//------------------------------// // The Eternal Furnace VI // Story: Rainbow Dash's Unstoppable Ego // by MagicS //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash eventually made her way back into the small “home” of Night Reader and Brilliant Star. And she promptly passed out from exhaustion in the small bunk. Despite the poor accommodations there was no such thing as a bad bed when you were that tired. Night Reader and Brilliant Star slept well too, Rainbow was just really thankful they were still letting her stay here with them. It probably felt good for the two of them to be nice to a pony. They obviously didn’t get that chance very often. She woke up later than she would’ve liked though. Instead of getting up before her hosts they were already active and had a bowl of the slimy gruel ready for her to eat. That meant she had less time to try and do anything before the bell rang and they all had to get to work again so she’d have to move double time. Rainbow Dash guzzled down the gruel, although now that she wasn’t overwhelmed by hunger it wasn’t nearly as appetizing and she nearly retched due to the strange consistency and tastelessness of it. It just felt like something that shouldn’t be eaten. “Ughhh… you guys really eat this stuff?” Rainbow Dash coughed into her bowl and wiped a gooey trail of gruel off her chin. “Every day,” Night Reader shrugged. “You get used to it,” Brilliant Star said. Rainbow Dash shook her head and finished off the bowl—it was probably healthy but just devoid of everything else that a meal should be. Would’ve made sense with what Resin believe in. At least she knew from the last time she had a bowl that it was enough to tide her over even when she had been starving. But she really didn’t want to have to go more than a few days of only having this to eat. After Brilliant Star took the bowl back to clean it, Rainbow Dash took a big stretch in their room and wiggled her wings to get ready. “How long do you think until work starts again? I’ve got a lot of stuff I want to do today,” she asked them. “It’s the same time every day so you’ve got a few hours at least,” Brilliant Star said as she washed the dishes. Rainbow Dash nodded. “Okay, okay, that’s pretty good. And you said the Wrenchers are all over the place? Like hiding out in the area between the housing blocks and the exterior of the city?” “Right,” Night Reader nodded. “Are you going to try and find and talk to them?” “Well I had a little encounter with them yesterday...” Rainbow Dash rubbed the back of her neck. “But I want to get to know all the gangs better. I really need to start winning them over, I think I made some progress with the Diesel Kings yesterday but it’s not enough. And I can’t really get to where the Thunderbirds are without going through the places the Diesel Kings and Wrenchers hang out in. So I figured I might as well try and convince the Wrenchers to help me out next.” “Then that should be where you need to go. We don’t know exactly where they are and there’s a lot of maintenance access ways and other stuff out in the long corridor that wraps around most of the mountain. So you might have some trouble finding them,” Night Reader told her. “I’ll deal,” Rainbow shrugged. “Besides, these guys are looking for me too.” “I suppose it’s a good thing for you what with what you’re trying to do. If the gangs cared about me that much I’d just be afraid,” Brilliant Star said as she finished up the dishes and walked over to her husband. Rainbow Dash grinned at her and her husband. “With any luck none of you will have to be afraid of them anymore. With any luck they won’t even exist soon.” “I still can’t say I believe much in your chances to do anything here but I won’t wish you unwell,” Night Reader said. His eyes were still just dull and empty, same with Brilliant Star. “I’ll make you believe in me. Same as the gangs, you just gotta watch me. If you guys knew about even half the stuff I’ve done in my life you’d have way more faith in me,” Rainbow said. “In fact, I may not have the time right now, but after work is done for today I’m going to get you and as many other ponies who live in this housing block together I can and I’m going to tell you all about what I’ve done. Then you’ll know the awesome hero who’s here to help you.” Brilliant Star shrugged. “You can go ahead and try but most are going to be tired and won’t care enough to stick around and listen.” “Or believe you even if they do,” Night Reader said. “I’m not sure I’m going to believe you either.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Well I’m gonna try, nothing can make me not try. And less than nothing can make me give up. So I’ll see you later today but right now I’ve gotta make up for lost time.” “Why are you in such a hurry? It’s not like you need to work, no one is keeping track of you,” Night Reader said. “Even if I’m not working won’t everyone else be?” Rainbow raised an eyebrow at him. “Not necessarily,” he shook his head. “While we’re supposed to work every single day it’s impossible to keep up with that. Every now and then ponies will take a day off and rest, since you only really have to be careful of Crush and the security team catching you. They don’t have enough ponies to do a headcount of every worker every day so unless you’re really unlucky you can mostly just hide out in your room.” “Why don’t more ponies just do that?” Rainbow asked. “Because if it’s obvious that there are too many ponies missing then Crush will do an inspection of the housing blocks. And anyone found not working will be punished. Harshly,” Brilliant Star said. “Sometimes