return to the rainbow factory

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Snips attempted to muscle Scootaloo out from behind the podium so he could bang the gavel but found that, despite Scootaloo being a light and feathery orange pegasus, her sides were as tough as an earth pony's.

Snip's tiny unicorn body nearly bounced out from behind the podium with a swift swat of one of Scootaloo's small, powerful wings.

"AND WITH THAT," Scootaloo began, sliding back to the center behind the podium, "I call the official Rainbow Dash Fanclub meeting to order!" She beamed around the gavel as she brought it down on the podium.

"Our first order of business is to decide what our lodge is going to do for Nightmare Night this year!"

Cries of "Rainbow Maid Café!" and "Haunted Rainbow House!" filled the room.

Scootaloo groaned, and planted both hooves against the podium. "Come ON, guys!" she pleaded. "Cloudsdale is moving closer to Ponyville for a joint celebration this year because NIGHTMARE MOON herself ,*cough* Princess Luna, will be showing up personally! If we get beat out by the second biggest fan-club branch, Rainbow Dash might move to where the REAL fans are!"

The assembled fan club considered this noisily. Scootaloo tensed in anticipation of what they would come up with.

Snips and Snails spoke up in stereo, voicing the crowd's feelings.

"A really GOOD Rainbow Maid Café!"
"A totally AWESOME Haunted Rainbow House!"

It was as if the words had come out color coded in ignorant green and learning disability orange.

"UGH. Does anypony have any not lame ideas?" Scootaloo was about to toss away her gavel when Snips, her pygmy rival for club leadership, stepped forward.

"I OBJECT!" He planted himself for a tiny charge, "Don't be so dismissive of the Haunted House idea. Nobody loves pranking and scaring ponies more than the magnificent Rainbow Dash!"

Snails rolled his head to the side and some words dripped out. "Yeah, what about the Maid Café thing?"

Snips snorted. "Rainbow Dash's love of maids really only comes from anecdotal evidence. On the other hoof, who here has NOT been pranked by Rainbow Dash?"

Snips waited, and sure enough, only a single, cyan hoof went up, but with a quick "Oops!" it went back down into the crowd with a multi-hued whip of rainbow tail.

"I uh... thought you said who HAD been pranked." the anonymous voice excused, defying revelation when the crowd parted to see who it was. Rainbow Dash had already slipped out the door fast enough to leave Pokey-Pierce's rainbow wig spinning on his horn.

Snips nodded. "Right! Like I was saying. Who cares if everypony is doing one? We just need to make our Haunted House the awesomest!"

The crowd reaction was overall positive, but unsure. Scootaloo disliked giving up the reigns like this, but even she had allowed herself to get drawn into the idea.

"Maybe if we picked a theme," a tiny, mustard-colored filly with a picture of a day-planner on her flank added.

It was Snails who succinctly put the question on everypony's mind to words, though.

"But how do we turn her AWESOMENESS into SCAREYNESS?"

Scootaloo had it. She banged the gavel once to make sure everypony else knew she did, too.

"Why don't we use a theme from the very nightmares of Rainbow Dash herself?"

The crowd gasped. Snails gasped shortly after everypony else did.

"But nothing scares Rainbow Dash!" the lanky colt rebutted.

Scootaloo smiled pridefully. "This does."

Just when she was about to detail this nightmare scenario, Snips stopped her again.

"Wait JUST a minute! Article 14 of the Official RainbowDash Fanclub (Ponyville Chapter) Charter says that you can't just bogart cool Rainbow Dash related secrets. I demand to know how you know Rainbow Dash's nightmares!"

"Oh, come on-" Scootaloo objected, but the crowd backed Snips up.

"It's... not a cool story," she tried. It didn't help.

"It's kinda lame," she argued, desperately trying to shield herself from having to tell it.

"No story with Rainbow Dash in it is lame!" a tiny lemon-colored unicorn shouted.

"...Fine!" Scootaloo began, crossing her forelegs in front of her.

"I had a nightmare and fell out of the tree I was sleeping in because I can't reach the clouds and started crying and was too embarrassed to tell Rainbow Dash when she came up to see what all the crying was about so I made up a story about having a nightmare and she got all quiet and told me that... "

Scootaloo took a breath. The air tasted like defeat.

"...that everypony has nightmares."

The crowd gasped again. Snails gasped shortly after everypony else.

"And she told you her nightmare then?" he said, head still spinning from the story.

"Yeah. It was a nightmare about Cloudsdale's Weather Factory, and the secret upper part where rainbow-juice is made. Listen up..."


***


The story didn't go over well.

Scootaloo was beginning to regret not warning everypony properly about the high-octane content. When little ponies started having to excuse themselves, she started glossing over the details that she had committed to memory when she was even younger than her audience.

