Uniting a Nation

The sound of fireworks and flashing lightning distracted Scootaloo from her funk. Glancing up, she saw the Wonderbolts performing in the distance, over the Weather Factory. There was still an emptiness inside her after being betrayed by Rainbow Dash – again – but it was hard to ignore a Wonderbolts show. Really hard. She didn’t manage it.

From the way that everypony else in Cloudsdale seemed to be heading in the same direction – only much faster, since they were able to fly – it didn’t look like anypony had managed it.

When she got there, she found the proctors herding everypony to one cloud or another, based on their badges. The winners were taken to a small cloud set up like a picnic field, with tables and a series of kitchen tents set up against the side of the factory. Everypony else was sent to a huge flat cloud near the factory entrance, where they formed a long, twisting line leading inside to be processed.

Both clouds had a good view of the Wonderbolts’ last show ever, at least, and a scoreboard somepony had set up listed the winner of the special playoff match for each event. Scootaloo didn’t recognize most of the names, but Zephyr Breeze had won the Hush competition – he was this creepy colt that Rainbow Dash complained about sometimes – and the top racer was an ex-Wonderbolt named Wind Rider.

That kind of seemed like cheating, but he was out there in the middle of the field soaking up cheers from the crowd, so apparently Cloudsdale pegasi had a different idea of what cheating was. Which was probably why they’d jumped on Rainbow Dash and pushed her to –

“Miss. Miss? Miss, you’re going the wrong way.”

Scootaloo jumped as one of the proctors suddenly appeared in front of her, placing a hoof on her snoot. “Are you talking to me?”

“You’ve got all your gold stars, miss,” she replied. “You should go over to the west cloud with the other winners.”

“I don’t feel like a winner,” Scootaloo said. “I want to go jump in the rainbow vat.”

The proctor frowned.

“She can trade with me?” said a mare behind her. Scootaloo glanced back and noticed that her badge had twelve black stars, somehow – they weren’t supposed to let you keep playing after losing nearly that much. “I feel like winning!”

“No, she can’t,” the proctor said. “We don’t want to turn this into the Traders’ Exchange!”

Scootaloo sighed. “So that’s it? You’re going to force me to live?”

“You could always find somepony to eat you,” the proctor said.

“There was only one pony I wanted to get eaten by, and she’s gone,” Scootaloo said. “So I’d rather just jump into the vat and get it over with.”

The proctor hovered there, chewing on her lip. “Well, I can’t stop you, if you really want to, but you don’t need to wait in line. The line’s for the restraints.”

“Restraints?” squeaked the twelve-star mare.

The proctor nodded. “We had way too many ponies trying to back out at the last second yesterday, so we’re tying up their wings and legs and putting them on a conveyor belt.” She turned back to Scootaloo. “Nopony’ll stop you from flying up to the vat and jumping in, but you don’t need the restraints. You’re allowed to back out at the last second.”

“Oh,” Scootaloo said. “Okay. But I kind of wanted to see the rest of the show first.”

The proctor laughed, patted her on the head, and moved on.

The Wonderbolts hadn’t even gotten through one more trick before somepony tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention again. It was the mare with twelve black stars.

“Kid. Hey, kid!”

“What?” Scootaloo asked, exasperated.

“Trade with me!”

Scootaloo shook her head. “They said we weren’t allowed.”

“So? They’ll never know!” She looked around, as if checking for anypony listening, but everypony standing nearby was listening and it didn’t make her stop. “I don’t want to go in the rainbow vat. I really don’t. And if I don’t want to go in it’ll hurt like crazy and that just makes me not want to go in more!”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “If you’re going to cheat, why don’t you just run away?”

The mare cringed, and flattened her ears. “I tried! But they’ve got pegasi waiting in the clouds watching for runners. I didn’t get far. I’m not a really strong flier.”

Scootaloo wrinkled her muzzle. “So you try to get by as a really strong liar?”

A few of the ponies listening in chuckled. The mare narrowed her eyes. “Shut up!”

“You’re pathetic,” Scootaloo said. “You’re the exact opposite of the kind of pony I’d give my badge to.”