he does random inspections too. So anyone skipping work for the day is gambling,” Night Reader added. “And there’s something else...” Brilliant Star said, forlornly looking at the ground. “If you skip too much work… well it doesn’t make the ponies here that have been working themselves to death very happy. So if you take more than a day off every week or two you might find an angry mob at your door.” Rainbow Dash sighed and rubbed her forehead. “You guys really need to get back to being good to each other. This is just crazy.” “That’s how it is in this city now,” Night Reader shrugged. “Ponies don’t have room in them for compassion anymore.” “I’m changing that. Seriously, I’m changing that.” Rainbow Dash said as she pointed her hoof at the two of them. She then turned and opened up the door to the housing block, stepping outside and closing it behind herself. Duty called and today was going to be another big and busy one. Rainbow Dash glided through the air of the housing block towards the smaller tunnel that she had first come in from two days ago. She noticed that there was a shutter above it that looked like it could come down and seal the housing block off from the outer corridor, all the blocks probably had tunnels and shutters like this. She didn’t know how or why any of them would ever be closed like that though. Whatever, it wasn’t important right now and she had to find those Wrenchers. She kept up an easy flight just a foot above the ground and casually flew through the tunnel and back into the maintenance access corridor after opening up that small door again. “Looks the same as last time,” Dash said as she looked around the long and tall room that curved off into the distance, where the walls were covered in innumerable vents and pipes and led further out to the exit hatches used for trash disposal. But Dash wasn’t going out she was going around, so she followed the length of the corridor in the direction of the other housing blocks. It was all pretty much the same everywhere, she saw more tunnels leading to more exit hatches just like she had noticed when she first entered the city. But she knew she couldn’t just lazily overlook anything. She remembered how the Wrenchers emerged from a panel in the floor yesterday so she had to make sure she didn’t miss anything like that. Everything that could be a door or lead to a secret tunnel was something she had to check. One panel on the wall she opened up revealed itself to merely be covering a bunch of sparking wires. She quickly put the cover back on to keep any sparks from shooting onto her fur. "This place is falling apart...” Rainbow Dash muttered. Resin had to see that the way she was doing things was just making the city fall into decay, didn’t she? Without any purpose or happiness for the average pony and making them afraid of violence from their peers nobody cared anymore about the general state of this strange metal mountain. Did Resin really believe everything she said in those broadcasts? Was she so focused on the flame burning bright that she couldn’t even think about long term consequences? What she had done was like starting a forest fire to stay warm for the night. Rainbow Dash shook her head and continued on down the corridor, lazily flapping her wings and giving everything a once over with her eagle eyes. Between two of the halls that led to the exit hatches there was one set of metal doors that had a chain with a lock wrapped around the handles, so even though it obviously led somewhere she couldn’t find where. Rainbow Dash had no idea how many little tunnels and crawlspaces honeycombed this part of the city but if she could at least get inside she could find her way around it all. By now her mission this morning had taken her past the housing block that the Diesel Kings claimed. She figured if she still couldn’t find any sign of where the Wrenchers were hiding she could at least go to the Thunderbirds’ housing block once she hit the end. Rainbow Dash was still looking at any loose vents when she passed by or any sign of life that wasn’t a rat scurrying around—there were a lot of rats. Dash was beginning to get annoyed at her lack of progress. Investigating wasn’t really her thing and she wasn’t used to being in a technological and mechanical place like this. She just didn’t know what to do. She was in the middle of an adventure but it wasn’t really fun or exciting just yet. She was almost bored enough to miss something important. But not quite. While passing one of the tunnels that would’ve led to another housing block farther along the line she noticed something hiding in the shadows of the unlit tunnel. Although she acted like she didn’t see anything. But there was definitely something—a couple of someones—hiding in that darkness and watching her as she went by. Rainbow Dash’s mouth turned into a tight lipped frown as she kept floating along down the corridor while behind her she heard the faintest sound of rustling feathers as the ponies emerged from the tunnel and began to follow her. Still she acted as unaware as before, looking ahead and around like normal and not changing her speed at all. She was pretty sure she knew who was following her and what was going to happen soon. They didn’t know who they were messing with. As her acute ears listened in she heard them flying above and behind her near the top of the ceiling. A good blind spot if she couldn’t already hear what they were doing. Any second now… Rainbow Dash kept her ears perked and her body on edge. It happened as soon as she passed the next corridor, three pegasi came down from