Author's Note
Please read. 
Hello, everyone. I've just worked on this story for 24 hours straight, almost exactly. That is officially, and by far, the longest I have ever worked on a single chapter. I hope that effort shows in the writing, itself. It was so fun to write, that I couldn't put it down. There are a couple times I had to step away and do something else to brainstorm...or cook, but I always came back with a fresh, new way to implement my original idea. This all spawned from a dream that I couldn't remember from the time I woke up, but I had this amazing idea for a story, and I immediately set about writing it. It never would have been possible without music, much like all my stories, and I listened to Korn for this particular story. I had two different albums on repeat the entire time, and they match the feel of the story so well. If you want to check them out so you can listen to them while you read, I listened to their latest album, "The Paradigm Shift," and their untitled album. It may actually enhance the experience of reading this story. It certainly enhanced my experience writing it. I sincerely hope you all enjoy this as much as I do...
Special thanks go to:
Surry The Sad King, and my mother, (I skyped her) for their prereading. Without hearing what they had to say about it, I don't think I would have been confident enough to continue writing it, because it's so different than anything else I've ever written...
Born Again
Scootaloo Sparkle slowly descended the rickety, wooden steps to the library's basement. She ruffled her wings apprehensively. She was honestly afraid of what lay below. For years, her adoptive mother had been consumed by the experiment, and now that it was all going to be over soon, Scootaloo wasn't even sure it was what she really wanted. Wasn't this wrong? She shook her head to clear her thoughts and swallowed the lump in her throat.
The steps creaked. She winced at the noise, but in the low light, she had no choice but to tread carefully. The staircase was without light, save for a gentle, acid green glow from the doorway at the bottom. It gently illuminated the last few steps. Scootaloo used their dimensions as a guide, carefully judging her movements.
As she reached the bottom, she stared into the green abyss on the surface of the portal. It swirled with a deeper, forest green and seemed to stretch on for an eternity. Hesitantly, Scootaloo raised a hoof and placed it to the extra-dimensional entrance. The door rippled and shot a tingling sensation like electricity through her leg and up her spine. She shivered and closed her eyes. Steeling herself, she pushed her hoof through, and the rest of her body was pulled in, as if the ooze had suddenly acquired a strong gravitational field.
Just like every other time, Scootaloo tried to scream, but no sound escaped her lips, despite the burning in the back of her throat as she strained her vocal chords. After a second, she pulled herself back from the edge of hysteria and let the portal pull her through the viscous sludge. She tried not to think about it. Her mother had assured her that she would get used to it, eventually, but it had been years. Perhaps it was easier for alicorns and unicorns to become accustomed to such things. To Scootaloo, it was just as terrible as it had been the first time, perhaps more so, now that she knew what she would be getting herself into.
The sludge left a pins-and-needles feeling across her entire body. Her eyes and throat burnt from contact with liquid, but she fought to keep her eyes open. Twilight had warned her that if she let them close for too long, the portal had the potential to transport her anywhere a large amount of magic was being expended in the universe, and she could be kept in a suspended state for decades until enough magic was expended at once to free her from her purgatory. Reassuring her, the alicorn had made sure to add that she could, in fact, expend that much magic in a single spell. She would never let her daughter go through the portal without a safeguard, but that did very little to quell Scootaloo's anxiety when she was actually being dragged through, despite her complete confidence in her mother's magical abilities. After all, she, herself, designed the portal for the very purpose of this experiment.
Just as quickly as she was swallowed up by the ooze, she was spit violently back out on the other end. With a practiced maneuver, she was able to land on her hooves, though she immediately fell to her hocks and began coughing, gasping for air after the prolonged suspension in the interstitial space between dimensions. After she regained her composure, she stood and flexed her wings. None of the ooze had ever saturated her fur, mane, or feathers before, but it never hurt to check. She looked around the spacious room she'd been transported to. Her violet eyes widened as she took in the sight.
