Vaporium

by GPVS

Chapter Two: Cold Night

Today is my birthday, the day I turn seventeen. Now the town will recognize me as an adult, I am no longer a youngling. Today marks the five year anniversary of Pine’s departure.

“Pop’s…,” I stop myself before I head out the door completely. My dad is sound asleep at his workbench; he was up all night repairing a filter for one of the steam vents. Pops is the head repairpony so he does all the detail oriented work like this on his own. It really puts a lot of stress on him and makes him work until late at night. I would like to help him but I don’t know how to.

“I’ll see you later,” I say trotting out the door and closing it behind me. It’s still pretty early, but I have a lot of work to do today. It may be my birthday, but there’s no time to slack off. I need to finish my

[]-[]-[]-[]

“Hey Prof’!” I yell as I enter the workhouse, “I’m here early again,”

A tall, brown stallion with gray hair pops up behind one of the testing steam-vats, “Why yes, yes you are Jet. As always,”

“Wha’d ya’ got for me today?” I ask, ready to get started on work.

“Actually, nothing at the moment Jet,” the stallion tightens a bolt on the vat, “I’m just adding the final touches to that condenser I was working on yesterday.”

Since my town relies completely on steam, we have a facility known as the Boilerworks that produces this steam. Being the sole source of this power means the Boilerworks takes up at least a third of town, that’s to be expected though, we’re freaking huge.
Now, a single group of ponies can’t run an entire town, you need a lot of people for that. We got around that by dividing up the Boilerworks into three main segments, the Maintenance, Production and Development division. These three parts working together power the entire town.

The Development division I work in is lead by my teacher Mr. Bolt. We’re in charge of creating new technology for steam-power. Prof’ for example is working on some sort of condenser, it’s supposed to make the steam produced more dense and powerful. We also have to do the occasional repair if something is too badly broken and can’t be replaced. Our division is quite small, in size and ponies.

My dad leads the Maintenance division. As the name states my dad’s division does a lot of the repair work, but not just for the Boilerworks. Helping out the town from time to time is another thing they do for fun. Because they have such huge technology to repair all the time they are the second largest division.

Mr. Bolt’s twin, Mr. Nuts, leads the Production division. The majority of the Boilerworks is their division; it takes up a ton of space. This is too be expected though since the division does a joint operation. It not only produces steam, but construct more machines too. They are both a power supply and a power supply supplier.

“So, are you sure you don’t need my help?” I ask, “I’m probably going to go work on my project so if you need me this would be the most convenient time for the both of us.”

Prof’ releases his forelegs from the wrench and settles them on the ground. He wipes a ball of sweat off of his muzzle and mutters to himself, probably cursing under his breath about how tight the bolt was.

“I’m sure Jet,” he says, “It’s a Saturday so you should probably do what you want today. None of the other workers are here,”
I sigh out loud, “I know, I just kind of don’t feel okay mooching off your technology without helping somehow. So, give me a job or something…”

Prof’ chuckles to himself, “Well, okay then Jet, I forgot how helpful you like being.” He gestures to a sack of tools, “If you really want to help I have some of our Developers higher up the mountain outside town looking for that meteor we all saw last night. They could use those.”

Last night the town had its weekly town meeting to discuss whatever needs discussing. The meeting yesterday was on tomorrow’s tournament, but that’s irrelevant. What is important to mention is that during the middle of the meeting a giant flash of white streaked across the sky and landed somewhere up in the mountains. Since it is the Developer’s job to make new technology this was a perfect opportunity to get some new stuff. They left last night as far as I can remember.

“So, I have to bring these tools up to them?” I ask, “Why do they need to work on it up there?”

“Because the meteor is too big. They sent a messenger in earlier to tell me that they can’t bring it back in one piece. No pony wants to destroy such a rare specimen so we decided to work on it there, they just need tools,” Prof’ explains.

As I stated before the Developers division is really small, but I don’t think I mentioned how small. Our actual building is only the size of your average house; it’s only one story as well. We actually only consist of ten ponies, names will be given later. Our building is really just a big rectangular building with some workbenches and two mock steam-vats. Luckily for us the building isn’t made of wood like all the other houses in town. That would be really bad.

