First Steps
“Aaaaaaaaaaah!”
“Stop struggling!”
“Put me down put me down put me down put me down!”
Twilight winced as her telekinesis gave out and the flailing automaton fell to the ground with enough force to put a large dent in the basement’s floor. She hadn’t expected this when she woke up this morning. It was quite safe to say that her plan of “finish the automaton and get it to clean the library” was now not going to happen.
The brass pony picked itself up before losing its balance again, ending up on its side. “I’m just going to stay here until everything makes sense,” it said, sounding eerily calm. “I’m going to close my eyes and when I open them, everything will be how it’s meant to be.” There was a short silence. “I can’t close my eyes.”
“I didn’t make you with eyelids,” Twilight said.
“I can’t close my eyes,” it repeated. “I can’t close my eyes. What kind of cruel bastard does that!?”
Twilight flinched at the language her creation was using. “I didn’t think it was necessary.”
The automaton rose unsteadily to its hooves. “Okay, then at least give me some answers as to why God seems to be doing this to me.”
“Who?”
“God. Tell me why God put me in the body of a metal horse and why I’m seeing a purple unicorn.” The complete lack of emotion the automaton presented was starting to unnerve Twilight, and she resolved to find a way to make it more expressive. For her sake, and for whoever had the misfortune to stumble upon it.
“I don’t know who this ‘God’ pony is, or why you think he’s responsible,” Twilight said cautiously, content with keeping her distance from the clearly unstable metal pony. “Um, I think I’m responsible.”
The automaton stared at her. At least, Twilight thought it was staring at her. For all she knew, it could have been doing whatever it was Derpy was able to do. “You’re a talking purple unicorn,” it said, making it clear from its tone it didn’t believe what it was seeing.
“Yeah, and I made the body,” Twilight retorted, pointing a hoof at it. “Didn’t mean to make it sentient, though,” she added.
“Wait, wait,” the automaton said, raising a hoof as it wobbled dangerously. “You think you gave a machine life?”
“Umm... yes?” Suddenly, Twilight felt a lot less sure of herself. Just how did something she had just given sentience know how to talk?
“Woah!” it yelped as it fell over again. “Okay, I’m getting sick of that,” he muttered. “At least I can’t feel pain.”
“Really?” the lavender unicorn asked, her worries temporarily forgotten.
“It’s not like I have a nervous system,” it said harshly, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“True,” Twilight muttered. “That might explain why you’re having so much trouble staying upright, too.”
“No, I know where my feet - ”
“Hooves,” came the automatic correction.
“ - are, I just don’t have a sense of balance anymore.” The automaton tried to stand up again. “Well, at least I’m not dead.”
Twilight Sparkle blinked. “I’m sorry, what? Are - are you saying I saved your life?” she asked, sounding alarmed.
It seemed to look in her direction. “No, I was already dead,” it said, the metallic bass of its voice calm.
The unicorn tilted her head in confusion. “You were a ghost?”
“No.” There was a pause. “Maybe.” Then another. “I don’t know. I was dead, and now I’m not.” Yet another. “Or maybe I still am and I’m just possessing this thing,” it said pensively. “Doesn’t explain why I’m here, though.”
What resulted from that last, seemingly-innocent statement, was a half-hour long, mind-numbingly confusing explanation of how the metaphysical realm interacted with the physical, the incorporeal with the corporeal, magic with - and everything else just sort of became a dull animal bleating. Sadly, the lack of expressive features made the poor spirit inhabiting the automaton unable to display just how utterly baffled he was by everything. Every time he opened ‘his’ mouth went unnoticed as the mare rambled on and on and on and on...
“Stop!” he eventually yelled in desperation. “Stop, please! If I still had a brain, it’d be coming out of my nose!”
This was enough to shake Twilight Sparkle from ‘Lecture Mode’, and she smiled awkwardly. “Eh heh, sorry, I get carried away sometimes,” she said.
