Zachariah's POV
I hate spinning. It is by far the worst thing in existence. Even more so when you’ve been spinning in some white void for GOD KNOWS HOW LONG! Stop spinning, stop spinning, just fucking stop spinning for the love of god STOP FUCKING SPINNING ALREADY!
I think my complaints finally managed to sway some deity, cause I felt myself start slowing down. I stumbled a lot before falling onto my hands and knees on what looked like an enlarged version of my Yin-Yang necklace. I tried to stand up, only to be slammed back into the ground by severe nausea. “Oh god.... gonna hurl.” I crawled over to the edge of the circle and started to vomit over the side.
By the time I was done I had got a good look at what was below me. “Holy...” The circle I was on was only an inch thick, but the ground was at least seven stories below me. “...Shit.” I moved back to the center of the platform and sat down. “What in the holy hell is going on?”
“I don’t know.” I looked behind me an..... holy fuck.... Discord is right fucking next to me. He shrugged and started to walk along the rim of the Yin-yang platform while twirling an umbrella, “but I never really know what my magic does to begin with. Chaos and all that.”
I stuttered as he looked down at me with a grin. “H-h-how....” This shouldn’t be possible. Sure I occasionally.... indulged, in watching the show.... but how in the everliving fuck is Discord right next to me?
He started to float before diving beneath the platform and vanishing. I looked down and saw the black half had his eye in place of the dot while his grin formed under it. “How isn’t what’s important right now.” The image circled wildly before it was just him sitting in the white dot. “It’s the why.” I stared in confusion as he started to drink.... the coconut’s husk leaving the milk? I thought he did that with chocolate milk?
The platform slowly spread apart and I was forced into doing the splits between the two. “Whoa!” I looked directly below the platform and saw a large writhing mass of black. “What is that!” My feet were starting to slip from the distance of the platforms. I couldn’t have been more than ten to twelve feet from the surface.
Discord’s head popped out if my shirt with an insane grin. “That is a massive ball of chaotic energy. It is the ‘why’ I was talking about.” I felt his hand clamp onto my shoulder and was soon followed by excruciating pain traveling down my right arm. “That should help with what’s about to happen. Toodles~”
I looked around for the crazy god only to find nothing. “Wait, wha-” The two halves vanished and I started to tumble down into the black. “FUUUUUUCK!” I soon passed into the black and landed on my back into a hard surface with a loud clang that started to echo around me. “Owwwwww, fuck me that hurt.”
I sat up clutching my head and back in pain as I started to hear chuckling from the back of my mind. “Undoubtedly, Now here’s a hint about what to do next if you want to survive.” I started to space out as a rhyme hauntingly echoed into my thoughts. With my eyes still closed from the pain, I actually could see little images with the words.
Deep inside the factory of lights
I could see a lights pouring out of Rainbow’s cloud house
She’ll hunt you down just out of sight
Black wisps started to swarm around it and the light started to flicker
Her thoughts shattered
The wisps formed the ball that I had fallen into.
The prism has scattered
The color around the mass started to get sucked in.
All shall feel her mind’s blight
A small black and white dot formed above the mass.
I blinked back into reality and shook my head. “Wow, that was creepy.” What did I just see? Talk about an A grade mindfuck. I opened up my sore eyes and looked around to see where I was now. The mass I saw had formed around Rainbow Dash’s house... but I’m pretty sure that her house has less metal to it. This better not be what I think it is....
I was on a metal catwalk and was surrounded on all sides by large metal pipes. The ambient glow from whatever machine was running down below me caused the whole area to be bathed in blood red. Drops of water were leaking down from above and when I looked up, I could only see fog lit with that same red glow. Down below wasn’t much better, meaning that there had to be something really bright down there, or there were some very well hidden lights where I was. Fuck..... Rainbow Factory. Just fucking perfect. Now I wish I’d read that story when I had the chance.
I stood up and brushed off my shirt and pants before picking a way to walk. I headed forward from the direction that I landed which made the wall the catwalk was attached to towards my right. I kept walking down the path until I hit a fork and had to choose where to go from there. “Hm...” the choices were, go forward, go right and head up some stairs, or go left and cross the chasm that was below me using a bridge that looked VERY unsound. “Well shit, where to go?”
I could hear something from above and looked at the catwalks that were a few floors above me. I could have sworn that I saw a flick of color go into a door before it slid closed. Out of curiosity, I started up the stairs and got to the catwalk the door was on. When I got closer, I could see that there was a rusty nameplate on the door. “Extraction Chamber #23..... Why do I have such a horrible feeling about this?” Looking down at the floor in front of the door I could see blood red hoof prints leading both in and out. “Yeah.... that’s a good reason why.”
