Dr. Atmosphere's memoir

by Rarity Belle

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Sad, Other
Length: 3827

Doctor Atmosphere is nearing the end of his life and he knows it. So in one last attempt to cleanse his tainted soul, he writes his memoir. All of his horrible crimes done against the ponies, revealed. One that will show the ugly truth.

The most impressive engineer in the rainbow factory was doctor Atmosphere himself. He was also head of the weather department in Cloudsdale. What he also knows, is that his clock is ticking and nearing its end. Though his life had been nothing but bloodshed and tortures. He knows his soul is tainted if not destroyed. In one last, desperate, attempt to clean his soul, he writes down all of his actions in a memoir. The truth and the brains behind the place of horrors, shall be revealed through his final, written words.

============================================================================
Please take note that the story 'Rainbow Factory' MUST have been read to understand this story. 'Pegasus Device' on the other end, doesn't need to have been read. This was just a silly idea I thought that would be worth writing out. I want to thank a friend of mine, Miles, for letting me come up with the idea on 10-30-2012.
Credit for the cover image goes to the original creator.

Published 2012-11-02 03:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2012-11-12 21:13:40 UTC

The memoir.

For the sake of my family and parents, I shall not name them nor shall I blame them for any of the events that happened over the course of my life. I shall not dive into my past either. Instead I shall begin where everything started for my personal feeling.

I, Dr. Atmosphere, always wanted to make it as the head of Cloudsdale’s Weather Department. For some reasons did I always thought it to be one of the most beautiful jobs there was in my eyes. Ever since I was a little colt, I always interested myself in making the weather and I got determined. Determined that one day I would do it. One day, I would be it. Fulfilling my life dream.

Ever since I had taken the tour around the entire facility, I just wanted to work there. I had this dream of being useful to the world. So, after Pegasi Elementary I went to the Weather School. There they taught us everything what was to be known about the creation of it. How it worked and was executed. After having succeeded on Weather School I went to the Weather University.

I studied hard, I wanted to get that one job just so badly. When the tests were there, I set everything on everything and didn't leave a single answer to chance.

When the results came in, I could not believe it. I had managed to do it. For I had the potential to become head of it all.

---

The former head resigned his job. But only after I was capable of doing it alone and I took it upon me. I had done it, all my hard studying had paid off for I had the entire Weather Department under my direct control.

I loved it, I could make the weather as it was required under direct contact of the princess herself. She told me where it was needed and I gave the order over the other facilities to create it. Or pegasi from all over the land would come and tell me what was needed where.

But accidents can never be prevented, that is a sad but true fact. Even though I let ponies work as careful as possible. Bad luck hides in a small corner, so to say.

Though it was after a big lightning incident when I decided to split the departments in its many facilities as they are known today. Most of them stood where they were, in the main factory. But one needed to cut off of everything. The storm facility needed to get out of Cloudsdale as soon as possible, for the Princess of the Sun requested severe storms every now and then, but making those storms in the city itself, was the worst idea. One mistake and the whole city would be no more.

So a new facility was created in order to produce those kind of storms. Once it was built, I had placed professor Blackheart in charge. A thing I would soon regret with my life. He ran the place and delivered what was needed with great accuracy and power though.

But Blackheart began to make a prison out of the place as time progressed. It was needed in a way, for there was a lot of criminal activity in Cloudsdale back in those days. They were brought before princess Celestia herself who sentenced them to a lifetime of service in the Storm Facility, or as he liked to call it, the Storm Factory. But as it was a entire Facility on its own, I couldn't do much about it except correct or cover up his mistakes, I simply didn't had control over it, even though I wanted it, for I didn't agree with his ways of working in the least bit.

For years to come everything was looking good. The weather was delivered on time and nopony complained, until that one ungrateful day. The day everything started to collapse. The day to horrors came true and fears were born. The rainbow facility, started to crumble slowly but surely.

---

Maybe I first must go further into our rainbow philosophy. When one sees a rainbow in a storm, it is not because of the sun shining through the raindrops. No, it is the rainbow facility that made it appear there. Unicorns were needed to make spectra for the rainbows. Spectra is color in its purest form and there was no other way known to us to create it then with the help of, them.

