Steel Bolt was one of the longest-running employees of the Rainbow Division of the Weather Factory. For seven long years, Bolt was content with working up here in Cloudsdale, living in the factory, tending to the Pegasus Devices. They weren't normal machines, and that was something most of the greener workers never quite understood as well as he did. To Bolt, they weren't just machines; they had souls, and they required the proper amount of tender, loving care in order to function. They were, in a sense, his children.
Bolt had a change of heart, though. Two weeks ago, a school field trip brought about thirty students into the factory; a young student had fallen off the catwalk overlooking one of the Devices. Bolt had tried to save the colt, taking off into flight and nearly catching him. Nearly. The gray stallion was too late by a fraction of a second, just enough time to not be able to save the kid. He plummeted into the Pegasus Device, and his body was churned up by the gigantic cogs and incinerated by the raw Spectra contained within the machine's depths. By the time the Device spat him back up, he was nothing more than a charred husk, almost completely unrecognizable as an equine, let alone the child it had once been.
The incident, as it should've, scarred Bolt more so than he'd ever admit; he felt responsible for that child's death, as if through some twist of fate he'd caused it. During that moment when he saw the child disappear into the machines, when he heard the poor colt's screams as he was given a slow and agonizing death, the pegasus had felt helpless and weak. That was a feeling he carried even now, two weeks later. It was also the feeling that drove him to sending in his resignation.
The boy, Road Burn, had a funeral the week following his death, and Steel Bolt felt inclined to go despite never having known him. He looked very out of place, being in a well-worn and oil stained denim jacket instead of the somber black dress clothes that was traditional. Even Princess Twilight Sparkle, who had attended in place of Princess Celestia, was dressed in a finer black dress that seemed to both accentuate her figure and dull it, all at once.
Not long after the funeral, Twilight Sparkle took Bolt aside. She had noticed his distant gaze and somber expression. "It's not your fault," she reassured him. "You did everything you could."
You did everything you could. Bolt knew that Twilight was right, but it just didn't seem to fit together in his head. When he returned to work once the factories were open again, he couldn't look at any of the Devices the same way. His work ethic started to drop, and he eventually signed his resignation and sent it to admin. For the first time in his tenure at the Cloudsdale Weather Company, he was unhappy with his work. Being around this place gave him nightmares, but he gave two weeks' notice that he was leaving.
And he was. But he had to show an intern the ropes before he did.
Bolt spotted the intern, a mare named Rainbow Dash, waiting rather impatiently for him. Bolt was passingly familiar with her, as she was the mare who pulled off the sonic rainboom a few years back. Her multicolored mane was tied in a tail, and she wore a white dress shirt that had the sleeves rolled up. Aside from her female facial structure, she was almost indistinguishable from the predominantly male workers. She was making light conversation with one of the older workers, Pipe Wrench. Though it seemed friendly, Rainbow was obviously irritated.
Best not keep her waiting, Bolt thought to himself as he trotted over to her.
"Uh, hi," Steel Bolt said to the two, getting their attention.
"There he is," Pipe Wrench said enthusiastically. "The stallion of the hour."
Rainbow's irritation became completely apparent in her tone. "There you are!" she groaned, moving to directly face Bolt. "I've been waiting here forever for you! I got all dressed up and for what?"
"Smart off like that again, and your internship will be over before it starts, Ms. Dash," Bolt told her patiently, with a certain business-like coldness that he'd picked up from admin. "And if I'm not mistaken, you're about a half-hour late. That kind of tardiness can get you fired from any job, let alone here."
"Yeah, whatever. I've got to be somewhere at three, so can we speed this up?"
Bolt sighed and beckoned her to follow. They trotted towards the original Pegasus Device, which now lay under a blue sheet and was never used except for educational purposes. No-one had ever known how the Device was supposed to work, since several key components were absent in its design. A few accidental injuries had occurred when the workers got too careless around it, as many of the cogs inside the metal chassis were sharp enough to flay bone.
"This was the original Pegasus Device, built about two centuries ago," Bolt explained, moving the sheet off the machine. "It was taken out of use in 1920, but we keep it here just to get newbies a general feel for the tech. Take a look at it for a minute, then we'll move on to the other machines."
Bolt turned away for a moment, taking out a pack of cigarettes from his jacket, then looked back. Rainbow's teal face had gone deathly pale.
"What is it?" he asked with a cocked brow, taking note that she was staring right into the maw of the machine.
Rainbow took a shaky breath and stepped away from the machine. "N-nothing," she lied in a faint voice. "I just thought I..." The mare looked at Bolt as if he were the only other pony who'd understand what she was trying to say. "I thought I saw Scoots in there. M-mangled... dying... c-calling for me. I..."
Rainbow hugged Bolt almost subconsciously and cried into his shoulder, making incoherent gibbers in an attempt at speech. Without saying a word, the stallion and the frightened Dash left the factory with no intention of ever returning.
