Rainbow Dash's Unstoppable Ego

by MagicS

Overstorm V

While they walked to the janitorial pod Rainbow Dash briefly entertained the thought of just leaving this place tomorrow and heading back out of the storm. Surely it wouldn’t take two weeks to fly around the hurricane would it? But she quashed that possibility quickly. Leaving now would be the same as quitting. And she had already had to run away from too many things on this adventure and disappoint herself. She would not run away from this storm too. Rainbow Dash had made the decision to fly through it and by Celestia she was going to do that. No storm could beat her!

Going through the tunnels down here, Dust Bunny kept the other ponies they came across at a hoof’s length from Dash, knowing it was more than past the time for the both of them to turn in for the night. They had to walk out back to the big room and then go through another door on their way to the janitorial pod. It was good Rainbow had Dust Bunny for a guide since there were no signs for anything and she would’ve most definitely gotten lost on her own. There were a few less ponies than before around, a lot had probably gone to sleep too and the ones out right now were probably night shift workers.

“So what else do ponies do around here? Like for fun I mean, not just work,” Rainbow asked Dust Bunny as they walked down another well-lit corridor.

“Umm, we dance? We’ve still got some old instruments and stuff and since we don’t really have any other outlets our hoedowns can get pretty wild. The kids all like to play hide-and-seek, who only knows just how many little places there are to hide in these tunnels. Work keeps us busy for the most part. Some ponies have taking up drawing and sculpting, after all there are plenty of rocks.” She looked at Rainbow Dash. “Sculpting seems a bit slow-paced for you though after what you’ve told us about yourself.”

“Maybe a bit,” Dash gave her a wry grin. “The dancing sounds fun though.”

“There are parties every weekend, I’ll take you to one!” Dust Bunny cheerfully said.

“Sure!” Rainbow Dash said but on the inside was kind of hoping that she’d already be through the storm by then… er, hold on. What day was it anyways? Rainbow Dash shook her head, whatever, that wasn’t really important.

They turned a corner in the tunnels and came to a large, oval shaped gateway. Above this new gateway was the first sign Rainbow had seen so far: Janitorial

Dust Bunny opened up the chain-link gate that separated it from the rest of the tunnel and the two walked in. The walls of this connecting tunnel that led right into the custodial pod looked like they were made of corrugated tin placed over the dirt and the rocks. There were no light fixtures in the tunnel but they had enough vision thanks to whatever room was at the end of it. It looked pretty big and there was a lot of light pouring down the tunnel from it.

Dust Bunny made sure to be a pace or two ahead of Rainbow Dash so when she hopped out of the end of the tunnel she could turn around and face her, gesturing to the new large room. “Welcome to my home.”

Rainbow Dash walked in after her and took a wide look around. Pod was a more or less accurate description. The room was large, larger than any individual building in Ponyville if you didn’t count the castle or the school, and shaped like a gigantic egg with a number of square apartment units built on top of each other and climbing up the left and right walls of the chamber. Scaffolding on the sides of them allowed for easy access to any level. At the back end of the chamber facing the tunnel was a large tubular shaped structure that went all the way up to the ceiling. There was a single door at the bottom of it with a placard reading “Storage” above it. Numerous powerful lights were built into the ceiling, strong enough that Rainbow Dash had to squint on reflex when she looked up. It made it seem like she was practically walking out in the sun.

She didn’t see any other ponies around, which made her think everyone was either asleep or still on night cleaning duties.

“The top eight rooms are all unoccupied so we can put you in whichever,” Dust Bunny said as she pointed up to the top of the pod.

“Eight?” Rainbow Dash followed her hoof, if that was the case then there were far less ponies that were in the custodial pod than she thought.

“Oh, sorry,” Dust Bunny blushed. “Each level is a duplex, so really only the last two levels on each side are open. The rooms are smaller than they look.”

“Oh, no big deal,” Rainbow Dash said.

Dust Bunny walked over to the apartments to their left and headed up the ramp on the scaffolding. “Come on, I’ll take you up to the first available room.”

Rainbow could’ve just flown, or even carried Dust up with her, but decided to let the custodian play the part of the good host. She could fly up and down the rest of the time. Rainbow winced as with each step they took it shook the metal pipes and platforms of the scaffolding and made some pretty loud noise and clanks. She hoped they weren’t waking anybody up. Eventually they got to the second level from the top and Dust Bunny opened up the door sitting right next to the scaffolding.

“Here we are. Just to let you know there isn’t much in here aside from a bed, some shelves, and a small shower in the corner.”

“A shower?” That surprised Rainbow Dash. “Awesome, I could really use one after being tossed around in the storm out there.”

The two mares stepped inside and came face to face with a young colt sitting on the bed.

“Uhhh...” The colt said as he looked up at Dust Bunny.

“Squeaky Clean? What are you doing in here and why are you up so late?” Dust Bunny frowned at the colt. “You and your friends are playing hide-and-seek aren’t you? You know better than to do this at all hours of the night.” She sighed. “Look, go back to your parents and tell your friends tomorrow that this room is off limits now. We have a guest.”

“R-Right,” the colt hopped off the bed and quickly ran past them out the door, Rainbow Dash could hear him clattering down the scaffold. “Sorry!”

Dust Bunny shook her head as he left. “Geez, sorry about that.”

