History Repeats

I'm pleased with how this chapter turned out. It has a good amount of action in it. I tried to add a little more descriptive elements into this chapter as well. Also, I would like to thank FireBlitz for proof reading it for me. I'm in need in need of editors/proof-readers, so if you would like to be one for me just leave a comment. xD

Chapter 4 History Repeats

Nimbos sat on a hard swivel chair as he intently watched the computer monitor placed before him. Why did he have to have the early morning shift? He would much rather be in bed at the moment than watching the stability of the rainbow reactor. Nevertheless, it was his job, and he was getting paid good money. So, in the long run, it defiantly outweighed sleeping in a few more hours. As Nimbos began typing a few commands into the control computer he heard Sunburst moan slightly.

“Poor Sunburst,” thought Nimbos making a short sideways glace in his direction, “In all the years I’ve known him I’ve never seen him this depressed.”

Sunburst shifted in his seat before letting out another small moan. His blood shot eyes tiredly scanned his computer’s monitor. Nimbos caught a strong whiff of alcohol, which was emanating from his friend, as he drew in his next breath. From what Nimbos understood Sunburst’s mother had apparently just been in a bad flying accident and passed away recently. Ever since then Sunburst had never really been the same. At night he’d go to wild parties and drink unreasonably large amounts of fermented apple cider and then come to work the next morning with a head-splitting hangover.

A sudden blip on Nimbo’s monitor alerted him about a small function within the reactor that had to be dealt with. After only a few quick punches of buttons the blip disappeared and everything was quiet once more. Everything, except for the low muffled droning sound of the reactor and the occasional moan from Sunburst. Nimbos, having many years of experience in controlling and maintaining the reactor, knew that you always had to be very attentive when working this particular shift. The reactor could not support itself, and that is why it was up to the control staff to maintain it. Otherwise the core would most likely deteriorate to the point of collapse within only a few hours and there would be a devastating meltdown.

Nimbos glanced up at the wall clock as he laid back into his swivel chair and propped his hind legs up onto the table. It was half past six; still too early for his taste. As he lay back in his chair Nimbos began to look around indifferently. The room was the same as it had always been. The sturdy cloud walls were a creamy white color, but they appeared to be red in the glow of the heated reactor. Nimbos could see the heat waves rippling off of the surface of the reactor as it continued to pump and churn as if it was an enormous beating heart. Turning his head slightly he noticed that two more rows of tables sat in front of him, and directly to his right sat Sunburst. Two rows of tables were placed in front of his friend as well. Each table had a monitor on stand-by mode sitting on them and an empty swivel chair placed before them.

There was still space for four more workers in the room, but it was only him and Sunburst at the moment. Not like it was a surprise though, the reactor could technically be run by only two ponies. The only benefit of having more workers on duty was that it was more likely that they would catch functional errors within the system. Nimbos knew that his manager, Miss Dash, knew that he was an extremely experienced and knowledgeable worker in this field. She knew that he was fully capable of running the reactor with only the minimum help. So, instead of paying extra workers, she only assigned him and Sunburst for the morning shift.

As Nimbos continued to lay lazily in his swivel chair, an irksome fly buzzed around his head a couple of times before landing on the ceiling. He dreamily watched it crawl around on the ceiling for a while before a loud bleeping noise suddenly snapped him back into reality. It was coming from the main screen, which was placed directly above the reactor viewing window. Nimbos carefully studied the red warning sign flashing on the screen before nearly jumping out of his skin. The reactor was at dangerously high heat levels, any hotter and the core would start having trouble staying stable.

“W-what the hell!?” exclaimed Nimbos as the floor shook from a sudden rumble of the reactor, “What happened?”

Nimbos quickly jumped out of his chair and galloped over to his friend Sunburst who was rapidly typing on his keyboard.

“You were in charge of keeping the reactor’s heat level stable, what happened?” inquired Nimbos fretfully.