the ceiling and attempted to jump her. Rainbow Dash was prepared for it and she quickly bolted to the side, letting them land on the floor right where she had been previously hovering above and then giving a solid kick to the pegasus on the right of the group. It was strong enough to knock him into his fellows and they all momentarily were pushed to the ground. “Thunderbirds, huh?” Rainbow Dash’s eyes narrowed. The three didn’t respond, instantly picking themselves up and flying at her. One came head on while the others went for her sides in a pincer movement. It wasn’t a bad strategy again but—like pretty much every other pegasus in the world—they were just too slow compared to her. Rainbow Dash didn’t wait for them to arrive, she shot forward with alarming speed and punched the startled middle pegasus in the face before the others even knew what had happened. When they did finally register that Rainbow Dash had disappeared and their comrade had been struck they were forced to do a double-take and just floated there, unsure of what to do next. Rainbow Dash looked over her shoulder at them while the other lay crumpled on the ground rubbing his face. “Well?” They glared at her and jumped forward, one going high and the other going low. But their attacks were easy for Rainbow Dash to dance around. A hoof strike came in at her head that she leaned away from while the other tried to sweep out her legs, a single small jump took care of that. The pony up high brought both his hooves down towards her back while the one low lunged at her to tackle her. Rainbow Dash instead dodge to the side of both of them and when the one lunging for her went past she grabbed his head and held him in a headlock, spinning around and then throwing him into the other one. That was just in time for the other to get back up and fly at her, his face was red both from her punch and his anger, and he threw a barrage of punches at her. It’s not like they were bad punches or anything, he wasn’t some wild amateur, but he just couldn’t match her speed. Every punch might as well have been going in slow-motion with how easily Rainbow Dash was able to duck and dodge away from them all. And if he kept going all out like this he was just going to tire himself out soon. Of course Rainbow Dash didn’t feel like waiting for that to happen. The next time he threw a big right hook at her she put her hoof up to block it and punched him in the jaw. The pegasus spun around a couple of times and fell to the floor. He was done. The other two saw that and hesitated. Did they do the probably really smart thing and fly away? Or did they try to do what they were ordered to do and take out Rainbow Dash? They did the dumb thing. Both of them came at her head on now, knowing they were too slow to try and do anything fancy. They just tried to overwhelm her with enough attacks at once. A serious of punches and wing jabs were thrown at Rainbow Dash, at her head, her body, her legs, anything the two of them could reach. They figured if they could land a single solid blow they could swing the fight in their favor. Rainbow Dash was way too good for any of their hits to do something like that though. After her fights with guys like Blizzard and Karkona and even that Bug Bear this was like a couple of ants trying to fight an eagle. Even before she had started on her journey it would’ve been easy for her to deal with some thugs like this. It was almost bullying what Rainbow Dash was doing. One jab came in straight at her face and Rainbow Dash felt like she had let them try enough. With a powerful flap of her wings she flew up and over the two of them in a flash and kicked both of them in the back of their heads. Both of them were launched forward and slid across the metal floor until they crashed into the wall. Now they were done too. “Can’t even have a tough fight here I guess,” Rainbow said as she looked at the three downed pegasi. With a shrug she resumed her flight down the corridor while the first one she had knocked out woke up and shook his head. He was groggy at first but he gasped when he saw his two friends also out cold and Rainbow Dash starting to fly away. She meanwhile just looked back at him with a bored expression. “Hey, tell Acid Rain that if he wants to talk I’m totally up for that. But if he keeps sending guys like you after me looking for a fight he’s going to end up with nothing but a gang of beaten up pegasi. Got it?” The pegasus just glared at her instead of responding and flew over to the other two, shaking them and trying to wake them up as quickly as possible. “Whatever,” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and ignored them. Not like they were a threat anymore. Or ever were, really. She still had bigger things on her mind what with finding the Wrenchers before work began today and she wasn’t going to let any opportunities slip by in this city. At least maybe this would send a message to Acid Rain and the Thunderbirds. After a minute of her slowly flying deeper down the corridor she heard the sound of the three pegasi leaving back to where they had come from. And then she suddenly paused as she had just realized something that was off about the three of them. It wasn’t just that they were going in the direction away from the Thunderbirds own housing block. It was something else about them that she hadn’t had the time to think about in the middle of fighting with them. Rainbow Dash’s eyes narrowed and she looked back down at the now empty corridor. “Wait a second, those guys didn’t have lightning bolt tattoos and they weren’t wearing jumpsuits either...”