Escape Insanity & Operation: Crimson Rainbow (The Rainbow Factory Chapters 2&3)

by LCpl Azure Blaze

Chapter 3: Operation: Crimson Rainbow, Part 1: Hydra Hunting

"Him? Yeah I know him. Not only that but I owe my life to him. If it wasn't for him I would be dead. The real question though is, how did you come to know his name? You've never seen him before and ever since that one mission, almost everypony has forgotten all about him. Everypony except me, of course. The mission was technically called Operation: Windbreaker, although we called it something else. We being me and him. We called it Operation: Crimson Rainbow. So, you want to know more about it, eh? Well then, take a seat and make sure your comfortable, this may take a while.

"It all started on that fateful day in Froggy Bottom Bog. It was a hot and humid night and the mosquitoes were biting. The slimy water we were forced to walk through was thick, warm, and full of leeches. We were assigned a mission to take care of Equestria's 'hydra' problem. We had been trekking through the bog for almost four and a half hours looking for a hydra that was on the loose so that they might capture it and send it to the Gates of Tartarus so that it wouldn't bother the citizens of Equestria again. That's when we found her..."
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AUGUST, 09, 2012, 0027 HOURS
FROGGY BOTTOM BOG, EQUESTRIA

"Violet Light, do you have any idea where we are?" asked a dark-red earth pony colt with an even darker shade of red for hair and a red sun rising as a cutie mark.

"I have no idea, Crimson Dawn," said Violet Light as he held a flashlight up to a rough layout of Froggy Bottom Bog. Violet Light was a dark-purple pegasus colt with even darker purple hair and a purple lantern as his cutie mark.

"Great, just like I thought, we are completely lost in Froggy Bottom Bog and these mosquitoes won't stop eating me alive," said Crimson Dawn.

"Quit complaining, Crimson. It could be worse," said a dark-green unicorn colt with dark-blue hair, a apple shaped emerald as a cutie mark, and a dim light blue light illuminating from his horn. He was holding a thermal imaging device and scanning the area with it.

"That's easy for you to say, Emerald Apple. You practically grew up in this kind of heat living in Apploosa all of this time," said Crimson Dawn.

"Are you saying Apploosa is no different from Froggy Bottom Bog?" Emerald Apple questioned in a harsh tone of voice.

"N-No I was just saying that..." said Crimson Dawn just before a dark-blue pegasus colt with light blue hair and a light blue lightning bolt coming from a black thunder cloud as a cutie mark interrupted.

"Will you all just shut up. We are in the right place, I'm certain of it. Sergeant Apple, keep scanning the area with that camera let us know if you see anything unusual," said the dark-blue pegasus.

"Yes, Staff-Sergeant Azure Blaze," said Emerald Apple. "I'm doing my best, but there seems to be interference coming from the massive amount of hot air Crimson Dawn seems to be emitting from his mouth."

Crimson Dawn was about to open his mouth again but stopped when he saw Azure Blaze scowling at him; so the dark-red pony just sat there with a pout on his face. All four ponies were dressed in woodland digital military uniforms and carrying extremely large saddle bags filled with various equipment. The saddle bags themselves were so heavy that they prevented the pegasi from flying very long. All four ponies had coyote-brown plate carriers with various pouches attached to them and kevlar helmets on. Azure Blaze and Violet Light were armed with M4 assault rifles and Emerald Apple and Crimson Dawn were armed with M16A3 assault rifles. The squad of ponies had been navigating their way through dense bog for a while and had stopped on a dry patch of land to rest up and search for the hydra they were looking for.

"Hey, Blaze," whispered Violet Light. "Even if we do find this hydra, what are we going to do to catch it?"

"We are to lead the beast south towards Phoenix Nest," answered Azure Blaze. "There are about two dozen unicorn operatives down there waiting for us to get there. Once we get there, they will cast a containing spell and do as the Equestrian government pleases with it."

"Oh," replied Violet Light. "What do you think they will do with it?"

"From what I have heard they are going to lock it up behind the gates of Tartarus, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did some testing on it. After all, it is the only one in Equestria."

"I hope they don't hurt it too much," said Violet Light. "Even hydra's have feelings." He then sat quiet, still studying the map in hopes of finding out where exactly they were at.

As Emerald Apple was scanning the area with his thermal camera, he came across an unusual spike of thermal energy. Upon closer inspection he saw that it was moving slowly, but he couldn't identify what it was. It was too small to be a hydra but too large to be any other animal native to the bog. "Uh Staff-Sergeant Blaze, you need to take a look at this," he said leaning toward Azure Blaze to show him what he had found.

"What is it?" asked Azure Blaze.

"I don't know but I haven't seen anything like it," said Emerald Apple.

"Kill the lights and get your night vision out," said Azure Blaze. "Let's see if we cant sneak up on it and find out."