“I-I’m sorry…” replied Sunburst. His blood shot eyes formed into a squint as he studied the data on his monitor. The yellow colt kept blowing his orange mane out of his eyes as he continued to type, “My headache was terrible… and I was just soo tired. I think I fell asleep. I’m so sorry…”

“He fell asleep? HE FELL ASLEEP!?” thought Nimbos as the realization hit him. If the matter on hoof at the moment wasn’t so serious he would have smacked his friend upside the head for doing such a stupid thing. This was one of the most important and dangerous jobs in the entire weather factory! Even if he had stayed up most of the night and had a terrible hangover that was no excuse for falling asleep. If he really was that tired he should have just called in sick or something. Miss Dash could have easily found another qualified worker to take his place for the day.

“I can’t control it,” exclaimed Sunburst as Nimbos watched him anxiously, “We’re going to have to cool it down manually!”

“What’s the temp?” shouted Nimbos as he ran over to the emergency closet and grabbed a gas mask along with a heat resistance suit.

“About ten thousand degrees,” replied Sunburst nervously.

“Ten thousand! How bucking long was he asleep!” thought Nimbos as he quickly put on the shiny metallic looking suit. Only eight hundred more degrees and the core would start collapsing. At twelve thousand degrees there would be a complete rainbow meltdown!

As Nimbos galloped over to the elevator he securely tightened his safety goggles and put on the gas mask. Before the elevator doors closed, Nimbos caught a quick glimpse of Sunburst who had begun to sweat nervously and was still furiously typing on his keyboard. As the elevator moved down Nimbos put a small ear piece into his right ear that enabled him to communicate with Sunburst. Although it wasn’t exactly the right time to be thinking about it, Nimbos realized just how advanced the technology was in the weather factory compared to the rest of Cloudsdale, or even Equestria for that matter. Why did they have all of this tech that nopony else had, or probably even heard of before?

As the elevator door opened, Nimbos galloped out of it hurriedly before making a sharp right turn and opening the heavy airtight door leading into the reactor room itself. The second he opened the door a blast of heat hit him forcefully. Although the reactor was about ten thousand degrees, the rest of the room was probably only two or three thousand, thanks to the huge industrial sized air cooling systems. The heat suit he was wearing could withstand up to four thousand degrees before it began deteriorating. Freezing cold liquids pumped through the suit’s many veins as Nimbos inched his way closer to the reactor.

Nimbos scanned the room hastily before finally spotting what he was looking for. A red hot hose sat limply in the corner to his left. Galloping over to it, Nimbos uncoiled the hose before dragging the open end over to the massive reactor.

He could barely hear his friend shouting in his ear over the loud clanging of the machine, “I can’t turn on the water. Some idiot must have turned the valve shut!”

Although it wasn’t really water that flowed through this particular hose, Nimbos knew what his friend meant. Dashing back over to left corner of the room, he noticed a large metal wheel embedded into the wall next to the hose.

“Turn that wheel and the valve will open!” explained Sunburst through the ear piece, “I will then be able to flow the water (cooling chemicals) through the hose.”

Without a second thought Nimbos grabbed onto the wheel firmly before giving it a hard yank to the left. It didn’t budge. Anxiously, he tried again with the same results. Suddenly Nimbos let go of the valve wheel with a painfully loud yelp. The heat from the red hot metal had soaked through his heat gloves and burned his hooves.

“It’s almost at eleven thousand degrees!” cried Sunburst, “Either open that valve or get out of there now! The core is starting to collapse. We might have to evacuate!”

Determinedly Nimbos grabbed onto the wheel again and turned it with all of his might. He could feel the blistering heat soak through his gloves once more. He cried out in agony as the wheel finally turned to the left. Soon thereafter, he could hear the lovely sound of running liquid. Without giving him much time to relish in his success, a sudden rumble of the reactor threw him off balance. The jolt was so powerful that small cracks began to creep their ways along the walls and ceiling of the reactor room.

“Nimbos, get out of there now!”exclaimed his friend fearfully, “The core in deteriorating!”

Instead of listening to his friend, Nimbos ran over to the end of the hose, which was now spewing ‘water’, and aimed it at the reactor. A very loud and sharp hissing sound followed. A few more seconds went by before there was another terrible rumble, along with the sound of crunching metal. Raw spectrum of all colors began to fill the air as Nimbos continued to pour the cooling liquids onto the reactor. The cracks above his head suddenly widened dangerously.

