Author's Note

Bleh. If you dislike this fan fic because of this chapter, I don't blame ya. It gets worse :/.
And it's unedited, but I felt like I've delayed the next chapter long enough. Without further ado, here it is...

Rewind A Bit Here

Chapter 5: Rewind A Bit Here

Twilight was still fast asleep when I left; Spike walked up and covered her body with a blanket.

My head was swimming with the new memories that had re-formed in my mind. I took a faulty step outside of Twilight’s house and had to sit down before I fell down. One thing clicked into place, the place where the ponies’ souls were being extracted and turned into rainbows. The place where I worked, where I got my cutie mark.

The Rainbow Factory. Oh, HECK no. I had heard some of the patients around the hospital exchange dark and scary stories about it, whether it was real or not was anypony’s guess. And it was. I was proof of that.

I couldn’t move for a few minutes, sweat beaded on my forehead and muzzle. I started to breathe hard.

Get a hold of yourself, Denim! ordered the normal side of my brain. I can’t! To know that I actually killed ponies as an occupation…! One bucked up job, if you ask me. replied the pessimistically logical side.

“Hooolllyyy buck,” is all I said. That pretty much summed up my feelings, those two words right there. I raised my hooves to my temples and began kneading them, trying to calm my overreacting brain.
Snap out of it, Denim! You need to find a job, and soon.

My head spun rapidly into a black spinning vortex accompanied by the screams of dying ponies.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

A violent splash of cold water revived me.

I sat up immediately and screamed.

“What? What?” exclaimed Twilight in surprise. “Did I hurt you?”

I looked over at her with a pained expression, breathing hard.

“Denim!” she shouted. “Denim! Snap out of it! Speak to me!”

I swallowed hard. “Hi, Twilight.”

“Could you please explain what you were doing knocked out on my doormat?”

“Well, you see, Twilight,” I began, but when I looked around, I noticed that everypony I had ever met was standing there watching me as well, hanging on to every last syllable that I uttered. “I think we’d better talk about this inside.”

Of course, Twilight had to bring 6 of her closest friends as well. I told them my story, starting all the way from the hospital bed. My nightmares, my returning memories of my employment at the Rainbow Factory, and my guess that Chrysalis was after the Factory, so as to use its power against Equestria.

At the mention and description of the sanguine Rainbow Factory, everypony gasped in horror. All of them, except for Rainbow Dash, whose expression hardened to a grim glare.

Once I had finished voicing my recollections, thousands of questions began to pour from the mouths of 4 ponies and one baby dragon. The two exempting from talking were Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. Fluttershy began quaking in fear upon my explanation of the RF and was still shaking away, unable to ask any questions. Rainbow already knew of the Rainbow Factory and didn’t want to talk about it.

“How do you know that Chrysalis is coming here?” was the first question I could understand, which came from Twilight’s mouth.

“Revenge, primarily,” I replied. “She was pretty upset at your brother and your sister-in-law kicking her tail across Equestria with the power she searched to exploit.”

The next comment came from the pony with an amazing accent; Applejack. “Why th’ Rainbow Factory?”

I shrugged. “My guess is that she wants to use a power nopony would see coming, and one that nopony could use against her, at least, not without a high cost on their part. Either way, it’s pretty much a win-win situation for Chrysalis.”

“But, how?” asked Spike.

“Look at it this way: She uses the Rainbow Factory as a power source, at the cost of other ponies, channeling that power and killing pretty much everypony in her path, win path number one. In the event of her losing, we still end up killing a lot of ponies just to turn her own power against her, still a win in her books.”

Everypony paused a second, digesting the information I had just given them.

Fluttershy spoke up. “Um.. excuse me.. Denim?”

“Yes, Fluttershy?”

“Rainbows don’t just run off the power of ponies,” she argued. “The also require the power of the sun.”

I paused a second, my slow brain trying to grasp the slice of genius that Fluttershy had bitten into.

“Sooo… In the event of Chrysalis using the rainbows as the main weapon, we just ask Luna to raise her moon in place of the sun.”

We all stared incredulously at Fluttershy.

“Oh… I’m sorry everypony, was that a bad idea?” she whispered.

Twilight was the first to respond,“Fluttershy! You’re a genius!”

Everypony else joined in, expressing their amazement at Fluttershy’s ingenuity.

Rainbow Dash remained sullen, her eyes barely magenta slits now. She motioned for me to come talk to her in private. My stomach dropped and slid into my hooves.

Once we were out of sight of the other ponies, Rainbow Dash suddenly picked me up and slammed me against the wall with one of her forelegs.

“Are you out of your damn MIND?!” she growled.

“About… what?” I gasped, pulling at Rainbow’s hoof.

“Telling everypony about the Factory!”

“Could… you… rel… lease… me… I… ex…plain,” I choked, my vision starting to fade.

Rainbow dropped me. I collapsed in a heap, sputtering for air.

It took me a few minutes before I could speak normally. “I don’t know what you’re so upset about. All I did was explain the Factory’s facility and purpose, NOT who works there. Your friends don’t know that you still work there. The only pony that they know that came from there is me, and I’m out of that line of work now.”

Rainbow’s expression turned from one of “I'm gonna bucking kill you” to one of deep, confused thought.

“Besides. I may have damn well saved Equestria by revealing Cloudsdale’s little secret,” I added.

The murderous expression returned to Rainbow’s face. “Alright. But if you ever reveal that I am employed there, I will kill you.”

“I am warned,” I said, my mouth turning into my signature cocky smile.

“You are promised,” she replied.

“Tsk, tsk Rainbow,” I said mockingly. “I’ve already lived through a death threat from an alicorn princess. I’m not scared of you.”

Rainbow yanked me up close and glared deep into my eyes. “You’d better be.”
——————————————————————————————————————————

I trotted slowly back to my apartment, Rainbow Dash’s death threat still clear in my mind. I smiled without humour, in spite of it.

I reached the door to my house, but it wasn’t the same. This time, there was a black cap tacked to the door with a small hoofwritten note: Remember this? — C.