It's been 200 years since the return of the Crystal Empire. Equestria has grown and has many new cities. One of these cities is known as New Cloudsdale.
It's been 200 years since the return of the Crystal Empire. Equestria has grown and has many new cities. One of them is known as New Cloudsdale, and in this here that a young pegasus is going to learn something that'll make him the number one target of the leader of the criminal underworld of the city.
It has been approximately 200 years since the return of the Crystal Empire. Equestria has grown both in size and technology. With it’s growth, many new towns and cities have been settled. One of these new cities goes by the name New Cloudsdale.
New Cloudsdale is a rather large city in the clouds above the ocean not too far from Manehattan. The city itself has an estimated population of a little over 1.5 million inhabitants, of many different species. Speaking of which, Equestria’s citizens have changed a bit as well. As there’ve been more non-pony residents, and terms like “everypony” or “anypony” are now considered to be politically incorrect.
One thing that may be surprising is that even though this is a cloud city, not all of the beings living there are able to fly. One new piece of technology that has been invented in recent years are the Cloud Boots. Cloud Boots are neat little metal shoes powered by magically gems known as spirit stones, created and manufactured by Screwball Industries. These boots allow whoever wears them to walk on clouds, as one might expect from the name.
The city of New Cloudsdale is also known for many of it’s famous sites. From it’s statue of it’s founder, a pegasus pony named Nimbus Cloud, it’s sports stadium where they’ve hosted the Equestrian Games a few years ago, and it has one of the biggest weather factories in all of the world.
In this weather factory that worked a certain pegasus stallion. This pegasus stallion in question may not know it yet, but his life is about to take an unexpected turn when he finds out a secret about the criminal underworld of the city.
This pegasus is a young engineer named Steam Valve.
Steam Valve was a white pegasus stallion with a slightly longer than usual mane that was red on the right side and aqua blue on the left. His eyes were red, and his cutie mark resembled a golden wrench that signified his talents as an engineer. Atop his head was a dark blue baseball cap with the weather factory’s logo on it, which was simply a storm cloud shooting a lightning bolt. It was basically the only thing he had to wear for a work uniform.
After a days work, and after making a quick stop somewhere, he made his way home. His home was a small rental cloud house at the end of a dead end street. It wasn’t in best condition, with a constantly breaking furnace and other things that needed to be fixed by Steam on occasion, but it was home.
He walked through the front door to take in the smell of fresh coffee being made. He put the tool box he was carrying in his mouth aside before trotting over to the kitchen to see his girlfriend of many years, Clementine. Clementine was different from most mares, mostly because she wasn’t technically a pony, kinda. Clementine was a Hippogriff, which is the offspring of a pony and a griffon. The front half of her body looked more like a griffon’s, with white feathers on her head and neck and orange feathers on her torso, wings, and arms, up to the eagle claws. The back half of her body resembled a pony’s, with an orange coat that matched the feathers on her front, and a white pony-like tail. Her eyes were purple and the features around them where a light blue color.
Steam trots over to his girlfriend, and cuddles up to her, “Hi sweetie.”
Clementine glaces at Steam and smiles, “Well you seem happy. Is something up?” there was a small undertone of suspicion in her voice.
“No. Why do you ask?” Steam asked, backing off a bit. “I can’t say hi to my girl?”
“Well I do know that next week is our 6th anniversary, and you tend to try to butter me up around these special occasions.” She brushes her tail against his nose, “I wonder why.”
Steam rolls his eyes, “I’m sorry, if I remember correctly our relationship started because you were in heat, and you needed a nice strong male to help you out.” He then flexed one of his forelegs a little.
“Yeah, but I had to settle for you.” Clementine deadpans.
Steam stops flexing a glares at her, but smiles. He fully knew that she was kidding.
The coffee finished, “Can you pour me a cup as I put my stuff away?” Steam asked his girlfriend.
In their bedroom Steam takes off his hat and puts down his saddlebag. He opened them up to see a small red box placed inside of them. ‘Oh you don’t even know how I’m going to butter you up this year.’ he thinks to himself. He then closes the bags before pushing them under the bed.
He walks back into the kitchen, grabs him cup of coffee and sits down on the couch with Clementine to watch T.V., which Clementine turns on to show the end of a political ad.
