Rainbow and the Factory

Rainbow's blood felt frozen within her veins as the staircase door creaked slowly open. She was met with another maze of dirty concrete hallways, cracked floor tiles, long-neglected medical equipment and a lingering scent of iron mixed with bleach. A fluorescent light directly above flickered with power, occasionally plunging the immediate hallway into dimness a little too dark for her tastes. Somewhere in the distance, a stallion was screaming, begging for his life.

She felt paralyzed.

Helpless.

Hopeless.

"Hey, Rainbow," Twilight quietly spoke out, breaking her trance. She glanced back at her friend, a sense of concern thick in her eyes. "I've been thinking... though, you're not going to like this very much."

"Wh...What?" Rainbow shivered.

"This place is built like a pyramid... the deeper we go, the larger the floors... the more ground we have to cover. This floor is probably the biggest of them all."

"Yea..." She had a pretty good feeling she knew what Twilight was about to suggest, and she hated the idea.

"I was thinking... if we want to find Spritz before it's too late... we should probably split up for this one."

Though she had steeled herself for those words, Rainbow still staggered backwards a little. "N-No!" she shook her head violently. "In a place like this, are you crazy?!"

"I know," Twilight lowered her head. "But it's probably our best chance of finding her here."

"You know bad things happen when ponies split up, though!" She thought back to every instance in her Daring Do books where the titular mare and her companions for the tale went their separate ways to search faster. Unlike those books, there was no such thing as plot armor here.

"It's a risk, I agree." Twilight looked down a hallway to the left. "I don't want to do it, either, but considering what goes on here... she might not have much time left... before..."

She might be dead already.

NO, Rainbow blinked the thought out of her head. She had to keep hope alive.

She had to find her. Especially now that her brother was gone.

Gone...

Her mind replayed her discovery of Dewdrop, and her stomach quivered.

A distant filly's scream suddenly pierced the air, reverberating from the hallway in front of them. The scream's voice sounded familiar.

Too familiar.

Oh Celestia, no.

Without a second thought, Rainbow sprinted down the hallway, leaving Twilight behind as she yelled at her to wait in vain.

Spritz... must save Spritz!

She desperately wanted to call out to her, to tell her that she was here to save her, but she knew that if she had been screaming, she likely wasn't alone. The halls twisted and turned, sending her through endless lefts and rights. She wished more than anything she could fly without fear of being electrocuted.

The scream echoed again, this time more muffled than before. Rainbow pushed herself to run faster.

No... I won't let them kill you, too! I won't let them hurt you!

More endless halls. More lefts and rights. Though she was more focused on finding Spritz, Rainbow was struggling to remember the paths she was taking. Dead ends and locked doors impeded her at every turn, forcing her to choose another direction.

Her ears barely picked up on another scream, far off in the distance. It seemed to end abruptly. Rainbow felt her heart drop into her cramping stomach, but she continued to run.

Unfortunately, her next left greeted her with a dead end, the only door in the hallway locked and requiring a keycard. Rainbow skidded to a stop, panting and cursing to herself, she would have to run back down two others to keep going. Or was it three, now?

Um...

Her eyes widened as she realized what she had done.

...Aw, feathers.

She sprinted back to the last hallway where she could travel down more than one path. Her head whipped from side to side as she peered down each of them.

Twilight was nowhere to be seen.

"Great... just great..." she muttered to herself. Now they really were split up, and now she was on her own. On her own in this hellish facility. Her fur bristled in response.

Well, only one thing to do, then.

She decided to turn right and began walking quietly down the hall.

~

Without Twilight by her side, Rainbow felt even more on edge as she tiptoed along. She wasn't there to offer a comforting word, or help with sensing movement or distant sounds, or safety in numbers and powerful magical abilities. She was straining to hear every single little noise possible, hoping to hear another scream - though horrible in itself, it meant that Spritz was still alive. She was also wary of hearing other noises, however; she hoped to find Twilight again in this maze, but also feared coming across any security guards or doctors.