For obvious reasons, she'd avoided the area for months. It was in stark contrast to the small, white-walled room it was when her mother first began building the mini-dimension. The room had become much grander; walls, floor and ceiling completely covered with large electrical cords, pipes, and ridged cables as large as tree trunks lining their surfaces. They all converged to the base of a large, cylindrical vat of green ooze in the center of the room. They seemed to be pumping power of some sort into the glowing liquid. The whole room was lit with a dim, rustic-orange glow from an unseen source. The low lighting casted large shadows all around.
The fully-grown pegasus stretched her body and shook it to get rid of the tingling sensation the portal afflicted her with. She took in the sight of the ooze in the vat. The entire, three-meter-tall cylinder was filled to the brim with that viscous fluid, though it seemed different. The jelly in the portal was chilled, but this vat seemed to be heating it to its boiling point. Bubbles violently ascended through the acid-green swill. Nothing was given release, capped by a large, fitted chunk of metal, matching exactly the base.
Next to the pool-sized tube, a lavender alicorn in a white lab-coat poured feverishly over her notes. She mumbled incoherently, but in the deafening silence of the dimension, her rambling rang in Scootaloo's ears from nearly twenty meters away. She shook her head disapprovingly. Her mother had obviously not slept for days. She calmly strode across the room to meet her. Clearing her throat, she got her mother's attention. "Mom?" She called out insecurely, "Spike said you wanted to see me?"
Twilight Sparkle started and spun around, horn ablaze in her magical corona. She calmed down when her tired, violet eyes finally registered that the pegasus standing before her was, indeed, her daughter, whom she had called for nearly an hour ago. "Ah, Scootaloo!" She smiled as she spoke, but it didn't reach her listless eyes. "You finally arrived! We can begin." Her grin was almost manic. Her graying hair was unkempt, and her ears twitched randomly. Scootaloo had seen that look many times before. Nothing good ever came of her mother being in a mania such as this. The first time she ever encountered it, a much younger Twilight had casted a spell to make her friends fall in love with a doll, shortly after. Scootaloo's orange fur stood on end, and she scratched a spot on the back of her head nervously at the memory, disheveling her spiky, purple mane a bit.
"Mom," Scootaloo said in a maternal and worried tone, "You need to take a break. When was the last time you slept?"
Twilight rolled her eyes in response and cantered to a podium, on top of which was a control panel. It was made of metal and bolted to the floor, just hoofsteps from the chamber of liquid. She pushed a few buttons, then decided she'd take the chance to catch up with her daughter a bit. "How was your trip?" She asked, turning back around to face the pegasus.
It was Scootaloo's turn to roll her eyes. "I hate extra-dimensional travel, Mom."
"Not that," Twilight shook her head and a hoof in a wiping motion through the air. "You and the rest of the Wonderbolts went to the Crystal Empire last week, right?"
Scootaloo chuckled at her folly and nodded, "Yeah. The 'bolts had a pretty big show there for that fair they got before the Crystal Heart thingy," She explained. After a second, she raised an annoyed and suspicious eyebrow at her mother. "You didn't bring me here jus' to make small talk, didja'? 'Cause if you made me go through that portal when you coulda' just-"
"No," Twilight cut her off. Scootaloo thought she noticed the alicorn's features darken, but her expression was back to normal before she could form a coherent thought on the subject. Twilight's hooves touched down upon her shoulders gently, and the alicorn looked deeply into her eyes. "This is it, Scoots. I'm sure of it." Twilight confirmed.
Scootaloo's eyes widened further than she thought possible. "R-really?" She stammered, "Y-y-you're sure?"
Twilight nodded and turned back to her control panel. "This is the day we get Rainbow Dash back," She asserted. There was a dark determination in her voice. "We'll be a family again..."
There was a storm coming; a category four hurricane. Only fifty miles from the Equestrian coastline, Ponyville was to be the first stop in the whirlwind's warpath. Rainbow Dash stared the heavy clouds down from her vantage point, high in the air above Ponyville. It was still far off, but it wouldn't be long before the mighty storm was at the edge of the White Tail Wood. She swiftly flew back through the window into her home. "GRAAAHH! Where are they!" she growled, "They should be here by now!"