The unicorns however, started to work on our nerves with their demands. Which pushed us further into developing new methods to create spectra. But even I could take it any more of their nagging and moaning. I would find a new way, no matter the costs of it.

It was while thinking of a new way that I snapped in my brain. I became ruthless, I stopped caring for the facilities in general. I ruled over them with an iron hoof. I lost my faith in the princess completely as she did nothing about the unicorns no matter what I tried. So I gave her the same treatment of silence. I never answered any of her letters or invitations or even when the guards came I wouldn't even open.

I started to conduct my own experiments to get spectra in secret. One way or the other, I would get it. ‘Without sacrifice, no glory’, and sacrifices were made. A lot of them.

Yet all ideas that came into my mind and into those of the engineers just failed. Everything that was tested just backfired back in our faced, particularly mine. I was about to give up hope when I heard a rumor. That one little rumor of what I thought was a myth.

Apparently there was a young filly who had performed a Sonic Rainboom right inside of the city of pride. I didn't waste my chance and send my best stallions to get the filly for me. I wanted her, alive, for I knew she could possible held the key. The key to the spectra secret and therefore the bon voyage of the pesky little and worthless unicorns.

---

They brought the filly before me, a cyan blue, rainbow maned and tailed with moderate cerise eyed filly. I never forget the moment she was brought in and I looked at her. That little filly, terrified by what happened and scared for her life, made it possible to do a Sonic Rainboom.

I wasted no time and began testing on her, replicating the circumstances for her so she was able to redo it. Yet every time she tried, she failed. After the Celestia knows how maniest attempt, I started to give up the hope for it. I just stopped believing she could do it. I even had my thoughts about whether or not they brought me the wrong one.

It was then when I had a deep look at her, at her mane, her tail. The coloring, all the colors matching the rainbow. It made me think. I left her in my office as I started to walk around the departments and noticed how all the ponies their coat matched one of the colors in the rainbow.

That very revelation got me to think deeper and deeper. As I walked further and further, my mind started to sink deeper and deeper into the realm of my own madness. Eventually it came up with something, something that may never be spoken of nor seen by any other worker.

---

Almost instantly I rushed back to my office where I found the filly flying around as she tried to find a way out of the place. I kept looking at her, her mane and tail looked like a rainbow, everywhere she flew she would leave a small rainbow trail.

I thought I had found the salvation. For she, if the rumors were true, could create rainbows only to be known as myths. Create them as she just flew around. Maybe, just maybe, was she able to help and create the components as well. The way to create the spectra we needed. The very answer we were looking for, could be hidden, inside of her.

I closed the office door behind me and took place behind the desk as she landed on it, looking at me with those eyes of her. She was begging me to let her go.

It melted my fatherly heart and I adopted her in a way. The filly who lived under the name of Rainbow Dash, had become my daughter in a way, for nothing was made official. But I took her under my care. She told me about her history and said she didn't know her own parents or what had happened to them.

I couldn't get it in my heart to just leave her over to fate. Even though I was snapped at the time, I still did it and tried my best to be her father. I think I can safely say I did a good job about it.

---

Even though she had become my unofficial daughter, I still kept testing on her. But after a long time, we just couldn't unravel the way to create our precious spectra. We needed to find another way. And fast. For all our hopes were running as dry as the vats of the stuff and our patience was running thinner than ever before. Time, was literally almost running out.

After a long time of collecting my thoughts and drawing, I finally did it. I found a way to get spectra. A device, able to get the spectra for me, at the cost of the lives of ponies.

A machine, where a pony goes in and is taken from its color, thus creating the spectra needed to create the rainbows, it is a long, harsh and painful process, but one we would master over time. A process that would be devastating news, if word ever got out of the factory.

I can say I was proud at myself when I was ruling the department, but now that I look back at it, I regret it all with my heart. Everything went down the day I let the machine being made by the Rainbow Department. The madness and insanity truly began on that ungrateful day.

Before the machine was turned on, I gave the employees a choice to either stay or leave. Most of them stayed and started to live in the facility as it was being cut off from the rest and they were not allowed to leave. They lived, worked, ate and slept twenty four-seven there.

