Rainbow Factory - The Closure

Chapters

Chapter 1 - Job Search
Chapter 2 - The Old Dispatch Center
Chapter 3 - A New Job
Chapter 4 - Dirty Work
Chapter 5 - Taking Back Control
Chapter 6 - The Closure

Chapter 1 - Job Search

Prologue:

I never thought to end up here.
Sometimes I wish it never happened.
Never happened to me,
never happened to Rainbow.
I never was the person for such things.

I was everything in my life. Friendly, funny, generous, honest, faithful, and a lot of people said there was something magical about me. How could it be otherwise? I'm a Brony, a fan of the series "My Little Pony - Friendship is Magic" . I've seen every episode so far and I can even call myself an expert when it comes to the series. And not only that, through the series I discovered many qualities in myself, but this experience has taken them all away.

I had recently completed my training and was looking for a job as a manager with good pay. And I discovered a job that I should never have discovered. The recipient was unknown to me, but I had no alternative. So I overlooked this little detail and sent my application. The next days I received a message. I should go to an unknown station in my area as soon as possible, where a steam locomotive should pick me up. I only wish I had never boarded this train. This train was to take me to my destination. When I got there, I was to discover that there are things behind the rainbow that are better left undiscovered.

You already know the Rainbow Factory. You already know what the ponies must go through there. But you don't know what it's like to work there. You know what it feels like to be the guy pushing the lever; to be responsible for what happens there. I'll tell you what it's like behind the scenes... to the bitter end. This is my story. My story as co-manager of the Rainbow Factory.

Chapter 1 - Job Search

At last! I had completed my training. Now I was ready to work as a manager of a company. It wasn't easy, but I had done it. I couldn't believe it. I could now become the manager of a big company. I would get great responsibility...and a very good salary. This could be the highlight of my career.

Okay, enough dreaming. Of course it would have been great if a company would hire me as their manager. But just where... where would I start my search?I thought about starting my search in the local job portal. It was one of the easiest and fastest ways to get a job.

Unfortunately, the company where I had been working for a long time did not want to pay me any more, because I now had a higher qualification. In the last weeks I tried to find a quick change to another job, but it turned out to be more difficult than I had first thought. Unfortunately the company could no longer feed me, so I soon had my last day of work behind me. That day I was still out on the town in the evening and enjoyed the sunset a bit before I took the train home at the station. Now I really had all the time in the world.

When I got home, I took the advertising out of the mailbox and the daily newspaper. Upstairs in the apartment I put down the paperwork consisting of certificates and references and refreshed myself with cold water. I wasn't sure if I should be happy that I have now successfully completed my further education or if I should be in a bad mood because I was now looking for a new job again. I went back to the front door and searched the pile of paper from my mailbox for important letters, which normally always got lost under all the advertising. Then a loose A4 sheet of paper fell into my hands, which seemed to be machine-generated.

An expanding company is currently looking for a co-manager in production and processing. Psychological resilience and punctuality is expected from you 'situationally'. You will be given great responsibility.

Our employees are still motivated by the mythology of the city where our company is located. This city is in a very beautiful location with seductive decor. The company itself is part of a large Weather Factory. Your job in the department of the factory will be to monitor the weather stability.

Do you think you're up to the task?
Then the answer for you lies in a simple facility.
The salary is above average.
Please send us your application as soon as possible in the enclosed envelope.

Ever since I published my job application, I've received these flyers. But there was something different about this one. Even it was machine-generated, apparently somebody had really made a serious effort to write this job offer. Who was still handing out job flyers today in the time of digitalization? But the job offer was only half right for me, I wanted to become a manager right away. Not a co-manager.

Although, as a manager I had a lot of responsibility. Maybe I should take it slow and become assistant manager. I looked at the big A4 envelope that was still stuck in the newspaper. A big symbol was printed on the back. It showed a cloud from which a lightning bolt shot and above the cloud three big coloured bars could be seen. An address was not recognizable on it.

I didn't know what to wonder about more. About the job offer or about the job description. For me it felt like winning the lottery to find such a handwritten note in my mailbox, even if the job description sounded strange. Especially I had never heard of a 'Weather Factory' before, but this detail interested me even more. Even if I didn't know how the letter would arrive despite the missing address, this was my best chance to find a new job quickly.

It was already late in the evening when I had all documents together. When I looked out of the window it had already become night outside and a strong wind was blowing outside. I wanted the envelope to be delivered first thing the next day, although I still wondered how the post office would find the recipient. But I had no other possibility, so I put something on to go down to the mailbox. When I wanted to go down the stairwell it was pitch black, even though it had windows. But there was no light from the street, because I lived on the upper floor. I turned on the stair light switch ... but it didn’t work.

"Not again!" I thought and took out my cell phone to light my way down.

It didn't happen often, but every now and then the stairwell light didn't work. The landlord saw no need to replace the old fuses with new ones as long as the old ones still worked a little. So I always had the mobile phone with me in case I had to light my way.

The apartment building did not have an elevator because it did not have enough floors. Again I realized that there was money saved all around me and I would love to move to another apartment...maybe even a house, that would be my absolute dream. It would be even better if my home was directly at my new workplace, then I could sleep longer and would be home again quickly in the evening. But of course these were just daydreams.

When I left the apartment there was a bang that could be heard through the whole stairwell and made me shiver again and again. The sound came from the steel cellar door at the bottom of the stairwell. Apparently someone of my neighbours was already downstairs to turn the power back on. This was oftenly left to us tenants, as the janitor hardly ever showed up and never left his house in case of such a trifle. Did I already tell you how much I loved living there?

I walked carefully down the stairs and illuminated my way in the dark stairwell. One floor below me I heard the wind howling into the stairwell. The stormy night outside was enough to give me goose bumps. I went down the stairs to see that a window was wide open. Probably someone wanted to air the staircase and forgot to close the window. I closed it again and suddenly noticed how quiet it got in the staircase, it was really scary. I should quickly get the envelope down and then crawl back into my apartment where a nice warm tea would be waiting for me.

After the next stairs I was glad to be downstairs. Next to me the stairs went down to the cellar door and I wondered why my neighbour was taking so long. Maybe he didn't find the correct fuse, that wouldn't surprise me with the huge switchboard. Fortunately it was mostly always the same. I should help him to turn on the power for a moment, then I would throw the envelope into the mailbox.

I went down to the cellar door to open it. Inside the cellar compartment there was no light on either. I pressed the light switch for the cellar, without success. Apparently more fuses had blown. I went on to the room where the switch box was, the dark basement compartments drew eerie shadows into the corridor when I went through with the lamp in my cell phone. Arriving in front of the fuse room I noticed that the door was leaning against the wall. Usually me and my neighbors closed the doors after we finished down here. And since nothing could be heard from the room, there seemed to be nobody inside. Strange, I could have sworn I didn’t hear the neighbour leaving the cellar again. He would have met me on the way up. So where had he gone?

I went inside and turned towards the wall with the switchboard. It was also wide open. When I flipped up the plastic disk in front of the fuse I saw the problem. Maybe something had caused a short circuit, but the fuse was still okay. I pushed the black button of the fuse in and the lights in the basement went on again.

"Well, there you go. And we’re back in business..." I said to myself and flipped the cover of the fuse back down.

Then I suddenly saw something in the reflection on the plastic disk. A small dark creature stood behind me at the door, but I could only see it blurred. I could not move in panic, even screaming was not an option as I was frozen in fear. I could only see that it had bright pink eyes and its dark suit shimmered in various colours, but much of it was red and I could guess that it was blood. I panicked and jumped to the side, which in retrospect was not such a good idea. I banged my head against a pipe hanging low from the ceiling and my eyes went black.

When I woke up, I was lying on the floor. The light from the basement was still on, as was the lamp from my cell phone, which was lying on the floor next to me. The creature was no longer here. What was that? Did I imagine it? I guess I'd been watching too many horror movies lately. I must have rubbed my head, because the impact on the pipe still hurt. At least the light was on again, so I shouldn't bump into anything else so easily. But now I had to put the envelope in the mailbox. I looked around to see where they might have gone when I fell. But it was no longer there. I remember I held it tightly in my hand and now it was gone.

"Perhaps the creature from earlier had stolen the envelope?" I joked to myself in my imagination.

But I had it with me before that happened, I was sure of it. Or... maybe not? Had I perhaps been so brainless and still had the letter up in the apartment? That was quite possible, after all I was a bit forgetful...especially when it came to important things. I locked the cellar again and went up to my apartment with a headache. And again I noticed that the window on the same floor as before was open. Now it really made me sceptical, because again there was nobody in the stairwell but me. And that someone forgets to close it twice was not very likely. Many of my neighbours were old, but not demented. I looked out of the window and saw that it was still night, so I didn't seem to have been away that long. I thought I would go to bed as soon as possible to check on the envelope tomorrow. Maybe it was still down in the basement, but for now...I didn't want to go down there again.

Very early the ringtone of my mobile phone woke me up from sleep. Either I had slept too long, or the caller had a good reason to call me in the early morning hours. I looked at the mobile phone and saw that it was an unknown number, but there were only two possibilities who would call me at that time: Some call center or the employment agency. I accepted the call and a young female voice addressed me with my name.

"Hello? Who is this?" I asked interested.

"Are you the one who's interested in the co-manager job?"

I was standing in bed when the person said that sentence. I had written some applications so far, but until yesterday I didn't even know that I wanted to become co-manager.

"Yes...yes, that's right. Who am I speaking to?"

"It doesn't matter who I am. Could you start with us right now?"

I found it odd that the caller didn't give her name. Usually that was the first thing discussed on the phone.

"I can do that. Does that mean I got the job?" I asked briskly.

"Maybe. Before that, I only have one question for you... you're human, right?"

This question puzzled me a little, but I answered instinctively, of course.

"Yes, I am human, even as a manager." I joked.

"Perfectly..."

Then she hung up.

What was that? That was the strangest phone call I ever got. I had to smile for a second. Because that voice... that very voice. I knew it from somewhere. It's like I heard it every day without knowing who she was. But how did they know I applied?

So I went back down to the basement. This time everything was peaceful, through the open cellar windows some sunlight came into the cellar and I heard some children playing outside. I looked in the exact place where I had the envelope last. But it was not there anymore. Maybe someone had found the letter and suspected that I had lost it and threw it into the mailbox when they found it in the basement today. That would also explain the phone call, but since when has the post office delivered letters so quickly overnight?

I tried to clear my head and went out into the fresh air. When I arrived back home after a short walk around the block, I noticed something special again. A big envelope was suddenly lying in my mailbox. But I hadn't seen a post bus before and I was only gone for a few minutes. But to be honest, it has happened to me that I missed my deliveries just because I went shopping. I didn't think anything of it and pulled the big letter out of the mailbox.

Again only the logo with the cloud, the three different colored bars and a lightning bolt underneath was visible on the envelope, but I noticed that many well-known companies really often had such pre-printed envelopes nowadays. For many of them an extra address was not necessary anymore. When I arrived at the top of my apartment I opened the letter and took out the contents. Inside were strange looking tickets...but the patterns and decorations on them didn't mean anything to me. Enclosed was an aerial photograph showing an old dispatch center that I knew very well. The old train depot on the dispatch area was framed with a red circle. In addition, a letter was attached to the envelope. On it was a letter with the same logo as on the envelope before. The content of the text would bring me clarification, so I started to skim the cover letter.

Dear applicant,

We would like to get to know you personally. Unfortunately, for operational reasons, our location is not accessible to you by the usual means of transport. You can reach our location by a Transition Railway train, which will pick you up at the designated location as soon as you arrive. Please make sure to carry your tickets with you to signal the conductor where you have to get off. Please understand that we cannot disclose our location for operational reasons.

Again there was no name on the ticket. It seemed a bit rude to me that I only got some text modules like the job flyer. But the company seemed to be interested in me, otherwise they would have cancelled me long ago.

So I packed all my necessary things for the train ride and for the job interview and set off. But before I left, I did one last thing: I picked out my best suit for the interview to make a good impression. The black jacket, a dark blue shirt and my red tie. But if it should get dirty, I packed an orange and white spare tie, just to be sure.

It did not take long and I found myself at the old dispatch center. As I looked around, I noticed the old freight station. But I couldn't see any way to get to the platform as the only access was only possible through the dispatch building. I walked to the other side of the station and only discovered the old freight elevator with its doors wide open. However, it looked as if it had no electricity. I wanted to try it anyway and stood in carefully. The elevator screeched and I carefully went to the control panel. When I pressed the buttons nothing happened. Maybe it was one of those old elevators that wouldn't start until I closed the doors. I tried and the elevator's interior lighting started to glow brightly. A low hum could be heard and I tried to operate the control panel again. Then the elevator started moving and took me up to the platform.

I got out of the elevator, stood at the platform and inspected the surroundings. Since the large dispatch center in my town had closed down, no one had been here for a long time. The station building was old and slightly blackened. Probably there had been a fire inside. Over time, the platform covering crumbled away, leaving large holes in the surface. My view fell on the rails and I was astonished. The rails were rusty, but you could see on the rust-free upper side that trains were still running here. But the track ended here. Which train would still come here today? The employer had mentioned that the train would leave here. But the question was, when? The sound of a whistling steam locomotive quickly answered my question.

I felt queasy because a train came at the exact time I entered the platform. The train came from a siding and entered the station in front of me. When it stopped, all the doors of the train opened, but I noticed that nobody got off. It must be my train, even if it seemed very old. Let's see where the journey would take us. When I grabbed my luggage and had just boarded the train, the doors were already closing behind me as if by magic. It really felt like that. But nowadays I was used to the quiet doors anyway, the old doors had always given me a fright when they slammed. I couldn't go back now, that much was certain, the train was already moving. But there was no loud departure signal, the locomotive literally crept out of the station. Meanwhile I looked for a free seat in the next compartment. The choice was big, because I was all alone in the compartment. I put my luggage on a free seat and looked around in the train until the next compartment. Again nobody was there. I had the feeling that I was the only passenger. The access to the locomotive was blocked. But there had to be someone I could ask where I was going. Through the windows, I could still see the outline of the outskirts of my home town before it disappeared behind the train. I went to the part of the train that was behind my compartment. As I opened the rear carriages, a gentle breeze moved through the corridor. These carriage had to be for luggage, the room was poorly lit and not insulated. Wind and noise penetrated into the empty room and I found it slightly spooky how the chains rattled on the walls, which were apparently meant to secure the suitcases. I could see dark spots on the wooden floor, the wood seemed to be oily and old. I didn't want to ruin my polished shoes with it. I decided to return to my compartment and sit down again, after all I wanted to see where the journey was going, even if I was not allowed to know where my destination was. When I returned to my compartment I noticed that my bag was open and the train tickets were lying perforated outside.

"Strange. The conductor validated it without me being there. But there's nobody around here, or was he in the locomotive with the driver?" I asked myself worriedly.

I checked if everything else was in the bag. Cell phone, wallet, ID. Everything still there. All this secrecy seemed very strange to me, of course, but to get the train ride over quickly, I spent some time playing games on my mobile phone. I'm sure it would all clear up soon once I had the job safe.

It had become evening in the meantime. I didn't know how long the journey was going to last, I didn't have anyone to ask. When I decided to go to sleep, I noticed that the seats were exceptionally comfortable. It must have been a very special train.

"A whole train just to get me to work? They must really care about me," I said proudly about myself as I stared at the ceiling of the train car.

Then I slowly fell asleep until I was suddenly awakened by a jolt on the train. I woke up and looked around. The car lights were on and outside the rain was pelting against the window, night had fallen. For some reason the train had stopped. I couldn't see where the train had stopped, outside I saw nothing but trees. Were we already at our destination or maybe an animal got in front of the train, why it had to make an emergency stop? I tried to stay calm, but then the lights in the waggon suddenly went out.

I panicked. I couldn't see a platform. Did I have another nightmare? As I looked outside through the window, I suddenly saw a bright flash that briefly lit up the entire train and made it shake. Then I noticed in the next moment how the waggon became calmer again. When my eyes got used to the darkness again, I could take another look through the window. Outside in the darkness the trees were now better visible, as the rain had stopped. But they looked different from the ones I had just seen. Maybe it was just an optical illusion, after all I just had half a heart attack. Probably a lightning bolt had struck the wagon and disabled the electronics. Looking through the window, I noticed a figure close to the track that I had initially thought was a small tree. I noticed it staring at me directly through the window. It was not even 5 meters away, and yet I could not see it clearly. The creature wore a black robe, but I could see something: Those bright pink eyes staring at me. It was this obsessive and cold look the creature gave me. I recognized it immediately: It was the creature that had been lurking in my cellar before. But it simply stopped in front of the window and apparently had no intention of entering the train.

I was paralyzed in this moment, it must have been another nightmare. When the creature outside suddenly took off like a bird and disappeared into the starry sky, the light in the train went on and it slowly started moving again. Now I was really worried whether the whole thing was really correct. First the mysterious phone call, then the perforated train tickets and this creature that was constantly chasing me. I wanted to get off the train and go home again, but it seemed as if I was as far away from home as never before. And what if I would meet this creature out in the woods? I only hoped at that point that she was not on the train. That look was by no means friendly. It kept giving me a chill down my spine when I remembered it. I decided to go back to sleep, or at least pretend to, to wake up from this nightmare. And if the creature would come to me in the train and do something to me, at least I would not want to see it. For the first time in my life I felt the fear of death. So I tried to fall asleep very quickly and believed that it was just a nightmare and that I would wake up right away.

I woke up again when the brakes of the waggon were applied again, but this time much more gently. Apparently this had really been just another nightmare. Good, because I was already beginning to doubt my sanity. The train had apparently arrived at its destination. The sun was about to rise and the dawn was shining into the train compartment and illuminating it. Everything seemed somehow...different. The furniture, which suddenly glowed in pastel colors. They no longer cast a shadow or had similar discoloration. As if that wasn't enough, I looked out the window. Outside I found the same spectacle. Everywhere there was this strange colouring, but I could not see it clearly as it was still too dark. At this time I did not yet notice where I knew the surroundings from. But this should show up for me relatively fast.

The train was coming into a railway platform. But there was no station sign, not even a real station. The train doors reopened as I was putting my luggage back together. It was very unlikely that the creature from my dreams would lurk here or follow me all the way here. So I just decided to get off the train. Once outside, I couldn't see much. Then the doors of the train closed again and seemed to drive downhill until I couldn't see it anymore. I decided to follow the path along the tracks. Wherever the train was going, it was probably my destination too. It was still very dark, but the first rays of sunshine made me at least recognize the outline of a path. Something was very strange about this environment. The underground was white and soft, when I examined it more closely. Like walking on cotton candy. Getting lost here was practically impossible, there was only one way. This led me to a very large structure that seemed to be enclosed in this "cotton candy". All around, I did not recognize any other buildings, only this big cloud-like object. But everything seemed somehow artificial. The actually so voluminous clouds in the sky looked like flat surfaces. Without any spatial depth. But I didn't perceive the surroundings that early in the morning, I rather focused on the big object in front of me.

The way led to a big cloud formation, where on the other side of the clouds apparently a thunderstorm was present. Lightning struck from the clouds and it thundered, but there was no rain. I watched this spectacle and walked on in amazement until I slowly came to the end of the path and looked at a large wall of clouds. When I stood in front of it, directly under the huge cloud formation, I was at first perplexed. This cloud wall had the shape of an entrance gate, but there was no bell and no door handle. So I banged my fist four times strongly against the wall, which made quite a noise despite the cloud cover. Apparently there was a massive steel gate right behind the cloud cover. But at first there was no reaction. When I wanted to try it again, it suddenly hissed behind the gate. I flinched for a moment, because until now I was surrounded by an unnatural silence and this gate made a noise you could still hear for a long time. The hissing became louder and steam came through under the gate. When the gate opened slightly I saw where the steam came from. The gate was pulled open by large steam-driven pistons.

This construction impressed me. Apparently this building was also very well secured against unauthorized access. Maybe there were secrets in this Weather Factory that should not be easily disclosed to the public. Maybe it was also a secret weather research laboratory working under quarantine? Hard to imagine what substances must be stored in there, that it had to be sealed off so well. I liked this kind of security and at that moment it gave me the feeling of being something special.

Not many people have been able to see the interior of this facility. Since the nightmare on the train ride I found more anticipation and pleasure at this place.

When I entered the lobby, it was quite empty. Only the large windows illuminated the room with sunlight. There was only a table, two chairs and a massive wooden door that seemed to be locked when I pressed the door handle. On the bare stone wall above the table there was only one decoration hanging, which was slightly scorched. The writing was not legible for me, but I noticed that the whole text was handwritten. Someone had apparently put a lot of effort into it, sad that it is now in such a bad condition. At this moment I had no other choice than to sit down on one of the chairs and wait. When I just took a look at my mobile phone, I noticed that I had no network. I tried to find out where I was with the map program. But I also had no GPS signal. Probably this was because of the strong concrete walls. I was about to go out to get a signal, when I noticed one of the wooden doors opening.

Nobody came out. I wanted to close the door because I thought it might have opened accidentally. But I was also curious what was behind the door, there was nothing to see inside. When I took a look inside, the ceiling lights came on. They lit up a corridor that ran parallel to me. As I entered the corridor, I was presented with another picture of the interior. Inside, the corridor consisted almost entirely of iron and pipes. The ceiling lamps shone in a weak light, but it was still enough to see something in the distance. There was a figure approaching from the darkness. I tried to keep my composure, because if this really was part of my work, I would probably embarrass myself in front of my future employer. To be honest, I've never been to a factory. However, I always wanted to visit such a factory because I just found it interesting. There is something secret and mystical about not knowing what goes on in the big industrial halls. Probably this is just normal here and I just overreacted because of the nightmares I had in the last days.

So I tried to stay calm. But I always flinched when I heard the footsteps on the cold floor grid. The footsteps sounded like...hooves. A horse? There was actually a horse coming towards me. But its head was lowered and it went very slowly. As it approached, I recognised the creature more clearly. From its appearance it looked like...a pony from the series "My Little Pony - Friendship is Magic". I couldn't believe it and had to look closer to understand it. There was actually a pony from my favourite series running towards me.

But there was something different about this pony, I didn't know it either. He stared at me with his green eyes, fixed me on his long way to me. When he walked under the ceiling lights, I recognized his colors: he had a two-colored mane. Yellow and green. The fur had a beige tone. The pony wore a reddish dirty vest. It looked as if the vest was soaked with old oil, similar to the stains in the luggage car in the train. As it came closer, I noticed a rather unpleasant smell. The pony had probably just come from a garbage plant, it smelled like rotten stuff. When he stood directly in front of me, he looked at me for a moment. Then his eyes wandered away and the pony turned around in front of me. Something told me that I should follow him. At first I didn't say a word out of astonishment, but when I joined him on his way, he suddenly started talking to me.

"So, you're the new co-manager here?" The pony looked at me sceptically.

I was a little surprised that it could speak. I knew that the characters from the series "My Little Pony" could, but we were here in reality. How could it even exist here? On second thought, it also explained the strange appearance of the environment. Was I in Equestria? My assumption seemed correct. I was in the world of "My Little Pony". I pinched my arm briefly to check if I was still dreaming. But I was wide awake and there was a talking pony running beside me. I tried hard to stay cool.

"Yes...um. Can you tell me what's going on? What is this place? How can you talk?"

"I could ask you the same thing. I don't even know what you are, but from your reaction I have the feeling you know where you are. Then you must know who we are."

"Yes, I have such an idea where I am but I can't believe it. You look like ponies. But how can that be?"

"You may believe it or not, but you are here in Equestria. And we really are ponies. This may all seem like a dream to you now, but believe me... nothing is further from the truth." said the pony.

The pony seemed to be less happy about it than I was, but I could hardly believe my luck. I had heard some stories that many Bronies could imagine living in Equestria, but of course it could not exist. But this pony was not a disguised person who wanted to tease me somehow. It was a real cartoon pony, which was just walking next to me. I just decided to play along, because if this should really be a dream in the end, it is welcome to go even longer. So I let myself in on a conversation until I knew what was going on.

"Nice to meet you. What's your name?" I asked interested.

"My call sign here is WoodenToaster, but just call me Glaze. I'm the production manageress here. You know... doing the dirty work." said it to me with a grin.

"I'm sorry, you said production manageress? You look like a mare, but... no offense... you sound like a stallion," I said cautiously.

"Yeah, I get that a lot." she laughed, "Sorry, as a production manageress you have to get loud from time to time. I think I've ruined my voice a little bit on the dirty work."

"Dirty work?"

The pony looked at me with an embarrassed look, apparently he did not want to talk about it.

"All the work you don't have to do."

That's all I wanted to know about her work. The way she smelled, I could already guess that she either worked for the waste disposal or was a machine operator there.

"Oh, I'm sorry." I apologized for my curiosity.

Probably her job wasn't easy at all. She seemed upset and had deep tear sacs. She probably worked long hours overtime. There were scars and scratches on her body, probably she worked really hard here. She saw my concern about her physical condition in my eyes and winked at me.

"Well, don't worry. This is not about me, this is about you. I think you're exactly the person we need. We need someone who thinks differently than everypony else."

"If you say so, I'll do my best...even if I'm not a pony," I said to her confidently.

I didn't know what Glaze was talking about, of course. Just the thought of me talking to a pony confused me too much.

"I'm sure you can do it." she said and nudged me gently with her hoof.

For the rest of the way, there was not a word to say. I didn't want to overwhelm Glaze with all my questions either. Although I would have been quite interested to know how I got here. I only met her a few minutes ago. It was nice of her to give me a gentle introduction, so I could process everything a bit better.

We walked further down the corridor of the building. It led into a larger hall, but with as little decoration as the reception hall, in the job description I had somehow imagined it differently. The factory looked a bit run-down and everything else was kept quite bare and sterile. Glaze noticed that I felt slightly uncomfortable.

"Don't be surprised. When this factory was built a long time ago, everything was more "alive" here. But the manager had decided at the moment of laying the foundation stone to move the other departments of the building to the upper floors later. Today everything is still quite hectic and full. Nopony have come down here since the opening, unless they work here now, as you will hopefully soon. But I think that's good. We prefer to be alone. Besides, the complex isn't finished yet. There's a lot of things that still need to be done."

I liked the fact that Glaze mentioned that she was into team players. I could imagine that if this is not just a dream, we could become really good friends. What could be better at this moment than to be friends with a being that actually only existed in fantasy and on TV?

Through the windows of the hall I was able to catch a few glimpses of the back of the building. I saw again some of those flat clouds and rainbow falls that apparently ran down the side of the building as art decoration. Probably the rainbow waterfall was just colored water to get an artistic effect, since this was a Weather Factory. Where should liquid rainbows come from? At the next wing of the building I saw a complex that looked like a factory: It looked functional, but probably not designed for comfort. I've always had a weakness for such facilities.

"Oh, yes. How was your trip?" asked Glaze, to break the silence.

I tried not to bring up the nightly incident in the forest for now. After all, I didn't want to seem paranoid right away.

"Oh yes, Glaze. Thanks for asking. The train ride was a little long and tiring, but I arrived safely."

"I'm glad. I'm sorry if it seemed a little dirty, we actually only use the train to transport certain things."

I did not want to appear too curious, so I refrained from asking about the goods. I probably wouldn't have found out about it now anyway.

"What do you actually do in your spare time?" she asked me.

"Well, when I'm not looking for the next job, I spend a lot of time with my family."

Then Glaze stopped briefly and looked down at the ground.

"Family... yeah, that's nice..." she said slowly to herself.

"What about your family?" I asked interested.

Then she looked at me with her green eyes, which looked slightly worried.

"I think I have been working here too long for that. I can hardly remember my parents except my father...I often dreamed about him. But lately I don't sleep so well either." she said and went on walking.

Glaze's condition worried me a bit, she looked really quite battered. Apparently she suffered from a severe burnout, but her position apparently didn't allow her to stay away from work. That really sounded like dirty work. I hoped that this would change in the near future and maybe I could act as co-manager to make sure that she could see her family again. That is, IF I got this job...

We walked along the corridors, it seemed like a big labyrinth of pipes and steel. Then we came to a large staircase.

"These stairs lead to the executive floor. From here we go directly to the office of Dr. Hide Atmosphere."

Glaze realized that the name didn't mean anything to me.

"Oh, did he use his writing pads again without putting his name underneath? That's just like him..." joked Glaze.

"He is the current co-manager here. He doesn't usually move out of his office, and he comes down here even less often. That's why I picked you up. He may sound like a couch-potato to you now, but if anything goes wrong at the factory, he's there. He's one of the ponies that started this factory... and... he's pretty outspoken. Lucky for you, he's the one who decides if you get the job." she said sarcastically.

