As the door gave way to the enormous force of Berry’s door bucking, Berry couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if she messed this up. What Berry didn’t know was that “thing” that was wedged between the latch and the door frame was the piece of rope that had to remain in place to prevent a timer from starting. A timer from what, Berry was gonna find out.
Berry stepped pass the remains of what had once been a door, into the cottage. This cottage was slightly bigger than the one Berry woke up in. The cottage came with 2 bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen. The living room which she is in had a calm feeling, and Berry could hear a ticking somewhere. Berry’s eye caught something.
There was a steel platform that seemed to stick out from a wall on the other side of the room. It’s surface smooth and had no signs of rust anywhere. It reminded Berry of the planks that pirates used to make people walk the plank. The shape was rectangular and could easily hold a lot of weight. The platform was roughly 4 inches thick and around 2 feet long. This part of the room was separated from the rest of the living room by a single wall with a large glass pane and a door. But what Berry was staring at the figure standing on the platform. Her jaw dropped as she identified the figure as Rainbow Dash.
Teetering on the edge of the platform, Rainbow Dash stood, no doubt still unconscious but it wouldn’t be long before she woke up. Rainbow dash was about 2 inches away from the edge of the platform, but close enough to fall off if she were pushed. Dash’s hands were tied, tied to what, Berry couldn’t see. There was something around her neck that made Berry feel uneasy. Berry took one of the candles in the centre of the room and held it up to the glass pane and looked through. Berry gasped and let go of the candle, letting it drop to the ground, where it immediately burned out on impact.
The thing around Rainbow Dash’s neck was a rope, kind of like what Applejack uses to lasso in stubborn cattle. What was it called again? A moose? She glanced around the room and found an oil lamp on the floor, and used one of the candles to light it. She took the oil lamp by the handle and went to the door to the separated section of the living room. She tried the doorknob but it wouldn’t budge. She tried bucking, but with the same results. She looked around the room looking for anything that might open the door.
Berry’s eyes caught sight of something on the floor. She immediately recognised it as another note and set the oil lamp next to it. She squinted at the note. The oil lamp may have provided enough light to look through a glass pane, but it certainly wasn’t enough for Berry to read the note. Frustrated about how dark the room was, she threw one of the candles straight through a cottage window. The window shattered and light flooded the room as glass struck the oak wood floor. Satisfied, she turned her attention to the note.
Hello Berry, and welcome to your first test. There is a section of the living room you are in now that has your friend from last night. Rainbow Dash. She is here, because she has messed up her duties at the Weather Factory up in Cloudsdale. Though given the authority to increase rainfall in Equestria, she chose not to, and she just hung around instead of doing what she was supposed to do in the first place. Neglecting her duties had led to last week’s terrible drought that had notably affected many crops grown around Ponyville. As you may or may not know, Sweet Apple Acres had been supplying food to disaster-struck areas in certain parts of Equestria, thus helping in reducing the starvation happening, but due to the dramatically reduced rainfall, caused by your dear friend, food supplies have been cut. Stopping charity work and watching people die of hunger is not funny. But enough of that. Rainbow Dash is on a platform with a noose around her neck, and if you do not rescue her in 3 minutes, the platform will retract, and Rainbow Dash will be hung. The key to the door is located in one of the three boxes on the kitchen counter. However I must warn you, 2 of the boxes have needles in them and only one box is needle-free and contains the key. Watch your step, Berry.
Trembling, Berry looked up. The light in the room really helped her. She could see just about everything in the room. She picked up one of the candles and tried as hard as she could to break the glass pane by throwing it. The candle merely rebounded off the glass and landed on the floor. This is bad. She saw a clock hanging on the wall, showing the 3 minute countdown start before the retraction of the platform.She turned her head to the kitchen. It was dark in there. She took the oil lamp by its handle and proceeded to walk through to the kitchen.
There was light seeping in through cracks in the walls. At least Berry could see one of the boxes on the kitchen counter. Berry tried the handle of the door knob of the door into the kitchen. Realizing that the door was hinged outwards, she pulled on the door knob. How silly of me. She let out a sigh and took a step into the kitchen.
Time slowed down as Berry’s first forehoof into the kitchen caught a tripwire that was set. She grimly remembered the last line in the note.
Watch your step, Berry
She tried to pull back as an arrow sailed from the right through the air. Berry narrowly missed, but the arrow struck her oil lamp. It started to leak out some of the kerosene. Berry had let go of the oil lamp the exact moment the kerosene started to leak out. Striking the floor, the fuel chamber of the oil lamp burst and spread all over the floor. The kerosene ignited, and flames started to spread around the entrance of the kitchen.
Sensing that time was running out fast, she leaped through the flames into the kitchen. The door was engulfed within seconds. The light the flames provided gave her an all around view of the kitchen. There were overhead cabinets and counter cabinets as well. A fridge sat in the corner, slowly rusting due to lack of maintenance. I don’t think anyone would WANT to maintain such a place anyway. I mean, the place is nice and all, but why in such a secluded place? Feeling the heat approach, she turned her attention to the counter
Berry saw the 3 boxes on the counter, neatly lined up in a row. The boxes were made of steel, so that no one would be able to see through it. Knowing the flames would heat the boxes to unimaginable temperatures if she didn’t act quick, she stuck her left forehoof down the second box in the row.
