//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: The Contest // Story: The Thunderstorm Cloud Factory // by NightDrawn //------------------------------// The Thunderstorm Cloud Factory By NightDrawn Fics The way that thunderstorm clouds have been made has been known since Equestria was created. Ponies would fight, and a storm would brew. That’s how it had always been throughout time. Sure, the processes had been sliced and diced, but it still came down to one factor; anger. The anger of ponies powered the thunderstorm cloud’s charge, and the power could be harnessed as energy. So, as history unfolded and modernization increased, a factory for it was built. Large, futuristic machinery was invented that could suck the anger out of workers, who were forced into gruesome fights or watching their horrible memories to bring the anger out of them. It was very effective, and worked for years on end, providing all of Equestria with the rainfall they needed to grow their crops and survive. As time moved on however, the workers found that there was simply no more anger left in them. They had seen their horrible memories so many times, and beat each other up so much, that anything that would have angered them no longer made them angry in the slightest. Forget about trying to force them into fights. The workers refused to lay one more hoof on one another. They had been stressed out so badly, they became so apathetic and lethargic that they were deemed useless. Their manager had begged them to try to produce more anger, but they simply couldn't. Later that year, all production ceased. Not a single drop of anger had been left in the machinery, and with nothing to feed to the power hungry reactor core, no more thunderstorm clouds could be sent out. The factory went bankrupt, and was shutdown. But it didn't end there. The year got worse and worse as it dragged on, and slowly crops began to dry up. With no thunderstorms to water the fields, how would the vegetation grow? It didn’t. The crops dried out completely, and Equestria went into a drought season. ------ Two Months Later ------ It had been a busy day unlike any other at the Rainbow Factory. Today was the day the winner of the new Thunderstorm Cloud Factory Contest would be revealed. Since nothing was being done about the old factory, the president of the Rainbow Factory decided to hold a contest to figure out a solution to the drought problem. As workers were rushing about their business, frantic to introduce new ideas for Cloudsdale Weather Corp’s new thunderstorm cloud factory, Datafile, a small, scrawny white unicorn sat working behind a computer desk. Looking stoically ahead, he continued to receive and distribute news sent from Cloudsdale Weather Corporation’s database. Like many other workers, he too had submitted plans for a new factory. He had longed for recognition and respect, which he had never received within his career as a Rainbow Cloud Factory news receiver. The drought problem also wasn’t getting any better, and Datafile believed that if he could fix the problems, he was bound to become one of the most famous ponies in Cloudsdale. Maybe even all of Equestria if his idea succeeded well enough. As Datafile imagined the experience of winning the contest in his mind, he slowly felt his chin sink down as his eyelids grew heavy and a dream crept into his subconsciousness. He was walking through an unfamiliar room. It seemed endless, almost as if it was a punishment. Machinery was whirring in the background, while lights flashed in the distance. He ran towards them, ending up in another room. This room was familiar though. It was the Rainbow Factory’s theater room. The room was surrounded by thick concrete walls and a large, rotting wooden stage stained with blood. Rusty chairs sprawled out across the tile floor in perfect array, and workers of the facility were taking their seats. But in a matter of seconds, and the blink of an eye, the lights in the room blacked out, and when they lit back up, all the workers were dead. Someone had— “Hey! Are those reports ready yet!?” a tall, muscular pony shouted as Datafile snapped out of his daydream. The pony was a dark brown, deep-set-eyed stallion who worked as a loyal Rainbow Factory manager for twelve years and counting. He had trained and taught workers under him so well he was probably making the most money next to the machine operators and scientists. No wonder his cutie mark was a lion head with money in its jaws. “I’m sorry sir!” Datafile replied while sitting back up and waking up his computer from its sleep, the dusty screen of it lighting up with a bright green glow, “I didn’t mean to doze off.” “Whatever. Just shut up and focus on your work!” the manager boomed back at him, “Next time you fall asleep