“Alright Prof’, I’ll deliver your tools,” I heft the sack of appliances on my back, “Sounds fun.”

“Thanks, Jet,” Prof’ goes back to tightening the bolts as I walk out of the warehouse. The early morning gray still lingers as I make my way to the back entrance of Vaporium. Well, I guess in this case it would be the exit.

[]-[]-[]-[]

“So, you got a job to do out of town?” a bulky brown stallion stops me before I exit the city gates. Vaporium isn’t exactly known for being in the safest location so we have ponies like these police it to make sure any unfriendlies from outside don’t get inside.

“Yeah,” I respond, “Mr. Bolt ordered me to deliver these tools to some workers higher up the mountain,”

“Uh-huh,” the stallion eyes me in a distrusting manner, “Why would he do that on a weekend? No pony is supposed to be working today, it’s Saturday,”

“Well, the ponies up there are working. You saw that meteor crash last night didn’t you?” I say, “I work for the Development division and those are my co-workers up there.”

“Oh, okay. No problem then, just had to double check,” the stallion’s attitude instantly changes into a more upbeat one, “The name’s Everest, what’s yours?”

“I’m Jetsteam,” I say, “But you can call me Jet,”

“Alrighty then, Jet. Before I let you leave though, do you have a means to defend yourself with?” Everest looks at my sack, “A bag of measuring sticks and recording utensils won’t do a whole lot of good against a Green-bear.”

The Green-bear is almost like your normal bear, almost. Unlike normal bears it can fly and will probably eat you in less than a minute. The outside of our area is plagued with these beasts and other monsters, it’s quite the predicament.

“You’re probably right,” I say, “But I didn’t have time to go get a weapon or anything, that’s my fault though.”

“No problem,” Everest turns around and trots into his guard-shed. When he comes back out he is holding a sword. Six inches long and double sided, the standard for Vaporium.

“Is that for me?” I ask.

“Eeyup, you need some way to defend yourself don’t you,” he hands the sword out to me.

I take it in my hooves and strap it to the side of my sack, “Thanks,”

“No problem,” Everest grins at me, “Now you should be going,”

“Yeah,” I turn around a face the exit, “See ya’,

“See ya’”

[]-[]-[]-[]

The weather up here is much colder than Vaporium, the temperature has dropped considerably and I’m not even two miles away. The casual warm glow oozing out of houses has been transformed into a frost bitten ice sculpture. I haven’t been out of town in a while.
My terrain has changed as well, what used to be a fusion of wood and steel is now nothing but a winter woodland. The snow also seems to have accumulated, going from a slow drizzle to a harsh downpour. I can only see about ten to fifteen feet away from myself at best.
“Hey! Anyone out there!” I yell in front of me, “The snow’s really catching up and it’d be great if I could actually know where I’m supposed to be going,”
“Is that you Jet?” I hear a mare yell from within the wall of white. A light shines through the haze and I can see the slight shadow of a mare.
“Is that you, Flare?” I ask trotting closer to the light.
“Who else could it be,” I see the shape of my blond haired friend as I get even closer, “Idiot,”
“Well, isn’t that a warm welcome,” I say as I’m only a few feet away from her. She’s my old friend Sun Flare, we’re the two youngest members in the Development Division at the age of seventeen. She got that name because of her strange birth conditions which involved the sun enlarging in size for about ten minutes. This resulted in half the ice and snow melting and almost flooding the town. Very bad from what I’ve heard.
“You don’t get a warm welcome,” she says glaring at me, “You’re late,”
“Late, what do you mean late!?” I exclaim, “I was only given the job ten minutes ago. You’ve been out here for hours, there’s no way you’d know I’d be here.”
“Well, I guess that’s true,” she lets go of her glare, “But everyone else has been without tools for about two hours after we broke the other ones. We’re short on ponies to begin with so when half of the crew left to go find some tools we’re not exactly in a great position,”
“Wait, what do you mean ‘left’?” I ask.
“I mean they ‘left’, like they’re not here anymore. The only ones who stayed behind are Blast, Crank, Burst and myself. Everyone else is gone,”
“And now they’re lost, right?” this just got worse.
“Yup, they haven’t reported back in over an hour,” she doesn’t look very pleased. I think over this. After trotting up here I am pretty sure these conditions are not ideal for any pony for very long. In only a few hours they could be nothing more than ice cubes.
“Well, I have your tools… Why don’t you and I go look for the lost workers and tell the others to wait here in case they come back?” I suggest, “They could continue working and I can leave the tools with them,”
“Hmmmm, sounds fine too me,” Flare says, “Come with me, we’ll go inform the other guys.”

