Chapter Six
(For you old readers the story got altered half-way through, I recommend a reread.)
Inventor walked three steps behind Luna as they progressed through the corridors of the castle, the heels of his dress shoes clicking on the polished stone as they went. Time ticked away slowly while the man's gaze was drifting across the niches of the hallway, searching for any potential threats that might approach his charge. Occasionally, he would glance at the outfit he had been given as part of his new job before snapping his head back to attention as he looked around the surrounding area. His job would only distract him but for a moment before his gaze would once again be drawn to the outfit he wore. Luna smiled to herself as the man openly admired the outfit that he was dressed in.
“Something the matter, Inventor?” the alicorn said over her shoulder to the biped whose gaze quickly snapped up in alarm like a child who just been found out, but he tried to mask it by feigning ignorance. With his disguise adopted, the man took a quick look around the surroundings for something that might have bothered the alicorn.
After scanning the hallway with squinted eyes, he shook his head. “Nothing I can see princess. What’s on your mind?”
“You seem to be paying quite a bit of attention to that new suit I had tailored for you. I would think for someone from a race of creatures who made a habit out of wearing clothing at all times, you would have higher standards of outfits than us ponies,” the princess replied over her shoulder to the man.
“Ah, but you forget that I was alone for one hundred years with only my thoughts to keep me company and no new clothes to speak of,” Inventor said offhandedly as he lightly tapped his nose.
“You... what?” Luna said as she stopped dead in her tracks at the information. She slowly turned to look at the man who had paused dutifully as well.
“Oh, I never told you about that, did I? Yup, one hundred years alone. All by myself,” Inventor said nonchalantly once again.
“You said that you were the last human, but I thought that...” Luna paused hoping that Inventor would finish for her. He didn’t oblige her on account of him being unsure of what she was trying to say. This left her finish the sentence herself. “I thought that you had managed to make a teleporter fairly quickly. I never would have imagined you had been alone for one hundred years,” she finished reluctantly.
“You get used to it,” Inventor said as he leaned against a nearby wall.
“NO, YOU DON’T!” Luna blurted loudly. After realizing she had just shouted out loud, she stuttered pointlessly for a minute and turned her head away from the man. “At least, I didn’t. Not after one thousand years on the moon. It was near torment for me, but at least I had something to look forward to. Hope is the only thing that let me move on.”
“Ah, yes. Hope, what Pandora left in the box,” Inventor said with a nod of his head as he detoured off of the subject of Luna’s banishment. He had heard whispers about her and suspicions about what had actually happened were already starting to form in his mind. He immediately put these to the side as he had no evidence to support them and waited for the question that Luna would be asking in a few moments.
“Pandora? Is that some famous human from your world?” Luna asked, interested by this sudden detour into the history of the man’s planet.
“Indeed, though she lives in greek mythology. It is said by the Greeks that, originally, the gods only created man. A few things happened. Prometheus gave humans fire after he stole it back from Zeus and was imprisoned so that his liver could be torn from his body and eaten every morning.” Luna shivered at the idea of such a punishment, but Inventor forged on. “Anyway, Zeus was still mad at humanity, but he had to pretend to give a gift so that his curse would be accepted. So, he made a female and gave it to humanity. It is said she was beautiful and devious and emotional beyond all others.”
Inventor paused as he once again looked at the shimmering fabric that composed his outfit. “Regardless though, she came with something else, a box. Zeus told her not to open this box under any circumstance, but this was just another cog in his own grand machine, as he had made her one more thing as well. He made her curious. Just as he had planned, she opened the box and released all the things held within. It was a box of all the horrors that we know of now: disease and famine and war and anger.
“Realizing what she had done, the woman frantically closed the box, leaving only one thing inside: hope,” Inventor said with a smile as he remembered the various other myths that were Greek based. He smiled even wider as he realized that he shouldn’t share the vast majority of them with Luna, like what Zeus did in his free time, for instance.
“So one of your more famous myths is of hope being something evil that was trapped inside a box? That’s quite an interesting thing to know,” Luna said pensively.
“Indeed it is, but alas, I digress. This suit is amazing!” Inventor exclaimed as his gaze looked over the clothing. It shone as the lighting reflected off the silver surface of the suit coat and pants. In addition to the sheer display that the clothes themselves reflected, they fit better than even his old worn outfit had. The outfit was loose enough that even his mechanical arm could move without hindrance.
“It should be. It took all the power of five unicorns to make it as it is. The suit is actually covered in silver that is permanently more malleable than its normal state,” Luna said, always the scholar on anything she deemed to purchase.
“I’ll have to make sure to thank the makers of this fine suit next time I see them. Make sure to point them out for me, if you would be so kind,” Inventor said with a smile. “But still, magic! I’m still having a hard time believing it!” Inventor near-shouted, trying a little too hard to keep Luna from noticing his sudden topic switch.