The ad showed a grey pegasus stallion with a slicked back, lime green mane. The pony looked at the camera and spoke in a voice that sounded more like a Canterlot accent, despite the fact that most beings from around this area talk with more of a Manehattan one, “Hello I am Mushroom Cloud, as you may know my ancestor Nimbus Cloud was founder of our fine city. Now do you want your mayor to be some guy from Trottingham, or would you rather have it be a pony who has their roots right here? I think the answer is pretty obvious. I’m Mushroom Cloud and I approve this message.”
As it went to the next commercial Steam rolled his eyes, “Well that said nothing about what he plans to do if elected.”
“Hey, at least it’s not that generic ‘my opponent is the reason for all your problems’ bullcrap that most of these ads have.” Clementine added, “I just can’t wait for it to be over so we can stop getting stuff from them in the mail.”
“Agreed”
Suddenly they hear the sound of the phone ringing in the kitchen. Steam gets up to pick it up. He flew to the phone and looked at the caller I.D. to see that it was his older brother Special Tactics.
Special Tactics was a light purple unicorn with a short dark purple mane and tail, light blue eyes, and had a rifle for a cutie mark. He lived all the way in Canterlot as part of The Princesses’ Lawful Offensive Team, which sounds cool until you realize that the acronym for it is PLOT. The officers that work for it hear that one all the time, but yet none of the Princesses will change it. It’s almost as if they’re in on the joke.
Steam picks up the phone, “Hello.”
“Hey bro,” Special Tactics answered.
“Hi Special, what’s up?”
“So you’re going to propose to Clem huh?”
“W-What? Who told you that?”
“You did in the message you left on my phone earlier.”
“Oh... Sorry I forgot that I did that.”
“You featherbrain.”
“Yeah, yeah. So you called just to tell me that you got that message?”
“And to say congratulations. I can’t believe that my little brother’s gonna get married, before me.”
“Haven’t found any good mares in Canterlot?”
“Nope, they’re mostly stuck up bitches here, and the females aren’t much better.”
Steam chuckles a little at that and says, “Well it’s not happening yet. She has to say yes first.”
“Dude, you two have been together since high school, I doubt she’ll say no. Hell, I bet you the first thing she’ll say is ‘it’s about time’.”
Steam thought about that for a second, ‘Well it has been six years.’, He paused for a moment, “Yeah you’re probably right.”
“Anyways, my shift starts soon so I have to go. Good luck with everything.”
“Kay, bye.”
Steam hung up the phone and went back to the living room.
“So, who called?” Clementine asked.
“My brother,” Steam answered.
“Oh, okay. So what did he want to talk to you about.”
Steam went silent for a second to think about something to say that won’t spoil anything, “Nothing that important.”
The next day Steam was basically forced to work late because one of his co-workers, another pegasus stallion by the name of Left Hooves, broke one of the cloud making machines, again.
‘How that pony keeps his job I’ll never know.’ Steam thinks to himself as he examines the machine. He opens part of it up to see that the gears are jammed with, well jam. Steam just facehooves.
“How does that even happen!” He exclaims as he removes his hoof from his face.
After removing some parts of the machine, cleaning out the jam, and putting the gears and such back inside, he turns it on to see if it’ll start working again. Thankfully it did.
After turning it back off, Steam packed up his tools and decided to call Clem to let her knew that he’ll be on his way home home.
He takes out his cell phone and presses the speed dial to call up Clementine. The other end rang six times before going to voicemail. A little odd, but she may not have heard it. So Steam left a message for her anyways.
“Hey babe, I’m done with what they wanted me to fix, no thanks to Left, but anyways I’ll be home in a little bit, maybe even before you check the answering machine. Okay, I love you, bye.” He hangs up and puts his phone away in his saddlebag.
While on his way out of the factory he passes by the head weather manager’s office. He heard voices inside. This wouldn’t normally grab his attention, but when he heard a banging sound he walked back a bit to hear what was going on. He pressed his ear against the door.
“Now, I think we can come to some sort of understanding.” The manager said, sounding worried.
“Well that depends.” said a voice that Steam didn’t recognize, “Do you have the money you owe us?”
“Well no, but I promise I’ll have it soon. I just need two more days, three at the most.”
“I don’t know. Our boss is getting tired of waiting, and trust me when I say that Mr. C isn’t the most patient of people.”
