Rainbow and the Factory

by witegrlninja

The Overseer

"T-Twilight?" Rainbow couldn't believe her eyes. She refused to believe her eyes.

She did the only thing she could that came to her mind.

"Heh... heheheh... hahahahaha..." Surely this must be a prank? Although it was awfully elaborate. Twilight's expression slowly melted from prideful to annoyed as Rainbow laughed.

"Hahaha... good one, Twilight. I don't even know what prank you're getting back at me for, but this definitely tops them all!" She continued to laugh harder and harder and showed no signs of stopping, whether out of genuine humor or her mind finally shattering. Twilight rolled her eyes and motioned at the security Pegasus, who promptly stabbed Rainbow with her taser.

"HAAAAH!" The taser hurt much worse this time, now that she was attached to a bunch of highly-conductive metal. She cringed over at Twilight, now genuinely worried for her own safety.

"Yes, Rainbow, I am the Overseer. Honestly, I'm not sure how you hadn't figured it out until just now," Twilight replied, her usually warm, friendly voice now filled with an icy superiority.

"Why... why would I have ever thought it was you?" Rainbow quivered. She thought back along their entire journey, the gruesome discoveries, the endless walking.

"Why would I know the labyrinthine upper floors like the back of my own hoof? Why would I show no interest in high-level magic books if they were already my own private collection? And why would I show so little emotion towards the patients of my own underlings...? Even Fluttershy would've said something by then."

Rainbow's mind raced. She had simply chalked up these occurrences to Twilight being Twilight. But...

The police... she did order them to ignore Spritz...

"And do you really think I'd leave a place like this so woefully unguarded? I told all but these two security ponies here to take the night off and stay in their rooms until I specifically called for them."

Rainbow shivered violently. She remembered all too well how an army of security guards had suddenly swarmed her from nowhere. Everything Twilight was saying was making way too much sense for her liking. Her blood turned to ice in her veins as she slowly realized she was right.

"...Twilight. Why...?" A sob choked her throat. "What is this place? Why do you know about it?" Twilight sighed and turned away, walking towards the observation window above the factory space below.

"It's a long story, my friend," she finally said. "But, I suppose we have all the time in the world right now. Do you remember when I told you about the Shrouded Mountain legend with Princess Celestia and her Pegasus legion?" She took Rainbow's silence as acknowledgement. "It was actually only partially true... you see, Celestia was searching for the perfect prison in the early days of Equestria, a place where she and Luna could safely store criminals before they found their way into Tartarus years later. She conquered the eternal storm that covers the mountain's peak, and she and her Pegasi built the beginnings of this place. All but a hoofful of them remained behind to staff the place, and the ones most injured during construction returned, given a cover story and sworn to secrecy.

"Then Nightmare Moon happened, and Luna was banished for a thousand years. The unrest birthed a surplus of dissenters, and soon Celestia's prison was overflowing. Furthermore, she found herself tiring out more often, now that she needed to raise both the sun and the moon. She ordered her best mages to find a solution, and found it, they did... a miraculous, wonderful substance within every pony's blood that bestows upon them their own unique magical abilities..."

"...Spectra," Rainbow breathed.

"Precisely!" Twilight beamed. "It generally matches the pony's primary fur color, which is why there are seven different types. And so, Princess Celestia had additional wings built in her prison for extracting and manufacturing the substance, and the Rainbow Factory was born."

"How... how does it...?" Rainbow struggled to speak between her teeth chattering and her entire body shaking from abject terror. She still couldn't believe Twilight was willingly a part of this. She still couldn't believe this conspiracy went all the way up to the Princesses themselves.

"Well... you can drink it straight, rub it on yourself, cook with it," Twilight listed on different parts of her hoof. "Celestia has it in her mane and tail shampoo, that's why they're always so billowy. And the day before every Summer Sun Celebration, she spends it bathing for hours in each color of Spectra to make sure she has enough magical energy to make the day special. Luna does too, now that she has the Winter Solstice Celebration, and she always puts on a great act for Nightmare Night."

