Chapter II: Sun Outage

"All school-going foals assigned to the Ponyville district be advised, school begins at Ponyville Schoolhouse in approximately one hour. Please be ready to head to the Schoolhouse within thirty minutes using appropriate procedures relevant to your character class. If you are sick or otherwise inhibited from attending school, please contact your nearest medical professional for an application for sick leave within forty-five minutes of this message so that appropriate adjustments can be made to today's scripts. If you already are scheduled for sick leave, then you may ignore this alert. Out."

While Scootaloo may not have known exactly what all the words in the coordinator's message meant, she had heard it enough times to ascertain its general meaning. Get ready to head off to school. If you're sick, you'd better be ready to prove it! The little pegasus filly strolled out of the bathroom, totally skipping the "getting dressed in school uniform" part that the scrubs back in the "Confederate Educational Facilities" all had to do.

She was pretty much always ready for school by the time the coordinator came calling. It wasn't necessarily because she liked school. it was because her hero, Rainbow Dash, the author of the Daring Do series, was always there to pick her up and fly her to Ponyville. She got out her bag, packing her supplies into the leather satchel. In a small, hidden compartment, she packed a standard issue spare earpiece as well as the set's booklet on C-Class (Child Class) coordination protocols. Standard stuff.

She slung the bag into her back and walked over to her front door, opening it with a creak. She was met with the bustling streets of Cloudsdale, "Equestria's" main (and only) cloud city. The city swarmed with pegasi and air vehicles, all preparing for the day's scheduled work. Crew scurried back and forth, handling delicate equipment and tools. Background Class (B-Class) characters dressed in Equestrian Mail Service uniforms hitched themselves up to the various transport cars carrying spare parts and replacement equipment for every corner of "Equestria".

Cloudsdale was, among many things, Security's contingency centre in the case of outside attack or a mass terrorism strike. It was easy to mistake the floating city, what with its alluring décor and its social psychology. Under the cloudy exterior was a pop-up citadel, complete with anti-air flak turrets, triple layer energy shielding, long-range artillery, short-range missile batteries, and much more. You name the weapon or defence system, the Director had paid for it. Cloudsdale was truly one of the biggest nerve-centres of "Equestria".

When your show's following reaches the billions, you can probably expect some opportunistic morons with guns to come and try and ruin the Mane Character's perfect little life. Or maybe the haters would show up and start bombing "Equestria". There were even a few enemies of the Company that would love to hold the set hostage. It was why the entirety of "Equestria" was built underground in a location only known by the Director's most trusted ponies. The entirety of the cast and crew had been put into a soundproof jet with the windows shuttered and shipped over here for the express purpose of keeping the set's location a secret. Sure, the extensive defence contingencies and secrecy was overkill. However, it was overkill for good reasons.

Scootaloo walked in through the city in the general direction of the Tarmacs, the take off and landing zone for most of Cloudsdale's heavy vehicles. Here, tonnes of heavy machinery would airlifted to wherever they were needed around "Equestria" using huge cargo transport carts and airships. Scootaloo took a seat on a bench far away from the "Keep Clear" zones, watching the skies for her ride to Ponyville.

A klaxon blared, causing her took look to the left. There stood one of fifty gigantic warehouses, a metallic monstrosity with the letters RF-23. The doors were opening wide as a forepony with a spinning cog as a cutie mark began to guide a humongous aluminium cylinder out the doors. Hundreds of bits and bobs, gears and circuitry, fans and vents, and intake and output pipes lined the outsides of the machine. The entire thing was easily the size of a rocket ship, and was being attached using thick, composite straps to a looming crane. The crane began to lift the thing onto an awaiting cargo airship, red caution lights flashing on the cargo cradle. On the side of the machine was stamped the words "Bound for the Main Reactor Complex".

Scootaloo recognized the piece of machinery, it was a piece of pegasus engineering dubbed the Pegasus Device (the inventor of the Pegasus Device was quite proud of his winged heritage). A Pegasus Device was the modern replacement for the old air distributors. It utilized artificial pegasus magic to create everything from a whispering breeze to roaring miniature tornados and could supercool or heat the air. Consequently, they had found many applications in air conditioning, refrigeration, heat pumps, small-scale weather manipulation (large-scale weather manipulation was still mostly up to real pegasi), rainbow creation, and, in this case, reactor cooling.

This one was a fair bit larger than the standard Device, but if it was headed for the Main Reactor, it was large for good reason. The Main Reactor provided pretty much the entirety of the set's power, it also produced oodles and kaboodles of heat alongside. One large Pegasus Device did the trick in the most cost-efficient and, most importantly, safe fashion.

