Rise of the fallen

by Iron Sides

Chapter 3: Lumber men in the making

"Now that your all here," Started Tyler, "We need to chop down a good many trees to fuel a little project of ours. Here are a few boundary's you cant cross, the trees have to be at least 12 inches in diameter and must be oak. I surely hope that we don't need to instruct you fellas on how to use an axe. Now to go to work men."

The mass of muscled men grabbed their assorted broad axes and commenced there laborious work. The sound of sharp snapping and popping filled the air and half the Forrest toppled over. Richard left the ex-general to be the oversee-er and went to work himself. Grasping a heavy axe he walked to the nearest tree, over 100 feet away and with a grunt, swung it at the looming tree. He swung it sideways into the trunk and it sunk in to the sappy bark and wood with a smack. Pulling it back out he brought the axe over his head and swung it at an angle towards the trunk, chipping a chunk off. He repeated this action for a good 10 minutes before he yelled out the iconic lumber mans call, "TIMBER!"

Snapping protest the tree slowly fell over with a tremendous crash. Richard did this 10 more times to the amazement of the rest of the group. Once he was done he walked back over to Tyler with sweat dripping off of his forehead and the axe over his shoulder. Taking a couple breaths he said, "Tyler, tell them to start sectioning the logs and splitting them."

Tyler took the advice and ordered to his men, "ALRIGHT FELLAS!!! START SECTIONING THE LOGS AND SPLITTING THEM UP IN TO QUARTERS!"

The once military men felled the trees they were working then dutifully followed the orders of the president. More smacking and chopping echoed through out the Forrest. Once again humans ravaged the american landscape with the sounds of progress and soon, the hissing of steam and clouds of smoke would flow through the air.

Richard clapped his friend on the back and muttered, "Ok, I need to go take a rest for a few hours. Have the men load the wood into the tenders of the 4 engines would you?"

"I think I can manage that." replied Tyler with a smirk

With that Richard left the site of the timber men and dragged his tired body to his room in a nearby house. He built it himself over the past 2 months. Rich thought himself a jack-of-all-trades kinda person, which was true no matter what way you looked at it. He was a master plumber, wood worker, mechanic, machinist and just about everything else you could think of. That were the main reasons he was chosen to be included in this endeavor over 2000 years ago. He opened the door and slammed down on the pony made couch, quickly falling asleep due to his tired limbs.
______________________

Richard awoke several hours later and found it to be nearly 7:00 PM. He groaned, "Oh, who let me sleep that long?" and rubbed the sleep from his eyes before he stood up and walked out the door, heading for 'The Hall of Steel' as he called it. Slowly he walked across the hastily built town and stepped into the large expanse that was the main lobby for the government building. He greeted the secretary at the desk and continued his stroll through the halls looking for the stairs. It took him 10 minutes of walking before he finally found it. Grasping the brass door knob he slid through the door and down into the depths of the ex-stronghold. Finding his door he swung it open in to the main storage room. It contained most of the supplies that the humans still had though much smaller then it once was.

He finally reached the gigantic opening that was the hall of steel and turned on the lights. Again he was mesmerized by the glistening brass and polished steel before him. With broad smile on his face he climbed into the cab of the Red Leviathan and opened the fire doors. Seeing that the tender had been filled to the brim with wood he threw 10 or so chunks into the firebox before jumping back down. His eyes scanned the walls for a fire hydrant and soon found one and a hose. These engines needed water to do anything so he took it apon himself to fill the tenders with water before turning his attention to the boiler itself. It had a valve on the side where one would attach a hose and fill it with water.

The thing with these engines was they needed steam pressure before they could take water out of the tender's tank, which was kind of stupid but it was what it was. As the boiler filled to capacity you could see the level rising in a little glass gauge inside the cab. Slowly it filled to the point where 75% of the boiler was filled, the right level so as not to hurt the engines touchy valves and workings in the steam dome. Turning the water off, he wound up the hose and clambered back into the Walnut cab. With in seconds the experienced camper had the fire blazing like the sun. Seeing a flaw in his plans, Richard ran across the room to the elevator and lowered it just enough so the smoke that billowed out of the balloon stack exited before it could choke out him out.

Hour after hour past as Rich wait for the 'clock' to rise, meaning he was waiting for steam pressure. Throwing chunk after chunk of timber into the roaring fire. The gauge slowly crept round from 10 psi to 20 and so on and so forth. At 3:00 AM the gauge reached 150 psi, the max operating pressure for this engine. For the first time in centuries, the relief valve atop the boiler sprang open in a cloud of steam and lowered the pressure in the boiler a few pounds before closing itself. Rich just sat there with a grin on his face that would give any pony out there a run for his/her money.

Slowly leaning forward he grasped the reversing lever and pulled it back from the neutral position. Seeing that the boiler needed water badly he opened a valve, known as the injector, to the left of the back head (the control station or the very back of the boiler) and opened it. With a low whoosh water blasted into the boiler at the rate of 10 gallons a minute. Satisfied that everything was in good order Rich turned back to the main levers inside the cab. Taking hold of a small lever near his feet, he pulled it back and then grabbed the throttle. He opened it slowly and soon the engine let out a blast of steam from the front. The cylinder Cocks had been opened to allow the condensed steam to exit the cylinders so they didn't get blown apart. The pressure built inside the cylinders to the point were it was so great that it forced the pistons to move, propelling the massive locomotive backwards.

A moment later the engine had connected itself to the train of flatcars located behind it. Reversing the process from before, Rich coerced the beast in to a forward motion.

"To bad no one else is here to see this thing in action." muttered Richard

The engine chugged loudly as it pulled itself out of the 'Hall of Steel' and into the expanse that was the main storage room. The room echoed the noise.

