Return to the Factory

The journey to the Storm Peaks was long and difficult.

After the train had reached the final stop at the border of the Undiscovered West, Scootaloo and her friends traveled gradually southwest. Civilization in the form of towns and villages were few and far between, and the roads connecting them were unpaved and unkempt. When asking the few ponies they did meet in these towns for directions to the mountain range, they were always pointed westward with various stern warnings about the area's perils. They walked for nearly a week until finally setting their eyes on their destination: a chain of blackened mountains with their peaks covered in storm clouds taller and higher than they'd ever seen, with Mount Thunderclap being the most monstrous of all.

It wasn't so much that there were dangerous beasts or bands of bandits in the Plain Grey Plains where the mountains sat, but rather that there were zero signs of life for miles around. Every tree they came across was dead, lightning-blasted and charred. Bushes were mere clumps of dry, tangled thorns. Hardy weeds and tufts of crabgrass were sparse and sickly, streams and pools of water were empty and stagnant, and there were no vultures, no lizards, no snakes, not even bugs burrowed into the grey sands. It was as if the entire land had been cursed.

Applebloom and Sweetie Belle expressed their concerns as well, but none of these things broke Scootaloo's resolve. If anything, she fully expected The Place Where the Dead Are Given New Life to be somewhere dangerous and remote. Where else would such a place full of hope be? Her nerves burned with anticipation throughout the trip, tingling more and more as she and her friends spent another day crossing the plains. They made their camp at the base of the Shrouded Mountain that evening, and she was so excited she could barely sleep - though that could've been because of the lightning and thunder rumbling up above as much as her own heart. But just through the din of it all, she could almost hear Rainbow's voice again.

She is still alive.

"Almost there, sis," she mumbled under her breath, patting the urn through her saddlebags. "Almost there."

~

They broke camp and began the climb to the summit at the darkened crack of dawn. Lightning flashed frequently, lighting their path more brightly than the rising sun. Cold mist settled on their backs, sending a chill through Scootaloo's spine. The mist eventually turned into rain, softly pattering on their bodies and drenching their manes until Sweetie Belle cast a simple shield spell above them to act as an umbrella.

The path was rough and rugged. The rain beat down harder the higher they went. Just above them, the storm clouds howled with raging winds, jagged hail, crackling lightning and roaring thunder. Scootaloo's soaked fur suddenly stood on end, and she hesitated as a powerful lightning bolt struck a rock not twenty feet away from her. Her friends shrieked as the rock exploded from the force, the shards clattering against Sweetie's shield. They were still and silent for a moment until Applebloom put a hoof to her chin in thought.

"Hmm... ah wonder if..."

She swung around and raised her hind legs, channeling her Earth pony magic and bucking the ground behind her with all her might. The ground shook as a deep trench dug itself upwards into the mountain, almost immediately beginning to form a thin stream of water down the middle.

"There, if we walk in the ditch, then we're lower to the ground an' we shouldn't hafta worry about bein' zapped," Applebloom nodded.

"I still think this is a bad idea," Sweetie warned, although already making her way into the trench with the others. "The weather's just getting worse the higher we go up."

"Well, a place like this is bound to be surrounded by danger," Scootaloo reasoned. "Why else would nopony know about it?"

They continued up the mountain in silence, focusing their energy on climbing carefully. As it rained, the rocks became slippery and unstable, threatening to send them tumbling back down in the midst of a landslide. The icy winds whipped viciously through their coats, chilling them to the bone. Rain turned to sleet, trying its hardest to freeze the three ponies where they stood. And all the while, lightning flashed and pulsed and struck all around them amongst deafening, raging, unending thunder.

Finally, after many exhausting hours of treacherous climbing, Scootaloo finally saw the ground leveling out. They had reached the summit. Her shaking, shivering body surged with renewed exhilaration as she ran ahead of the others, stopping only when she reached the very top. Groaning, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle hastened their pace to catch up to her.

"Guh! ...Sure woulda been nice if we coulda flown up here," Applebloom panted as Sweetie flopped on her belly beside them, gasping for breath. "Well, Scoots? Is it everythin' you were expectin'?"

"I..." Scootaloo started, but trailed off. Applebloom and then Sweetie gazed in the direction she was looking, and their mouths opened wordlessly. The summit before them sank into a shallow crater about five hundred feet in diameter, the ground charred ash gray and black from countless lightning strikes. Puffs of storm clouds drifted lazily along the ground like ghosts in a graveyard, seemingly on their own accord. And in the very center of the crater sat a small, blackened gray building, no bigger than a toolshed and lying atop a floor of storm clouds, a sheltered alcove leading invitingly inside.

