Anger issues and new organs
Canterlot hospital recovery ward
Steely Lathe woke up in her hospital bed groggy and confused about a few things around here. She noticed she was in a surgery recovery ward, she was wearing a hospital gown usually reserved for those who had received surgery, and most importantly, she noticed she had no pulse.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Steely screamed. “Nurse?! Doctor?! Anypony?! Help!”
A doctor and nurse burst through the door and rushed to her side.
“Miss Steely, I’m Doctor Needles! I’m here to help! What’s the matter?! Where are you hurting?!” The pink unicorn doctor shouted over her screaming.
“Heart not beating! DO SOMETHING!” Screamed Steely before starting to hyperventilate.
“Oh. Right. Your heart…” Doctor Needles said, a sheepish look coming across her face. Doctor Needles looked over at the nurse. “Go back to your rounds, I’ll handle this, and send him in here if you see him, I want him to help explain this.”
“What do you mean ‘Oh’? My heart's not beating! Do something!” Steely yelled and continued to hyperventilate.
Doctor Needles sighed before turning back to Steely. “I say ‘Oh’ because your heart not beating isn’t really something I can do anything about. I’m a doctor, not an engineer.”
This panicked Steely more than anything. “What do you mean you can’t do anything?! Why would you need an engineer?! It’s a heart! Not a motor!”
“May as well be one now.” Doctor Needles muttered under her breath, “Look, I can’t do anything about it because you may have… well… undergone a heart transplant on… accident.”
This caused Steely to pause and stop hyperventilating for a moment, her face adopting a confused look. “What? How the hay do you ‘accidentally’ get a heart transplant? And what kind of heart doesn’t beat?”
“Well you ‘accidentally’ receive a heart transplant when the surgeon doesn’t understand metaphors, as for what kind of heart doesn’t beat…” Doctor Needles’ voice trailed off. An answer to the question came from the doorway
“Statement: What kind of heart does not beat? A superior one to the pathetic lump of flesh you one had sitting in your chest.”, a metallic sounding voice droned from the door leading into the ward.
Steely Lathe and Doctor Needles both looked over to see a human in dark robe with a hood that obscured his face, the only thing that was visible underneath it was looked like a grille where the mouth should be, and a trio of glowing green eyes. Out of his back came a variety of servo arms and tendrils, each tipped with various pieces of equipment that looked like it could be used for either surgery or repairing an armored vehicle.
“Doctor.”
“Yes?”
“What is that?”
“That would be your surgeon, Dark Techpriest Carmed.”
“Ok.” Steely said weakly.
The Techpriest strode over to where Steely currently lay and stared at her for a few moments, saying nothing to ease the obvious fear that the mare had for the man.
After another minute the Carmed spoke. “Satisfaction: I’m pleased to say the implant has taken. Congratulatory: You are now the proud host of a Mark XXXIX Synthetic Cardiac Muscle.”
Canterlot Hospital. The office of Dr. Needles M.D. five minutes later.
“So let me just try and summarize this. I came in here for a mental health examination, and I got a heart transplant?”, Steely said, slightly frustrated by this turn of events, “I came in here because my boss and coworkers said I should, now I have a new heart.”
She gave the the Doctor and the Techpriest a glare. “Would you perhaps like to fill in the blanks there?”
“Well…”, Doctor Needles began, “I suppose you could say it was my fault, but I believe most of the blame lies on him.”, the doctor pointed a hoof at the Techpriest standing beside her, “Because apparently metaphors go over his head.”
“Negative. Expansion: with my superior reflexes nothing going below the speed of a bolt round would be able to fly past my head without being caught easily.”
Both mares stared at the Techpriest for a few moments to see if he would say something that would allude to that being a joke. He said nothing.
“See what I mean?”, Dr. Needles said, “All I had to say was that you had a ‘broken heart’ and, well…”.
“So me getting cut open was because this guy doesn’t know metaphors?! WHAT THE HELL!?” Steely yelled, her irritation rising with the absurdity of the situation.
“Now, now, this shouldn’t be anything to get too worked up about,” Needles paused, perhaps realizing that maybe wasn’t right in this instance, “Okay, well... maybe in this case it is, but there is no need to get that angry.”
“Easy for you to say! You didn’t get your heart taken out by some walking tin can! No offense.”, Steely said, turning to the dark Techpriest.
“Affirmative. Expansion: none taken, meatbag.”
Steely took the Techpriest’s jab in stride before returning her anger to the doctor in front of her.
“How is this going to affect me really? I mean, am I going to have to come in for oil changes or something?”