Immediately she was met with stinging sensations all around her left hoof. She withdrew her hoof and winced at the pain. She could see needle marks all around her left hoof. She cried out as she pulled one of the needles sticking out of her hoof. Staring back at the flames quickly approaching, she bit her lip and continued to the third box. She stuck her left hoof in again, just in case it was another trapped box. She wouldn’t want both of her fore hooves to sting with every step she took. This time, there wasn’t any needles, and Berry could feel a key. She tried to yank it out of the box. Her hoof got stuck for a few seconds before she yanked it even harder. Her hoof came free and the box clattered to the ground. She turned around and ran towards the door.
She leaped through the growing flames as it started to completely engulf the kitchen. She rushed back to the living room and glanced at the clock on the wall. 30 seconds left. Berry galloped over to the door and tripped over the candle she threw at the glass pane. Shit! She got back up immediately and looked at the clock. 25 seconds left. That was when something she saw through the glass pane made her freeze in her tracks.
There, through the glass pane, in the separated part of the living room, Rainbow Dash, stood the same way she did on the platform. But she had streams of tears running down her face. The rainbow mane that covered the left half of her face was soaked with tears as Rainbow Dash cried. She was standing on her trembling hind legs, possibly thinking that this might be it. Berry didn’t think that Rainbow Dash could see her through the glass pane, but she sure as hell knew that Dash was aware of somepony’s presence. After all, a fire doesn’t just start, doesn’t it?
Rainbow Dash looked down to the floor beneath her. Her tears gently slid down her face, falling off her chin onto the floor. She could imagine what she could have done to get in this kind of situation. She thought long and hard when she woke up in this place, roughly 2 minutes ago according to the clock hanging on the wall. And it was in those 2 minutes that she really regretted what she had done. She remembered how it all started.
About 2 weeks ago, Rainbow Dash had been given a promotion at her sector in the Weather Factory. The Weather Factory was broken up into several sectors, hers being the rain and cloud sector. Because of the separation of sectors, sectors would often debate with each other, hoping to win the debate and decide what sort of weather Equestria would be having. Normally, the rain and cloud sector would win several of the debates and they’d have their rainy and cloudy days. But ever since Rainbow Dash had joined, most of the time the sunny sector would win the debate and there would be sunny days almost a whole week. No one in the sector did anything about it as they assumed that Rainbow Dash had kept losing the debates. With almost no rain, the crops in Ponyville died, and starvation plagued parts of Equestria. Rainbow Dash, being the manager of the rain and cloud sector, should have acted immediately and bring rain back to Equestria.
But she didn’t. She instead just slacked off on the job, and still got paid her usual 50-bit-per hour salary. Not to mention the fact that she slacks during her overtime. After raising enough bits, she bribed her way into the Wonderbolts and quit her job without appointing the next manager of the rain and cloud sector. This led to confusion and chaos around the Weather Factory as to who would be the manager. The time it took to select Rainbow Dash as manager certainly wasn’t a short time. She left the Weather Factory when she was supposed to improve things around Equestria with the power she had.
Instead she abused her power and chose to eat the money thrown and do as little as possible. She acted as if nothing was going on and continued to hang around with the Wonderbolts. The Wonderbolts themselves were oblivious to the chaos at the Weather Factory and the corruption within their ranks.
Then there was that party Pinkie had last night....
Dash had arrived at Sugarcube Corner rather late, and by the devil’s luck, bumped into Soarin’ as she was about to enter. The two greeted each other before having a slight chat. Soarin’ was wearing a tuxedo with a bowtie and had his mane combed back. Rainbow dash, who wore nothing at all, thought this was weird. She asked Soarin’ what was he all dressed up for.
He chuckled and said that he will explain if she were to join him for a quick glide around Ponyville. Dash nodded in curiosity and they both left. As Dash was staring up at the sky as she glided, Soarin’ started bringing up the topic about the lack of rain and clouds in Equestria. Dash, wanting to avoid this conversation, continued to glide ahead of Soarin’. This promted a race between Dash and Soarin’ back to Sugarcube corner. Soarin’ was ahead at first, but not soon after that he was overtaken by Dash. As Dash was leading, Soarin’ started slowing down. Dash called out to him over her shoulder, and heard Soarin’ saying that he was tired and will continue walking back. Dash felt tired as well and, fearing this to be one of Soarin’s trick to be in the lead, opted to glide instead of joining him.
As she glided to a stop outside Sugarcube Corner, she heard a noise around the corner she just turned. It had to be loud enough to catch her attention over the thunderous music coming from Sugarcube Corner. Dash assumed it was Soarin’ trying to sneak up on her and floated slowly around the corner. The moment she did so, she felt a sharp prickle in her neck, and she fell to the ground. The sharp prickle quickly turned into icy numbness as she slowly blacked out. The last thing she saw before she blacked out was the sight of Soarin’s dead eyes staring back at her.
Next thing she knew, she woke up here. She was devastated. The image of Soarin’ lying dead in front of her was permanently seared onto Dash’s brain. The icy numbness in her neck has been replaced with a throbbing pain. Feeling the urge to feel for injuries, she tried to lift her hooves. What the hell? She tried to move her hoovess, only to find that her hooves were tied. As the flames got nearer and nearer, Dash realised how close she was to the edge she quickly tried to move back.
Just then the door burst open and a plum Earth pony came racing in and jumping on the platform. Dash almost lost her balance, and could have fallen off the platform. Before Dash knew what was going on, the noose slid off her neck just as the platform beneath them retracted, sending both Dash and Berry crashing to the floor.