Rainbow Factory: Reckoning

Rainbow Dash stepped out through ornate doors into the light of the great hall. Great beams flowed through the stained glass and onto the crowd. The audience stirred and murmured when they saw her. She entered from a side door and onto the raised dias. Time moved slowly as she approached the podium, and felt herself become the center of attention. She breathed deeply.

The Princesses were there on the dais, waiting just on the other side of the podium. Princess Luna stood tall, presiding over the assembly with her natural air of authority. Her expression was somber, but there was no more anger. Her wrath at her sister’s crimes had cooled when she remembered her own fall to evil, when she had become Nightmare Moon. Now she stood, stoic and sad, but dignified. Clearly Luna was the one currently keeping things from spiraling into chaos.

Princess Celestia was diminished. She was physically taller than Luna, but she seemed shrunk down. The smug superiority she had become accustomed to in recent years had vanished entirely, and she seemed lost. Despite that, the sun was up and shining again, a beautiful warm sunshine. She looked at Dash, with the eyes of someone who knew she didn’t deserve for everyone to think so highly of her. Dash understood perfectly.

Dash reached the podium and turned to face the crowd. She tried to look straight ahead, over the ponies, and especially not at the newsponies who would be broadcasting live.

She glimpsed down at the microphone, and back up at… eyes. So many eyes. She didn’t know if she was more nervous about the crowd, or all her friends. They were there, right on the front row. Her mouth went dry.

Applejack was as stoic as Luna. She was trying to be supportive, but Dash knew she was hiding her anger. She was angry about the atrocities of course, and the lying, and more than that frustrated that she hadn’t been able to help her friend. Dash could still hear the exasperation in her voice when she first found out, as she had exclaimed, “We woulda helped ya! Why didn’t ya tell us before it got so bad?!”

Fluttershy was staring at the carpet, heartbroken. She couldn’t bear to even think about all of this, but she still cared about Dash. “That’s pretty impressive,” Dash thought.

Pinkie Pie fidgeted, deflated and searching for ways to cope. She was most disappointed of all to learn that she missed the chance to be crazy Aunt Pinkie for Dash’s foal.

Rarity was ashamed, and looking to Dash for strength. When Dash had confessed about the Factory, Rarity confessed that she had gotten pregnant just recently, and given the foal up as a neophyte in Canterlot’s first clinic. Thankfully her tiny baby was still alive in an incubator somewhere and hadn’t yet shipped to the Factory. Doctors were still trying to figure out which one was hers.

Rainbow Dash found her knees weakening and her head swimming. She glanced to the side to see Twilight standing right next to her. As upset as she was about what had happened, Twilight was calm, and Dash felt calmer just looking at her. Twilight’s eyes weren’t upset, but clear and kind and insistent. “I’m proud of you for doing this,” she whispered.

Dash was amazed, and remembered the warmth that had begun to well up in her heart. I’m so glad you’re with me. Thanks Twilight.

“I am a good pony,” Gauze Wrap declared as if making his own speech. But he was not on stage or in front of a camera, he was standing alone in a well-furnished master bedroom. “I’m as good as my mane is red.”

“Is it true what they’re saying about you?” said a feminine voice from the other side of the locked door. It was his longsuffering wife. “Tell me it’s not true.”

There was a television in the corner. It was on at a low volume, tuned to the news, obviously, like just about every other TV in the land. The whole sordid story was slowly but steadily emanating from the speakers in an almost monotonous stream of horrified and condemning words.

“Some of the ponies I worked with were bad,” he admitted. “Heartless lowlifes with no color left. But I’ve kept my color, you know why?”

She tried to turn the knob, again, with no luck. “Please open the door, you’re scaring me. Please just let me in.”

Dark curtains were drawn across the window. The lights were on, but the light coming in under the door was brighter. “Do you understand why I refuse to expose myself to that unnatural rainbow?” he asked rhetorically. “Because I’m already good. I don’t need anything or anybody to make me good.”

He wobbled a little and stretched out a wing for balance. He was standing awkwardly on a puff of cloud that could barely support his weight. “Everything I did, I did with kindness. All the time I served in that factory was generosity. I’m more honest and loyal than Celestia, because I won’t lie and apologize.”