Rainbow coughed incredulously. The "wonderful and miraculous" Spectra substance... was used for bubble baths?

"Anyway... when I ascended and became an Alicorn, Celestia finally informed me of this place, and handed it over to me as my responsibility."

"But why? How could you do such horrible things to all of these ponies?!" Rainbow shouted. "You murder them, for Celestia's sake!" Twilight was silent for a few moments, making a soft noise that sounded like slow, heavy breathing.

"You should've seen the place before I was put in charge," her voice lowered. "Celestia's methods were swift, brutal... wasteful. Condemned ponies had only one purpose once they came here. I saw so much wasted potential... why were these ponies here? What crimes had they committed? What went so wrong with their minds that drove them to such acts? I asked, and Celestia allowed... I had more space burrowed into the mountain, and hired medical experts that nopony would miss... doctors and researchers accused of unethical treatments or grievous mistakes, the washouts from medical academies that never stood a chance of being hired elsewhere. I had them begin prodding into these ponies' minds, and I learned so, so very much... My work has single-hoofedly broadened the horizons of neuromagical science by triple the amount it was last year! All to be metered out over the next few decades, as to not raise any suspicions."

"But... Bloody Butcher... you can't tell me that maniac's actually a doctor!" Rainbow strained against her shackles, to no avail.

"Head. Head Doctor Bloody Butcher. Oh, no... surprisingly, many ponies in the medical industry have reservations against such... hooves-on studies. I've found that it's easier to teach a psychopath how to be a doctor than it is to teach a doctor how to be a psychopath. He's absolutely perfect in that regard... I had to beg Celestia for weeks to let me have him."

Her mind couldn't take much more. Tears began to blur Rainbow's vision.

"But not everypony here is a criminal! T-Twilight... you're the Princess of F-Friendship... how could you-"

"Have you seen how absolutely, incredibly rare it is to see a pony afflicted with severe mental disorders in Equestria?" Twilight suddenly rushed towards Rainbow, stopping only when her face was a mere inch from her own. "My work has taken me to new scientific heights, I can help so many more ponies than ever before! Nopony wants to admit it, but let's face it: ponies like that are nothing but a drain on resources and the emotions of others. But if I take those ponies, figure out how they tick, and find a way to allow them to grasp the freedoms of neurotypical ponies, then they'll be able to experience true friendship at last! And friendship... isn't that my specialty?" Twilight's head tilted from side to side creepily, unnaturally. "Besides, it's not like I combed through all the adult pony homes and scooped 'em all up! Dewdrop's parents actually came to Celestia herself and begged her to help him. They understood fully that while he might never come back at all, his contributions to science would also help others like him in the future! Isn't that so selfless, so generous? Generosity is an important part of friendship, after all!"

Rainbow was silent now. Her mind was too full of so many different horrors to speak. It's not every day that you realize one of your best friends was secretly completely insane.

"Just think! With their help I can end it all! Paralysis, dementia, cancer, spina bifida, anxiety, fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, drug addiction, OCD, DID, BPD, HPD, NPD, GDD, ASD, PTSD, ODD, body dysmorphia, anencephaly, microcephaly, megalencephaly, ALL OF IT! All of it, Rainbow, if I can find a cure for everything, there will be so many less worries in the world to get in the way of friendship! FRIENDSHIP! FRIENDSHIP! ALL HAIL FRIENDSHIP!" Twilight danced around the room manically, singing and cheering to herself, then suddenly stood still in the center of the room.

She began to giggle, quietly and softly. But it didn't sound the same as the laughter Rainbow knew. This laughter was cold, monotone... deranged.

She couldn't help but ask, now. "Twilight... how long have you been hiding this?" Twilight ceased her laughter mid-giggle, and her head turned like an owl's to face Rainbow. Rainbow gazed at her friend's unhinged smile that stretched from ear to ear, her pinprick pupils, her blank expression. It all suddenly vanished a second later, and Twilight's shoulders sagged as her normal face returned. As she spoke, she turned away again.