She is still alive.

Scootaloo brushed her saddlebags where the urn sat nestled inside. She wasn't sure what she was expecting, but the urn wasn't rattling or vibrating or anything out of the ordinary. She glanced at her bags; that specific spot wasn't glowing or anything, either. Maybe she needed to be closer to the crater's center?

She walked forward, crossing the crater's threshold. Suddenly she felt her body tense up, and her fur stood violently on end. The closest puff of storm cloud to her began to glow a vibrant, violent blue; Scootaloo just barely managed to leap back over the ridge as a blast of white-hot lightning struck the spot where she once stood, the shock of which threw everypony backwards.

"Whoa!"
"Whut in tarnation?!
"Wh-What was that?!"

They laid stunned on the ground for a moment before nervously picking themselves back up. Only Scootaloo dared to peek over the edge of the crater once more.

"Did... Did that cloud just try to hit you with lightning?!" Applebloom coughed. Scootaloo only stared into the crater in silence, now acutely aware of just how many cloud puffs lay within.

It... It really did seem like it...

"Hey! You there!"

The three ponies froze. They never dreamed of meeting anypony else up here. Turning in the stern voice's direction, they saw a brick red stallion with cream-colored patches quickly trotting towards them. He wore a thick, body-covering uniform patterned with mountain camouflage; a strange, short, black metal pole ending in two points hanging from his side. Avocado-colored hair obscured his similarly-colored eyes, which were scowling, almost glaring literal daggers through them if he could.

"This mountain is off-limits! What are you doing even thinking about camping up here?!" he yelled, immediately brandishing his strange weapon, leering at the three mares.

"Whoa, now, take it easy!" Applebloom yelled back in alarm.

"We're... uh, the Cutie Mark Crusaders!" Sweetie answered. "We're on... an important mission!"

"Oh, really?" the stallion sneered, taking another menacing step closer. "Cutie Mark Crusaders... how quaint. And just what might that mission be?" Sweetie fumbled over her next words as she and Applebloom took a few steps back.

"We... We're here to find The Place Where the Dead Are Given New Life, sir," Scootaloo choked out after a moment. "Um... h-have you heard of it?"

Something flashed in the stallion's eyes. Something sinister. He unleashed a wicked grin.

"Oh... I see..." he chuckled. Scootaloo gulped.

"So... you've come here for that... You've come here...

...TO DIE!"

*clunk*

Just as the stallion lunged forward with his weapon, a large boulder enveloped in a spring-green aura slammed into his body, knocking him over and trapping him beneath it. Scootaloo and Applebloom stared at Sweetie Belle in shock; her face was frozen in horrified fear of what had just happened, and what she had just done.

"D-Die?!" Applebloom stuttered. "D-Did ah hear that r-right?!"

The stallion groaned and shifted beneath the boulder. It wasn't going to keep him pinned for long.

"Forget about that, let's get out of here!" Scootaloo yelled. The three ponies immediately spun around and began running back down the mountain as the stallion steadily hefted the boulder off of him. Then... slowly, vengefully, he grabbed a walkie-talkie from a pocket in his uniform as he caught his breath.

~

The Cutie Mark Crusaders hastily made their descent. Rocks slid and shifted in the slippery mud beneath their hooves, sending them down a different path, though they were too frantic to stay together to notice. It was a good fifteen or twenty minutes before any of them even thought to check behind them; when Scootaloo finally saw that they were not being followed, the three ponies finally skidded to a stop. They were silent as they gulped in the frigid mountain air, and Sweetie was finally able to concentrate enough for her umbrella shield once more.

"Wh-What was that stallion's problem?!" Scootaloo coughed. "What the heck was he trying to do?!"

"What'd ya attack him for, Sweetie?!" Applebloom wheezed. "That stupid stick of his was his only weapon, we coulda taken him! Now ah bet he's real hurt an' really mad!"

"R-Rarity told me... when I started modeling for her," Sweetie trembled with a thousand-yard stare, "...there'll be ponies... ponies like that, watching me... if one ever came up to me like that... then she told me to... show no mercy, and then run... oh, Celestia... I..."

Applebloom and Scootaloo moved to embrace Sweetie, and they caught their breath together in silence. Once they had regained their stamina, they took note of their surroundings. More of the same blackened rocks and dead trees, but different from the ones they had passed earlier. But still, up was up and down was down, they weren't exactly lost there.

Scootaloo sighed.

She is still alive.

She touched the spot where the urn laid protected. She had not yet fulfilled her promise.