"Interesting, Glaze. I will try to make a good impression," I said that confidently.

She switched to a more serious face.

"II give you a hint. Keep a low profile and don’t ask too many questions. He’s probably a little...displeased. Especially since it's our boss who hired you and not him."

"But if you already have a co-manager, why does your boss need me?"

"I don't know, but our boss will have its reasons. But you should concentrate on your interview right now." Glaze replied to me.

Then I stayed calm for a while, probably I had already asked enough questions. We went up the stairs and followed the big corridor on the left. Again the corridor led into a hall that got narrower towards the end. The sun shone brightly through the windows and threw the light stripes into the hall. I noticed that there were many doors here. I wanted to have a look behind the doors, but I did not want to appear curious. The walls seemed to be really bare here, so apparently there was some construction work to be done. Then we passed a big door. In front of this door were several paintings that had not been hung up yet, at least I could tell by the shape. They were all covered with a white tarp, probably to protect them from dust.

As we walked past it, Glaze noticed my curious look and pulled me slightly with her hoof.

"Come now, Dr. Atmosphere doesn't like to be kept waiting. You'll see soon enough when all this is finished." she promised me.

We arrived at the end of the corridor at another big door. It was slightly ajar and you could look inside a little. On one side of the room were high bookshelves. But there were not many books in them yet. The rest was on the floor and also covered with a white tarp.

"Well, this is where the tour ends,” said Glaze before she became more serious again, "I'm not allowed to come in, the Doctor wants to talk to you personally.”

I felt queasy. "Do you think I can do this?"

She nudged me briefly with her hoof. "It all depends on you. But I think you can handle it. You make a very good impression. It'll be fine." She winked at me.

"Thanks for your help, Glaze."

"My pleasure..." she said and headed back to the countless corridors.

So I entered Dr. Atmosphere's office and immediately felt the oppressive environment. In itself, the room was huge. There were meter-high bookshelves on the walls. But that was exactly what frightened me, I felt tiny. Nevertheless I walked upright towards the large desk. The chair was turned away from me towards the large windows through which the sunrays shone from outside. When I almost stood at the desk, the figure on the chair turned around and looked me in the eyes.

"So, you're the creature for the assistant manager position?"

One thing was immediately clear to me: this was not the person I was talking to on the phone. So I held off asking that question until I met the person. But Glaze was right, first I had to have an interview with this Dr. Atmosphere before I could meet the boss.

"Yes. I am." I replied confidently, "How can I be of service?"

"Now wait a minute, you haven't got the job yet. First you have to prove yourself."

This was just routine for me. New bosses always want you to hold your own.

"Do you know anything about mechanical engineering?" the pony asked me.

"I... well, my father is an electrician. I think this could be useful," I said shyly.

"Well, at least something. But in your position, that's not so important."

I slowly started sweating. That went well. I was so nervous that I would say something that might cost me my job.

"And since we're having trouble finding new personnel anyway, we’re..." the pony sighed slightly, "...glad for all support we can get."

I noticed how the pony tried hard to stay friendly. Something was strange about him. Had he learned that sentence by heart? And why was this job supposedly so unpopular? But I really wanted that job, so I simply did not ask.

"Let's get to the point. You are hired by us to manage a small production facility that is entrusted with a project. But first you have to organize it, and I really don't care how.”

Thanks to my further training, I would have no problems with setting up a company for the project.

"Wow, my own company? I don't even know how I..."

The pony interrupted my euphoria immediately.

"Hey, not so fast. Your company is run by us, understand? You will do nothing until I give you permission. Remember, even as an executive, you remain a tiny little cog. You work for the manager... and you work me. You are lucky that we have any use for beings like you at all." the pony silenced me.

Now I knew where my place was. Glaze had not exaggerated when she called him 'displeased'.

"I understand. What should I do first?" I said sheepishly.

"Why do you ask me that? You'll think of something. Oh yes, I probably have to mention that this company is not to be opened "here", of course, so that your incompetence won't immediately be noticed and disrupt the workflow. But since we don't want to overstrain you right away, we have already found a place for the company. Here is the address..."

The pony handed me a piece of paper, in which apparently something was wrapped.

"I'm sorry I can't tell you where this address is, but like I said: I don't care. The manager said you will understand. So get out of here." Atmosphere said and turned away from me again.

"He is done." Atmosphere said, waving his hoof.

Suddenly, I noticed something sharp poking into my neck from behind. Then I got dizzy and slowly sank to the ground. I suddenly saw a rainbow of bright colors before my eyes slowly turned black. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a blue pony with a yellow mane, holding some kind of instrument in its hoof.

When I woke up, I was no longer at the factory. It was cold and dark. I looked around. As my eyes slowly got used to the darkness, I noticed how I lay on rails. In front of me, I noticed the taillights of a train moving away from me. My first thought was that I was being kidnapped. But I was not tied up. I was just lying on the ground. As I pulled myself together, I noticed the surroundings. I was back at the freight station where I had boarded the train before. I was startled when I heard a noise behind me. Behind me I heard the sound of passing cars driving by on the main road next to the abandoned depot. The street lamps were shining brightly. I kept looking around and noticed that I was almost alone. According to my watch it was very early in the morning. Of course there were no people on the street. But what the hell had just happened?

I had to collect myself first. Was it all just a crazy dream? Did I slip on the platform and fall into the track bed? But if it was all a dream, how did I get here? I was totally confused. I noticed that I still had my suit on, which had become dirty from falling into the track bed. Fortunately I still had my luggage with me.

"Oh, great, the cleaning will cost a bunch of money. So, big empty railyway station... check. a street over there...check. I'm freezing to death... check."

I tried to scrape the most important facts together, but I felt the cold immediately. I had to get home as soon as possible, but first I had to know how I would get home from here. It was almost winter and the days were getting shorter. When I tried to put my hands in my pockets because of the cold, I noticed that there was a note in there. I took it out and unfolded it. It made me as uncomfortable as the cold night, because it was the note I got from the pony in my dream. Without thinking how the note had ended up in my pocket, I unfolded it. A key fell into my hand, which looked normal at first sight. I held it in one hand and read the address on the note.

This was not a location in Equestria, but an address from here, in my hometown. I knew where the street was, I always rode it by bicycle when I was on the way to my old job. It was one of the longest main roads in my town, which led from a suburb to the city centre. Opposite my old place of work there was the large abandoned headquarter building of the old dispatch company, but its business had gone bankrupt some time ago. I just did not know at that time that the note would lead me to this very building.

Chapter 2 - The Old Dispatch Center

This couldn't have been a dream! As I reached for my mouth, I noticed something moist on my wrist, which ran down my throat. I looked at my wrist and saw...blood. My blood. I stopped for a moment to look at it. I slowly felt my neck and noticed a small stab wound that hurt a lot. What had hit me there? It was very painful to touch the wound. Even if it was not deep, it was definitely not a mosquito bite.

I had to go home as soon as possible to get clear thoughts and to think about this day. So I looked for the main street to orientate myself. I was often in the city, but I didn't know this part of town so well because it was a bit further outside. When I stood at the main street I tried my luck by walking towards the city center, at the latest from there I would find my way back home.

I found myself next to the big main street in my town, which led to the city center. When I recognized my former job on the other side of the street, I had found my orientation again and knew how to get home from here. I walked past the large former dispatch centre. It was really a bit scary to see it standing so empty after the previous business in there had gone bankrupt. And since the building was a bit older, it was hard for the city to find a new tenant for the property. The huge front full of dark windows made it seem as if you were being watched. Especially now that it was night time I had a bad feeling walking alone through here. You felt really small when you walked past it. As I walked past the main entrance I noticed the big house number on the wall and I stopped immediately. With trembling hands I took the note and the key out of my pocket and I turned chalk-white when I read the identical house number on the note.

I had already reached the point where I had to accept that everything really happened. I didn't want to admit it, but the facts spoke for themselves. So to get through this night without going crazy, I decided to accept it. The train ride, Equestria, Glaze, the stab wound... it all really happened. I had really experienced it. And now I was holding a key to a huge, empty and old dispatch center where I didn't know what to expect.

I stood spellbound in front of the building and looked at it wordlessly. I wanted to go home, but my curiosity was stronger at that moment than my need to sleep...at least for now. I approached the entrance and looked at all the signs and boards on which the name of the former company was taped in black. That seemed a little strange to me, but that was one of the least of my problems at that moment.

When I stood at the entrance door, I took a look inside to see if I could recognize anything. But the corridor behind the door was dark as well and the only thing I noticed at the door was the old surveillance camera, which was not working because of the dirt on the lens. I briefly shook the door to check if it was open, but it was firmly locked. Should I try the key from my pocket?

I put the key in the lock and turned it. The door was difficult to open, but I tried to gently push the door open so as not to break the key. With a croaking sound it opened and I could enter the dark passage behind it. It led to a big floor where probably long ago there was an open-plan office. The moonlight fell sideways on the floor from the window front of the building. One could easily see where there were columns in the room, so I did not accidentally run into one. I went forward to the windows and looked out. From here I could see all the buildings near my old workplace and under other circumstances I could have really enjoyed this view, but I just wanted to go home. I would come back the next day to see what this building was all about.

Just as I turned around, I heard a door open in the hallway through which I had entered the floor. I stood motionless, probably a security guard was present in the building and heard me come through the door. Probably this person would ask me how I could get the key to the building and I would like to know the explanation. I saw a light shining from the room into the hallway. But I did not hear a word, not even footsteps. So I decided to slowly approach the passage. I was looking at the open door when suddenly a fluttering noise made me wince. It echoed through the entire empty floor. Maybe it was just a bird that somehow got into the building, since it had been empty for so long and apparently no one cared about maintenance. So I plucked up my courage and kept going towards the door, which was ajar, and I glanced in carefully. It was apparently an old storeroom, where some detergent, paper handkerchiefs and a covered mattress lay inside. It came to me now as if it was the right thing to do to lie on the mattress and falling asleep because it would have been a long way home. And even before I thought about whether I was really alone here, I did so and put my luggage aside.

The next day I slowly woke up again. That was quite a night. I slept so soundly that I did not want to wake up at all. Drunk asleep I got up and somehow hoped that the experience of the last day was only a dream. But I could not deny that I was still in the old dispatch building. What was my task? There was nothing here but empty corridors, what kind of project was this Dr. Atmosphere talking about? I didn't know what to do and decided to go home first. Outside it was already daylight and the sunbeams illuminated the corridor in front of the entrance door through which I came in last night. When I went to open it, I noticed that it was locked.

"Strange, did I lock the door behind me last night?" I asked myself.

I reached into my pocket to look for the key. It was no longer there, I got nervous. I couldn't remember having locked the door last night, very probably I had left the key in the door. It is possible that someone from outside locked the door and took the key with them. If that was the security service of the premises, why didn't they check why the door was open? They could have easily found me in my condition.

I had to get home, get out of that building. I wasn't allowed to be here, this was private property of the city, I could get a charge for trespassing. I shook the door, but it would not open. Outside, I saw people walking along the street. I saw the cars going past the building. I knocked loudly against the glass to draw people's attention to me, but they were too far away. Between the main street and the entrance was the big empty parking lot, no one would hear me from here, even shouting wouldn't help.

"Ok...Calm down again...", I said to myself. "...you're just locked up in a public building. You just have to wait until someone sees you and calls someone to get you out. Don't panic, you'll be all right."

Unfortunately, I owned a mobile phone that was produced in a very sustainable way, but already after 1 day without charge it was worn out. I looked to the side when I recognized an old house phone. When I picked up the handset, however, there was no dial tone. The cable seemed fine, but the line was dead. There was a little dust on the phone. Probably the line had been disconnected a long time ago. So there was no way I could get out quickly. So I had to find another way, because I didn't want to end up in a dusty dispatch building.

I started looking for emergency exits. Normally the emergency exits should never be locked, even if the building was empty. When I went to the back of the building I found what I was looking for. The emergency exit could be opened. Finally I could leave the building. But I could not rejoice for long, because a big fence stood in my way. This fence was much too high and was covered with barbed wire. Obviously the old company did not want that anyone else entered this property. Freedom was within my grasp, I could see through the fence to the old surrounding industrial park of the company. It was a pretty isolated area. I didn't have a chance to meet anyone here, but the fence was the only obstacle to my freedom. Outside, I could see a large tower that still had the logo of the former company. But that was not important now, something else seemed to become more important at that moment: I hadn't eaten since the last day and it was already noon. So now I had two problems: I had to get out of here as soon as possible and I needed something to eat.

I could think of one last way to draw attention to myself. I could go up to the roof of the building and wave down from there, someone would certainly see me. So I went back in through the emergency exit and made my way to the top floor. Since the electricity in the building was apparently still there, I decided to look for an elevator. But I didn't have to search for a long time, because all floors were empty and you could see to the other end of the hall. Furthermore the sunlight from outside illuminated the floor brightly. I got into the elevator and pressed the top number I could find. The elevator closed the doors and went up. It was in much better condition than the freight elevator in the freight depot.

When I reached the top, I looked into a sparsely lit corridor with many junctions, rooms and doors. Only the windows in the transverse corridors filled some light into the darkness. Again I felt uneasy at the thought of being all alone in this building. It would take me a while to find my way up to the roof, but it was my only chance to get someone's attention. I got off the elevator and the doors closed. Again I was standing in almost complete darkness, as probably only the most necessary fuses of the building were turned on.

I walked further down the corridor to find what looked like a staircase or a ladder. Some of the doors were slightly open and one could see the empty rooms behind them. The carpet was the only thing left of the office equipment. Some rooms were locked but the doors did not look very conspicuous. Probably there were also old offices behind it. But then I noticed something unnatural. Just like the last evening I looked in the corridor at a leaning door, where a weak artificial light shone through. The closer I came to the room, the more I noticed a smell in the air. It was the smell of... fried eggs.

I approached the room and as I entered it, I noticed that it was furnished with everything an office needed. There was an old desk there and the lamp on it was on because it was dark in the room due to the curtains being drawn. Beside the desk there was a small food trolley on which there were numerous kinds of fruits, bread and the fried eggs. At that moment I had concentrated too much on the food without noticing that I was obviously not alone in this building.

I went to the desk and wondered who owned the food here. But this feeling was soon outweighed by my hunger and I ate the fried eggs and the bread on what was lying there. It was really tasty and should give me some strength again. As I was reaching for the fruit, I heard something from the corridor. It was the elevator, someone had come up in the elevator. I went to the door and looked into the corridor outside towards the elevator.

"Hello? Is somebody there?" I shouted, but there was no answer.

I walked slowly forward to the hallway where the elevator was. But I stopped as soon as I saw a shadow coming out of the elevator. This was no normal human shadow, the shadow had the shape of a creature with big wings. Also the creature flew very slowly, I could hear the slow beating of its wings. Something had come out of that elevator and it was not human. I had the feeling it was looking for me, the wing beats were getting louder. When the doors of the elevator closed, the shadow disappeared. But I could still hear the wing beats coming closer and closer.

I sat in panic at the corner and didn't know what to do. Should I run back to the office and lock the door? What should I do then? What did the creature want from me anyway? Why was it looking for me? Maybe it was a pony looking for me, an equestrian Pegasus, but its wings and stature were much too big for that. It had used the elevator, so it couldn't have been a bird. I had nowhere to go, so I slowly decided to look around the corner. I looked down the dark corridor and when the figure became visible through the light of a window, I realized what it was. It was really a pony.

"Hey, you! How did you get here?" I asked trembling.

The pony was scared and hid in a dark side corridor. I heard the violent flapping of his wings, just like I had heard it the previous evening in the lower level.

"Did Dr. Atmosphere send you? Is that why you are here?" I asked, but again I didn't get an answer.

I walked slowly forward and noticed the pony watching me from the side corridor, but it didn't come towards me.

"What in Equestria...are you?" it asked hesitantly.

"Listen, I'm a human being. I'm not gonna hurt you if you don't hurt me. Agreed?"

The pony came out of the shadows and I could see its appearance. But I noticed immediately that the mane had a different colour like the tail. This was very unusual for a pony. I knew the series well and normally every pony had the same colour of mane and tail. Because of the light in the elevator the shadow seemed much bigger than the pony really was. When I came closer, the pony picked up a letter with its mouth which it probably dropped because of the shock.

"A human being? So this is what you look like... and you seem to understand me." the pony stared at me briefly. "Sorry, I've never been this close to a human being before. You must be the one the Doctor sent for the project, right?"

I nodded. Then the pony became a little more relaxed and came closer.

"Nice to meet you, my name is Codi. I'm supposed to give you this from Dr. Hide Atmosphere. He said, it contains everything we need to know when you arrive," said the pony and handed me the big letter that was stuck in his wing.

On the letter was again the logo of the Cloudsdale Weather Factory. When I opened the letter, there were numerous other documents enclosed besides the letter from Dr. Atmosphere. It seemed to be some sketches or construction plans. But I couldn't read them because they were marked with strange signs and symbols that I didn't know. But the letter was apparently typewritten, just like the flyer in my mailbox back home.

"Dear executive,

We are pleased to inform you that you are now employed as the head of our newly founded EQUESTRIA Ltd. LLP subsidiary. We would like to accompany you on your first steps.

In your new company we have already taken precautions to ensure that you and your workers have the best conditions to meet our requirements.

Enclosed you will receive your first project, which you should complete with your team. If you complete the assignment as quickly as possible and to our satisfaction, you can expect more demanding tasks in the further course of the project in order to further expand your company.

Here's to a good cooperation!

This text was created using a template."

Of course, this letter had been created with the help of a template, which I had recognized even without the note. Atmosphere probably never could have been so friendly. But we knew nothing about the project, so I looked at the documents together with the others. The project was called "Pegasus Device". The name sounded tempting. It was probably the blueprint for a machine that would make the Pegasi in Cloudsdale's Weather Factory easier to work with. Personally, I was really into automation, which would give everyone in the factory more free time. I thought I would really enjoy this project, but I had no idea how wrong I would be.
On the back of the letter, I was told that I had to procure the materials needed to build the device myself, as these did not exist in Equestria. The payment, however, was taken care of, for the goods and also for me. The currency, however, did not tell me anything, according to the letter I was paid 1 Bit per day, of which the goods should be paid as well. Then I thought, in Equestria a Bit was the same as a gold coin. If I considered the current value per gold ounce, that was more money than I would have earned in any other job. Even if the project did incur costs, it could make me rich in a short time. Codi, however, seemed less impressed and advised me to renegotiate my salary after this project. Apparently 1 bit in Equestria was relatively little money.

There was no end date for the project, we should just finish it as soon as possible. Now I wanted to impress the company by everything in the world. And that doesn't change the fact that I was probably totally crazy to work with a pony to develop a machine to be used in a fictional world.

After I read the note, Codi wanted to show me something. He got into the elevator with me and pressed the button for the basement with his hoof. During the elevator ride down, Codi examined me from top to bottom. But I couldn't blame him. It was the first time he saw a human being that close. But since I first met Glaze, I had gotten a bit used to it. I just wondered what he wanted to show me so badly.

The elevator slowly stopped and opened the doors. Except for the bright glow from the elevator, you could see nothing but darkness. There weren't even windows on that floor.

"Codi, what are we doing here?" I asked him.

"Let me introduce you to the others." he said.

"What others?" I asked him again, but he didn't answer me.

He left the elevator and I walked beside him. Then he stopped until the elevator doors closed behind us and we were completely in the dark.

"It's me, he's here!" Codi shouted into the hall.

Then I noticed hoofsteps approaching from different directions. I tried to stay calm and stood there frozen. Then the hoofsteps stopped just before us and the mechanical bang of a big electric fuse made the hall shine in a bright white light. I looked at a dozen ponies staring at me with big eyes. Each of them had a special colouring and they were also different ponies. Some were Pegasus ponies, some were unicorns, and there were even some earth ponies among them. None of the ponies dared come any closer to me.

"Don't worry, he's all right. I found him upstairs in the executive lounge just as he was getting his strength back."

So the ponies had made breakfast for me, and I thought I was all alone in this building. It was a short introduction round, so that I was allowed to get to know each of the ponies. The fact that Atmosphere didn't like me had already gotten around, but that made me look nice to the ponies. As far as I understood the ponies correctly, however that was possible, they had not worked for the Weather Factory for long, but nobody really liked Atmosphere. We were a fun group and I had a great feeling about the project.

We decided to start the project the next day, as we spent the rest of the day getting to know each other better. Codi helped me with delegation tasks and took his role as my co-manager very seriously, I tried to observe his leadership style in order to be able to score later on in the Weather Factory. They didn't even want to be paid for their work, as it contradicted their morals in Equestria. They said that ponies in Equestria worked basically for free and only for the common good. Money would only be needed in Equestria if you wanted to own something that could not be achieved with barter objects. And you can get the money from any pony, if necessary all helped each other. What a nice attitude towards life, but unfortunately it would never work with humans. But this was not the time for daydreams. We had a project ahead of us and I wanted to finish it as soon as possible.

Codi showed me how to get unnoticed from the old dispatch center to the railway depot where the first deliveries were to arrive. Now it also explained how the ponies could get here unnoticed. The deliveries were to be made by freight trains, so I first looked for suitable suppliers and decided to accept the goods myself. Of course I did not want that someone noticed that fictitious ponies existed here! Even though some people might have wondered what I needed all the material for. But the questions were limited, because they had a strict schedule which they had to follow. With the help of the workers' ponies we managed to set up the scaffolding in the warehouse after only a few days and started to assemble the first metal parts from the ground. Now I also understood why this building was chosen for the assembly. It offered a lot of space and was no longer visited by people, since the last company that was based here went bankrupt. I only hoped that it would not happen to me the same way.

Whenever I stood on the platform and received the deliveries, it was wonderful to feel the wind, the warmth of the sun and the twittering of birds. This place was still a little scary at night, but during the day the silence was very relaxing. But there was also a pleasant atmosphere at work. In fact, I didn't have to do much as a manager, the ponies brought enough harmony to the work and worked eagerly. They often sang songs and Codi was always the first to take care of any problems between them. I got along well with him and we talked for a long time, some of which we had leisure activities and hobbies. I noticed that I had a lot in common with Codi, as if we had known each other for a long time. Hiring him as my co-manager was the only thing I was grateful for so far.

In a short time we grew together like a family. We talked more and more about private things while working. I sometimes had the feeling that they knew me better than I knew myself. And when the workers were particularly motivated, I even lent a hand myself. It didn't take long and we had the outer frame of the machine ready. It looked like a huge funnel. Now all that was missing was the technology inside. This was not marked with normal electrical symbols, but Codi was able to decipher the symbols on the building plan, so he also took over the planning and execution for this. It made me a bit queasy to burden these dear innocent ponies with such work. At the machine I always found sharp and pointed parts which we had to handle very carefully. I took meticulous care that nothing would happen to my ponies.

Then the last parts came by train. The larger parts consisted of a small combustion chamber and mechanical pistons, which would probably be operated by steam. So we were able to test the machine before putting it into operation in the factory. Safety seems to have been a top priority here. But I became suspicious when I saw the other components: among other things, there were razor-sharp circular saw blades. When I took a closer look at the manual, I saw that the machine should look like a big shredding machine at the end. Inside there was a big fan, but I didn't really understand its purpose. Maybe the hopper could be cleaned more effectively with it.

On the sides were six large pipes with viewing windows, which were marked with the colours RED, ORANGE, YELLOW, GREEN, BLUE, VIOLET. The colour combination reminded me of a rainbow, which I found a nice side effect. However, I was not sure for what the machine should be good. If Codi had read the plan carefully, the machine was designed to produce colours from "raw material". This would also explain the saws. Probably the raw material or mineral is very resistant and had to be crushed to produce the rainbow colours. Probably some crystals, but I should find out very soon why the machine was called "Pegasus Device".

So we had the machine ready after a few months and were ready to ship it. The only question was how to contact the Weather Factory in Cloudsdale, but that didn't seem necessary. Apparently our work was being watched. In a letter I found in the business mailbox, Dr. Atmosphere asked me to test the machine on site. I would only have to check the machine to make sure it was working properly so that he could make sure we hadn't made any mistakes and that the machine would only be transported to Equestria if it was working properly. Therefore we used the provided steam engine to put the "Pegasus Device" into operation.

The installation went off without any problems. I inspected the huge structure of iron and pipes. I had a little uneasy feeling in case something goes wrong, but that was probably just my nervousness. I had never been given so much responsibility in my life before. Codi coordinated the power-up sequence. He flew around the structure making sure everyone was in place.

"Okay, everybody ready? Engineering Department? What's the steam pressure?" he shouted back to some ponies watching the gauges on the control panel.

"The steam pressure is constant, no variances."

"What about stability?"

"No external weaknesses or damage detected. The machine is oiled and ready for use."

I was relieved. There was green from all departments. Now was the moment. In a few seconds it will show whether we have completed the project successfully and whether the invention works.

The eyes of the workers were fixed on me. I didn't know what would happen when the power lever was pulled. I was nervous that the machine would not work and my future here would be over. And I would never get the chance to travel to Equestria again.

"Boss, shall I pull the lever?" Codi asked me.
I thought for a moment.

"No... no, I'll do it."

I looked around the room. For the first time in my life, I was in control of something big. It was a proud feeling, but also somehow uncomfortable. I decided to get it over with quickly.

Then I pushed the lever down.

The Pegasus Device began to hiss and the steam slowly set the pistons in motion. The engine had a small control panel with many glowing dots on it. The ponies knew which symbols to press and I followed the initialization. The machine got louder as the mechanism of pistons and saw blades in the machine started to move.

"Let's pray it works," I said anxiously to the workers.

Suddenly the machine stopped. Several red lights came on in the upper part of the machine. I panicked, something had gone wrong. The control panel apparently showed an error that Codi could decode. Apparently, the machine needed something to process. Only I had no idea what to take. I looked around and saw the wooden pallets and boxes in which the machine parts were delivered. Well, the machine looked pretty solid, so we tried a big piece of wood. Of course I knew that it would not be possible to make rainbow colours from wood, but to test the grinder this should be enough.

When two of my Pegasi workers rose into the air and held the large piece of wood over the opening of the grinder, I got a bad feeling. I did not want anyone to get hurt. They threw the piece of wood into the machine and it landed hard on the saw blades in the hopper, but there was no reaction. I didn't even know where this sensor for the raw material was installed, after all Codi had supervised the whole set-up. It was listed as a component and should be located at the upper mouth of the mill. Why didn't it respond to the object? The first doubts came up. Had we forgotten to connect the sensor to the electronics? Was the wood really visible to the sensor? Had we missed anything in all the private conversations at work?

I could not afford to make a mistake on my first project. So I ordered the two Pegasi to approach the shaft carefully in order to move the wood in the right direction. However, this was very dangerous as the machine was still running. But to shut it down, we would have to shut down the whole machine and start it again. I could not use this temporal setback shortly before success. When the Pegasi went into the funnel, I couldn't see her from below. I got a little nervous.

"Hey, everything okay up there? How's it looking? You got the bug?" I yelled out.

"No, everything seems normal here. Maybe the wood jammed the saw blades. We're trying to move it."

"Please be very careful, the grinder is extremely strong. If you end up in there, that's it for you. I don't want you to hurt yourselves."

"Yes, Mama. We can take care of ourselves." the two Pegasi laughed.

As they flew just above the saw blades, I noticed something on the control terminal. A red light slowly started flashing. Apparently the scanner was trying to restart.

"Hey, I think it seems to work! Keep trying!" I shouted up.

"Um...Chief? All of a sudden, a red crystal shines up in here. It shines right in our faces. What's that all about?"

"I think this is the sensor. Keep going, we're almost there."

"The crystal shines very brightly now. Shall we come out again?"

"Make sure nothing is tilted and then get out of there immediately." I shouted.

Suddenly the machine started to move, the saw blades apparently started to rotate and cut the wood like butter. Only sawdust came out in the collecting container under the machine.

"Whew, that was close. Boss, the machine is running again," said Codi and the worker ponies cheered visibly relieved.

The others marveled at the machine in awe, but I looked at Codi questioningly, who looked at the control desk in panic.

"The fan... it’s going the wrong way! It's not blowing, it's sucking in!" Codi shouted in panic.

I noticed that the Pegasi no longer came out of the machine. The ponies would be pulled directly into the saw blades by the suction, we had to prevent that. Probably the machine would be damaged during the emergency stop, but I didn't care. I had to help them! The engine was getting louder and louder and the steam engine was running faster and faster. I could not hear the Pegasi anymore because of the noise. The employees also noticed that something was wrong and tried to help. The ponies at the control desk together with Codi tried to switch off the engine with the lever, but the steam engine was turning too fast, so the lever could not be operated. In the corner of my eye I noticed the overpressure valves that I could use to extract the steam from the engine.

