Chapter 1: Born Into Darkness
"Ms. Dash! I have the quota update!"
Rainbow Dash moaned as she sat at her desk, rubbing her aching head with her hooves. She glanced towards her office door and muttered a silent curse to herself as she stood on wobbly legs and stumbled towards the door. She flung it open and glared at the pony standing there with a big, goofy smile on his face.
"Don't you know how to talk with an inside voice?!" Rainbow Dash scolded.
The stallion suddenly dropped his smile and his voice filled with fear.
"I am ever so sorry, Ms. Dash! I didn't know that-"
Rainbow Dash held up her hoof to silence him and growled.
"Just give me that!"
Rainbow Dash snatched the tattered clipboard out of the pegasus' hooves and slammed the door in his face. She smiled ever so slightly when she heard him whimper and gallop away, probably towards the bathroom to cry like every other new hire who got their feelings hurt.
She rolled her eyes in disgust and stumbled back to her desk. She was fed up with all of these wimpy pegasi who came here, begging on their knees to be allowed a place to work and live. What good did they serve except to take up all of her spare time? Time she should be using to focus on other important matters.
She caressed her pounding skull once more and glanced down at the clipboard in her hooves, but before she even had a chance to glance at the quota updates, another pegasus burst through her door.
"Ms. Dash, come quick! There's an emergency!" She shrieked.
Rainbow Dash growled once more and rose from her desk, following the employee out of the office. Upon looking up, Rainbow Dash saw three of her workers tasseling with one of the prisoners on the catwalk and by the looks of it the prisoner was getting the upper hoof. She sighed, unfurled her wings, and flew up onto the catwalk. The minute her hooves touched the cold metal, the fight ceased and the prisoner froze in apprehension.
"Gentlecolts, gentlecolts, gentlecolts," Rainbow Dash tsked. "What seems to be going on here?"
One of her employees got back to his hooves, a bloody gash over his left eye, and grabbed the prisoner's neck chain. A small growl emanated from the prisoner's mouth and the employee almost dropped back to the ground. Rainbow Dash smiled and walked towards them.
"Are you causing a problem for my employees?" She asked the prisoner. He didn't respond, but instead just glared at Rainbow Dash through his hazel eyes. Rainbow Dash scoffed and turned her back on him. "Could you give us a minute?"
The other employees looked stunned. They glanced at one another, hooves ready on their electric prods in case the prisoner decided to be stupid again.
"I'd like to teach this punk some manners," Rainbow Dash said calmly. They all suddenly understood and smiled deviously. Putting their prods away, they each took a few steps back as Rainbow Dash turned back around to face the prisoner. "Are you ready for me, young colt?"
The prisoner copied her wicked smile and crouched down into attack position.
"Are you ready for me, old mare?" He taunted.
Rainbow Dash snarled and lunged towards him. He easily dodged her slowing moves and bucked her hind legs out from under her. She cursed loudly and struggled to regain her balance, but the prisoner was on top of her. He slammed her body into the ground and tried to smash his hooves into her wings, but she quickly rolled onto her back and pushed him off of her. Since his wings were locked together by two metal bars, he could not fly off, so Rainbow Dash took this to her advantage. She unfurled her wings and attacked him from the air. Diving straight down, front hooves extended, she careened into his chest. He wheezed and faltered, but then returned with a maneuver of his own. He turned around sharply and delivered a round house kick to Rainbow Dash's head.
"GAH!" She screamed as his hoof met her face. Her body tumbled to the floor and stars shot across her vision. All around her, the guards shouted to one another and took down the prisoner with their electric prods. Rainbow Dash stumbled back to her hooves and glared down at the prisoner who was now barely alive.
"Are you alright, Ms. Dash?" One of the guards questioned, approaching her with his hoof extended.
"Back off, scum!" She screamed, smacking his hoof away.
The guards all stared at each other and then back to Rainbow Dash. She grimaced in pain and then returned their stares. Silence covered the catwalk until a weak and pitiful laugh escaped the prisoner.
"You really are an old mare!" He cackled insanely before being dragged away by the guards. "Too slow, old mare!"
Rainbow Dash paused and looked at the ground.
"I'm not old..." She whispered.
"What was that, ma'am?" Asked one of her employees who had come to investigate the fight.
"Nothing!"
With one final stomp of her hooves on the catwalk, Rainbow Dash headed back towards her office and slammed the door. Mumbling and sputtering, she sat down at her desk and looked over the quota once more. Rainbow Dash squinted to try and make out the words and graphs on the clipboard, but then resolved to picking up her much hated reading glasses from her desk drawer and using them.
"You were right."
Rainbow Dash jumped in her chair and whipped off her glasses.
"Those glasses do make you look old."
She looked up from her paperwork to see one of her more respected employees standing in the doorway.
"I don't believe I gave you permission to enter my office, Midnight Storm." Rainbow Dash snapped as the coal gray stallion flew into the room.
"I don't believe I asked for it." He replied, sitting down across from Rainbow Dash. She smiled at his spunk and placed the clipboard gently down on her desk.
"Did you see the fight?" She asked.
"Yes, ma'am." He responded calmly.