At least they'd never have to hear it from the trembling lips of the mare herself.

Finally, as she got to the end, she realized that she had followed the crowd out of the clubhouse and into the apple orchard, where the other members of the fanclub had scattered so that their more fragile ears could be comfortably out of earshot. Only Snails and the lemon-colored unicorn sat, eagerly awaiting the end.

Scootaloo paused. Snails' eyes had glossed over, and it looked like he was mumbling to himself, and the lemony unicorn had marks in the ground near her hooves where she had unconsciously pulled herself forward. Her eyes sparkled like gemstones.

"Did you die?" she asked, hanging off the edge of her question, but ready to dive into the answer on faith alone.

Scootaloo considered, hemmed a bit, then made up an ending where she lived.

The lemony unicorn looked disappointed. Scootaloo hoped that she didn't make a face like that when Rainbow Dash had finished telling it to her, but then, when Dash told it, it felt like she was telling it fresh from her memory.

For Scootaloo, the story was scary because of her intimacy with herself as the main character.
It had been almost unbearable listening to Dash recount the injuries and bodily horror to her as if they had just happened, and Scootaloo had trouble making eye contact with her mentor afterward.

Scootaloo couldn't even imagine what it must have been like to have 'been there.' Though she had dreamt her own versions of it since.

"SUPER-SCARY-AWESOME!" Snails blurted, snapping back like an arrow, complete with side to side action.

Scootaloo was shaken out of her own reverie, but was back into it quickly enough to miss a sizable portion of the discussion that followed. She wondered to herself if spilling this little intimacy with the club was a good idea. (Especially with Snail's too-enthusiastic reaction.)

"Are we sure it's a good idea to make a spectacle out of one of Rainbow Dash's nightmares?" a sensible blue earth pony asked.

Scootaloo snapped back to the conversation immediately, but before she could get her ducks in a row enough to add anything, the mustard-colored filly spoke up again.

"Are you kidding?" she began. "Last year she dressed up as a Shadow Bolt and was throwing thunder around to scare us. I nearly peed my princess dress. She'd probably call you a chicken if you couldn't go through with this! ...No offense, Scootaloo."

Scootaloo recoiled. The feathery, egg-laying glove had been thrown down, and she wasn't about to chick- ... to bow out now.

"Yeah," Scootaloo agreed without what she would later realize was proper consideration. "Yeah! Lets do this!"

***

As it turned out, not a single hoof in the Rainbow Dash Fanclub: Ponyville Chapter had any skill in construction, whatsoever.

Thankfully, Applejack and Applebloom agreed to help erect the tent if they could fly a "Sponsored by Sweet Apple Acres" banner on it.

Scootaloo was pretty sure Applejack would have done it just to freak Rainbow Dash, but never pressed the issue.

Costumes were another issue all together. Rarity wanted nothing to do with such a crass display, so they had to make do with some lab coats and slickers borrowed from Warty Sickles' dad, and stage makeup purloined from the school drama club.

Everything took too long.

Scootaloo, the de-facto director of the project, started to worry that Nightmare Night would come before they were ready. Presenting a half-flanked version of this particular Haunted House to Dash would be Scootaloo's personal nightmare.

"Um, Scoots, who's gonna play Doctor Amphitheatre?" Applebloom asked. The question shook Scootaloo from further examining that thought.

"Doctor what? Oh, Doctor Atmosphere," she said, considering. "Well, he's an evil red pegasus, so um..."

"We don't know any of those, do we?" Applebloom asked, looking around.

Snips chimed in. "OH! What about putting wings on your brother! He's huge, I'm sure it'll be scary!"

"Are you kiddin'?" Applebloom replied, "Big Macintosh did everything he could to be scary last year, and all he managed to do was scare a bunch of fillies' costumes off."

"APPLE BLOOM!" Applejack chided, apparently in earshot.

"What? I'm just repeating what you-" Applebloom was led away before she could finish.

"Having to build wings for him would put us over budget anyway," the day-planner filly added.

"Well, Miss Cheerilee is red-ish, maybe under the right light..." Snails snailed.

"Are you yanking my bridle?" the day-planner exclaimed, looking incredulous. "If you told her to 'grin sadistically' she'd roll her eyes up, turn her head, and assign you extra homework.

"Besides, she'd need wings too. But... speaking of the right light," their resident accountant continued, perking up, "Scootaloo has wings, and since the Doctor is going to be posed statically in front of the rainbow... machine-thing, we could just put her under red light, on a step stool, and use a lab-coat to cover the whole affair."

Scootaloo had not managed to remove herself from the conversation in time. "I... uh..."

The lemony unicorn's eyes sparkled.