“I’m just trying to survive. Everypony has the right to survive!”

“No you don’t,” Scootaloo said. “Don’t you get it? The world is ending and everypony’s going to die. Maybe you can choose how you die, or pick who gets to eat you, but you might not even get that. We’re all going to die. Except for one pony out of everypony in Equestria, and that’s not going to be you, or anypony here.”

“No, it’s going to be me,” the mare said. “It has to be. I just… I just need to figure a way out of here, and then if I don’t let anypony eat me, then it has to be me at the end.”

“Uh huh,” Scootaloo said. “Because clearly nopony else in Equestria is going to be stubborn like that.”

“Then how’s it going to work?” asked another pony. He hadn’t seemed very bothered about being in line to be melted into goop, but now he looked worried.

“I think…” Scootaloo frowned. “I think it’s just going to get worse and worse, until there’s nothing left to live for. We lost the animals and all the rest of the world before we even started eating each other, and then last night we lost the sun. It’s getting worse and it’s only going to get worse and worse.”

“Today was pretty normal,” said another mare, with a fuzzy white mane. “I mean, normal for a big competition. Kind of better than normal even.”

“That’s because they’re trying to fake it,” Scootaloo said. “Cloudsdale has all the rainbows for light, and the unicorns faked a sun. But when I woke up this morning, it was just dark, and we had to fly and fly in the dark until we got somewhere with light. It wasn’t normal at all.”

There was a sullen silence.

“So be thankful that you get to jump in the rainbow vat and don’t have to worry about it,” Scootaloo said. She waved a hoof at the winners’ area. “It’s their problem.”

===

The Wonderbolts posed in formation, high above the cheering crowds. They’d done every trick in the book, and some of the older ‘bolts, like Soarin, were starting to fade.

“Well, this is it, Wonderbolts,” Spitfire said. “That was a damn good show, all of you.”

Surprise pouted. “That’s it? We’re not doing a grand finale?”

“That’s the finale we always do,” Spitfire said.

“Yeah, but this is the last show, so we should do a grand finale!” Surprise grinned, and spread her wings wide, lightning crackling between her feathers. “Something totally unsafe!”

Fleetfoot grinned. “Let’s do the Tornado Apocalypse.” There was a round of cheers.

“Really? You all want to do this?” Spitfire asked.

“I’ll go get the snow!” Misty Fly said, heading for the weather factory.

“Dibs on lighting!” Surprise said, fluttering her wings in just the right way to build up another crackle of static electricity between the feathers.

“I guess I’ll do fire,” Spitfire said. “And I assume you want the tornado, Flatfoot.”

“Heck yeah!”

“I’ll handle the rain,” Soarin said, breathing heavily.

“You’re wiped out,” Spitfire said. Let –”

“I can handle it!” Soarin said, narrowing his eyes.

Spitfire met his gaze, and they stared each other down for a while. “Fine. This’ll probably cripple half the team, but it’s the last show anyway.” She looked around at her ‘bolts. “Try not to actually die. We promised the champions a live meal.”

===

“Now that’s a trick I’ve never seen before,” Zephyr Breeze said, shading his eyes with a hoof as the lightning and fire swirling above the crowd flashed particularly bright. “Yeah, Spitfire! Blaze out for me, babe!”

“What are those idiots doing?” Wind Rider said, frowning.

Zephyr grinned. “I don’t know, but it’s awesome!”

Gusts of snow sprayed out overhead, sparkling like fireworks as the lightning and flame glittered off the icy crystals. The vortex in the center started spinning faster and faster, writhing like a tortured snake as half the Wonderbolts tried to keep it chained in place with trails of fire, while others shot bolts of lightning down its length. Above the turmoil, a pair of pegasi pushed a massive storm into place, the dark cloud providing a marvelous backdrop for the pyrotechnics below.

Wind Rider watched the progress of the cloud anxiously, and spread his wings. “They’re not going to make it,” he said.

Zephyr put a hoof on Wind Rider’s back. “Aw, c’mon pops. It’s just part of the show. They’re trying to build a little suspense.”