“I never would have guessed,” it said sarcastically, though how it managed that she had no idea. She was deciding more and more that she didn’t really like whoever it was that had taken residence inside something she had laboured over, even if they did have a good reason for acting the way they were.
“Do you have a name?” she asked, endeavouring to remain polite.
“Yeah, I’m Jeremy. Well, I was.”
Twilight Sparkle blinked. “That’s not a pony name,” she said redundantly.
“Well, I wasn’t a pony,” Jeremy said, just as redundantly. “I was a human.”
“Human?” she asked. “You mean a tall, bipedal hairless ape?”
“Yep.” Jeremy’s tone changed. “How did you know that?”
“We have stories about them. Myths and such.”
There was a short silence. “And things were starting to make sense...” Jeremy muttered.
“So how am I seeing, exactly?”
“Your eyes are made from enchanted glass. I’m not actually sure how they work, I had to buy them.”
“Okay, magic glass. And the reason I can talk?”
“A speaker linked to the gem that, well, houses your soul.”
“Which is in my head.”
“Yes.” Twilight Sparkle turned to the automaton. “Are you sure you don’t want help?”
“I can do this,” Jeremy said confidently. “I can do this,” he repeated, with much less confidence.
“You’ve been standing at the base of the stairs for five minutes,” Twilight oh-so-kindly pointed out.
It was now close to an hour since the automaton sprung to life, inhabited by the spirit of a recently-deceased man. They were yet to leave the basement.
“If you don’t move soon, I’ll just teleport you up here,” Twilight threatened from her place at the door into the library. “We don’t have all day.”
“Don’t rush me,” Jeremy said, sounding irritated. “I still have trouble walking, you know.”
“Then why don’t you let me teleport you?”
“Because I don’t want you to,” came the answer.
“Ugh,” Twilight groaned with a roll of her eyes. “And I don’t want two and half tons of metal to put an even bigger hole in my basement floor.”
Jeremy paused, his left forehoof hovering above the first step. “I weigh two and a half tons?” he asked, shocked.
“Well, closer to two point three, but that - ” she cringed when he lost his balance. “Okay, that’s it.”
The brass pony was enveloped in a blanket of purple light and, with a popping sound, disappeared before reappearing a moment later next to Twilight on his hooves. He promptly fell over. “Argh!”
“Come on,” Twilight said unhappily, walking into the library.
“Little help?”
“What?” she asked angrily, turning to still see him lying where she had left him.
“I’m missing a leg,” Jeremy answered, sounding as though he was trying to remain calm.
“What!?” Twilight rushed to him and saw that his right hind leg had been left behind. “Urgh...” she growled as her hoof met her face.
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NO FIRST COMMENT FOR YOU!
seinfeld-fan.net/pictures/episodes/the_soup_nazi/the_soup_nazi017.jpg
Let's see if we can push this up to first in the "Popular Stories" box...
Second then, I love this so far. It's short though. Longer chapters would be more fun.
Please? 
Pretty Please?
“I’m going to close my eyes and when I open them, everything will be how it’s meant to be.”
There was a short silence.
“I can’t close my eyes.”
LOL!
This is awesome.
I think I would probably go somewhat insane if I was deprived the ability to close my eyes.
This is funny...And this is me stating the obvious.
Great chapter.
Asian dad: Now write another!
ShooOoO0oort !
1103657
My mother is Japanese...
1103662
This is why I should listen to my inner-intuition. Not sure if I offended you or if you're pulling my leg :C.
So you think twilight is going to get in trouble for this?
1103667
Just letting you know.
1103669
Alright, just making sure I didn't offend you. Pissing people off isn't my calling in life,
Seriously, I have no contingency for when this happens, so I have no idea how to reply now. No, I'm not kidding.
1103668Yes.Death is pissed.
Jeremy and Twilight,
Sitting in a tree
C-U-S-S-I-N-G
First no eyelids,
then no legs,
I loled
FUCKYESUPDATE
That was far too short.
