Rainbow Dash's Unstoppable Ego

by MagicS

The Eternal Furnace XI

Rainbow Dash didn’t want to bother Night Reader and Brilliant Star by returning to their home so late at night so she ended up sleeping in the maintenance tunnels with the Nail’s Wrenchers. As it turned out, Frayed Wire and his group kept whole barrels of chilled gruel around. It was disgusting but what else was she going to do? At least it meant she didn’t have to go to bed on an empty stomach. There were also some ragged bedrolls they used to keep themselves from having to sleep on the cold metal, so those were warmly welcome too.

She wasn’t sure exactly what her next move was going to be but having one gang on her side and relatively neutral still made her feel at ease for the moment. She had some inroads made with the Diesel Kings too so it might be best to get back to working on them too. Although she wasn’t sure how they’d react to her coming back after working with the Nail’s Wrenchers. Probably poorly. Especially if they ended up getting word of her reuniting the two factions back together, helping their enemy wouldn’t go over well with either the Diesel Kings or Thunderbirds. Regardless of her motive. Hopefully she’d be able to still work with them and get them to realize that what she was doing was to make none of them a threat to each other and help them equally. But would they see that far ahead?

Rainbow Dash stretched and yawned as she finally woke up the following morning. Later than she had wanted to. “That’s what I get for doing so much after work was over and not just getting to bed.”

It almost made her feel bad for the Thunderbirds and all the other ponies who had to travel down the housing blocks before they got to their homes. Now that her mind was on the gangs though she frowned as she thought about the Black Hoofs. Were they going to keep interfering and attacking her? Or maybe they got the message after failing twice in a row. Either way she was going to keep her eyes sharp when it came to that gang and then she could deal with Silver Tooth in time too.

“So you’re finally awake?”

Rainbow Dash turned to the voice and saw Cast Iron standing in the cramped tunnels with her, she had two bowls of gruel and she slid one over across the smooth metal floor to Dash. “Eat up then.”

“Thanks,” Dash said as the bowl came to a stop by her hooves. It wasn’t exactly the best gift she could’ve hoped for but some more food before work was good too.

Cast Iron at least wasn’t being horrible anymore either. Though still not exactly talkative.

It took only a second for Rainbow Dash to gulp down the gruel with Cast Iron also eating her share as the two sat down with each other. Rainbow Dash swallowed and wiped her mouth clean before shooting a questioning look to Cast Iron. “So what time is it anyways? When’s work going to start?”

riiiiiiiiiiiinnnggggg!!!

“Oh,” Dash said as she looked up at the ceiling of the tunnel. “Guess that answers that.”

Cast Iron nodded as she stood up. “Yep, better get going.”

“Alright, I’ll come with you guys for now,” Dash said as she stood up and stretched once more. “But I’m probably not going to work with you today. I’m thinking of going back to work with the Diesel Kings to win them over too.”

Cast Iron frowned. “Hrn, can’t exactly say I’m happy to hear that. I still think what you’re trying to do is pretty outlandish”

“If the Diesel Kings come around to my way of thinking you won’t have to fight them anymore though,” Rainbow shrugged.

“I guess...” Cast Iron thought for a second and scoffed. “Just do whatever you want, that seems to be your strength anyways.”

“You’re right about that,” Dash grinned and they started walking through the tunnels to the work area together.

---

She caught up with Nut and Frayed Wire (who were both working today) and told them that she wasn’t going to be working with them again for today. Naturally the both of them had responses similar to Cast Iron but the fact of the matter was they owed her enough to let her do what she wanted. Nut was at least approaching something that could be called “nice” towards Rainbow Dash and Frayed Wire was pragmatic enough and didn’t want to cause any schisms by going back on what he had said yesterday.

So for just a bit she followed them and then branched off with Nut to go to the furnace room, and going from there to walking across the work area on her way to where the Diesel Kings worked.

Out of curiosity’s sake, she looked up at the ceiling of the work area to check out the catwalks the security team used to watch over everything. Crush was up there. She could see his big form as he stalked back and forth on the walkways.