"It'll be perfect! You've got the best handle on the character, after all. Right, Treasury?"

"He's also the focal character of the nightmare, aside from yourself and Rainbow Dash, of course," the accounting pony added.

Scootaloo was caught between a golden beam of peer pressure and the deep, mustard-colored ledger. Both were set on this 'brilliant' casting decision.

Scootaloo made a face that silently begged not to do this. Bringing up the idea was one thing, but actually having to imagine, construct and populate this nightmarish replica of the 'Rainbow Factory' was hard enough for her. The closer it came to completion, the more she felt like she was betraying Rainbow Dash's trust. Further, something inside her rebelled at the idea on a purely visceral level.

Scootaloo wanted to voice an objection stronger than, "I don't know, guys," but that was all she had. Doubt.

The day-planner pony smiled conspiratorially to the lemony unicorn as she found the most efficient way to see the suggestion though. "You aren't chicken, are you, Scootaloo?" Treasury said, pulling her pencil up to check 'Cast Dr. Atmosphere' off their to-do list.

Applebloom tried to protest from her side-conversation, but her elder sister wasn't done lecturing her about talking about family problems outside the family.

Scootaloo set to internal battle instantly. On one shoulder, a pale version of herself with a rainbow dash wig looked at her disapprovingly as if to say, 'Do the right thing.' But on the other shoulder was a deep red Pinkie-Pie wearing a chicken costume. It clucked at her mockingly, and that was all it took.

"I'm not a CHICKEN!" she said, pulling the lab-coat on with her teeth. The day-planner pony touched pencil to list triumphantly.


***

Rainbow Dash finally made her big appearance. She descended from on high, clanking to the ground in her Commander Hurricane armor. Applejack came out of the tent to meet her.

"So, what's this awesome thing the fillies wanted to show me?" she said, planting a Pegastopolis banner into the hill.

"It's a Haunted House," Applejack replied plainly, buttoning up a white coat.

"Huh. I coulda sworn I recommended a Maid Café," Dash puzzled, thinking back to the meeting shortly before she had to cut out or be spotted. "Oh well, whatever," then suddenly, "Oh HEY! LOOK AT THAT!"

Rainbow Dash wrenched a hoof around Applejack's neck and craned it painfully towards the space between two mountains in the distance. Cloudsdale loomed ponderously towards Ponyville in the light of the setting sun, propelled on the wind of a hundred pegasi flapping it along.

Though Applejack tried to wrestle out of being horse-handled, she couldn't help but go slack-jawed at the sight.

"Cloudsdale coming to Ponyville for a celebration. Wow," Rainbow Dash said, shaking her head. "How this town has grown in just two years."

Applejack wriggled free, but couldn't pull her eyes away from the misty dreadnought as it eclipsed the setting sun, throwing rainbow-filtered twilight in every direction. "Well I'll be..." was all she managed. Seeing the town was one thing, seeing it occupy the airspace over Sweet Apple acres sent a chill down her spine.

Rainbow Dash grinned, flashing heavy-lidded eyes full of pride to her comrade.

"So, uh... How 'bout that Haunted House?"

Applejack wheeled around to the aforementioned tent. It was a worn, square-ish pavilion they had garnished with hand painted bats and symbols, warning that Nightmare Night terror lay in wait within.

Or, at least, sat haphazardly propped-up, within.

Thinking to herself that she was glad the ponies inside didn't know the act they had to follow, she ushered Rainbow Dash inside.

Rainbow Dash puffed up like a peacock and strode in like she owned the place.
She had to close her wings to get in the door, though.

***

Scootaloo sat in preparation. Her costume was as right as it was going to be. A few questionable stains had come with the lab coat, and the girls had worked hard getting a few more water-soluable red ones onto it, to imply the massacre that this fictional pony committed on a day to day basis. Her mane was streaked a grimy, untrustworthy black; and with the simple stomp of a button, she could flood her area of the tent in cellophaned-red stage light.

Now all she had to do was scare Equestria's most confident pony.

She consoled herself that the button that cued the floodlight had been set up by Applebloom, so failing scaring Rainbow Dash, there was the distinct possibility that she would be electrocuted, and then she probably wouldn't have to go through with this grievously filked violation of trust that she was now regretting every moment of.

Scootaloo heard feathers brush against tent canvas, indicating, in all likelihood that Rainbow Dash had entered the tent. She had a couple of alcoves to get through before they were face to face, and Scootaloo was glad for the warning. She psyched herself up.

Rainbow Dash laughed.

It was just for a moment before Dash stopped herself, and the creepy music they had picked out kicked in a fraction of a second later, but in one shining moment of clarity, Scootaloo visualized her mentor coming upon the first color drained filly hanging from a chain and laughing at how cheesy it looked.