Steam was shocked to hear this. He’d heard of this Mr. C before. He knew that Mr. C was a notorious mobster and one of Equestria’s most wanted. Yet, the thing about him that made him kinda more infamous than anything was that no one knew who he really was or what he looked like. Because of this, there were many rumors about him. Some say he’s really disfigured, others would suggest that maybe he’s really female, and some would even think that he doesn’t really exist at all and is just a fake figurehead to intimidate others.
Despite if any of that was true or not, Steam knew one thing. He had to get the buck out of there. Steam moved away from the door and began to rush his way to the nearest exit. He quickly looked back to make sure that no one saw him or anything, but while doing this he bumped right into somebody, dropping his toolbox on the floor.
He stumbles back a little and looks to see who he bumped into. In front of him was a tall and bulky grey minotaur with a white mohawk wearing a dark grey suit and tie. The difference in their height made him seem even more intimidating.
The minotaur looked down upon the engineer and asked, “Did you see anything?”
“N-No, nothing at all sir.” The pegasus responded nervously.
The minotaur looked him right in the eyes and said, “I don’t believe you.”
“No really I literally didn’t see anything. Okay I heard someone talking to my boss, but if it’s a big deal I won’t tell anyone. I swear.”
“Well we can’t really trust that. Even so, our boss doesn’t like witnesses.”
Steam jumped into the air ready to try to fly away, but before he could try to, he felt something smash against the back of his head. He fell to the floor, and the last thing he saw before sliding into unconsciousness was the minotaur and a red unicorn stallion holding a baseball bat in blue aura. ______________________________________________________________________________
Back at Steam’s house, Clementine was sitting in the living room repeatedly glancing between the clock and front door. It had been quite some time since she got the message that Steam left. Surely he normally would have been home by now.
She was getting kinda worried about him, so she decided to fly to the phone and call him to make sure he was okay. ______________________________________________________________________________
As a grey minotaur placed a tired up and knocked out pegasus into the back of a cart he heard a phone ring.
“Do you hear that?” He asked the unicorn with him, who was red with a greasy greyish-blue mane.
Said unicorn levitated their captive’s saddlebags, where the ringing was coming from. “I think it’s best to assume it’s his cell phone, Brass.” he said.
“Oh sure say my name out loud, Ro...”
“Don’t. You. Dare.” The unicorn said, knowing full well what was about to come.
“Rosey.” Brass said, sticking out his tongue like a child would.
The unfortunately named unicorn stallion glared at the minotaur as the phone stopped ringing. ______________________________________________________________________________
“Hello this is Steam. I can’t talk right now or I may have missed you call. Either way please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
Clementine signed and then spoke, “Hey Steam, ummm... you called a while ago, telling me you’d be home soon, and I’m just making sure if you’re okay. Please call me back if you’re not home by the time you hear this.” ______________________________________________________________________________
Back outside the weather factory, a third being flew up to the minotaur and the unicorn. It stood on two legs, had blue scales, large wings on his back, and long black hair tied into a ponytail. This creature was a gargoyle, and he was not happy.
He pointed his finger at the knocked out pegasus and said, “Okay just one question. What the fuck is this?”
“A pegasus.” Brass answered.
The gargoyle faceplams, “I know that you imbecile, but why is his tired up in the back of the cart?”
“Well, he was inside the building while we were and...”
“You decided to knock him out and kidnap him for no good reason. What the hell! How stupid are you two?! We can’t just do that to everyone in the area we do a job.” The gargoyle said in an angered tone. He pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger and mutters, “The boss is so going to have our asses for this, thanks to you two dick wagons.”
“Hey no need for insults.” Rosey said.
“Whatever lets just get out of here.”
With that the Gargoyle and unicorn get in the cart while the minotaur starts to pull it away from the factory.
Steam slowly opens his eyes, his vision was foggy and he had a sharp pain in the back of his head. He feels the sense of motion, but when he tries to move, it seemed that something was holding him back him. Upon further inspection it was the most basic of binding materials, rope.
“The buck happened?” He mumbled, trying to recall just what happened to get him to this point.
“Quiet you!” someone shouted at him.
That’s when it clicked, ‘Oh by Celestia. No no no no no no no no no no! This can not be happening! I cannot have been kidnapped by those mobsters!’ He manages to lift his head and sees two beings, a unicorn and what kind of looked like a dragon, but smaller and with hair. ‘Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap! No no no no no no no no no no no! It is happening! Wait a second, where in tartarus are they taking me?! Are they going to kill me?!’