Although he was in great peril only one thought was shooting through Nimbo’s mind, “I must cool down the reactor, even if it costs me my life! Otherwise, it will meltdown and many more ponies will die.”

At that moment a sudden forceful blast of air from the reactor blew Nimbos off of his hooves and slammed him into the wall adjacent to him. The blast also caused parts of the unstable ceiling to give way. Large chunks of blazing hot structural cloud ceiling fell onto the poor colt as he lay on the ground in a daze. The collision had damaged Nimbos gas mask, as well as shattering his safety goggles. He could hear his friend cry in panic as he attempted to get back up.

“AAAAUUUGGGHHH!” howled Nimbos as he struggled in the debris. Without the goggles to protect his eyes, and the gas mask damaged, the scorching hot air burned his face.

As Nimbos screamed in pain the world around him suddenly started to spin wildly. He must have breathed in some of the gaseous raw spectrum. He hardly noticed his burning face or hooves anymore as his brain began to fail due to the raw spectra intake.

The last thing he heard was Sunburst yelling into his ear, “I’m coming Nimbos, I’m coming to save you! Just hold on… just hold on…”

His friend’s desperate voice faded away as Nimbos drifted into unconsciousness.

--The next day--

Rainbow Dash sat on a padded wooden chair as she waited for her turn to speak. While she waited she began to look around the large cloud atrium, which was also known as the main room to everypony who worked at the factory. Everypony who worked at the weather factory was gathered in this single room. In front of them was the president of the factory who was giving a small speech at the moment. Dash watched his tail twitch nervously as he gripped the podium that he was standing behind. She hated acting all business like, but since she was the manager of the rainbow sector she had to act formal.

“Ew, formalness,” she thought as she fidgeted restlessly in her chair, “It’s like being an egghead, like Twilight, or something.”

“-so, without further to do, here is Miss Dash,” announced the weather factory’s president taking a step back from the podium.

Nervously, Rainbow Dash got up and slowly made her way over to where the president was. When she reached the podium she nervously looked around at all of the ponies watching her intently. It wasn’t like her to be nervous, but this speech was so important and serious that even her normally courageous and adventurous personality was uneasy.

“I would, um…er, like to inform you…”

Screw this formal talk. Talking normally would at least help with her nervousness a little.

“As you all should know, I am Rainbow Dash, head manager of the Rainbow Facility,” she announced a little more confidently, “It’s a really cool job. Anyways, I’m just here to tell you all about something that happened yesterday that wasn’t cool. You should all know, even if you don’t work in the rainbow sector, that rainbows are made by this awesome machine called the ‘rainbow reactor’. Unfortunately, a bad accident happened yesterday. And if it wasn’t for the braveness of Sunburst and Nimbos, we would’ve had a terrible meltdown on our hooves.”

At the word ‘meltdown’ a low murmur arose from the crowd. Rainbow Dash waited for it to die down before continuing with her speech.

“But, as many of you know, Nimbos was badly injured. If it wasn’t for the Sunburst, who awesomely saved him…”

“Stop!” exclaimed a voice near the front of the crowd, “This isn’t right.”

A yellow pegasus with an orange mane suddenly flew out of the multitude of technicolored ponies and landed next to Dash. Rainbow Dash realized that it was Sunburst as he took her place in front of the podium.

“All of the credit should go to Nimbos,” proclaimed Sunburst seriously, “He was the one who stopped the threatening meltdown. I’m the one who almost caused it!”

Some gasps were heard within the crowd at this comment. Rainbow Dash noticed that Sunburst’s eyes began to water before he continued his unexpected speech.

“I thought... I thought that he was going to die. I thought that one of my best friends was going to die because of my own idiocy. It’s a miracle that he survived. He got second and third degree burns, and he even breathed in some raw spectrum. He’s still in a semi-coma at the ponyville hospital now,” declared Sunburst with a few sobs, “The only thing that I did was save his life. He’s the one who stopped the meltdown.”

