When Steam Reigns

by StapleCactus

Prologue

The smell of burning coal, the tinks and whirs of gears and sprockets turning, the blinding light of the fire boiling water above it and its reflection off multiple copper pipes lending a kaleidoscope of colors upon the walls. All of this did nothing to help the stallion sitting in the middle of it all to think, to dream, and to create. His countenance was one of calm, but a fire raged within him, one that desired more to burn.

His mind trailed months ago, when he saw a machine churn out a rich, savory amber liquid from fruit, powered by steam and magic. He wanted that and more. Without the magic. Without the two bumbling fools who thought they knew what they were doing with it. Without the constraints.

Through the stallion’s efforts, he had found the answers, but not the questions which would allow him to use those answers. Every one that he could think up didn’t sit right with him. Would it, could it, will it? He knew it could and it will and it would. His math was never wrong when it came to this technology.

A howling whistle blew through the air, drawing his attention. The pressure gauge had reached its peak, but he turned away from it. If there was nothing he could make with these trinkets, what was the point of allowing them to exist? And as the needle struggled beyond the gauge’s limits, the walls of the tank began to swell.

The fire beneath went out, but the heat was still there, pushing the brass and copper device to its breaking point. One rivet, then two, then three, then more and more shot out from the metals, every one of which avoiding the stallion sitting calmly in the middle of it all. Steam poured out of the cracks the missing rivets created, but the heat beneath continued to build the pressure.

Finally, the behemoth had had enough. The walls could no longer hold the gas within and blew outwards, sending shrapnel flying with more force than a speeding train. Thousands of smaller shards dug their way into the side of the stallion, eliciting a scream of pain, until the concussive forces behind them threw him against the opposing wall. Scalding hot water splashed upon him, cauterizing the wounds but burning him to a degree beyond consciousness, and the pain forced him into sleep.

The destruction continued, blowing pipes and toppling large devices connected to them. His workstation, covered in notes and beakers, was thrown about the room by the pressures finding any way out. Various chemicals mixed in the air, some of which volatile enough to add more strength to the whirlwind. More and more, the power continued to grow until the foundations of the house above him buckled upwards.

The damage spread, tearing through fabrics and wooden furniture without stopping. It was only when the windows shattered after a particularly violent blast that the pressures waned, but craters left in the cellar floor created a basin for the chemicals to continue mixing. Fires alighted within the cesspools, burning everything it touched indiscriminately, instantaneously, without building new flames, but raising the temperature further.

A lone tank that had withstood the first event began to boil the liquid within, and again the pressure built. However, this one had a different purpose, and used the steam it created to spin various gears and pulleys. Faster and faster they spun, turning fans which threw up dust and debris until they could no longer. The strain became too much for the machine and it, too, burst, forcing the parts to fly apart and tearing into everything they touched.

One of the fans stabbed itself into the staircase, while another cut through the dirt below, heading straight for the stallion. In a second, the blades had gone through his legs and embedded itself in the wall next to his head. With a great sigh of escaping pressure, the second bout of destruction ended, allowing a shard of copper pipe to fall from the ceiling in which it was pinned.

And pierce straight through the pony’s abdomen.

The commotion brought the attention of the town. Citizens and authorities alike rushed to the scene, where a house had been blown apart from the inside. Though some wanted to rush in to assist, they were held back until the all-clear was given. It was not.

Walls that had enough buckled, and the house tilted away from the crowd. The wall they were facing crashed down over the hole, letting the roof twist and fall directly above it and crush whatever was beneath it. Authorities waited, expecting further collapse, but none came.

When the dust settled, they let a few strong ponies in to find anyone buried in the wreckage. Digging and pulling debris away, they didn’t find him for hours. Beneath a large part of the wall, he lay broken and bloody, still unconscious and breathing, but barely clinging to life. And when they finally pulled him from the house, the mortician was there waiting among the crowd.

He took a step forward, but was held back by a shout for medical assistance. A stretcher was brought over and the stallion was laid upon it, then carted off to the hospital as quickly as possible. He was brought to an operating room where the damage was assessed.

The weight of the home had pushed the pipe further and pulled through most of his abdomen. Two limbs were missing and multiple holes from the shrapnel coated his pelt. Various lacerations were set about his body and his blood loss was greater than anything they had seen before. Nopony could survive this, they believed.

But let it not be said ponies will not try. They poured magic into him, working and struggling to keep him alive. Again and again his heart would give out, only for them to restart it at great cost to themselves. After hours of operations, they finally stabilized him, though only through the work of constant attention through medical magic. When asked why anyone would let him suffer, they would only say he had not chosen yet, and until he deemed himself otherwise, they would not stop trying.

As they struggled, the stallion’s gears were turning, his mind lost in the void of his coma. Images flashed into being, only to be snuffed out by another and another. Vast arrays of steam-powered machinery and ideas occupied his brain, keeping him from realizing his predicament and showing him new ways he couldn’t believe possible before.