Then it hit him even harder, ‘What if they kill me? I... I would never see Clem again. How will she be without me? I mean, there’s no way she’ll be able to pay the rent by herself, she only makes minimum wage.’
Moving his head around again he sees his saddlebags nearby, which still had the ring he bought her, ‘She’s probably worried sick about me right now.’ ______________________________________________________________________________
Back at the house, Clementine was lying down in bed, tightly holding a pillow in her arms, “Steam where the hay are you? You have no idea how worried I am right now.” She dug her claws into the pillow a little bit and said, “If you lied to me, I swear to Celestia that I’m going to kill you.” ______________________________________________________________________________
Steam feels the cart he was in come to a stop.
“Okay Rosey, beam us up,” said a voice that Steam was able to recognize as the minotaur from earlier.
“Do you want to die or are you just that stupid?” Rosey asked.
“You’re calling me stupid? You’re the only one of the three of us that’s actually been arrested.”
“Hey that wasn’t my fault! How in tartarus was I supposed to know that prostitute was a cop?!”
The minotaur just started cracking up while the gargoyle faceplamed and whispered, “Why do I have to work with you two?”
“Oh come now Sparks, we’re not that bad are we?” Brass asked.
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
“Well buck you too.”
Steam wasn’t sure how to feel, but if he felt any definite emotion, it would be embarrassment. ‘Did I really get kidnapped by these three idiots?’
He then saw a flash of light and felt weird for a quick second.
“Ugk, I’ll never get used to teleportation,” said Sparks.
“Well you could’ve flew up here,” Rosey said bitterly.
“Whatever. So are you two going to take this poor bastard to the boss or not?”
“Why us?” Brass asked.
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because you’re the two kumquats who took him with us!” There was a silence for a few seconds before Brass spoke again.
“Did you just insult us by calling us a kumquats?”
“When working with people as brain dead as you two, you tend to run out of insults.”
The minotaur ignored this and lifted Steam up with one hand.
Steam looked around the area they were in now. It was a small room with metal walls and a window. Looking out said window, he saw the lights of the city, which were several dozens of feet below where ever they were, so there was only one place Steam could think of that they could be.
“A-Are we in... a blimp?” He asked.
“Did we say you can talk?” the red unicorn hissed.
“But to answer your question, yes,” Brass added.
“Okay, now go show the boss what you two kumquats did.” The blue gargoyle said, with a lot of emphasis on the word ‘you’.
Brass and Rosey both looked at each other and gulped before they made their way through a nearby door. Entering a long dimly lit room, Steam saw three figures behind a desk at the end of the room, but couldn’t really make anything else out. One of the figures turned it’s head towards them, then turned back to the other two figures.
“Mind stepping out of a few minutes ladies?” the individual asked in a masculine, yet posh voice.
The other two let out feminine giggles and started to walk towards the door. As they got closer, Steam saw that they were two unicorn mares, both with light green coats. Their cutie marks were both of a red ribbon that made the shape of a heart. The only real difference between them was that one of them had a dark, purple mane, while the other’s was orange.
As they passed, Rosey’s eyes followed them, admiring their flanks before Brass slapped him in the back of the head with the hand that wasn’t holding Steam.
The unicorn glared at him while rubbing the back of his head.
“So,” The being behind the desk began, “Why is there a tried up pegasus in you hand Brass Knuckles?”
“W-W-Well yo-you s-s-se...”
“Spit it out!” their boss demanded, slamming a hoof on the desk.
“He saw us trying to get the money that Stormy Skies guy who owed you and, well, you hate witnesses. So Rosey here knocked him out and tried him up.” There was a small silence as the being sitting in the darkness put his hooves together, after a few second he spoke in a emotionless voice.
“Untie him and then let me talk to him. Alone.”
“But sir...” Rosey began to say.
“Do as I say!”
They both simultaneously gulped and rushed to get the ropes off of Steam. After he was untied, Brass dropped Steam right onto the floor and the two gangsters rushed out of there like bats out of tartarus, the door slamming behind them. Steam got to his hooves as the crime boss spoke again.
“I apologise for my employees. They’re not exactly the brightest bulbs on the Hearths Warming tree. Well, at least those two aren’t. So, you got a name kid?”
