Colors of a Rainbow - Chapter 7

>What have you done?! The past four years… THIS is what you’ve been doing?
>You slowly come back to reality, and you hear Dr. Atmosphere’s angry voice on the microphone. “Anonymous! What in the name of Equestria is going on down there?!”
>You grit your teeth, and place the microphone to your lips.
“You. Me. Your office. Now.”
>And with that, you swerve around to the door, slamming it open and walking down the halls, the sound of machines slowing down as you walk becoming music to your ears.
>You’re going to put a stop to this.
>As you walk, two masked pegasi approach you, blocking your path. “Just where do you think you’re going?” one asks, its voice muffled by the mask.
>You growl angrily, clenching your fists at your sides.
“I’m in a bad mood right now, fellas. For your own safety, you don’t want to be in my way.”
>They still don’t move. Damn shame, they could have listened.
>With a swift movement of your leg, you slam your boot into the side of one’s head, sending it barreling into the other one. As they recover, however, you quickly grip them by the underside of their jaws, lifting them up into the air against the metal wall.
“Now. Stay out of my way.”
>These are the last words they comprehend before you slam the back of their heads against the metal wall, and then against each other, before tossing their now-unconscious bodies to each end of the hallway and moving on.
>Strangely, no other ponies seem to impede you on your way to Dr. Atmosphere’s office. He must have something big planned for you.
>At last, you reach the large metal doors that began your career all those years ago. The nostalgia will have to wait. You grip the bars on the doors and pull them open with a wide arc from your arm.
>You don’t even have time to retaliate as two prongs are plunged into your sides, and an electric shock is sent barreling through your body, causing you to collapse to your knees.
>”My, my. That’s not what I was expecting from you, Anonymous,” the soothing voice of Dr. Atmosphere comes from behind you. The two pegasi who were carrying the prongs step two steps back from you, so as to allow complete focus to remain between you and the doctor.
>You turn your head, your eyes seething with hate for this pegasus.
>“To stop progress in the Factory… to bring production to a complete halt, all so suddenly… what came over you?” he asks, his sly grin and piercing magenta eyes never leaving your own.
>You don’t respond. He scowls, taking this as an act of disrespect. He tilts his head to one of the pegasi, who nods back before jabbing you with the prong once again, causing you to let out a loud groan of pain as the electricity travels through your body.
>”Marvelous, aren’t they? These prongs are a new prototype we’ve developed in the Engineering department; they are equipped with a small discharge of raw lightning,” he says, walking over to take the prong from the pegasi, running his hoof along the head. “Of course, the power has been drastically reduced, otherwise it would have killed you on-contact… but I feel this works just as well to keep you subdued, wouldn’t you agree?” he asks, grinning down at you before prodding you himself, much harder than the other two pegasi had done.
>You roll over onto your side, your arms and legs hanging limp; the electricity must have messed with your nerve endings somehow, they weren’t responding.
“You… why didn’t you tell me we were harvesting other pegasi?!”
>You cough these words out; the shock must have affected your breathing as well.
>He shakes his head. “It’s quite simple; you never asked.”
>Your eyes widen, and you look up at him. That was it? THAT was the reason?
“Are you serious? Are you FUCKING serious?!”
>You let out a loud roar of anger before using every fiber of your being to lunge at the doctor. Fuck the electricity, fuck the guards; you’re going to make sure this madman never sees the light of day again.
>Of course, you fail in this regard; he slams the side of the prod against your head, creating a large gash along the side of your temple as you are sent plummeting to the ground once again.
>He scowls down at you, before he turns to the other pegasi guard. “Have him bound and brought into the lower levels. I plan on making sure he regrets his actions.”
>These are the last words that you hear him say, before everything goes black.

