Chapter 2: Escape Insanity, Part 1: Don't Look Back
The Rainbow Factory
Chapter: 2 Escape Insanity
By: Azure Blaze
“You have Beautiful eyes.” said Scootaloo as she hung her head low again in defeat. But after she said that, thoughts started to run through Rainbow Dash’s mind again. She remembered all the good times she had with Scootaloo. She remembered watching the meteor shower with her, the Rainbow Dash fan club she had made, and the camping trip they went on while she was still a filly, the day when she took her under her wing. Tears started to form at the edges of her eyes and the darkness that surrounded her mind began to lift. She had returned to her old caring self and not the raging monster that she was moments ago.
With four swift kicks she bucked the chains to the shackles’ binding Scootaloo, disconnecting the chains from the cuffs. Scootaloo fell to the floor but showed no signs of getting back up. She was in so much pain it hurt her to even lift a wing.
The guards that were overseeing the whole process were shocked and did not know what to do as they watched Rainbow Dash bend over and slide Scootaloo’s aching body onto her back keeping her wings spread to keep Scootaloo from falling off.
Then a voice came from the scaffolding yelling “Rainbow Dash! What are you doing? Why have you not yet thrown that worthless foal into the rainbow machine?”
Rainbow Dash knew it was Dr. Atmosphere by the sound of his voice and replied saying “I quit! I don’t want to do this anymore! I’m leaving and I’m taking her with me!”
“That’s a shame,” said Dr. Atmosphere as he walked to the edge of the scaffolding so that he was now fully visible. “Nopony can quit their job at the Rainbow Factory. Why would you even think of that option?”
“Because what you do here is wrong. You should never have to torment other ponies’ lives like this even if they didn’t pass their flight test! They are still ponies like you and me!” Rainbow Dash replied. She knew exactly what she was getting into and she remembered the countless screams from the ponies she watched get thrown into the rainbow machine. They echoed through her head like screams coming from an abyss. She had wanted to quit from the start but never had a reason to until now.
“What we do here is for the good of all Equestria. We work for the Princess. She appointed us to the task of making rainbows and we will make sure we do our best to make the highest quality rainbows possible, even if it means sacrificing some lesser pony lives. They would be doing Equestria a great service.” said Dr. Atmosphere, trying to regain control of Rainbow Dash
“Princess Celestia would never tolerate what you do here! She may have given us the task but she never had in mind that we would do this to her subjects!” Rainbow Dash yelled out in rage. Her eyes started to water up as she remembered all of the horrible things she let happen in this factory. “I quit. I can’t work here anymore.” She repeated to herself as she hung her head low.
Rainbow Dash started to hear the movement of hoofsteps in front of her so she raised her head to find that the two guards that had been watching started closing in on her.
“What are you doing?” questioned Rainbow Dash as she backed away.
“Nopony leaves the rainbow factory.” said Dr. Atmosphere in a dark voice with a mischievous smile on his face.
Rainbow Dash kept backing up until she was against the wall. “I have to get out of here.” She thought to herself “If I fly, I risk Scootaloo falling off my back. My only other option is to run. But to where?” Rainbow dash started to frantically look around for an escape. She saw the door they bring the test failiees in through but she knew that they locked it when they lead their victims in through it and she didn't have a key. Then she noticed that on the right guard’s belt there was a key to that door.
As the guards came in closer and closer she turned her head to Scootaloo and said “I’m going to get you out of here but first you need to hold on, this is going to get rough.” Rainbow Dash felt Scootaloo’s grip on her increase in acknowledgement to what she just said.
The guard on the left’s taser started to buzz with electricity. When Rainbow Dash heard that noise she leaped forward, grabbed the left guard’s hoof that held the taser, and hit the joint area in his arm making the taser come up and shock his head instantly blacking him out. She then reached down, took that guards taser, and tased the other guard until there was no sign of retaliation.
She reached down and grabbed the keys then looked up and saw that Dr. Atmosphere was gone. Although Rainbow thought it would have been nice to know where he had gone, she knew that wasn't her primary objective. Now she had to focus on escaping with Scootaloo.
Rainbow Dash ran and unlocked the door, but as soon as she did alarms started sounding off. Rainbow Dash quickly jumped through the door narrowly evading a giant metal wall that came down and sealed the doorway shut. Rainbow Dash started running down hall after hall, barely jumping through doorways as they sealed. Sometimes she was too slow to get through the doorway of her choice and was forced to take an alternate route but she always knew where she was going. All those long years of working in the factory helped her get to know the hallways and what rooms were where. Scootaloo, still clinging to Rainbow Dash’s back lifted her head slightly and asked “What’s going on? Where are we going?”
“The factory is going into lockdown.” Said Rainbow Dash “I’m trying to find a safe hiding spot so we can make an escape plan. Just hang in there, I promise I will get you out of here.”