It was then, when I made the tests to the pegasi. For they were needed. We needed to get ponies from somewhere right? The mayor of Cloudsdale saw use for them and gave approval. But not before I changed the facts just a little bit. I said that the ones who failed, would be send to the storm facility to work there next to prisoners.

But the failed ones, the ‘worthless’ ones, were sent to the rainbow facility. Only to be slaughtered for the precious spectra. I do regret the choices I made now, but at the time, I did not care so much. For I had achieved my goal. Rainbows started to shine all over Equestria again, without the help of the unicorns that time. Pegasi had truly mastered all forms of weather.

---

I awaited them, when they were brought in, explained things to them. But after that, I left the word to my daughter, for she could speak much, much better about it. After all, she helped building the device. And for that accomplishment, I made her manager of the rainbow department. My wicked mind should never have done that. Now I can easily say that it wasn't truly my fault because I was mentally unstable. But I do not blame that, I should have placed it aside to make room for my fatherly feelings and just didn't do it.

Letting my daughter, my unofficially adopted daughter, work and manage the department, was something I never should have done in my life.

They say, ‘so mother, so daughter’. But in this case it was, ‘so father, so daughter’. For she reigned over it with the same fear as I did. If not even worse. But it came at a high cost. Her innocent personality changed due to the fact the truth may not be told, not even to her closest friends on the outside world. It was a burden which she was never meant to carry to begin with.

There was one event of which she never wants to speak of again, the incident that I like to call the ‘most unfortunate date’. A teen-aged filly tempted to escape and almost succeeded if I must believe the stories. Rainbow never wanted to speak about it but when I asked, she only mumbled the word ‘Scootaloo’ before changing the subject or leave my presence.

---

We kept working as we did however. Of course would there have been rumors that did their turn of course. But they stayed rumors and we didn't bother with them at all. In the end was my time as the head of the corporation over and I was forced to resign my job. Forced to give up my life’s dream.

I had worked my years of service and had to leave. But Rainbow made the decision to stay. She knew I wasn't officially her adopted father more than well. She realized that I was only a substitute and I thought she would forget me sooner or later. So I flew away from Cloudsdale to somewhere where nopony could find me, so if the rumors would be confirmed, I can not be found. A coward's way one might say and I do agree on it, looking back at it all.

Thus I ended up here, in this wooden cabin in the middle of nowhere. The only pony that passes by are some travelers who ask where they are and the mailmare. A grey coated, blond maned pegasus mare with odd, crossed eyes. When she comes, it always brings a smile on my face. Just about the only joy I have in my life right now. We like to talk about things before she leaves again, things like everyday life. It helps to keep me going through the days of solitude.

But one thing would never be taken away from me, the many screams of the fillies and colts, that will never, ever leave my head. Every night they would haunt me to the point of insanity. Probably the price I have to pay for my deeds done. Something I do deserve on one hoof.

---

Now I live here, on my own and by myself, simply waiting for my life to end and to take me away from the face of the lands. Where I am going I do not care for nor shall I.

I do not deny the horrors caused by the facility nor do I deny they are mine. I am the one to blame for it all.

I wasn't mentally strong enough to hold myself as I just wanted rainbows to flow over the land, not caring about the costs, without those pesky Unicorns ruining everything with their demands.

I do not know what has become of my Dashie, she probably forgot me a long time ago already and now lives a happy life, of which I can only hope.

Maybe she reads this at one point in time or maybe she doesn't. But if she does, I did love her as a daughter. I just hope she loved me as her father. Though I can understand it if she don’t.

Here I am, a mentally broken, elderly pegasus stallion who committed one of the worst, if not the worst crimes against the Equestrian way. Maybe it is better I locked myself away from the world.

That is it, more I do not have to write for the horrors are known already, maybe I go deeper in some of them on a later point.

There is a place, where your fears and horrors come true and not a single soul gets through. The rainbow facility, of the Cloudsdale weather department.

~Dr. Atmosphere

The aftermath.

So here we are once again. I suppose it is time to tell to the outside world, how we did it. This is not going to be pretty at all.

I remember the very day that we tried the machine for the first time as if it was yesterday. The first time those shiny, new gears turned themselves around, the first time the chains went down and up. I was amazed, my vision, had become a reality!