As captain of the Ponyville weather team, Rainbow Dash had gathered her team to meet at the Golden Oaks Library. For several years, the library had doubled as her home with Princess Twilight, and more recently, their adopted daughter and long time friend, Scootaloo. The rest of the weather team had been sitting on their haunches quietly, sure to stay safe distances from their fuming captain as she paced back and forth through her den. Patience was not a word you associated with Rainbow "Danger" Dash.
Rainbow was no fool. She understood the threat a category four posed. This particular storm had already claimed the lives of thousands of ponies on the coast, alone. There would be no chance for her team to battle the behemoth on their own. Hours ago, she'd sent word to the weather teams of Canterlot and Manehattan, imploring her fellow pegasi to help.
As she had expected them to, they responded to her promptly, both teams willing to help, but they were taking an unacceptable amount of time to get to Ponyville. She stopped pacing and thrust a hoof to the ground angrily, hanging her head. She suddenly felt two hooves wrap gently around her neck, their lavender fur brushing against her own cyan fur and chromatic mane. As her head shot up to meet the eyes of her assailant, lips connected passionately with her own. Her eyes grew wide; as she got over the initial shock, they snapped shut, and she proceeded to kiss her wife of three years back.
Scootaloo tried to hide a giggle at her parents' very public display of affection, as well as the uncomfortable reactions of the weather team. She always got a laugh at how ponies reacted to ponies of such high authority snogging each other. They never knew what to do with themselves. As her parents finally broke their kiss, Scootaloo cantered up to them. She threw her hooves around Rainbow's neck and nuzzled her cheek. "I love you, Mom."
After returning the hug, Rainbow pulled back and kissed Scootaloo on the forehead. "I love you too, Squirt. Why don't you run up to your room for awhile?"
Scootaloo nodded obediently and took to the stairs. At the base, one hoof already on the first step, she turned back to her mother with a pleading look in her eye. "Be careful, kay?"
Rainbow winked at the orange filly and flashed her signature grin. "Don't worry, Scoots. I will." She watched her daughter ascend the rest of the steps and enter her bedroom before she turned back to her wife. The confident grin she had plastered to her face for the worried filly was gone, replaced with a thoughtful frown, her own eyes carrying plenty of worry of their own. Twilight looked back into her ruby-red irises and smiled, giving her another quick peck on the lips. "I-I'm a little worried, Twi," Rainbow admitted, "What if they never show?"
Twilight rested a reassuring hoof on her wife's shoulder. "They're coming, Rainbow," she said, "What's got you so worked up?"
Rainbow Dash sighed. She was hoping Twilight would let it go, but there was clearly something on her mind, and the alicorn wouldn't be letting this one go. "I-it's just that...This storm...it's the biggest I've ever seen, and I want to make sure you guys are protected. I-I don't know what I would do if I lost you both." A tear ran down her face, but Twilight quickly and discreetly wiped it away. Her mare was always so insecure about showing any real emotion around anypony else. "Y-you're my only family, Twi, ever since Dad died. I love you."
"Rainbow...I--" The words were lost, and they would have to wait. Two, large, pegasus stallions burst through the door, panting heavily. The wind that billowed in from behind them nearly blew out the candles lighting the library. Two large groups of pegasi stood at attention in ranks behind them.
"We got here as quickly as we could manage!" said the indigo stallion on the right. He spoke in a practiced and proper manner, much like Twilight did most of the time. "We met with the Manehattan team on the way, and Rain Wing insisted the two of us bring our friends from Cloudsdale as well."
Rain Wing, a mint-green stallion with a rust-orange mane scratched a spot on the back of his head and smiled sheepishly. "Sorry 'bout that!"
"No," Rainbow shook her head, all business. "It's perfect." She addressed the indigo stallion with the blonde mane, "Are the teams briefed and ready to take flight, Wind Breaker?"
Wind Breaker nodded once, still a bit out of breath. "Affirmative!"
Rainbow turned to her team and, with an almost uncharacteristic authority to her voice, began barking orders. "Form up!"
The team formed two ranks.
"Team...Atten-TION!" The pegasi snapped to attention.
"At a close-hoof interval...Dress right...Dress!" The first row adjusted to be evenly spaced.