“They should have started the rain thirty seconds ago,” Wind Rider said, shrugging Zephyr off. “If they don’t do something soon –”

And then everything exploded. The crowd was cheering, thinking it was all part of the act, but Wind Rider was already in the air. The swirling hellstorm engulfed him, battering him with wet splatters of melting snow and freezing rain and the occasional gust of superheated air just to mix things up. Through the splattered cloud-tufts, his still-sharp eyes were on the lookout for – there! A solid figure tumbling out of control. He put on a sudden burst of speed, and scooped up the falling Wonderbolt.

“Wake up!” he shouted at Soarin, wings straining at the extra weight. “You need to fly!”

Soarin’s eyes stayed squeezed shut. “My wings,” he wheezed, spreading one of them, but the other just twitched, hanging at a terrible angle.

Wind Rider cursed, and let himself fall with his passenger, pulling up once they were out of the storm. His head pounded and his chest ached, but he managed to turn the plummet into a skidding, stumbling landing, which was enough since they were landing on soft fluffy clouds. He carefully set Soarin down, and concentrated on his own breathing as he looked to the sky.

Fortunately, he didn’t need to go back up. Most of the other Wonderbolts had managed to recover from the disaster, although two of them were holding an unconscious Misty Fly, and Zephyr Breeze was latched onto Spitfires’ back. They fluttered to a landing around him.

“I’m fine!” snapped Spitfire, wiggling weakly in Zephyr Breeze’s grip. “I can fly on my own!”

“That’s okay, Fireball,” Zephyr said, stroking her mane. “I’ve got you, no need to play tough girl.”

“Woo!” Fleetfoot said, her mane and feathers scorched, but otherwise none the worse for wear. “Now that’s a blaze of glory!”

Surprise grinned. “Yeah, that was the best! We need to do that again!”

“Last show, remember?” Spitfire said, squirming out of Zephyr’s hooves.

Surprise brought a hoof up to her chin and rubbed it a bit. “Maybe in the next life?”

“And now it’s time for the main event!” said an announcer with a megaphone flying over to the Wonderbolts with the rest of the winners in tow. “Wind Rider, you won the race event. Which Wonderbolt do you want as your meal?”

He glanced over at Spitfire, raising an eyebrow. She rolled her eyes and grimaced. Wind Rider shrugged, and after clearing his throat, managed to croak out, “I guess I’ll pick my old friend Soarin, here.”

“Woo hoo, that means Spitfire is mine!” Zephyr Breeze said, leaping on her and hugging her again.

“Does he really get second pick?” Spitfire hissed at the announcer.

She just shrugged. “We didn’t set a fixed order,” she whispered back, then held up her megaphone, “And the winner of the Hush competition picks Captain Spitfire! Let’s hear it for Spitfire, ponies!” The cheering was deafening. “Now, the MVP of the winning team of the Hoofball tournament…”

===

“Thanks for saving me,” Soarin said, peeling off his uniform. He was all sweaty and smelled of ozone and scorched fur underneath it, but with everypony watching there probably wasn’t time for a shower. “Even if it was only for dinner.”

“I would have done it for anypony,” Wind Rider said, watching him appreciatively. “You know how much I missed being in the ‘bolts.”

“Heh,” Soarin said, stepping out of the crumpled cloth and shaking himself off, wincing a bit as his bad wing still hung limp. “Made you feel young again, didn’t it?”

Wind Rider coughed. “I wish. You’re heavier than you look.”

Soarin grinned. “So, how to do you want to do –” He was cut off as Wind Rider kissed him, the older stallion pressing his muzzle close, and invading his lips with his tongue as his hoof stroked Soarin’s shoulder. Confused, Soarin tried to respond, but his ears flattened against his scalp. “What?” he asked, when Wind Rider pulled back.

Wind Rider frowned at the look on Soarin’s face, his wings sagging against his jacket. “Nevermind,” he said, then used his hoof to pull Soarin close again, only this time his mouth opened wide to take in the Wonderbolt’s muzzle.