But the hallways were silent. A monotonous buzz from the lights above only worsened the ringing in her ears. Furthermore, some of the lights were faulty and flickered on and off randomly, occasionally plunging her into heart-stopping darkness. A far-off clunk made her jump in surprise; a few moments after landing, she realized her hooves felt wet. Looking down, she found herself standing in a pool of cold blood.

Disgusting.

She gasped, nearly slipping and falling into the squishy puddle in her haste to get out of it. Feeling soiled, she glanced around for literally anything to wipe her hooves but found nothing. With a groan, she settled for using the right wall, getting most of the coagulated scarlet off before continuing on in silence.

...

Silence. It was killing her inside.

Making her nervous.

Jumpy.

Scared.

This was far worse than anything she had experienced before. She gladly would've fought against every single villain she and her friends had ever faced, working together in evil harmony, all by herself! ...If it meant this nightmare would end and Spritz would be saved.

She was beginning to wonder if she actually could be saved.

Before she could shake the thought from her mind, Rainbow stopped dead in her tracks. Just around the corner, she heard movement. Her pounding heart quickly blocked out the noise, much to her annoyance and dread.

As carefully as she could manage, she peeked around the corner. The noise of movement was more audible, but the source was still unknown. There was another corner to round, however, and a cart loaded with cleaning supplies and used surgical tools sat just before it. Rainbow held her breath as she creeped closer. A silver glint caught her eye; a scalpel sat on top of a pile of other tools in a tray. Fearing the worst, she grabbed it - it was protection of a sort, but she'd have to get awfully close first.

And up close she got. Suddenly a light brown Earth pony stallion in blue coveralls rounded the corner, his blonde mane tied back and a mop in his hooves. Their eyes met, and for a few moments, they stared at each other in shock. Rainbow felt her heart skip a beat as her body froze in terror, horrified at the prospect of possibly murdering another pony in order to survive.

"...Nope. Not paid enough to care." The stallion sighed, eyes narrowed in apathy as he walked right past Rainbow, more concerned with his cart. Rainbow blinked feverishly, unsure of what just happened.

"Uh..." she mouthed, turning to the janitor pony. He was busy rinsing his mop in a bucket of soapy red water.

"You must be new here, I take it?" he replied without looking at her. "Either way, nopony's supposed to be down here at this time of night, unless the Overseer specifically called for them."

Rainbow saw an opportunity. "Uh, yea... yea, the Overseer asked if, um, there was a... a certain patient here. Pegasus filly, greenish-teal and pink, purple eyes and Cutie Mark..." She glanced at the janitor nervously, who seemed engrossed in his work. "Uh... have you seen her around here?"

"Was that the one screaming her head off a while ago?" the janitor began pushing the cart down the hallway. Rainbow followed closely behind.

"Eh... probably?"

"Yea... guards say she's been a real pain to deal with, they had to tase her quite a few times before she finally conked out." Rainbow gulped and cringed. "I've heard that the Overseer has something special in mind with her."

"Where is she?! Where did they take her?" Forgetting her fear and all sense of caution, she asked quickly, almost yelling. The janitor pony stopped walking.

"Hm... you're awfully interested in this filly, I see. Why should I tell-"

"TELL ME WHERE SHE IS." Rainbow dashed around in front of the janitor pony and glared as menacingly as she could muster. Her shaking hoof held the scalpel point barely an inch from his left eyeball. It was enough to frighten the janitor into talking.

"Okay, okay! Sheesh... put that down!"

"Tell me," Rainbow glowered. The scalpel blade moved half an inch closer.

"She's downstairs!" The janitor pony's head shrank back as much as he could manage.

"This is the last floor, you liar," she growled. "There is no 'downstairs'."

"There is, really!" the janitor whined. "It's the Overseer's personal research laboratory, only she and a few other ponies here know about it!"

"Psh... including you?"

"Especially me... I'm the only one who actually cleans up around here. You'd think the Overseer would hire a couple more janitors, or at the very least buy an autoclave, but noooo... and she always insists I keep her floor spotless, and that leaves me no time for the rest-"

"Take me there," Rainbow ordered, grabbing the janitor's throat. "And by Celestia, if anything has happened to her... well... you better hope nothing's happened!"