Scootaloo's ears perked as she heard the voice of her hero over the din of the heavy machinery. She turned and ran over to one of the few octagonal chopper pads where the rainbow-maned pony stood, waving. She trotted up the steps to Rainbow Dash, who smiled at her number one fan.

"Ready for school, squirt?" she asked, Scootaloo nodded. "Well then, let's go!"

Without another word, Rainbow scooped Scootaloo up and took off, heading in the direction of Ponyville (which happened to also be the direction a lot of cargo transports were heading). The two of them soared through the skies, Scootaloo tucked away nicely in Rainbow's grip. Their companionship started in the very first episode, when Scootaloo had missed the transport heading down to Ponyville where she was scheduled for background duty. The Rainbow Dash had flown up and picked her up, taking her down to the heart of the set.

Ever since then, they were inseparable. Even to the point where their friendship had been made canon. Just like how the Cutie Mark Crusaders had been formed. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom, two "sisters" of two of the Mane Casters, had been friends with her ever since they went to the school in the Confederacy. Sweetie Belle refused to go with Rarity without Apple Bloom, and Apple Bloom refused to go with Sweetie Belle without Scootaloo. Scootaloo's family adamantly refused to let her go, so she ran away.

The Director had taken good care of her, at least. A caretaker would make sure that she was well cared for, but otherwise she could do anything she wanted as long as it didn't break set rules. She did wonder if her parents had looked for her, but she secretly hoped those monsters found the set and got arrested for it.

"Hey, Scoots. I heard that the Director's just written out somepony down in Ponyville and is planning to move you into their house for permanent residence down in Ponyville!" Rainbow said, looking down at the orange filly in her hooves.

"Really?" she asked, squirming a little to look up at the other pegasus's magenta eyes. After a moment of silence she said, "Why? I thought secondary background characters had to live off-scene."

"Didn't you hear? They're making the Cutie Mark Crusaders an actual thing and planning more episodes about you girls. I don't think it'll be long before you and the others get made into Secondaries," she laughed a little, weaving in and out a bit to overtake an especially large sky truck.

Secondaries were a sub-class of M-Class (Mane cast characters that weren't Twilight Sparkle). It meant that you got more air-time with the Mane Cast and played a significant role in the planned episodes. Sure, it wasn't anywhere near the amount of attention you got as a Mane Cast Character, but it was a huge step up from C-Class.

The rest of the flight was mostly made in silence, the buzz of the coordinator's voice coming in and out through the earpieces. Not before long, the duo flew over the "thatched" rooftops of Ponyville and descended towards the Ponyville Schoolhouse. Rainbow stuck the landing perfectly in front of the town's only schoolhouse. Ponyville Schoolhouse was a cute red building with a small spire that held a school bell, which was currently ringing. Schoolfoals were swarming around the school grounds and the street around it. Miss Cheerilee stood at the door, watching and counting the foals as they gathered. On Scootaloo's arrival, she reached up and clicked a button, the school bell stopping its ringing soon after.

Scootaloo turned and waved to Rainbow, only to see her contrails trailing off into the distance. She retracted her hoof from her wave with an air of disappointed silence. She probably had been called away, again. The set had gone live and Rainbow was the fastest of all the Mane Characters, so if there was a Mane Cast emergency where she "should" be available to help, she was usually there to take care of it first.

Scootaloo turned and walked over to the door, where Cheerilee was calling everypony in for class. She spotted Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle side by side, heading for class. Background characters (also known as B-Class) waved to their children as they headed back to town for their routines, whether their "children" actually be their children, or if they were simply surrogate parents. The massive amounts of children they needed for The Show had made a few problems such as parentless foals, like Scootaloo. That created many more positions for caretakers to be sure the children were taken care of. Many B-Class had also been given the choice to take in their own "families" and also took the responsibility of being watched by the set's Child Services.

"Hi girls!" the orange filly said, sidling up next to her unicorn and earth pony friends.

"Heya Scoots!" Apple Bloom said, a smile on her face.

"Hi Scootaloo," Sweetie Belle said, a weak grin on her face.

Scootaloo's eyes widened at the sight of a bandage over Sweetie's nose, before her face scrunched in anger.
"She hit you again, didn't she?" she said, her eyes narrowing. She walked into the schoolhouse and sat down at her desk.