“Relax up there while you can, buddy,” Rainbow Dash furrowed her brow. She was going to bring this whole system down and enjoy it.

Because of the time it took to get from the tunnels to here the Diesel Kings were already well at work by the time she arrived. And she just ended up getting a bunch of unwelcome stares from most of them and the rest ignored her. She didn’t see Double Duty at all either, maybe he wasn’t working today? That was kind of unfortunate since she wanted the chance to talk with him about her plans and desires.

Soot Mane was there giving her the nastiest look of all though. The mare ditched what she had been doing to walk right over to Rainbow Dash in these ultra-cramped quarters.

“Well, look who’s back. You have enough fun with the Wrenchers? Think you can just come back here and us Diesel Kings will treat you all nicely again?”

“You never treated me nicely. But yeah, I guess?” Dash shrugged. “I know you need as many hooves working as you can get. And I’m here to help all of you, which is what I’ve been saying from the beginning, so here I am.”

Soot Mane scowled. “Then get to work or buzz off then!”

“Fine by me,” Dash replied.

“And don’t try and push any of your garbage here cause we aint buying it! Maybe if you had really joined up with us we could’ve done something with you but you’re just a snake who’s trying to play all sides. No loyalty to anyone.” Soot Mane said.

Rainbow Dash’s eyes narrowed. “I’m made of loyalty. There’s no angle here, Soot Mane. I want you Diesel Kings to get back to normal so you can all stop being so terrible to each other and living so horribly. That’s why I’m talking and working with everyone down here.”

“Whatever. Diesel Kings only care about other Diesel Kings,” Soot Mane said as she went off back to her work, leaving Rainbow Dash alone.

She still didn’t have the best grasp of things to do down here so for the first couple of minutes she wavered about looking around for something that suited her. It ended up with her taking a wire brush and scrubbing grime and grease off the ceiling of this under room and any pipes that ran up there. The privilege of being a pegasus. Even though with how squat this place was a unicorn would probably have a better time of doing this. So much of the dirt and stuff just fell onto her face or her wings and she had to constantly try rubbing it out with a rag—that was also dirty. So she ended up just as greasy and grimy as what she had been cleaning as a trade-off. Couldn’t really complain though since everyone else was about the same.

There was no one who asked her to do anything else this time though, and no one who showed her anything specific. She was essentially being shutout by the Diesel Kings. Even the ones she recognized and had helped out the last time she was down here refused to pay attention or actually associate with her.

“Ostracized, huh?” Rainbow Dash muttered to herself as she dug her brush in and out of between two pipes. “Thanks for the vocab lessons, Twilight.”

A short time later she found herself under the machines armed only with a screwdriver and poking away at the rats trying to eat at the wires and making a mess of things. It was bad work but if she was going to be here she was still going to show the Diesel Kings that she’d take on the worst of the worst down here. Fluttershy would not approve of what she was doing but it’s not like Dash could talk to animals and just politely ask them to stop breaking things. The ponies living in this city relied on these machines to keep running.

She poked a particularly big rat and watched as he and the rest all scattered and ran into open pipes and holes on the floor, kicking up a bunch of dust and making Rainbow Dash cough.

“Hrk!” Rainbow Dash coughed a few more times and shimmied backwards to get out from under the machine. “Ughh, this is awful...”

Now she was even messier than before and she really didn’t want to think about the fact that not all of it was dirt.

Rainbow Dash cracked her neck and looked around for a new rag that could hopefully clean her up a lot better. She doubted anyone here would be willing to give her one though. Rainbow Dash was probably going to be feeling and smelling pretty awful for the rest of the day.

A loud clamoring noise then grabbed her attention and the attention of the other Diesel Kings around her. It sounded like a big machine was going on the fritz. Rainbow Dash and a bunch of others ran towards the sound, shortly feeling vibrations coming through the floor and hearing some others shouting. Rainbow Dash recognized Soot Mane’s loud voice among them. Rounding a corner, Rainbow Dash came out in front of the toxic waste machine that she had worked out last time. It was shaking and growling with steam coming out of the seams and oil leaking from the front panel.