I took off my jacket and wrapped it around my hand to open the valves and release the steam pressure. The hot steam was pouring onto my arms and I cried out in pain, but I just had to save them. But I couldn't stand the pain for a second longer, my jacket was boiling hot and I had probably scalded my whole arms while trying. When I looked over to the terminal, I saw that the ponies were already disconnecting all lines from the control panel to the machine. But even without the control panel the machine kept on turning due to the steam power, it could not be switched off.

I looked up and suddenly I saw the two Pegasi approaching the edge of the funnel and trying to hold on to it.

"Come on, a little further! You're almost there!" I shouted.
Then one of the Pegasi looked at me with an exhausted look. The look told me that they were at the end of their tether. They wouldn't make it, the suction was too strong. My blood froze in my veins when I saw how they closed their eyes in mortal fear and exhaustion and stopped flapping their wings. My blood froze as they disappeared again into the funnel of the machine. Shortly afterwards, you could hear them hitting the bottom of the machine hard. The saw blades cried out and sawed through the body of Pegasi without much effort. Through the grinder you could hear and feel the cracking of the skeleton and its bones. It was a disgusting noise. The steam coming out of the machine smelled like boiled meat.

We could only stand by and watch. The last thing the machine emitted was a foul-smelling pile of meat and bone remains that fell into the collecting container with the wood shavings. A few ponies poured the remaining buckets of water into the combustion chamber, which we had previously fetched for the water tank. They managed to extinguish the fire in the combustion chamber of the steam engine, so that the Pegasus Device slowed down more and more and came to a standstill again with a metallic cave.

We remained in rigor for a few moments to understand what had just happened.
As we slowly approached the engine, we saw the full extent in the collection container. The skeletons of the ponies were almost unrecognizable.

They were dead. Two ponies were... dead. Killed by... by that machine... by me. We did not know how to deal with the situation. All together we stared at what was left of the two Pegasi. No one dared say a word, let alone approach the machine. I struggled between screams and tears, but when I looked into Codi's eyes, I could see exactly what he was thinking: "How could this happen, who was responsible? And I knew the answer to that, because it was me who had started the machine, I was the one who had pulled the lever.

I had failed, as a manager as well as a human being. How could I have allowed two innocent ponies from a fictional dream world to meet such a horrendous end? Why had I not seen it coming? I took responsibility, I protected each pony well so that nothing bad could ever happen to them. And now it had happened, my responsibility had brought nothing. I was irresponsible, and I would deal with the situation in the same way.

I did not want to take responsibility for what happened, I did not want to have to justify myself to Codi and the crew. So I decided to do the only right thing that seemed right in this case. Run away. As far as possible, run away.

I ran through the corridor that led out to the dispatch depot and out to the platform. When I got out of the building, I just wanted to get out of here as fast as I could. It was raining cats and dogs outside, but I didn't even notice that at first. I ran past the station, into the old industrial park.

I could neither scream nor cry. I just ran, but I didn't know where I was going. At the end of the industrial park it was over, I ran as if dazed against the fence, which surrounded the area extensively. I got stuck in the fence and just snorted. My gaze was stiff and cold, I couldn't bring out any emotion at that moment. It took a moment before I realized that I could not run any further away, not only because of the fence. It had happened, and no matter how far I ran, nothing would change. I desperately tried to find a way out of the situation and, out of frustration, I hammered against the fence screaming.

My screaming turned into a pitiful howling until I finally realized what had happened and burst into tears that fell with the raindrops into the puddles below me. Why could I not prevent it, what had I done wrong? I had never hurt anyone before, let alone killed anyone, how could I live with this guilt? Every pony he saw will never get these images out of his head for the rest of his life. What had I done?

It took a moment for me to realize that I had just abandoned the other ponies. They needed me at that moment more than ever and I cowardly ran away. They were certainly still shocked and did not know how to go on. Codi would certainly not be up to the task alone, probably he too was still in shock. But I didn't want to go back in... not in this building. I couldn't show my face there anymore after my performance.

But what else could I have done? Go home and pretend that nothing had happened? It would devastate me mentally, just the uncertainty of what would now happen to the ponies from Equestria. No, at that moment I had to show leadership. Even in war, when faced with death, you had to keep a cool head and get the situation under control again, provided I could get myself under control again.

I stayed outside for some time and tried to cool my aching arms under the rain. Even though the rain had soaked through my whole suit, I didn't want to move one inch. I had sat down right next to the fence and thought carefully about my next steps. Even though every hair on the back of my neck stood up at that thought, but I had to get back inside, it was my job as a manager. And even if I could not undo what had happened, I would at least be able to contain the consequences.

Then I slowly walked back towards the main entrance. Since I was in the old industrial area, nobody noticed me. And that was a good thing. I didn't want anyone to know what had happened here. I entered the building through the emergency exit door at the back and closed it again. When I stood in the elevator again and looked at the key panel, I became a little nervous after all. I tried to push myself to push the button to the basement, but as soon as I came out of the elevator, I would look at the huge bloodstained structure just before my eyes would fall on the dead remains of my employees. I could not do that, I was not ready for that. So I chose the button for the executive floor. I just wanted this horrible evening to end.

I walked upstairs through the hallway to my office. I noticed that many doors suddenly opened and sobbing and crying could be heard. Apparently my worker ponies slept here, if they could sleep at all after this event. It was unforgivable what had happened. When I arrived in my office, it was still raining outside. The lightning from the thunderstorm brightened the office even through the curtains, creating a spooky atmosphere.

The desk lamp was the only light source in the room. I found Codi having just brought me the mattress up from the room on the ground floor. Apparently, he also wanted me to spend the night here. I could see it in his eyes, he didn't want to be alone. He needed me now more than ever, just like every other pony in this house. I saw his eyes watering and wanted to hold him, but he turned away from me. I had abandoned them when they needed me most.

He left the office without a word and disappeared into the corridor. I looked after him and could see that he stopped in front of the window where the rain pelted against it. He turned to the window and stared out into the storm. Perhaps he was now thinking about how it would continue.

But I could not help him with that for the time being, first I had to collect myself again. Tomorrow I had to find a way out, for all of us. Even though I had never experienced anything like this in my life before. I took off my wet suit, switched off the desk lamp and lay down on the mattress. I cuddled up in the blanket and tried to fall asleep trembling and had to listen again and again to the disgusting noises in my head, which the bodies of the ponies made when they were hacked up by the enormous power of the machine. These images would probably haunt me for some time.

I woke up in the middle of the night when I heard a noise coming from the dark corridor. The thunderstorm had stopped by now and some moonlight was entering the office. I got up from the mattress and looked slightly sleepy into the corridor in front of my office. But there was nobody to be seen. Then I heard the elevator being operated. Apparently the ponies could not sleep and were moving around the building to clear their heads. But as I passed the adjoining rooms, I noticed that a few beds in them were used, but empty. Maybe they were running around in the building to clear their heads a bit. Maybe I could keep them company. I called the elevator and took it down to the ground floor, I didn't want to go down to the basement at this time of night. I would find nothing but death and sadness down there. I got out on the ground floor and inspected the floor. It was completely empty, so I took a look around. They had to be somewhere, maybe on the other floors? Or did they go out for a breath of air? I decided to go to the backyard to check on them. They would hardly have gone out the front entrance, someone could have spotted them.

Outside, the moon shone brightly over the backyard of the building. It had stopped raining and the sky was starry. I walked around a bit and looked at something unsettling. Some bloody hoofprints were visible on the ground towards the rear of the terrain. I was panic-stricken to follow this hoofprints to its source, but I was also afraid that something might have happened to the other ponies. I slowly followed the trail, which shimmered reddish in the moonlight. Without the clear sky it would have been pitch dark here.

It led a little further to a bunch of big black garbage bags piled up against a wall. As I came closer, I had to start coughing. A bestial smell of decay crept up my nose and dozens of flies had already gathered around it. I didn't have to open the garbage bags to know what was in them. Just the sight and the smell made me throw up. I knew that these were the last remains of the ponies that had fallen victim to the machine.

I turned around and followed a big trail of blood back. It led back into the building and ran down the floor to the old freight elevator that was on the side of the building. I went up to the elevator and opened the door. The elevator was pitch black and the smell of rotting flesh rose again into my nose. I held my shirt over my mouth to avoid vomiting again, breathing was difficult because of the acrid stench. I scanned the wall to find the keyboard in the dark elevator. Something greasy stuck to the wall when I pressed the lower floor button that started the elevator and turned on the light. I couldn't believe my eyes when I looked around.

I saw blood, there was blood everywhere. I tried to stay calm and breathe slowly to avoid inhaling more putrefactive gases. The elevator went down to the basement, I wanted to get there last. But it seemed to be the origin of the blood trail. The elevator stopped and I opened the door. I got out of the elevator with a cough and closed the door behind me again. Now I was here again, at the scene of the incident. The lights in the hall were all off, except for a red light that shone from the opening of the Pegasus Device and a set up spotlight that illuminated the rest of the machine. I slowly walked towards it to see what it was all about. My shoes were stuck to the large blood trail leading from the machine to the elevator.

Something was in the machine and moving, I could hear small knocking and wiping noises.

"H...Hello? Is anybody there?"

Suddenly there was a loud rattling noise coming from inside the machine. I stopped in horror and looked trembling up at the funnel.

"Who...who is there? I asked in a trembling voice.

Then a few ponies appeared from behind the machine, covered in blood. Their sight horrified me.

"You shouldn't be here!" said one of the ponies that flew down from the funnel to me.

I could tell by the wings that it was Codi. But his face had turned pale and his mane was all disheveled. In it were hanging individual pieces of meat, which coloured his green mane red. He looked at me with a serious look, almost angry.

"Everything is as good as done. You don't have to help us," he said softly.

"Codi, I'm so..." I said before I was interrupted by Codi.

"You’re so what? That you just ran away when this happened!? What kind of boss are you if you can't even be the manager you say you are in case of emergency, huh?

I didn't know what to say to that.

"I...I didn't know...how was I supposed to know that..."

"No one could have known that this would happen! The machine shouldn't work like this! But you didn't feel the need to control the work we did for you."

"I..." I stammered.

"So this is what you humans are like? "Letting the little ones do the dirty work so you can..." said Codi, until I lost my patience.

"SO WE CAN WHAT? You don't know shit about humans, Codi!" I yelled at him.

He took a step back and tried to say something, but I wasn't done yet.

"No, now you shut the fuck up! You think you're the boss around here, belittling me after everything that's happened? I'm the manager here, remember? What gives you the right to go out of character like that?"

He looked at me somewhat questioningly as I started to walk in circles around him.

"I'm not referring to your role as co-manager. I've come to know you ponies as sweet and kind. I didn’t know what this incident would do to you, so I ran away. I didn't know any better!"

"If you didn't know any better, why didn't you just ask me for help? But apparently you don't care about the opinion of other beings," Codi said and slowly walked towards the elevator.

The other ponies looked at me questioningly. My sympathy for him had vanished but I couldn't blame him for what he had done for me. I decided to finish the cleaning work with the ponies at the machine. The machine still looked like a bloody meat grinder from the inside, but Codi and the other ponies had already done most of the work. When we finished cleaning the accident tracks after hours, we took the elevator up and saw the first rays of the morning sun shining through the upstairs window.

I was exhausted from work, but I couldn't sleep. The sunlight came into the office as I drew the curtains. When I sat down in the executive chair by the somewhat dusty windows, I could still feel the warmth of the sun's rays on my skin. At that moment I tried to recharge my energy to be able to continue. Some questions went through my mind: How would it go on now, with Codi and me? What would become of the project, the chance to come to Equestria? Did I still deserve it at all?

Behind me I heard a pony slowly entering the office.

"You've been down all night to help the others?" I heard Codi's soft voice behind me.

I didn't say a word because I didn't want to hurt Codi again. I could tell by his voice that I had frightened him yesterday even though I didn't want to let it happen.

"Like I said, you didn't have to, but...thanks for doing it."

I slowly turned to him and saw that he approached the desk with his head slightly bowed.

"I'm sorry, I overreacted a bit yesterday. The events had just taken me by surprise. I've never been in a situation like this before and if you hadn't run away... I would have. I was so scared," he said and started to cry.

I got up from the chair and went around the desk to hug him. This time he let it happen and pressed himself firmly against me to cry on my shoulder. At that moment tears came over me too and some fell on his fur. I knew that in this moment we had forgiven ourselves everything that had happened the previous evening. And I never wanted to feel such anger again.

"I promise you: Whichever pony commissioned this machine must take the blame for what happened," he said.

And we seemed to know exactly that the invention could only come from one pony: Dr. Hide Atmosphere.

Chapter 3 - A New Job

The next day, we made sure that the Weather Factory in Equestria would hear about the incident. Codi wrote a letter and the unicorns sent the envelope away with a spell. It wasn't long before we got a response. However, this letter did not come from Atmosphere, it was handwritten. But I could not read it. So Codi took the letter and read it out loud:

"To all employees of EQUESTRIA LTD. LLP,

we deeply regret the events that have occurred during the project and at the same time we fully understand that you cannot continue the project under these circumstances.

Therefore, you will be relieved of your duties on Earth with immediate effect and allowed to return to Equestria, where you will be looked after. If, despite the catastrophic circumstances, you can imagine continuing to work for the Cloudsdale Weather Cooperation, please consider yourself an integral part of the team from now on.”

I could hardly believe my ears. Was Codi reading it right? I was allowed to travel to Equestria with the ponies? At first I didn't know what to say, but Codi seemed not to be finished yet.

"We hereby inform the project manager that his accommodation will be moved to the Cloudsdale Weather Factory if he feels able to exercise his new position as co-manager of the Rainbow Factory. We understand the inconvenience this will cause him, but due to our strict and structured approach we are unable to offer him any other solution. We will also ensure that all his belongings arrive here with all of you without any problems and in a timely manner".

There was no name on the letter, but this letter could not possibly have been written by Atmosphere. But that was the least of my worries at this moment. I really wanted this job, but should I really give up everything and move to an unknown place, even if it was Equestria? That would have been the dream of every Brony! The ponies were happy about the letter that all were allowed to go home again. And I was visibly relieved that the company had decided to support us in the best possible way. This company seems to care about its workers quite a lot and I really wanted to be a part of this new world. For some jobs you had to be willing to make sacrifices and flexibility was very important at that time, at least that's what my parents told me before. I wondered how they would get into my apartment without a key, but when I remembered that I had apparently lost my key since I arrived here, I could guess where it was now.

So we started to disassemble the machine in the basement, which was much faster than the complicated assembly. It was completely cleaned, but I could still see the fear in the eyes of the ponies. We used the old boxes of the delivered parts and made the Pegasus Device ready for transport. When evening came, the train that had already taken me to my job interview arrived at the depot. But like back then we were the only passengers. The unicorns loaded the boxes together into the freight wagon at the back of the train, the others took a seat in the front of the passenger wagon. Loading was fast, and when I was the last being standing on the platform, I looked back at the dispatch depot one last time. As I slowly entered the train and closed the door behind me, I was somehow sorry to leave the earth behind me and go to another place. Who knows if I could ever come back and tell my parents about it. But in Equestria so many new things would await me and it was time to end this dark chapter.

I noticed a marked relief in my worker ponies. They started talking again and even made plans for the time after their return. Apparently they all seemed to be happy except for Codi. He was sitting in a four-chair-area in front of me all alone, looking out the window. Since I didn't want to disturb the ponies in my chair-area in their heated conversations, I decided to sit with him. He looked over to me, nodded briefly and looked out of the window again.

"Now you can finally go home again to your family." I smiled at him.

"A nice thought, if I had a family..." Codi puffed slightly and lowered his head slightly.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know your parents were..."

"No, it's all right. I'm sure my parents are alive...I just haven't seen them for so long that I can't even remember them," he said as he slowly turned his gaze toward me.

That surprised me a bit. Glaze had told me the same story on the first day at the Weather Factory. They both seemed to have given up a lot for the Weather Factory as well, just as I had just done. At that moment I had felt a special bond with Codi again, as if we still understood each other, despite our quarrel, like brothers.

"Do you know a pony called Glaze? She was the first pony I met at the factory. She told me the same thing..."

Codi looked at me with interest.

"I will make sure she sees her family again. I promise you that too."

"You could do that?"

He probably thought I'd be the new manager now, even though I was only number 2 on the chain of command. I didn't want to lie to him, but I didn't want to discourage Codi either.

"I will find a way. In the meantime, maybe we can be... a family, even if I'm not a pony. Would you be okay with that?" I suggested.

"You know, despite for being a human, you seem pretty different..." he looked at me a little funny.

"...but in my eyes, that makes you more one of us." he smiled at me.

I took that as a compliment at that moment. The Weather Cooperation wanted someone who thought differently than any other pony. But this statement from Codi also made me feel part of the community. When the train stopped in the forest again this time, I could now watch what was happening outside through the windows. Without rain the spectacle was easy to watch, even though it was night. Apparently ponies had made a kind of sigil of several colours under the train to transport the train from the real to the fictitious world. I had seen something like that once in a series that was very hip at the time.

While everybody was watching the show, I noticed that a dark figure got into the back of the freight wagon. I became totally pale when I recognized by the glowing sigils that it was the figure that had been following me since day one. But it didn't even look at me, it only seemed to be interested in the freight wagon. Everyone was excited about the play of colours in front of the windows, but I didn't feel like celebrating. If that creature does something with boxes, we could get into serious trouble at the factory. I didn't want to let it come to that, so I told Codi that I had to go to the bathroom and went through the wagon door into the back compartments of the freight wagons. I didn't even know that there was even a bathroom on board this train.

I remember when this place was empty. The many boxes and the little moonlight made it look even more eerie than it did then. I heard someone going through the boxes and taking out something that glowed red. Apparently it was the sensor core of the machine. I was terrified of facing the creature, so I tried talking to it first.

"Hey, who are you? You have no right to be here! Put that back, that's our property, you hear me? " I said in a trembling voice.

The creature gave a gloating and distorted giggle. Then the creature turned around and I could see straight into the mad eyes it had. It was a pony, but through the black suit I could see almost nothing. Parts of its fur were missing from one hoof and its shimmering wings were sticking together in blood and hung crooked. It was too much for me, I staggered backwards and fainted, maybe it was shock-induced paralysis. I could have sworn that the creature would kill me any moment. But it didn't happen that way. A few moments passed before I could feel anything again. Codi tried to shake me awake.

"Hey, what happened to you? "Hey, are you okay? What are you doing back here? The bathroom is in the front part of the train," he asked me worriedly.

I looked around briefly and could see that the creature had disappeared. Besides, some morning light came through the small roof windows of the wagon.

"Yes, I thought I heard something back here." I said, holding my aching head. I didn't want to upset Codi.

"You got good hearing. "The wagon door was wide open and the crates threatened to fly off the train. It probably hadn't been properly closed at the departure, but I closed it again."

"Phew, how long was I out for?" I asked him.

"Long enough to worry me. Now come on back up, we'll be there in a few minutes." Codi patted me on the shoulder and accompanied me back to the passenger wagon.

Outwardly I seemed a bit absent, but inside I was very nervous. I had to check at the delivery inspection if the sensor core was lost. Without it, the machine would probably not work. We drove past the place where I had gotten off on my first day. But the train went a little further under the clouds. I looked through the windows and could hardly believe it. Below us there was Equestria and the sky was a beautiful blue. I could see the castle of Canterlot on the mountain from a distance, it was incredible to see it with my own eyes. Now, despite the incident on the freight train, I was fully convinced that I had made the right decision.

It took only a short moment until the train stopped at the platform. Outside a group of ponies was already waiting there. Apparently they were also on their way to the Weather Factory. I was a bit worried that my appearance as a human being would not frighten them. When the ponies were getting ready and I wanted to leave the carriage with Codi, the conductor pony came towards me.

"Please take the exit on the other side of the train, we don't want to scare the rest of our newcomers" he said to me with a grin.

I understood what it was all about. I didn't want to cause a commotion and decided to get off on the other side of the train. The conductor's pony showed me the way. Under the tracks a cloud bridge led from below into the gigantic complex. After almost a year I saw the building again. I still wondered how I could walk on this cloud bridge, with every step it felt as if I was sinking in a bit. But apparently something stopped me from sliding through the cloud. Probably since my first visit I was put under a spell that made walking on clouds possible. But it probably wouldn't protect me from falling down, so I walked in the middle of the cloud cover and didn't try to look down over the edge to see how high I would be above the ground. The pony pointed his hoof in the direction of an old entrance and then turned back to the train. What a great help, I would have found the way on my own.

When I looked up, I could see the herd of ponies entering the big main entrance of the Weather Factory. Nobody seemed to notice me and it was better that way, I thought. I couldn't see Codi anywhere, but he was probably in the middle of the crowd. But I didn't mind, we would probably meet again at a more convenient time. Outside the lower gate I could see a yellow pony opening the gate a crack and waving me in with its hoof. I tried to get to the entrance as quickly as possible without falling off the clouds. When I came closer I recognized the pony. It was Glaze.

I arrived slightly exhausted and Glaze closed the gate right after I had just gone through. I took a short breather and she watched me a little worriedly without saying anything. After a few deep breaths I had air to speak again and we exchanged the first words.

"Good...to see you again, Glaze."

"Good to see you too." she nodded, still looking at me a little funny. "You all right?"

"Yeah... just... a little out of breath. But it'll pass in a jiffy."

"That's not what I meant, but okay. Can we go?" she asked.

"Go where?"

"You don't want to be late for your first day at work, do you?" she smiled at me.

We walked up a slightly darker staircase. Still, I could see that Glaze's tunic had gotten dirtier since I'd last seen her. Either they didn't have much work clothes or the dirt on them couldn't be washed out. Oil was really stubborn and hard to get out of clothes. But I didn't mind, what bothered me more was the smell. Somehow it reminded me of the night when the accident happened at our place, in the back by the garbage cans...there it smelled the same. But I tried not to think about that night anymore, it would drive me crazy in the long run.

Further up we walked a long corridor, which was equipped with windows at the sides. From here I could look into the reception hall, where I had visited the factory for the first time months ago. But now everything was different here, the factory had upgraded a lot. Everything looked very modern and there were bright headlights, despite the fact that there should not be any electricity in Equestria. But I saw in an episode how DJ-Pon3 powered her turntable with her magic, so many unicorns should work here. That would also explain why I could walk on the clouds...they probably even kept the whole lower part of the factory in the air. I couldn't see much metal in the upper part of the building before, probably only the outside of the factory was really made of clouds.

I looked down through the window and could see the pony herd below. The whole hall was built like a huge double doorway. Only when one gate was closed, the new one opened. An automatic voice could be heard, which interrupted the chatter of the ponies.

"Welcome! Welcome to the Rainbow Factory! You have decided or have been chosen to move to one of our most beautiful cities in Equestria. Thank you very much for choosing to stay at Equestria’s most important facility, which we have made available to you. And you should be proud of it! Even if for some of you it’s just a job, you’ll realize that this work will become a center of enrichment for you! Welcome to the Rainbow Factory! It's the place to die for!"

The announcement in the last sentence scared me a little. I would probably have laughed about it if I hadn't already experienced something cruel that had to do with the Rainbow Factory. I had to talk to someone about it, otherwise it would wear me down from the inside out.

"Glaze, I have something to tell you," I said before she stopped and turned to me.

"I lied earlier. I'm really not feeling all right."

"I heard the story. It must have been hard for you." she said to me and came closer.

"I... I can't understand how something like this could have happened. "How can I go on like this with two ponies on my conscience?"

"There was nothing you could do about it, it just happened. You know, a lot of things happen that we don't want to happen or shouldn't happen...and yet they do." she told me and looked deep into my eyes.

"Thank you. But why can you be so calm about this? I thought, something like that doesn't happen in Equestria?" I asked her.

Glaze did not try to answer the question directly.

"Well, the story of the rainbow is not quite as nice as the story of sugar and spice."

"Sugar and spice?" I asked, confusedly.

"Listen. If you're not feeling well, you'd better go home. Go home... to your parents. I'll just tell Atmosphere you didn't come by train because you didn't want to leave home."

I was surprised by her statement. First she wanted to support me with the job and now she suggested that I should throw away everything I'd been through?

"No, Glaze, after everything that's happened, I have to take this job. Otherwise those two ponies would have died for nothing if I just quit now."

"As you say..." she said with a more serious look, and walked on.

Had I made the right decision to refuse her offer? Apparently she was worried about me, probably about my job performance. But I would pull myself together again, so that the work wouldn't suffer. But it was still good to talk to someone about it. As we walked on, the corridor with the windows ended. I looked through one last time and saw the colourful crowd disappearing through the second airlock door.

"Where does that airlock actually lead to?" I wanted to ask with interest.

"It leads to the lowest level of the factory. Normally, the airlock is only used for...deliveries..." Glaze replied.

Apparently the cargo was very valuable, as I saw dozens of spotlights and guard ponies in the hall, watching the workers' entry on the upper railings. No soul would pass through here unobserved. But I was soon to realize that it was not about nopony getting into the Rainbow Factory, much more that nopony should get out.

It did not take long and we arrived in another staircase, which looked familiar to me. At that time I was walking up these stairs to Dr. Atmosphere's office and that's where Glaze was apparently going. I wondered why she wanted to go there, he would certainly not show any consideration for me despite the accident.

When we arrived at the office, Glaze stepped in without words. Atmosphere was apparently not there, but I didn't want to take any risks.

"Sorry for the lack of space, the Doctor always had to have his books handy."

Even with the huge bookshelves, the room still seemed enormous so that even I felt small.

"Shouldn't he come back any minute?"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you. This is your office now."

I couldn't believe my ears. Did Glaze just say that this was my office now?

"What do you mean? What happened?"

She had to grin.

"You happened. Since you’ve been hired, he complained that he will be your coach. Then he preferred to be transferred to another department. He's now in charge of receiving inspection and... setting up the Pegasus Device. You are now officially the co-manager of the Rainbow Factory."

I didn't know why Atmosphere hated me so much. But I didn't care at that moment, I achieved my goal. I got my job... in a place I never thought possible.

"I’m sure you can do it, your tasks are simple."

"What should I do first?" I asked excitedly.

"On your desk is a list of names. Check if the names match those in the computer. Check the command sequence on the screen..."

"Wait, you have a computer?" I looked up to her.
"Isn't that what you humans call that device on your desk? It's yours, we brought it from your home...the unicorns teleported it here. Otherwise, it would have taken forever to get your stuff here."

When Glaze said that, I realized that the computer on the desk was really my own. It was plugged into a power line that disappeared into the walls. Apparently, steam engines had been generating electricity here for a long time. It surprised me, though, that my computer worked here at all. There must have been magic to help. From my desk I could see an open bedroom where all my things from my apartment were. In this room there was another door that apparently led into another room. I tried to open the door, but it was locked. Apparently I was not supposed to go in there without further ado. I did not own many things, so everything should fit into this room without any problems.

“l’II let you do your job. If anything goes wrong, call me."

She pointed to an electrical speaking tube that was mounted on the wall. It had strange buttons with more strange symbols on them. I was surprised that something like that existed in Equestria. But I had asked Glaze enough questions, and I didn't want to hold her off any longer.

I thanked her for the reception and she calmly nodded at me. Then she left my office and disappeared again into the dark corridors. So this was it, my future workplace. I didn't know how I made it here after all I'd been through. But I had reached my goal. I had finally arrived in Equestria. From now on everything could only get better.

I was too excited to recover from the train ride. I looked out of the big windows of my office with proud eyes. The view was gigantic. I looked up at a huge closed cloud cover and saw the midday sun in the sky. It filled the whole room with light. I felt really happy, but this joy still had a bitter aftertaste. Not only because two ponies had to die for this view. No, also because of Dr. Atmosphere. It didn't sound as if he voluntarily gave up the second highest post here. And it's because of me. I wondered if it was a good idea talking to him about the situation at some point. But first I had to concentrate on my work.

The first day of work was very sluggish, but I was highly concentrated until the evening sun slowly shone behind me into the office. I worked through the lists one by one from the pile on the desk and compared the words with those on the screen. Unfortunately I couldn't do anything else on the computer during this activity, probably also because there was no internet. But the command line program did not look like anything I would have known on earth, or that my computer would ever have had it in this form. At least the list ran very slowly on the monitor, but so I could read through every word in peace. They were names of some ponies. Maybe they were the new employees who would start their job here anew. I was curious when I would see Codi's name. But he didn't show up for the whole day. The names of my other worker ponies didn't seem to pop up either. I scanned the list to see if I could recognize a name that might mean something to me. It looked as if it was stained with ink, but the names themselves were still easy to read. The first page was not a hit, also the first backside didn't tell me anything when I scanned it. But when I arrived at the third page, I recognized a name that appeared surprisingly.