"Well... we can't go that way now," she spoke lowly. "Not with that crazy stallion there."

"Wha- yer tellin' me you still wanna find that place?!" Applebloom yelled incredulously.

"We didn't quite reach it, I don't think..." Scootaloo replied. "I think it might be that building in the middle of the crater."

"Maybe," said Sweetie, "but how can we get there? I'd... I'd really rather not see that stallion again."

"An' there's all them storm clouds driftin' about in the crater," Applebloom added. Scootaloo thought back to what she had seen; while looking around the crater, she had noticed a number of caves dotted around the crater's walls.

"I saw lots of caves," she finally said. "I bet there's probably at least one that'll lead us there. We just gotta find it, that's all."

The wind picked back up as Applebloom and Sweetie Belle stared in disbelief at her.

"...Do you realize just what yer sayin'? That'll take forever!" Applebloom groaned. "Where're we supposed to find-"

"Euugh..." Sweetie's face scrunched. "I thought we told you to warn us first when you did that, Scoot!" Applebloom and Scootaloo sniffed the air in response, and their faces scrunched as well. It was an acrid, earthy, metallic scent full of death, disease and rot.

"Ack, that wasn't me!" Scootaloo cringed. "That wasn't even close to me!"

"What went an' died over here?!" Applebloom wailed. Morbidly curious, she and the others staggered in the direction of the terrible scent.

It wasn't long until the mud beneath their hooves took on a reddish tint. Another hundred feet more and they found themselves staring in disgusted horror. The source of the stench was what appeared to be a shallow lake of slimy, rotting, partially-coagulated blood, but it smelled so very wrong, like so much more. An iridescent film had formed on the surface, and bits of what looked like bones, entrails and viscera floated like dead fish. As the stench invaded and permeated her body and mind, Scootaloo's nose picked up whiffs of chemicals, soap and bleach.

"...Sweet Celestia," she finally uttered, feeling her mouth become wet. The three gagged violently. Sweetie Belle politely vomited behind a rock, the scent of which made the stench even worse.

"Wh... What in Tartarus is this?!" Applebloom choked. "Wh-What is this doin' here?! Why is this here?!"

"Wh-Where did it come from?" Scootaloo gasped, trying her hardest not to vomit as well. Now this was something she had half-expected, given that she was searching for The Place Where the Dead Are Given New Life. For some reason, this seemed... acceptable. Noticing a slight current in the jellified mess, she trotted off to the left, much to her friends' dismay.

"Scoots...? Where are you going...?" Sweetie asked woozily. She and Applebloom followed her until she came to a stop. Before them was a cliff face, out of which four large pipes, each big enough for a pony to walk upright, extended side-by-side. The pipes were covered in sewer grates to keep things out, but unlocked latches on the outer edge of the pipes meant that they were easily opened for maintenance.

"...I think we've found our cave," Scootaloo finally said after a moment.

"You must be jokin'," Applebloom growled as Sweetie put a hoof to her mouth as her cheeks bulged. "This ain't funny."

"Not all of them are gross," Scootaloo pointed. The pipe second from the right dripped with only slightly-discolored water, whereas the other three dripped with small streams of blood, tangled entrails trapped within the grates. She went to the pipe and unhooked the latch, the grate opening for them slowly.

"C'mon, I think we can get to that building this way. 'What goes up, must come down', after all!"

"Scoots, no," Applebloom swung her forelegs outward while shaking her head furiously. "Ah know you wanna see that place real bad, but this is just wrong on so many levels."

"This is real bad," Sweetie moaned after swallowing the remaining contents of her stomach back down. "Twilight said this place was dangerous... I don't know why this is here, and I don't really want to go find out."

Deep down, Scootaloo agreed with them both. The mere sight- heck, the mere concept of a lake of rotting blood was enough to send most ponies into a hysterical panic, let alone potentially investigating its source. They were the same kind of pipes, after all. Celestia knows what horrible thing was on the other side of them.

She is still alive.

But she had a promise to keep. A sister to revive. Her heart ached as she saw Rainbow Dash in her mind's eye, invariably proud of her for her efforts.

Her resolve.

Her purpose.

As if compelled, Scootaloo stepped inside the pipe, her friends' protests falling on deaf ears. They wailed, then shouted angrily, then cried out in frustration as she slipped deeper inside, their hoofsteps clambering against the metal and quickly catching up to her. The wind picked up outside, and the sewer grate swung shut behind them with a loud clang.

She is still alive.

Scootaloo touched her saddlebags. The urn was silent, motionless.

I'm coming, Rainbow. I'm going to bring you back.

They disappeared into the darkness.