“Yes, I imagine so, if what you say about your world having no magic is true.” Luna turned around and started walking once again towards her destination, her own bedroom. “Speaking of which, I heard rumors among the guards that you have a few devices of your own that rivals unicorn magic.”
“Perhaps in their singular, designed function, but not in adaptiveness. Why do you ask?”
“I was wondering if you would sate my curiosity and show off a little.”
“Perhaps tonight when you wake up. Wouldn’t want to keep you up all day with my antics after all,” Inventor said as he smiled once again.
“Are you denying the request of your princess and employer, Inventor? It has only been a week and you are already starting to disobey me?” Luna asked with a playful grin.
“I will do what I must to keep you in top shape, Princess, even if that means not doing what you ask me to,” Inventor said with a sudden cold tone. Unsure of how to answer the words of the man, and with the man not willing to say anything additional on the matter, the remainder of the trip was without words until they stopped outside of the stone door that comprised Luna’s room.
Luna turned around to once more view the man who looked even more confident as he stood in his new suit that mirrored the moon’s light. The princess smiled slightly to herself as her new bodyguard demonstrated the strength of his mechanical arm by opening the thick solid stone doors of her room with only his right hand. With the door open, he bowed to the princess as she entered and stood once she was on the other side of the door.
“Good morning, Luna,” he bid in farewell as a smile touched his lips.
“Good morning, Inventor.”
As Luna trotted across the fairly open stone room toward her bed, she heard the door lock behind her after Inventor had silently pulled it into position. The princess reached the bed at a fairly decent speed and looked around the room to pointlessly check for any onlookers before unceremoniously flopping into the cushions. The bed springs fought back in retort at the strain and pushed her back to the normal level of the bed as she snuggled into the silk blanket. She smiled once again as relaxing sleep overtook her body. The princess didn’t know what Inventor did while she slept, but she assumed he too rested during the day. She was wrong in this assumption.
Inventor walked lightly through the halls of the castle as he set off towards his goal for the day. The past week, he had been trying to set aside some time to examine his arm for stress and wear, and only today had he found his schedule open. The reason for his tight schedule was the amount of time he required to set up his work station in the room he was provided by his position, as well as helping with the various chores around the castle that needed doing.
As Inventor trekked through the castle, he took the opportunity to reflect on the architecture of the palace. The stones that composed the walls were solid sheets of rock, fused by magic and reinforced by a collective number of enchantments. This prevented the walls from daily damage, in addition to rebuffing some of the damage that might be caused purposefully. Despite himself, the man couldn’t help but marvel at the advancement that the equines had made without the use of technology.
Humans were notoriously resourceful in times of dire need, without a doubt, but ponies, who hadn’t been in any threatening battles for the past century, had managed to expound their knowledge and advance their magic from this unprecedented era of peace.
And yet, all that glitters is not gold. As Inventor looked around, he could see the pony’s faces. Doubt, distrust, fear. All of them directed toward him then, for no other reason than the fact that he looked different. Well, that and the fact that he had broke through the notorious magically enhanced stone with two punches of his right hand. It wasn’t his desire to be known as the powerful beast who had destroyed the almost impervious, but he couldn’t have told them the truth for why he had acted as he did. It would only cause panic.
At last, the biped reached the door to his personal room. In actuality, the room was no more than a few doors down from the princess’s own, but Inventor had lost himself in thought and had ended up having to backtrack. The man smiled as he looked at the complex mechanism that composed the door. The key mechanism rested in the center of the wooden door with a complex contraption of gears and cogs running across it. The man reached into the sleeve of his right arm and pulled out a small metal key.
Inserting the key into the keyhole in the middle of the door, the man turned his hand to his left. The gears and cogs all jerked and moved a small amount from their original positions before stopping once again. Inventor then turned his arm to the right twice, the gears moving with his arm as he did so, before turning it to the left once again. The gears jerked again and Inventor pulled the key from the hole. With a click, the door sprung into action with the whirring sound of moving mechanisms.
The various gears eventually came to a halt and the door slowly opened to reveal the cluttered room within. Grinning, Inventor replaced the key within the sleeve of his right arm once again and stepped over the threshold. Upon entering, Inventor went about removing the silver coat that decorated his person, taking the opportunity to look over the different machines and tools that decorated the walls of his living area as he did so.
The coat now removed, and with only his haberdash outfit from earth on his body, Inventor opened his singular window before seating himself at the workbench. He had removed the sleeves from his patchwork shirt when Luna gave him the coat, thereby allowing full view of his mechanical arm. With a smile, the man clenched the hand into a fist and pressed two small divots in the metal near his shoulder. With a soft click, the arm went limp and Inventor pulled the metal shoulder from its sheath.
