Rainbow and the Factory

*Clank clunk*

*Clank clunk*

*Clank clunk*

*Clank clunk*

The sound of their hoofsteps was the only sign of life. As Rainbow and Twilight turned the staircase's final corner, their eyes widened in surprise.

Barely illuminated by Twilight's light spell, they found themselves within a massive and peculiar domed structure. Peculiar in that, though they were now underneath the ground of the mountain's summit, the walls and ceiling of this dome appeared to be made of dark grey clouds. To be sure, Rainbow stuck her hoof into one of the walls, finding herself unable to not only touch anything solid beyond, but unable to pass through the clouds with the rest of her body. More enchanted clouds? There were even some holes in the metal floor that were patched shut with the same clouds as the walls. Just to be safe, she and Twilight avoided them as they walked past.

And that wasn't even the strangest part about the floor. The dome's floor was littered with piles of twisted, rusted metal, ruined pieces of machines of unknown functions, frayed wires and more garbage than any mere scrap heap. Much of it looked charred and blackened as if it had come from the mountain's summit, and covered in dust as if nopony had been there in years. A strong scent of dust, iron and general corrosion permeated the air nearest the ground; Rainbow decided to fly upwards about a meter and hover rather than walk, finding the air a little less musty. Her eyes scanned the junk piles, some of them reaching almost halfway to the ceiling, which she estimated was fifty feet above the floor. The only clear path ahead conveniently cut through the piles in a slight zigzag fashion to a door on the opposite wall from them - about three hundred feet away.

The silence was getting to her. "What do you make of this, Twi?" she asked as she checked their surroundings again.

"I'm... not sure," Twilight hesitated. Rainbow shuddered at the response; being the personal student of Celestia and an all-around egghead, Twilight was very rarely so unsure of her surroundings. "It's like... an indoor junkyard? But why? Why here? And for being in such a dangerous place to begin with, who even built this?"

Rainbow hovered beside her companion as they traveled the path in silence. She couldn't put her hoof on it, but a sense of dread and unease seemed to grow like a weed within her mind. Sure, this was a really strange place, but there wasn't anything particularly scary about it... right?

They reached the door a minute later. Rainbow tapped on it with a hind hoof to open the way, finding another dark, metal staircase illuminated by a single, dim red light. She was about to float inside when Twilight's ears flicked suddenly. "Eh?"

Rainbow glanced towards her. "What's up?"

"Do you hear that?" Rainbow perched for a moment on the staircase's railing to listen for something, anything out of the ordinary. But all she heard was silence.

"I don't hear anything," she shrugged. Twilight gulped.

"Hm... I think it's infrasound. Weird..." She then noticed Rainbow giving her a confused look as she began hovering again. "It's harmless, no need to worry, it's just... creepy."

"Ah. Great."

The two ponies began their descent. While the first staircase they had traversed had been somewhat long, at least six flights of stairs, this one seemed more mundane in only having two. The door at the bottom did not open when Rainbow pushed gently; a thin, pink tendril of magic extended from Twilight's horn around the handle, pulling down and swinging outwards.

Now they found themselves in a long, almost empty hallway, the plain, white-tile floor dimly lit with tiny, blue lights that lined the edges where the walls and floor met, spaced about a foot apart . There were no doors, no windows, not even pictures or posters along the walls - the only object to be seen was some kind of black, dome-shaped apparatus that stuck out of the far right corner of the ceiling. The hallway turned to the left about thirty feet ahead, what lay beyond was out of sight.

"First that junkyard, now this..." Twilight mumbled as they pressed onward. Within moments they reached the bend in the hall, which now seemed to open up into a sort of closed office space - rows of hallways lined with wooden doors, each hallway seeming to border one or two rooms, forming a grid. The outer walls of this strange place were still crafted out of those thick, dark grey clouds, while the inner walls and ceiling were made of standard building materials. The solid walls of the hallway they had been in disappeared into the clouds after stretching about two feet to either side. All throughout this new space a low, barely audible hum reverberated quietly in the air, seemingly coming from all directions at once.