That was easier to understand. Soarin pressed himself into Wind Rider’s mouth, as the stallion’s tickly tongue lapped against his chin, and then his neck as more of his head scraped in past the teeth. He reached up with a hoof and stroked Wind Rider’s shoulder, although after a few seconds his shoulders started to slip inside the lips and he had to fold his forelegs back against his body.

There was a sharp pain as Wind Rider pressed his bad wing up against his body – it didn’t want to fold properly – and he wiggled and jerked instinctively, but by that point his head was firmly lodged in the tight wet throat and he couldn’t really do more than that. The pain built and built until the wing was finally shoved into the throat as well, at which point the flesh stretched around it more evenly and it faded to a constant ache.

A few feet away, Spitfire watched the pair curiously, while Zephyr Breeze tried to swallow her using a very unorthodox method that involved shoving her rear end into his mouth while her tail and both hind legs were still free. It felt like she was sitting on a warm wet squirming toilet or something, with his tongue squirming around in all her crevices, slicking her up. Despite the metaphor that came to mind, she tried not to actually go in his mouth. That would be too rude, even for Zephyr.

“Did those two just kiss?” she asked nopony in particular.

Fleetfoot, sunk up to her thighs in another’s mare’s mouth, gave a sharp laugh. “I knew it! You never believed me when I told you Wind Rider was sweet on him.”

Spitfire spread her wings suddenly, and a shiver ran all down her body as Zephyr’s tongue hit a particularly sensitive spot. “Ahh! That tickles!”

Seeing a reaction, Zephyr doubled down on that spot, reaching up and gripping her sides with his hooves to hold her in place.

“Stop it, you featherhead!” Spitfire said, squirming. Zephyr’s attempt at a response just came out as muffled mumbling. Spitfire flapped her wings, and pushed off against the ground with her hooves, and managed to shove herself deeper into his mouth, wedging her rear end into his throat, leaving his tongue to slurp over her much less ticklish belly. She gave a sigh of relief, as that also seemed to overcome the difficulty he’d had getting her all the way inside, and she felt herself slowly sinking back into the warmth of his throat.

She snuck another glace at Soarin. He was almost gone, just his hind legs and tail left, and his cute little rump sticking up in the air as Wind Rider sat back on the cloud, lifting him up to let gravity help with the last bit. “Goodbye, you goof,” she said, as he started to quickly slide out of sight.

Soon enough, it was her turn, Zephyr’s lips slipping further and further up her body, pinning her hindlegs to her sides and her tail to her back, then folding her wings forwards until her feathers tickled her own cheeks and blocked most of her vision. She kept pressing against the ground with her forehooves to help out, since he seemed to be struggling, and the last thing she wanted was for him to run out of steam halfway.

“Huh,” she said, realizing as she pushed that she wasn’t afraid of getting eaten at all. She’d known she wouldn’t chicken out – no Wonderbolt would shy from their duty! But no, she just wasn’t worried at all. She’d done everything she’d signed up for, and at this point she just wanted to get it over with.

“So what do you think happens next?” she asked, while her head was still free to ask questions that anypony other than Zephyr could hear.

“Dunno, I think we melt into goo or something?” Fleetfoot said. Spitfire couldn’t see how far along she was with her wings in the way, but apparently, she wasn’t too far gone to talk.

“I meant after that.”

“Nothing, I guess,” Fleetfoot said. “It’s not like you see ponies plopping down pegasus-sized piles of poo.”

“I meant –” Spitfire started, but then realized that it was more than just her feathers blocking her vision, now. “Nevermind,” she said, as Zephyr’s lips closed around her outstretched forelegs, and everything was darkness, and the tight wet warmth of the throat and belly that was – briefly – her new home. She pulled her legs in after her, and squirmed around to get comfortable once she’d slid down into the slightly looser space of Zephyr’s belly.

She didn’t dissolve right away. For some reason, that was more annoying than the whole part where she’d gotten eaten.