Emerald Apple's dim light vanished and Violet Light turned his flashlight off. All four ponies reached into their saddle bags, retrieved their night vision goggles, and attached them to the helmets they were wearing as they closed in on the unknown being. The group carefully chose where to put their hooves so as to make no sound. As they came up closer on the figure, its shape started to become more defined until they were able to finally make out what it was they had seen. It was a young, orange filly pegasus with red hair crawling on her stomach aimlessly through the bog. By her appearance, it was obvious to the others that she had been badly beaten. As soon as Azure Blaze was able to make out what she was, he started to run towards her, shouting, "Its a filly! Its a filly! Stand down!" As soon as he shouted, the rest of the squad started to run in with him and the young filly was startled. She rolled onto her back and started prone away until she ran into a tree then she shielded herself as if she knew that the ponies that had found her were going to harm her in some way. Once Azure Blaze reached her, he said, "Don't worry, we aren't going to hurt you. Whats your name?" Azure Blaze put a hoof behind the fillies head, propped it up and said, "Come on, stay with me! You need to answer my questions or else I can't help you!" By this time the rest of Azure Blaze's squad had caught up to him and was looking down on the tired, wounded pony. She seemed too tired to speak.

"M-My name is..." the filly stuttered, partially because of fear and partially because of fatigue. "S-Scootaloo."

"Scootaloo?" said Azure Blaze. "My name is Staff-Sergeant Azure Blaze, I am with Equestria's E.S.O.D. What are you doing out here like this?"

The filly's eyes started to close as she faintly said, "I-I was..."

"She has lost consciousness," said Violet Light. "We need to get her some medical support now or else we will lose her."

"Emerald Apple, report this to Phoenix Nest and request for an extraction," said Azure Blaze. "Crimson Dawn, reach into Emerald's bag and prep a flare to signal the chopper. Violet Light, help me keep her stable until help comes."

The three ponies followed Azure Blaze's order and went right to work. Azure Blaze turned to Violet Light, who was wrapping the filly's wounds and said, "Check her temperature." Violet Light put his hoof up against Scootaloo's head.

"Shes burning up; we need something to cool her off. She may also need water so keep it close in case she wakes up again so we can give it to her." Azure Blaze went through his saddle bag and took out a boonie hat he was carrying and began fanning the young filly.

"This will have to do; we don't have anything else to cool her off with other than water," said Azure Blaze. After a couple of minutes they could hear the extraction chopper in the air and Crimson Dawn lit the flare. The flare surrounded the group with dim, red light, and Scootaloo woke up. When she saw the color of light the flare was giving off she panicked. She began kicking and screaming. "Let me go!" she yelled. "I don't want to go back!"

"Quit struggling we are trying to help you," said Violet Light as both pegasi were trying to hold her down. After a while, she fainted again. "What do you think she was talking about Blaze?" asked Violet Light.

"I have no idea," said Azure Blaze. "But whatever she is talking about can't be good."

Azure Blaze turned to see the chopper pass by the clearing they were in and set down in a safe opening a little ways north. "Come on, help me get her on my back," said Azure Blaze. Violet Light helped to get Scootaloo secure onto Azure Blaze's back. Once Scootaloo was secure, the four ponies ran off in the direction of the chopper. Once they got to the chopper, they took off for Canterlot.
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"When we got to the chopper, we fastened her down to a stretcher. She never showed any sign of waking up the whole trip. Before we knew it, we were back at Canterlot, and the young filly we had found was in the intensive care unit being treated for dehydration. After we got debriefed, we went and visited her in her room. Both of us stood there at her side the entire night. It was a long night, but we kept each other company by entertaining each other with our war stories. She kept mumbling while she was still unconscious for some reason but all we could understand was something about a Rainbow Factory and a pegasi named Rainbow Dash. I didn't know what to think of it at the time. I had never heard of either of them. Little did I know that both the Rainbow Factory and Rainbow Dash were going to change my life. Heck, they were going to change many lives."

Author's Note:

This chapter may be a bit confusing so I strongly recommend going back to chapter 2 Part 2 if you are having trouble. Once you see it you shouldn't have much trouble understanding where this is coming from and where this is going.
If any of you are wondering I did take this style of writing from a game called Ace Combat.

Comments

[shanetommas111]

Keep going I want more!!!

[AirHit]

Good but shorter than I expected. Probably because I m used to read fics with longer chapters like a dash of humanity.

[LCpl Azure Blaze]

3555858 To explain this: "Chapters" and "Parts" are two different things to this story. The parts make up the chapter as a whole so this does mean that they will be shorter. I just put the chapters in parts to build suspense. Of course the first part is longer than the others, but it was simply to "start off" the story (Which was greatly needed, just look back in the comments. It was a very shaky start.). I try to keep to a 1,900 word minimum for each part. This next part coming up (Which I have already written about half of. Patience it is coming.) seems like it will be longer than the previous parts just because it has a lot to be described, that much I will let you know. Anyways, the way I have "distributed" the story actually helps it to gain publicity as well (since every time I update it, it gets sent to the top of the "recently updated" list.). This strategy was and is simply to make the story "survive and thrive" key word being survive. Now if I write a short story (Which I am thinking about doing so.) I would make it a 5,500, or probably way longer, word minimum, with only one part to the story. There is just one problem: What would make one heck of a MLP short story? Hmmmmmm...

[CallofDutySoldier123]

3556264 When is next chapter all ready? It been like three months.