The arm now removed from himself, Inventor placed it on the work bench in front of him and began to examine its length. The wear and tear was obvious across the entire device, smudges and scratches covering its metal husk alongside dirt and dust from before he came to Equestria. The real damage was obvious upon the hand though, the metal was dinged and demented to the point that it was almost unbelievable that the joints could still move after breaking through the stone roof.
Inventor grinned to himself and retrieved a heavy workshop hammer from nearby as well as a clamp in his one remaining hand to repair the worst off metal before he moved onto restoration of the rest of the machine. As he set about the start of the work, the biped couldn’t help but break into a small song to help pass the time as he worked.
“I once knew a girl with a heart of gold, two legs of copper, and arms of chrome. The prettiest girl I ever knew. I loved each rivet, bolt and screw.” He sang to himself before breaking into a rhythmic hum while he continued his work.
About ten hours later, the man finished the taxing job of fixing his arm. The damage to the hand had done a fair amount of internal damage that Inventor hadn’t expected when he had examined it earlier. This meant that the damaged mechanism had to be replaced and tuned so that the device could operate correctly. After finishing that, it had been a simple enough job to clean and polish the arm to make it look correct.
“Told you I would take good care of it, Amy,” Inventor said with a smile to himself as he picked up the arm in his singular hand and inserted the mechanical device once more into the port that was attached to his torso where a shoulder would normally end. The arm was attached without any form of pain or notification. The buffer in the arm prevented sudden rushes of shock that attaching an appendage to a nervous system might cause and left the man unable to move his hand temporarily.
Just as he had gained the ability to move his arm once again, a whistling noise began to fill the air. Inventor paused what he was doing and being to look for the source, turning his head every which way as he did so. With sudden realization, the man spun around to look toward the window. He was just in time to catch a pegasus in the chest. The air was knocked from his lungs and Inventor tumbled backward while the pegasus dropped to the ground in front of him, most of her momentum having been lost.
While the man struggled to refill his lungs, he looked at the pegasus who was still on the floor at his feet. She was gray with blonde hair. A collection of bubbles adorned her flank in the form of her cutie mark and slung across her back were two empty mail bags. The man was about to comment on the sudden tackle when he noticed that she appeared to be crying. With a cough to clear his throat and another inhale of air to fix his irregular breathing, the biped stood from the ground and walked over to the weeping pegasus.
“What seems to be the matter, miss?” Inventor asked with a caring tone as he sat down next to the mare, whom immediately buried her muzzle in between her forelegs to hide her tears from the being who she hadn’t been aware of until that moment..
“I’m sorry, I just...” The pony sniffed. “I didn’t mean to barge in I just... wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.” The mare sniffed again but didn’t opt to speak up.
“Nothing for you to be sorry for. I’ll heal from this easily I’m sure. I hardly think that sadness would be how you choose to express embarrassment, though. So, excuse me if you think I’m prying, but... what seems to be the problem?”
“I would hate to be a burden,” she said in a soft voice.
“Oh, think nothing of it.”
“Well, I just lost my job recently. It isn’t that I’m not used to it, I am. I... lose jobs quite a bit. It’s just that I don’t think I can get another by Hearths Warming Eve next month and I really wanted to get my daughter a cap to keep her warm while she’s out with her friends,” the pegasus admitted.
Inventor leaned back, away from the pony, and rested his head against the wall for a moment while the mare picked herself off the ground. Eventually, she cleared her eyes of the tears and looked to the biped who had sat himself against a wall. “Oh, you’re Luna’s bodyguard right? I’m sorry, I didn’t think I was bothering somebody so important.”
The man smiled lightly to himself as he continued to run his mind over a plan to help this pegasus. “Don’t worry, I’m perfectly fine...” Inventor let the sentence trail off instead of giving it an abrupt end, as lost in thought as he was that he didn’t notice. Inventor closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just a cloth hat, right? That shouldn’t be too expensive.”
The being reached into his pockets and withdrew a bag from his pocket. He dug through it for a moment before pulling out a collection of coins and handing them to the pony. “Will this do?” Inventor asked, completely unsure of how the economy worked in regards to values.
“This...” Her mouth struggled to find the words she was looking for, as in awe as she was at that moment. “This is about as much as I would make in a month.”
“Is it enough though? Will that buy your daughter a cap?”
“Yes it will, but,” the mare looked between the money and the man, “you’re just going to give this to me?”
“Of course. Luna told me that was my pay for being her bodyguard, but I never really buy anything since food isn’t much of a requirement. So, here’s your gift and may you and your daughter enjoy Hearths Warming Eve.” Inventor smiled wide at the pegasus.
“Thank you! Thank you so much! You have no idea what this means to me,” she exclaimed.