"Years, Rainbow... you have no idea what it's like to hold in a secret like this for so many years. Absolutely nopony can know this place exists. The workers aren't even allowed to contact their families for a final goodbye. Trying to leave this place means a violent death. I can leave, of course, but..."

A new pit of blackness swallowed Rainbow's heart.

No... you wouldn't... you can't...!

"To be honest... I was kind of glad you wanted to come all this way, Rainbow. Now I finally have somepony to talk to about all of this. And, maybe someday... I can prove to you that what I'm doing is right. Maybe... you'll even want to help."

"I... I..." Rainbow struggled to control her emotions long enough to speak. "...I... could never..."

"Besides... I do realize that one day, I'll have found all these cures and I won't need so many patients, but the Princesses still need their Spectra. So I've broadened my studies into genetic engineering-"

"Did you hear me? I said NO!" Rainbow shouted angrily. "Twilight, you're my best friend, but I can't let you do this! How can you live with yourself?! What you're doing is monstrous! Insane! You're worse than any villain-of-the-week we've ever faced! I...! I..."

Twilight was silent. Rainbow could see her shoulders heave. Suddenly, Twilight walked over to her desk and sat back down in her chair. She gently swept aside some papers to reveal a small, metal panel built into the desk's surface, covered in a couple of buttons and a speaker.

She pressed one. "Is everything ready down there?" she leaned her face towards the speaker. It replied with a fuzzy male voice a few seconds later.

"All clear, Overseer."

"Good. Proceed." Twilight then motioned to the azure security pony, who wheeled Rainbow towards the observation window as Twilight spun her chair around.

"Uh... what was that about?" Rainbow asked nervously.

"It's truly a pity," Twilight spoke as if ignoring her question. "You'd think she'd have appreciated being an only child now, free from the constant suffering of both her brother and her parents..."

Rainbow's breath died in her throat.

Oh, no. Nononononono...

Though muted by the window, she could hear the roar of machinery coming to life below. A chain dangled and dragged along the ceiling, soon revealing a horrifically-familiar, greenish-teal and dusty pink Pegasus filly attached to its bottom from her front hooves.

No... Spritz...

She had been badly beaten, her tiny body covered in deep cuts and bruises. Her wings were broken and pulled into painfully unnatural positions. Some of her mane and tail had been ripped out.

No... Twilight... please... no...

Her body shook as the chain stopped, dangling her above the Pegasus Device. She lifted her head towards the observation window, her right eye bruised and swollen too shut to see. Rainbow strained against her shackles, wanting nothing more than to burst through the glass and save her from the inevitable fall.

"Testing... Super-Speedy-Pony-Squeezy, mark six-thousand and one," the fuzzy voice proclaimed over loudspeakers in the factory below. "...Engage!"

Though she heard only silence, Rainbow saw Spritz mouthing something to her.

"R... R-Rain... bow... h-hel-"

The shackles opened.

NO!

Spritz's body disappeared into the machine with a weakened scream, abruptly cut off. There was a flash of red as hundreds of thousands of metallic teeth flooded over her, quickly disappearing. Tears streamed from Rainbow's eyes as the machine whirred, powering off a few seconds later. Drops of the brightest green liquid she had ever seen soon dispensed themselves into a bucket beneath the spigot.

"Woohoo!" Twilight threw her forelegs into the air. "Perfect! Not only have I increased the machine's efficiency by 27%, but the extraction is even purer than I had hoped! Ah, the wonders of science..."

She glanced over to Rainbow, who laid motionless on her metal slab prison. Tears soaked her fur and dripped into her open, silently-screaming mouth.

"...Ah, right. Welp, now I have to figure out what to do with you, unfortunately..." Rainbow felt herself being wheeled away, but didn't respond. She was silent as the double doors opened once more, and the two security ponies carted her away into the darkness.

"I'll see you again soon... my best friend..."

The doors closed, and her world turned to blackened silence.

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

If the main OCs in this story were voiced, what would they sound like?

[RDgamer321]

9826995
Not sure about the stallion, but we all know that Glaze (The green and yellow Pegasus mare) sings with a partially robotic voice. That's my best guess I'm afraid as I've never heard their actual voice.