“S-Steam Valve.”
“I’m the one known as Mr. C. May I ask what you were doing at the weather factory?”
“I’m an engineer there. I was working late to fix one of the machines and I bumped into that minotaur guy. I swear I didn’t see anything. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. So please don’t kill me! I have a girlfriend!” Steam pleaded.
Mr. C held up a grey hoof and said, “Relax. Even if you did see something, all that was going on was a simple tax collection per say. It’s not like you saw a hit or anything.”
“S-So are you going to let me go?” Steam asked hopefully.
“Yes.”
Steam’s face lit up with joy.
“On two conditions.” Mr. C added. Steam’s joy then dropped.
“W-What kind of conditions?”
“Well, the first is that you don’t tell any cops or anything the names of my employees or that our base is in this blimp.”
“You got it!” Steam agreed, wanting to get out of here and back to Clementine.
“And two...” Mr. C pulled something out of the desk and threw it at the young pegasus’ hooves. It was a silver pistol with a wooden handle. “You have to do a job for us.”
“W-What?!” Steam exclaimed, “Are you asking me to kill someone for you?!”
“No, I’m asking you to give my gun a bubble bath. What do you think?!”
“I-I-I couldn’t kill anybody! I don’t even know how I could pull the trigger without fingers or being a unicorn or something.”
“The same why I do.” The mob boss said while spreading out a pair of pegasus wings. “You use your wings.”
Steam looked down at the gun and asked, “What will you do if I don’t?”
Mr. C chuckled to himself, “Well, if you don’t, then I hope you know how to swim while wrapped in chains.”
Steams eyes widened, and he started to sweat a bit.
“So Mr.Valve,” Mr.C said, “What will it be?”
‘I can’t do this!’ Steam shouted in his head. ‘I can’t take another’s life, but if I don’t they’ll take mine. What to do? Should I just do it, so I can go back to Clem?’
Steam sighed and said, “Fine, I’ll do it if it means you’ll let me go.”
Under the darkness Mr. C smiled and said, “Excellent.”
Steam Valve followed the one mobster that was sent to keep an eye on him, the gargoyle Sparks, to a rooftop across from a nightclub. Steam was nervous about the fact that in a short while he was going to have to shoot and kill someone. Well, it was either that or be killed himself.
‘This is all your fault, Left! You just had to jam one of the machines! If it wasn’t for you I’d be back home with Clementine, and not with some Gargoyle, a couple of minutes away from murdering someone! Murder for Celestia’s sake!’
Sparks looked at Steam. Seeing a slightly scared look on his face, he let out a sigh.
“I can see you don’t want to do this,” he said.
“Huh?” Steam responded.
“You aren’t up to this and the only reason you’re here is because of some unfortunate circumstances.” He holds up the gun and says, “So I’ll do it.” Steam’s jaw dropped.
“R-Really? Why?”
“I just said why, you shouldn’t have to do this, so you won’t. I’m used to doing stuff like this. So I’ll shoot him and just say you did it.” Steam couldn’t believe what he was hearing, but hey, he’ll take it.
“Tha...” He began to say, only to be shushed.
Right then someone walked out the backdoor of the night club. It appeared to be a zebra stallion with the black and white stripes and everything, but something else stood out about him. He had a unicorn horn as well. His mane was unkempt with the same black and white stripes as his coat. His flank appeared to be a Zebra’s tribal tattoo in the shape of what appeared to be a vinyl record. He wore a pair red sunglasses and glowstick rings around his legs. Steam also noticed that he wasn’t wearing cloud boots, so that could only mean that he knew a cloud walking spell.
‘Huh, he must be a hybrid, like Clem.’ Steam thought to himself.
Sparks lifted up the gun, aiming it at the Unibra... Zebicorn... Whatever he technically was, and pulled the trigger.
Before the Zebra/Unicorn could realize it, a bullet went right between the eyes, through his skull, and exited out the back of his head. The result was a blood splatter on the wall behind him before he fell onto the clouds. After a second he sank through them, falling several hundred feet into the ocean below the city.
Steam felt like he was about to throw up, but somehow managed to keep it together.
“See. No offence, but I don’t think you could of done that.” Sparks said to him.
“W-Who was he? Why did he have to die?” Steam asked.