After telling the other three workers to stay put Sun Flare and I hiked higher up the mountain in search of other ponies. Flare told me that there are only three ponies that ran off, not a really big issue, we still need to hurry though.

“Hey, you need to come with us,” I say to one of the Developers we found. Flare and I found him completely by accident sitting on a bench, one down, two too go.

“Uh, sure. I’ll come with you guys,” the worker says, “No problem.” Sun Flare wasn’t done with him yet though,

“What were you doing? running off?” she asks, getting in his face, “Were you bored? Did you want to go home?”

“What are you talking about?” the confused rescue asks, “I’m just trying to grab tools, like the other two who left.”

“Well then why are you going up the mountain then?” Sun Flare backs up off the pony, “The tools would be farther down.”

“Wait,” the rescue seems surprised by what was just said, “I’m going ‘up’ the mountain? I thought this was the way down?”

“Nope,” I interject before Flare can get all ‘in his stuff’, “Don’t worry about it though; Sun Flare is just being herself. Just come with us, we’re looking for the other ponies. Another set of eyes would be good.” Sun Flare doesn’t seem very happy about my interjection, she lost her prey.

“Uh, well, I don’t have any choice do I?” The rescue gets up off the bench, “Let’s go, I want to get this over with.”

“I completely agree with you,” I say, then start trotting again.

Eventually after a lot of searching we found the other pony, this time she was actually back at camp. We went there to drop off our first find and ended up seeing her waiting for us.

“I am so sorry for running off,” she says, almost breaking into tears, “I just wanted to help.”

I instantly try to calm her down, “It’s okay, no worries. You’re here now and we only have one more pony too look for.” I address the rest of the group, “Boss is back at the lab and you five should head back there, we’ll meet you there after we find the last remaining developer.”

“Okay,” a pony in the group replies, “We already packed while you were looking for these two, what should we do with the specimen?”

I had been so busy worrying for the other ponies that I never saw the specimen, I have no idea what to do with it. Luckily, Flare has my back, “Leave it,” she says, “Jet and I will look over it ourselves when we come back here after finding the last pony, okay?”

“Sure,” the ponies heave there sacks onto their backs, “See ya’ later then.” They begin to trot off back down the mountain. I look at their bodies slowly fading into the snow and am reminded of Pine and her retreat from the village. These are memories I’d rather not remember, as Sun Flare can see in my face.

“Hey, Jet,” she says, “Wasn’t your job to give us tools? Not send us back home?” She attempts to stop me from thinking back on Pine.
It works, “Yeah, I probably wasn’t supposed to send them back,” I admit, “But Prof’ will understand, I hope.”

“You better hope he does,” Flare sighs, “Just because you’re basically second-in-charge and the boss’s apprentice doesn’t mean you should go making orders. But, I think you did fine this time around actually.” She looks at me, “So, ya’ wana see ‘the specimen?”

“What,” I sound a little surprised, “What about rescuing the last pony?”

“He’ll be fine,” Flare says, “Don’t worry. Now come on, this thing’s totally awesome.” She then proceeds to lead me towards the specimen. As we trot over there I notice that the indents in the snow made by equipment and tables have already been filled. There must be a lot more snow than I had thought previously.

“Hey Fla-,” I begin to mention the increase in snow, but stop as I see the ‘the specimen’.

“Pretty awesome isn’t it?” Sun Flare says, “For a meteor, this thing sure is sturdy. It doesn’t seem to be banged up at all.”

“It looks like an egg,” I say.
The specimen was just a giant, smooth, white, egg-shaped rock, “And you’re right, it’s perfectly intact.”

“Yeah, every once in awhile it hums,” Flare grabs my hoof and rests it on the rock, sure enough it sort of vibrates, “Like that.”

