Rainbow Dash ran her hoof through her mane before sighing jadedly and resting her head on her office desk. It had been another hard day of work at the weather factory and she couldn’t wait to get home. She was going to meet Pinkie this evening at Sugercube Corner and they were going to pull a few pranks on their other friends. It had been a while since they had gotten together for some ‘fun’ time, and Rainbow Dash was looking quite forward to it.

Slowly, she slid her head onto its side and indifferently stared out the window wall to her right. Small and large cloud buildings obstructed her view of the ground below as she gazed around at the vastness of the city of Cloudsdale. Through the few small patches of air, where there was no cloud ground, she could see the rolling green hills of Equestria far below. Many pegasi were flying around, all of them carrying on with their own individual lives. Rainbow Dash noticed that there seemed to be an unusually large amount of pegasi clustering around the Cloudsdale Arena. Apparently, the annual flight tests were happening today. Every year the young fillies who had finished flight school would take the final flight test. It was kind of like a final exam. Rainbow Dash remembered that she had aced the test when she was a filly. It had hardly even been a challenge for her.

A few short quick knocks on her office door snapped Dash out of her day dream.

“Come in?”

The door swung open revealing a rather frustrated looking red pegasus. His safety goggles dangled around his neck as he trotted up to Rainbow Dash. A shiny golden pin on his chest read, “Dr. Atmosphere: Mechanical and Biological Engineer”.

“You again?” sighed Rainbow Dash lifting her head off of her desk, “This better be important, because I almost fired you last time.”

“This is important!” exclaimed the doctor slamming a newspaper down on Dash’s desk, “Look at the Headline!”

Curiously, Rainbow Dash picked up the newspaper and realized that is was an issue of Equestria Daily, the national newspaper of Equestria. Underneath the title banner was the headline, “Crazed Weather Worker Kills Nurse!”

“W-what?” stuttered Dash in surprise, “Who did this? When did it happen? It couldn’t have been one of our workers!”

“Oh, but it was,” replied Hide seriously, “When you ask? Yesterday! Who? Nimbos! That raw spectrum really messed him up. He’s a psychopath now. After he woke up from the accident that happened last week, the first thing he did was kill his nurse. Then, he jumped out one of the hospital’s windows and vanished. Nopony knows where he is. The few royal guards that are posted in Ponyville are most likely still searching for him now.”

“Poor Nimbos… he was such a nice guy.”

“Poor Nimbos? More like poor Cloudsdale! Do you have any idea what this does to our reputation!?”

Rainbow Dash could actually somewhat relate to Hide this time. Cloudsdale was an extremely prideful and nationalistic city. Keeping up the city’s near perfect reputation was extremely important to everypony who lived in it.

“This is the reason that I told you we should change the way we make rainbows,” sighed Hide knitting his eyebrows in distaste as he stared at the newspaper, “Raw spectrum is just too dangerous. If something like this were to ever happen again the weather factory would start losing credibility. Nopony is going to want to work here.”

Rainbow Dash tossed the newspaper back onto her desk before plunging into deep thought. There was a certain truth to what Hide was saying. They could not risk anymore accidents like this. Of course, Dash knew where he was going with this. He was going to suggest that they use his ‘improved’ method of making rainbows. However, that was certainly out of the question. Good reputation or not, Rainbow Dash would never stoop to such a low and sick level.

Hide coughed abruptly, drawing attention back to himself, “Like I said, the only way we can fix this problem is by changing the way we make rainbows, and I’ve already explained to you how.”

Dash did have to admit, Hide was extremely good with words. His voice was almost always calm and collected, and he could move his body in very slick and persuasive ways. Another contributor was that he usually seemed to say the right things at the right time, and would stop to let you ponder something at just the right moment. Almost everything about him screamed I’m right. Of course, no matter how persuasive he could be Rainbow Dash knew what her answer was.

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said no Hide.”

“Fine, do whatever you want. You’re the rainbow manager after all. I just wanted to give you something to think about. However, if you aren’t going to be using my idea, then what will you be doing?”

Dash got up from her office chair and casually walked over to the door, not even stopping to look at Hide, “Follow me and I’ll show you. I’m going to make some more safety rules.”

Although she wasn’t looking at Hide, Rainbow Dash was almost certain that he rolled his eyes at this remark. Reluctantly, he began to follow her down the long hallway leading to the rainbow sector of the weather factory. When they arrived at the massive titanium doors leading into the sector she could hear him mutter under his breath that ‘no matter how many rules and safety precautions she made there was always going to be a risk with raw spectrum’. Ignoring him, Dash entered into the main rainbow room and started to slowly fly down the passage that would lead her to the reactor room.