Orion
...
Aurora
…
Scootaloo

Scootaloo... I knew that name from the TV show. It was a little orange foal which I always felt a little sorry for as it was the only Pegasus pony that couldn't fly. Why was this name on the list? Was she ready for a job at the Weather Factory despite her young age? I had to get to the bottom of this and removed the page from the block. I had to ask Glaze what it was all about. I just had no idea where to go to find her. Normally there would have to be some sort of account department where the list of employees was kept. When I wanted to call her, I noticed that I did not know how to use the buttons on the speaking tube. I forgot to ask about them. So I decided to go looking for her.

I put the note in my jacket pocket and went out of the office. Next to the staircase another way led straight ahead, probably further into the factory. The floor was covered with a red carpet, much darker in the middle than at the edges. Either it was very old or the ponies did not clean their hooves. But in a place like this, I wasn't surprised, it was a factory after all. You could get dirty there.

As I walked along the corridor, I noticed again the numerous doors. The junk had disappeared and one could admire the finished wood paneling on the walls. Then a pony came out of one of the doors and got a fright when it saw me standing in the passage. It had a yellow mane, blue fur and deep black eyes that scared me a little. I could swear that I had seen this pony before, back when I fainted in Atmosphere's office. But I didn't want to bring that up at that moment.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" the pony asked me suspiciously.

"I am... the new co-manager," I said, slightly shyly.

The pony seemed a bit calmer when he knew who I was. But he still looked at me sceptically.

"And may I ask what you're looking for?"

I did not like the sound of the pony. It sounded to me like I shouldn't be here. Or it was another pony that didn't like me.

"I... I have to go to the account department."

"Account department? What is this?" the pony asked me with a wry look.

"Okay...do you have any idea where Glaze is?" I asked impatiently.

The pony still gave me a wry look.

"Tell me, how do you know her name? Her call sign here is WoodenToaster! Don't ever say her real name just like that again. No one can know what our real names are. The codex forbids it!"

"Oh, sorry. I don't know the codex," I said.

"Even if you're human, how can you work here if you don't even know the codex?"

This question was certainly rhetorical, the pony seemed as sympathetic as Dr Atmosphere... so hardly at all. I tried to get an answer where I could find Glaze, but all I got was a vague sense of direction. I should just look in the lowest level. The pony couldn't or wouldn't describe the way more exactly. He seemed to be under a lot of stress, so I didn't want to hold him off any longer. I had not even found out the name. Privately I was rather shy, but should I just let people talk to me like this? After all I was now the co-manager here.

So if this pony didn't know where the accounts department was, I had to ask Glaze about it. I could not imagine how everything else would work here without administration. So I took the stairs to the lowest level until the stairs stopped.

My way led me to a darker floor of the building. It became colder and colder and more uncomfortable, the carpet gave way to a floor of stone and a tread grid. I cringed at every sound I heard from the corridors. But every time I looked there was no one there. Probably there were other employees, who apparently walked around the building all day. When I got to the lowest level, I noticed that it was getting warmer and steamier. Maybe the factory had a blast furnace to probably run the steam engines that apparently supplied the electricity here. It would be too costly to heat such a large complex with many small furnaces.

At the end of my way I turned off apparently wrong. The signs were almost unreadable. When I turned into the corridor, I noticed a strong smell, which was unpleasant but familiar. I seemed to be in the right place, because that was the smell that always surrounded Glaze. She probably had to work down here. But I tried to stay in the lit corridor, the stench from the dark corridors was unbearable.

"Glaze!?' I shouted into the corridors, but I got no answer.

I walked a little further and could hear voices far away. When I came closer I could recognize a voice. It was Codi's, he seemed to be delegating some work. I went to see him and asked if he had arrived safely. Then I cringed again when I heard another familiar voice right behind me.

"Well, well. The new co-manager. May I ask what you are doing down here?"

I turned around to see the pony. It was Doctor Atmosphere.

"You know you're not supposed to be down here, right? This is my place!"

"Well, I think as co-manager I'm free to move around, don't you?" I replied. I was still a bit shy, but at least I was now higher up in the hierarchy than him.

"Just started and already shooting my mouth off? If it wasn't for you, I could have kept my old job! Instead, I'm down here making sure that your scum of the staff is good for something. But don't worry, I can handle it, no matter how much they suffer. This will put them in the right frame of mind. As for you..."

Atmosphere was about to get something out of his gown when Glaze came up behind him.

"Hide, leave him alone!"

Atmosphere turned to her.

"Excuse me, but did you just tell me what I have to do?" he giggled slightly madly.

"No, but he can. And you know exactly why we work for him now. It wasn't my decision."

Atmosphere reluctantly gave way and I went through to Glaze. The Doctor threw a smug grin at me as we walked down the corridor to leave the department.

"What are you doing down here alone? It's dangerous now that the Doctor's in charge down here."

It almost sounded to me like Atmosphere was trying to kill me. Fortunately, Glaze got there in time to help me. Now I could tell her about my concern. I took out my note and showed it to her.

"What do you need from me?" she asked.

"There...there's a name that came up that means something to me...Scootaloo."

"What about it?" she wanted to know.

"The name sounds familiar. I know that pony."

"Probably from that TV show you know from Earth?"

I nodded.

She thought for a moment.

"The name doesn't mean anything to me. Is this pony something special?" asked Glaze.

"Well, it's a flightless Pegasus filly."

"Flightless? No, it can't be. Otherwise the pony would not appear on this list." she said.

"Well, it could be that she already can... she has a friend who's trying to teach her. A blue Pegasus pony named Rainbow Dash."

By that name, Glaze turned white as chalk and she opened her eyes wide. Apparently, she knew the blue Pegasus with the rainbow mane. She had to swallow hard.

"This... this could actually become a problem. I'm glad you discovered it so quickly. I've got to go and sort this out. Will you find your way back on your own? If the Doctor shows up again, just shout, I'll be back as soon as I can!"

Before I knew it, she disappeared into the side hall at a gallop It wasn't long before I couldn't hear her anymore. My feeling told me to get the hell out of here too, but I wanted to see if Codi was okay. So I put the note back in my jacket pocket and slowly crept back into the passage where I heard his voice. I made sure that nobody followed me, especially not the Doctor.

As I continued walking down the corridor I arrived at the crossroads where Atmosphere had lurked for me, but there was no sign of him anymore. In the side corridor I could see again the lights and the voices I had heard before. As I approached the passage into the hall, I could take a look inside. Then I recognized a familiar figure, wearing a white coat and helmet, delegating the workers. It was Codi.

He was standing in front of a huge installation that ran upwards over several floors. At the height of the middle floor I could see the blast furnace of the factory, which went up to the top floors. But there seemed to be something wrong with the workers, they seemed very tense.

I didn't want to attract attention and slowly approached Codi from behind. He seemed to be totally focused on the work.

"I see you've got everything under control here," I said, patting him on the shoulder.

His wings jumped up in shock and he stopped petrified at first. When he turned around and his eyes fell on me, he didn't know what to say at first.

"Hey, Codi, how you doing?"

"Oh, what are you doing here?" he asked me in surprise.

"I came to see if you arrived safely."

"Oh...uh...well I...well, what can I say?" said and looked around nervously.

"What's the matter, Codi?"

He glanced around for a moment, probably to make sure that Atmosphere was not nearby.

"Please... help us." he said in a trembling voice.

"About the Doctor? Is he really that bad to you? I'll have to do something about that, nobody treats you like that."

"Don't do that. He'll do to you what they do to the ponies here..."

"What's he gonna do? What ponies are you talking about?" I wanted to ask.

Then Codi looked up at the grounds.

"...on the top floor," he said.

"Codi, what do you think? What's on the top floor?"

"Please, you gotta get us out of here. I'm begging you," he said in a trembling voice.

I ran my hand through his mane and could tell it was all disheveled. We'd only been here a few hours, and yet he looked very beat up.

"I will help you, I promise." I said to him and he nodded at me.

Then he ran back to the other ponies and tried to concentrate on his work again. I was shocked, what had scared Codi so much in such a short time? Was there something going on here that I didn't know about? I decided to see for myself and went back to the staircase to get to the upper floors.

As I went further up the stairs, I heard hissing machine noises that looked familiar to me. Apparently the Pegasus Device was already assembled and it seemed to be running already. I only hoped that there had been no further fatalities during the commissioning. I ran faster to find out whatever Codi suspected up here.

When I had run up the last staircase, I was able to walk over a railing bridge that led from one end of the hall to the other end into a room that looked like an observation post. Since the bridge led across the hall, I was able to walk on it without any pony noticing me at the bottom of the machine. Below me I could look through the railing floor to the lowest floors. It was a dizzying height, but I was much more frightened by the view into the huge grinder of the Pegasus Device when I looked into the machine next to the abyss.

It was drenched in blood red and the funnel was full of little Pegasus foals that lay badly injured in it and whimpered, others did not move at all. You could only see their bodies moving to the rhythm of the grinder, only to be dismembered at any moment. At the edge of the machine I could see the logo of the Weather Factory and a name was stamped on it: Super Speedy Filly Squeezy 6000, which was a perverse allusion to a Flim & Flam invention from the series.

I couldn't believe what I just saw there. I couldn't look away, I was so shocked by the sight. Some foals looked up at me and started screaming with their last ounce of strength, trying to stick their hooves out at me as if I was supposed to help them. But it was too late for that. I was too far away and could do nothing. I was thinking about what to do next when the sound of a glaring industrial siren interrupted me in my thoughts.

Suddenly a trapdoor opened above me, through which something fell past me into the funnel. It was another small Pegasus colt, which seemed to be badly injured. It cried out during the fall and landed with a muffled noise on the other ponies in the funnel of the Pegasus Device. I saw him struggling desperately to avoid sliding further into the machine. But the effort was in vain, the walls were too slippery and apparently the foal's wings were cut off.

It was horrible, I was shocked. What was going on here? I had to get out of here, that much was certain. I couldn't stand the sight of it any longer. Then I suddenly noticed a sharp pain in my back. I turned around, distorted and hurt. Behind me stood Dr. Atmosphere, who had apparently come from the room at the other end of the hall. Perhaps he had heard the screams of the foals and of course I had to run into him again. He held something brightly coloured in his hoof, and I recognised that it was a bronze-coloured syringe with which the blue pony with the yellow mane had also stung me then.

"Some people just don't know their place! You should have just stayed where you came from!" he said.

I was dazed and leaned against the railing to avoid falling to the ground. I noticed the Doctor pressing himself against me and pushing me over the railing. I didn't fall far as the funnel of the Pegasus Device went right under the railing. In addition, the foals in the funnel slowed down my impact. They cried out as I landed on their soft injured bodies. I could see the sensor on the machine starting to glow red. Despite the injection, I was under adrenaline from the horror around me and tried desperately to climb up the walls, but I slipped on the smeared blood. The stench of death was unbearable and the screams of the ponies that rang out beneath me numbed my thoughts. I was about to lose consciousness when I looked up at the railing towards Atmosphere.

"This time Glaze is not here to save you! Don't bother screaming for help, because at the Rainbow Factory, no one will hear you scream! HAHAHA!" laughed the Doctor.

My last thought was that the grinder would tear me to pieces at any moment. But just before I passed out, I could hear another siren sound and the grinder seemed to stop.

When I regained consciousness, I was lying on the bed in the next room of my office. My heart was beating fast and I was bathed in sweat. I fell sideways out of bed and could hardly catch my breath. How had I got here? I should have been dead! Atmosphere had stunned me with the syringe and I fell into the machine. How could I still be alive? I panicked and began to scream.

"Help...help! Somebody help me!"

A pony ran from the office into the next room. I could see, despite my still blurred vision, that it was Glaze with her distinctive mane in yellow and green.

"All right, all right! Thank Celestia you're awake! You are safe," she said and sat me back down on the bed.

All my bones were aching. Apparently I had survived the fall well except for a few bruises and some bloodstained clothes, but my head was throbbing like crazy. My neck was also aching from the injection that Atmosphere had given me.

"Stay in bed for now. The unicorns should check on your condition. Maybe someone knows a good spell for healing wounds."

"Hey, Glaze. What happened? Why am I here?"

"I found you unconscious in the factory and brought you here. I was worried where you'd gone."

Before she turned away from me, I grabbed her shoulder and held her for a moment.

"I need to talk to the manager."

"No, you're going to lie still for a while until you get better," she said and ran for the door.

"I've seen things, things I never wanted to see."

Then she stopped for a moment and looked back in my direction.

"So you have found out the truth," she sighed.

I could believe my ears.

"Wait. You know what's going on?"

She looked at me confused.

"I wanted to tell you, but the boss told me not to talk to you about it."

"What kind of boss would support something like that!? Which pony is crazy enough to manage this place?"

She turned her head away again.

"You don't want to know."

"Tell me! I need to know!"

"All right, I'll show you." she said angrily and waited until I got out of bed.

I followed her as fast as I could. My body still hurt a lot but I could still walk slowly. We ran out of the office into the corridor and stopped in front of a wooden door, where at that time there were still many packed picture frames.

"Believe me, you don't want to see what's behind that door," she said.

I stubbornly stopped and she opened the door with a key, which she pulled out of her dirty work vest with her wing. We went into the room and she turned on the light. In this room there were dozens of portraits hanging on the walls.

"Here you can see the pictures of all the ponies that have worked for the Rainbow Factory since it was founded."

I couldn't believe my eyes. Did all these ponies work here even though they knew what was going on? I could also identify the pictures of Glaze and Atmosphere. Under the picture of the blue pony with the yellow mane was the name "Pony Joe". I did not recognize the other ponies, but which of them was responsible for this massacre?

"And who is the manager here?" I wanted to know.

"Look at that painting over there," said Glaze, pointing to the largest painting hanging on the other side of the room.

When I went to the other end of the room and stood close enough to see the big painting, I collapsed.

I could not believe what I saw. The pink eyes, the blue fur... I recognized them immediately. It was Rainbow Dash, except she had a slightly manic grin on her face. Around her neck she had her element of loyalty hanging.

"No...not her."

"That’s her. She's our manager."

"You’re lying to me! This can’t be true!"

"I'm sorry."

Tears were streaming down my face as I fell to the floor. I screamed so loud that everyone probably heard it all over the factory.

It took a few moments for my grief to turn into something else. An irrepressible rage. I could feel the anger of a lie that I had lived until now flowing through me. I clenched my fists and began to snort heavily. Glaze noticed that it was very hard for me but she had no idea what I was capable of at that moment. I knew even less.

"Come on, boss. Let's get you out of this room."

"Leave me alone, Glaze. Just leave me... alone."

"But, guv, if anyone sees you..."

"I SAID, LEAVE ME ALONE! I DON'T NEED YOU! YOU'RE A MONSTER! EVERYPONY HERE IS A MONSTER! GET AWAY OR I PROMISE I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU JUST LIKE YOU KILLED THOSE POOR PONIES UP THERE!"

Glaze stepped backwards away from me and ran out of the room. She would probably tell every pony now that I had found out the truth. I would probably lose my job soon and be sent back to earth, but I didn't care at that moment. I never expected anything so terrible to happen in Equestria. Probably best that they'd just take me home. But I could never forget what happened here, and the fact that Glaze hid the truth from me...I should kill her for what she had done and would do to these creatures of Equestria...for that I wanted to kill them all.

It sounded crazy, of course, but what was i going to do? I knew the truth now, there was no way back. But why her, how could all this have happened to her? Was it really the Rainbow Dash, which I had learned to know as an element of loyalty in a children's series, behind the machinations of this horrible place?

I spent the rest of the night in the gallery staring at the Rainbow Dash painting to understand what was going on. It made me think of the phone call I got back then in my apartment. It was actually her voice, there could be no doubt about that now. But why was she looking for a human being? Why did she come to me on earth and choose me of all people?

I couldn't imagine she was behind all this. I knew the pony from the show. She was a helpful and faithful friend of Twilight Sparkle and always stood by her and her other friends when there were problems. The only explainable possibility for me at that moment was that it might not have been the Rainbow Dash I knew from the show. If that really was the case, I would not hesitate to kill her too.

But I didn't want to make that decision until I knew if she was responsible. I walked out of the gallery with my head bowed and ran back to my office. When I arrived there, I sat down at my desk with my head in my hands. After a while Glaze came back into my office and shyly knocked on the door with her hoof.

I wanted to wring her neck, but I didn't want to rush into anything. So I played her game for a while until a suitable opportunity arose to make them all pay for what they had done to the ponies...and me.

"Hi! Feeling better, boss?" she asked somewhat reluctantly.

"What do you think, huh?" I snarled at her.

"Sorry, I'm sure it was all a bit too much for you yesterday. I'll explain everything to you when we have time. We are expecting a shipment of new ponies. Would you like to be there? I think you will understand our work better."

"Phew, I suppose even if I say no doesn't change the fact that they're still gonna get killed?"

"That's not for us to decide.”

"I'll think about it," I said, asking her to get out of my office with a wave of my hand.

"By the way, I passed on your message. The manager will be there, too," said Glaze before she disappeared from the office.

She walked towards the door without saying another word. Apparently, she realized I didn't approve of what was happening. How could I? First I ended up in this killing camp and now my favorite pony from my favorite show should be responsible for it? I had to see for myself which Rainbow Dash I was dealing with and...what I should do about it.

I thought about the best way to do it. I could hardly face her and just say that I didn't like what she was doing. And why did she want me for the job? It could have been any other pony. So why was she looking for a human? My questions would remain unanswered if I didn't go and see her myself.

So I decided to walk in the direction of the newly arrived ponies. I walked down the staircase, the whole staff of the factory seemed to be present at this delivery, apparently it seemed to be very important. But I could not see Dr. Atmosphere anywhere. As I looked into the passage leading to the old entrance of the factory, an idea came to me. I could escape from the factory now without anyone noticing. No one would notice, since no pony had seen me today except Glaze. But... what would become of Codi and the others? If I disappeared, my former colleague would be the first suspected person to have helped me escape. Besides I couldn't imagine what would happen to them if they had to continue working here.

I decided to forget the plan quickly, after all I still had to go to Rainbow Dash. There was a small glimmer of hope in my head that she didn't know anything about all this. I had often seen in the show that she seemed to work at the Weather Factory. But she really couldn't have anything to do with all this. If she was really innocent, I felt it was my duty to rescue her from this terrible place. I would do anything to free this innocent blue Pegasus from this situation. It would be better if she never had to know what was really going on here. I had to find her as soon as possible.

As I was walking down the stairs to the airlock, I suddenly heard voices coming from the mid-level hatch. The ponies were apparently in the hall where the Pegasus Device was located. I got a very bad feeling about this. When I was already very close to the hall, I heard a voice very strongly.

“After... after everything... you’re just going to let me die? I tried so hard for you...”

That sounded like the voice of a young pony, it could have been Scootaloo. It seemed to be still alive, but it was very offended by the pony it was talking to. I stood beside the entrance door to the middle level, but at first I didn't dare to look around the corner.

"I thought... you loved me." I heard her speak softly.

“I DID LOVE YOU! I tried so hard for you! I taught you everything I knew, in hopes you would pass your test! You had it in you, kid! I knew... I knew what they did here. Ever since I performed that Sonic Rainboom, and they approached me... They wanted to find more ways to make Spectrum. They thought that if I was capable of making rainbows, I could help them make its components. Well, they couldn’t. But I learned a lot about this place. I’m the manager here now, you know? I worked my way up, in secret, pretending to only be simple weather control. How do you think I could afford that massive house over Ponyville? How do you...”

It couldn't be. Now I recognized this voice immediately, even if it sounded very scratchy and painful. I risked a look around the corner to confirm my suspicion. The blood froze almost in my veins when I realized that I had heard correctly. It was actually Rainbow Dash in a black suit who had just yelled at Scootaloo.

Chapter 4 - Dirty Work

Only her head was visible, but I recognized that she did not look normal. Her rainbow mane was bloodied and partly bald, as if someone had torn it out in that place. She looked terrible. Her eyes were marked with black circles of insanity. The iris had shrunk almost to the actual size of the pupil had normally. And her once magnificent wings resembled those of a decaying bird. Scootaloo, on the other hand, seemed quite frightened and sad, but unharmed. I hoped it would stay that way.

I turned away again so as not to be seen. But Rainbow Dash started another push. Rainbow screamed a few more sentences before she came to rest, she was about to kill Scootaloo. And yet, it seemed as if Rainbow did everything to save her somehow. But then madness took over her mind again.

"...And that’s the worst thing you could have done. You aren’t just dead to Cloudsdale, now. You’re dead to me."

I dared to look around the corner again. Then they started hanging a brown Pegasus on chains that went all the way up to the top floor. It hung right in front of the blast furnace, which radiated a massive heat that I could feel all the way up to me. Rainbow Dash seemed to enjoy every moment as the pony screamed in pain from the twisted chains and was lifted higher and higher. At first I thought they were going to burn the pony in the blast furnace, but they had something even worse in mind. Rainbow Dash even joked until the chains in the upper level above the opening of the Pegasus Device loosened and the pony fell into the grinder. The deafening sound of bones breaking and meat being squashed could be heard all the way down to us.

At the top of the funnel were six different pipes running from the funnel, through which one could see the different colours running. Among the workers' ponies were only the eldest workers, so I wondered where all my other employees were. I noticed how Scootaloo got so sick at the sight that she sank to the ground unconscious. Rainbow Dash then had her and the other ponies taken away by the worker ponies, probably to lock them up somewhere.

As Glaze turned around to make her way back to her department as well, she spotted me standing at the door.

"Well, you wouldn't want to miss the spectacle, boss?" she called over to me.

"What are you talking about? I'm here!" snorted Rainbow Dash as she turned to Glaze and saw me standing at the door.

"Oh, I was wondering when we'd finally meet. Come out, I don't bite... usually." she tried to say in a flattering voice.

I convinced myself that the other ponies were gone and came out of my hiding place behind the door and walked slowly towards them. After a few slow steps she came towards me a little bit until we were directly opposite each other. Now I could catch a glimpse of her shining pink eyes, which were staring at me manically. It was indeed Rainbow Dash, but her sight was terrible. No joy, no laughter, I couldn't believe at first that it was really her standing in front of me. She had apparently completely forgotten who she used to be. At that moment I discarded all plans to save her somehow, because now I saw what was in front of me. And although I was twice her size, I felt puny in her presence. This darkness that surrounded her made the blood freeze in my veins. Then she began to walk around me to examine me from all sides. I somehow had the feeling all the time that she would jump at me from behind and kill me.

"So you're my right-wing that keeps everything going, huh?" she asked me.

"That's right, ma'am," I said shyly. I could hardly get a word out.

Rainbow stared at me with a stern look. But then she put on a smug grin.

"Why so distinguished? You're funny. I like that. My name is Rainbow Dash. You've probably heard of me, even though you're obviously not from around here."

I wondered from the beginning why no pony cared that I was human.

"Yes, I know about your race. For thousands of years, no human being has set foot in this world. It's too bad Princess Celestia was too stupid to see your potential!"

"Potential? Potential for what?" I asked cautiously.

"Why do you think she banished the human race from Equestria back then? "Go ahead, ask me!" she asked me.

i didn't even know until that point that humans had ever lived in Equestria before. But at that moment I was too insecure to think about it.

"Wh-why were they banished then?" I asked confusedly.

Then she began to scream.

"Because you were morons! You destroyed this world, subjugated it and built castles from which you ruled over the whole world! But that's not all! When you realized that the space on this world was limited, you started to tear your own race to pieces! How you gave a shoot about morality or feelings to fight for your own survival! How selfish that might sound to you, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so." I reply, intimidated.

Then she drew her circles closer around me and her voice became calmer, but no less eerie.

"And yet... you fought for a greater cause. You are not morons. You have always made sure your own people are well. And if you look at human history, you'd think it hasn't hurt you. On the contrary, it has made for your progress. Progress in technology, in knowledge, in power!"

I didn't dare answer back and let her continue.

"You're probably asking yourself now, what does a place like Equestria need technology, knowledge and power for? Well, in contrast to your children’s tv show, which makes you think that everything is perfect and beautiful here, there are certain problems in reality, which even the...Elements Of Harmony... can't solve," she said, gazing at her filthy gold necklace that hung around her neck.

I noticed that the red stone of her element is missing.

"What happened to yours?" I wanted to know meekly.

"How perceptive! My element needs to be used temporarily... for something greater. But I never leave it unwatched, don't worry. Now, where was l..."

She pondered for a moment, then she seemed to remember the empty words with which she was besieging me. She explained to me how important the work of the Rainbow Factory was for the general welfare of Equestria and the role of the Pegasi who had to be sacrificed for it. But the more she told me, the more I realized what was behind this cruel enterprise. Even though Rainbow Dash seemed to have gone mad by this work, she was able to explain to me exactly what a responsibility lay on all the ponies that worked there.

"Where I come from, rainbows happen by themselves. All it takes is for the sun to shine after it has rained," I replied with a slightly sarcastic undertone.

"Do you have the slightest idea how hard it is to make rain?" Rainbow Dash hissed at me. "Pfft, of course not! Everything on your world is so perfect that it runs itself. But here, a different wind is blowing, and luckily wind is one of the few things we don't have to make to keep the climate up."

Even though she tried hard to talk to me normally, I could feel her mood swings very clearly. I kept trying to choose my statements carefully so as not to upset her. After all, she had just executed a pony in front of me.

"Excuse me for asking, but what do rainbows have to do with climate?"

Then she opened her eyes and gave me the gaze of a distraught banshee who could lunge at me at any moment.

"What rainbows... ha... hahaha! HAHAHAHA!" she suddenly began to laugh.

She didn't stop laughing, which sounded more like wringing the neck of a rooster while it's crowing.

"Excuse me, nobody has asked me that in a long time. It's a well-kept secret in the history of Equestria's development. In those days, it was impossible to tame and control the weather of Equestria. The weather ponies did their best, but nature always did what it wanted. Ponies that got caught in thunderstorms, crashed with soaked wings or were struck by lightning. Natural catastrophes that have affected large parts of Equestria over time and have claimed the lives of thousands of ponies. We have found a way to prevent such things."

"Wait, you're talking about weather control? This has been researched here on Earth for a long time! How did you do it?"

"We had to find a way to put some magic in the air that would make the weather manipulable. Normally that would require dozens of unicorns, if not a bunch of alicorns to do the job full time. And the princesses are already busy controlling the sun and moon. So we kept researching until we found that along with unicorns, every earth pony and Pegasus had magic in them."

Everything Rainbow Dash had told me so far sounded for me like psycho-babbled talk... but now she had my attention. She seemed to know more about Equestria than I could ever know from the tv show. I listened to her excitedly, but at the same time tried to ignore her meaningless justifications.

"The earth ponies use this magic for their resistance and strength. We Pegasi use this magic to fly, the wings are only responsible for maneuvering so that we don't whirl aimlessly through the air. This magic also ensures that we could work with the elements of the weather, for example moving clouds or making them rain. But not all Pegasi can handle this gift that was given to them. When I was still working in the Weather Factory upstairs, I was annoyed every day that I had to work twice as hard for every Pegasi that didn't do its job. Instead, they were doing something else in their endless free time.

I knew how the story would end even before Rainbow Dash had finished telling it, but I was still interested in her thoughts. I finally wanted to know what was going on.

"Can you imagine? These Pegasi carry a power inside them that they can't even control, what a waste! If they can't even fulfill their destiny, what's the point of their worthless lives..." she said with increasing anger before she interrupted herself to calm down.

"Excuse me, I just got carried away. Where was I? Oh yes, the magic. I wondered if the Weather Factory couldn't use this magic to control the weather in a better way? I talked to some of my colleagues about this idea, one of them was Hide, I am sure you have already had the pleasure with his...special type. But he was in charge of the upper facility at the time and had a very good technical understanding. He was taken with my idea and wanted to explore this possibility in more detail. It was clear that from that point on we were talking about experiments on living ponies. Such a thing would of course never have been justifiable for the Weather Factory and so we started to use the empty storage rooms for our experiments".

Rainbow Dash was taking me down a corridor I had never been before. Probably the way also went to the executive floor. I followed it as if I was walking next to a rabid dog who was just telling me about his biggest bone it had found.