“Your welcome. Just do me a favor and tell me your name. I’ll see if I can’t get you a job around the castle or something.”
“Oh, you’ve done more than enough, you don’t need to...” The mare looked at the man who was returning a determined glare. The pegasus sighed and smiled at the man, her eyes going crossways as she did so. “Derpy Doo. I live in Ponyville.”
“Derpy. Ponyville. Got it. Now go home and spend some time with your daughter. I’m sure she’s missing you.”
“Oh I will. And, thank you. Thank you so much,” Derpy said with a smile before she turned to the window and took to her wings outside as she floated off into the distance.
“I wonder if she can handle a wrench?” Inventor said, breaking the silence as he stood from his seat by the wall. Deep in thought, he walked slowly to the clothing hook and pulled on his silver coat, taking a moment to make sure all was in order before he opened the door to leave the room. “Or maybe she can carry some bolts.”
(Cheers to StapleCactus, he has edited both my featured stories. (I think he's magic) -N64Fan)
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Editing this story is like fine wine. No, I'm not going to explain the simile.
Insta-faved simply because of the concept.
914440
I like this man for he likes his Steampunk.
914447
I do my fine sir, I do, but what I really wanted to see was how a morally gray person would react to being in the land of ponies.
*Sips from glass of wine while looking thoughtful*
So this is an edit and not an update. Pity. I was hoping to see where Inventor goes after his rampage to get drunk. Not a drunken rampage, mind you.
914458
I had an update where he goes to Ponyville, but I didn't like where it was going so I restarted the story from half-way through six
It's more then an update then an edit, I recommend a reread.
If I recall instead of going to his room before the edit he went to train physically right? He then got in a fight with some asshole I believe. Am I right
914468 Oh. I didn't notice. He went to Ponyville. I read the first three lines and found them to be remarkably similar to the first few of the previous chapter.
aww this part made me smile :D
Smile Smile Smile!
Do NOT let Derpy handle the heavy machinery!
914548
You are indeed
914670
Read on my friend, read on.
I liked the part from Stonehenge.
Then again I like this as well in general.
Seems quite brilliant so far.
i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/190/373/131942790061.jpg
Mustache spike approves.
I actually prefer this then it was before, and I normally prefer the original of just about everything. Good job.
I approve of Ditsy Doo becoming his assistant. Also you'd get to have many d'awwww moments with dinky.
ROYAL CANTERLOT VOICE STEAMPUNK YAY 100,000,000 YAY'S Ahem.
this sir is a grand story i shall favorite this and check back on it everyday
I found a few errors:
"It was near torment for me, but at least I had something to look forward too."
"...to look forward too."
"...too."
i1250.photobucket.com/albums/hh533/Hobo_mcpancake/deskflip.jpg
"...for no other reason then the fact that he looked different." *than
“Oh, you’ve done more then enough, you don’t need to...” *than
Then is a comparison in time. Than is a physical comparison.
I also had a question about this because I'm a tidbit too lazy to go back and check other chapters: is the rewrite starting on this chapter, or did it start earlier than this chapter?
insta faved loooooove it make moar or ... something ....
flutter RAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEE 
915327
What? Impossible! I fixed those!
Well... some of them....
I know for a fact that I fixed one of them...
...It's N64's fault for making me edit ch1, then ch6 immediately after! 
Thanks for pointing those out though. 
Yes, it's a rewrite starting on this chapter.
MOAR PLZ
914430 it gets better the longer the story goes on
what chapter did you change?
916067
Glad you commented on that, I can't believe no one else did.
916327
Half-way through chapter six, he doesn't go to the guard training grounds anymore.
Aaah steam-punk, the only hard science concept that doesn't need to be explained...
*sips tea*
But I will say that he seems to be behaving too erratically if you catch my gist, doing things that are not entirely rational unless he's gone insane from being alone for over one hundred years.
917320
Would you mid expounding on that idea? I believe I understand what you are trying to say but I would like it if you could point the events that you deemed he was being too erratic about. I have an explanation coming next chapter but I want to make sure I have all my bases covered.
Ah, the art of ending quotes with commas when the character is talking and performing an action simultaneously.
Tis a lost art to most.
Steampunk inventor.
Luna's bodyguard.
Nice to Derpy.
...That guy is my hero.
Derpy Doo
ITS DERPY HOOVES OR DITZY DO GOD DAMNIT!
turn her into a cyborg. ROBO DERPY!!!!!
918116 ITS DERPY HOOVES
Upvoted for someone else actually having listened to COG. I liked them before they went steampunk, they just got better since.
4897868 DEAR LORD PINKIE FOUND THE MASK RUN FOR YOUR LIVES. WE'RE DOOMED!!!!
6597596 ....* buries self out of fear*....God, don't let hear find me...