The stallion who she had worked with was being yelled at and shaken by Soot Mane in front of the machine.

“What’s going on?! What did you do?!” Soot Mane yelled at him.

“Nothing! I don’t know why this is happening!” The stallion yelled back, pale in the face.

“Turn it off, just shut it down!” Another pony yelled.

“We can’t have it break down in here it’ll flood the floor with toxic waste!” A fourth voice joined in.

Rainbow Dash gulped as she watched the shaking pipe that fed into the machine from the ceiling. The screws and bolted plates that kept it down looked like they were in danger of snapping. “This aint good...”

Soot Mane noticed how bad things were too and tossed the stallion to the side, running to the side of the machine and punching open a panel that Rainbow Dash hadn’t noticed on it before. The panel popped out and inside was a single red lever with a dusty sign above it reading “Emergency Shutdown”. Soot Mane hesitated for a second before grabbing the red lever and pulling it down, grunting because of how stiff and unused it was.

Once the lever was pulled down the machine gave a final lurch and whine before all the gauges switched off and the shaking stopped. It seemed the worst had been avoided.

But they weren’t out of danger just yet. Sparks started to fly from the panel around the lever, it seems that thing wasn’t kept clean or maintained well enough, and Rainbow Dash could hear something grinding and about to snap inside the machine. She bolted over quickly as Soot Mane took a fearful step back and squeezed her eyes shut, able to tell that something bad was about to happen.

Rainbow Dash reached her and knocked her out of the way just as the panel exploded right where her face would’ve been, jagged metal, gears, fire, and splurts of toxic waste blowing out of the machine. Rainbow Dash and Soot Mane collided with the wall next to the machine and collapsed down to the floor, shaken but more or less okay.

“You...” Soot Mane said as she looked at Rainbow Dash and then at the toxic waste covered spot on the floor where she had just been standing.

“I saved your life. Probably,” Dash grinned and also looked at the gross substance down behind them. “Kind of my thing. Although twice in two days is unusual even for me.”

“But-”

Rainbow Dash silenced her with a hoof. “Don’t ask why. Please. I did it because it’s the right thing to do and that really shouldn’t be tough to get.”

She stood up and turned around to face the other Diesel King’s down here. “And that goes for all of you and anybody else! I would’ve flown in to save anyone just like I did Soot Mane. Does that surprise you? Cause it really shouldn’t! You all spent today ignoring me because I helped some others—but now I hope you know that I’m willing to help anyone in need so much I’ll even risk my own life.” She looked back at Soot Mane. “It doesn’t matter how you acted to me Soot Mane cause I’d do that again and again.”

The mare looked conflicted, not knowing if she should thank Rainbow Dash or what. At least she looked grateful but just too embarrassed or ashamed to voice it.

“Don’t you all want to live in a place where something like that is normal?” Rainbow Dash went back to talking to all of them. “Cause I’d be willing to help make that happen.”

A lot of the Diesel Kings shared uneasy looks with each other. Some of them sad, others just uncertain. Did they have any hope left in them? And if they did did they have the courage to speak up and maybe be the first ones in this gang to try and go a different direction? They had seen the will of Rainbow Dash, her determination and honest beliefs and feelings. And speaking like she just did she had a powerful and commanding presence.

“Thank you,” Soot Mane finally said, barely above a whisper.

Rainbow Dash looked back at her to see her sadly staring at the floor. “It’s no problem.”

“I...” the mare fidgeted and a tear dripped down from her eye. “I think I want us to change… to be more like you.”

Rainbow Dash reached out her hoof and Soot Mane took it, the pegasus from Equestria pulling the city mare back to her hooves. “Okay, it shouldn’t be so tough. I promise things are gonna get better here.”

Comments

[THERDSTORYWHISPERER]

Great chapter!