"Are you here to insult me?"
"No, ma'am, I am merely here to help you." He stood from the chair and started pacing the floor.
"Help me?" Rainbow Dash repeated. "What do I need help with?"
"Lots of things," He retorted. Then, turning the subject away from the recent fight, he began talking. "One, the rainbow production has steadily decreased over the past three months,"
"I thought I told Dr. Atmosphere to take care of such problems!" Rainbow Dash shouted as she slammed her hoof into her desk.
"Two, your memory is slowly disappearing!" Midnight Storm stopped pacing and faced Rainbow Dash with a scowl.
"What do you mean, Midnight?"
"Dr. Atmosphere was murdered! One of the captives killed him by strangling him with a rusty chain!"
Rainbow Dash groaned and rubbed her head once more, trying to usher the memories back into her mind.
"I remember now... I'm the one who had to clean up the mess!" Rainbow snorted. She glanced down at her hooves and grimaced, as if she could still see the blood stained to them.
"And three, you're not immortal!"
This last outburst struck Rainbow Dash and knocked her back into her chair. Putting too much attention into the captive's mortality, Rainbow Dash had continually forgotten about her own.
"You need to start thinking about a successor... a new manager... something!" Midnight Storm ranted.
"No pony can run this company like I can, Midnight! Not even you!" Rainbow rose from her chair and stretched out her wings, challenging the young stallion.
"I'm not asking to be the head of this company!" Midnight quickly said, lowering himself to the ground in a submissive state. "I'm merely telling you that you might as well start looking for proper candidates!"
"Proper candidates..." Rainbow Dash mulled over the dark words and trotted over to her office door. She opened it and looked out among the many faces busily working on keeping the old machines polished and running efficiently. She glanced over to an older stallion, currently working on transporting captives to their holding cells using an electric prod. Unfortunately, whenever he struck one who got out of line, he would stoop down and help them back onto their hooves as if he... cared for them.
"Certainly not him!" Rainbow Dash sneered.
"Perhaps this would be better done over interviews, Ms. Dash?" Midnight Storm suggested as he walked up to her side. Rainbow Dash pondered the idea and smiled.
"That will do." She declared. "But if you even hint at the preposterous idea that I am getting too old to do my job in front of the other employees..." Rainbow Dash took in a deep breath. "Then it'll be your spectra that makes the next rainbow waiting in line!"
Midnight Storm shivered and forced himself to stand up straight.
"I understand, Ms. Dash." He replied.
"Good," She walked back into her office. "They will be held tomorrow at three. Inform the others."
"Yes, ma'am,"
With those words, Midnight Storm flew back over to his position on the machines. Rainbow Dash inhaled deeply and sat on her office floor, rubbing her aching head repeatedly.
"What happens to a pony when they fulfill their usefulness?" She wondered.
I cautiously glanced around the dark walls to make sure that no pony could hear what was happening. It was difficult, however, to hear anything above the whirring of the machines and a few long shrieks of agony every now and then. Me and a few of the new captives were trying to make everything seem like normal while a mare hidden below us kept yelping in pain.
"I know it's hard, honey," one of the young filly captives cooed the mare. "But you need to be quiet."
The mare nodded quickly and closed her mouth as tight as she could, but a minute later she opened it up in a pain-stricken screech. A few of the stallions shifted around nervously on their hooves as guard after guard passed overhead on the cat-walks. They didn't seem to notice the chaos happening beneath them... as if they had somewhere important to be and fast.
"I... can't do it!" The mare wheezed loudly, causing one of the guards to freeze on the cat-walk. I slapped my hoof over her mouth and waited for the guard to pass. I then knelt down beside her and shooed the rest of the captives away.
"There's no getting out of it," I said to her bluntly.
"But it hurts!" She hissed, wrapping her hoofs around her swollen belly.
"Look at me," I lifted her face up in my hoof. "I don't believe that we can get out of here alive."
The pregnant mare shuddered in terror and cried out as another contraction shook her body.
"But there might be a possibility that they'll let this foal live!"
Those words seemed to stick with her as she nodded affirmatively and started breathing slowly and deeply.
"That's right..." I encouraged as she strained to get the foal out of her body. The surrounding ponies occasionally glanced over at me helping the weak mare and I thought I had seen one of them smile, but my attention quickly returned to the laboring mare as she gave one final push and the foal was born.
"Oh!" I exclaimed quietly, picking the foal up from the cold ground and wrapping it in my old scarf that I had somehow been allowed to keep.
The mares of the group gasped in joy and crowded against each other to get a look at the new arrival.
"It's a filly!"
Everypony smiled and sighed in awe as I placed the foal into its mother's arms. She nuzzled the tiny creature and sniffled in her happiness as the mares and stallions surrounded her, giggling and wiping fresh tears of joy from their faces. And for that brief moment, everything felt better.
But then that moment ended...
"Hey!" Somepony shouted loudly.
We all slowly looked up towards the catwalk and saw that a guard had heard our commotion.
"What's going on down there?!" He demanded, pulling his electric prod from his side.
None of us answered, but you could hear the new mother whimpering in terror as more guards assembled on the catwalk.