"Alright... alright," the janitor coughed. "No need to be so rough... c'mon."

Rainbow released him, and the janitor began pushing his cart down the hallway again. She was careful to always have her scalpel pointed directly at the back of his neck, just in case.

~

They walked in uncomfortable silence for what felt like an eternity. Rainbow's foreleg was beginning to burn with pain from keeping the scalpel pointed at the janitor all this time. But the fear of retaliation was too much for her to relent.

"How did you even make it all this way down here?" the janitor asked suddenly as he kept moving forward. "Between the guards and the security AI... no offense, but you should've died or been captured long before getting this deep..."

"You're dealing with one of the best Wonderbolts Equestria has ever seen, bucko. Of course I got down here without any problems," Rainbow sneered with false bravado. The janitor finally glanced back at her, gasping slightly a moment afterward.

"Oh... oh yea, I've seen you fly before... you're Rainbow Dash!" his eyes widened.

"Yea, yea, in the flesh," she grumbled.

"You're the only pony alive right now capable of doing a Sonic Rainboom! And you're the bearer of the Element of Loyalty, to boot!" Rainbow blinked at the last accolade; she didn't want anypony to know Twilight was also here.

"Yea. And?" She tried her best to sound tough. Tough, and alone.

"Well..." the janitor paused for a moment. "Now I kind of hope you do make it out of here, it'd be a real big shame if you didn't."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean... other than the Overseer and the few other ponies allowed down there, nopony who goes down there comes back alive... if ever."

Though she did her best to hide it, Rainbow was internally panicking. How was she going to find her way around a secret floor, save Spritz, find Twilight along the way and make it back to the surface... with nothing more to defend herself with than a scalpel?

"W-What happens to them down there?"

The janitor made an ominous, disgusted groan. "I don't know too much about magic or science, to be honest... let's just say... things are... extracted. Yea. That's a good word for it." Rainbow gulped, her mind racing through many gruesome possibilities. Possibilities she hadn't even known existed before she came to this place, and wished she could scrub from her brain forever. Why were so many ponies here complicit in it all? What kind of utter monster was this Overseer?

"...Why," she finally forced herself to speak. "Why is she down there? Why was her brother taken here? Why is everything here even happening?!"

"I..." the janitor began, but trailed off. He sighed after a moment. "Look, I just keep the place clean as best I can. Even if I wanted to leave this place and alert the authorities, I can't," he subconsciously gestured to his neck, which Rainbow noticed. "We're all trapped here, whether we like it or not. Most ponies here are doctors, geneticists, biochemists, biomages and researchers, all of a certain specialty and... fortitude, all hoof-picked by the Overseer herself. And between you and me, many of them are a bit on the crazy side."

Rainbow wanted to ask the janitor why he hadn't tried to stop this madness anyway, but already knew all of the possible answers. Even if he wasn't afraid of the explosive planted in his neck or of being turned into a patient himself... what could he have done?

A few minutes later, the two ponies reached their destination. The elevator that had been prevalent in past floors sat in front of them. Before she could say anything, the panel on the wall beside it beeped in response to the janitor's keycard being swiped through. Surprised that she hadn't even needed to order him to do so, Rainbow's forelimb lowered gratefully.

Perhaps this gesture was his way of helping her, of helping everypony trapped here.

"Alright. For once, I'm a good bit ahead of schedule, so I'd like to keep on cleaning if you don't mind. Maybe I'll even get all the tools on this floor sterilized tonight!" the janitor chuckled. "I won't tell anypony you're here... actually, I'm kind of rootin' for you."

The elevator doors opened with a chime. Rainbow walked inside and turned around, nodding and mumbling her thanks to the janitor. She then turned her attention to the buttons inside - sure enough, while she had made her way through seven known floors, there was a button for an eighth. Tentatively, she pressed it, and it lit up without a problem. The doors closed a few moments later, and the elevator began its descent.

Rainbow could only wonder what horrible things were on this final floor. Things even the Overseer kept hidden from most of the workers here.

Whatever it was, it couldn't be good.