okay, so here's the deal. i been wanting to get back into my writing for a bit now and i finally got into it. i'm hoping to use this to get to my happy mind for my art.

here is what you can get out of it. i'm going to be taking suggestions for scenes. so far it is a purely platonic story with some nice growthy bits, a transformation scene, some nice moments of accidental ruble making, and a hapless observer character that will likely turn into a lot more.

so, get you thinking caps on and lay those awesome ideas for part 5 on me if you like it. ^////////^

*edit* this is completely improve past the main character concept, so don't be too hard on be about my poor grammar. i'm not too worried about it right now.






Chapter 1: breaking the mold
1
Fessan trudged down the black bore of the man forged cave. Most people would consider a dank sewer far from the natural wonders of spelunking; but as a steam plumber working in white city, they seems as natural trees to a lumberjack. All around hum; steam packed tightly enough to be half liquid again, gushed through the varying sizes of pipes lining the walls. Hisses and clanks murmured like gibbering voices around a distant corner. the sounds ushered from connecting points far above the plumbers body and mind.
tapping against the piping next to him rhythmically, he kept his sharp ears open for the tell tale sound of venting steam. The Sandy blond haired man had been down here for near 3 hours now and was finally starting to feel the frustration of his fruitless search. Reports of loss in pressure from several houses in section 21. He had explored at least half the tunnels under the aria and had yet tp spot a single leek. He was even beginning to think that Arderan or Kiffa over at dispatch might be playing another prank on him.
As he thought about finding a voice tube and double checking his instructions with someone else; his steps began to slow. A moment later, they came to a full stop as he took a steady look at something that just did not seem quite right with the tunnel ahead. Some sort of haze or blurring of the air seemed to leave things with a look of aloofness. After a moment of hesitation, he spurned his hesitation and hurried forward.
As the now wary plumber advanced, his lack of understanding grew. Not to mention, a peeking sense of shock and disbelief. His awe and amazement robbed him of all caution and possible fear.
Fessan had always considered he was skilled and experienced at what he did from the moment he had a concept of the craft. He had seen all manner of accidents and calamities cultivate in his 7 years on the job. The eye widened observer had dealt with everything from blown pipes, to cleaning an inch of calcium off everything within 20 feet of an 11 year leak. None of that compared to seeing steam pass unhampered and still under pressure, between a half foot break in the largest pipe in the section. It was a missive tube that had to be at least a foot in diameter.
Fessan finally came out of his shock a short time later. It could have been no more than moments, but his mind had reared at the sight and now would barely have rains on the unfathomable demand for understanding. He looked at the pipe to at least see if he could determine what kind of break it might be. All breaks had their own traditional leavings and this one appeared to have gone the way of corrosion. Normally flecks of rust could still be seen clinging to the pipe where it had been burned away with the slow and silent ways of metal and water. Here, the edging was clean, but still pocked and cratered as if the world’s smallest termites had decided to try a new and interesting diet. No sign of the missing pipe remained on the floor below, but a queer turquoise dust seemed to be scattered around. He wondered if maybe it was the substance responsible for this.
With dawning realization, Fessan spun on his heels and took a rapid innovatory of his surroundings. He heart had started banging away near double time as he realized the substance would have to have someone to put it there in the first place. He saw no sign of a soul having past in his frantic glances, then calmed down and tried again. A moment of panic returned when he confused his own footsteps for a stranger’s for a moment, but no other hint of evidence seemed to be present.
Fessan stood stock still for a minute or so. His mind reeling silently as he considered. Then; with slight hesitation; he drew the same screw driver he had been using to tap along that same pipe not 200 feet earlier, and advanced it slowly towards the surface of the steam.


 
2
Hessro Karn leaned against the door of the Steamland Emporium as he pulled the ring of keys from his belt and began to monotonously thumb though them with a complete lack of interest and a minimal amount of attention. His mind was focused on more pertinent things like not falling asleep on his feet before he reached his bed. The end of a 63 hour week with the last 16 all in a row had robbed him of deeper contemplations. It was there for; that when the man hole covers that exploded into the air from the sidewalk behind him, he was quick to ram his key directly into the glass of the door. Normally this would be nowhere near enough to break the thick glass, but the buffeting gust of chemically noxious steam billowing at him at high speed was glad to lend a hand.
In the gale, the manager of the Steamland Emporium was sent into the door directly behind his key and though the shattering glass. His tired body had no time to guard its self and he felt the sparkling shards gouge into his upper left arm with bright and waking pain. He screamed out as his body tumbled across the stone tiled floor and came to a halt in a newly stacked pyramid of scouring rag bundles. The impromptu pillow swallowed him like with caring; if slightly abrasive, arms.
The now much more disheveled and slightly smaller pyramid now erupted from its front end and grew slightly smaller as Hessro burst forth. His shaggy black hair disheveled and one arm of his work shirt now half soaked with the blood of his wound. The aforementioned puncture ironically the furthest thing from his mind.
If one were to be able to ask the manager in a calm and intellectual state, what the actual order of those thoughts would be; in order of least pressing to greatest, listed as follows: the 2 hours of stacking he had just demolished. The crippled state his body was in. The state of the store he would have to explain to the owner. Finally, the surface of the street just outside the jagged edged door as it cracked and buckled skyward.
It was at this point; with great reluctance and only the slightest awareness; that Hessro let out a slight whimper. The activists where always screaming their heads off about how so much steam could blow the city sky high some day. But…you never expected it to actually; well, happen.
 