===

“I guess that’s the end of the Wonderbolts,” said the biggest loser. Along with Scootaloo and everypony else in line, she’d stopped to watch as they were eaten by the playoff winners. “So, about that trade –”

Scootaloo left before she could finish, weaving between the legs of the larger ponies until she’d reached the edge of the crowd, then following it until she found the factory. Sure enough, there was a conveyor belt, and a group of proctors holding each pony down as they tied down their wings with heavy rubber straps, and twisted another around their hooves so that they could barely move. In time they would have been able to wiggle free, most likely, but they were immediately loaded onto a moving belt that carried them into the factory, to their end. Most of them weren’t struggling, at least not yet.

Scootaloo showed her badge, and the proctors let her walk past.

“Oh, Celestia,” moaned one of the bound pegasi as she trotted deeper into the weather factory, the various machines looming around them, now forever dark. “I don’t want to die!”

Scootaloo ignored them, except to run a little faster. At a canter, she quickly passed the last of the bound ponies, since they hadn’t started loading them on until after the Wonderbolts’ last show. The conveyor started to rise off the floor, and was soon far overhead. She ended up at the base of the rainbow vat, and pounded on it with her hooves, fluttering her wings to try to fly up to the lip, but still not able to get more than a foot or two before plummeting back to the floor.

“Over here!” said a voice. “There’s a ladder.”

Scootaloo swarmed up the ladder, and found herself on a platform with a pair of proctors wearing protective clothing. On the other side of a guardrail was the rainbow vat itself, the liquid inside shining brightly as it shifted between all the different colors, making her fur and feathers glow in the dimly lit room.

“Why didn’t you fly up? Something wrong with your wings?” one of the proctors asked.

“Don’t know,” Scootaloo said. “Don’t care, anymore. I came to jump.”

“Well, go right ahead,” the mare replied, motioning to the vat. “We’ll be joining you soon enough.”

“What?” Scootaloo asked. “Why? I thought proctors didn’t have to compete.”

“We had to be free to watch over everypony else, so we just picked randomly,” said the other mare. “No games for us.”

“Unless you count flipping a bit as a game,” the first mare said, rolling her eyes. “Anyway, we’ll be glad to jump by the time we’re done here, if it’s anything like yesterday.”

“What do you mean?” Scootaloo asked.

“No… no no no no no…” came a voice from below, getting louder as the conveyor belt brought her closer. “Let me off. Stop the belt! Please!”

One of the proctors stood at the railing. “I’m sorry, miss, we can’t do that. Remember, if you accept your death, it won’t hurt.”

“Oh Celestia… Luna… Discord! Please!” the tied up pegasus whimpered, squirming around and managing to fall over on her side. She humped and moved a little closer to the edge of the belt, but it was too late, and she fell screaming into the rainbow vat. There was a hiss, and her scream cut off.

The next pony in line on the belt whimpered and squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t move or complain until she, too, was tipped into the iridescent liquid, at which point she cried out briefly before she was gone, with another sinister hiss.

“They – they don’t look like they’re willing,” Scootaloo said, taking a step back, wings spread. “Does this even work if they aren’t willing?”

“I think so,” said the proctor at the railing. “Please, calm yourselves,” she said to the tied-up ponies approaching relentlessly as the conveyor belt ground on. “Please. Don’t struggle. This is for the good of all Equestria.” She kept on with her generic platitudes, but it didn’t seem to do much good. Some of the ponies seemed calm as they slipped into the vat, but more were terrified, struggling and screaming and probably dying in terrible pain.

A few tears dripped from beneath her mask, glimmering in the light of the rainbows before vanishing through the grated floor.

“And what are you here for?” Scootaloo asked the other proctor.

“If she tries to set them free, I’m here to stop her,” she said.

“This is horrible,” Scootaloo said, walking up to the railing where it hung over the vat, so that she could look down into the shining fluid and watch as each falling pegasus sunk down as a brief dark blot, twisting and writhing as they quickly broke apart and dissolved. Once they sunk beneath the surface, it was impossible to tell which had been screaming and crying and which had gone quietly. Did that mean they were all in pain? Or that none of them were? Surely Discord couldn’t be so cruel.