The Leviathan clacked over the rail joints as it made its way towards the elevator. Seeing that the point of the cowcatcher at the head of the engine had just about his the wall, Richard shut off the steam and it slowed to a stop. the behemoth. He jumped from the cab and walked over to the control panel on the extreme right and hit the 'up' button. With a squeal the moving platform pulled upward, bringing the engine and 5 of the cars up with it. Slowly but surely the complication made its way to the world above.

Since most of the original military base was under ground the store house elevator came up right in the middle of town. Richard got a wild hair and once the engine had reached the top and the locking clamps activated, he grabbed the whistle cord...

A shrill single note scream broke out and woke the entire population of 150,000 people up. Lights popped on inside the main building and men and women flung open there doors of there houses, preparing to yell at the stupid joker before they seen what had made the noise. The air pumps thumbed loudly as the congregation moved towards the Red behemoth. It was still dark out so Richard sung out of the cab and walked up the the massive box headlight at the head of the engine. With a lighter in hand he lite the oil inside and a spotlight shot out of the light, blinding everyone in front of it.

An extremely happy Richard shouted out to the crowd, "THIS IS OUR SALVATION!!!! NOW GO BACK TO BED!!!" He then shewed them off and dropped the fire from the boiler onto the steel elevator floor.
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The next day Tyler McGoff called Richard in from engineering the new right of way to ask him a few... questions.

"Richard, what possessed you to make a scene like that last night?" the president growled

Rich just have off a fit of laughter and grinned wildly.

Tyler face-palmed and said, "You know I will never find out what to do with your shenanigans."

"I know, there SO bad arnt they." Chuckled the steam buff

"When you wake up all of the town, yes!" Snapped Tyler, throwing his hands up

"Fine, Ill never do it again. That make you happy?"

"If only you follow through with it, which I know you wont." the ex-general muttered

"So you think I can go back out and oversee the building again?" asked Richard

"Nope," Replied Tyler, "You gotta come with me."

Rich gave him a questioning look, "Where we goin and why?"

"To Equestria my dear friend." said Tyler

"For what?"

The president chuckled, "Did you forget your plan that fast?"

"OH!!! For the materials?" asked the engineer

"Yep, already got our dear friend Aaron there waiting for our sorry asses."

Richard lifted and eyebrow, "Why do we need him there?"

"Well for starters he is friends with Princess Luna. He can help plead our case for the steel rails. While we are there will see about our food crisis as well." replied Tyler as he looked at his government books.

"When do we leave?" asked Rich

"In 20 minutes."

"How are we gonna get there? Its over 1000 miles to Canterlot!" questioned Richard

"The Princesses have sent one of their carriages to pick us up."

With that Tyler shewed his friend out the door and went back to work.
______________________________

Richard made his way to his humble log house and gathered up a few sets of clothes and a second 'dress' hat. Stuffing his belongings in a duffel bag, he returned to groping inside his closet for something that would scare the shit out of any pony that knew what it was. Pulling out a cloth case about 4 feet long he smiled. The brass zipper was pulled ever so slightly and exposed the stock of walnut. Sliding the thing out of the case finally reveled exactly what it was, a Henry .44 lever action rifle. He needed more protein then what the veggies gave him so he took it upon himself to craft ammo for the old gun and gathered up venison while the test tube cattle grew.

Despite the guns age it always slung the bullet straight and true. It would come in handy for some stupid pony decided to try and rob us, which would be kind of stupid of them anyhow but the point still stood, plus it could give them there dinner. Placing the gun back in its case he zipped it up and slung it and the duffel bags over his shoulder. Satisfied that he had packed accordingly he stepped out and locked the heavy wooden door.

From the middle of the street Richard could see Tyler standing next to the glistening leviathan, waiting for the transportation to Equestria's Capital, Canterlot.

Comments

[Hungrybear]

Interesting Premise, i leave you this as i cant find much else to say.
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[SugarPesticide]

"Good, good, now would you care to remind me as to what project Leviathan is?" questioned Winters
Seeing someone ask this question in a narrative in any way, shape or form tells me instantly that it's not worth reading.

There are missing periods. All over the place. You have made homeless a thousand innocent periods who did nothing wrong. Also wtf are there pictures of trains for when you could have (and should have) described them instead.

[Iron Sides]

368604 Reason one for the pictures is that I am TERRIBLE at description, so I figured I would just skip right over it and throw pictures in there. Didn't seem like a bad plan to me. I will find most of the missing periods when I have the time. As for your first statement, tell me what I did wrong and I will gladly fix it...

368541 Care to explain this? lol

[SugarPesticide]

368979
There's no reason not to try your hand at descriptions. Practice makes perfect after all.

As for my first comment, having one character ask another to tell them directly about something that both of them are already full aware of ... well, it's generally seen as a lazy way of giving exposition to the readers. That clearly didn't happen in the scene in question, though; the sentence merely left a bad taste in my mouth, and for that I apologize. (But not for the missing periods problem.)

[Iron Sides]

376142
Knew I forgot something...

Edit: Fixed

[Paddle Steamer]

Richard shut off the steam and it slowed to a stop. the behemoth.

That sentence looks like it isn't suppose to be there...

And 1000 miles to Canterlot? From reading "War of the Fallen Race" it sounded like Canterlot was only a couple hundred miles away max.

This is like the first time I've ever gone grammar Nazi, lol see what you've done with your steamers?

[Immortan Joe]

376578 Just a helpful tip, in War of the Fallen Race Canterlot from Stronghold is exactly 200 miles away west. Just stating that before some one gets their panties in a knot.