during your shift, you’ll get to meet the wardens, up close and personal. And I don’t expect that you’ll make it out alive!” Datafile gulped and held his breath. He had seen his fellow workers, friends, be dragged away by the mysterious guards referred to as “wardens”, and after being taken away, they never came back to their workstations. He remembered the time when his friend had one minute been chatting with him about what would happen if they leaked some information they had received to the public, and the next minute he was being dragged away. The more he saw this happen to his co-workers, the more cold he grew inside. It’s their fault they died. After all they’re the ones who asked for a death wish, he would tell himself as his friends were dragged away. It was a serious treachery to release or speak about releasing secret information about the Rainbow Factory to the public, and leaving the facility was even worse. That’s why he and all the other workers were cooped up in the upper level. But he definitely did not want to end up flowing through spectra pipes, so he propped himself up against the chair in a proper work position, and continued to work diligently. Hours passed, the day going on and on, still with bustling ponies trotting around while chatting about what the results for the new factory would be, explaining their elaborate plans to one another. They generally were enjoying their day, but Datafile was not. He was stuck behind a computer, reading through boring reports and recent news articles, instead of attending the new thunderstorm cloud factory contest crowd. Why did they get their day off, and the opportunity to visit with their friends and co-workers?, Datafile thought to himself in frustration as ponies trotting throughout the factory were as happy as he'd ever seen them be. “Attention all workers attending the contest ceremony! The results for the new factory winner will be announced in thirty minutes! Please go to room 3248-B and find a seat! They’re running out fast!” an announcer blared through a loudspeaker. Datafile looked back at the manager, and the grim look on the manager's face only meant one thing; No. He knew that the manager wanted to attend as badly as Datafile did, but orders given were orders taken, and that meant they had to stay put. “Do you think that we could sneak into the room?” Datafile asked the egotistical manager, “We could find out who won then.” “Are you asking for a death wish?!” the manager replied, confused yet frustrated, “No we are not going to even consider doing that! Forget about it!” “Come on! I know you’re curious to find out! It will be easy to sneak in with the huge crowd!” Datafile replied to the stuck up manager. The manager got angry at this statement, and began to get red in the face, “YOU HEARD ME THE FIRST TIME! NO MEANS N—” the loudspeaker crackled back into life, shutting up the manager quickly, so that the announcer would not hear and find out about their plans on the other end. “Attention all managers in all districts and sectors of the factory! The president has ordered that you and any workers under you immediately attend the announcement ceremony! Any managers who do not attend or prevent their workers from attending will be killed for insubordination!” with that the loudspeaker crackled off, leaving the room completely silent. “Heh, looks like it’s your lucky day!” the manager said hastily. “Let’s get our asses up there before I get killed!” Datafile jumped cheerfully out of his seat and eagerly followed behind his manager as they journeyed up to room 3248-B to find their seats. As they approached, Datafile was filled with nervousness to the brim. What if he actually won? What if he lost to another smart pony? He had many questions he wanted to know the answers to, but he remembered that other workers had been shot on site for asking and making themselves seem suspicious. While ponies of many colors from many districts and sectors of the factory were taking their seats, Rainbow Dash, the president of the Rainbow Factory, scanned the room of workers in search for a particular pony. Once she ensured that the mysterious appearing figure was there, she looked back at the audience. “And now, we will begin the new Thunderstorm Cloud Factory winner’s ceremony!” a raspy voice emphatically announced as the lights in the large, foreboding room dimmed. “Tonight will be the night! All problems, errors, and failures the thunderstorm cloud factory made will be put to an end very soon!” The tall, cyan mare, with rose colored eyes trotted out onto the stage, leaving everypony breathless. The president of the Rainbow Factory rarely ever made an appearance like this, and if she had, it would either be through a loudspeaker or in a concealed