There was a rope hanging from the ceiling. He paused to concentrate on tying it into a noose. “We did what we had to do. I did the right thing. We did it to save the world… to save you. Don’t you see, everything I did, I did for you. I’m a hero, don’t you understand?”

“I don’t understand, I’m sorry,” she moaned, pressed up against the outside of the door. She had given up on opening it herself. “I don’t understand how it came to this. Open the door. You don’t have to do anything to yourself, open the door and we can talk about this.”

“That’s alright, dear. This must be sudden for you. You’ll understand, in time,” he explained regretfully. “But they don’t understand. They’ll never understand, they just want me to be a monster so they can feel superior. I can’t stand to see them looking at me like some sort of criminal. I am an upstanding citizen from an upstanding family. This is the only way to protect the family name.”

There were shuffling feet outside the room. He wondered if she had heard everything.

“There’s no place left for me in this world, even after all I did for them. It will be better for you, if I go.” The knot was finished. He gave it a solid tug to make sure it would hold him.

“Our little girl is here. Whatever you’re going to do, please don’t, for her,” she pleaded.

“Daddy, come out daddy!” a little voice called innocently, not understanding the severity of the situation.

Gauze Wrap answered in a soothing voice, “I have to go, baby. Don’t be sad, daddy’s going to heaven.”

He leaned forward to put his face through the loop, and began working up the nerve to pop the little cloud with a stomp.

He paused at the sound of a familiar voice he did not expect. Suddenly, after days of silence, Dash had appeared on the television.

Dash took a deep breath, and began. Starting was the hardest part. She had no script, no notes—those only would have made her freeze trying to do it perfectly—but she knew what needed to be said. “It’s me, Rainbow Dash. I was the manager at the Rainbow Factory. I know what I did was wrong. I’m sorry. I know an apology can’t ever be enough.”

“But getting rid of the factory doesn’t make this okay. Blaming me, Cloudsdale and Celestia doesn’t make this okay. I did it worse, but we all did this. I thought if I kept it a secret from you, you could all be happy, and the world could be okay. That you wouldn’t have to be bad, like me. But the truth is everything is not okay out here. Not in Cloudsdale, not anywhere."

“A few years ago, Twilight had me in the Hearth’s Warming play. I thought it was dumb. But we told the story of how we almost ended the world in a blizzard because we were racist and couldn’t get along. Because earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi didn’t want each other."

“This time, we almost lost all our magic, because we didn’t want our babies. We didn’t want to be mothers, didn’t want to be dads. Somehow we think it will be a drag, that it will stop us from living our lives. For some reason we care that we won’t be able to make as much money for ourselves. In the factory we said, ‘There are too many ponies anyway.’ Think of the ponies you care about, and tell me which one is too many. But we don’t know these fillies. Sometimes we don’t care about these kiddos because we don’t know them yet."

“I didn’t want my baby. I didn’t want my baby because it was inconvenient. I was embarrassed. I got pregnant when I didn’t have a relationship and I didn’t have a plan. I wasn’t ready."

“The joke in Cloudsdale is, ‘No filly is ready for flight school, they learn on the fly.’ I think parenthood is like that. You can’t be ready. You can never know what it’s like until you try.

“Our moms and dads wanted us. They raised us and cared for us, and stupid as it sounds we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for them. My mom was worried too. She almost gave me away. But I’m so thankful she decided to raise me.

“Maybe you feel like your parents didn’t want you, and I’m sorry about that. But please stop being afraid of this rainbow! This rainbow means, “I love you, I want you.” It means there are no unwanted fillies. It means, all is forgiven. If there are no unwanted fillies, there are no unwanted adults, no unwanted ponies period! Messed up as we are.

“The magical guy that made this world and gives us all our destinies—he cares about each and every one of those poor fillies I ground up into spectra, but somehow he still cares about me. I don’t know how to expect anyone to forgive me, but he did. So there is nopony out there who is unloved."