"Cover!" The second row adjusted to be directly behind the first row.
"Right...FACE!" With a carefully choreographed hoof-slide, the pegasi turned to their right in unison in just two fluid motions.
"At a double tiiime~...Forward...MARCH!" At the last command, the team began running in unison out the door. Rainbow went to follow them, but she was stopped by a hoof.
She turned to see Twilight staring back at her. "Rainbow," She said, "Go kick some hurricane flank!"
Rainbow grinned and took to the air. With a lazy salute, she responded, "You got it, Babe!" Like her namesake, she was gone in a dash out the window, leaving just a chromatic trail in her wake. Twilight sighed with a heavy heart. It wasn't easy to see her wife run off into the face of danger like that.
"A-are you sure about this?" A stallion asked Rainbow, flying up to her side, "I think we should just...run."
There was a chorus of agreements, and Rainbow growled. She stopped and spun around to face them in the air. "RUN...WHERE?" She barked. "DO YOU KNOW WHAT A CATEGORY FOUR WOULD DO TO PONYVILLE!!??"
A mare near the back of the formation took the rhetorical question as an opportunity to input her own opinion. "We could all go to Cloudsdale!"
"And what do you think anypony would say to you when they found out you ran away?" Rainbow argued, "When they find out you abandoned your hometown? Left your friends and family to DIE!?" The wind around the teams picked up as the hurricane approached. "'Sides! We're already here, at the edge!"
Wind Breaker and Rain Wing looked to Rainbow Dash for orders. "We need to reverse the direction of the wind, cancel the motion out! It's turning from North to South, so we need to fly around it from South to North at top speed! Got it!?"
She addressed the whole company. They all saluted in unison and barked a solid, "YES MA'AM!"
The wind ripped at their skin and manes as they battled against it. The muscles in their wings burned and cramped from the strenuous workout, yet the torrent remained, a juggernaut that could not be stopped. They were nearing the White Tail Wood, and Rainbow Dash knew that time was of the essence. If they allowed a hurricane of such caliber to reach the forest, every tree in its path would be ripped from the ground. Once within the storm, they would make flying around it impossible.
Rain Wing flew up to her side, flapping his wings as fast as he could to keep up with her. "It's not working! We'll never create enough wing-power to combat these winds! They must be going 233 kilometers an hour!"
Rainbow tiredly shook her head. "It's not impossible," she shouted back. She stared deep into the tempest at her side, sizing it up as if it were a challenging racer. "We have to make it to the eye! We'll be able to overpower it from the inside out!"
"WHAT??? ARE YOU BUCKIN' CRAZ--!" She slapped the hysterical stallion hard across the face.
"Its the only way, damn it! Go tell your team and inform Wind Breaker! NOW!!" He nodded and pulled back to pass the word. She too pulled back, though only enough to pull up aside her lieutenant, Cloud Kicker. "Cloud, we're going into the eye! Inform the others! I'm going in ahead!"
"Yes, Ma'am!" Cloud Kicker obeyed without question. She never once doubted her captain's judgment. Rainbow stared once more into the tempest before banking right and being engulfed in the clouds, rain, and unrelenting debris. It wasn't that bad at first; she found she was flying too high for most debris to reach her, and the lighter objects were infrequent enough to be dodged easily, even in the heavy winds. It wasn't until she found herself at the eye wall that things got seriously deadly. Her wings felt as if they would tear from her shoulder blades as she battled the harsh winds, stronger here than any other area of the storm.
Just before entering the eye, she was caught off guard as a large, metal wind-turbine buzzed over her head. She narrowly escaped decapitation. Instead, the blade lopped off the top half of her left ear, taking its small prize with it into the wind and disappearing. She screamed out in pain, but her cries were swallowed up by the dull roar of wind and clanking debris. As she closed her eyes, she was blind-sided by several bricks to her rib cage and face, causing her to tumble painfully into the eye of the storm.
