to a stop at a non-descriptive door and turned around to face Clockwork and Jace. "Here you are," the nurse started as she pointed at the door, the only thing making it stand out from the others is a golden plaque with "C5" written on it that's hanging on it. "But please, for your friend's health, don't take too long with him, because he was seriously injured when they brought him in and still on intense care watch. So if he's going to make a full recovery, he'll need rest and peace," the nurse informed them before walking past them, possibly to return to her original job.
Clockwork stepped up to the pristine white door of "C5" and looked at it, feeling as if that whatever is behind the door, its holding the answers to her questions. Which it might does, Clockwork thought as she raised a hoof and placed it on the doorknob. "So who's Archive?" she heard Jace asked before she could open the door as he stepped up next to her.
She gave him a sideways glance. "Archive's a close friend of mine that Iron had seriously injured for information when he couldn't find what he was looking for at the library, but Archive told me to run instead when he saw me then answering Iron."
"So you think he might knows something of what's going on then."
"Or that he could've been more concern for my safety, but I hope that he does might though, because I don't know what to do next if he really doesn't know anything," Clockwork voiced her worries as she turn her eyes back to the door and took a deep breath before saying, "well, here goes everything." She then turns the knob and pushed open the door before walking through it to the other side.
When Clockwork entered the hospital room, she was surprised to see that she wasn't the only visitor, for standing there next to the bed containing a heavily bandaged Archive is the ironmonger Forge and her Pegasus friend Frosting. "What are you all doing here?"
Instead of answering her, Forge moved from Archive's bedside and walked towards her, his limp slightly more pronounced, making Clockwork to believe that he's been using his favored leg more often than usual. He came to a stop as he stood in front of her, where he then spoke. "There's something we want to talk about with you Clockwork."
Before Clockwork can ask what it is, there was a commotion behind her. She looked back just in time to Jace bang his head into the top of the doorway. "Jeez," Jace said as he removed his face from the frame and ducked down even more to fit through the door. "You ponies sure have small doors," he said as he crouched into the room. "Or maybe it's because I'm taller than you ponies." He then became silent as he finally noticed that Clockwork wasn't alone in the room.
Everypony looked at Jace and him back at them, the sound of the heart monitor in the room being the only thing to be heard. "Forge," a voice wheezed, causing everypony and automaton to look towards the occupant of the bed. "Step aside, there's something that she's needs to know," Archive managed to say before a coughing spell fell on him.
Forge stepped aside to allow the unicorn to pass as she walked passed him and towards the injured Archive. When she came close to her aged friend, she saw that Iron must have done more damage than she originally thought, for Archive's face was heavily covered in bandages and his left hind leg is in a cast. "What is it that I have to know Archive?"
"Clockwork, because of what I've heard of what you've done today from Frosting," he started as he nodded towards Jace at the other side of the room. "I'm afraid that we all have failed our promise in trying to keep you safe."
Clockwork was shocked as she stood there after hearing what Archive said, trying to make sense of what he just said. "What do you mean that you all failed to keep me safe, why would you or any of you make promise like that anyway, why did I needed to be kept safe anyway?" Clockwork questioned everypony as she looked at her childhood neighbors and friends, feeling uncomfortable and upset about the whole situation she's in. "Who made you make that promise to anyway and for what reason?" Clockwork finished the last question in a scream as the stress of the situation and the stress from earlier today finally broke down her mental barriers.
"It was your mother Clockwork."
Clockwork's frustration and stress disappeared when she heard Forge answer her. She stood there for a few moments before her mind registered what he finally said as she looked at him and saw that Forge has a sad look on his face while taking note that Jace had at some point slipped out of the room unnoticed. She looked away from the ironmonger and to Frosting and Archive, both with the same sad look on their faces as well. "My mom?"
"She made each and every one of us promise something to her in keeping you safe and protected," Frosting explained as she looked up and met Clockwork's gaze.
"Protect me, protect me from what?"
"We don't know," Archive answered this time. "Before she left, all she told me was that I must keep everything that involves anything with engineering away from you. So she requested for me to move everything involving engineering to the out of the way part of the library so that you wouldn't be drawn to it and discover your cutie mark and your talent."
At the mention of her cutie mark, Clockwork took a glance at the twin pair of gears linking each other that adorn each of her flanks. "Wait a minute," Clockwork started as she had a sudden realization when she took note of Archive's words as she looked back at him. "How could've my mom knew what my talent was going to be? It's impossible to know one's destiny before it's discovered."