“Wow,” I don’t really know how to react, “That’s pretty awesome.”

“It totally is,” Flare turns away from the rock and drops my arm, “Now, come on. We got a pony too save.”

“I thought you said we had time?” I say raising an eyebrow.

“No, I said he’d be fine. Now come on, let’s go!” she’s already started sprinting away

“Fine, fine,” I run up to her, she never really does slow down.

“Well,” I start, “Who would’ve guessed the snow would get so bad?” The light shower of snow quickly turned into a small blizzard, which we could stand. Then the temperatures started dropping and it became ice, we couldn’t live very long in that. So, we retreated into a cave. It’s around 2:00 in the afternoon with only about ten hours left of my birthday. It couldn’t be helped so I don’t hold anything against anypony.

“You obviously had some idea that this would happen,” Flare says, “Not only did you insist we come in here but you also sent all those other ponies’ home. Did you predict this from the beginning?”

“I might have,” I say not wanting to admit that I had, “But that’s irrelevant. We need to find a way to that last pony.”

“I’m pretty sure that he might be the least of our concerns,” Sun Flare says, “If you haven’t noticed we’re trapped in a cave with dropping temperatures and the possibility of being attacked by the local animals. We can’t help him so might as well help ourselves.”

I hate to admit it, but she’s right. There isn’t anything we can do for our last missing pony at this point, “Fine,” I say resentfully, “But we’ll at least go looking around in the cave.”

“I’m cool with that,” she says, “You have a sword right?”

“Yeah,” I turn to show the side I have the sword holstered on, “I got it from a guard before leaving town.”

“Good,” the burgundy mare says walking into the cave, “Now let’s go, I hate just standing around.”

I trot up next to her, “Sure, just hold your horses.” The cave, for those who were wondering, was rather immense in size. Tons of little holes too walk through all over the place. We entered through some hole that lead down to where we are now after the storm really started picking up. Nothing really special about the walls, just your average everyday mix of stone and rock.

“Well, yeah, you did suggest that,” Sun Flare says, “But I’m the one who’s enforcing it.”

“Enforcing it?” I look at the walls to see if they really are just boring gray rocks, “What do you mean ‘enforcing it’?”

“I mean what I just said,” Flare chuckles to herself, “I’m enforci-.” Sun Flare’s words were cut off by the immediate fit of black. All light disappeared from the cave instantly.

The spontaneous wall of black killed any sort of calm in my mind, “What was that,” I exclaim, “Oh no, a cave in. This is very, very bad. Very bad,”

“I don’t think so Jet,” Sun Flare eases up next to me, shuddering, “I heard no sound, so that couldn’t be it.”

I consider this, “Well, if it isn’t a cave-in, what is it?”

“Good question” Sun Flare says, “I wish I knew.”

“Well, I don’t know either,” my mind starts to go into a panic. I can’t see anything in the slightest. I think Sun Flare may be holding onto me, I can’t tell though. I hadn’t noticed it before but the ceiling must be wet, I can hear a faint, “Plip, Plip, Plip,” as the water droplets hit the ground. Their equally spaced falls and sound start to make my head hurt. A few droplets drop on my head and the entire cave explodes into white light.

“Woah, what was that,” I say flicking my head back and forth. My eyes lay on Sun Flare, who appears to be on fire, “Is that normal?” I ask, sounding pretty stupid.

“No,” she closes her eyes and the fire starts to form into a ball, “No this is definitely not normal, I think my magic is acting up again,”

“Your magic?” I ask, “I thought you knew how to control that,”

“I do,” she says as the fire seeps off of her into the ball, “It hasn’t done this since Pine left. I think the mix of fear from the dark and the surprise from that water triggered it.”

My friend Sun Flare is a very special type of pony. As you all know, unicorns are completely removed from the town, natural unicorns. Sun Flare is unicorn born without a horn, probably from the fact that both her parents are earth ponies. Everyone tells me that they thought she was just a normal pony, until her magic enlarged the sun when she was born. Sun Flare isn’t like a normal unicorn with a general power over magic, she can only manipulate fire. The lack of a horn let her stay in town with everyone after the unicorns all left; it was a little hard on her though. She had to take classes for a long time to control her power over fire, less her secret get out. Keeping the secret became even more precedent when the civil war began. The only ponies who know are Pine, myself and our parents. The three of our families formed the intermediary group to stop the war, which, obviously, didn’t work. We’ve been best friends since the beginning, all three of us. Our parents share the same relationship.