"This whole 'Shrouded Mountain' story is about sky pirates and their hideout, right?" asked Rainbow, now outright confused as she hovered into the maze of halls and rooms. "I can kind of understand the mess upstairs, but what's up with this office area?"

"Please state your Flying Clearance Code."

A robotic female voice suddenly pierced the silence behind them. Rainbow and Twilight whipped around at the sound, seeing nothing behind them but the strange black dome. At this angle, they could now discern what looked like a small, circular speaker built into the wall just below it.

"What was that?!" Twilight jumped. Rainbow squinted her eyes in suspicion; a camera's lens was barely visible through the black dome.

"A surveillance camera?"

"Please state your Flying Clearance Code. Final warning."

"...Flying Clearance Code?" Rainbow muttered. "What's that-"

Her fur stood on end as she instantly understood the end of her sentence. Out of the corner of her eye, a glowing blue spot appeared on the cloud wall to her distant right, shooting out a searing bolt of lightning directly at her a scant second later. Rainbow dodged just in time, watching the lightning disappear into the opposite cloud wall. Her eyes widened in fear as blue spots now appeared on both walls.

"Failure to supply Flying Clearance Code. Termination initiated."

T-Termination?!

Lightning soared through the air at the rainbow Pegasus, faster than Twilight could cry out. Rainbow kicked her hind hooves off of the solid wall in front of her and charged down the hallway behind her to avoid them. As she flew down this hallway, her stomach dropped as she realized the distant wall ahead of her was also made of clouds, forming more blue spots ready to strike. She banked a sharp left to avoid the incoming blasts, cursing to herself as she saw more cloud walls ahead of her. And there was probably a cloud wall behind her, too. Her thoughts drifted to the doors along the hallways for just a moment, but the lightning struck too fast to allow her to try the handles.

She banked a sharp right just as four bolts of lightning collided in the space she had occupied only a moment before, creating a loud crack and a small shockwave. It nipped at Rainbow's hind hooves like a hamster's bite, which she barely noticed as she saw more blue spots in the distance.

She banked left again. More blue spots.

She banked right again. More blue spots.

Left.

Right.

Left.

Right.

Left.

Left.

Left.

Right.

All these quick maneuvers were wearing her out. Her wings began to burn with exertion and fatigue. No matter where she turned, each hallway led to at least two cloud walls. She performed a barrel roll to avoid the next bolts, and her eyes looked directly into another camera hidden by a black dome.

In the split-second of time she had before she would have to dodge again, Rainbow glanced up at the ceiling. A black dome hung from the ceiling over every hallway's junction. Maybe this could be her salvation? As the next bolts fired at her, Rainbow flew upwards until her wings nearly scraped along the ceiling, and extended her front hooves out in front of her face to form a point. She hurled herself into the black domes she passed by, hearing three of them shatter and short out with a satisfying crackle.

Now her fur stood on end so violently, it was as if they were threads of iron powder being ripped from the ground and onto a magnet. Rainbow's eyes widened in fear as the entire segment of cloud wall ahead of her glowed bright blue; she was sure the wall behind her was doing the same. She banked a sharp left as lightning blasted behind her, but instead of only firing one shot, it kept on firing, effectively blocking her in. Dread splattered her mind like a bug on her flight goggles - she may have screwed herself out of finding the exit to this lethal labyrinth.

Only one pony could help her now.

"Twilight! Make it stop!" she screamed as she whizzed down the halls. Suddenly the hallway furthest from her, both parallel and perpendicular came to life with blue lightning. Rainbow's heart leapt into her throat: the blasts were starting to close in on her, to trap and kill her. Banking to the right twice in a row, she saw the furthest perpendicular hall had lightning coursing through it as well. Now the next one sparkled to electrifying life.