Sweetie said nothing, placing her bag down on her desk and gazing off at the blackboard. Apple Bloom started to say something, but was cut off by the rapping of Cheerilee's ruler on her desk. Everypony turned to the front, where the teacher began to introduce the day's lessons.

Scootaloo didn't quite listen to the teacher's words, her mind having been taken up by Rarity's crimes to her little sister. This was the hundredth time she had done something like this (the only things the crew bothered to pay attention to was the physical abuse). For Scootaloo, the set was supposed an escape from the towering buildings, crowded streets, poverty, and homelessness. "Equestria" was supposed to be a perfect land, where justice always prevailed. Sweetie hadn't found her escape here, instead she was at the mercy of that monster in the form of a pony. Scootaloo steamed away silently as the Cheerilee began to drone on about that day's lesson. If Security didn't do something about Rarity, then Scootaloo would!

Meanwhile, in the Main Reactor Complex...

Spinning Cogs directed with a hoof as the crane hoisted the Pegasus Device into position beside the reactor building. The wall leading into the old Pegasus Device (the one to be replaced) had been opened up, allowing the workers to prepare the machine for removal. Cogs turned from the crane as the Device was placed neatly in position next to the old one. He shouted something to his compatriots who were busy removing the straps tying the Device to the crane. He pulled his radio to his mouth.

"Control, this is Forepony Cogs, can you shut off the Device for us?" he asked into the mic.

Up in the Reactor's control room, a pony heard the call of the maintenance worker and reached over to the general control panel. He pulled a switch labelled "Pegasus Device" from "Active" to "Neutral". There was a whine as the Device powered down. He then hit a button next to it labelled "dismount". A "Ka-Chunk" was heard as the structural support around the old Device popped open, enabling removal. A light labelled "Cooling" began flashing and beeping. Undisturbed, the controller pulled another switch labelled "Ventilation" from "Pegasus Device" to "Auxiliary Ventilation".

There was a whoosh as the more conventional non-magical fans dedicated to Auxiliary Ventilation whirred to life inside the various ducts. In the far away volcanoes of southern "Equestria", steam began to lift from various "natural" vents as the reactor started to blow its furious flame through the ventilation systems.

Within the ducts leading from the reactor to the "volcanic" vents, a copper statuette rewarding a random employee for excellence got sucked out of its paper package and began clanging its way through the ducts. Its paper brethren from Derpy's mailbag met the unfortunate fate of becoming shredded inside some of the many fans. The wind propelled the relatively light copper sculpture down the metallic tunnels of the Auxiliary Ventilation system. A lucky fan blade managed to smack the statuette, propelling it into the wall. The sculpture knocked out a light and lodged itself inside an alarmingly important-looking junction box.

In the Reactor Control room, the various staff watched their screens and glanced up at the replacement procedures every once and awhile. Outside, the new Pegasus Device (the old one having been removed without much trouble) was now being hoisted into position along the Main Cooling duct. A worker jumped as an alarm began blaring from his panel. He looked over at the system and noticed that an entire duct had gone dark, the fans spinning to a stop.

"Ma'am!" he said, turning to his supervisor. "Duct B has lost power, I'm not getting any response from the fans in there."

His supervisor turned to him, walking over to his screen and looking into it with professional scrutiny.
"Do we have the capacity to continue running the reactor without overheat?" she asked, looking at him through her glasses.

The reactor had been built with redundancy in mind, meaning that there were plenty of other ducts to handle the output of heat from the cores.
"Yes ma'am, should I seal the malfunctioning one?" he asked, putting his hoof on the switch in preparation.

"Of course," she answered dismissively, already walking away from his station.

With a flip of a switch, the errant shaft sealed itself up.

Within the shaft, the stagnant heat having already started to build without the help of the fans, the deformed copper model began to melt. The drips of molten metal dripping down onto the now-exposed wiring of the junction box. Before cooling back into a solid state as the heat in the shaft began to decrease. The cables, now fused by the conductive metal (although still too hot to be completely conductive), began to slightly spark.

"So, that's why obsessions can be so destructive in friendships!" Twilight finished, underlining her final point on her blackboard. She turned to Lyra and BonBon, a smile on her face. She frowned slightly at their expressions, Lyra was looking out the window and BonBon had her head in her hooves. Both seemed both angry at each other and bored with Twilight Sparkle's lecture on the psychology of obsessive behaviour in friendships.