Rainbow Dash had to chuckle. “Hey, it’s no problem. Just kids having fun and all.” She stretched her back, unfurling her wings and giving them a little shake. “Okay, I’m gonna take a shower and then pass out if you don’t mind? Talk to you tomorrow?”

“Of course. Just fyi though, the water will cut off automatically if you let it on for too long, we have to conserve. I don’t have work in the morning since technically I’m doing night shift this week so I’ll come by sometime late in the morning for you. Wouldn’t want to wake you up too early,” Dust Bunny winked and stepped back out of the door frame, putting a hoof on the door and getting ready to close it.

Rainbow Dash waved goodbye to her. “Thanks, I’ll see you tomorrow morning then.”

“Yep, bye!” Dust Bunny said and closed the door, heading back down the scaffolding to the bottom level of the pod.

After a second, Rainbow Dash let out a deep breath and flopped down on the bed. “I’m tired...” She muttered. The ceiling was low as she looked up at it and there were only a couple of empty shelves right next to her bed that was already pressed right up to the wall. She leaned her head back and saw a small metal semi-circular area attached to the corner of the room with nothing but a shower curtain separating it from the rest of the cold metal floor. This apartment wasn’t small so much as it was one small room. Rainbow Dash stretched out on the bed and closed her eyes for a moment before forcing herself to get up, she knew if she rested on there for any longer she wouldn’t be able to get up and shower before falling asleep.

She walked over to the shower stall and pulled back the curtain. As expected there wasn’t even enough room for her to really extend her wings. A drain sat at the bottom while a pipe with a faucet on the end came out of the ceiling directly overhead. There were two ropes with knobs at the ends dangling down halfway into the shower with no indication of which of them did what. Pulling one probably turned on the water and the other probably turned it off but who knows.

“Whatever,” Rainbow Dash shrugged and stepped inside, closing the curtain and yanking on one of the ropes.

A rumbling and scraping sound came from the faucet over her head while Rainbow Dash looked up, watching the whole thing shake and whine until a torrent of nearly freezing cold water poured out, drenching her immediately. An unimpressed Dash pushed her newly flattened mane out of her eyes and wrung out her tail to try and get the dirt in it to seep out, fluttering her wings to do the same to them. She moved her hoof to the other rope and pulled on it, wondering if that would give her hot water.

Instead the faucet shunted close and her water disappeared entirely.

“Guess they don’t have a heater,” Rainbow Dash sighed and vigorously shook her head to get most of the water out of her mane. It still felt nice to get clean but she wasn’t looking forward to doing that every time she felt like taking a shower. Hopefully she wouldn’t be here as long as she was dreading she might be.

After drying off she jumped back into the bed and rolled over to curl up and face the wall. It had been a very long day and she was happy to finally get some rest. She wasn’t sure what her plan was for tomorrow but if Dust Bunny and Pile were any indication there was a lot to learn about here.

---

Rainbow Dash was woken up by her own snoring. Groggily she kicked at the bed sheets and twisted and turned for a few times before her head shot up and darted around in confusion before she finally remembered the events of the previous day and realized just where she was. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, her throat was dry, and rubbed her eyes. Glancing about the room this morning she noticed another thing about it: no clock. So with no way to tell how late in the morning it was and not even knowing what day of the week it was, Rainbow Dash figured she might as well curl back up and nap some more.

That was until she heard the telltale sound of hooves clattering up the metal scaffolding outside her room. Only one pony that could be.

Her suspicions were proven correct when the hooves stopped outside her door and Dust Bunny gently knocked on it. “Rainbow Dash? Are you awake?”

Rainbow Dash bit back a yawn and sat up on her bed. “Yeah, I’m awake, you can come in.”

Dust Bunny obliged and opened the door, coming in with a smile. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Rainbow Dash smiled back at the cheerful custodian.

“Do you want to get breakfast?” Dust Bunny asked. “Or do you still need a minute? If there was anything you wanted to see or explore or anything we could do that too today. And fair warning, you’re definitely going to get mobbed by curious ponies wherever we go.”

“I’m used to that. Comes with the territory of being awesome,” Rainbow bragged and hopped off the bed. “But for now I’m fine with breakfast. More spinach?”

Dust Bunny giggled. “Yep, more spinach. I’ll try and introduce you to the ponies I know at breakfast… er, if I’m being honest I’m kind of excited. Everyone’s going to be really happy to meet you, it’ll be a lot of fun for us down here, we kind of need something like this. I think everyone kind of deserves to meet you… even though I know that might be a bother to you, especially since you didn’t plan on coming or staying here.”

“Hey, I’m happy to oblige. Even if I have to tell my whole story again I don’t mind one bit. You probably got this last night but I kind of love talking about myself,” Rainbow Dash smirked. Dust Bunny was right about her not wanting to be here too long but Rainbow wouldn’t miss this kind of opportunity to flex her own ego and help out some unlucky ponies at the same time. That’s just what she loved to do. Pinkie, Twilight, all of them, putting a smile on ponies’ faces was just part of their lives.

“Thank you, really,” Dust Bunny gave her a slightly more somber smile before turning to head back out, with Rainbow following up right next to her.

Comments

[THERDSTORYWHISPERER]

Great chapter!

Is there going to be a time jump to this story arc?

[MagicS]

10497570
No, no time-skips or such.