bodysuit. She grinned as she stepped up onto the standalone podium, and searched the crowd once again for the mysterious figure that stood in dark brown cloak. Once she found the pony in the audience and verified that they had attended, the infamous mare cleared her throat and shuffled through some papers. “As you all know, I have you gathered you all here tonight to announce a very important event in Cloudsdale Weather Corporation’s history. Shortly the winner’s plans will be revealed, and construction of the new Thunderstorm Cloud Factory will begin!” Datafile sat down in a rusty portable chair as the vivacious mare continued on about the history of Cloudsdale Weather Corp and how important this coming event would be. Yeah, yeah, Datafile thought to himself while tuning out Rainbow Dash’s speech, We know this is important, but please just announce who won! “And that is why today, here in Cloudsdale, we absolutely need a new age Thunderstorm Cloud Factory! Now, who’s ready to find out who won?” Rainbow asked sarcastically while powering up a large computer monitor displayed behind her. The crowd burst into cheers as the Cloudsdale Weather Corporation logo lit up on the green colored screen, and Rainbow quieted down the audience to continue speaking, “Out of all the submissions I received, many were decent, some were good, and then some were...let’s say not that great. So, Star Scatter, would you mind coming up to the podium to share your submission?” Star Scatter, a meek blue pony with horn rimmed glasses trotted up to the stage, with nervousness in each step. “Well...my idea was to harness the power of heat energy in the air through a special tower. You’d then feed it through a Quantum-Core Radioactive filter, that would combine the energy molecules together, forming a cloud in essence. Then the cloud’s heat molecules would be scientifically transformed into freezing molecules, causing an upset in the energy balance to form the cloud’s thunder and lightning. And for the water, it doesn’t even need to be formed! The cloud’s energy molecules would pull water vapor gases into it, condensing them into unlimited amounts of water!” Star Scatter explained to the crowd, trying her best not to jumble her words. Star was sure the crowd would like her idea, however this not the case. “What if there were no heat energy molecules in the air?!” one anonymous pony in the audience questioned. “Yeah! What about water vapor?! If the air is dry, water cannot form! This wouldn’t work in a desert town like Appaloosa!” another crowd member shouted agreeing with the other criticizer. The rest of the crowd whispered to one another, unaware of how to react. Star Scatter was sweating and stuttering her words, trying to provide some explanation to how and what affected the clouds and process, but she couldn’t come up with any good replies. “How about you take a seat, Star,” Rainbow said sternly, “You can take your time to think your plans over again. Try to scrounge something up on this theory”. Star Scatter lowered her head and exited the stage, heartbroken that her idea had found a major flaw. As she took her seat again, ponies around her avoided looking at or comforting her. They didn’t know how the problems could be fixed, and they surely did not want to be dragged away by wardens for interrupting the Rainbow Factory’s president. Rainbow Dash grinned as she looked down from the stage at Star Scatter, and cleared her throat, turning her attention back to the audience, “Now, that we’ve seen an example of a ‘decent’ submission, let’s look at a not so great one. Silver Scalpel, please join us on the stage!” The gray pony with a black, shiny, combed back mane came up to the mic. With glassy eyes that looked three times more nervous than Star Scatters, he attempted at building his confidence and said, “Uh, hi everyone...So, uh, my plans were to create thunderstorm clouds through…nuclear fusion.” The audience started chatting loudly to one each other, arguing about the concept and how it work out. Some had outbursts, and some even wanted to leave. The concept seemed horrible to them. Nuclear Fusion? What if it was compromised or disrupted? All of Cloudsdale would be doomed. One nuclear explosion could wipe out one fourth of Equestria, and Cloudsdale barely took up an eighth. “SHUT YOUR DAMN MOUTHS!” a warden roared at the crowd. The crowd went quiet almost instantly, and directed their attention back up to Silver Scalpel. “A-As I was saying, the nuclear fusion process is a new, evolved way of harnessing nuclear atoms within a safe, contained machine. This machine consists of six reactor cores that are angled and connected by long pressure rods. These rods rise and fall in an integrated pressurizer, powering the cores through pumping nuclear