Flare and I are walking down one of the tunnels, this one being a bit strange with its walls being a crude red color.

“How long have you been able to have your fire animate itself?” I ask, referring to the now floating sphere of fire lighting up our path ahead of us.

“Well, since just now,” Flare admits, “I guess the stress triggered it.”

“Uh-huh,” I say, “Before you could only manipulate pre-made fire or project it out of yourself, right?” The flames create a bit of an eerie glow on the cave walls, magnifying our shadows on them.

“Right,” Flare makes the fire-sphere wobble around a bit, “I guess I can manipulate the fire I create too now.”

“Yup,” I stare ahead of us, “That came at a really convenient time.”

Flare turns her head behind her to grin at me, “You bet your flank it did, we’d all be toast otherwise.”

Something still strikes me as odd, “How did all that darkness even happen? Neither of us heard anything that could have blocked the light.”

Flare stops to think on this, resting one of her hooves on the bottom of her chin, “Good question,” she says, “How did that happen?”

“I think we’ll find out if we keep progressing through this cave,” I say, trying to keep things moving, “Or we’ll at least find an exit. That would be good too,”

“Yeah, that definitely would be a good thing,” Flare puts her hoof back on the ground and keeps walking, “A very good thing indeed.” She continues to walk, sort of humming to herself. I however start doing my normal process of talking to myself. I like to clarify things with my brain consciously before I start putting them into action. My muttering goes almost completely unnoticed by Flare, we’ve been friends as long as Pine, she’s pretty used to this. Not much happens between us as we keep walking, we have nothing to talk about. It’s not awkward at all though, strangely.

“Jet,” Flare says after a long period of silence, “How long have we been walking?”

“I’d have to guess a few hours at least,” none of us have a watch, I don’t even know what that is, “My body can’t tell me because I can’t see any natural light and I feel no ache from walking.”

“Uh-huh, I know how you feel,” Flare and I have gone on plenty of expeditions together for our division, “Can you take a guess? Your internal clock is normally pretty good.”

I stop to think about this, I do a few quick math problems with the distance we’ve possibly traveled, the possible distance between each step and the possible time between them.

“I’d have to say…,” I tilt my head side to side to show it was an estimate. “Maybe 10:00? Nine? I don’t know, sorry.”

“A guess is all I asked for,” Flare says, “I think we may be staying the night here.”

Honestly, that thought had never occurred to me, “Wait, really!?” My face is a mixture of confusion and surprise, “Ya’ sure?”

“Yeah, don’t worry though,” Flare sits down and starts to remove her pack, “I brought two sleeping bags.” She gives me a mischievous grin.

“I-I wasn’t even thinking about that,” she always has to play with my head, “Why’d you even bring two to begin with?”

Flare had begun to unstrap her equipment, “I was just being prepared, I knew you hadn’t brought one.”

“Oh, okay,” I start to shrug my own equipment off, “So I wasn’t the only one making predictions,”

“Ah, so you admit to having predicted the blizzard?” Flare leans back on the wall of the cave smirking.

“Ugh, sure,” I say, “I predicted it.” I really don’t like showing off.

“I knew it,” Flare gives a triumphant grin, “You really need to start taking credit for stuff, but I guess your humbleness is a good quality. In its own way.”

I don’t know why but I sort of chuckle at this, “Okay then, I’ll take a note on that. So, we’ve got all unpacked. What now?” Our stuff, which consists of my sword, food and the sleeping bags, is sprawled out on the cave floor.

“I don’t know,” Sun Flare raises her shoulders to show she has no idea, “I guess we just, talk? That seems like all we can do without getting lost.”

“What do you mean without getting lost?” I ask, “We’re already lost, and you have your fire head, right?”

“Well, actually, my head’s losing power,” Flare admits, “And this is a good spot, look up.” She raises her hoof and points at the top of the cave, or what would be the top if there was one. This part of the cave we decided to stay in appears to have no ceiling, except for the stars and a few tree branches.