There was a moment of silence as Sunburst lowered his head and tried to regain control over his emotions again. Then, without warning, he suddenly turned to face the still shocked Rainbow Dash.

“I want you to fire me. I don’t deserve to work here anymore.”

Dash could tell that Sunburst felt extremely guilty for his actions. And, until yesterday, he had had a perfect record. Although, that was no excuse for what he did. If she didn’t fire him, then she was going to have to at least degrade him to a pure spectra stirrer, or a janitor, or something like that.

“Sunburst, I’m not going to fire you. You really screwed up, but you also saved Nimbo’s life. I’m going to degrade you to a pure spectra stirrer, and you are going to have to pay for all of the damage done to the factory and all of Nimbo’s hospital bills.”

After Rainbow Dash had finished speaking Sunburst made a face that she didn’t quite understand. Then, with a few flaps of his wings he thanked her for her generosity, and said that he was pleased with her verdict. Once he took his place back in the audience, Dash finished her speech by explaining how the rainbow sector would put into effect new safety precautions, and how future mistakes would not be tolerated.

--Meanwhile at Ponyville Hospital--

“He’s suffered large amounts of cranial damage due to the raw spectrum, and he has extremely serious burns to the face and hooves…”

“How is he even still alive?”

“I don’t know. It’s nothing short of a miracle.”

“Should we put him under restraints now? Just in case he’s violent when he eventually wakes up?”

“He’s in critical condition; I don’t think he’s going to be waking up anytime soon…”

Nimbos only caught bits and pieces of this conversation as part of his consciousness resurfaced for only a few short moments before he plunged even deeper into the darkness of a sedated sleep.

--One week later--

Nimbos eyes snapped open as he lay in the hospital bed. Where was he? What had happened?

“AAUUUGGHH!” he screamed in agony as his brain seemed to be being scrambled by an egg beater.

A nurse ran into the room at his sudden outbreak. She was a pretty little unicorn, probably no older than twenty. Instead of paying attention to her, Nimbos looked down at his grey body which was badly burned. Chunks of his fur and flesh were missing in certain places. His long blond mane was burnt and charred in many places as well. He also soon realized that he was unable to move because he was being held down by restraints.

“I can’t believe it, you’re awake!” exclaimed the nurse.

Nimbos was barely able to process any of this because his brain was still roaring like an ocean at high tide. Everything seemed to be getting lost in this new section of his mind that he never noticed before; it was almost like a black hole. This new found darkness seemed to twist and bend everything into something different, he could barely think at all. The only thing that kept continuously repeating in his head was, ‘Rainbows are EVIL’. As Nimbos thrashed and struggled to break free from the restrains the nurse approached him cautiously.

“Hey, why don’t you let me outta here?” begged Nimbos. It almost seemed as if the darkness was speaking for him.

“I don’t think I’m allowed,” replied the young nurse somewhat timidly.

“Aw, it’s okay,” countered Nimbos as he stopped fighting the restraints. The longer he stayed awake the more it felt like his kind and normally cheerful personality where being sucked into the hole. Something else seemed to be surfacing.

“Other than the burns, I feel fine. I know you want to be careful because I breathed in raw spectrum, but my head doesn’t hurt much at all.”

That was a flat out lie! What was he doing? He couldn’t control himself anymore. Not only that, but the more he tried to fight the darkness the more it seemed to persuade him that it was right. It kept saying that rainbows were evil. But Nimbos didn’t think that they were. Or did he? He didn’t know anymore! Well, wait… were they? Yeah, yeah they were! How could he have been so blind?

After lots of convincing, Nimbos was finally able to convince the nurse to undo his restraints. What a naive fool! Once they were all unlatched Nimbos thanked her kindly before ripping out his IV and shoving the needle into her throat.

“Hahaha! What’s the matter?” chortled Nimbos manically, “Cat got your tongue?”

There was no response from the lifeless nurse lying on the floor.

“Or should I rephrase that to, needle got your throat!?”

Author's Note

So, what do you think of the story so far? Good? Bad? What about this chapter? Someday I would like to be a published author, so every little bit of feedback helps. Also, I would like to hear what you think about Nimbos, and what you think is going to happen next.