“His name was Zarjazz. He owed us to much money for too long, so he had to cut off from his shipment.” Sparks explained with little emotion.
“How can you say that so easily?!”
“After being in this line of work for so long, you just get used to this sort of thing. Now I think it’s best if we get out of here before any cops show up.”
Steam nodded in agreement. ______________________________________________________________________________
Steam was brought back to the blimp with Sparks, who walked into Mr. C’s office with him.
“Try to look slightly traumatized.” Sparks whispered to him.
‘Not the hard to do.’ Steam thought.
They made their way to the mob boss’ desk.
“So, did you give our good friend Zarjazz his little gift?” The pony in the shadows asked.
“Y-Y-Yeah.” Steam lied.
“He fell through the clouds,” Sparks added. “The fish are picking at him now.”
“Maybe some seaponies found him.” Mr. C said with a chuckle.
‘Seaponies? Seriously?’ Steam thought to himself, ‘That old story is almost as fake as the one of rainbows being made from foals.’ Mr. C rested his elbows on the desk.
“Well then Mr. Valve,” he said to Steam. “You are free to go as long as you keep your promise to not bring this up with anyone. If you don’t keep that half of the deal, then we’ll have no choice, but to go back on our half as well. Got it?”
“Y-Y-Yes sir.”
“Good,” Mr. C said as he clapped his front hooves together. Steam then heard the door behind him open. The next thing he knew, he was once again hit in the back of the head with a bat, from the same unicorn no less. He fell to the ground unconscious. ______________________________________________________________________________
Some time later, Steam stood back up, still somewhat groggy from the blow to his head. When he opened his eyes he saw that he was back outside on the front steps of the weather factory. He looked around, seeing that his kidnappers were nowhere to be seen. Really, the only thing he saw was two homeless pegasi fighting over a wedge of cheese, but that wasn’t important.
Not really sure how late it was, he figured it would be best to get back home before he got mugged, or worse. ______________________________________________________________________________
About ten minutes later, Steam made it back to his house. Creaking the front door open slowly, so as to try and not to wake up Clementine, only to see she was sleeping on the couch, curled up without a blanket. Most likely she fell asleep waiting for him.
He trotted up to her and snuggled her feathery face a little.
“I’m sorry babe,” He whispered.
Clementine’s eyes slowly opened to see her pegasus boyfriend cuddling up next to her.
“Steam?” she asked. Steam backed up a bit.
“Hey Clem.” He responded.
They stared at each other for a second before Clementine responded by slapping him across the face before pulling him into a hug.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said to him before she let go of the hug. She then looked him right in the eyes and asked the one question that Steam knew was most likely coming, but due to the circumstances with Mr. C, he wasn’t sure how to answer. “Where the hell were you?”
Steam darted his eyes around. Sure, it would be easy for him to explain what happened, but with the fact that Mr. C threatened to go after him if he said anything...
“I-I can’t say,” he finally said.
Clementine stopped hugging him and got a slightly angered look on her face. “What do you mean ‘you can’t say’?”
“I can’t tell anyone what happened,” Steam replied looking away from her.
“Why not?” Clementine asked, her eyes starting to glare at him, “What did you do?” Steam just looked back at her.
“What makes you think I did anything?”
“You tell me you’re coming home, you don’t show up until hours later, making me worried sick about you, and you say you can’t even tell me what happened!?”
“I can’t... it’s for my own safety.”
“What’s that’s supposed to mean?!”
“C-Clem, please calm down,” Steam said to her as he put a hoof on her griffin-like foreleg.
“How can I be calm?!” Clementine shouted back at him. “I mean what the hell happened?! Were you out drinking?! Gambling?!” Suddenly her face changed from angry to worried almost instantly, “Oh by Celestia, you were cheating me weren’t you?!”
“WHAT?! No, of course not.” He said as he tipped her head up with a hoof. “Clem, we’ve known eachother since we were foals. You’ve been my best friend for years. In high school when you had your little heat problem, you trusted me to help you, and we’ve been together ever since. I love you more than anything else in the world. I would never do anything to hurt you, especially not something as scumbagish as that.” Clementine stared into his eyes for a long while before she said anything.
“Okay, I believe you,” she said to him. “But still, why can’t you tell me?”
“Like I said, It’s for my own safety.”
“Like I’ve asked, what do you mean by that?”
