Scarlet Mane's Diary, Entry 3: The Big Blast of Boom

by Madame Minty

Exposition

Moonbeam sat at her desk after lying on a couch with Chewer, immersed in thought, and finally looked at the schedule that Joy left her.

"First ferry in half an hour? I won't make it!" she said with disappointment to the kitten.

He wasn't listening as he was busy napping on the couch again.

I won't be able to make a tour! she thought.

She discarded the leaflet and sighed deeply, supporting her head on crossed front legs. She glanced outside the window and saw a jolly, round bumblebee flying around.

Unless...

She walked towards a large trap door in a corner of her enormous, cluttered workshop and pulled one of many identical levers besides it. Heavy metal plates started to move aside to reveal an unparalleled darkness. She pulled another lever. Sparks shot from its base and within moments cold, bluish lights flickered in the blackness. Her eyes shone with happiness and her grin grew wider as an immense circle of a dozen antennas linked together with lighting arcs illuminated the even bigger vault in a stroboscopic manner.

The egg-shaped machine covered with pipes and valves in an elaborate pattern sitting in the center of the chamber was surely very large, but the strong yet vibrating light made it difficult to see how far and how big it actually was. Moonbeam, however, knew exactly.

She turned her head towards Chewer, squinted her eyes and said, "We're gonna need a bigger door!"

#

Scarlet Mane stood on the station, observing the arrival of the ferry. It was moving rapidly, gliding on the water, spraying it all around and creating an incredibly long cloud. Only when it began to slow down she noticed it's not really shaped like a boat. Just a dozen legs wide but hundreds long, composed of several similar vessels dragged by a bit bigger one with a tall funnel blowing huge amounts of steam.

When it slowed down enough to not disturb the water too much, Scarlet saw that it's not actually a boat at all, but rather a bizarre train of sorts. It was painted dark green with yellow decals and curly numbers on the sides of each ferry car with curved roof made of shining brass.

Pony-sized metal cogs brushed each other slightly slower every moment. Finally the machine and the clanging of its gears against cogged rails stopped.

Melody together with Jelly Joy boarded the first ferry this day. Through the big windows of a car with a big yellow two Scarlet saw them putting their baggage on the shelves. They waved towards her as the ferry started to accelerate just after a loud and long whistle.

She was waving them back when Nuddly Plum ran to the station completely out of breath, an old-style camera with a tripod on her back. It was a while until she managed to talk.

"Oh no, I'm late," she panted out the obvious.

"You seem exhausted, did you run the whole way?"

"Uh, ah, yeah, the packing took too long."

"Um... I don't want to sound wrong, I mean, I'm just a unicorn, but why didn't you just fly?"

Nuddly Plum stared at her in surprise for a minute. Scarlet Mane began to feel uncomfortable and tried to think what did she say wrong or weird.

"I... don't know," Nuddly finally said, making Scarlet facehoof.

"Want to go to Moonbeam for tea?"

"Eh, why not... I won't wait here for five hours, herp derp!"

#

Nuddly Plum pushed aside some vines which almost completely covered the wooden door.

"Moonbeam Sparkle's

"Clock, spark & steamworks," she read aloud a small inscription.

"Oh, I didn't notice that before," said Scarlet Mane.

"Well, Moonbeam isn't exactly proud of the name. See, the..." Nuddly broke off as the door opened suddenly and Moonbeam herself came out.

"Stay there, Chewie, good doggy, Mal will take care of you!" she said towards the interior. "Excuse me," she added as she walked past them in a hurry, carrying a rather large linen bag on her horn.

After exchanging glances they followed her cautiously and ended up on the workshop's backyard, a rather large and mostly empty field of dirt, maybe except for a big circular hole in the middle. There was a loud metallic clicking coming from it. The inside of the chasm was filled with dense white fog which completely obscured whatever lied within. It poured out, covering the whole area.

The cloud slowly subsided, revealing a grand egg-shaped structure standing on six surprisingly thin supports, curled gracefully to the outside, the whole apparently made purely of brass covered with complex patters, all reminiscent of an enormous golden beetle.

Nuddly Plum stared at the machine with total awe while Scarlet Mane began to circle it in fascination. Moonbeam, focused enough to ignore them both, took out a blueprint from her bag and unrolled it on the ground. She glanced at the paper, then the beetle, looking for any differences and writing them down in a notepad. She took out a registration plate with letters "MSPARQL" and winced at it, then went to the back of the machine and started to screw it on.

"Did you build it all by yourself?" Scarlet asked.

"Oh, not entirely," Moon said, making final turns of a screwdriver and pointed at the blueprint. "Malachite Glint helped in the construction and Sapphire May..." she stopped, noticing Scarlet's quizzical look. "Right, I don't think you know Sapphire, she's not from Maretown, I know her from Canterlot. She helped in the design. Excellent heat pipes."

Scarlet's eyes got bigger. "Canterlot? You're that Sparkle?"

Moonbeam mumbled something under her breath.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't want to—​" Scarlet said meekly.

"I just don't want to hear anything about my cousin," Moonbeam cut her off.

Scarlet just nodded silently.

"Why don't you help me with this, you and Nuddly?" Moon added. "The list is in the notepad, take a look."

Scarlet Mane got to attach some rubbery tubes inside the beetle's belly, Moon herself was busy putting together some brass pipes of wildly changing diameter while Nuddly Plum was instructed to install a ratchet and a pawl on a spring.

"Put the ratchet on the right axle and the pawl on the left one," reminded her Moon.

Nuddly looked at one of the parts, then the other without any sign of comprehension. She turned the circular thingy in the air, then scratched her head with the oblong, nearly rectangular one.

Pawl. Pawwwl. Sounds like a round thing. Ratchet. Scratch-et... she thought deeply.

"Must be it," she said gleefully as she put the circular part on the left axle.

After every part was in place Moon started the machine's engine to let it warm up, walked to her bag and took out three pairs of enormous brown goggles and colorful, striped scarves and gave them to other ponies, putting them on herself as well. She got a white and purple one, while Nuddly Plum got white and blue and Scarlet was left with white and maroon.

They packed all remaining things inside the beetle's trunk, along with Nuddly's camera. Moonbeam unfolded a step ladder which had wide rungs connected alternately on the left and right by brass beams, as a whole similar to a metal serpent zigzagging between square boxes. When it extended fully they finally boarded the craft. There were two seats in the second row and another one in the third. Scarlet and Nuddly sat together in the second row and while fastening their safety belts glanced at each other, wrapped in far too large scarves and wearing goggles that were almost the size of their heads and giggled simultaneously. The front seat was of the pilot's and so Moonbeam sat there, then pressed an unlabelled button, making the ladder fold rapidly with a loud rattle.

"All strapped up?" Moon asked, looking at them with overexcitement all over her face. They promptly nodded and the aircraft started to rise together with the noise coming from the engine.

"I'm curious!" she yelled after they were well in the air.

"What?!" Nuddly replied.

"Don't you get nervous that we're flying Maretown's first ever prototype of a non-pegasi-propelled heavier-than-air machine that wasn't even actually made until several minutes ago and of course completely untested?"

"What?! I can't hear you!"

Moonbeam looked back again and stared at Nuddly for a second. "What?!"