By this time Rainbow Dash could feel Scootaloo’s grip on her start to weaken and knew she couldn't hold on much longer. She had to find a good hiding space and fast. She finally thought of the storage room. It was the room they stored the spectra in before they shipped it out to the outer factory. There was only one way in and one way out but it had lots of hiding spots if they decided to come looking for them. Rainbow Dash started to make her way to the room hopping that it hadn't been shut off yet. Her hooves started to travel faster and faster with every step. Her hooves started aching after a while of really hard running but she had just brushed the feeling aside because her mind was set on one thing: get Scootaloo to safety. She rounded the last corner and saw that the door to the storage room. It was still open. Quickly Rainbow dash ran down the hallway and entered the storage room just as another giant wall came down and sealed them in the room.
The storage room was dark. Their only sources of light were the glowing crates of spectra they had recently harvested. The room was very large and full of crates of spectra of various colors. Rainbow Dash began exploring the room, being one of the managers she had seen inventory of the room but was never really in it much. As she was going down the rows of spectra she remembered every single pony that they belonged to and heard the exact screams that they made when they were getting mangled by the rainbow machine. When she finally got to the back of the room she saw three crates. One had green and red in it, another had green and yellow in it, and the last one was empty. At this sight Rainbow Dash fell to the ground and started to cry. When she had fallen, Scootaloo had rolled off her back onto the floor, after a moment regained her strength, and got up to see her lifelong role model weeping on the floor in front of the colorful spectra of her now lost friends.
“It wasn’t your fault,” said Scootaloo “you weren’t in your right mind. I know you wouldn’t have done it if you were.”
“But I still did it.” Said Rainbow Dash “I’m a monster. I’m sorry Scoots.” Scootaloo was about to say something but Rainbow Dash stopped her and said “when I first came here I never thought I would be doing this.” She raised her head off the floor. “After I performed the Sonic Rainboom when I was a filly, Dr. Atmosphere himself approached me and asked if I could help him with a certain task. He asked me if I could help him make rainbows, and I being fascinated with the subject and accepted his request. When I arrived here he gave me a grand tour of the factory. What he failed to tell me, however, were his plans for me. While he was leading me on this ‘tour’ of his, he brought me into a room with an examination table in the middle along with four other ponies wearing lab coats and protective goggles. Dr. Atmosphere closed the door behind us and signaled to the other ponies. Immediately the four ponies closed in and seized me I tried to fight them off but they were too strong and I was still just a filly. They brought me over to the examination table and strapped me down to it. I kept on screaming ‘What’s going on?! What are you doing to me?! I didn't agree to this’ hay since I was so young they even managed to get an ‘I want my mommy!’ out of me. Can you ever imagine me saying that?” Rainbow dash paused for a second to regain her emotions before going on to say “One of the ponies rolled in a cart full of test tubes and needles. Dr. Atmosphere came close to the table and said that I was a very special Pegasus, that there were not many like me found in Equestria. A Pegasus capable of making her own rainbow out of nothing but speed. It was unheard of. He said that he wanted to find out how I could do it. They ripped strands of hair from each of the colors of my mane and put them into separate vials on the cart. They drew blood from me, tested that, and did many more painful experiments on my body. At the end of all the testing they still had no reason for why I could do what I could do, so they decided to put me to work in the factory in a less important spot, still able to leave. I was told only one thing: never go through the door on the far south side of the factory. Time went on and one day I found myself passing by that door. As I was passing by I heard somepony screaming for help and ran through the door to see what was wrong. I found myself on the scaffolding and to my horror,” Rainbow Dash stood up with her head hung low and tears still rolling down her cheek and dropping onto the floor. “To my horror I saw a pony getting torn to pieces and put in the rainbow machine. After I saw that I was shocked, I couldn't move. That’s when the factory started getting to me. Dr. Atmosphere, as my punishment for going through the door, forbid me from leaving the factory for a while and made me work in the rainbow machine room. The more I worked in the rainbow machine room, the more the screams became part of my daily life. My heart started to harden. After a while of good work Dr. Atmosphere decided to let me go outside again to help with making rainbows just on my own. He later put enough trust in me to make me a manager of the factory once one of the older workers passed away. While I was outside I was really good and friendly but when I entered the factory I had no care what so ever for the other lives of ponies because of the fact that I was brought up working here. But then you came. You snapped me out of that trance I was in. I will never go back to the way I was living. We are getting out of here Scootaloo and when we do we will tell princess Celestia. She will take care of this problem.” Rainbow Dash had stopped crying and was now standing up with pride in her eyes and Scootaloo had a feeling of joy in seeing her lifelong role model back to the way she knew her and on her side again.
“I forgive you for what you have done.” Said Scootaloo “I’m just happy your back Dash.”
“I am too kid.” said Rainbow Dash “But now isn't a time to party about it we still need to get out of here. They’ll be looking for us soon and we need an escape plan.