Steam, knowing that this would get nowhere, and that Clementine wouldn’t drop this anytime soon, let out a sigh and said, “Something happened, and if word gets out that I said anything about it, I will be hunted down and killed. Now, I will tell you what happened, but you need to promise that this does not, and I repeat, does not leave this house.”
At those words, Clementine got a concerned look on her face, but nodded and said, “Don’t worry, I promise.”
Steam stretched out his wings for a second and began to explain, “After I called you, I began to leave the weather factory when I heard voices coming from my bosses office. I heard someone mention the name “Mr. C”, so I tried to get out of there as quickly as possible, but I ended up bumping right into some minotuar, who started questioning me. After that, I was hit in the back of the head and blacked out. When I woke up I was in a blimp with the minotuar, a unicorn and a gargoyle, who took me to Mr. C. Now I didn’t really see what he looked like, but I got a quick look at one of this hooves and I could tell he had wings, so I can assume that he’s a grey pegasus. Anyway, he said he would just let me go as long as I did two things. One, I’d not say anything about this, which I’m already breaking that promise, and two.” Steam paused for several moments before continuing. “I... I had do a job for them...” He finally said. “H-He wanted me to kill someone. Don’t worry, I didn’t though. You see, the gargoyle was sent with me and he saw that I didn’t want to do this, so he did it for me. Yeah I know, in the end a possibly innocent person is dead, but at least I’m back here with you.”
Clementine’s face was still stuck on not knowing what think what to think about this whole situation. After a couple of seconds she finally said, “That story sounds kinda out there, but it’s not that unrealistic.”
“It’s true though.” Clementine smiled and nuzzled up against Steam.
“Fine,” she said after a moment. “I believe you, but you really can’t call the cops about this?”
“I don’t want to risk them coming after me, so I’d rather just forget this whole night and get some sleep, thank Celestia tomorrow’s Saturday.”
“Actually it’s past midnight. So it’s Saturday now.” ______________________________________________________________________________
About 5 minutes later...
Steam lay down in bed next to Clementine and slowly drifted off into sleep.
‘Now that this is over, all I have to worry about now is proposing to Clem on Thursday.’ Steam thought to himself, but then he realized something, ‘Wait, did I come back home with my saddlebags?’ Steam’s eyes shot open, and he quickly sat up in bed. ‘Holy shit! They still have my stuff, and Clementine’s ring!’
After having to wait for about three days, Steam Valve took a deep breath as he stood outside the office of his boss, Stormy Skies, the only pony that Steam knew to have had interactions with the ones that kidnapped him last friday. So, he was the only one that could help him get his saddlebag back, or more importantly the ring he bought for Clementine.
He knocked three times on the wooden door, then waited for a few seconds for the voice of his boss to say, “Come in.”
Steam pushed the door open to see that behind the desk in the office was a sky blue pegasus stallion with a grey mane that had a single yellow streak on the left side, yellow eyes, a grey cloud for a cutie mark, and he was wearing a grey business suit. Yet, Steam also noticed that his wings were wrapped up in bandages.
Stormy Skies looked up from some of his paperwork then quickly looked back down when he saw Steam standing there.
“What is it Mr. Valve?” he asked him.
“Well, ummm... sir, you know how I worked late last friday?” Steam began to say.
“Yes, yes, and you’ll get paid for the extra hours, don’t worry about it.”
“Yeah... That’s not what I came in here to talk about. I know that you have some sort of connection to Mr. C.” Stormy Skies’ eyes suddenly widened as he stopped reading through his paperwork. After a few moments, he slowly looked up at Steam.
“W-W-What?! I-I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
“Then how come your wings are bandaged like that?” Steam asked.
“I fell down some doors! I-I mean I walked into a stairs! Uh...” Stormy’s eyes started to dart around the room as sweat began to pour down his forehead. He quickly put his front hooves together. “Please don’t tell the cops about this! I can’t let anybody know about the drugs! I can’t go to jail! I don’t want to get a booster shot from a diamond dog named Gog or something! I-I’ll give you anything you want! I’ll raise you pay by 25, no 50%!” He threw a golden watch on the table immediately after saying that, “Here take my watch! Hell, I’ll let you sleep with my girlfriend if you want too! Anything! Just don’t turn me in!”
“Woah, woah, woah. I’m not here to blackmail you.” Steam said, as he brought up his front hoof.