She took the opportunity to take a small reprieve. She began to lazily circle the eye, waiting for more ponies to arrive. Her entire left side was bruised, blood trailing down her face. It didn't take long for them all to make their way into the calm skies of the eye. Just as she did, they took the first few minutes to catch their breaths. Some fared better than others in the wall, others had been severely injured. Rainbow Dash was sure that a few had even lost their lives in the unforgiving storm.
After just a few minutes, the teams were back in the full swing of things. Rainbow was having trouble breathing. She suspected she'd broken a couple ribs, possibly even punctured a lung. She looked back at her team to make sure things were running smoothly just in time to catch one of the Cloudsdale pegasi accidentally bump Cloud Kicker, sending her tumbling back into the wall where she was knocked unconscious by a tree branch to the head. They must have been over the White Tail Wood by then. She saw an all too familiar object racing toward the mare at blinding speeds. She'd have no time to react. "NOOOOO!!!!"
Rainbow plummeted into the wall, ignoring the debris barraging her already-broken body.
FOOM!!!
Rainbow burst into a sonic rainboom, catching the mare just before the blade sliced her in two. Bruised and bloodied, Rainbow was unable to stop or even slow their descent. As they plummeted toward the ground, Cloud Kicker came to. She clung to Rainbow for dear life, sure hers was about to end. She took the brunt of the fall, landing at the base of a tall, white-barked deciduous tree, but she survived, even maintaining some level of consciousness.
Rainbow smiled happily down at the mare, but it was wiped from her face when they heard the sickly slicing sound of metal through flesh. She slowly looked down to her chest to see the end of a large, bloody blade protruding through it. It had fallen down as the wind slowed to a point where it could no longer support the blade's weight. Blood poured onto Cloud Kicker's lavender-blue coat in bursts with her heart beat. She looked lazily back up to her face, noting the terror in her orchid eyes. "Oh...Buck..." She said, nonchalantly, "KAH!!!" She coughed up a large amount of blood, covering Cloud's face and jasmine mane with it.
She haphazardly fell to her side, unable to hold herself up with the added weight of the blade any longer. She was able to look up at the last minute to see that her sonic rainboom had blown the wind in all directions, giving the rest of the team the needed edge to stop the hurricane. Ironic that it was that same action that had costed her life. Her ruby eyes faded to a dull pink. Her vision was growing black. She barely noticed Cloud Kicker's blood-curdling scream.
"Tell my wife and kid..."
".....I love 'em..."
Twilight had reread her notes once more, and the preparations were complete. Scootaloo had been patiently waiting by her side, staring into the boiling swill and quietly contemplating how it would help them in their cause. She wasn't big on magic, but she was fairly certain that her mother had designed the fluid, herself. Twilight must have finally found a better use for it than transportation between dimensions.
She watched as her mother walked back toward the podium. She turned a knob here, pushed a button there, until finally a small box ejected itself from the panel, yet it remained connected by the bottom. It seemed like an ordinary box, save for a dark, black hole in its side, facing toward Twilight.
She pushed one more button, and the ooze stopped boiling, only for another fluid to encroach upon its space within the tube.
Blood...
Gallons upon gallons billowed up from the metal base of the tube. Scootaloo was horrified as she watched the red fluid mix with the green ooze, turning the whole mix into a brown mess. "W-who's blood's that, M-mom?" She asked hesitantly.
"Mine..." Her mother answered darkly, "You're mother and I shared a very uncommon blood type, 'O-Negative,' and I've been drawing two pints of my own blood every week since she died, Scoots, hoping that one day I'd have a use for it. Now I do!" Her face contorted into a manic grin once more. Scootaloo watched on in awe and horror. She briefly wondered, if time truly moved quicker in this dimension like she had been told, how long her mother had really kept herself isolated with her research. She'd never seen her quite this...mad.
Twilight closed her eyes and concentrated. Her horn began to glow with a strange, violet light that seemed to bubble and suck up the light around it, rather than give off a gentle glow like any other sort of magic would. When she finally reopened her eyes, her irises had gone red, set on green sclera. A purple aura billowed from the sides of her eyes like thick smoke from a chimney. Slowly, she dipped her head down and slid her horn into the box protruding from the control panel.