“I’m leaving this one to you.” Said Scootaloo “obviously I don’t have any sense of direction in this factory.”
“There are special passcodes to the doors that have been entrusted to me.” Said Rainbow Dash “So the doors aren't a problem. However the guards are. By the looks of things the factory went into level four lock down which is the second highest lockdown the factory has. This makes it much more difficult for us because in level four lock down when we open doors it alerts the administrator and it takes a minute to open. Level four lock down also permits guards the use of lethal weapons.”
“So what will we do?” asked Scootaloo aware of the increased danger.
“First I have to ask you this.” said Rainbow Dash “Can you still fly?”
Scootaloo started flapping her wings. She didn’t get too high before coming back down to the floor.
“I can still fly.” she said “but I can’t maneuver as well as when you were chasing me.”
“As long as you can fly fast and in a straight line you’ll be fine.” said Rainbow Dash “these hallways are for the most part strait and the path we are going to take doesn’t have many turns.”
Rainbow Dash looked around for something to write with but only found spectra. Reluctantly she dipped her hoof in one of the crates of yellow spectra and began making a map of their escape route on the floor. When she had finished making a rough blueprint of the factory she put an “X” in one of the squares.
“This is where we are.” Said Rainbow Dash pointing to the square with the “X” in it. “The storage room on the far east side of the factory.” Then she pointed to a gap in the blueprint’s perimeter. “This is the doorway out on the north side of the factory; it is probably the most guarded and locked. It is not like the other doors however; the only way we are going to unlock it is a trip to the administrator’s room here.” Rainbow pointed to a room adjacent to the gap in the blueprint. “Once I put in the exit code we will have thirty seconds to get out before it closes again. And you best believe the entire security system will be on us as soon as we do that.”
“Just thirty seconds?” asked Scootaloo. “Can we make it out in time?”
“I’m fast enough.” Said Rainbow Dash “I can carry you.”
“So how are we even going to get to the door?” questioned Scootaloo looking over the rough blueprint that had been drawn on the floor in a bright glowing yellow spectra.
“See this hallway?” said Rainbow Dash pointing to a large strait line leading up to the doorway and going straight down the center of the factory map. “This is the main hallway. All of the rooms in this factory are connected to it somehow. We need to find a way to get to it and we will be able to get to the front door very easily from there.” Rainbow Dash pointed to a smaller line coming out of the storage rooms only exit and going up and over before leading straight into the bigger line going through the center. “This looks like the path we should take.” Said Rainbow Dash “it has a lot of rooms connected straight to it on the way out so we can hide from patrols in them.”
“What’s that room?” asked Scootaloo pointing to a square with a question mark in the middle of it.
“I don’t know.” Said Rainbow Dash “Only Dr. Atmosphere and a select few have been seen going into that room and nopony else is permitted entry.”
“Do you think we should give it a visit?” questioned Scootaloo who was getting more and more intrigued with the lore that surrounded the factory and that there was lore among the workers inside it.
“Curiosity killed the cat Scoots.” Said Rainbow Dash “But I don’t see why not. It’s on our way to the door, and it would be nice to know what kinds of secrets they are keeping in this horrible place.”
“Yeah it would.” Said Scootaloo as she stared to yawn.
“You should rest a bit Scoot; it’s been a long and hard time for you.” Said Rainbow Dash “Don’t worry I’ll stay awake and keep watch. As soon as they come I’ll wake you up for that is when we move.”
“Thank you Rainbow.” Said Scootaloo, laying down beside Rainbow Dash “Thanks for everything.”
“No problem kid.” Said Rainbow Dash as she laid down beside Scootaloo and put a wing around her. It was the first time in a while Scootaloo had a sense of safety and she was calmed by that feeling. She had many thoughts and questions running through her head, but when Rainbow had laid down beside her and put a wing around her all of those thoughts were replaced by the thought of “everything is going to be all right” and found herself in a deep sleep.
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Rainbow factory spinoff?
I love it
this is gonna be a great story
If you think you can write a story, DO NOT start with a RF spinoff. Unless you want to get nuked by downvotes without even reading the story.
How this could be approached differently, without the Rainbow Factory, is something like this. (btw got this from the desciption)
Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash wake up in an abandoned, locked facility. As they try to escape, they soon realize that they're not alone...
It may not be the best story idea ever, but it's better than what you have now. You have the same elements of escape. Add a twist ending, some action, some elements from games like SCP: Containment Breach or Exmortis, and voila, you have a decent horror story
I don't know about everypony else, but I like alternate endings to Rainbow Factory. I'm even writing one myself, though I need help with it. I'm tracking this.Continue, I like this.
Somehow, it does feel sudden. I dont really get how Dash switched from bad to good. Nah, sorry for being unable to describe what the error is, but I dunno. However I really appreciate your rewrite of the ending :)