“Negative. Explanatory:The XXXIX Synthetic Cardiac Muscle can operate for an estimated one hundred and seventy four years before requiring any form of maintenance. This superior organ will be more of a boon to you than anything.”
“How so?”, Steely asked, curiosity overtaking anger for a brief moment.
“Explanatory: The XXXIX Synthetic Cardiac Muscle will in times of stress release a superior form of adrenaline and a cocktail of various combat drugs that would need to be refilled through the hole that is now present on the back of your neck. It can filter out bloodborne toxins that would attempt to reach the brain.”
“Wait... WHAT!?” both mares yelled.
“When did you put holes in the back of her neck? WHY DID YOU PUT A HOLE IN THE BACK OF HER NECK?”
“Statement: the refill ports were installed when you were on your eating period. Expansion: they were placed there to refill the combat drug cocktail dispensers, as previously stated, would you like me to replace your ears with superior mechanical ones? You seem to be hard of hearing.”
“You were able to install a whole system of tubes into her body while I was on lunch? That’s… actually sort of impressive, I mean I’m still appalled and angry but to do all that in around a half hour is sort of impressive.”
“Affirmative. Expansion: I will take that compliment.”
Steely, who was up until this point frantically feeling for the small port, froze up and looked at the doctor, her eye twitching slightly.
“He shoves a bunch of tubes and a hunk of metal into my body, and you’re impressed?!”,
Steely yelled, Needles actually shrinking away from her, “I’m going to! Going to! RAAAAAAAAAA-!”
Was all Steely could get out before slumping over into a sleeping state a small dart sticking out of her side
Needles let out a sigh, and turned to the Techpriest, one of his tendrils was pointed at Steely.
“Didn’t know you could do that.”
“Affirmative. Expansion: when working with animals it is always handy to have a dart gun loaded with tranquilizers at the ready.”
“So you’re a vet and a doctor?”
The Techpriest said nothing
“Now then what to do with her?” Needles said, “I mean I know she was in here for depression, and her records say she has a slight history for violence, but I don’t think there is anything we can really do for her; our only qualified psychologist left on a vacation a month ago and he still isn’t back and probably won’t be for a while.” She sighed, “We’ll just have to hope for the best for her.”
“Affirmative. Expansion: Now if you’ll excuse me, there is a kidney transplant I need to get back to.”
“What? We’ve been here for nearly an hour! Are you telling me you delayed a surgery because you wanted to make sure she was okay?”
“Negative. Expansion: I was in the middle of surgery, and I wanted to make sure that the heart had taken to its host properly, this is the first time a model XXXIX has been placed inside a xeno, and I wanted to see if there were any negative or positive side effects.”
“Wait. How far were you into the surgery when I called you?”
“Statement: We had just taken out both of the ineffective kidneys.”
Needles absorbed this for a moment and then spoke.
“So right now there is a pony on an operating table hooked up to life support, cut open, with no kidneys?”
“Affirmative.”
Needles sighed, burying her face in her hooves.
Downtown Canterlot temporary shelter camp. 5 hours later
Steely sighed as she walked through one of the camps that had been set up to house those whose homes had been destroyed during the fighting between the humans and the tau. She had lost her home in the fighting due to a battlesuit pilot deciding her house would make an excellent vantage point just before being blown apart by a daemon engine with a pink pony riding on it.
Steely herself had gotten away unharmed (save for the fact that all her things had been destroyed) and proceeded to watch the rest of the fighting from a nearby rooftop. Now she just had to wait around camp until her house was rebuilt, which, given the damage Canterlot had taken, would likely be a whi-
“Want revenge on the blue skinned mules that did this to our fair capital? Want to get a fancy gun and armor? Want to go into space? If any of these sound interesting to you join the Iron Warriors 38th Company!”, shouted a pony on a street corner in the middle of the camp, interrupting Steely’s train of thought.
Steely looked over at the stallion who was currently shouting at passersby, he was wearing a dark colored robe sort of like what her ‘surgeon’ had worn in the hospital, and he even had one of those little tentacle things that her ‘surgeon’ had had as well; Though this one just had a small gripper that appeared to be handing out… pamphlets? To those who had stopped to listen to the stallion.
“Thats right folks! You if you want to become a gun-for-hire space pirate, all you have to do is join up with the 38th Company! If you play your cards right, you may even get a little augmentation like I got! You won’t believe how useful this thing is folks! I can now spread jam on my toast with ease! That may not sound impressive, but you earth ponies out there will know what I’m talking about!”, The stallion continued to shout, “Recruiting station is right next door to the Iron Chest!”.
The stallion continued to shout, oblivious to the two royal guards who were walking up to him.