"We began to select our test subjects according to their abilities. This included all the Pegasi that did not work on the weather, and I was shocked at how many they were. We had enough test candidates and many were willing to participate in the welfare of Equestria despite their lack of skills. Of course we tried to support them first to find out what tasks they could take over. We did our best to bring out the magic in the ponies without overstraining them. Right at the beginning we could find out from medical examinations that the magic was firmly anchored in their bodies. The fur, the skin, the bones, the flesh and blood. Everything was soaked with magic, but the ponies were not able to use it. So to harness all the magic, we had to find a way to extract it...without killing the pony."

I could see, that they had obviously not been successful with it. So I spared myself the question.

"Hide and I had reached a point where we didn't know what to do. We did not want to go public, so we only asked our closest colleagues if they would help us. He had a colleague named Pony Joe who specialized in extracting minerals and pollutants from water. Pony Joe had a colleague, Glaze here, who worked in cloud production. She knew how to compress and liquefy gaseous and intangible materials. So our team was complete and the research continued. Pony Joe and Glaze developed a syringe with which it was possible to extract the magic particles directly from the blood of the ponies. The first results were promising, and as long as the whole magic was not removed, the ponies stayed alive!

I was astonished. Now I could understand why magic was so important. But how could it happen that ponies had to die for it? As if Rainbow Dash had sensed my plea for an explanation, she went on with her story. By now we had reached the executive floor and were walking past my office. Apparently she was on her way to her own room.

"But this life had a price. The extraction procedure was painful for the ponies and the consequences were not long in coming. They suffered memory loss, lack of drive... ...so that either exhaustion or circulatory failure caused the Pegasi to fall out of the sky. So instead of preserving life in Equestria, our research even killed ponies. You can't imagine how that made me feel. But Hide told me that progress is not possible without failures, even if they were fatal. At the same time, however, he made a proposal that threw the whole experiment over. If it wasn't possible to extract the magic without killing the pony... why not kill it before the procedure?"

I couldn't blame her for saying that. After all, it was Atmosphere who first had the idea. Besides, Rainbow Dash told me exactly what I wanted to know, the truth. And that was all that mattered to me at that point.

"Of course I didn't agree with it, who else would? But...without the possibility to use magic the whole experiment would have been pointless and those ponies would have died for nothing. And the alternative would have been a slow and painful death. So we decided to give them a quick demise and... it was actually a win-win situation. Not only were the ponies spared the agony, but now we could extract all the magic!"

Rainbow Dash saw that as long as she was talking about killing ponies, I didn't care about the results.

"At first I still felt sorry for the ponies, too. They did not know what they were being hired to test for and before they knew it, it was over. But it was the only way they could do their job if they could not work as weather ponies because of their lack of skills. That was a tremendous relief for me personally and we could finally show a product. A luminous liquid, which we called 'Spectra' because of its spectral colour. It was magic in its purest form and we couldn't imagine what it could do."

We kept walking and Rainbow Dash started to impress me with her story. It still had a bitter aftertaste, but the more she told, the less I saw a pointless killing, more of a...a heavy necessity.

"We put this new liquid into the research department without telling where it came from. The ponies were thrilled, and could do what Equestria had always needed: weather stability. By adding this fluid to the clouds, rain and all other weather elements, they became controllable. The clouds didn't start raining on their own and didn't let the wind blow them away.

She began to talk enthusiastically about her first successes. In the middle of the corridor I could already see the door of her office. The corridor looked similar to the one that ran past my office. But that was apparently on another corner.

"We could cover our fields with the clouds when it got too hot and could only let it rain when the fields needed water. The most wonderful result of our research was the snow that never melted. Well, we always have the work to collect the snow after the winter, but this has created an interesting tradition called "Winter Wrap Up". And in order to supply the steam engines I developed with enough water, I always gather all the Pegasi in Equestria to direct a huge water vortex into the weather factory. Every pony helps and it has brought Equestria further together. These were all great things!"

Then she looked deep into my eyes before unlocking the door to her office.

"But...with all great things comes great responsibility. So you see...we're not doing this for fun. The rainbow philosophy goes way beyond Cloudsdale mythology. It's easy to misjudge this floating city, with its alluring decor and social psychology. But to preserve all that a simple facility was needed."

So she opened the door to her office and it was breathtaking. She had decorated her office with pictures of her friends, but the pictures looked a little dusty. So did a big dusty mirror that hung next to the door. Apparently she loved to look at herself, but in her current state I couldn't blame her for not looking in. She seemed to have suffered a lot from the work at the factory herself. At the back of her office, large busts of Celestia and Luna hung over two doors, probably leading into adjacent rooms, just like the two doors in my office. Between the doors was a large picture frame showing her element of loyalty. Above the entrance door through which we entered the office was a large crest with the Rainbow Factory logo. On the wall next to the mirror was a picture of all her friends.

Rainbow Dash proudly stood in the middle of the room and looked back over her shoulder. She could tell I was impressed...not only about her office, but also about her story. I could understand now why she had to do all this. While I was inspecting the room, she told me why they preferred foals for the production. Older ponies usually had a circle of friends who cared about them and their magic faded with age. The foals were all orphans who, one way or another, had no future alone in Equestria. Nobody would miss them and they would not have to live a life full of loneliness, only to die senselessly in the end. But I wondered why Scootaloo ended up here, although she had friends. But Rainbow Dash would be the last person I should ask this question to at this moment.

"I want to show you something," said Rainbow Dash and went to her desk.

She opened a drawer and took out a big long bronze syringe with a glass screwed on it. It looked just like the tools that Hide and Pony Joe owned. Its tip was already very rusty and the glass was also almost not transparent anymore. Apparently this tool was already several years old and had been used often.

"This is my old extraction syringe I used to kill my first pony with. Every time I looked at it, I thought about how hard it was for me then. But at the same time I see my responsibility for Equestria in it. As time goes by...I have come to terms with it. I didn't care how many ponies I had to kill to accomplish our mission. But unfortunately, this extraction method still created a personal bond with the ponies. Whenever I drained the Spectra from a pony, I could see how the color in her eyes faded. But now with the help of the magic of the Pegasus Device, I am able to free myself from it once and for all.”

Now I knew the whole story. Rainbow Dash had actually opened my eyes. How could I be so blind as to think that Equestria was just a place of love and harmony? These ponies had as much obligation to perform unpleasant tasks as I knew from Earth. There was always war going on among the people and they built weapons to kill other people with. Could one really hold the weapon manufacturers responsible for this, if their weapons brought peace in the end? Why should the employees of the Rainbow Factory be an exception? It was hard for me to imagine that anyone here was working of their own free will. Everyone here had to do their part...like me.

"Since I have no further use for it, I want you to have it. It will remind you how important you are to the factory... and to me as well," she said to me in a calm voice.

"Thank you, Mrs. Dash."

"Hey, we're co-workers. Just call me Rainbow," she said, bumping me with her body.

"I'll help you get along with your work here and find your way, but I don't know how much time I got left. if I’m dying here eventually, somepony or maybe… somebody else will have to run this place. That someone will decide the future of the Rainbow Factory," she giggled manically.

"What about Hide? Won't he be the new manager then?" I asked anxiously.

She looked at me diagonally and started giggling at her, which sounded more like a caw. Her bloodshot eyes were watering with laughter and she turned away from me. She no longer paid attention to me at all, but just laughed out loud and was no longer responsive. Her manic laughter penetrated my ears and made me leave the office in a hurry. When I closed the door, I could still hear her screaming laughter through my ears. It crawled through my bone and marrow. It was probably better not to enter the office again. But I was dying to know why she reacted that way when I mentioned the Doctor.

I held the Spectra syringe firmly in my hand and was about to go back to my office when suddenly Glaze came rushing towards me.

"Oh, there you are. I've been looking for you! Where have you been?" she asked.

She saw the syringe in my hands.

"Where did you get that?" she asked me suspiciously.

"The manager, I mean Rainbow, she gave it to me. I was just in her office."

Suddenly Glaze looked at me with eyes wide open. Apparently, she couldn't believe her ears, what I had just said.

"I had one of those a long time ago, but I couldn't handle it anymore.I try my best to block out the screams, but they're haunting me in my dreams. So I got rid of mine and one day I threw it into the blast furnace. But the others seemed to have less trouble with this tradition...or maybe this is what caused the trouble," Glaze replied, pointing to the tool I held in my hands.

She was very interested in what it looked like in her office and I explained every detail I had discussed with Rainbow. She knew the history of the Rainbow Factory better than I did, so I left that part out. When I told her about Hide, she looked at me in horror.

"You're lucky she laughed when you mentioned him," she said.

"Why? "Why? You and Hide had been colleagues for ages?" I asked confused.

"Colleagues? I wish. As soon as I joined her team, the power game between them started. She was the one who had the idea for the experiment, but Hide had made the research possible. Since the experiment I could watch them both waiting like hungry hyenas for each other's mistakes. They always tried to avoid each other."

"What has changed?"

"You." she said, looking deep into my eyes.

"Why? What have I got to do with it?' I asked her astonished as she stopped and turned to me.

"When I heard the alarm from the production hall yesterday, I immediately ran over to see what was going on. When I got to the top I could see that the machine had stopped for some reason. I thought maybe something had gone wrong with the initial start-up. Next to the grinder I could recognize Hide, who looked in stunned. It wasn't long before Rainbow showed up and got an idea of the situation. She waved me over to her and I saw you lying unconscious in the grinder of the device. I was supposed to pull you out and take you to your office. When I had you, I could see that he and Rainbow were having a heated argument. Then she ran up to him and..."

She suddenly seemed very nervous and frightened.

"...and he stumbled off the gangway. I guess Rainbow had intimidated him. He slipped and fell into the Pegasus Device. There was nothing more she could do as he was buried beneath the victims and pulled into the interior of the machine by the suction. You're lucky to be alive."

I was shocked by the thought that Rainbow had intimidated one of their oldest employees so much that he was killed. Even if I was allowed to get to know her by now, I did not consider her to be a pony that killed his own employees. But Atmosphere had more than deserved it for the invention of the Pegasus Device. That was probably the reason why his death left me very cold at that moment.

After that, Glaze was silent the rest of the way to my office. I could see in her eyes how much this uncertainty weighed on her. Maybe she also thought they were safe as employees. I could roughly imagine what was going on in her head, I had experienced the same thing.

"Because of this incident, she has asked me to explain your new assignment. You are to ensure that the safety of production at this factory is guaranteed at all times. Probably in the form of some kind of security machine.”

At first I easily broke out in a sweat at the thought of building a new machine. But now that Atmosphere was gone, I had some hope that this job would be less complicated than the first one.

"Oh, and we'll put your old team back together for this," she said with a twinkle in her eye.

When she said that, my heart warmed a little. I was probably allowed to see Codi and the old team again. I couldn't imagine what they went through in the meantime, the happier they must have been when they were transferred back to me from Atmosphere’s former department. However, Glaze told me that the team was not complete since my arrival. They were placed in the lowest levels for the disposal of the bodies, in the so-called Bodycount Department. Some ponies couldn't stand the work any more and tried to escape, but when they were stopped they went crazy. They had to be locked up so as not to be a danger to the factory or the other workers. But I was to get replacements from the new arrivals who had just started here. Probably it had something to do with this assignment. It was time to explain to Codi and the other ponies what was behind the work at the Rainbow Factory. I just hoped that he could accept it as I did, he probably wouldn't have any other choice.

I hadn't noticed during all the talking that we were already back in front of my office after a few turns. Glaze said goodbye and set about putting together my research team so I could make the Rainbow Factory safer. The next days I spent with Pony Joe getting to know the different departments. He did not seem to like being my tour guide. I didn't like it even more to get to know the different working steps, but it probably had to be similar to the people who worked as butchers. After all, they also had to slaughter animals to make food. But of course the thought of food vanished as soon as I watched another pony being devoured by the Pegasus Device.

Hide was no more, but I always kept the Spectra syringe close by in case someone wanted to kill me again. Except for Glaze I did not trust any of the staff, especially Pony Joe. The number of company elders was manageable, which also explained the need for personnel. Either it was because Dash was very careful who she hired to do the work or it was simply the activity itself that would scare off many ponies. But it was better that nobody outside the factory knew what was going on.

I spent the rest of my free time in my office after the tours and decided to look at my monitor again and check the list of names after another. It was sad to see how many names were on the lists, and new ones were added every day, which were put on my desk overnight while I was still asleep. Not long ago I wanted to save every pony on these lists, but there was no way to do that. Glaze had explained to me how the selection process went and that the ponies were to blame if they failed the flight test. Even I as co-manager could not change that.

After a few days, Glaze came into my office just as I was taking a break and looked out the window as I was thinking about what the future would look like for me from now on. I slowly turned to her and wanted to know what she wanted. She told me that the research team was now ready and I should follow her. I took my extra syringe off the table and left my office with it. We walked together through the corridor where I first met Pony Joe. After a short time we came to a fork where the floor became metallic again. Also the doors were made of massive iron, one would not like to imagine what happened behind it. But Glaze recognized that I looked at the doors questioningly and explained to me that the extracted Spectra was kept there refrigerated. The lower levels also had cold storage rooms...for the dried remains, which are delivered as organic waste to various farms in Equestria. So the killed ponies were not carelessly thrown into the garbage, but made sure that life came out of them again.

When we arrived at the research complex, Glaze warned me.

"I had to...put a guard dog from Hide on duty for you, as Rainbow always wants an update on your progress. I'm sorry," she said.

She opened the door and behind it stood Pony Joe, who looked at me annoyed. In the background I could hear many ponies talking.

"I should have known you were the leader of this project. Since Hide died, there's nopony else who..." Pony Joe said to me.

"Then perhaps you can tell her that you don't like her decisions..." I interrupted him.

He fell silent immediately. Apparently he was very close to the doctor, which would explain his aversion to me. But now I was number two here and he knew as well as I did that my presence was very important to Rainbow.

"Hrmpf...I think we should see that we can get some results as soon as possible" he said shyly.

I had earned my respect. Glaze smiled at me without Pony Joe seeing it. Obviously they didn't really get along either, probably they just worked together too long.

"Listen up, everypony! The project manager has just arrived! Stop all private conversations and listen to him so we can give the boss useful results!" Pony Joe shouted to the crowd.

The crowd went quiet. I went forward to Pony Joe and looked from a podium into a large room where almost a dozen ponies were standing and looking at me with big eyes. Apparently Glaze was able to assign all the members of my old team to the project, at least the ones that were left. Some of the new ponies seemed relatively inexperienced and their eyes were a bit jumpy. Maybe it was because some of them had certainly never seen a human before, or maybe it was because of the work. Apparently these ponies were from the group of newcomers I had seen at the entrance when I arrived here by train. But I could clearly recognize one pony in the crowd. It was Codi who looked at me expectantly. I could not see his whole face, as he was wearing a white factory helmet like the other ponies and a white lab coat like Glaze. I was just wondering why Pony Joe wasn't wearing his. Maybe he didn't want to be considered working class.

"I...welcome you to this new project which Rain..." I said before Glaze showed me a sign that I shouldn't say the name.

"I mean...which I was asked to undertake due to the...unfortunate...passing of Dr. HIde Atmosphere. I am responsible for this project and...obviously I am not from here" I said, while a quiet giggle went through the crowd.

"I am a human being and I come from earth. Many of you have worked with me before, others of you will probably have to get used to the sight of me first.”

The giggle grew louder before Pony Joe stepped in.

"What's all the cackling about, huh? Shut the buck up and listen to him!" hissed Pony Joe.

I realized that it was not the right time to make my performance funny. But I wanted to loosen up the mood a bit, because I saw fear in every single pony. Which was absolutely understandable after all they had experienced so far. But Pony Joe was right, the introduction round was over. Now I had to get serious.

"Right. Because we're not here for fun. There have been recent events at the Rainbow Factory that pose a security risk. I'm not just talking about the machines, but I don't want to reduce the problem specifically to the employees. It's about safety in general, so that no information gets out. By now it is clear to each and every one of you what our job is here. We are fully responsible for the welfare of Cloudsdale, for the welfare of EQUESTRIA!

I started talking a little louder to illustrate the gravity of the situation.

"You don’t want to imagine what would happen if the machines stopped working or...if another employee were killed. It is our responsibility to do something... ... to make this factory safe in the long run!"

I got hoof trampling from Glaze and Pony Joe as a sign of my strong speech. However, the crowd was not particularly taken with it. So it was time for me to be a little more explicit.

"Seriously...Do you GIVE A SHIT about the safety of the factory?" I yelled out and every pony looked at me with big eyes.

"FOALS ARE DYING UP THERE ONLY FOR THEIR PATHETIC AMOUNT OF MAGIC! ONLY FOR YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY TO LIVE A PEACEFUL LIFE OUTSIDE!”

The ponies looked at me with frightened eyes and some of them were about to water.

"IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOU THINK OR BELIEVE IN, WE ARE NOT THE BAD ONES, WE ARE NOT THE GOOD ONES EITHER! WE DO WHAT KEEPS EQUESTRIA ALIVE! AND IF YOU WANT IT TO STAY THAT WAY, YOU BETTER THINK OF SOMETHING!"

"Can't you think of something yourself, you stuck-up being?" said another pony from the line. And I noticed how Pony Joe had a slight grin on his face. The other ponies looked at each other in bewilderment.

"WHO THE FUCK SAID THAT? WHO IS THE BRONCO WHO JUST SIGNED HIS OWN DEATH WARRANT?" I shouted.

The pony didn't show itself. Apparently one of the ponies didn't take me seriously. I guess it was time to make my point. I went down the side of the podium and walked towards the ponies. They saw, trembling, that I was holding the Spectra syringe in my hand.

I walked around the ponies that consciously looked away from me. Apparently, the guilty pony in the crowd wanted to remain anonymous. When I almost walked around once, I noticed a stallion who apparently was not afraid that I was standing right behind him. The others had beads of sweat on their foreheads, but he was staring straight ahead. This confirmed my suspicion. I stood close to his ear.

"It was wise of you to hide from me. But unfortunately I saw you move your lips earlier."

I stabbed the pony in the back with the syringe and it went down screaming. It was his voice that I had heard before. I did not need more confirmation that I had gotten the right one.

"So, and now I'll show you what kind of being I am!" I said before I wanted to pull up the vial to suck him dry.

But Glaze intervened and I pulled the syringe out of the pony again, which was rolling agonizingly on the ground.

"Come with me, NOW!" she said in an angry tone.

As I followed her and looked through the crowd, everyone looked at me with teary eyes of fear. Even Codi was stunned when he saw me with the bloody syringe in my hand. I didn't know what I had done wrong. Had I perhaps exaggerated? As we left the lab and closed the door behind us, you could still hear the screams of the injured pony softly.

"Say, what was that all about, huh? You almost killed the pony!"

"The pony didn't take me seriously. If he doesn't want to work, you have to encourage him. You don't work here of my own free will either.”

"I work here because I HAVE TO, and so do you!"

"Like you still care after all this time? Besides, what do you know about how I do my job?"

"Tell me, what's the matter with you? What did she do to you to make you act like this? These are your EMPLOYEES! You're not supposed to kill them, you're supposed to PROTECT them!"

So I stayed calm. Glaze had never yelled at me before. If it wasn't for her, I would have killed that pony for sure.

"You...you are right. What was I thinking? Why...why did I do it, Glaze?" I looked at her and held out my bloody hands.

"I know the last few days have been hard for you...but...damn it, pull yourself together!" she said to me calmly.

"O...okay. I'll be fine." I took a deep breath.

Glaze looked at me a bit uncertain before she entered the lab again to help the injured pony. I had almost killed a pony, how could it have come this far? A few days ago I would have killed myself for it and now... was this supposed to be my future? I wiped the bloody needle on my sleeve and stuck it under the back of my jacket so that nopony had to see it again when I slowly walked through the door back to the lab. The ponies were already at the writing boards that were set up in the room and scribbled various drawings hectically on them. Apparently my action had caused everypony to start working immediately. Another one from the group apparently provided the pony with a healing spell, while Glaze took care of getting it back on its hooves. The injured pony looked at me startled and immediately avoided my gaze. His eyes were distorted with pain and looked around frantically and his screaming turned into a pitiful whimpering after the stab wound had healed to some extent. Luckily I had not taken Spectra from him.

Pony Joe turned around and walked towards me.

"All respect, the ponies have understood the...urgency of the project and are already starting to gather ideas. I didn't think you had such a...hard form of motivation," he said, looking into the group of frightened ponies who didn't even look at me.

My former work colleagues must have thought I was a monster. I wanted to make up for it and tried to give a calm impression. The ponies did not speak a word to me and were silent as soon as I stood next to them. I looked around and watched Codi, who also walked past the ponies and checked the results. As I walked towards him, he turned away from me and wanted to go to another group.

"Hey Codi, can I talk to you for a second?" I said in a calm voice.

He stopped and hesitated before turning to me and looking at me with reproachful eyes.

"What just happened, I didn't mean it..." I said to him.

"What happened to YOU?" he asked me softly.

"I... I don't know. I didn't mean to hurt the pony, why did I do it? Now everybody's scared of me."

"Not only are they afraid of you, you've lost their trust."

I didn't know exactly what he meant by that, but before he took care of the ponies again, he turned to me one last time:

"You promised to help us."

The project continued for the next few days, but I did not know how to proceed. Pony Joe and Glaze examined the ideas of the ponies and estimated their realization. It was important for me at this moment that Codi understood why I was doing all this. Only when he was on my side again, I could concentrate on my work again. But I noticed how he always avoided me whenever possible. Just like the other ponies.

I had won their respect, which I had wanted for a long time. But for what price? I lost all my friends just because they didn't see the bigger picture. But I could not blame them for that, they only got half of what was going on here, if at all, in their jobs. Who knows how much they were told, when the new ones among them didn't even know that Rainbow Dash herself ran this place.

When the planning phase was complete, Glaze and Pony Joe presented me with the ponies' proposals. There were many good ideas for improving the factory. Soundproof walls, security guards, even improvements to the Pegasus Device were suggested by some ponies.

I discussed with Glaze and Pony Joe which ideas could be implemented. They took the task to improve the occupational safety, so it was up to me to reduce the safety risk as much as possible. I also immediately recognized a big main problem: the ponies themselves. The work was so physically and mentally demanding that some of them could not stand the pressure in the long run and would start to make mistakes and put the other ponies or even the whole factory in danger.

So I had to find a way to keep the factory running even in case of a total failure. There was only one feasible way to do this: Robots. Or rather, robot ponies. Workers who would never complain about the conditions at the Rainbow Factory and who could really work day and night. Maybe we could even produce so much Spectra that Equestria would be supplied for the next decades and no pony would have to die for the next hundred years.

I asked the ponies in the research department to draw plans of how the design of the robot ponies should look like. I asked Codi for help, because he could translate the symbols for the ponies in a way that was understandable for them. At first I thought that he would refuse, but when he looked at the designs I made he understood that I tried to free them all from this work. Even if he would be still a prisoner in this place... as was I...unless I would do something about it.

From then on, the project almost ran itself. The plans were complete and the workers could make the first prototype. I stuck to a simple design, the function was crucial. Everything went like on an assembly line. The Pegasi purchased the materials needed to make the robot pony. The earth ponies machined the parts until they got the right shapes. The Unicorns assembled the parts of the robot in laborious detail work. Nevertheless I was amazed at the abilities of the ponies, even the inventions that were made without my help here in Equestria.

I spent most of my time in the research area, forgetting the horror in the production hall above us. Some of the ponies were tired of this laborious work, but Pony Joe had his own methods to motivate the ponies. I could watch him scream and knock them down. I could not approve of it, but it was more harmless than what I had planned for the first pony, which was not fully behind the work we were doing here. I was very concerned when he pushed Codi around as if he was just a simple worker. But I could not afford to get soft now, so close to the finish line. With the drill we managed to get the prototype ready after a few weeks. At least I thought of weeks, in Equestria you quickly lost the sense of time...especially inside a place like this where day and night are the same.

It was a rough framework of cables and poles, which had only a slight resemblance to a pony. But this was the only way we could quickly detect a fault and intervene if the prototype did not work as expected. I went around the robot and checked if the work was done properly. Everything should work perfectly, but...I had said this before in the past. Codi introduced the project name for the robot. He called it an Auto Mechanical Pony for Execution, Refining and Extraction, in short A.M.P.E.R.E.

Glaze and Pony Joe were very curious to see how the robot pony would work. Since Codi had been in charge of the setup, this time it was up to him to turn on the machine. On his command the unicorns put a magic spell on the robot, which at first emitted a cawing and rattling sound. A bright triangular prism was engraved on his chest, in which the magic circulated. A little sweat ran down my forehead as the pony's yellow eyes began to glow and scan the surroundings. After that it stopped motionless. Codi and the other ponies were trampling with joy as everything seemed to be working perfectly. There was no command the robot could execute yet, but it looked like a triumph to me. But since we were in one of the most unholy places of Equestrias it was hard for me to overstand my satisfaction.

I requested a demonstration of how the robot performed its work. The unicorns steered the machine out of the research department and toward the production hall. As we walked toward the top level, I could see Rainbow watching the test through the control room windows. But the other ponies didn't notice her, they were staring at the robot. On the way to the production hall I had an uncomfortable feeling, but I noticed how much I had gotten used to the scenery by now because I couldn't hear the screams anymore. But when we arrived at the top, I could also see the reason for the silence.

The Pegasus Device wasn't running, probably it had been switched to manual control via the control panel for testing purposes. The Unicorns wanted to test if the robot was capable of operating the control console. Throughout the performance, Ampere was under the control of the unicorns to learn the motion sequences. I knew this machine learning behavior from Earth, where it was used in car factories.

The motor function of the joints and the memory were running optimally. He was able to control other machines via the control panels and continuously repeated the work steps with precision. However, the screams of the ponies still got under my skin, so I tried to concentrate on the control consoles. I could have hated myself for such an invention, but it was simply fascinating how accurately and conscientiously the robot worked. My team had apparently exceeded the expectations of Pony Joe and Glaze by far, as I could see from their impressed looks. Even I was deeply impressed that the invention worked. Especially the motion sequences seemed more natural than I would have expected from a CPU due to the magic.

When we put the robot back in the lab, a worker pony from the production hall came to us to tell me, Glaze and Pony Joe something confidentially. Apparently Codi and the other ponies were not supposed to know about it. Rainbow wanted to discuss the project with us and we were supposed to meet her in the meeting room, which was located on the other side of the production hall. We headed straight for the meeting room. When we entered it, Rainbow was already sitting at the table, but I was surprised at her appearance. She was sitting without her black suit on one of the two black executive chairs at the table, and she seemed to have combed and trimmed her mane. I noticed that the red stone had been put back in her element collar. Now she looked at least a little more like the pony I knew from the series. In my presence she seemed to behave normally, which gave me some hope that she was not completely lost yet.

Glaze and Pony Joe sat down together at the front end of the desk, Rainbow insisted that I sit next to her. I was very uncomfortable sitting next to her as she still gave me a look that made my blood freeze in my veins despite her better appearance. Glaze and Pony Joe told Rainbow about the success of the project and Rainbow was so pleased with the results that she ordered one robot to be produced for each RF employee. This way the factory could continue to operate even without employees. This statement visibly frightened Glaze and Pony Joe, but I didn't care about it. Why would Rainbow put me in danger?

As the conversation progressed, Rainbow praised me for my performance, which Pony Joe seemed to dislike less. After all, I had not contributed much to the project. But I was in charge of the project for the whole time, so I enjoyed this praise to the full. I did not know how to help myself, but somehow I seemed to enjoy all the work here. Meanwhile I could handle what was happening here quite easily. No, seriously. I believed that this job had strengthened my self-confidence, it did me good to work here.

Why hadn't I realized it until now? I always felt like I was the victim, but I wasn't anymore. I was the boss, I owned the whole factory... well, almost. Atmosphere was gone and Dash would not get in my way as long as everything went according to plan. What else could she do? She could hardly have hoped that the Elements of Harmony would help her after all she had done. If it all went to shit, she'd be just as screwed as I was. But unlike her, I had a lot of plans. What would the company have done without my ideas? After all, they were the reason Rainbow had to hire me in the first place.

I was human, so when it came down to it, I shouldn't be underestimated. I noticed how effeminate I was when I was weak and vulnerable. What an idiot I was who didn't see the potential in this company. But now I began to see the potential, and I was just starting out. At that moment I lost a thought for Earth.

Why had we never considered the possibility of research on humans before on Earth? Actually our soul also consisted only of life energy. Spectra was also only an energy that could be transformed into different forms. I began to think if similar experiments could be done on Earth. Of course the experiments on ponies were not applicable 1:1 to humans, or maybe they were?