She seemed to be straining herself, but the fluid began to take on a translucent, clay-orange in color. Scootaloo watched on, increasingly worried about her mother's well-being as she grunted and groaned. Twilight closed her eyes shut, and when she opened them once more, they were completely acid-green in color. The aura had vanished, but her eyes started to drip a black, bloodlike fluid, staining the fur on her cheeks and dripping onto the floor in two, growing pools. "M-mom...?" Scootaloo called out quietly, now extremely concerned.
Rather than grace her daughter with a coherent response, Twilight Sparkle let out a blood-curdling scream which shook the walls of the massive chamber. Scootaloo clung to her, attempting to reach her in some way, but she was too far gone in her dark magic. She was in another realm altogether, a separate plain of existence. She began to speak in an unknown tongue, urgency laced in her bodily voice.
Scootaloo's attention was drawn back to the tank as she watched it change once more. The color was drawn away from the sides, forming in the center a shape far too familiar to be coincidence. Once all the color was in the middle, leaving only water to surround it, the ooze had formed a pegasus. Scootaloo finally saw the fluid for what it had been the entire time: a primordial soup.
As Twilight's eyes filled with the black liquid pouring from them, turning them black as well, the orange shell around the synthetic pony fell away, flaking off and floating to the bottom of the pool like chips of old paint and revealing a distinct lack of skin. It's entire muscular system on display, it hung, seemingly lifeless and suspended in the pool. Twilight removed herself from the control panel...
...And was immediately at the side of the aqua-chamber without a flash or any other warning signal that usually accompanied teleportation. She reached in through the glass like a portal, and dragged the lifeless, skinless mare to the cold, metal floor with her. Blood leaked slowly from every centimeter of the mare's exposed body, pooling under her. She touched her horn to the body, and it completed itself, rapidly growing skin from head to toe, followed closely by fur, then feathers.
It was Rainbow Dash...
Scootaloo hesitantly approached the familiar, cyan mare as she sat up on her haunches. Twilight, finally returning to normal, prepared her horn for some unknown spell. It now glowed a hot white. "M-mom?" Scootaloo asked hesitantly. At the word, the pegasus' eyes shot open, revealing them to be a stunning and rare ruby coloration. She was a perfect replica...
She stared deeply into Scootaloo's eyes, and her fellow pegasus stared back. Scootaloo didn't care that they were now nearly identical in size and age, for she was looking upon her mother for the first time in over a decade. She lunged at the cyan mare and buried her face in her neck. She saturated Rainbow's coat with her tears as she held her in a tight embrace.
"Who.....Are.....You?"
Scootaloo's eyes shot wide open. She felt hurt that Rainbow Dash wouldn't recognize her, but she prepared a response that wasn't immediately accusatory and leaned away to look her in the eyes as they talked...
She looked up at her just in time to see Twilight slide her horn all the way into Rainbow's ear. She screamed. "No. Mom! What are you doing! Stop it!!!" Twilight paid her no heed. She could hear Twilight's horn searing flesh as it bore through Rainbow Dash's head. Those perfect, ruby eyes turned a lifeless gray as she pulled her bloody horn out. The blood ran down her snout, yet she took no notice.
She stared into empty space, just above Scootaloo's head. "Number forty-three. Still soulless." Her eyes were listless, empty. They were so devoid of life, Scootaloo could have mistaken her for a dead mare had she not just spoken.
She slapped her mother hard across the face. "What the buck!" She cried out, voice hoarse from her anguished screaming. Tears ran down her cheeks in heavy streams, and she choked on her sobs as she screamed at her mother. "Why the buck would you do that to Mom!!! You gave her life just to take it away again!?"
The only response she received was a look straight into her eyes from her mother. "Still no soul. Thought this was the one. Sure this was the one!" Her voice was nearly monotonic and slow. She turned away and walked slowly back to her desk. She slumped in her chair and stared at her notes. She seemed catatonic from that point on.
Scootaloo, too angry at her to care any time soon, walked back toward the portal. As she was sucked into the soup, she caught her mother rambling under her breath.
"Must...find...soul."
"Must...make...soul..."
Scootaloo wasn't actually sure what to think, at that point...
