Return to the Factory

by witegrlninja

Preparing for adventure

Please state your name for the record.

Um... S-Sundae Sprinkles... W-Who are you? Where am I?

'Sundae Sprinkles', eh? That's not the name I heard in the papers... your other name, please.

Wh... what do you-

What did they call you? When you were finally discovered, and they finally found the ponies that had gone missing... what was left of them, anyway.

Oh... San... Sanguine. Please... is this my punishment?

Oh? You want to die? To be executed for your crimes?

I mean... no, but-

Because I must say, I'm extremely interested in how you developed your methods. A simple ice cream shop pony, capable of trapping, torturing and murdering so many others... and your method of disposal was ingenious! Using their blood as a substitute for eggs in your famous Devil's Food ice cream... sounds delicious, if I'm being honest.

I... you... well, thank you... oh, I just wish she could have tasted it... I was so close to the perfect recipe. Just a few more for another test batch or two, and I know she would've wanted to share it with all the ponies in her parties...

Hmhmhm...

...Guess I'll never get the chance to now, though.

Nonsense. According to all official records, you've already met your fate on the chopping block...

Huh?

You're special, Sanguine. You're quite the talented mare. That's why Princess Celestia saw you fit to join my research facility... though you may never leave this place, you are free to experiment to your heart's content for the rest of your days.

I... you mean... I can perfect my recipe? Really?

Oh, yes... I can get you set up right away. I and the rest of my staff cannot wait to try your newest batch of Devil's Food ice cream, Sanguine... and I'll be sure to save a carton of it just for her.

~

Days passed. The more Scootaloo thought about the book, the more she believed in its words.

It seemed to know things only Rainbow and herself would've ever known. The Colorful One often alluded to past events and other fillies in flowery similes and metaphors that - once she had thought long and hard about their meaning, and had taken the time to look up the more esoteric words she didn't know - very clearly referred to things she and Rainbow had done together: The Sisterhooves Social, camping trips to Winsome Falls, meeting Rainbow's parents, and even Rainbow's heartfelt words about her underdeveloped wings.

She is still alive.

She skimmed and scoured the pages over and over, searching for more mysteries and hidden meanings. Soon she noticed that some words were needlessly capitalized in a smaller font that blended in well with the rest of the text - a lazy mistake for most editors, but perhaps not so here. It took her an entire sleepless night to find ten such capital letters; she finally nodded off at dawn wondering what or where the Storm Peaks were.

She is still alive.

All the while, the words tore at her heart while mending the tears back together at the same time. She would be reminded of how much she had idolized, cherished, loved her adoptive sister and smiled. She would be reminded of her violent death, realize that she was gone forever, and cried until her face hurt.

She is still alive.

But then she would remember the book's words, and she would wonder if "the place where the dead are given new life" was real. She would wonder if Rainbow had been to that place all those years ago, or if she had, and she really perished there on her trip, and yet returned.

She is still alive.

Scootaloo glanced up to a small shelf above her bed in her room. A small, black urn, shining like an ebon jewel, sat peacefully, its only adornment being an emblem of Rainbow's Cutie Mark in grayscale.

She is still alive.

Her chest ached as she gazed at the urn. Her vision darkened and blurred the longer she stared. She missed her so much. So very much.

She would do anything to bring Rainbow back.

~

"You... You want to do 'hwat now?!" Applebloom yelled incredulously.

"I can't stop thinking about it," Scootaloo paced around the clubhouse. Applebloom and Sweetie Belle sat on the couch in disbelief. "That book... it was meant for me. It was meant for me to figure out all its secrets. It was meant for me to find Rainbow!"

"But she's dead!" Sweetie exclaimed bluntly. "We all saw the accident, we all went to the funeral, and you wouldn't stop trying to wake her up!"

She is still alive.

^{"'The place where the dead are given new life'..."}

"Huh?"

"'The place where the dead are given new life'," Scootaloo mumbled slightly louder. "What if Rainbow... what if she actually died first during her trip to the Shrouded Mountain with Twilight, and that place... it brought her back somehow? Is that what "the place where the dead are given new life" means? What if-"

"Lemme stop y'all right there," Applebloom interrupted. "There's no way a place like that really exists, Scoots. If'n it did, ah doubt it'd be much of a secret. Ponies and other creatures from all over the the world would be lookin' fer it."

"Also, pretty sure necromancy is, like, suuuper illegal," Sweetie added. "Even villains won't do it!"

"You been obsessin' over that book a li'l too much, ah think."

She is still alive.

"It has to be about her... it just has to!" Scootaloo argued. "Sure, it's written like it was translated into Griffonese and then Yakish and back to Equestrian, but it talks about all kinds of things only she and I would know! It has to be real. It has to be true!"

"It's ridiculous!" Applebloom shouted in frustration.

"...Can you even reanimate ashes?" Sweetie put a hoof to her chin. "What if she comes back as just a pile of ashes? She'd just blow away in the wind." Applebloom slapped a hoof to her face and dragged it down slowly.

"Uh..." The thought hadn't crossed Scootaloo's mind until just now, but she was almost instantly positive it didn't matter. "Well... no. No, it'll work. It must. It has to!"

She is still alive.

"She can come back! I can help her come back!"

She is still alive.

"She... she's still alive..."

Scootaloo went silent as her breathing slowed. Her mind went blank. But then it was filled with possibility. Applebloom and Sweetie Belle glanced nervously at each other.

"I... I'll bring her there... it must be true... it must be there..."

She is still alive.

"...Sh... Shrouded Mountain... must find..."

She is still alive.

"Must find!"

She ran out of the clubhouse door before her friends could even react.