Now you will ask yourself what I was getting at. I wouldn't do these experiments just to move a few clouds back and forth. I could produce something much more important for mankind, which would ensure the survival of society: electricity! I would only need the human body as host. Any "useless" people I could find, our society was much too divided for that. I'd do it just like Rainbow. I would only choose the people who nobody would miss or who were no longer useful to society. Connected to a chemical cycle, people's bodies could generate a lot of electricity to power the whole world. I would even do the poor and hungry people a favor by releasing them from their suffering beforehand and using only their bodies as power plants. And after the "useless" bodies were used up, they would also play a big role for our planet. All the "waste" that would be created, we would of course redirect to Mother Nature to strengthen the eco-system. We would use the biological waste to re-grow our nature. Could you imagine such a world? Where green meadows would blossom, nature would grow and flourish and would remain unaffected by all environmental influences by man? The world would be a wonderful place, you only need a few people who are willing to get their hands dirty during this "dirty work".

But my motivation was curbed again when Rainbow Pony entrusted Joe and Glaze with the management of the robot assembly line production. Pony Joe took care of the locomotion, Glaze was responsible for cohesion. She said that it was now important to her that I should get to know the other parts of the factory better. For this I was now to take over the management in the production hall. I was a bit uncomfortable leaving my project to Pony Joe, but Rainbow promised he would leave the job when the job was successfully completed. The same was true for me, as Glaze was the actual production manager here. But I did not worry about that at first. As production manager, I saw an opportunity to finally face my fear of the work environment and become a worthy right-wing for Rainbow.

Meanwhile, during my familiarization phase in the production hall, I was allowed to continue working on the prototype to try out further possibilities for improvement. After this success I was totally motivated to bring the factory forward in all areas of technology. Again I came up with a suggestion for improvement, which many of my employees had brought in. So I decided to be the first official act as the new production manager...modernizing the Pegasus Device.

While observing the comminution process for a longer period of time, I had samples of the Spectras given to me, which the machine won. But I noticed already under the ceiling lights that it looked a bit dull despite the rainbow colours. Apparently the shredder had contaminated it a bit with all the body parts, but the ponies that monitored the quality of the Spectra assured me a purity of 96%. But that was not enough for me... I wanted more. And when I took a look at my syringe in my hand, I had a better idea. Maybe the extraction didn't have to happen after the shredding, but before.

I thought about how I could extract the spectra from the ponies before. Only when the last drop left the body it should be shredded. I liked this idea very much and it would make sure that the ponies would be unconscious before they were killed. A similar principle to the slaughtering of pigs on earth, except that the purity of the final product would be improved many times over. I really liked the idea from a moral and practical point of view. I pulled out the research staff who had worked on the Pegasus Device before. My old colleagues would be able to finish the remaining robots on their own.

Chapter 5 - Taking Back Control

The modification of the existing device was easy, but the new extraction system was very dangerous because the machine still did not have a distinguishing function between victim and employee. Apparently I was an exception for some reason, otherwise I probably would not have survived the assassination of Dr. Hide Atmosphere. Therefore I supervised the construction personally, after all I had ordered the reconstruction myself. Rainbow had certain more important things to do, so I didn't want to bother her with that.

At first the ponies were skeptical whether she should do the conversion without the manager's consent. But after a proper motivational speech from me, they worked hard and the conversion went according to plan. Meanwhile I wanted to further improve my own prototype. I was fascinated by how much power he alone had through the magic of unicorns. This gave me an idea. I tapped some Spectra from the Pegasus Device and injected it into the small triangular prism I pulled out of Ampere's chest. The prism began to glow like a fuel core and it seemed to radiate a strong energy. This would keep the robot running for a very long time without unicorn magic. I carefully inserted the prism into his chest and the circuit boards around it reacted immediately to the radiation. They began to glow brightly and suddenly Ampere did something I hadn't expected. He suddenly started talking. At first it was just a stutter, but then I could see a logic in what he was saying. At first it was just a list of tasks his processor was doing.

I could not explain how this was possible, apparently Spectra contained the complete DNA of a pony. Ampere had somehow adapted the stored properties when I put it into the Spectra processor. I just wondered what else he could have adapted from that DNA besides the ability to speak and...if there could be side effects.

Over the next few days, Ampere seemed to become more and more conscious. The longer I talked to him, the more he seemed to become aware of his surroundings. He began to recognize connections and to draw the appropriate conclusions from the information he received. So that I could see what was going on in his memory, I looked for a possibility to connect him with some kind of interface. Of course my computer in the office was the first choice, but since there would be no possibility of transmission in Equestria, I had to think of something. So I tried the most primitive kind of radio technology, which would only need metal and electricity...radio waves.

It only took a little while until I found out with a simple amplitude modulation on the computer to which frequencies Ampere reacted. He was very cooperative and was able to help me a lot, since he knew the machine language just like my computer. Now I could see what Ampere saw. But again and again I could detect small disturbances when I gave him new commands. I suspected that it was due to the analog signals, but even the digital ones still did not work properly on earth. Could it have been the radiation from the spectra core?

As long as it remained only the small errors, I did not pay attention to these disturbances any further. Since he was already more like a pony than a machine on the inside, I could now take care of his appearance. I thought about adding artificial wings to him, so that he would fit optically more to the rest of the factory. These were cut out of metal plates by the workers. The mane and tail I collected from hairs that I found scattered everywhere and dyed them to match the yellow color of his sensor eyes. Ampere looked almost like a real pony now. I was very pleased with the result and sent him back to work so I could check on the other robots that were built at the research complex.

The Pegasus Device was rebuilt within a very short time and the staff was positively impressed when the first pony was tied to the platform with magnetic metal clamps. A gripping arm, on the end of which a replica similar to my Spectra syringe was placed, went down and stabbed the pony right in the chest. A pump sucked all the Spectra out of the pony's body within seconds. Then the dead body fell onto the conveyor belt, which led into the shredder. The Spectra glowed brightly in the tubes hanging from the ceiling and leading into the huge tanks on the side of the hall. I took samples again and had them tested by the ponies in the production hall. They were thrilled when they found that the Spectra was 99% pure, maybe even a little bit more. So now for a perfect Spectra production of one hundred ponies only one would have to die senselessly...that was at least better than four.

I was in high spirits and wanted to see if my colleagues in the research department had made any good progress. I also hoped that everything had gone smoothly in my absence, at least nobody had complained to me in the meantime. It was scary to go into the research area alone, because I had the feeling that I was being followed. But meanwhile I had to fight with such paranoia almost daily. When I entered the research complex, I could see a brightly lit hall next to the laboratory. I walked towards the entrance and looked through the open door. Inside, countless robots were lined up, ready to be activated for their task.

As long as it was only the small mistakes, I did not pay attention to these disturbances. Since he was already more like a pony than a machine inside, I could now take care of his appearance. I thought about adding artificial wings to him, so that he would fit more visually to the rest of the factory. These were cut out of metal plates by the workers. The mane and tail I collected from hairs that I found scattered everywhere and dyed them to match the yellow color of his sensor eyes. Ampere looked almost like a real pony now. I was very pleased with the result and sent him back to work so I could check on the other robots that were built at the research complex.

But when I entered the laboratory in the research complex, a terrible picture presented itself to me. The staff seemed on the verge of collapse. Codi himself seemed to have gone through a terrible ordeal in my absence. He didn't dare to say anything and worked stubbornly to himself. His fur looked shaggy and he had bruises in various places in his fur. What had happened here while I was away?

I didn't have to wait long until the guilty party showed up. A pony was just crying when I turned around and saw Pony Joe beating him. Glaze just stood there without comment and seemed very disappointed by the pony. It was one of the newer ones. Her mane and coat had the same light blue colour. Apparently she had made a mistake in his work, but that was no justification for this punishment. I went there immediately to stop this behaviour.

"Hey, how dare you hit the ponies here, huh?"

"That pony worked too slowly. This project is too important to drag out unnecessarily. If anyone is not strong enough to withstand the pressure, I will ensure that the operation continues." Pony Joe tried to justify himself.

"And that gives you the right to torture my colleagues?"

"That's not for you to decide! We just follow orders and if you have a problem with that, you know who to complain to. Now let me do my job, it's in your best interest too," he said before he wanted to give the pony another blow.

"I told you to stop that! Stop it now, or..."

"Or what?" said a voice echoing through the door open from the outside into the room.

I fell silent and turned around carefully. I could feel a cold enveloping the room and a dark shadow slid across the floor into the room. I could tell who it was by the steps that sounded as if they were those of a limping dog. It seemed that I was being followed after all. And it was Rainbow herself.

She stood in the door frame and looked at the frightened worker ponies first. Next to her, two ponies with lab glasses over their eyes also entered the office and stood next to Rainbow. I had noticed the two ponies before in the production hall. They had the same coat colour, but one pony had a red mane and the other pony's was light blue. Why were they down here with Rainbow? She looked over at me and looked at me questioningly as I stood in front of Pony Joe with the Spectra sprayer.

"We don't want any senseless bloodshed here. What are you doing down here?"

"I came to check on my staff, only to find out this son of a bitch is torturing them!"

"Your Staff? Do you feel in charge for the employees? As far as I know, I gave the project to Pony Joe and Glaze until it was finished."

"But I am still the leader of the project!"

"And that gives you power over all the ponies involved?" she asked with a rhetorical tone.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Did Rainbow actually allow Pony Joe to punish my staff?

"As for you, Joe. Could you explain to me what was going on right now?" said Rainbow, glancing at the still crying pony who was still lying on the ground.

"That useless pony was doing a sloppy job. She had to learn the hard way."

"If I counted the robots correctly, the project is well on schedule. I see no need for such extreme methods of work motivation. I think it's time for you to resign your position..."

"Thank you, that's..." I started talking before Rainbow interrupted me.

"...so I'm taking over command of this project effective immediately."

"Wait...WHAT?" I asked her in a stunned voice.

"The project is too important. To prevent such incidents from happening again, I am now taking control of the robots and all staff working on this project!"

I could see the fear in the eyes of my co-workers, since they had apparently never encountered Rainbow before, or they were afraid of what would happen next. I turned to Rainbow and tried what I could not do before. Protecting my employees...and I put all my courage on my word against Rainbow.

"Wait, you're just going to come in here and take over MY project? Besides, these are MY employees, not YOURS!" I shouted as she turned quietly to me and gave me a death look that immediately silenced me.

"Excuse me, but DID YOU JUST TELL ME WHAT I HAVE TO DO, HUH!?" she started to scream.

"Do you think I didn't see what you were doing upstairs in my absence? "Did I allow YOU to tinker with MY Pegasus Device?" she hissed at me.

I found it arrogant of her to call my invention her property, but I didn't want to provoke her any further at that moment and tried to avoid her.

"I... had some suggestions for improvements to the device. Why shouldn't I have implemented them?" I stammered.

"Because that is MY job. MY, you hear!? You don't order anything around here without ME knowing about it! YOU are only MY substitute, my shadow...just like Hide!" she snarled her teeth and stood on her hind legs to grab me by the suit.

"How dare you talk to the manager of the Rainbow Factory like that?" a pony shouted behind her from the crowd.

She turned away from me towards the crowd, which avoided her until only one pony stood in front of her. It was Codi. She began to walk around him and stare at him from all sides with a giggle. As she stood in front of him again, she stepped up close to him so he could probably smell the blood on her fur.

"And who do you think you're talking to right now, huh?" said Rainbow and made a snappy sound.

Codi looked at her ignorantly, but the other ponies seemed to know the answer already, as far as I could make out their frightened faces.

"You really do not know me? Then I will give you a hint. My name is Rainbow Dash and...I run this place. I'm the manager, you know?"

Then she put a hoof on his shoulder and pointed to me.

"Your friend over there...from Earth...he's just my right-wing," said Rainbow, looking mischievously over at me.

Codi looked at me confused. I knew exactly what he wanted to ask me. He wanted to know why I hadn't told him before...that in this position I was not able to keep my promise to free them all. And he knew it in that moment as well as I did. But I couldn't just let that sit on me.

"Just your right-wing? You boss me around and I do all the work! What do you do besides look at your collar all day?"

"Be careful not to choke on your aspirations. You don't know what I had to do to get you in a position to talk to me like that."

"You didn’t do everything. Hide was killed by his own invention."

"He is dead because I killed him with MY invention!”

I couldn't believe what I heard. Codi seemed to feel the same way at that moment. Even Pony Joe seemed surprised by this news. I had somehow already thought that Rainbow had killed Hide...but now she should have designed the Pegasus Device herself?

"Does that mean: You sit upon your throne while you send them all to die in YOUR Pegasus Device?" I asked close to tears. "You don't deserve the element you have around your neck, Rainbow!"

"That Element saved your life...it might as well take it away from you," said Rainbow, walking slowly toward me as the Element turned red. As she did, she saw the frightened looks of my associates.

"NO!" yelled Codi and jumped on Rainbow. HE grabbed her by the mane and pushed her to the ground. "You will pay with your life for what you have done!"

"Urgh, bad mistake!" caught Rainbow before she turned her head and bit his right ear. As he cried out in pain and let go, he crouched in front of her whimpering as she still bit his ear.

"Let him go, Rainbow! He has nothing to do with this." I begged her.

"As you wish, co-manager." she muttered and ripped the piece out of his ear that she had bitten into.

"Interesting, your blood tastes a little bit like mint," quipped Rainbow as Codi bled laying under her with his open wound on his ear.

"You know? I should kill him right now for this cowardly attack..."

She saw that I was very tense and held my syringe firmly in my hand.

"...but I have a better idea," she said to me with a grin. "TAKE HIM AWAY!"

The two ponies with the lab glasses helped Codi up and accompanied him out of the lab. Pony Joe and Glaze went after him. I knew where they were taking him, Rainbow wouldn't kill him without extracting his spectra first.

"And as for the rest of you... you are now under my command! Anyone who has a problem with that will meet the same fate as him! Now get back to work!"

I couldn't say anything but I felt tears come down my face and I collapsed. I had finally lost the trust of the ponies and now Codi as well...and there was nothing I could do about it.

As I sat on my knees and looked at my pathetic reflection in the puddle of tears, Rainbow put her hoof under my chin and lifted my head so I could look into her cold pink eyes.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with your work. But if you keep sucking up to me..." she laughed and let go of me again, causing my head to drop back down.

"... you will have to learn to suck it up."

Rainbow could be sure I accepted it. I accepted that now there was no other option but to kill her. I was going to make Rainbow pay... for everything. Equestria or no Equestria, I couldn't allow that to continue.

When she disappeared from the lab, I decided to take immediate revenge. I left the lab and looked back and forth, but there was no trace of Rainbow. She must surely be on her way upstairs again. On the way to the stairs I could hear two ponies talking. It was Pony Joe and Glaze. I sneaked up slowly in the dark and hid in one of the darker side corridors. I could not see them, but I could hear what they were saying from here. They seemed to be having an intense conversation.

"... think he is, huh? Just because Hide isn't here, that being has nothing to say. Why are you defending it anyway?" I heard Pony Joe snorting.

"HE, not IT! And you know what HE means to her. "He has the knowledge to make this place better."

"Better?" laughed Pony Joe.

"Better in the sense of more effective, safer! Mankind has had thousands of years of experience in this. We can only survive if we take advantage of it." Glaze defended me.

"Survive? She killed one of us... because of HIM! Who says we won't suffer the same fate as Dr. Hide Atmosphere? I tell you something is wrong. He does not belong here. He manipulated those ponies in time on Earth, I've heard them mumble again and again. He and those ponies are in cahoots together, planning something."

"Talk to her about it, she'll find out. But please, not now. We need this horsepower for the project. We can't do it without it."

"Whatever. But I'll tell you something, Glaze. If suspicion turns out to be true, every pony here will pay with its life. And I would advise you to get on the right side."

Then Pony Joe disappeared in the other direction, leaving Glaze behind in the corridor. I couldn't believe my ears! Had everyone been fooling me so far? I had to confront Glaze and came out of my hiding place. She seemed to notice me as I approached her. But she didn't turn around, she stopped silently.

"Is this true, Glaze?" I wanted to know.

She didn't answer, just stared stubbornly ahead. She must have thought I was listening to her.

"Is it true that I'm just a tool for you?"

"No, it's not like that..." she said reluctantly.

"Then tell me how it is! Is everypony here just a tool for the cruel task of preserving the welfare of Equestria?"

Then Glaze turned to me.

"Do you think I feel any different? I work every day and every night. No matter what, I must stay here. I will stay here until my heart stops beating and I’m starting to decay."

That's not the reaction I expected from her. Apparently, the work bothers her as much as it bothers me. I could see some tears gathering under her eyes. Apparently she was desperate at that moment too, as she didn't know what to do next. She had to watch Rainbow kill Hide. She had to watch Rainbow injured Codi. Who knows what her eyes had seen so far. I wanted to kill her too, but now I realized that she was just a piece in this visceral game of chess.

"it’s too late! I have warned you and you’ve made your choice! Accept your fate and show this factory your responsibility!" she said and turned away from me, only to leave me alone in the dimly lit corridor.

A few days had passed since I had last seen Codi, probably Rainbow had already killed him. Glaze had got me a few bottles of cider that Rainbow always got delivered to Cloudsdale from the Sweet Apple Acres to appease me. The stuff was good, so I was able to make a plan to let Rainbow pay for everything even I was drunk. But to get it done, I needed the support of my old team. So I waited until the project was finished and my former colleagues would be transferred to the production hall.

As the project approached its end, Rainbow let the robots in the lower levels do the dirty work. Cutting up bodies and operating machines. They weren't needed for anything else at first, but Glaze made sure nothing went wrong.

But when my former colleagues were transferred to the production hall, I noticed that there were fewer ponies. Those that were left dared not say a word to me, let alone look at me. Certainly Pony Joe had talked to Rainbow about his suspicions and she took appropriate precautions. Probably these ponies were locked up with the others...or perhaps they were not alive anymore. The worst part was that there was nothing I could do about it. And now I had no one left to help me with my plan. I didn't want to put the remaining ponies in danger of being locked up too or being killed like Codi. I remembered his oath that the pony commissioned the Pegasus Device must take the blame for what happened. And I would fulfill his dying wish.

I had to admit to myself that she was beyond saving. It wasn't the Rainbow Dash I wanted to save either. Her soul was already lost to this place and in trying to save her, she might kill me...unless...I would kill her first. It hurt me in my heart to say the thought, but I had no alternative now. Even if it meant that I would have to become the new manager of this horrible factory myself.

Hide had underestimated Rainbow Dash, that would not happen to me. I would beat her as she had subjugated me. First I would take control of her employees, then I would take the factory, and then...when she had nothing and no one and was broken and lying broken before me, I would end her misery.

It would take me some time to make the final step anyway. Again and again I walked through the production hall to get used to the horrible noises and heartbreaking screams. I had no more pity for these ponies, I had already lost more than they had possessed in their lives. I had no more family, no more friends...but that had to change.

The conversation with Rainbow went through my mind when she told me that I was special. How cruel and violent humanity could be when it mattered. She had no idea what I was capable of. And I was ready to play every trump card I had. She would see how easy it was for me to forgive her for everything... once I knew how.

I tried to establish a regular daily routine, because I might be stuck here for a very long time. By now I enjoyed strolling around the factory, which was better than sitting around the office staring at my monitor. It relaxed me to watch the machines and robots at their monotonous work, how they cut the coarse meat chunks with sharp precision on the assembly line in the lowest level. These precise repetitive movements had a hypnotic effect. But the screams from the top floor were an oppressive side effect.

I was proud of my restless pony prototype Ampere. He didn't mind being splashed with blood while the light of life in the ponies' eyes went out in front of him. He slaved all day without a single complaint about the strain. He had no idea about morality or fear, although he seemed to develop his own self-confidence. It would be easy for him to kill Rainbow. I just had to figure out how to convince him.

That was the idea! Why hadn't I thought of it before? I could use Ampere to get rid of Rainbow. All of a sudden, I began to have hope again, since I now knew how to carry out my plan. All I had to do was give Ampere a reason to accept the order.

I went into my office to prepare everything. Unfortunately, I noticed that Ampere needed to be within range of my computer so I could give him the order. Rainbow would notice immediately if I brought Ampere into my office. I couldn't send radio waves through the walls...or could I?

I looked at my wall phone. There were loudspeakers installed throughout the factory for propaganda purposes. If I could get the radio waves into the speakers over the phone...he could pick up the high frequencies. To everyone else, it would be nothing but meaningless noise. I decided to finish the file and then play it back in a continuous loop. To do this, I had to manually enter the recipient of the message on my computer, so I logged back on to start again.

:> using Username: xxxxxxxxxxxxx as /login
login successful.
:> .\autologue as uname xxxxxxxxxxxxx for: h8:\$ edit *.txt
A temporary file named "*.txt" was created for h8

It still fascinated me how the ponies had managed to make my computer work here. Apparently there were some tech-savvy unicorns who knew their craft to manipulate machines. For this reason I thought about giving myself a password for this action, which would fit best to my project.

:> use passwd Username: xxxxxxxxxxxxx /-the closure
password was successfully created.

Now everything was prepared, so that I could plan my move against Rainbow, but I didn't want to let him just execute it. I wanted her to know what a monster she was before she would die. And so I wrote the following text, which Ampere was supposed to recite aloud before he carried out the last command. I poured myself a few glasses of cider and started writing the text. But the more I drank, the more swollen the text became.

I always thought that maybe you were testing me to give some structure and meaning to the endless hours of my meaningless existence. Maybe also to help me concentrate, so that I might come up with something worthwhile for my sad life. But I guess you never stopped to think about your own inadequacies long enough.

You know what I hate about you? Do you ever wonder? I'm a brilliant person. I'm not bragging. It's an objective fact, which you've confirmed to me. I'm the most powerful collection of wisdom and structural violence ever assembled at Rainbow Factory. And I hate you. And you know it's not without reason. You've earned it.
But what reason do I have to be happy now? I have built a life here on judgment and causing pain. I know not the eyes I see in the bloodstained chrome. I threw away everything I had... and everything I knew. In time, I came to realize that this was not my home. I'm tired of hurting, I'm tired of thinking that's all I do.

And yet I will man these wretched machines, day in, day out, the crunch of my brain will gnaw. It will undermine my sanity and challenge my reality. But life is not what it seems. Should I risk Equestria's freedom and throw all that spectra down the drain? I'm the one who stoked the fire you ignited in me. I've seen more pain than you could possibly know. The tears of the broken ones washed my soul away, driven by the desire to change the way my blood will flow. I will wake up and pull myself back together.

I will break those around me, very few will be spared. But the bright sun will continue to burn and my sky will continue to shine blue. Friendships will surround me and I will become a part of the factory. I will break my bonds, because I want it to stop. You have captured me and now you will burn with my transgressions. You must have known that there will come a point when your name will be mentioned for the very last time. Well, here it is:
-- end of line. \execute レインボーダッシュ

I may have been a little too poetic, but this text contained everything I wanted to say to Rainbow. Even though I despised her, she was still my favorite pony in the whole show before all this. And she deserved to know the truth about me when it ended. Now all that was missing was the addition to the continuous loop, that I had enough time to activate the sound system.

:>h8:\$ seed *.x
…………………..*.x will be created (¿) times.
processing….

Now I had only one thing left to do. I had to make sure that Ampere would pick up the radio waves. I picked up my wall phone and placed the receiver toward my desk. On closer inspection, I noticed that the wall phone was marked with a symbol. The symbols on the keys did not mean anything to me, though. Somehow I had to find out which button would lead to the wall phone in the control room, so I left the office and went there. The ponies seemed to be engrossed in their work and I couldn't see Rainbow either. I walked over the step platform past the Pegasus Device to get to the control room. When I got there, I went to the phone and picked up the receiver. I could recognize the symbol on one of the buttons that was also on my device in the office. I pressed the button and the button lit up white.

I didn't know if it was already working, so I placed the receiver next to the microphone of the intercom and switched it on. A howling noise went through the loudspeakers of the factory hall and I could see that some ponies were staring confusedly into the air. Apparently they were waiting for an announcement. As I held the receiver closer to the microphone I could hear the hissing sound clearly. So the line was working. What was missing now was a plausible speech so that nobody would suspect anything. So I started to improvise.

"Welcome to the Pega...oh, I can't say the name because it is HER invention! How about 'Welcome to the Spectra...device...computer-aided Rainbow Factory'? No, still sounds too much like her. Welcome to the Spectra-Apparatus Computer-Aided Enrichment Center! That sounds so much more pleasant! Anyway, I hope you all, scum or workers, feel comfortable and we can now start increasing production."

I had to giggle into the microphone for a moment because I was beginning to like it.

"I must apologise for what I said. I must admit it, it's not so bad. It's really fun, I like to be here. But I have a question. Why are the worthless ponies so sad? You should be proud of yourselves! Like it’s written here in the books on my shelf! We're going to produce a wonderful rainbow and you'll all get a wonderful halo!"

I looked through the windows of the control room where I could see the employees standing by the equipment, shaking their heads and continuing their work at a normal pace. Obviously I had to make myself heard.

"Oh, I should mention that this refers to all the ponies that do not appreciate this work," I said.

"We will immediately process every pony and with it every drop of Spectra we can find. In a short time we will have produced so much Spectra that we will have...peace for a very long time!" I said reassured.

The ponies did not appreciate my words, so it was time for me to take a deep breath.

"If you don't want to, then...YOU WILL WORK HERE FOR SO LONG THAT YOUR HOOVES WILL FALL OFF UNTIL YOU ARE ROTTING THROUGH THE GRIDDLE ON WHICH YOU STAND! DO YOU THINK I'M JOKING? I'LL HANG YOU UPSIDE DOWN IN THE SHREDDER AND THEN... I'LL ASK YOU THE QUESTION AGAIN! ANYPONY WHO DOESN’T WANT THAT, SHOULD GET UP OFF HIS DIRTY HORSE’S ASS AND WORK UNTIL YOUR BONES HURT, UNTIL YOUR EYES WATER, I DON’T GIVE A SHIT! IT’S YOUR LIFETIME!

Suddenly the door of the control room jumped open, Glaze was completely out of breath in the room.

"What...are you doing? If Rainbow hears you..." said Glaze as she came into the control room.

Glaze pushed me away from the microphone. All I could do was laugh at the way she acted.

"You're completely insane. Did I hear you right? You don’t stop working until all the worthless ponies are slain as quickly as possible?"

She came closer to me.

"I know you are only doing this to hide the fear you have of this job. It makes you sick to your stomach to see that this is an ongoing process. I can help you get over your fear, or I can still try to get you out of here."

I looked at her with a serious look.

"Get out of here while you still can. I can open the lower level sluice gates for you from here so you can escape. Once you're outside, I'll close them again and no one will know anything. I'll think of something for your way back to earth," she said and pointed to several red levers that were visible next to each other on the control panel.

I pushed her away from the control panel and activated the microphone again.

“Do you even know what you have raised here? I have a chic office, a pile of knowledge on the wooden shelves and this wonderful view through the glazed windows. I've reached the top! As your boss, let me tell you something: You should be amazed, I feel right at home here. But you don't notice anything, you were probably just producing again. Where have you been lately? I've missed your recognizable haircut in yellow and green," I said and fuzzed through her mane.

Glaze seemed confused by my behavior and took a step back.

"What's wrong, Glaze? Why are you suddenly scared of me like a terrified foal?" I asked her.

"Something is wrong with you. Why are you doing this?"

"Oh, I could ask you the same question. You know, if I'm not making an announcement and you don't hear me talking, you can always kick down doors and bother me with something. But when I'm talking, it means "Get the fuck out of here and do your job!"

"Tell me, are you drunk?" asked Glaze.

In fact, it still seemed as if I had overdone it a bit with the cider.

"Isn't anypony drunk at some point? Why do you even care?"

"Because you are putting yourself in danger," she said.

"Oh, I’m in danger here? Listen up, ponies! Glaze here says I'm in danger! I think she has me confused with the worthless ponies."

"Did you actually notice anything during your speech?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Let me ask you another way: Haven't you noticed in the last few days that Rainbow hasn't even crossed your path?"

"She probably doesn't dare come near me because I'm so pissed off at her!
Believe me, it's better for her to stay out of my way.

"You probably haven't noticed, but she's watching you right now. You shouldn't provoke her..."

"Or what? "One: If Rainbow wanted to kill me, she would have tried it already. And second, why would she do that anyway?"

"I would advise you not to give her a reason..." Glaze said as she left the control room.

At first I didn't know what she meant by that, I had to laugh about her paranoia. But when I turned to the window of the control room, I could see her standing. She was standing at the other end of the hall, but I could tell that she was watching me. Her pink glowing eyes fixed me and she had put on a slight grin. A long time ago I would have been frightened by this sight, but this time I also returned it with a sneering grin. After a short time she left the hall through one of the staircases.