"I-I don't know how to!" she heard from a distance. "My magic isn't affecting the clouds or lightning at all!" The next perpendicular hallways became electrified, as well as the next closest parallel hallway. Two more of those, and five more on either side of her, and she'd have nowhere left to fly.

"Teleport me back into the first hall!" Rainbow cried out. The next hallways lit up with lethal lightning.

"I've been trying! I can't use teleportation magic in here either! Something's stopping me!" Twilight's wailing sounded a little closer. The next hallways became electrified. Rainbow began to despair.

"Heeelp! Help me! Somepony!" Rainbow screamed. The next hallways became electrified. Suddenly Twilight burst into one of the three hallways still safe to fly in, terror flooding her eyes. Tears clouded Rainbow's vision as she imagined one of her best friends getting electrocuted.

"Rainbow! Just land! All you have to do is land!" Twilight yelled as she ran halfway into the hall. Rainbow blinked away her tears in surprise - that sounded like the single worst possible thing to do in this situation. Was Twilight telling her to just accept their fate?

But they weren't best friends for nothing. As the hallways behind her filled with lightning, Rainbow banked a sharp, downwards right into the final hall, her hooves giving way from her momentum as she landed. Her face scraped along the floor as her limbs flailed desperately to stop all movement. Finally she came to a halt as she felt Twilight's hooves wrap around her body, pulling her up into a frightened embrace. Rainbow embraced her as well, mentally preparing as best she could for an electrifying death.

That death never came.

"Aerial disruption has ceased. Termination aborted."

The lightning faded away in an instant. Only the quiet hum remained. Rainbow silently wiped teardrops from both herself and Twilight from her cheeks as she cautiously stood up.

"I-Is... Is it g-gone?" she coughed as she caught her breath. Twilight cautiously stood up as well.

"It seems to be," she spoke quietly as her glanced around, horn flaring to life with a pink glow. "I don't sense quite so much electricity in the walls anymore."

"How did you know it'd stop if I landed?" asked Rainbow. It had seemed a very counterintuitive solution in the moment.

"...I didn't," Twilight hesitated, Rainbow's face falling behind her.

"WHAT?!"

"It was honestly just a theory."

Rainbow blinked in disbelief. But her theory had proven to be correct for the time being. She quietly walked into the closest intersection of hallways, flinching, but nothing happened.

"I see... well, guess that means no more flying in here," she conceded.

"Rainbow," Twilight spoke, a serious tone in her voice. "I know you want to save Spritz yourself, but this place is really out of our league. We should go back and get help-"

"No, Twi," Rainbow shook her head with a frown. "If this place is full of death traps like that, it's even more important we find her before she gets herself killed. If we leave now, that's... probably what'll end up happening..." A cold chill descended upon her; she hated the thought of getting herself or Twilight hurt, possibly even killed because of her actions.

She hated the thought of harm befalling Spritz even more.

"If you want to leave and get help, though, then go ahead," she suggested. Twilight sighed.

"And not be around to save you from future death traps? I think not." They shared a few uneasy chuckles before slowly walking down each of the long hallways.

They tried every door they came across with no luck; all were locked and solidly constructed to withstand beating or blasting them open. Near the middle of the room, on the rightmost cloud wall, they found what appeared to be an elevator nestled within, crafted from thick metal rather than the surrounding clouds. A keycard device had been attached right next to the doors; it beeped stubbornly as Rainbow prodded it's buttons to no avail.

Finally they reached the opposite side of the office area. Another short hallway turned to the right, and at the end of that was another metal door that led to another red-lit metal staircase. This one, however, was decorated with a small smear of something reddish-brown near the handle.

"I wonder why the staircases are all separate from each other like this," Twilight mused while Rainbow opened the door, taking note of the smear. She shivered when she realized it resembled dried blood. Twilight's voice died in the middle of her musings as she also noticed.

Spritz...

She gazed down into the darkness. A new surge of determination filled Rainbow's heart as they entered the staircase, quietly closing the door behind them.

I'm coming, Spritz.