She couldn't fathom why, everypony should be open to solutions to their problems. These two's thick skulls seemed more stubborn than even some of the villain's skulls that her and her friends had come across. When she had asked them to explain what was wrong, they had both looked at each other and said that the other had done something wrong. When she asked what, they both told a different story. Therefore, it was only logical that she break out the lecture on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

She began to think that her lecture had had the opposite effect of what she had intended. The two seemed to be more upset with each other. Well at least this little friendship problem was something to write the Princess about...

With a sigh, Lyra suddenly got up. Without much preamble she turned to Twilight with a bit of a forced smile on her face.
"I think its time we got going, Miss Sparkle. Uh... thanks for the assist! I think we really learned a lot today! Right BonBon?" she asked, turning to her cream friend who grunted something in return. Well, that had actually stung a bit.

Twilight looked at them for a couple of seconds, attempting to process the abruptness of their request. Something must be seriously wrong here but maybe she could... Twilight shook her head. Maybe it was just one of those rare times that she should just stand aside.
"Yeah, it was my pleasure," she said, returning the forced smile. The two "friends" nodded and left the library at a brisk trot.

The memory of her debt to Applejack popped back into her mind. With a bit of a start, Twilight levitated her bag of bits onto her back and headed out the door for town.

"What. Is. Wrong with you two? You were meant to play along!"

"Sorry Director, but..."

"No buts. No buts. No buts! I thought you spent three years studying how to act, and then you just go in there and act like... children!"

*Sigh*

"Look, this is the first of three warnings I'm going to give you. Pull your socks up or I'll pull your employment. Over and out!"

The copper finally cooled to the temperature where it could actually conduct electricity again and the lights in the duct flickered on again. In the control room, the worker had finally rebooted Duct-B again. To his surprise, the signal actually came on again. Without further thought, he switched the duct back on again, unsealing the shaft. As the air began to move again, the copper kept cooling, providing convenient paths for electricity to jump their resistors and hit targets it they weren't meant to. There was a high pitched whine as the fans began to speed up dangerously.

In the wrong directions.

The Pegasus Device had finally been re-installed, and the same worker struggled with his controls, trying pushing the Device's harness back into place to secure the new Pegasus Device for proper use again. In doing that, he looked away from his screen and missed the notification for excessive speed in Duct-B.

The fans began to spin out of control, their blades sparking up against the sides of the tunnel. One, whose bolts had become just that tiny bit more rusted than the others, snapped out of its harness and banged around Auxiliary Ventilation.

At the work site, Spinning Cog's ears perked as he started to hear a thunderous banging up above the Reactor building. He raised on eyebrow, trying to figure out what the noise could be coming from. He lifted his radio to his mouth, about to ask Control about the noise.

Above him, the sparks started to fly from their fans in reverse and peppered the opposite wall, before a shattered fan blade shot through and fell into the air intake...

A thunderous explosion rocked through the facility. Spinning Cog dropped his radio and turned to see a wall of flame approaching him from the Inner Reactor Building. Magical shields popped into existence behind him. The flame hit him, and a brief moment of burning pain ran through him.

It was the last thing he ever felt.

A nuclear warning blared through the radios and earpieces, everypony around Equestria hitting the deck. Magical shields immediately sprung up around the inner reactor building and the force equal to thousands of thunderclaps rocked Canterlot Mountain as a nuclear blast thundered inside the blast shielding.

All around Equestria, fail-safes activated and breakers closed to weather the sudden surge in power. What seemed to be lightning jumped from substation to substation as voltmeters jumped out of their gauges. In the Ponyville Control Centre, terminals exploded and screens glitched, all before a whine was heard as everything lost power.

Around the Confederacy, hundreds of people muttered in confusion as Channel 87 suddenly flickered and jumped to a floating "No Signal" sign. In his office, the Director jerked in shock as the lights in his office went out. Hundreds of background ponies, foals, workers, and other miscellaneous crew winced as their earpieces were filled with static before shutting off. The Dome's simulated sky suddenly went dark, the sun going with it, leaving everypony in pitch blackness that was darker than night.

All around the set, workers wasted no time in priming the emergency generators. Emergency systems took priority above others, with the larger actual power-producers taking longer to boot up safely. Some lights came back on and the emergency set-wide radio channel crackled on, orders being given to emergency services.

The worker lay on the floor of the reactor control room, covered in powdered concrete. Emergency lighting had been switched on, bathing the room in red. Everything was torched, with some equipment still being on fire. The floor was littered with desks, terminals, wiring, shattered concrete, jagged metal rebar, and broken reinforced glass.