“Y-You’re not?”
“No, even though that pay raise is tempting... No, I was raised better than that, hell I’m sure my grandma would smack me in the back of my head if I took that offer. Anyways the reason I wanted to talk to you is because I need some information on where to find those guys working for him.” ______________________________________________________________________________
A half an hour later, Steam was standing outside a medium sized building that had a blue neon sign that read ‘The Poison Joke” above the front door.
“I guess this is the place,” Steam said to himself as he stepped inside.
The building turned out to be a club/bar with black lights that made Steam’s white coat shine with a slight violet glow. There was loud techno music being played by an orange pegasus mare with a reddish-pink mane and wearing what looked like to be a combination of sunglasses and aviator goggles. In front of her was a sign that read, ‘DJ App73’.
Steam walked over to the bar table where another pegasus mare, this one lemon yellow with a lime green mane, was standing by the drinks. She smiled as soon as she saw him.
“Well hello there handsome,” she said to him, there was a slight flirtatiousness in her voice. “Can I get you anything? How about something with lemons in it. Like me.” Steam tilted his head.
“Ummm... what?” was all Steam could reply.
“Well, you see, my name’s Lemon Lime, so see lemons. I know bad joke, my boss says flirting with the costumers can help sell more drinks or something.” She was silent for a few seconds before she got a look of realization on her face and started flailing her front legs around. “Crap, I wasn’t suppose to say that! I can be so stupid sometimes.” Steam didn’t respond, he somehow just felt even more confused by this strange mare. After a few more moments, she sighed and continued, “Anyways, can I get you anything you you sexy, sexy stallion?”
“Uhhhhhhh...” was all Steam replied, slightly blushing.
“Am I trying too hard?” Lemon Lime asked, slightly embarassed.
“Yeah, kinda.” Steam responded.
“I must get that from my mom, she was a bartender too, tried too hard, ending up asking somepony to quote on quote, ‘take her now’, and 11 months later I was born.”
“No offence, but I didn’t come here to hear your life story.” Steam said.
“Oh, sorry.”
“I came here to ask a question or two. Have you seen a unicorn, minotaur and gargoyle around here?”
“Oh, you mean Rosey Cheeks, Brass Knuckles, and Sparkimire Vladimir Huffington the Third? Their booth’s right over there.” She replied as she pointed slightly left to the end of the room.
Steam was slightly dumbfounded by the revelation of Sparks’ full name, but he nodded nonetheless.
“Thanks,” he said before walking over to where she pointed. It didn’t take long for him to find the three he was looking for.
Rosey was holding some kind of drink within a blue aura that was his magic while also talking to a pink unicorn mare, who was giggling a bit, The minotaur, Brass, was swaying back and forth slightly, showing that he was at least, slightly drunk. He also wasn’t wearing the grey suit he wore last friday. Now he was basically naked. Finally, there was Sparks, the gargoyle that killed that Zebracorn so Steam wouldn’t have to, and he looked bored out of his mind. Steam got to their table were Rosey immediately noticed him and grinned.
“Well, look who it is, it’s our new friend from the weather factory,” The other two looked at Steam.
“What are you doing here?” Sparks asked, sounding a little worried. Steam started to sweat a little, but did his best now to show that he was worried.
“Well...” he began. “A few days ago, when I was ummm... with you guys I didn’t get my saddlebags back.”
“Oh, so that’s what you want?” Rosey said before stepping on top of the booth’s table, “And what if we don’t give you you stuff back? Huh? Huh!?” Rosey by this point was only a few inches from Steam’s face, and there was a heavy scent of alcohol in his breath. Sparks stood up before he could say anything more.
“Just relax man, the stallion just wants his stuff back, who knows there might be something important to him in those bags. So, I’ll take him back to HQ, and then he’ll be on his way.”
Rosey just got back to his set and said, “Whatever man.”
So Steam followed the Gargoyle out of the bar. ______________________________________________________________________________
15 minutes later, the two arrived at a mostly empty warehouse that hosted one grounded blimp.
“Okay, the cart’s in the blimp, just get your stuff and leave. The boss shouldn’t be here right now.” Sparks said.
“Sounds like a plan,” Steam said before stepping aboard.
It only took Steam a few seconds to find the the cart and his saddlebags. When he strapped them on a voice behind him caught his attention.