However, before they could reach their destination a loud banging sound echoed throughout the hallway. It sounded as if somepony had dropped multiple metal rods onto the hard tile floor. Stopping, to listen more closely, Rainbow Dash realized that the sound had emanated from a small musty passageway that branched off from the main hall. It was, in fact, the same passageway that Dr. Snow had taken her through when she had first been brought to the facility.

“We should probably check it out,” sighed Hide motioning towards the small corridor, “Not many ponies go back there. That passage is mostly just used for maintenance. It snakes behind and under many of the machines in this facility. It’s kind of dangerous in there because most of the electrical wires are exposed, and there is a lot of open machinery. The only thing good about it, in my opinion, is that it makes a great shortcut to almost anywhere in the rainbow facility. Anyways, like I was saying, we should check out what made that sound, to make sure that nopony got hurt.”

Nodding in agreement, Rainbow Dash flew over to the opening of the small passageway and yelled out, “Hey, is anypony in there? Are you okay?”

In response there was nothing but silence, only the faint sound of gears and pistons churning way off in the distance. After a few moments of quiet Dash called out again, but once more the only response was silence. Just as she was about to turn around and continue down the main hall, the sound of crunching metal echoed sharply from within the small passage. What in Equestria is making those sounds? Curious, Rainbow Dash began to slowly creep down the musty corridor. Hide trailed close behind her, still as calm and collected as ever.

“Who’s there?” asked Dash as she made her way around a slight bend, “Those sounds were obviously not coming from a machine. Are you okay?”

Still, there was no response.

Dash had to stop for a minute to let her eyes adjust before she crept deeper into the passageway. The only lighting seemed to be coming from the small glow of certain mechanical parts and the occasional light on the ceiling. Hissing pipes that ran along the ceiling and walls also let off some steam that only clouded her vision further. Yellow and orange electrical and chemical hazard signs spotted the walls as well.

Dash sometimes had to place her steps strategically in order to not step on the clusters of wires that often zigzagged across the floor.

“Watch your tail,” warned Hide ducting under a low hanging pipe, “Don’t let it get caught in any exposed gears.”

After about five minutes of playing hopscotch the passage suddenly branched off into three different directions. Rainbow Dash would have turned back at this junction if it hadn’t been for the small thing that she noticed out of the corner of her eye. Just a little ways down the far right branch there was a bright violet object. As she neared the object she realized that it was, in fact, a hoof.

“Hide, get over here now! I think somepony is hurt,” cried Rainbow Dash, “They must not have been answering me because they were unconscious.”

Besides the single hoof Dash couldn’t see any other parts of the poor pony’s body. It was hidden behind multiple metal pipes and other mechanical things. Finally, after a few more ducks and hops, the passage opened up into a somewhat small room-like area. Turning to her right, she could finally see the rest of the body. The normally cool and courageous Rainbow Dash vomited at the sight of it.

There, lying in a heap, was the bloody mess of a lifeless pony. From was Dash could make out it seemed to be a mare. Her body was mangled and distorted in sickening ways and blood was dripping out of her many wounds. Her open eyes were rolled back in her head and a greasy black cloth was tied around her mouth preventing her from screaming. Large metal rods were scattered all across the floor and a nearby ventilation grate was bent out of place. A trail of blood was splattered between the dead body and the metal grate.

“Looks like stab wounds,” informed Hide after recovering from the initial shock of seeing the body as well, “This was obviously a murder, and a brutal one at that.”

The smell of burning gore rose up from the corpse as some of the blood sizzled on exposed electrical wires. Doubling over, Rainbow Dash vomited for the second time.

“W-who could have done this?” she asked wiping the puke from her mouth, “Was it Nimbos? But how would he have gotten in the weather factory?”

“I don’t know,” replied Hide picking up a small piece of crumpled yellow paper from the ground, “But whoever it is they aren’t finished.”

Chills ran down Dash’s spine as she read the scratchy black letters printed on the paper:

All of thos~ who make rainbows must cert~~nly DIE

Cloudprancer made ra~~bows and now she is dead.
But she wa~ nice! No she was evil

No, they were control~~ng her
Does it matter? Wh~~ matters? It’s th~ DAMN rainb~~~

Some of the writing was illegible, but from what Rainbow Dash could read it looked almost as if whoever wrote the note was having an argument with themself. But the sentence that disturbed her the most was the first one. The one that read: “All of thos~ who make rainbows must cert~~nly DIE”

Author's Note

I am currently looking for an editor to help me with this story. I just want somebody who will proof-read my chapters for me before I publish them. If you're interested pm me.

By the way, I would love some feedback for this chapter! :)