We were ready, we could do it. And we did it. The powerful device was ready. It was more than ready to make rainbows out of pegasi who failed their tests. Those who have been labeled as unworthy of being part of the pegasi race. Load by load were they brought in. Each of them was terrified for their little lives as they should and would soon realize.

I watched from a distance was it all happened, how my little Dashie spoke towards them all. Her way of talking indulged them with fear and when the device was turned on, it only got better. But my nightmares had only began. And I was foolish enough not to realize it.

One single pegasi, was good for two kinds of spectra, red and the color of their coat. All what I remember of making it into a rainbow is that the ‘pure spectra’ needed to be separated from all the waste in the blood. How this process has been done however, I do not remember sadly enough and I think that by now they changed the ways of it anyway.

More, more I can tell about the creation of rainbows, for I just want to forget it. But the images are forevermore burned on my retina. Years I have tried to forget it and the only reason why I told this here, today, is in the vague hope it finally leave my mind. Probably will not however.

---

It still surprises me to the day that nopony has found the facility and that in its time not even princess Celestia came to inspect and thus witnessed its horrors. My staff thought about it since she saw the rainbows, she was happy and didn't need to know the story behind them.

Rumor spread around that she does know about the horrors we did but she does not interfere for it would mean the extinction of the rainbows for her magic is not powerful enough to raise and the sun and the moon and create the rainbows. Poor mare that she is. Banishing her own flesh and blood away, in the blink of an eye.

---

During my time here in this cabin here in ‘noponyland’, as I gave it the nickname a long time ago, I have been trying to forget it. But in dreams it just keeps returning like a sledgehammer. There have been times where I was planning to end it all, but simply just couldn't. It was either my own stupidity or bravery that kept me going. At the cost of my, so little, healthy mind.

I, I haven’t been one hundred perfect honest before. I did saw Rainbow Dash as my daughter yes. But the more time I spend here, the more I came to realization what I have done. I did not raise a daughter in love and caring. I raised a daughter to become a monster! A monster unseen like anything, lurking on its friends, hidden in plain sight before deadly yet silently wounding them, leaving them for dead and thus for the crushing gears of the device.

I had made plans to kill my Dashie yes, I won’t be able to deny that. I made them all the time, in my head, on paper. But I never, ever had the courage to just leave the safety of my four walls and do it. I just couldn't. Not after what I did. The reach of the weather department goes deep. Ponies could recognize me for who I was and start to ask questions, it, it was something, it was a risk I was not willing to take. Not after everything what has happened to me, to her.

But as I soon would realize, time caught up with me, my joints became stiffer and my coat older. I was getting old. I could deny it all I want, but I was old. So I left the plans alone, hidden deep inside of me and the ones written down somewhere where I can not find them anymore.

---

Now I have to admit, most of those plans are downright stupid and the chance of succeeding was slim. I gave up on killing her in the end What point would it make in the first place? They would find a replacement for her, probably find out I did it and I get banished to the moon or something like that.

So years of mental suffering caused by my own delusive ideas, taken the innocent life of a young filly and killed thousands of pegasi... The question is, why am I still here? Because I am too scared to go outside? Because they do not know? Just, just some of the questions that race through my head every single day. I can take this no longer, I am on the brink of another collapse, my last collapse. The ‘shattering’, it is something only myths speak about, but it a mind is so tormented and things kept being added, when a pony collapse, the mind can be heard shattering. Something I truly deserve.

---

What I am writing now, is a couple days after what is said above, I, I am broken. I am truly broken now... The mailmare came and delivered the newspaper, and what I saw in that, is, is, is unspeakable even by my standards.

My little Dashie, has been killed. Slaughtered by the hooves of a pink earth pony mare. Rumors say she was turned into a cupcake or something. My little daughter, became a baked treat! A treat everypony can eat nonetheless! I have been reading that article for hours, crying my eyes out every single time... I, I can not take this any longer. It is time for me, to be able to rest in peace as well. I hope that my Dashie, and maybe the world, can forgive me for my actions.

‘Life is cruel, why should the hereafter be any different...’

The time had come, to find that out...

~Dr. Atmosphere