“Gear Works, I’m going to have to ask you to stop.”, the Royal guard stated calmly, “We’ve told you before, you’re free to do your recruiting anywhere in the city except for the refugee camps.”
“Ah come on! Nopony really listens except for here! I mean I’ve already got like five ponies to go down to the recruiting station within the past hour. Do you know how long it’d take otherwise to get five ponies to join? It’d take like two hours each.”, Gear Works complained, “I mean you don’t have a problem when I just leave the pamphlets.”
“Pamphlets alone are different, but this is something else all together, now unless you stop, I’m going to have to ask you to come with us.” The Royal Guard said a bit more sternly.
“Not if I do…” Gear Works began, mechadendrite reaching inside of his robe for something, “do…”
“Do…? What? Gear Works come on we have a patrol to finish and I’d rather not arrest you.”
"Just hold on one second! Where did they go? I put them right- Aha! There they are!"
“What?” The guard asked, looking back at his partner who shrugged in response.
“Smokebomb!” Shouted Gear Works as his mechadendrite withdrew from the robe and quickly threw a small ball on the ground that began to rapidly began to produce a thick smoke, causing many of those close by to begin coughing.
“HAHAHA!” Gear works shouted as he fled from the scene.
“Damn it! *cough* This is the third time *cough* this has happened this week! *cough* *cough*” One of the royal guards shouted through a coughing fit as they ran after him.
Well that was fun to watch, Steely thought, a small smile creeping onto her face after watching the fiasco. But I better get going if I want to get to work on time, first shift since the attack and I want it to start right.
Canterlot hospital recovery ward. 8 hours later
“Bwuh?”, Steely said as she roused from her sleep, taking in her surroundings with a sense of deja vu, she noticed the pink unicorn doctor looking over her chart at the foot of the bed and smiled, “Hey there doc, you won’t believe the dream I just had, it was crazy, I got my heart replaced and I got to work and I had a heart attack as soon as I walked onto the assembly area and-”, Steely stopped after a moment when a realization hit her. “Oh sweet Celestia.”
“Yes Ms. Lathe I’m afraid you weren’t dreaming.” Dr. Needles said, curiously refusing to meet her eyes.
“So then my heart and all that stuff with me having a heart attack…”
“Well I wouldn’t call it a ‘heart attack’ per se, more of a… malfunction maybe?”
“Whatever!” Steely shouted before continuing, “The tin head told me that thing could operate for over a hundred years without needing maintenance and now it just shuts down for no reason?! I want to know what exactly is wrong with it!”
“Correction: My head is made of a plasteel and ceramite alloy, not tin. Expansion: As for what is wrong with you, I believe I can explain.” Carmed said arriving through the doors in a similar fashion as he had that morning.
“And?” Steely asked impatiently.
“Statement: It appears that this model of the XXXI Synthetic Cardiac Muscle, has a history slight defects around electromagnetic fields. Expansion: the defect being in this case that it stops working.”
Dr. Needles spoke up, “I’d call that more of a fatal flaw than a ‘slight defect’.”
“Statement: It is only a slight defect when you have more than one blood pumping organ inside of your chest. Expansion: I also wished to see how the other new implants were taking.”
“What new implants? What else did you stick inside of me?!” Steely asked, angry that they may have removed even more of her organs without asking. “What metaphor did you use this time?!” Steely shouted at Needles, who shrunk away slightly.
“Okay this time it was not me, I didn’t even know about it until he had finished.”
Steely turned on Carmed, “Well?”, She asked.
“Statement: I replaced some of your nerves with wiring. Expansion: Your reaction times should be much faster than they were before.”
“Why? Why did you do that?”, Steely asked, exasperated.
“Statement: no data available.”
Steely began to twitch in her bed. Just her eye first, then her head began to slight cock to the side every few seconds.
“Now Steely I know that this likely another traumatic experience for you but-”, Needles began before being cut off.
“I’M GONNA TO KILL YOU!” Steely shouted leaping out of her bed, catching a dart from the Carmeds mechadendrite, but continuing on towards the Techpriest to brutalize his person regardless of the tranquilizers working their way through her system.
“Statement: Oh dear.”
Steely’s first blow actually managed to knock the Techpriest onto his back and she proceeded to get on top of him. Ignoring the pain in her hoof and the numbness working its way through her she proceed to rain blow after blow onto the the face of the techpriest while all the while Carmed continued to hit her with darts, Dr. Needles running out of the room in order to get help from other unicorn staff to restrain the violent patient.