“I know a pegasus mom, who has a disability that makes her life hard, and she knew her baby would have the same problem. She decided to raise that kid anyway, and they’re happy. At first I thought she was crazy, but she’s a hero to me.”

Derpy, watching on a little couch in Ponyville, hugged Dinky tight.

Dash beckoned to her parents on the front row. They walked up the center steps and stood next to her at the podium. Her mother Windy cradled an infant in her arms. It was the foal from the lab. She presented the child to her daughter, who held him up for all to see.

“This is my baby,” she announced proudly. "Adopted, anyway. Look at this adorable little guy. You’ve been told that neophytes don’t matter. This is what a neophyte is—a pony. I know I don’t deserve to have him, but someone I trust told me that I will be a good mom.”

She cradled her adopted son. She had made a speech, but her little guy made the most important statement just by being there, just by being alive. She was ready to sign off and step down, and be with her family and friends. She gave the crowd some parting words. “We don’t need a rainbow machine… we never did. We just need to want each other.”

Before she had made it down off the stage, there was a startling disruption. One of the crystal balls the media was using suddenly seemed to go rogue. It made horrible popping and zapping sounds before turning on like a light bulb and shining a beam up into the air.

Giant letters appeared, looming ominously over the gathering. It spelled, “H.A., PHD”.

A loud commanding voice emerged through radio static. “Enough of this meaningless charade! Don’t listen to these strange fairytales, these useless emotional appeals. Listen to hard science, to reason! The papers confiscated by the police will prove that the Rainbow Factory was necessary and right. My research alone has protected our world. I am no murderer, I am your savior. When this ‘Harmony Rainbow” is used up, which I’m sure it will be, you will need my rainbow science to survive!”

Twilight stepped forward, and revealed papers covered with jargon, that she had carefully kept on her person. “Back off, Doctor Atmosphere! I have a little something my friend recovered from the factory. Recognize these notes?”

The dignified, mysterious monogram disappeared, and a disheveled Dr. Atmosphere’s distorted face could be seen peering at them from his secret hideout. He squinted at her in disbelief. “Impossible!”

Twilight brandished his own research like a weapon. “The science shows that the rainbow factory never did any good. Every young pony murdered can be traced to a drop in the global magic quotient. The rainbows you made barely returned half the magic that we lost with each filly. The fact that you tried to get rid of this, means you knew all along. No one will ever believe you again!”

“How dare you lecture me!” he snapped, trying to drown her out with the volume of his projection system. “Don’t listen to her, this rebel is inciting treason! No, this is blasphemy. If there is a god in this world, her name is Princess Celestia. She has the right to rule because she is the strongest! She knows best. Everything I did, I did under her orders! Great Princess, step forward and silence them!”

Princess Celestia did come forward, but not with the divine anger he was hoping for. Hurt, she asked, “How could you? I trusted you, Hyde! I thought it was necessary, but I was wrong! I am ASHAMED at what we did. All this time I’ve been terrified that ponies would find out that I’m not the perfect Princess I was supposed to be. I’m just a pony who’s good at magic. I didn’t know what to do, and I made everything worse. Just say that we were wrong. You can come back, if you admit you were wrong.”

The giant face quickly scowled and vanished back into the crystal ball.

Gauze Wrap lunged at the television and knocked it over in his haste to turn it off. “No! That can’t be true! I don’t believe it.” He jumped back onto the puff of cloud and pulled the rope firmly around his neck. “I refuse to live in a world where everything we did was a lie!”

His horrified wife threw herself against the door with a desperate yelp. It broke, leaving her tumbling into the room. She looked up at her husband, still poised to end his life. “Oh Gauze Wrap, no!”

His young daughter peeked in. His eyes suddenly fixed on her, entranced. “Daddy, I went outside to got you a fwower.” She was a gentle baby blue and lavender, but in this moment, they were the most shocking and powerful colors he had ever seen. She was radiant, vibrant, and stunning to his eyes.

The flower she carried was so beautiful and unsettling to his soul. It was the strongest, purest crimson he’d ever seen. In a moment, he suddenly came to believe that he had never seen color at all. He held a lock of his mane in front of his eyes. His hoof and his hair just seemed like different shades of gray.