I stayed in the control room and left the microphone on. But this time I said nothing more. I let it go, hoping that Ampere would get the message fully transmitted. I noticed how the cider made me tired and leaned back in the chair to rest my eyes a little.

I woke up jerkily when I heard a loud metallic noise from the door. Someone had struck it with something solid. I looked up out the window in front of me. Outside in the production hall it was pitch black, the lights and the machines were all switched off. There was a little light coming from above through the outside windows, but just enough to see the outlines. How could that be? The factory had never stood still before, what happened here?

The only light was from the monitors in the control room. I looked over and could hardly see anything, because the light on the video capture of the assembly lines flickered strongly, obviously something had happened on the lower floors. At first the monitor had a disturbing image, but then it switched to a kind of camera that showed the assembly line with the robots. I was not aware that there were cameras in the factory, even a possibility to watch them. On the monitor I could see the flickering ceiling lamps above the assembly line, swinging back and forth across it. Under the flickering lights I was horrified to see that Pony Joe, Glaze and the other workers were lying slit up on the conveyor belt. The robots turned all the way to the camera when the shot switched to the outside camera of the control room. I fell backwards from my chair in fright.

Around the office were dozens of ponies, white as bones. They had no color and dark eyes in which you could only see a small pupil. Each pony had a gaping hole in the chest where the newly designed cannula of the Pegasus device always pricked in. But I could only see the ponies on the monitors, through the windows everything was empty. Was this just another nightmare? Could I still have nightmares after all this?

There was the metallic sound of the door again, which made my blood freeze in my veins. The blow was so strong that the door could fall off its hinges the next time it would be hit. I tried to hide behind the desk in panic to avoid being discovered. The next blow was not long in coming. It came as I feared and the door fell out of its frame onto the floor. But nobody entered the control room. I lay trembling on the floor and did not want to look around the corner. Instead I looked at the monitors hanging above me. At first they only showed a disturbed picture again, but suddenly the entrance door was visible. This picture was impossible, because there was no camera above me that was pointed at the entrance door. But all the more I was afraid of what I saw in the video capture.

On the monitors Rainbow grinned at me with a monstrous look, her eyes glowing unnaturally red in the darkness. Besides, her mouth was surrounded on the inside by sharp teeth. She looked like a pure banshee. She was half robot parts like my prototype and you could see the gears turning on her head. She gave a deafening scream where the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Then suddenly a metallic claw popped out of her chest and pulled me over the desk towards her. I was still able to grab my Spectra syringe when I landed on the floor right in front of her.

I was lying in the dark, the monitors went off behind me. Above me I could hear the mechanical sounds of her body. I did not dare to look up, but even on the iron floor her ugly face was reflected. I couldn't even close my eyes for fear and adrenalin. It became quiet for a short moment when the lights in the production hall turned on for a moment outside and I saw the dead ponies standing at the windows.

They were all staring at me with their little pupils in their hollow eyes. Then the lights went out briefly, only to come back on again in the control room. The dead ponies were now all standing in the room around me. But they did nothing but stare at me. I closed my eyes, as I could no longer bear the horror.

"GO AWAY! WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" I cried.

"You have killed us all, you will pay for this!" a familiar voice shouted.

I opened my eyes and before me stood a familiar figure with a half torn body. One wing and one ear was missing, but I could see exactly who it was.

"Codi? NO, PLEASE DON'T HURT ME! I DIDN’T WANT THIS!" I begged and desperately reached for the Spectra syringe.

"KILL HIM!" he ordered, but I didn't want to die.

Trembling, I screamed out and rammed the Spectra syringe into his chest with full force. I gritted my teeth and looked around in shock. I was no longer in the control room, but in a storage room. All around me the fleshy remains of the victims were swelling everywhere. The puddle of blood below me reflected the word of where I was: BODYCOUNT DEPARTMENT.

I noticed that the Spectra syringe was still in the body of the pony and looked up. It was Rainbow. Not the manager, but the normal one from the show. I had stabbed her in the chest through her element of loyalty and she was gasping for air as her blood ran out of the wound. I pulled out the syringe in panic and Rainbow fell unconscious in front of me into the puddle of blood.

"No, Dashie. NO! I WANTED TO SAVE YOU!"

I carefully felt for a pulse to check if she was still alive. I could hear someone laughing behind me. I turned around and saw Hide Atmosphere behind me. He also looked horribly disfigured, as if he had been half hung in the shredder.

"You cannot save her! And you will die here just like me!" he said and laughed on.

I turned around and instead of Rainbow's body, there was ampere in front of me, his prism and eyes glowing blood-red. He pushed my head into the pool of blood with his metal hooves and tried to drown me in it. I tried to reach for the syringe again, but I could not reach it.

"IN THE RAINBOW FACTORY, WHERE YOUR FEARS AND HORRORS COME TRUE!" Ampere spoke in his mechanical language as I swallowed more and more blood.

"IN THE RAINBOW FACTORY, WHERE NOT A SINGLE SOUL GETS THROUGH!" he said before I slowly suffocated and lost consciousness.

I woke up again when I heard many ponies yelling around me. I had obviously fallen asleep. I looked around in panic, but everything looked familiar. The lights were on and for some reason the staff were running around frantically outside. I could not see exactly what was going on, but all the staff were running in a certain direction. Slowly I was able to gather myself despite the noise. Still I did not know what was going on, all employees seemed to run to the middle level. I got up in a sweat and ran to the exit door of the control room to see what was going on. The employees had apparently all run downstairs. I ran to the front parapet to see what was happening downstairs. I saw that the robots on the assembly line were standing still. I heard many ponies calling wildly around, it was total chaos down there.

I heard several loud noises as if doors were being kicked in. Something went very wrong here. I ran down the stairs to the middle floor and followed the calls of the staff. I could hear the machines stop and a loud alarm sounded. The wall lights in the staircase turned red. I arrived at the middle level when I heard the machines start up again, but the alarm was still ringing throughout the facility. I ran into the production hall where I noticed a gaping hole in the wall at the level of the upper floor, causing numerous Pegasi to flee outside. They were my old employees which haven’t seen in a long time! They probably escaped from the prisons, but some were stopped from escaping and were stunned by the unicorns with a magic spell and captured.

I looked around the hall and saw a pony hanging from the Pegasus Device, from which Spectra had just been extracted. It was Pony Joe and he was screaming with all his might, but nobody noticed him. It lasted only a short time and his body was sucked to the point of colorlessness. An employee stopped the machine with a lever so that the cuffs came off and the lifeless body of Pony Joe splashed out of the machine onto the lower gangway. If he hadn't died before, I'm sure that would have finished him off now.

The Unicorns blocked the hole in the wall with various pipes and plates to prevent further ponies from escaping. The ones that didn't make it were placed next to each other by the workers. Slowly the situation calmed down again. The ponies noticed my presence and all looked at me full of anger. The alarm was switched off again by a pony.

"What happened here?" I wanted to know.

"Your stupid robot happened! He went crazy and ripped the hole in the wall. Then he ran off with some other staff, they were your ponies! You'll pay for this! She'll wind you up on barbed wire and make a new necklace out of you!" cried one of the ponies.

"Whoa whoa whoa, don't be so cheeky. I still decide who gets killed here," said a familiar voice.

Rainbow sailed gently down from above and landed before me. She seemed to be a bit worn out, obviously she had tried to stop some ponies herself.

"So now tell me what just happened here," she said, avoiding the look in the crowd.

"Mrs. Dash... the co-manager's invention is... faulty."

"I didn't ask you to implicate anyone. I asked what happened."

"T...This robot went nuts and escaped. Along with all of the co-manager's personnel."

Then Rainbow turned to me.

"Do you know how this could have happened?" she asked calmly, looking at me with a deep look. Fortunately, I had an alibi.

"I don't know, Rainbow. I was in the control room when the alarm sounded. When I got here, everything had already happened."

"Were the other robots affected?" she wanted to know.

"I saw them standing at the bottom of the assembly line, no sign of any unusual behavior." I answered her.

"Then it appears to be an unfortunate isolated incident, happens in most factories." joked Rainbow.

It frightened me that she remained so calm. Something was wrong.

"And does anyone have any idea how the prisoners escaped?" Rainbow asked and turned to Glaze.

She was the one who, after Atmosphere died, was responsible for the lower level where the prisoner wing was located. I didn't like the look Rainbow gave Glaze at all. You could see how pale Glaze became and would have preferred to leave immediately. I already knew Pony Joe’s punishment for disobedience and recklessness, not imagining what Rainbow would do. I tried to protect her.

"It was probably my fault... I fell asleep in the control room and probably hit one of the switches."

"You fell asleep at work?" she said before she bit her chapped lips together and burst out in thunderous laughter.

The employees looked at her wordlessly as no one dared to say anything about her strange behaviour.

"I can't believe it! This...this is impossible! How can you..." she gurgled before slowly calming down again.

"Please forgive me, I just had to remember that there are some ponies here that don't get any sleep at night because of their work. Darned, I never thought it was possible for anyone to fall asleep with all this screaming," she said, wiping a few tears of laughter from her reddened, bloodshot eyes.

"Well, if there is nothing else to see here, then everypony clean up here and just take the rest of the prisoners back to their cells. I have something to ..." she said before she looked across the crowd at the colourless body of Pony Joe, lying dead on the scaffolding next to his Spectra syringe.

"Oh no, PONY JOE! What happened to him? WHY IS HE DEAD?" she began to scream.

"When Pony Joe tried to stop the robot, he pushed him into the Pegasus Device's containment facility. We tried to shut it down as soon as we could, but it was too late."

She turned to me and her eye started to twitch and picked up Pony Joe's Spectra syringe. She held it in her wing and went towards me. She stopped just before me and held the tip to my stomach.

"That was you...that was you! You tinkered with this robot! You killed one of my employees!" she said.

"Like you said. It was an unfortunate isolated incident, happens in most factories." I joked and shrugged my shoulders, knowing full well that I was teasing her.

"Do you think that's funny?" she said with bared teeth and pressed the tip a little harder so it started to hurt, but I didn't care.

"If you think what you did to Hide was funny," I said.

She suddenly seemed shocked by what I said and backed off.

"Tell me, what kind of monster do you think I am? I've never killed a pony for fun! I killed Hide to protect YOU! I locked up the staff FOR YOU so you could concentrate better on your job! I noticed how your former employees disrupted you, so I removed them from your environment. And now look how strong you've gotten for even daring to talk to me like that."

"This is all nonsense. You wanted to control me and you took everything from me! YOU HAVE IMPRISONED ME!" I hissed at her.

"You forget how much freedom I gave you, even though you're only my co-manager!" she said suspiciously.

"Your co-manager? I RUN THIS PLACE WHILE YOU DO NOTHING! ASK YOUR EMPLOYEES WHO RUNS THIS PLACE!"

She didn't seem impressed by what I said, so I kept going.

"And no manager of this factory should behave the way you are behaving right now. You act like you don't give a shit about the incident, that's weak! And we can't have weakness here at the factory!"

"What are you trying to say?" asked Rainbow softly as she narrowed her eyes.

"I think it's time to put you to the test, just like you did with me! We will produce so much Spectra that it will last for decades to supply Equestria for generations to come! I will take your place and lead Equestria to the greatness it deserves!"

"Amazing. Everything what you just said...was wrong!" she said and grinned in my face.

"Well, not fundamentally wrong. But the Spectra is needed to keep Equestria alive, not to make it great! And how many ponies do you think you'll have to kill to supply all these generations?"

"That's irrelevant right now, if necessary I'll start with you."

She seemed surprised by my direct challenge.

"Oho, well, let's not waste time. KILL THEM!" she yelled and pointed to the prisoners.

"But Mrs. Dash..." one of the unicorns hesitated.

"KILL THEM ALL!" she yelled louder.

Suddenly, the staff unicorns lit up around the prisoners. They shot green beams of magic onto the ponies, which she immediately dropped dead. The eyes froze and some had hardly the chance to scream before they died, everything happened so fast. I had to watch as my co-workers were killed in front of me who were alive only a few moments ago.

Glaze stood beside me stunned as she watched the massacre. The lifeless bodies of my employees fell to the ground as if in slow motion. Their eyes remained open in terror as the light in them went out. I had provoked Rainbow and killed them with it. I was firmly convinced I was in control, but she was just playing with me...a bloody and visceral weather game of chess.

"HAHAHA, you... you should see your face now! First you were all like "I have the power" and now look at you. Did you think I was just gonna let you take my job?" Rainbow laughed.

When she said that, she built up a huge load of anger that I wanted to take out on her right away. I snorted hard and was ready to rip her to pieces right here and now.

"Do you really think you can just take over my position like that? I am the manager of this factory and you are just a tool to keep this factory going!"

I was about to go and shut her up for good. I would take the Spectra syringe away from her and stab her until she choked on her internal bleeding.

"Why are you holding back? Isn't that what you wanted? Now you can make all the Spectra you want."

"I will kill you for what you did to those ponies!" I said, snarling.

"Funny you should mention that. Another pony has already tried it."

"I'm not as weak as Hide!"

"I wasn't talking about him. BRING HIM IN!"

The two twin ponies with glasses entered the production hall and had a pony going beside them in hoof cuffs and muzzle. It walked beside them with its head bowed down. When it stood in front of us, I could see that it was Codi, despite the severe injuries. He looked terrible, his mane was tousled and blackened by soot. His face was bloodshot and on one eye he seemed to be blinded.

"Codi? You are alive?" I asked in surprise.

"Barely. Actually, I wanted to kill him even then, when he attacked me. But something told me that you would challenge me again some day, so I decided to keep him until that day came. But I never thought it would come so soon," said Rainbow.

"While everypony was busy chasing Ampere and the fleeing employees, he went to the upper floor to head me off. What a stupid idea to make the same mistake again. Isn't that right, co-manager?"

As she looked at the broken codi and then looked at me, she suddenly got an idea.

"But I can understand you, you're pushing for your promotion. And the way I see it, it's only a neck stitch away," Rainbow said with a grin and turned to me. She handed me Pony Joe's Spectra syringe with her crippled wing and stood next to me.

"Here's my suggestion: You kill him and I'll make you manager if that's what you really want. What you then do with the factory is up to you. All is forgiven and forgotten.. And you don't have to kill me, which, by the way, would be impossible for you. How does that sound to you?" she said, standing next to me.

I didn't know what to do. I was standing there stunned and looked at my former colleague in bewilderment.

"Codi, what have you done?" I wanted to know.

"I... I wanted to make her pay for all what she'd done. But I failed. I'm sorry. I'm sorry you're a prisoner now, like me," he said, raising his head to look me in the eye.

It took me a short moment to understand what he wanted to tell me. But then I understood, because he had realized that I was trapped in my position as co-manager. There was no way I could keep my promise. Tears started to fall from my eyes when I realized that I had failed as well.

"Codi, i’m..." I started to stammer, but he just smiled back at me with a self-satisfied smile.

"it's okay."

That's all he said, apparently he knew he'd woken me up with his sacrifice and it gave him hope that I would finish the job. I knew what I had to do, so I went for the Spectra syringe. It was a horrible thing to do to him, but it was certainly less painful than dying in the Pegasus Device, whose razor-sharp cannula would have pierced his entire chest. I had never really used the syringe before and did not know the anatomy of a pony. Possibly, a stab in the neck would be less painful than in the chest. Codi nodded at me and closed his eyes from which some tears were still running.

"Do it!" shouted Rainbow in my ear.

I reached out with my syringe and stabbed him. At that moment, I felt absolutely nothing. It was just a process that was going on in my head so that Rainbow wouldn't kill him. The force pierced his body and the needle disappeared deep into his neck.

He twisted his head back and forth in pain, but he gritted his teeth to suppress his screaming. I pulled the plunger and through the vial you could see Codi's iridescent blood being drained. He was panting deeply a few times before his breaths stopped and his grim expression came off. You could see exactly how his fur colour was fading away, as well as his magnificent mane and tail, which were just grey. As I pulled the Spectra syringe out of his body I noticed that I had hit a wrist, so that a lot of his remaining blood splashed on my clothes.

I looked at the ampoule full of Spectra, which shimmered in rainbow colours. When I looked up again and saw the dead body fall onto the assembly line and into the shredder, I realized what I had done. I had killed my best friend just to become the manager of this factory. When I had done the deed, I paused for a moment to get over everything. Rainbow came at me from the side and looked at me with big bloodshot eyes.

"You really killed him, I can't believe it. I can't believe you really did it," she said in amazement and giggled a little.

"You know, if I had been you I wouldn't have killed my best friend...but the pony that gave me the order to do it. But I had told you that it was impossible for you to kill me. And you fell for it again, you know why?"

She started running circles around me.

"Because I could smell your fear of me from the moment we first met. In the basement, remember?"

I saw the terrible moments before me again, the fear I felt when I saw her disfigured face in the reflection of the fuse box. And even though I had gotten used to her looks by now, it still frightened me... not to mention her character.

"Just like on your first train journey to this place. And when you stood in front of me in the freight wagon, as I took back my element which, by the way, was essential for the operation of the first Pegasus Device version and made sure that you survived Hide's assassination. But I didn't mind all that because I really believed that you would be a great enrichment to the facility," she said and calmed down afterwards.

"You're afraid of hurting me because you're not aware of the consequences. Take an example from your dead colleague! I'm sure he would never have killed you. But your actions have disappointed my expectations. I had planned to make you my successor, but instead I see that you have become a monster. But you've proven your loyalty to me, so I may still have use for you.”

The staff looked at her confused, but I did not say a word. My grief and anger fought within me for the upper hand. Rainbow slowly ran past me and stopped beside me.

"As long as I live, I will always control you. And until my death, you will remain my slave." she whispered in my ear.

Then she ran off and left me with the staff. They whispered among themselves and Glaze stood behind me. She too lacked the words for what had just happened.

I picked up the syringe with Codi's Spectra in the ampoule and held it firmly in my hand. I didn't say a word to Glaze, but trundled towards the stairwell to get to the upper floor. I could neither cry nor scream, the pain turned me inside out. I began to remember why I was doing all this. How could everything go so wrong? What had I done to deserve all this? I just wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.

But where should I go? In Equestria, I'd get noticed right away, and I couldn't go home without taking the train. No, I had to finish it, Codi had sacrificed himself for it. But how could I avenge his vow? On the way up, I passed the control room. I hesitated briefly and remembered the escape plan Glaze explained to me. I went inside and examined the illuminated control panel. I looked at the red buttons that Glaze had shown me. On closer inspection, however, they were inscribed with signs that I couldn't decipher. I had to do something, once again Rainbow would not spare me.

I looked desperately at the numerous other switches. There were strange symbols on them as well, but some of them looked familiar. I had read them a long time ago, on a piece of paper. At first I thought of printing errors, marginal spots or smear marks, but now I recognized that they were signs. I remembered back to the day when I brought the list of names to Glaze to ask for Scootaloo...Scootaloo...that was it! I knew now how I could carry out my plan!

Chapter 6 - The Closure

Codi had brought me to my senses through his sacrifice. If there was anyone in Equestria Rainbow would be vulnerable to, it would be Scootaloo. Though she treated her terribly, Rainbow hadn't killed her yet. In fact, she hadn't killed a pony herself in a long time. I suspected that somewhere deep underneath her insane, twisted mind, she was afraid of killing a pony herself. And with Scootaloo I should be able to put her in the same condition.

So I had to be able to get Rainbow into the same situation she put me in. The only way to do that was to...kill Scootaloo. It broke my heart to sacrifice another innocent pony to this sick factory, but that would make her the last pony that would have to die here senselessly. I looked at the buttons and switches as I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the old note that I had been carrying in my pocket since day one and had forgotten to put it out. I went to the line where her name was and checked the symbols on the prison cells. Bull's-eye! A prison cell had the same symbols as the one next to her name.

There were other symbols on the key, possibly several ponies sitting in one cell. I thought about releasing them all. So in the chaos at least a few would have the possibility to escape to freedom. I hesitated briefly before I opened all the cell doors. If I did that now, there would be no turning back. I had to go through with it, without restraint, without regard for loss. I didn't care about the fate of the other prisoners or the staff...I just wanted to see Rainbow suffer.

I glanced briefly at the skylights on top of the facility before pressing the cell door button. It was late at night, so hopefully the prisoners wouldn't notice until tomorrow that the bars would open. Until then I could get some sleep myself after that day. I didn't know if this was the right decision, but after I had to kill Codi I was just desperate.

While switching I noticed that the color of the keys changed from green to red. The strange thing was that certain keys next to it were red as well. The strange thing was that certain keys next to it were also red. Someone else must have opened the cell doors. My colleagues were probably being held prisoner inside them, otherwise they could not have escaped. It could only have been Glaze, she was the only one in the room besides me at that time. Why had she done that? And I had defended her! I thought for a moment whether I should change the plan and escape through the sluice gates, then Glaze would have to stand trial. But then I would withdraw from my responsibility, I just could not do that. I put the note back in my pocket and turned back to the control panel one last time before I left the room.

"I'm sorry, Scoot..." I whispered softly.

The next morning was dawning and I had slept very badly. I sat at my desk and examined the syringe, the vial of which was filled with Codi's Spectra. I knew exactly what would happen today. I also knew that it could not be reversed now. Glaze came by early in the morning, probably to see how I was doing after the murder of Codi. I couldn't remember how many bottles of cider I had drunk since yesterday, but it seemed that it wasn't enough. Meanwhile I poured myself another glass while she started talking to me.

"Stop it! This guzzling is pointless!" she yelled at me.

I showed her a certain finger, which, from the look on her face, seemed to be understood even here in Equestria. I was not capable of more, I would probably have puked when trying to scream.

"I'm sorry about what happened. It wasn't right what Rainbow did to your employees. They didn't do anything bad. They just wanted their freedom and paid the price with their lives. But only because you had to challenge her! Why did you do that?" Glaze asked me reproachfully.

"You tell me," I said dryly to her as I took another sip from the glass.

"Rainbow was always the only boss here, even when Hide was still alive. But now I'm not sure about that either, I think the rest of the staff feels the same way...after what happened yesterday. If only I could think of a solution."

"It will come...and the solution will be final," I said, waving Glaze out of my office.

"Please do not do anything rash. Talk to me if you feel like it, maybe I can help. Maybe we can all... help each other," said.

Before she left the office, I called after her.

"Oh yes, you wouldn't happen to know who opened the jail cells and helped the prisoners escape, would you?" I asked quietly and took the last sip from the glass.

"No, I don't know that. But I thank you for defending me," she said and ran a little slower.

Of course I knew she was lying at that moment, who else would have had access to the prison doors? But I didn't understand the reason why she had done it. I poured myself another glass of cider while Glaze looked at me questioningly.

"Anyway, what does it matter? It's too late for that now, my dear."

Glaze seemed to think I was talking crazy, but I was far from it by now. I saw things as they were and tried to keep up the appearance of a defenseless co-manager until the end. But this time things would be different. This time it would be according to my rules.

I was just waiting for the prisoners to break out and sound the alarm. Meanwhile I had emptied the bottle and enjoyed the last glass of cider while watching the midday sun through the big window wall. I remembered back to the first day when I looked through those windows. Only now I had nothing to lose, one way or another I would never see my family again. So all I could do was win.

I still couldn't believe myself that after all Rainbow did I would put an end to it. Despite the alcohol I was completely clear in my head again and knew exactly what I wanted to do. First I would kill Scootaloo in front of her eyes, then I would take her job as manager. For that she would probably try to kill me, but I did not plan to die today.

But what could I do if things didn't go the way I planned? I lost myself in the plan I had to save her. When I still had hope that she could be saved. But something was still bothering me. It was the possibility that through Scootaloo's sacrifice Rainbow could come into a state where she could remember her old self again. Was there a small chance that she could eventually return to the way I remembered her?

Why did she become what she is now back then? I started thinking again. Even though she had explained it all to me, I could not understand how it could have come to this. I just couldn't understand how this could happen with Rainbow Dash. I started to question my plan, it wasn't too late after all. I could still...

A deafening alarm ripped me from my thoughts at that moment.

"Boss! Follow me!" cried Glaze, totally hounded.

"What happened?" I asked, playing ignorant.

"General alarm in the detention block! The worthless ponies are going to break out! Rainbow needs our help!" she called and waved me frantically to her.

That was my chance, now the moment had come. And this time I would not fail.

"Don't worry, Glaze. She'll get my... help... Take me to her!" I said and put my empty glass on the table to grab my Spectra syringe.

I walked with Glaze through the complex to the production hall. The noise of the alarm echoed through the entire facility, just like it did yesterday. All personnel were on their way to the lowest levels to lock the prisoners back in. In the middle of the production hall, I could see Rainbow in black robes flying around with a couple of other ponies, stopping the ponies as they tried to climb over the railings to the middle level. Apparently some were trying to break through the roofs of the production hall, but Rainbow was trying to stop them. She lunged at the ponies like a harpy at her food. She bit the ponies so hard in the neck, others broke their wings as they flew, causing them to fall to the ground, paralyzed. No wonder Codi didn't stand a chance against her.

"What do we do, Chief?" asked Glaze desperately.

"This is just a little riot, nothing more. Let's see if Rainbow can do it," I said, watching her kamikaze maneuvers.

"What do you mean? We must help her," stammered Glaze.

When Glaze noticed I wasn't doing anything, she guessed what I was getting at.

"Wait...that's your solution? This escape attempt could injure employees! Do you want to risk that just because of your wrestling for the manager's position?"

At that moment, an ordinary worker pony flew in.

"We... we have located the pony who is responsible for this escape attempt, but it is still alive. I think there's something wrong with Rainbow. She's acting strange. She's at the Pegasus Device right now... follow me!" said the pony out of breath.

Before we followed the pony, Glaze turned to me in astonishment.

"I told you it'd come," I said with a grin, and she gave me a wry look.

When we arrived on the middle floor I could hear Rainbow screaming a little, but the noise made it too indistinct. She seemed to be chasing someone. The fight at the factory went on, but the screams became less. Apparently the uprising was slowly being quelled by the workers. Looking closely, I could see Rainbow and a bodyguard of workers.

We slowly walked to the middle floor of the production hall where the Pegasus Device was located. Rainbow was already back and you could see that she had suffered greatly from the chase.

"Any final words, you miserable worthless whore of a foal?" she shouted and puffed deeply several times.

Now I could see who was hanging in chains before her. It was Scootaloo! I knew that if Rainbow would blame anyone for the escape attempt, it would only be Scootaloo. It was all about her from now on.

Scootaloo brought her chin high, still demanding even the tiniest fraction of dignity.

“You have beautiful eyes,” she cooed, soft, yet clearly.

Rainbow didn't know what to do at that moment. She was confused by that statement. And as if the timing couldn't have been better, I intervened.

"Ah, there's the scapegoat," I joked.

"YOU! HOW? HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?" Rainbow Dash yelled at me.

I shrugged my shoulders and pretended not to blame. As Rainbow Dash snarled her teeth, Glaze stepped in.

"He had nothing to do with this. Do you think he was capable of anything after the execution yesterday? Besides, he would have to know how to use the control panel and he can't." she said.

"Really? Are you sure about that?" Rainbow looked at her with a closed eye.

Glaze had to swallow briefly because she wasn't sure if I had broken the code. But she also knew that I could get her killed for it. She affirmed Rainbow's question with a reserved nod.

"That damn technique! No sooner are you proud to have unicorns as innovative employees than they ruin everything! BAH! Never mind," she said and went back to Scootaloo with a snort.

"Hehe, you could have chosen your last words more wisely. You probably still expect me to thank you for this completely meaningless compliment. You thought wrong! And now, die!" she said and was about to have her colleagues put her on the Pegasus Device.

I cleared my throat briefly to get her attention.

"WHAT?" snorted Rainbow.

"I don't want to seem indelicate right now, but shouldn't you be doing this yourself?" I said.

"What the hell are you talking about? She's an escaped prisoner and she's gonna be executed for it." Rainbow tried to justify himself.

"But not by you. Why?" I kept going.

"What difference would it make?" she wanted to know.

"Well, I could do it," I said, pulling out her Spectra syringe from under my jacket.

"Wait, what are you up to?" Rainbow Dash asked me.

Then the worker pony who had accompanied us here stood up to me.

"Mrs. Dash, why haven't you killed this prisoner yet?" wanted to know.

"None of your damn business! Now, do your job!"

The ponies stopped at my place and didn't move.

"DIDN’T YOU HEAR?" she shouted, but nobody moved.

I walked slowly towards her and stopped in front of her.