With not any better options on what to do, I slowly pushed open the rusted metal door and peered inside through the crack. The catwalk on the inside was less worn out then the one I was just on, and passed between several large machines for about thirty yards. The machines themselves looked like large claws, surgical tables, and many sharp blades and scalpels were haphazardly replacing what was originally at the end of the long metal arms that came out of the mechanical mess of gears.
I was about to just leave and keep headed down the first catwalk when I saw something run between the machines. It looked like a small dog or cat or something, but it was moving too fast to really get a good look. “The hell was that?” I went into the room and jumped when the door slammed shut behind me. So much for stealth. Not a second later, what I think were the main lights came on and the machinery began to move. The clawed arm was descending into a cage to grab something, but it was constantly coming up empty.
I heard hooves clopping on the catwalk from around one of the machines. Oh shit! I may not have read the actual fic, but I’m pretty sure that being found in here would be very bad. I felt my skin go cold as I looked around for a place to hide. I cheered silently as I found a bunch of pipes to squeeze behind. A quick peek from behind and I saw a large, burly pony in some sort of metal super armour with mechanical wings moving down the hall. The armour covered everything on it to the point that there was a visor on his eyes, and his mane and tail was nowhere to be seen. After raising it’s hoof next to it’s ear, a deep male voice spoke. “Security unit Beta 5, have you found the source of the disturbance? Over.”
There was some static before a second voice came from the pony’s helmet. “Negative, Beta 1. It seems that whatever got in has managed to sneak into some rathole without us finding it. Over.”
The pony groaned and rubbed the bridge of his muzzle. “Damnit.... first that brat escaping and then this?” He raised his hoof again and the static turned back on. “Alright then, Relay to Beta 2 through 4 that we’re falling back to Guard post 2. Report anything that seems suspicious. Over.”
“Roger that.” The guard let go of whatever earpiece he was pressing and looked around the room.
“ALRIGHT YOU LITTLE SHIT! I KNOW YOU’RE IN HERE!” One of the wings extended and a blade shot out of where the primary feathers should of been. “If you come out quietly, It’ll make this easier for the both of us!”
I slipped a little and bumped into the pipe making the guard look in my direction. Shit.... shit.... shit.... The guard was slowly moving closer and I looked around frantically. There wasn’t anything to grab onto or use as a weapon in this cramped spot. When he was only about two feet away or so I groaned and threw my arms up. “FUCK IT!”
I jumped out of my hiding spot and kicked at the guard. My shout must have surprised him or something cause he flinched just before my foot connected with his head in a shower of sparks. There must have been something that I broke in the helmet because DAMN that was a lot of electricity flying off his head. He stood for a moment and twitched until he slumped onto the floor. I looked at the guard and could only stare in disbelief. “Did I just take him out with nothing but a kick?”
I looked down at my foot and... I think I saw sparks on it. Just.... what the fuck..... I looked back down at the pony and pulled off the helmet. His coat was a dark green and his mane was just a plain red that was sorta spiked. If it wasn’t for the fog coming out of his mouth, I’d have thought he was dead. The helmet was sparking and I could hear something staticy come through. “Be..a 1.....at’s....ing on?... We l....t cont...... with ....u.... Bet....1 com......n!” I cursed inwardly and looked around. Shit shit shit shit gotta hide this guy, gotta hide this helmet!
I looked over to one of the claws and saw it descend into one of the pits. PERFECT! I quickly tossed in the helmet and picked up the guy. Just before I tossed him in though, The claw had grabbed his helmet and cut it to ribbons. ..... not perfect..... I pulled the stallion back over the railing and looked back at my old hiding spot. You’ll do.
A hasty stuff job later, and the guard was now wedged between two pipes in such an awkward way he was not going to be happy when he woke up. Nor would he be able to talk with his back hoof in his mouth. “There, that oughta do it.” I could hear something coming from the door I came in and started to run though the room. “And just in time too!”
I ran down the hall and found another doorway that had a key card reader on it. “Oh you’ve got to be kidding me!” I slapped the reader in frustration and it suddenly was sent into a shower of sparks. A second later, the door opened and I could hear banging on the door on the other side of the room. ....... Okay, that was weird. I decided that it would be better not to look a gift horse in the mouth and ran through the open door. I opened the first door I could reach down the new corridor and closed it behind me.
I pressed my back against the door until I heard a small stampede run past me. I let out a sigh of relief and slid to the floor as the adrenaline faded. Looking up, I could see that I had managed to find an old abandoned janitor’s closet. I mean really, not even the school’s had this many cobwebs.
I spotted an old cot that was in the corner of the room and moved over to it AFTER I barricaded the door with a chair. I laid down and cracked my neck before closing my eyes and yawning. Man, today’s being some kind of crazy.... just what the hell is going on?
Just before I fell asleep, I think I heard something shuffling in the back of the room. If it’s something dangerous..... ah fuck it, I’m too tired.