>”Wake up, you filthy monkey.”
>A hoof strikes you in the gut, causing you to cough up phlegm, and you make sure it lands right in the face of the pegasus that hit you.
>It hit the mask, but regardless, it made you feel a bit better. He was lucky you were tied up, otherwise he wouldn’t be conscious right now.
“You hit like a bunny.”
>You can see the pegasi’s eyes underneath the mask. He’s pissed, and you love it.
“C’mon. My grandmother could have hit harder than that, and I don’t even remember what she looks like.”
>He growls angrily, raising a hoof for a second strike.
>”That’s quite enough, out of both of you,” you hear a calm voice come from your left. Your eyes follow the source of the voice, all the way to that dark red pegasus who brought you into this situation.
>The masked pegasus grunts, before lowering his hoof and walking away.
>”Such a shame that it had to be this way, Anonymous,” he says, walking up to you. “You had everything you ever wanted. A home, a well-paying job, a best friend…” he brings his hoof up to your chin, lifting your head to meet his gaze. “And then you threw it all away,” he hisses, swiftly turning and walking away. “Why did you do it?”
>You spit on the ground in front of you. Red. A beautiful color, but not the best in this situation.
“I saw… I saw proof. You… I should have known you were going to go after her!”
>”Yet you didn’t raise a finger to stop it. Did you, Anonymous?” he mutters in quick succession, silencing you. “Tell me; if you had known that you would be harvesting pegasi, would you have continued if you knew it was for the better of Equestria as a whole?” he asks, turning around to face you. “Would you have sacrificed a life, for the continuation of order as a whole for the rest of the land?”
>You are silent. He nods. “I thought as mu-”
“I would never do that. Not for something so selfish as the betterment of the land as a whole! Not when lives are sacrificed to maintain it!”
>He sighs. “Still, you do not see as we do.”
>One of the pegasi walks over to the wall and pulls down a lever. Almost instantly, the lights switch on and blind you for a brief moment, before revealing the room to you.
>You are in a large room with chains hanging from the ceiling, and masked ponies standing on the rafters above, observing everything transpiring within. On the far side of the room, you spot a large piece of machinery, with a wide opening at the top and chutes traveling from all directions, ending up into the machine itself.
>You were just under your place of work. That was the vat of colors you loved staring into.
>”Do you see this, Anonymous? This is the heart of the factory,” Dr. Atmosphere says, his grin never leaving his face. “This is all your own handiwork. Do you see?”
>You begin to take in everything around you now. All along the walls, the vats of color were lined up. Massive amounts of Spectra must have filled them…
>The guard turns you around to face opposite the machine, and what you see horrifies you to no end. It’s that feeling you get whenever you want to vomit, but all that comes up is dry air.
>Piled up to the height of two vats stacked on top of each other, were the corpses of pegasi.
>”When Celestia first outsourced the control of weather to the pegasi, we originally used unicorn magic to assist in Spectra creation. However, it was quickly apparent that the magic wasn’t nearly enough to maintain a constant state of control over the weather. So we looked into… other means,” he says, walking to your side.
>“Our scientists made a discovery decades ago; by extracting the very essence of the Spectra directly from ponies, we could increase the production of Spectra ten-fold!” he exclaims, turning your chair back around himself. “And so, the Rainbow Factory was born; to extract the essence of Spectra from ponies themselves, for the sake of all of Equestria!”
>You scowl at him. This stallion was insane.
“And… Rainbow Dash?”
>He turns to look at you, his eyes widening and his grin growing even wider. “Ah, and there’s the best part,” he says, lifting your chin once again with a hoof, “She’s the one that runs the whole thing… every pegasus, every drop of Spectra, everything is monitored by her…”
“So… so she knew?!”
>Your eyes widen in horror. The two of you and Fluttershy were the best of friends when you were younger! Why in the world would she want to do something like this?
“But… why?”
>He lowers his hoof from your chin and presses it on your chest, the pressure causing the air to escape your lungs. “Because she never passed flight school. Her wingspeed is a mere 2.3! Pathetic!” he exclaims, pushing off of you and slamming his hoof down on the ground. “Cloudsdale has no place for pegasi that cannot perform their duty to the city. Those who are weak are put to use in ways that they won’t bring shame to our society!”
>You spit on the ground again.
“But… but she was an Element of Harmony! Why would Rainbow even consider it, being the Element of Loyalty?!”
>Dr. Atmosphere lets out a heckling laugh. It sickens you. “Because times are changing, my dear boy! We are entering an age where the Elements are no longer needed to defend the kingdom!”
“You’re insane! What the hell kind of bullshit are you spouting?!”
>His grin turns into an angry, almost maniacal scowl. “Bullshit is not what I spout. This is truth! And besides…” he says, slamming his hoof into your gut, “The Element itself is not destroyed. Merely the Wielder. The Element remains unharmed, and the Wielder can always be… replaced.”
>You grit your teeth in anger, before letting out a roar. He steps back from this.
“What in the name of Tartarus are you saying?! You can’t just replace one of the Elements of Harmony like it’s one of your playthings! If Princess Celestia heard about this, she’d-”
>”Princess Celestia does not have power in this facility, Anonymous. Anything and everything that happens here is unknown to the public.”
“Don’t you think they would find out after the wielder of the Element of Kindness suddenly vanished from sight?!”
>You growl through gritted teeth.
“You act like you know what you’re doing, like you can toy with lives while hiding behind the lie that it’s for the good of Equestria?! You’re a monster!”
>”I’m a monster?” he asks, rubbing his chin with his hoof. “Hm… that’s a new one. But, then, what does that make you? I mean, after all, you ARE the one that killed all of them…”
>You look down at the ground.
“If I had known, I would have stopped it myself all those years ago…”
>”As a twelve-year old child? Preposterous! Though, it would have made this job a lot easier for me; I was beginning to think you and I were going to get along wonderfully for years to come,” he says, grinning as your eyes meet his once again. “But, it seems our acquaintanceship has to come to an abrupt end. Goodbye, Anonymous; know in death that you assisted Cloudsdale in the culling of the weak and the unworthy, helping craft it into the beautiful city it is today.”
>And with that final word, he walks away, leaving you alone with the guards.
>You look up at them, your body battered and beaten, as they close in all around you.

>End Chapter 7