"That's what I thought too as well and so I didn't follow up on her request, but on the day she left, you came to the library and started browsing around for something to read." Archive took a breath to help steady himself. "I was surprised to see you come back with a book about engines and how they worked, that is when your mother's words came true. So I tried to rectify what I failed to do, but it was already too late."
Clockwork remembered that day as if it was just yesterday; she had only been a filly with no cutie mark back then and had just gotten out of school and was waiting there for her mom to pick her up so they can walk home together. However, after getting tired of waiting for hours since the last pony had left the schoolhouse, she had started making her way back home alone, but along the way she stopped by the library because she gotten a feeling to go and explore it. Clockwork remembered how she walked down the main hall of bookcases, that at the time had felt immense to her due to her small size, until she came across an isle that said "Engineering" on the sign and felt excited for some reason at that moment when she started walking down it and came across the book that Archive mentioned, and now that she thinks about, when she'd brought the book to Archive to check it out, he had a surprised look on his face when he saw it. Clockwork quickly shook her head, not wanting to descend any farther on that particular memory.
She looked up from Archive and towards her childhood friend. "And you were on it as well?" Clockwork asked the Pegasus, feeling betrayed by her best and closest friend. The pink and white Pegasus nodded in response. "Then how come you didn't tell me anything of all of this at all?"
"I wanted to Clockwork, I really did," Frosting said, sounding as if the secret had been hurting her all of this time. "But your mom made me promise not to say anything of this to you and to be by your side when you need me."
"I thought we were friends, because friends don't do this to their friends." Clockwork's eyes are now filled with tears of anger by the deceit of her friend.
"Clockwork, please calm down. She didn't have any choice," Forge said to her, trying to calm the angered unicorn as he limped to her side. "Like Frosting here, we wanted to tell you, we really did, but we couldn't tell you anything if we were to keep you safe."
"Keep me safe from exactly what though?" Clockwork angrily questioned as she quickly stepped around him as soon as he'd gotten near her. "And what's your role in all of this?"
"You wouldn't understand if I told you Clockwork," Forge said to her as he looked back at her.
"Try me," the unicorn challenged him. "Because I've already seen some crazy things that just happened today."
The earth pony let out a sigh. "I was to discourage you of your talents should you happened to discover it. So I would once in a while tamper with a part or two whenever you would request something at the forge to cause something to go wrong in your inventions." When he said those things, it was as if a veil was lifted away from Clockwork's mind as she recounted all of her past failed creations and their causes; a stripped bolt and nut here and there, a strained piece of metal, an improperly forged spring coil.
"You're willingly to put yourself in danger from your tampering, just so that you can keep a promise you made to my mom." Clockwork was bewildered at the danger the ironmonger was willingly to put himself through, causing her to forget about her anger to her childhood friends and neighbors. "Why?"
"This is where you might not understand," Forge said to her, now looking as if he's reliving a particular memory. "Because you see here Clockwork, on that day she came to my shop, I saw her scared and nearly in tears. I asked her to see what's bothering her and she told me that she couldn't stay here in Ironwood Falls any longer and needs to leave. She wouldn't, or maybe she couldn't, tell me why she's leaving, all she did was to have me promise to her that I should watch over you and keep you safe, and again I don't know why she asked us all of this, but by the look on her face when she asked me, I could tell that she loves you very much and wanted to take you along wherever she's going, but can't and it pained her greatly to leave you behind. But because of what happened today Clockwork, it now seems to be what we all fear that might happen someday."
Forge then once more started to limp towards the engineer. When Clockwork saw him moving closer to her, she was about to step away from him, but then pause as she saw pained sadness behind his eyes, finally allowing the forger to near the unicorn. "Clockwork, do you care about the safety of everypony that lives in town?" Forge asked as he placed a hoof on her shoulder, Clockwork immediately picked up on the sadness in his voice when he asked her.
Clockwork remembered the wish that she'd made all of those months ago just before she came upon Jace, confirming her answer. "Of course I do Forge." She noticed her friend in the corner of her eye, causing her glanced at Frosting and saw the Pegasus sitting there with a hoof draped over her eyes, tears running underneath the hoof as she's biting her bottom lip as if to hold back a wail. She then glanced towards Archive and saw his eyes are closed shut as tears are seeping through at the corners of his eyelids and into his bandages. What's going on here?
Clockwork looked back at Forge and saw that are tears in eyes as well. "Then there's one thing you must do to keep them, as well as yourself Clockwork, safe from any danger." He paused to take back his hoof to wipe his eyes of tears before continuing, his voice now filled with sorrow. "Clockwork, you must leave Ironwood Falls and never look back!"