The worker slowly stirred from his resting position, feeling stabbing pain all over. He rubbed his eyes, only to find them stinging as he rubbed the dust on his hoof on his eyeballs. Hardly able to see, he tried to take stock of his environment. Outside, shield generators sparked, having given their all to, quite frankly, save his life. An outdated, twisted, half-vaporized, and overall charred Pegasus Device leaned into the control room through the glass. Its inner workings having mostly deposited themselves across the room and... into his co-workers. The only thing that has saved him was his close proximity to the window putting him under the shotgun-like blast radius of the output end of the Device. The worker, after taking a moment to cough and stumble around, saw a flashing red light, denoting the emergency exit. He began to shamble towards it.

He fumbled for his key card, only to find that his clothes to be very crispy and his chest to be covered in burns. He punched the "open door" button next to the steel surface anyway, hoping the meltdown overrides had done their job. Lettering flashed across the screen.

EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS ENGAGED, AREA CONTAMINATED BY ARCANO-RADIATION. THIS DOOR HAS BEEN SEALED REMOTELY

It seemed the overrides had done their job too well...

He lurched, coughing terribly. He desperately began banging on the door, hoping for somepony, somegriffon, somezebra, somedonkey, or anything to come and recue him. A voice blared through the door. The worker looked up in hope, only to break down in tears as he realized it came from the PA. The whiney ironic voice kept repeating its message.

"Evacuate, all personnel proceed to their emergency evacuation stations. This is not a drill. Evacuate immediately. Repeat. Evacuate, all personnel proceed to their emergency evacuation stations..."

Twilight Sparkle jumped as she heard a thunderous roar from Canterlot Mountain. The sun suddenly brightened dangerously, before everything went dark. The only thing illuminating the scenery was what seemed to be lightning jumping from far away electrical poles.

Twilight stumbled, suddenly finding herself in pitch black darkness. She looked to the sky, only to find nothing but darkness. Everywhere she turned, only darkness met her. She stumbled over something, tripping onto her face. She suddenly realised that everything had gone dead silent.

What had happened? Was it Nightmare Moon? Had she returned to bring about eternal night? No, that couldn't be. When Nightmare Moon had plunged Equestria into her night, at least the moon and stars illuminated where she was going. Here, the "night" sky was completely blank. She attempted to cast a light spell, at least to see where she was going, but only stumbled as her horn did absolutely nothing. Her magic was out too? Whatever had happened must have been serious.

She felt around carefully, trying to find the path again. Maybe if she could find Sweet Apple Acres, she could get Applejack to light a lantern or something. She continued to walk and stumble, her eyes still not finding anything in the distance.

General Control was working at a feverish pace, ponies running back and forth from their terminals. Laptops and other PCs were being transported and plugged in to the cables that had been left computer less as their companions were fried in the surge. A slightly glitchy and buzzy screen showed the power grid slowly coming back online as emergency power groaned to life across Equestria. Keyboards were hammered frantically as the crew diverted power to environmental systems, hoping to reboot before Twilight Sparkle began to notice.

A hum erupted across the Dome as the SkyScreens turned back on, the sun quickly being moved back into place to illuminate the set.

With a click, Fire Neutralization turned on, supressing fires across damaged facilities across "Equestria". The top of Canterlot Mountain began to steam as the air scrubbers vented decontaminated smoke furiously from the Main Reactor out of what was supposedly the inactive crater at the very top of the mountain.

Inside the reactor control room, the vents sealed and whooshes of fire suppressant shot at the various fires across the room. Unfortunately, the reactor worker was far gone...

Twilight Sparkle gasped and squeezed her eyes shut as blinding light suddenly flashed around her. She heard a strange, rising hum as the sky suddenly was lit up by the sun again. She looked around, trying to figure out her situation. To her surprise, she saw sunshine and the blue skies above her. The birds began to chirp again and, after a short pause, the breeze that had been present not too long ago kicked up again.

She stood, rapidly trying to process what had happened. Had Canterlot erupted? She turned to look at the mountain, only to stare in shock as the top of the mountain smoked white steam mixed with black smog. In the distance, she could see fires burning from Ponyville's hydroelectric dam. She put a hoof to her mouth, the fire looked pretty bad. Perhaps her magic could be of help. Speaking of which...

Twilight tried her magic again, finding it suddenly, oddly functioning as normal. She trotted away from the Acres, towards the burning dam. She was beginning to think she would never get around to paying Applejack for her goods.