She felt a hoof on her back, and startled back from the edge. The proctor who’d been hanging back patted her, and said, “You don’t have to watch. Go ahead and jump in.”

“I can’t look away,” Scootaloo said, turning back to the dissolving pegasi.

As more and more ponies fell into the vat, something changed about the glowing rainbow. The quality of the glow gradually softened from a harsh quickly-shifting light to a steady warm glow, and the angry hiss got fainter and fainter, until eventually the ponies dropped in with only a quiet burble. It took longer and longer for them to dissolve, long enough that she could tell when a pony stopped struggling against the pain and let themselves go.

One pony didn’t stop struggling, though – instead, she flapped her wings once, powerfully, and shot out of the pool, covered head to tail in raw rainbows. She paused in front of Scootaloo, hovering for a second as if looking directly into her eyes, although she didn’t have much of a face left at that point. Then her wings and tail sagged and fell off, splashing into the glowing goop as more of the same, and as she started to fall her mouth opened in a silent scream, and just kept opening wider and wider as her entire body lost its shape. There was nothing left by the time what was left of her splashed back into the vat.

Scootaloo sat down on her haunches, breathing heavily. If she’d managed one more flap, she could have been right on top of her –

Half a dozen ponies with proctor’s hats flew up to join them on the platform. “Almost done,” one of them said, as they stripped off their possessions and said their goodbyes. “We tied up the last batch, and they’re on their way.”

The pony at the railing nodded. “See you on the other side, I guess.”

He grinned, and saluted, then took a deep breath, and clambered over the railing, slipping at the last second and giving a comical squeak before splashing into the vat.

Some of the other newcomers laughed.

“So glad that’s over,” one mare said. “I never want to do that again.”

“Didn’t you win the flip?” the mare at the railing asked.

“Maybe,” she said, before jumping over the edge to her doom. Scootaloo rushed to the side, and watched her dissolve, calm from the very start.

“I can’t do this on my own,” said another. “Hold me, okay?”

“Don’t worry, we’ve got you,” said a stallion, wrapping his wing across her back. Another proctor held her from the other side, and then the three of them went over the edge, the mare in the middle screaming in terror, but dissolving into rainbows just the same.

The last proctor closed his eyes and gradually slowed his breathing, then took a running jump without a word. That left only the original two, and a few dozen losers riding the belt.

“See?” said the pony at the railing. “We’re going to jump in too. Don’t be afraid. There’s nothing to fear! It won’t hurt, and then we’ll all see each other again in the next world, okay?”

“Okay,” squeaked a little filly, just as she went over the edge.

And then, a minute or two later, it was all over. The two ponies with Scootaloo on the platform stripped off their clothing, and hugged each other.

“I can’t take it,” sobbed the one who’d been trying to convince all the others to go quietly. “Why did I agree to do this?”

“It’s okay,” said the other, stroking her wings. “It’s over now. Just one more thing to do, alright? Are you ready?”

“No,” the first said, quietly.

The other laughed. “Then I’ll just have to throw you in!” She lifted her companion up over her head, and stumbled towards the edge on her hind legs.

“Ahh! No, stop! I’m not ready!” said her captive. “I’m serious! Don’t – aaaiiieee!”

There was a brief gurgle as she sank into the vat. The last pony turned to Scootaloo, and grinned. “Guess you’ll bring up the rear?” she asked. She flipped open a panel at the edge of the platform, and hit a button inside. “Don’t take too long. The timer’s set for thirty seconds, then all of this,” she motioned to the rainbow vat, “is going into the centrifuge, and then out to the hungry ponies outside.”

Scootaloo nodded.

She gave one last grin, then did a backflip into the glowing pool of death.

Scootaloo climbed up onto the edge of the railing, and watched her dissolve.

She watched the pool start to swirl, pipes gurgling below as it drained. The rainbow shine from the pool got dimmer and dimmer as the level fell, and there were no other lights in the factory to replace it.

Eventually, it was just dark, and she still stood there on the edge, not jumping.

At some point, night fell.