“You! Stupid! Piece! Of! Tin! You! Belong! In! A! Scrap! Bin!” Steely said, punctuating each word with another blow to the Techpriest’s facial area. Steely could barely hear or feel a thing now, blood rushing through her ears and vision both fading and tinged red for some reason. She could barely hear the string of binary curses Carmed was letting out as she pummeled his face, she barely even registered as Dr. Needles returned with another three unicorns who lifted her off the Techpriest and restrained her onto the bed, thrashing against it all the while. Then everything went dark.
Downtown Canterlot temporary shelter camp. 1 Day later
Steely supposed she should count herself lucky. I mean really they could have just carted her off the prison after that little incident with the the Techpriest. But after she had woken up many hours later, the Techpriest had been actually rather happy about what had happened, saying something about ‘superb results’ and ‘unintended cooperation between implants’, really she had still wanted to turn him into scrap so it had been a good thing she’d still been tied down.
Dr. Needles had been really hesitant to turn her loose after that too, but the Techpriest seemed to assure her that there likely wouldn’t be a repeat incident unless she was ‘sufficiently provoked’ what that really meant, Steely wasn’t sure, but she was sure of one thing. She was now homeless and unemployed.
She grumbled to herself as she walked through the refugee camp before spotting sight she had seen a day before on the corner, but this time there was a key difference. That difference was a human mercenary standing guard while Gear Works did his regular spiel.
Steely wandered over closer to the augmented pony and his guard and listened, took one of the pamphlets offered by the mechadendrite and read it.
‘50 bits a day plus hazard pay when on assignment’? Not too bad, she wondered how much hazard pay was? It didn’t say on the pamphlet. ‘Free room and board’? Now that was especially enticing. ‘visit exotic worlds, meet new aliens, then kill them and conquer their land’? Not sure that’s what she would put on a recruitment pamphlet, but she didn’t really know much about how recruiting worked. ‘Protect Equestria from the blue skinned menace!’. Now that was tempting, get payback at the aliens that had destroyed her house… well, the alien that was the root cause of her house being destroyed anyway.
Steely was beginning to see why this would be so tempting to so many people in the camp, offered everything they wanted and a little payback on the mules who caused this mess.
‘Ah what the hay. Not like I have a lot of other prospects for employment at the moment’, Steely thought, beginning to walk towards where the Gear Works and the pamphlet said the recruiting center was.
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Excellent start. The humor is top totch! I already quite like Steely: I wonder though what kind of misadventure she will get into that go beyond what SFAccountant has written before.
Hah! Cute expansion on the best one-off gag in Iron Hearts! I'm definitely on board so far.
This is quite good! I'm hoping to see more of the Iron Hearts series sprout stories like this! I've only seen one other, but the promise of clop turned me away from it. This one here is a lot more in matching the theme of the original Iron Hearts series, and is so far pretty good!
This was a fun first Chapter.
My only real con is that we were never really told where Steely Lathe works apart from a 'factory' of some sort. It's a small thing but it also messed with her new implant so maybe a little exposition would be good.
Otherwise I'm looking forward to this series.
Not bad. Not bad at all!
Favorite part right here.
By the by, I see that the first segment is single-spaced between paragraphs while the rest of the story is double-spaced. It didn't make it harder to read or anything, but I didn't see any reason why the formatting would change between sections, so I assume it was accidental.
6555203
How did that slip by me?
I'll have to fix this.
Also glad you liked it.
There's a good premise here, but the execution felt a bit clunky to me. In particular, there were some incorrect words used in the description of Steely beating up Carmed, for instance 'lifted here of the' when you clearly meant 'lifted her off the'. Things like that.
I will keep an eye on this, as a story following a pony that is not one of the Mane 6 could prove interesting. Especially if Gear Works ends up being a regular.
6557808
Possibly. Sort of depends on how SFaccountant uses him later in his own stories.
6557940
You should feel free to use Gear Works however you want. Flesh out his personality, attach a bunch of achievements to him, give him unusual augments, whatever. You already gave him smoke bombs, and that's certainly nothing I had every considered doing.
I find it more satisfying to see the story and characters developing on their own than seeing that everything goes as I expect it to. I mean, you already changed Steely's story direction from "completely and inexplicably satisfied with her bionic enhancements" to "enraged to the point of trying to bite a Techpriest's face off". I couldn't be happier with the divergence.
Really well written. I would really like to see where this is going.
The only thing missing is a bit of detail - the refugee camp feels a bit 'empty' with so little descriptions and a more detailed flashback to the battle would also be cool.
I like that new cover art.
6655302
I originally had a pretty vivid description of some raptors 'fighting' Tau on the street outside. I scrapped it because I felt it went way too long and didn't really add anything.
6659476
You can thank the artist and SFaccountant for that