atoms through the pressurizer. Directing this power down into pipes that lead up into a large energy collecting column, it can then be aimed at a desired location and fired, sending the hazardous energy hurling through the atmosphere. It would then rip artificial molecules from the atmosphere, charging it up. For the water, fermionic condensation would occur within the atoms while traveling through the atmosphere, pulling any water vapor into it.” “It sounds to me like you’re describing a death ray! I won’t support the construction of a weapon of mass destruction! And especially not in a huge factory floating above Equestria!” an unknown member of the contest shouted. “I bet your theory doesn’t even work! It’s just an excuse to receive attention! Can you even define Fermionic Condensation?!” another random pony yelled. “N-No…” Silver Scalpel replied sadly, “All I know is that the engineers will make it work”. Rainbow Dash stood forward, a slight smile on her face, “This is where the submission fails. He relies on engineers!” she laughed, “You should really rely on someone better Silver Scalpel, like, say, yourself? You understand that if your plan were to have failed, you and the rest of Cloudsdale would be killed?!” “I-I understand ma’am” Silver replied, lowering his head. “You refer to me as Ms. Dash if you intend to address me. Do I make myself clear? You call me Ms. Dash from now on! Does everypony understand?!” Rainbow boomed at the crowd. “Yes Ms. Dash!” The audience replied immediately. “Good. Now take your seat, Silver Scalpel.” the frustrated mare said, sighing. Silver Scalpel exited the rotting stage and sat back down in his chair, inured at the scene he had caused. He sat mentally broken, processing inside his head all the criticism he had received. It definitely did not work, he knew that, but couldn’t the engineers fix the problem for him? Silver thought to himself, Well now they couldn’t. They wouldn’t want to after hearing all about the worker’s gossip on his “Weapon of Mass Destruction” idea. The screen that had previously been powered up changed to a countdown timer, and the vigorous cyan mare trotted forward, exclaiming to the crowd ,“Now for the best submission and winner of the contest! Ready everypony!?” The audience erupted into a roar as the ten second blinking countdown timer started. “TEN! NINE! EIGHT! SEVEN! SIX!” the crowd cheered as Datafile’s heart beat rapidly, “FIVE! FOUR! THREE! TWO! ONE!” The screen’s timer ended and Datafile’s face appeared on the screen above a banner that advertised the winner. The crowd clapped and hollered as Datafile was guided up to the stage. He smiled in glee as he walked up the ramp of the stage to join Rainbow Dash and receive the contract to the property and ownership of the new Thunderstorm Cloud Factory. I won! I actually won the contest and right to my own factory! I can finally get out of this shithole and boss others around! Datafile thought to himself while trotting over to Rainbow Dash in joy. “So, Datafile, how do you feel about this victory?” Rainbow asked him sternly, frustrated at his happy entrance onto the stage. “Fantastic!,” Datafile replied cheerfully, “I was pretty confident that I wouldn’t lose!” The crowd of excited ponies suddenly quieted down, and exchanged confused looks to one another as they whispered various things to friends. Datafile’s lively attitude quickly died down to a more laid back one as he glanced back at Rainbow, who had lowered her head, glaring at him. She hated remarks that made others sound above her authority. “Interesting,” she mumbled as she attempted to regain her cheerful persona, which was a hard thing to do after all, since she had lived in a murky, violent facility for most of her life, “Now as you all know, here at the Rainbow Factory we always like to find new ways to evolve our machinery, boost security, and provide, somewhat of a worker-friendly environment.” The crowd chuckled and laughed at the indirect joke, and when Rainbow Dash gave them a glare, they quieted down and returned to listening intensely. Rainbow Dash cleared her throat and continued speaking, “And throughout the history of this upper floor, we together have always been doing that. Look how far we’ve gotten! Six floors of endless machinery, a Class II Pegasus Device, and much more! The crowd applauded and cheered at Rainbow’s pride, however one of them did not. A mysterious pony sat emotionless, staring intently at Rainbow Dash. He knew something suspicious was going on, but he wasn’t sure whether interfering or not would be a good idea, so he decided to stay put, for now. “Well, Datafile has done just that! He has been inventing and thinking of new ways to reuse resources here! Isn’t that an extraordinary idea?” The audience