~

There was no time to waste. Though she moved as fast as her legs could carry her, it simply wasn't fast enough.

First, Scootaloo burst through the doors to Twilight's castle, knocking a busy-with-chores Spike over in the process. She scrambled inside the library room she had been in earlier and began frantically searching for atlases. She had already torn down half of a shelf of perfectly-organized books when Spike stumbled inside, rubbing his head.

"Uh... Scootaloo? What'cha doin?"

"Atlas..." Her words were few and fevered. "Storm Peaks... atlas... Storm Peaks... atlas... Storm Peaks, Storm Peaks, Storm Peaks... atlas..."

"Oh, an atlas. Um, Storm Peaks..." Unfazed by her erratic behavior, Spike picked up one of the books she had thrown on the floor and began flipping through its pages. "I think Twilight once mentioned it was a mountain range in the Undiscovered Wes-"

Scootaloo snatched the atlas away, knocking Spike over again in her enthusiasm. She hastily flipped to the Undiscovered West section and began scanning the pages. As Spike groggily recovered, it took only seconds for her to find the Storm Peaks Mountain Range in the lower left region of the map.

"A-HA!" she shouted, knocking poor Spike over once more with the sheer power of her voice. "Can I borrow this?! Thanks! Bye!" He decided to stay on the floor as Scootaloo then quickly ran out of the library and out of the castle.

...

"...Wh... What was that about...?"

...

"...Ugh."

~

After running around Ponyville and spending some of her Bits on food and camping supplies, Scootaloo finally allowed herself a moment to rest as she entered her room. She looked over the atlas again, estimating how long it'd take her to travel there herself and back, and began packing her saddlebags accordingly. In went a sleeping bag, an enchanted flint and steel for starting fires, a flashlight with fresh and extra batteries, food rations, water purification tablets, a multitool, a pamphlet about wilderness survival, a first-aid kit, a coil of rope and an extra blanket.

She made a mental note of the path she'd need to take to get to the Storm Peaks, then packed the atlas inside. She grabbed the mysterious book and packed it as well. Now all she needed was that one morbid object.

Slowing her breath and her body, Scootaloo carefully picked up Rainbow's urn from its resting place on her shelf. She stared mournfully at the grayscale Cutie Mark for a few moments.

She is still alive.

Her gaze hardened with a sigh.

"Rainbow... I'm gonna bring you back, no matter what. Pinkie Promise."

She wrapped a hoof-towel around the urn before carefully placing it inside its black-lacquer box, and then carefully placed the box in a fortified corner of her saddlebags. Satisfied, Scootaloo took a final look around her room, counted her remaining Bits in her purse to make sure she had enough for the journey, grabbed her scooter and left.

~

She had only just reached Ponyville's train station when she heard hoofsteps running behind her.

"Scoots! Wait up!" Applebloom shouted. Scootaloo's eyes widened to see Applebloom and Sweetie Belle running towards her, both with fully-packed saddlebags of their own.

"Guys? What are you two doing here?" she asked as she got in line at the ticket counter, her friends quickly joining her.

"Well, we tried to follow you after you ran out on us," Sweetie gasped as she caught her breath. "Then Spike said you'd borrowed an atlas from Twilight's library, and then we saw you buying supplies in the Town Square..."

"We figured you had yer heart set on findin' that place," said Applebloom. "So we're comin' with you, like it or not."

Scootaloo gaped. "But... you guys said it doesn't exist, and that Rainbow... what changed your mind?"

"Oh, ah still don't believe it. But if goin' there'll give you the closure you need, then ah'm all for it," Applebloom smiled as she put a foreleg around Scootaloo's neck.

"We're your friends, Scootaloo," Sweetie nodded. "And we're the Cutie Mark Crusaders! All for one, and one for all!"

"We'll go to this Shrouded Mountain place and see just what's up there... together," Applebloom added. Scootaloo's body filled with tingling warmth at her friends' words and gestures, and tears of tenderness threatened to spill from her eyes. But suddenly Twilight's warning echoed in her mind.

"Aww, thanks, you two..." she sniffled as she wiped her eyes. "But you really don't have to... I mean, Twilight did say it was really dangerous there..."

"Too late," Sweetie stuck her tongue out as she flashed three tickets in front of her face. "All that's left to do is wait, the Undiscovered West train doesn't leave for a couple hours."

"But you guys have other things to do... Applebloom, don't you have to help the others rebuild the barn again? And Rarity has another fashion show coming up soon, I thought?"

"Nah, Applejack's built that barn from scratch so many times she can do it in her sleep," Applebloom waved a dismissive hoof.

"And I told my sister we've got a Crusaders mission in the Undiscovered West. She's fine with it, she's got other models... and it's not like nopony'll know where we're going," said Sweetie. Though Scootaloo still felt a little worried, she knew there was no convincing them to stay now. All she could do was gulp down her troubles and smile.

"Well... alright. The three of us together, then!" Scootaloo beamed boldly.

"Yea!" Applebloom and Sweetie Belle nodded. They stuck a hoof each in front of themselves, stacking and lifting them up together in a flourish of teamwork. As they laughed and settled into pleasant conversation, Scootaloo glanced to where the urn rested deep inside her saddlebags.

She was sure Rainbow was proud of her and her friends, wherever she was.

She was sure Rainbow would be proud of her when she brought her to "the place where the dead are given new life" and brought her back.

She was still alive, after all.

She is still alive.

She is still alive.

She is still alive.

Do not come for her, lest you meet her fate... or worse.

Comments

[Teraunce]

Do not come for her, lest you meet her fate... or worse.

yeah be very very wary of Twilight.