His notes were intrinsically part of him, and his mind fought against them during the prophetic natures of the images. The strength of the metals and the power of steam raged against the colossal giants that were summoned: pony-like constructions larger than life or smaller than he thought possible, homes generating their own power to move wherever the owner desired, and intricate machines of which he could not fathom the purpose.

Again and again these images assaulted his mind, forcing him to see what could only be made if he dreamed them, yearned for them hard enough to find a way. It continued with no quarter until the void behind the images turned bright, signalling the end of his dream.

When consciousness began, pain erupted from everywhere on his body. He squeezed his eyelids tighter, furrowing his brow, and attempted to move. Constraints held him still, constricting and panic-inducing. The fear threw his muscles into overdrive and pumped his body with adrenaline. He didn’t care about the pain anymore; he just wanted free.

Flashing his eyes open, he was met with a transparent blue shield above him. Beyond it, he could see a white-tiled ceiling, but he disregarded it for his struggle. Pulling, pushing, and curling his body and limbs, the straps holding him still budged, but held. He tried moving limbs that didn’t respond and the worry only added to the fear. Something had happened, and now he was pinned with unresponsive appendages.

The pain returned stronger than ever, piercing through his rush to freedom and crippling him. He screamed and lay still once more, wishing the torture to end, but it would not relent. His body fought against him, telling him that even lying still will not save him from the pain. It would push upon his mind until he was sure death was better. He could only scream, waiting for it or the sweet, if confusing, comfort of dreams.

But he was beyond the tolerance of sleep. Where before his mind collapsed into itself to avoid further damage, now he could only pray that could be true. His cries echoed within his prison of magic, making him yell louder and louder until his voice gave out. Finally resigning himself to his fate, he stopped his struggle entirely and merely whimpered.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the pain faded, bringing his mind back to when he first woke up. He rolled his eyes around to see what he could to avoid increasing the torture again.

Medical devices could be seen from his peripheral view, but their use could not be understood through the blur. Across from the edge of the bed, a steel door with copper wire mesh stood shut, connecting it’s patterns with the ones on the walls. He followed them to the ceiling, where they vanished along the edges to undoubtedly continue. Knowing where he was, but not what the purpose of it all served, he turned his gaze to what he could see of his blanket-covered body.

The lump beneath the cotton stretched down to the end, but there was a missing half of the symmetry after the abdomen. Pushing the pain down for a moment, he tried to move each limb. His left foreleg rose at his command, but the right did not. The same occurred when he tried his rear legs. He relaxed the muscles feeding the appendages and lay in quiet.

Two limbs were gone, he deduced. Thinking back, he tried to find out why, but the fog of memory was unforgiving and kept him from the truth. The last thing he could remember, outside of the dream he had, was sitting within his workshop and pondering what he could do with his knowledge of steam. He could only speculate on events, and they were not pretty.

The door opened before him, a grey-coated stallion wearing a white lab coat entering. His brow was furrowed in concentration as he studied a clipboard in his magic field. With a sigh, he brought his head up and trotted by the stallion, marking down various readings from the equipment in the room. When he turned to the pony on the bed, he noticed the patient's eyes were open. In a shout of surprise the stallion could not hear, the doctor rushed out of the room, dropping the clipboard in the process.

A moment later, a team of medical professionals walked in: nurses, doctors, and magicians alike. They crowded around him, one picking up the clipboard while others messed with the equipment or studied the stallion. Another closed the door while a magician in a blue robe probed the shield. It opened a hole, allowing a doctor with a unique badge to enter, before warping shut.

He walked up to the stallion, not saying a word before shining light into his eyes. With a gentle touch, the doctor pressed against his neck, counting the pulse and comparing it to what a machine was reading outside the shield. Then, he pulled the sheet off.

Bloody bandages were wrapped across the stallion’s abdomen, stumps where legs should have been, and in patches all over. Tubes ran beneath the wrappings, various colored liquids either entering or exiting the wounds. Assessing the work and watching the patient’s chest rise and fall, he finally spoke.

“You’re lucky to be alive.” And then he went quiet again, slowly unwrapping various bandages until the exposed wounds could be seen.

Metal patchwork held the fringes of his abdomen together, but didn’t close it fully. Most of the tubes ran into this network of flesh and steel, connecting to various organs, but a few ran into the stallion’s chest, controlling the flow of blood. Holes from the shrapnel left black divots in his coat while the stumps of his legs ended with a wrapping of fake skin.

Seeing the damage, the pain returned stronger than ever, and the stallion tried all he could to avoid screaming. The added tingle of air touching the exposed wounds increased it further until he could hold out no longer. His whimpers escalated into a constant scream that echoed once more off the shield.

The ponies outside saw this, but looked down in pity. They had given him all they could to relieve the pain and this was only the beginning. The patient would suffer for the rest of his life and there was nothing they could do to help him. Everything hinged on his strength.

Comments

[LucidTech]

Steampunk is always welcome in my heart.

[Moonshine-Dusk]

poor guy. there goes the technological future of equestria.

[Madwor1d]

Shit, this sounds good lol.