1103688
Death shows up on a Harley Davidson wearing serious biker clothing. What happens next is totally unexpected-- Death sits at the table, drinks tea, and politely asks for Jeremy's life back like the gentledeath (gentleman, w/e. He's a freaking Grim Reaper.) he is.
1103688 Oh dear... I hadn't thought of that, I was just thinking about how the town's going to react.
1103696Hmmm....Gentaldeaths..........
1103704
TF2 Spy comes to mind...
Gentledeaths... *takes out knife*
1103716
:| MUFFIN-KING IS SPY!
if hes weight is 2.3tonns.... then twilight had to have used some REALLY dense metals........ did she use brass+*100 or something...?
1103822
Don't forget all the mechanisms that allow him to move as smoothly as he does.
Besides, not like I said the internals were made from the same things as the outer casing. And then there's the boiler mechanism and fuel...
1103668 I hope so. She doesn't seem concerned about yanking a young soul from everlasting rest and into an unnatural body, so she at least deserves a little smackin' around
1103842
Would it sink in so quickly if you'd done that?
1103851 can't speak from experience, but judging from the fact that she lectured him for 20 minutes, she at least knows what she's done and doesn't seem to give the smallest bit of a fuck
this is hilarious
Jeremy is best horcrux!
1103688
I think he's more annoyed than pissed.
2,3 tonnes! That's a lot! A LOT! Is he solid osmium or something?!
Well, in our world a pony can weigh several hundred pounds depending on its size. Big Mac is probably on the high end, with someone like Twilight on the low end. Even then, it wouldn't be surprising to me if Twilight weighed a couple hundred pounds.
A pony is mostly meat which is mostly water. Going by the metals involved in making Brass or Bronze, this thing is at least nine times as dense as anything made mostly of water would be. Even if you allow for some gaps in the inside, you can easily account for more than 1500 pounds of weight without even having to stretch for stuff like "And it's powered by a portable dimension full of liquid osmium which still exerts its full weight on the bearer."
1103716 SPYCHECK! SPYCHECK! SPYCHECK! SPYCHECK! *Lights KingOftheMuffins on fire* SPY! SPY! SPY!
1103873 I don't think anypony gives even the slightest bit of fuck these days
1104029>>1103703>>1103688
If the general assumption that this Death resembles the one from Discworld is correct, then I really don't think that he's pissed or annoyed. Maybe curious but I think that's about it.
awesome
story man
Write another chapter, NOW
... if it is okay with you, of course.
1104050 An average car weights about 4k pounds, which is about 2 tons... Yeah, 2.3 tons is an overstatement. Even going full steampunk and making him out of solid steel would not be heavy enough. A ton, however, would be about right.
This is highly entertaining. Poor Jeremy is on the verge of completely freaking out, but is managing to hold together.
I just absolutely love how this was meant to be a silly short story at first.
And now it's in the top rankings.
The internet is a strange place, indeed.
1104238 Actually, Death is the traditional western depiction. But a Discworld crossover would be pretty badass!
1104238 For him this is probably the first time in who knows how many hundreds of years that things have gotten interesting.
1104442 It's just that his last line "Hm, that was new" struck me as incredibly discworldish.
MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
All of my
WAT.
LOL, he be heavy
And with the fact that he is steam operated I can't help but think of him walking around town then building up pressure and having to let some out like an old train, but when he does...
Jeremy: "Hold up.... I think I have built up some excess pressure"
-FSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHH-
*he finds that his tail is suddenly caught up in a huge gust and a cloud of steam shooting from beneath his tail*
Passing unicorn: "I SAY! HOW UNCOUTH!"
Jeremy: ".... why would you put the exhaust there?... just why..."
Twilight:"Hmmm, guess I didn't think that one through"
1104324
No he isn't. He forgot his leg.
Meanwhile, Death bundles up his stuff in a polka-dot rag, ties it to his scythe, and goes hitchhiking hobo-style, sitting in boxcars and playing the harmonica until he makes it to Equestria.
Fun fact: Death is an amazing harmonica player. It soothes his weary nonexistent soul.