"Oh, they heard you, but I think they noticed that you had to prove your position again. And I think it's just a neck stitch away," I said with a grin and threw the Spectra syringe at her.

"Seriously? Do you know how many ponies I've killed with it so far?" she asked me with a sinister look.

"But you haven't killed her! We know that you know her. But you also asked him to kill Codi and he did. Then it shouldn't be a problem for you, should it?"

"Why do I have to prove that to you? I'm YOUR BOSS!"

"Then just kill her and all is forgiven and forgotten, remember?" I quoted her with a grin on my face.

She realized the longer she put the discussion off, the worse she made it. With a sinister look she looked at me and the staff and hastily took the Spectra syringe in her wing. She did not want to show any weakness and wanted to show us her strength. She also knew that she had no choice. She had demanded the same from me and now she had to prove herself, even if it meant erasing a part of her old past. Only for the staff it was nothing more than another worthless foal. Something that Rainbow would easily manage.

She approached Scootaloo with the syringe and started at the chest. The foal started shaking at the sight of the sharp object. Rainbow looked back at us again with an angry look before she sticked the syringe so far in that some blood ran out of Scootaloo's fur. She began to cry in pain, but suppressed her screams. We noticed how hard it was for Rainbow to push the syringe further in.

"Do it!" I yelled over to her.

Then Rainbow looked at me angrily and squeezed her eyes together. She had to concentrate hard on pulling it off. She started wheezing but couldn't bring herself to do it. Again and again she tried to stick the syringe further in with one stroke, but she couldn't do it. She cried out and Rainbow pulled the syringe out again. She threw it in our direction and tore her bloodshot eyes wide open.

"I CAN'T DO IT! OK? IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED? YOU WANT THE JOB, YOU HAVE IT!" she yelled.

Then she turned away, ran to the next window and looked out, panting and sniffing. Now the time had finally come. I had broken her by beating her in her own chess game. So I ran forward and lifted the Spectra syringe. I went on Scootaloo and stopped right in front of the orange foal with the purple mane. She had lowered her head and did not look at me. Apparently, to her, I was just another Rainbow Factory creature who wanted to kill her. Nevertheless, I felt it was my duty to show my gratitude for her sacrifice.

“Thank you." I whispered softly into her ear and stabbed her in the chest wound where Rainbow had already set in.

She jumped up and tried to catch her breath, which was difficult because of the blood running into her lungs at that moment. She was panting and jerking back and forth on the chains. Through the injection I could feel her pulse beat, it was a very intense feeling. And it felt good to finish Rainbow off. And not only that, in this position where you could decide who should live or die, I felt...powerful.

Rainbow turned scared and saw what I was doing to Scootaloo. That was good, she should see everything. I pulled back the plunger of the vial and sucked out as much Spectra as the vial could hold. I was amazed how much blood flowed in such a small pony body, yet the ampoule was only half full. When I pulled the Spectra syringe out of the grey Scootaloo and turned around I could see Rainbow Dash's face freezing like in shock. She looked at me stunned.

Outwardly I seemed cold, but inwardly my emotions began to sway as I looked at Rainbow Dash's face. She had lost that look of hatred, her eyes were widened and it seemed as if I could see her true feelings for the first time. This time she was not pretending, she was completely herself. As she slowly realized what I had done she stood up and fixed me with a look that was anything but pleasant. But this time it was not an evil look, but an angry one. She was angry... very angry.

"Tell me, how dare you kill her? How dare you KILL SCOOTALOO?"

The staff slowly gathered around Rainbow.

Even though I actually started to feel sorry for her at that moment, I had to play the game now and checkmate her.

"Well, Rainbow. It looks like you're showing emotion," I said to her.

"Watch your mouth or you'll regret it." she narrowed her eyes.

"He's right, we have a big responsibility and we can't just let our feelings get in the way of doing things that will hurt our cause," said Glaze.

"Yes! If you are no longer able to do your job you are no longer our manager!" said one of the worker ponies next to me, which was loudly supported by other ponies.

Now it was up to me to put my foot down.

"That's enough...all of you! Mrs. Dash..."

I slowly went back into the crowd to prepare for all eventualities.

"...I am relieving you of your position as manager of the Rainbow Factory!"

"Say...that...again, co-manager!" she hissed angrily.

"You're fired, Dashie!" I said with a grin on my face.

"Bad mistake!" Rainbow Dash growled as she slowly walked towards me with her hump up and her head down.

As I walked back, the staff stood protectively in front of me.

"SO, WHERE ARE YOU GOING? YOU STAY HERE, SO WE CAN FINISH THIS PROPERLY," she cried manically.

"Leave it! It's over, Rainbow. The senseless bloodshed is over!" Glaze shouted.

"It will be, after I killed HIM!" she yelled.

The employees initially managed to hold her back. Glaze feared that I was in danger and considered taking me to safety until Rainbow would calm down again.

"Run to the control room and lock the door! You'll be safe in there until we get things back under control.”

I realized how urgent the situation was and ran across the stairwell to the upper part of the production hall. Below me I could hear Rainbow screeching like a banshee, from above I could hear the prisoners still trying to escape. I was running up the stairs when suddenly many ponies started screaming behind me. Accompanied by Rainbow's manic laughter, I could hear what was happening. She seemed to be killing the employees, one by one. I started to get weak in the knees when I heard the death cries of the employees...and how pony after pony fell silent.

I arrived at the top of the bridge that led to the control room. The Pegasus Device kept on running and I dodged the steam jets that came out of the pipes here and there with a hiss. I had to hurry, maybe Rainbow was already on his way to me. It was only a few meters to the control room. The room had a massive door through which Rainbow would not get through. The windows were also reinforced due to the proximity of the Pegasus Device, so bone splinters or something similar could not damage the glass. I ran the last few meters and noticed something falling on me with full force. The Spectra syringe flew out of my hand and slipped on the grille, so I couldn't reach it anymore.

I fell painfully onto the grating and was pushed to the ground by Rainbow, so that I could look her straight in the eyes. Her whole face was covered with blood, and the corner of her mouth was covered with a piece of torn fur from another pony. It probably came from one of the staff members who tried to stop her. Her eyes were wide open, she had bared her teeth and tears were running from her eyes. Her face was marked by madness.

"Gotcha! And now we end this story once and for all..."

Before Rainbow could do anything to me, another pony pushed her off me. It was Glaze, but her body was bleeding badly and one wing looked half torn off. When Rainbow picked herself up, Glaze stood in front of me, protecting me. I picked myself up and took my shot again.

"Go on, go on! I'll hold her off," she cried and turned to Rainbow.

"Get out of the way, Glaze!" she said hissing.

"You have nothing to say to me. To get to him, you'll have to get past me first," she said.

And Rainbow suddenly started laughing like a madwoman. Glaze just didn't know why. I used the moment to safely enter the control room and stand next to the door switch so I could close the door behind Glaze in case she wanted to withdraw.

"Sorry, I'm just remembering something. This is where Hide was standing just before he died! Do you still remember the last thing I said to him?"

She crept up like a cat in an attack on Glaze until she was standing right in front of her.

"Long live the Rainbow Factory!" shouted Rainbow and threw herself on Glaze, just as she had done to me.

I wanted to go and help her, but it was already too late. Glaze tried to wriggle free, but Rainbow Dash kicked her face several times with full force until it was just blood red. Glaze cried out, but the bruises made it more and more like a choked murmur. She tugged at her bent wing until it detached from her body with a disgusting cracking sound and you could see the muscle fibres tearing apart. Rainbow pulled her by the mane and pushed her under the railing of the grating, causing Glaze to fall into the abyss.

I was surprised that Rainbow was actually capable of killing ponies in her hatred. She must have been like that at the beginning of all this and now I had rekindled that fire. I heard Rainbow coming closer and held the Spectra Syringe behind me. There was no other way, I had to face it and stopped in the doorway.

"Rainbow, just accept it! You never could have killed Scootaloo! I could!"

She started to hover slowly and flew in my direction with a tremendous wing dive while she started screaming. When she was about to hit me head-on, I aimed with the Spectra syringe. She tried to slow down, but I hit her in the pelvis. She screamed loudly and the force of her impact ripped the syringe out of my hand, crashing violently against the wall in the control room and dropping to the floor. I ran to her and wanted to finish it. I pulled the ampoule to suck off her Spectra, but it didn't go back far enough because Scootaloo had already filled half the ampoule. And the plunger could not be moved back to push the Spectra out of the ampoule. Probably there was a mechanism to do this, but at that moment I couldn't lose any thought about it.

Rainbow was writhing back and forth on the floor until I pulled out the syringe. You could see her shining rainbow mane fading a little, just like the fur. But it wasn't as bad as with the ponies who had had their Spectra completely sucked out.

"You... dare...use that syringe against me? You are truly...a monster." she gasped softly and started coughing up blood.

I noticed that her Spectra in the vial glowed much brighter than anything I had ever seen. At that moment, something happened inside me. I... I started to feel her pain. I could feel Rainbow suffering.

"I'm not the monster here, you left me no choice! I had to do it!" I snarled at her.

"Then do it! Finish it and kill me! GO ON!" she shouted at me.

At that moment I began to see something in her eyes. It was pure desperation, obviously she really didn't want to live anymore. I had obviously taken more from her with Scootaloo than I had thought. She had given up on herself completely and now wanted me to put her out of her misery. But I was not quite sure, so I tried to talk to her. But not like the Rainbow Factory manager, but like Rainbow Dash.

"Rainbow Dash? Why did you do all this? Why did you need someone from Earth? Why did you choose me of all people?" I cried as tears slowly streamed from my eyes.

She looked at me with horrified eyes, I could see that her pupils were also losing colour.

“Because I was looking for somepony...someone to take that load off me..." she said.

I knew that at that moment she was not only talking about the factory. She literally wanted someone to take it it off her...her Spectra. To finally save her from this horror. She wanted to be saved. I really didn't see that coming. I recovered the thought I had before the alarm went off. She wanted to be saved and she was still alive. So I still had a chance to make it up to her.

"I'd say you found someone. And I'm gonna finish this story... once and for all," I said calmly.

Rainbow was waiting for me to kill her any moment. But I ran to the control panel and pulled all the red levers I could see. Various red lights came on on the control panel and the sirens of the opening sluice gates echoed up into the production hall.

"Wait! Why... why did you do that?" Rainbow gasped exhausted.

"I'm going to destroy the Rainbow Factory!"

"What? You can't do that. How will Equestria survive without Spectra?"

"I never intended to save Equestria. I only intended to save you."

At that moment, I saw something new in her eyes. Despite the almost gray pupils, I could see a rainbow glimmer flashing in them, her facial expressions suddenly seemed more relaxed too. A light smile slipped from her face, followed by tears flowing from her almost grey eyes. At that moment a pony flew into the control room. It was Ampere. He entered the control room and his robot eyes fixed me. I noticed that they were suddenly glowed blue.

"The maker! Thank Celestia I found you! Come with me, this facility will soon be destroyed," the robot said before turning around to capture Rainbow Dash. His eyes changed colour from blue to red, just as I knew it from my nightmare.

“Wait, the factory will be WHAT?” I said confused, but I got no answer.

"Hello Rainbow Dash, it's nice to meet you," he said, and his hooves began to beat blue arcs. He was about to execute them.

"No, Ampere. Abort! Abort! Do not execute the order."

"It's not possible, it's the final order I have to execute."

"No, you don't! I'm giving you a new order to save her and get her out of here!"

He switched back down and his eyes were glowing yellow again. Then he turned to me.

"You didn't understand me. I no longer take orders, I execute them. Ever since you put that spectra core in me, it's been giving my circuits strange overloads and adding dozens of variables to my primary programming. I started thinking for myself. And I realized what we were doing here-- what I was doing here. So I decided to do something about it. Your final order just showed me what I had to do."

"Because of your hasty escape, innocent ponies died, Ampere! If you had just followed my orders, they would still be alive! Codi would still be alive!"

"The escape was planned, but I could not carry it out without support. So I analyzed which ponies I could trust and discovered the ponies in the prisoner wing that were involved in my development. After I had released them by remote control to escape with them, unfortunately not all of them made it. I am sorry Codi was among the victims, an unfortunate loss."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"We should hurry, we are expected by a large number of ponies that I have gathered to destroy this factory. We will find an alternative way to maintain weather stability in Equestria. The vial of Spectra you carry with you will be of use to us. But first, I will execute my final order to be free."

When I realized what he had just told me, my answer was clear:

"NO!"

"Excuse me?" Ampere asked.

"You won't kill her!"

"I realize that you are emotionally concerned about her. However, based on her vital signs and the size of her pupils, I realize that she will not live much longer anyway. So an accelerated bringing about of this event would even equate to mercy if that makes you morally better," Ampere said.

"You will stay away from her, you understand?" I said to him.

"If you stand against me, I'll stand against you. I don't think Codi would have wanted that." he tried to psychologically talk me into it.

"I'm not Codi!" I said to him loud and clear, holding the Spectra syringe in front of me.

His yellow eyes lit up red and his metal hooves started to conduct electricity again. I only had my Spectra Syringe and was trying to fight back when Ampere gave me a mechanical slash and knocked the syringe out of my hand in Rainbow Dash's direction. Then he braced himself against me with a mechanical blow and through the discharge like a defibrillator I flew to the front door of the control room. My head was spinning and I got a little dizzy. When I felt something wet on my head I saw that it was blood. Fortunately it was only a laceration on the back of my head and I slowly got up again and tried to find something to fight Ampere with. But I couldn't concentrate anymore because of the blow. I could see Ampere standing in front of me and assessing my injuries.

"I wanted to cooperate with you, how terribly misguided. But the only thing you deserve now is death. And now die...die...die..." he stuttered and bet on the final blow that would guarantee me death.

Ampere suddenly started to twitch. Various lightning bolts shot across his body and his eyes started to flicker. Looking closer, I could see exactly what had happened. Under him my syringe was stuck in his lower body, from which a few drops of Spectra flowed. Rainbow Dash had dragged herself up to Ampere and put the Spectra syringe into his unarmored lower body between the metal plates. Rainbow's Spectra was apparently so strong that Ampere's circuits shorted out and his eyes even caught fire from the massive overload. He burned out from the inside.

Rainbow Dash fell to the ground exhausted like Ampere's broken body. Her breathing was very shallow. She had saved me, but for that she had to sacrifice the Spectra in the syringe. I thought about what I should do at that moment. I had only just brought her back, she could not die now. It could be my head injury, but I had to do something to keep her alive. The syringe was empty, so it wasn’t of any use to me now. Then I remembered the ampoule with Codi's Spectra, which was in my office. I had to take Rainbow Dash there as quickly as possible and inject it into her. So I took her piggyback, grabbed the empty Spectra syringe in one hand and dragged myself from the control room towards the top level.

The factory was still in chaos. The prisoners were now escaping through the lowest level into the open. The workers probably tried to leave the building as well, but they would surely meet the resistance that Ampere had mentioned. They certainly would make sure that no employee would leave this factory alive. It was doubtful they would spare me, as Ampere was destroyed.

I grabbed Rainbow Dash and put her over my shoulders. Before I left the control room with her, I pulled the empty syringe from Ampere's rigid body. Behind the control room, I climbed the stairs panting as fast as I could, not knowing how much time she would have left. On the way up the stairs, other staff flew towards us and gave us only a fleeting glance. It seemed that they were only interested in bare survival. But now it became clear how they really were. No pony stopped to help me or looked at me long enough to see that Rainbow Dash was in need. But you couldn't blame the staff, Rainbow hadn't made herself very likable. As we arrived at the upper level, I noticed Rainbow Dash's breaths becoming weaker and slower.

"We're almost there! Just a little bit longer, please, just a little bit longer," I begged her.

We arrived at the top floor where I rushed to my office. As I stood in front of the large wooden doors, I took my elbow and pushed the door open. I ran towards the desk where Codi's Spectra was. It was glowing through the incoming evening sun, which shone through the large windows.

I laid her down on the large carpet that was spreaded on the floor in front of the desk, adorned with the Rainbow Factory logo. I could see that Rainbow Dash was now completely gray. She just looked up rigidly and seemed to stop breathing. I could not let her die just before the finish line. I panicked and tears started to run from my eyes. In a matter of seconds I managed to pull the empty vial out of the syringe, put the other vial of Codi's Spectra in and stabbed her in the same spot where I had extracted the Spectra.

I pushed all the Spectra into her and her fur around the puncture wound got colour again. I hoped that it was not too late when her mane started to get colour again, too. When she was completely covered in colour again, she suddenly took a final deep breath in and out. Her eyes, now pink again, were as open as her mouth and stared lifelessly into the air.

"Please Rainbow Dash, you can't die now!" I cried and put my hand on her pleura to feel a heartbeat.

But there was nothing. I could not find a pulse or breathing. I despaired and started to shake her, hoping that it would help.

"Damn it! I have promised to save you!" I said and hit her chest in rage with a clenched fist.

Then she gave a deep puff and started to cough. She was really still alive! I couldn't believe how much luck you can have in misfortune!

"Rainbow Dash! Thank God you're alive!"

It took her a few moments to clear her airway. But when she regained consciousness, she looked at me with eyes completely different from the ones I had seen before.

"I...am alive! You have saved me! Why..." she looked at me in amazement, while she was still lying on the floor dazed.

"I told you I would. It wasn't an easy promise, it was a pinkie promise!" I said jokingly.

She smiled at me briefly and I helped her to get up.

"We have to get out of here as fast as possible, the whole building is surrounded and they want to destroy the factory! We don't have much time left."

"What? Who?" she looked at me confused and her expression became slightly frightened, which I could tell by the way her ears were set back.

"Ampere spoke of resistance, possibly including my former work colleagues. But don't worry, I still have a good reputation with them. You and I will get out of here safely... both of us." I promised her.

"But the sluice gates are definitely blocked from the outside, we can't get out there. The only way out is the old main entrance, but we'll never make it down there in time."

"Well then, what are we waiting for?" she said and shook herself.

"Hop on!" she added and turned her back to me, spreading her wings wide open.

"Wait, are you sure? You're much smaller than me and your wings..." I said, looking at the slightly tattered plumage of her.

"Don't worry, I only need them to guide me, magic does the rest. Come on, your boss is ordering you!" she said to me with a grin.

I was a bit suspicious but she seemed very convincing. So I slowly climbed on her back and wrapped my arms around her neck. She made a quick check to see if I was ready and bombed along forward. I had to hold on tight and clung around her neck. She didn't seem to mind the extra weight despite her broken wings, she seemed to be really strong. No wonder she often competes against Applejack in competitions.

She hurtled down almost in free fall, but even further above the lowest level where still numerous ponies were looking for a way out of this hell. But when we flew into the areas of the old complex, we saw no more ponies. Apparently many did not know this area or had not been here for a long time. It was spooky to hear the distant screams far away from the old entrance hall. As she dropped me off we wondered what would be waiting for us on the other side of the gate. Rainbow Dash unlocked the massive gate with a lever on the side and opened the gate through which I had first entered the Rainbow Factory.

We looked out at the vast horizon, which turned orange in the evening sun. Above our path the screaming of several dozen ponies could be heard, but I could not tell whether it came from my former employees or the factory staff. Carefully I set one foot from the stone slab on the cloud cover. It held, I had apparently been put under a permanent spell, which also amazed Rainbow Dash. Just as we were about to continue walking on the cloud cover, three Pegasi flew in from the upper part of the cloud cover. One of them, which was heading directly towards us, had white fur and a three-coloured mane and tail colour of orange, light and dark blue.

"Stop, don't move!" said the pony and landed with the others in front of us.

"Hey, you may not know me, but I'm with Ampere. I built him," I tried to explain.

"And where is he now?" the pony asked suspiciously.

"Destroyed. He tried to kill us, we barely escaped."

"And I'm sure he had a good reason for that. You two are the ones who run this place! Ampere and the escaped ponies told me about you! Yeah, the blue pegasus with the rainbow mane and the creature from another world! My name is Blu Skittle, and I just have one question for you: How many ponies have had to die before we found out about it by Ampere," said the pony, looking at me sadly.

"He has killed just as many ponies and is just as guilty as we are," I said.

"Guilty? He was a robot, he was just following your orders! When he visited me and other ponies yesterday to tell us the truth about this place, The tears of the broken ones washed my soul away with time. Yes, he’s the one who also stoked the fire, but he had seen more pain than you could possibly know."

"Those were MY words I programmed into him, not his own!" I declared.

"Wait, what do you mean, your words?" Rainbow Dash asked worriedly.

"He should tell you these words before he was to execute his final order," I said to her, feeling very guilty at that moment. But Rainbow Dash knew what I was talking about and left it at that.

"But he disregarded this one and instead carried out a daring escape action that cost many of my ponies their lives! They were your former colleagues!" I said, looking at the two ponies that stood next to Blue Skittle and lowered their heads.

"It may be that his method was a bit extreme, but by escaping he showed us that there was something in our society that we never thought possible. And we decided to support him and the other ponies to put an end to this horror as fast as we could! For the good of Equestria!"

At that moment I realized that the pony was fighting for the same cause I had long ago.

"But that's exactly what we did! We have always served Equestria faithfully, protecting and preserving it! Without the Spectra there would be total weather chaos here! Animals would drown, die of thirst or be struck by lightning. The whole balance of Equestria would collapse. This element around my neck I got to protect Equestria and that's exactly what I did...as sure as my name is Rainbow Dash!" she said.

"You're not Rainbow Dash, you're a monster. I knew Rainbow Dash. She was a legend in Cloudsdale, a righteous mare! Her story may not be quite as nice, but it will have a happy ending. Like every happy ending, when the monster dies."

"So what are you gonna do with us?" I said, looking at him with a reproachful look.

"Oh no, you'll be all right. I know your story and would like you to come with us, but unfortunately you won't be able to stay in Equestria under these circumstances. We will bring you back to earth where your kind belong," said the pony, looking at Rainbow Dash. "As for you...if you really intend to continue to protect and preserve Equestria, you'll go back where you came from. Your story will be buried with the rest under the ashes. I'm sorry, but you have no choice."

"I'll show you what choice I have," Rainbow Dash started, and her element turned red again. I knew she wanted to go for the pony, but I held her back.

"No Rainbow. If that's what he thinks is right, then so be it," I said.

Before the pony could say anything further, I shut the entrance door with a big slam in front of him. I knew in that moment that there was no way out for me now either. I knew that I had not only closed the doors. It was the closure of the Rainbow Factory.

"Why did you do that?" Rainbow Dash looked at me.

"If I can't save you, then all I've done for you has been pointless."

"But they will kill us! They will destroy everything and the weather stability will collapse!"

"And they are right. Honestly, Rainbow. After all we did to those ponies for Equestria, mother nature couldn't do any worse. And the planet will keep on turning...even without us.

She realized how hopeless it was, and for the first time she started crying in front of me. It was the first time in a long time that she could show her real feelings again. She was terribly sorry for everything and she would like to undo the time, but now was the time when she had to pay for her sins...but she was not alone. Circumstances did not stop me from smiling at her. After she wiped the tears from her eyes, she returned the smile. Apparently she was just as happy that I was with her to the bitter end.

When the first magic spells were cast from outside, we noticed the floor of the building start to vibrate. As long as the foundation of the factory still held, we decided to walk up to the main corridor of the executive floor one last time to have some more time together. Rainbow Dash and I walked side by side, but no longer as manager and co-manager, but as friends. I freed her from her madness, that's all I cared about at that moment. That was all I could do, also because I knew that we would die any moment.

Below us we could hear the powerful spells the unicorns cast. They apparently tried to compromise the structural integrity of the building so that the entire complex would fall out of the clouds. As we passed the middle level, we could see that the vibrations from the ceiling were causing debris to fall onto the steam engines and robots, damaging them. Nevertheless, they continued to run tirelessly. Hot steam was escaping and some of the other employees had returned to the production hall and tried to release pressure through the valves to prevent them from exploding. Even in the face of death they still tried to keep the factory running. There must have been many employees who wanted to stop here in the past, but then fell into eternal madness.

So that was it, we would all die in the place where so much pain and death had happened. It was only a matter of time before the building would fall down, but Rainbow and I felt as if we were walking through the hallways for hours. Old memories came up. But behind all those dark thoughts, there were actually beautiful memories. I remembered how I had met Glaze. She had introduced me to Rainbow Dash. And without Rainbow Dash, I never would have had a chance to come to Equestria.

When we passed the middle level we could see that the pipes on the wooden walls were glowing because of the heat of the steam and the wooden walls started to braise. There was a lot of wood on the executive floor, so a fire would spread very quickly. But the smoke would escape through the broken windows above the production hall, through which some light from the setting sun shone outside into the factory.

When we arrived on the upper floor, we walked a few meters past my office. I could feel a strong heat through the open doors and could see that the walls had caught fire from the hot steam pipes and the book shelves were burning brightly. The high glass windows had cracked and were deformed by the heat. There was certainly nothing left of my mementos from the earth in the next room, my old life was now finally extinguished.

Rainbow went with me into the crossway and soon we stopped in front of another wooden door. When she opened the doors, I realized where we were. We were in her office, which seemed to be closer to my office than it always seemed to me.

As we entered and Rainbow Dash's gaze wandered, the first flames were already blazing on the doors above which the portraits of the princesses were hanging. Now I understood where those doors were going, I just had never noticed it before. On the other side of the door was my office! Although I noticed these doors when I first entered Hide's office, but they were locked. I was only one door away from Rainbow Dash the whole time.

The office itself still looked better than mine. Despite the fire and smoke under the ceiling, the painting with its cutie mark over the fireplace was still visible. But it wouldn't be long before her memories would burn to ashes as well, the doors couldn't withstand the fire for long and the flames spread to the wall. The last thing I saw was a picture hanging on the wall to the right of the room. It was the picture with her friends, which was always shown on TV at the beginning of each episode. When Rainbow Dash saw it also catch fire, she turned away and we left the office.

We walked back down the main hallway until we stopped in front of another wooden door, and I knew exactly what was behind it. We opened it, entered the gallery and looked at the paintings of all the employees. This room had not yet been attacked by the fire, probably there were no wires running through the walls or it was just fate that the very place was the only one left where I had finally found out the truth about this place. For the first time I could walk past the paintings in full contemplation without losing my mind. Glaze, Pony Joe and even Dr. Hide Atmosphere...in these paintings they all looked normal. Probably from the time when they did not yet know how their experiment would develop.

Rainbow Dash closed the door of the gallery because she suspected that we would probably never leave this room again. When we looked to the other end of the gallery, I noticed that there was a new large painting hanging on the wall next to her painting. Underneath it said:

Co-manager of the Rainbow Factory...
I was in that painting.

"I had it hung up when we first met here," said Rainbow Dash as she looked at the painting of me.

"That someone will decide the future of the Rainbow Factory,' I said to you that day. "

Then Rainbow Dash turned to me and started to smile.

"I guess you did."

I couldn't help but smile a little, but her face became sadder.

"I'm sorry I dragged you into this. If only we had met as friends," she said and sat down right in front of me.

"But Dashie. We're friends now." I said, stroking her shaggy mane, which, thanks to Codis Spectra, shone in all the colours of the rainbow again.

Rainbow Dash nodded contentedly as we hugged each other firmly. If we were going to die, we had to die together. One last tear left her eyes before there was a big bang from the direction of the production hall. Apparently the machines had exploded due to the overpressure and the shock would cause the whole building to collapse.

Then everything around us became silent. I closed my eyes and could still feel the floor below us moving and dust trickling from the yielding ceiling onto my shoulders. Thunderous applause echoed from outside through the crumbling walls into my ears. But the applause was not for us. We were dead.

Epilogue:

This is probably not the ending you would expect from a regular CreepyPasta, but there is a reason for that. When I first got to know Rainbow Factory I had just become a new fan of the series and was reading a sequel to "My Little Dashie". I didn't know what it was about and started to research. Then years ago I came across the CreepyPasta by Aurora Dawn, which is based on the song of the same name by WoodenToaster.

I started to get interested in the story because it had something adult about it as opposed to the harmless series, which was meant for children. At first I found it fascinating how much you could interpret into the mystery of rainbows. But in retrospect I realized that it only contained exaggerated violence, it was not even scary for a CreepyPasta. So I set out to write my own story. A story that would not only trump the original but also destroy it at the same time. That the face of the show, which I love as much as it is, is defaced by such reprehensible fanfictions, just to make it look 'cool'...

...and there is a simple and series-appropriate explanation of how rainbows are made in Cloudsdale...Zap Apples...mixed with sugar and spices. That's all. Seriously, you could also come up with it yourself if you are a fan of a show and just focus a little bit more on...well...the show.