3
Fessan’s world, awareness, and mind where engulfed by a brilliant turquoise light from the moment his tool had made contact. His body felt far past galvanized and somewhere into the realm of titanium plating. The scraps of coherence still clinging to his mind struggled to relinquish the screw driver. However, the feeling of need for this faded with the awareness of even heaving appendages.
The light behind Fessan’s eyes finally started to abate from its blinding impact. The plumber glimpsed his arm as nothing more than a corona of its outline. This was not only from his poor vision, but also the steam that somehow now seemed to be using his body to bridge the gap. In horror, he wrenched at his arm with the strength maintaining its anonymity not a tick of the clock before.
As the merger between the conduit of steam, the screwdriver, and all that was Fessan broke company; so did enough force to launch him backward into the other side of the arch of piping in the corridor. He felt the impact, but the pain seemed dull and distant. His body seemed to vibrate with the impact, then almost slosh back into place.
If enough time for a personal inventory had been available, the steam plumber would have seen something that might have focused his attention in a hurry. As it happens; Fessan’s thoughts became too preoccupied with a sensation so alien, it let him at a loss for how to interpret the sensation at first. Euphoria was not long before making its self clear, fallowed shortly after by a drowsy contentment. His thoughts and consideration of the world beyond drifted. He was unaware as his skin lost more and more of its opacity as it drifted towards a translucent turquoise. He had no full conception of his clothing starting to rip and tear as his new body began to expand; only a vague sense of some form of restraint, losing the battle to keep its hold on him.
Around him, the passageway was cacophonous with the roar of venting steam. The dozens; if not hundreds, of pipes were twisted and torn by the monstrous event a few moments ago. The billowing clouds of it starting to obscure the tunnel and Fessan’s growing form as it expended more and more, his body starting to meet with the walls on all sides. The plumber’s arms and legs began to scrunch as the space grew tighter. Still; he felt only a vague sense of resistance, though this time it was much more persistent. In his half dreaming state, he began to resist it.
The sound of tearing brass and cracking stone began to echo through the sewers that the former man had always thought of as, “His caves”.
 
4
Hessro stared in disbelief at the mounding street. His lower jaw completely forgot about the muscles holding it at attention and decided to go on vacation. Open mouthed, he backed up towards the comforting pile of pads behind him. They might very well be a bit abrasive; but whatever seemed to be coming, was likely to be a lot less gentile with him.
He slipped on one of the tumbled bundles and went sprawling backwards into the pile once more as the concrete outside seemed to detonate in all directions. From the depths beneath it, a hulking mass of bluish turquoise jelly stuff began to rise. The sound of the spraying concrete brought Hessro to attention in a hurry. He swiveled his already awkwardly tilted head even more and glimpsed the new arrival.
From the first moment the clerk’s eyes focused, the definition of a massive rack of tightly molded abdominal muscles where rising in front of his disheveled doorway. His ability to accept, articulate, or react to this was roughly about the distance from him as Neptune. When his fear decided that this was indeed no time for a vacation, it hopped on the controls and sent his legs scrambling and skidding in the direction of the stock room.
Hessro reached it as another tearing crash sounded from outside. He dared not spend any time with petty things like looking around to see what it was. Things like lives and sanity had all his attention and drove his hand for the doorknob. Then the manager drove his shoulder forward to the door that had stubbornly decided to remain locked. He fumbled for his keys and promptly dropped them from his jittering hand. Fear told sense to take a back seat and his head jerked around to see what horror might await him. His face filled with shock, his eyes with the glint of direction replacing the glaze of panic, and his heart with a small flicker of hope.
The creature; some giant jelly mold of a man swaying backward I what was apparently a faint. Hessro watched the legs of the creature ark from one side of the crater to the other. His moment of hope and excitement disappeared in a slap upside the back of the head, courtesy of realization. The creature may be falling, but he was falling toward the store. And from the fact that the legs where all he could see in view, the clerk quickly resumed his mad dash for the keys that let into the store room. He franticly forced himself not to question whether or not all that hype about it being a reinforce shelter was not just gossip.