cheered once again, and stood up, congratulating Datafile’s feat. He smirked at Rainbow Dash and winked. “Now the question is, what resources here will his factory use?” The mare rhetorically asked. “I’d be honored to answer that, Ms. Dash,” Datafile replied, acting as if the rhetorical question was directed to him. Datafile trotted over to the tacky podium Rainbow had once been standing on, and took the microphone in his hoof, grinning. “So, as you all know, there are many resources here available. There are many various chemicals and fluids down in the resource processing room, our live resources which are used for rainbow production, and then there’s—” Datafile cut off for a second and looked down. He looked back up at the audience and continued, “So throughout my research on thunderstorm clouds, I have learned one major flaw. When anger powers a thunderstorm cloud’s charge, the energy is not that powerful and doesn’t last long. What I found interesting is that anger’s power is weaker when it is pulled from its host indirectly. My factory has been designed to take the anger directly from its hosts, like you or me. But it won’t be pigment, or spectra. It will be the very core. The connection to the soul. The fierce and rabid soul, of the deceased pony!” At Datafile’s statement, a large deadbolt slid and locked the heavy metal door, the only means of escape from the theatre room. The crowd panicked and some pushed on the door in an attempt to leave, but no matter how much they tried, the titanium deadbolt would not budge. “Don’t waste your energy trying to escape. Now, as I was saying, my factory needs hosts. I have many to take from the depths of this factory, but I was thinking of...starting off fresh. And those criticisms and outbursts you ponies have had today have really filled your souls with anger.” Rainbow Dash, Datafile, and the wardens pulled out gas masks they had with them, and slid them over their snouts. Every worker in the crowd started to scream and panic even more, and some even tried to beat up wardens for their gas masks. Rainbow Dash pulled out a remote and pressed a large red button on it, setting off an alarm system. She looked back at the mysterious figure she had checked for multiple times before the ceremony, and found it to still be there. This figure she had looked for started to rise off the ground, towering in the air. When Datafile realized the mysterious figure wasn’t a pony at all, he laughed out loud, grinning at Rainbow Dash. The mysterious figure was really a disguised machine, built into the floor and used for emergency decontamination of any threats. Once it rose to its highest point, purple-colored gas started to emit from holes in it, causing nearby ponies to choke and drop to the floor, lifeless. Datafile clapped his hooves together sarcastically as he walked up next to Rainbow, still with a grin on his face, “Very clever, Ms. Dash. I never thought you’d kill off the workers in such an easy way! Now, may I take my more preferred form and ditch this weak body?” “Well, you did win the right to the Thunderstorm Cloud Factory, so yes, you can. I’ll miss my old, powerless worker, though.” the cyan mare replied sarcastically. “Oh, whatever, Rainbow. You wouldn’t give a shit if I transformed into your dead friend, Scootaloo!” Datafile’s horn sparked a mixture of dark purple and green magic, and slowly his small, scrawny white body began to grow more muscular. His short, bony legs also grew longer and lost their bony appearance, as his eye color also took dramatic effect, turning from its original light blue to a deep, crimson red. “Ahhhh, there we go!” he exclaimed joyously, “I feel much more comfortable now! And I get to ditch that dumb old name! I will now be called my true name, Shade Blade!” Rainbow Dash and Shade Blade watched as the pathetic workers succumbed to death, and laughed at the sight. Little did they know, one stallion had attacked a warden, stealing its gas mask and fleeing through an escape vent only the wardens knew about. “Hey Shade, mind if I call you Data?” Rainbow Dash asked curiously. “Sure. But only you!” Shade replied while pushing a pony crawling on the stage towards them off it. The evil mare smiled and looked up at the now taller, white-coated stallion, “Of course!” Shade grinned and turned back around to continue speaking to Rainbow, “Now, how is the construction on my factory going?” Rainbow scanned the room for any survivors, and finding none, shut down the device emitting gas into the room, “It is on track and near completion. The machines are also being built by my engineers right now, and they will hopefully be finished soon.” The malevolent stallion laughed and stomped his hoof down in pleasure, “Good! It’s all going according to the plan!”