She arrived at what looked like the Ponyville substation, finding that the firefighters had managed to put out a fire that had erupted within a large transformer box.
"What happened?" she cried to one of the fireponies, he jumped slightly, stuttering before responding.

"Uh, just an electrical difficulty, nothing to worry about ma'am," he said, pulling the helmet down over his eyes. "It shouldn't cause any trouble, just a small malfunction," he laughed nervously.

Twilight stared on for a few seconds, before looking around at the rest of the site. She gasped as she saw a pony on a stretcher, burns covering much of her body. Paramedics were taking the poor pony to an awaiting ambulance. She ran over to them, the paramedics startled a little before letting out a breath.

"Is she okay?" she asked, looking at the burned body.

"Y-yeah, s-she'll recover," they responded, before quickly pushing Twilight aside and moving towards the ambulance.

Twilight looked at the pony, who didn't really seem to be moving all that much. She opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by the slam of the ambulance's doors.

"Is there any way I can help?" she called to the firefighters, they all unanimously shook their heads, the captain stating that the fire was completely put out.

With a sigh, Twilight turned and jogged back towards Ponyville. Something was at work here, and Twilight had to figure it out! The first step was writing the Princess a letter...

The Director was furious.

He stormed through the Control Centre as soon as the elevator had power again. Ponies stood at attention as he thumped angrily across the floor of Ponyville Control. He went through the hallways, taking a left turn and then a right. He threw open the door into General Control and thundered towards the station labelled Power Grid.

"What. Happened. Out. There." he said, his words sharper than any sword.

The station supervisor looked up at the Director, her legs beginning to quiver.
"T-there was a power failure and-"

"I KNOW THERE WAS A POWER FAILURE YOU NITWITTED NINEPIN!" he roared, making Luna's amplified voice sound like a whisper. "WHY DID SAID POWER FAILURE HAPPEN!?"

"We don't know sir!" the supervisor cried, having been pinned to the side of his console by the Director's advance. "We had an alert that the meltdown shielding had been activated and then the power surged!"

"I paid millions for the most advanced, most redundant power system the Confederacy can provide and the reactor still melts down! I thought I hired ponies that took their jobs seriously. I thought I hired somepony who had their doctorate in Nuclear Power!" He screamed, lifting the supervisor by his tie. "Not only that, but I was promised the power could be restored in seconds. How long did it take? An entire minute! An entire minute for Twilight Sparkle to notice that the set had been plunged into utter darkness! Explain yourself!"

The supervisor was shaking, his hind hooves scrambling for purchase on the ground. His co-workers were standing, staring at the Director with wide eyes. The Director took a breath, setting the supervisor back down.
"I'm sorry, okay? But the truth is, at least a hundred ponies have died in this meltdown. I would like to know what happened so that I know what. To tell. Their families," he finished, his voice becoming stern by the end of his sentence.

"I'm sorry Director, but the only ponies that would know are the ponies that were in that site. I'm afraid the entirety of the Reactor Control Room has been irradiated, and the insides of the reactor have been blown to Tartarus and back. If anypony has survived in there, they probably are dead by now..." he trailed off, looking at the panels on his console. His eyes suddenly swelled with tears.

"I-I had a brother in there, I just realised he probably didn't make it," he said, a sob sinking into his voice.

The Director bit his lip. The Reactor had two blast shields, one around the core itself (between the Central Building and the Control Centre) and another around the entire cavern that housed the Reactor. That shield was then backed up by a lead/titanium composite amour that encompassed the entirety of the Old Headquarters. He had already ordered Search and Rescue to don hazmat suits and were currently discreetly making their way through the Crystal Caverns to access the Main Reactor building. He could only hope the blast hadn't fused the access doors closed, which would add hours to the ETA. Hours that somepony trapped inside the Reactor complex might not have.

Afterwards, he would need to get a surveyor to ensure that the mountain itself was still structurally stable, and to reinforce it if need be. While it wasn't likely that Canterlot Mountain was too badly damaged (if not a bit shaken up), the shields and reactor location had been strategically placed to make sure that catastrophic meltdown couldn't bring the mountain down. He had spared no expense in ensuring the safety of his set, which is what hurt so much when a disaster like this happened.

The Director sighed, turning and walking back to his office. He would need to make some calls to Security. He wanted an investigation into this matter. He would make sure whoever was responsible was written out and then tried in a court of law. That much he would be sure of.

Author's Note

Things are gettin' real.

Unfortunately, my editor (mother) is out of service and this chapter had to be self-edited.

I apologize if it suffered in quality.