“Wow,” I say, my mouth probably hanging open, “That’s pretty awesome.” The sky isn’t exactly all the way dark yet, a very dark blue. The twinkling white specks of stars and snow reflecting off the full moon make for a very beautiful image. It’s not much snow either, just lightly falling flakes. It really is a sight to see.

“Yeah, pretty great huh?” Flare smiles to herself, “I got good tastes.”

“Yeah, you do,” I bring my face back down from the sky, “I’m completely okay with staying here.”

“Had a feeling that would be the case,” Flare rests her arms behind her head, “So, I got a question for you Jet.”

“Yeah? What would that be?” This was a little sudden.

“Ya’ got any theories on that random darkness?” she asks, still acting relaxed, “If anyone would know, it’d be you.”

“No, not yet… I don’t know enough about this place,” I admit, “What do you know about it?”

“I know this is where our mountains guardian sleeps,” she says.

“Wait, what. Guardian!?” I had never heard of this before.

“Yeah, our guardian. The thing this whole mountain is named after, Nightseer,” she says, acting all dramatic, “Never heard of it?”

“Nightseer? No, I just thought we named it randomly,” This is all very intriguing, “What kind of being is it?”

“No one knows for sure, no one has seen it that we know of,” Flare is racking up suspense, “I’ve heard that it has the ability to kill all light instantly though.”

“Wait, really? That’s awesome,” this guardian sounds pretty awesome, “Do you have any idea where it’s located?”

“Yeah,” Flare says, “I know, you should too.”

“Wait…” then it hit me, “It’s no here is it? Is it?” If we’re stuck in the cave of some all-powerful guardian of darkness, we’re in big trouble.

“No, it’s not,” Flare says, deflating, “That’s why I didn’t think it would be the cause of the darkness… I don’t know. All of this thinking hurts my head,”

“Oh, well, good to hear it’s not in ‘this’ cave,” I say, “That’d be pretty bad.”

“Yeah, yeah it would be,” Flare eases back onto the cave wall, “Now sit down, you’re all worked up.”

“Oh, okay,” I sit down and rest up against my pack, “Wow, my legs feel terrible.”

“Tell me about it,” Flare looks up at the sky, her eyes sort of glazing over. She always get’s like this when she’s thinking. Regardless if she’s mad, bouncy or mysterious, I can never get a straight answer out of her, she always keeps it to herself. She’s always been like this, but she never hid her feelings until Pine left, that changed us both. I lost any sort of joy, I really don’t get excited over much and Flare lost her ability to share feelings. I guess since we’re so broken we were able to keep being such good friends.

“Hey, Jet,” Flare says, her soft tone surprising me. She’s still staring at the sky but her eyes are showing a different emotion, sorrow.

I can pick this up easily, “What is it?” I ask, wanting to help with whatever’s bugging her.

“Do,” she falters over her words a little, “Do you ever think about Pine?”

Her question surprised me a little, “Well, of course I do. She was my best friend,” I say, “Do you?”

“Every night when I’m alone,” Flare continues to stare at the sky, “She was my best friend too, as are you. When do you think about her?”

“Well,” I give a bit of a slow answer, “All the time. When I wake up, when I’m at work, when I’m helping pops and every night when I’m alone. I don’t just think about her though, I think about what I could have done different, what I could have done to make her stay. What I should have done to change the situation, to make other ponies except each other. But then, but then I remember I didn’t. I remember I never can now. She’s gone. And she’s never coming back.” My eyes start to tear up as I talk, remembering all of this, “What do you think about?”

“I think about how I could have left with her,” tears are welling up in Flare’s eyes as well, “I could have revealed that I was a unicorn to everyone, that I didn’t belong. I could have left with Pine, I could be with her right now. But I didn’t, I didn’t because I knew I would be alone. A reject in the rejects. So I stayed. Just like a coward, I stayed.”

“Well, if you’re a coward, then I’m one too,” I say getting back on my feet and walking towards my friend, “I’m probably an even bigger coward because I was there when she left.” I hug my friend, wrapping her in my arms, “But don’t worry, I’m going to get her back.”