He pulled back from the noose, and dropped to the floor, quaking from head to tail.

Someone else had also been listening. A gray pony stared into his stiff drink while the others at the bar watched the TV sullenly. Lobo had escaped the factory during "the incident" and had flown out to Las Pegasus to lay low.

The bar would normally have been boisterous, but now the patrons only talked in low murmurs. No one knew what to make of it all. The window shutters were closed, and curtains drawn across them, but slits of bright light still got through around the edges.

Lobo got off his bar stool, stood up straight, and barked, “Hey everypony, listen up! There on the TV? That’s my boss.”

The room snapped to attention, not only from the suddenness of the outburst, but also because of his words. There were two kinds of drinkers that day, those watching the broadcast, and those pretending not to.

He proclaimed, loudly and fearlessly, “I was a bruiser for the Palomino crime family, put a lot of hurt on anypony who crossed us. Went to the slammer for it, and cut some guys in there too. They moved me to the factory—nah, I volunteered. I’m the first shift floor chief for the Cloudsdale Weather Service, Rainbow Division. Some days, I liked my job. They call me Lobo, the wolf.”

There was dead silence. Interest turned to fear or horror as he spoke.

He issued a challenge to the room. “If you think you’re better than me, raise your hoof.”

Each patron froze, not wanting to be the one to provoke him.

Lobo wheeled around and addressed the one pony who could best understand what was going on. “Bartender, I know you’re better than me. Raise your hoof.”

The old barkeep nodded. This was not the first time a young stallion had poured out his soul over a pint, but this time was the most damning. He raised his hoof high enough that everyone could see.

“I am a damn babykiller. Everyone else go ahead and put your hooves in the air,” Lobo insisted again.

One by one, everyone there raised their hoof, if only to head height.

“HAHAHAHA!” he burst out with pained laughter. “You’re damn right! I’ve always known I’d never be any good, it’s what my dear old dad taught me. In some ways, I liked it when he beat me, because it was about the only time he’d ever touch me.”

“Now I know you’re all better than me, but let’s cut the crap. You’re all in here for a reason,” he accused. “Oh, but maybe you’re not running from anything, maybe you’re a really buckin’ nice guy and you’re just having a good time.”

“Who here brought sunshades?” he said, lifting his own dark glasses straight up as if he was placing a bet. “It was fuckin’ night when we came here. Who here brought sunshades so you wouldn’t have to look at that rainbow?”

The bartender pulled a pair out of his pocket and set it on the counter.

One drinker lifted his forearm off the table, revealing the shades he had been hiding there. The next pulled a pair out of the inside pocket of his jacket. With heavy hearts, everyone came clean, showing their sunshades as a token of the guilty consciences and paranoia that brought them here.

“What a beautiful time we’re living in,” Lobo commented with an ironic smile, but it quickly faded. “Nobody’s bullshit holds up anymore. Now we all know we have something to hide. We all have good reasons we’re scared shitless of coming face to face with goodness and harmony.”

He had spoken every word with fierce conviction up to this point, but now uncertainty crept into his voice. “If what my boss said is true, somebody up there still wants me, even after all the shit I’ve done. That’s crazy! I’m nothing like what my mama wanted me to be, but maybe… Maybe she’d still like to see me too.”

He glanced at the windows, where small points of light showed through despite the heavy blackout curtains. “You know convicts don’t get to leave the factory, and there are no windows. We hardly glimpsed the sun. But this is just the stupidest shit—I haven't seen a rainbow in ten years.”

He looked around at the witnesses of his confession. Maybe, just maybe they understood the decision he had made, and how hard it was. He stepped toward the door nervously. “I wanna see a Rainbow. I wanna come home.”

He hesitated, his hoof on the knob. Without looking back, he said, “If I’m struck dead when I look into that thing, you know why. But if it works for me, it’ll work for you. I don’t even remember what color I’m supposed to be. My real name…” He shook his head, and laughed at the irony, but his sad laughter trailed off. “My mama named me Love Boat.”

Multicolored light flooded into the room as he swung the door wide. He stepped out, and looked up.