Scootaloo lifted a hoof and looked down at the tap-switch for the lights one last time, silently praying that being electrocuted was a painless way to end this Nightmare Night for good.

Rainbow Dash, making her way noisily through the cramped canvas corridors of their makeshift 'Rainbow Factory,' pantomimed a couple of patronizing 'eek!' sounds as she came to the mustard-colored day-planner filly, who was miming an injured pegasus.

Scootaloo wanted to cry.

Finally, Rainbow got to the wooden mock up 'bulkhead doors' that led to the central chambers. Scootaloo sat in darkness within, her over-large lab coat hiding her bright red cheeks that hardly needed a floodlight to appear crimson. Just a few more cues...

The pop of joy-buzzers cued Apple-Bloom to trigger the ambient room lights, which illuminated Applejack and Pokey-Pierce wearing orderly coats as they appeared behind Dash. Dash cried out suddenly, partially from two adult ponies appearing behind her, partially because Pokey-Pierce does nothing by half-measure.

Rainbow dash was driven into the room, where a couple of stage-filly pegasi awaited her. This was it. Rainbow Dash, mouth still agape looked quickly to the brown and green Pegasi to either side, both of whom were looking up at the darkness Scootaloo was hiding in.

Now was the time.

In that fraction of a second, Scootaloo wondered what it meant that she, the focal point of their makeshift 'Rainbow Factory' Haunted House, was terrified of what was about to happen. Wasn't Scootaloo the one that was supposed to be terrifying? The juxtaposition of their roles in the original nightmare made her stomach knot up. Her legs tensed to leap off the stool and run away and never talk to anyone she knew ever again.

In that instant, her mind made the fight or flight decision for her.

Scootaloo slammed her hoof down on the switch as hard as her leg would allow, flooding the back of the room with red light and the sudden wash of heat from the flood lamp. The sound it made was deafening, but Scootaloo was determined to drown it out.

Gathering all the courage she had, the red-lit filly in wolf's clothing cut loose with a wicked laugh that terrified the stage-fillies, at least. It was a high, mad laugh born of the mixture of fear and courage that came out hard enough to make her chest hurt.

The fillies on either side of Rainbow Dash shrieked and huddled up to her in the way that scared animals do. Scootaloo watched Rainbow Dash, as if in slow motion.

Her eyes moved faster than her neck.

Dash looked to either side to the terrified fillies.

She looked at Scootaloo, mid laugh.

She looked at the mock-up spectra-tanks behind her, pumping noisily on the same circuit as the red light.

She looked back at Scootaloo.

With a shudder, Dash freed herself from the fillies, throwing off her helmet and pulling at her cardboard armor, which clung to her neck in a cold sweat. She took two big steps back, but Pokey-Pierce was in character and shocked her with the joy-buzzer.

Rainbow Dash shrieked in honest, naked terror.

Scootaloo tried to keep the laugh up, but as Dash was herded forward, she made eye contact with Dr. Atmosphere/Scootaloo.

Rainbow Dash's rose-colored eyes were pale with fear, and Scootaloo was drawn into them.

She dropped the Doctor persona immediately.

Something strange happened. The instant Scootaloo's face changed from mocking captor to a scared, heartbroken filly, something in Rainbow Dash snapped. "Rainbow Dash, you-"


"-have the prettiest eyes," no one said.


The sound of grown mare hoof hitting filly face could be heard outside the tent.

Scootaloo reeled backwards off the stool, a spurt of blood shooting from her snout in one high-pressure burst. The overpowered filly didn't even have time to react.

Dash had hit her in the face so hard that her shoes flew off. In a flash of purple tail, she sailed into the mock up spectra-tank behind her.

The tanks were not designed to hold ponies. That would have been uncouth by any measure. When Scootaloo fell into the vessel directly behind her and hit the uncovered crank arm inside, she screamed.

Applejack charged past Rainbow Dash and bowled into the machine, knocking it, Scootaloo and herself out of the back of their Haunted House through one of the main supports.

There was chaos as the tent came crashing down, canvas and old electronic equipment tangled in a single pile.

The lemony unicorn yanked the main power cord before anything truly dire could result.
When the swirl of cloth cleared and all the ponies involved crawled out into the cool night air, a few looked back at Rainbow Dash, who had not moved since Scootaloo's blood had splattered across her face.

Scootaloo freed herself from Applejack and the obliterated, cardboard spectra tank alike, trying to get a look at her mentor.

She was the only thing still standing on the rise they had erected the tent on. She was surrounded in destruction, wings outstretched, hooves tearing at her costume as if it were on too tight, mouth open like she was trying to scream, but no sound came out.

Scootaloo whimpered something that sounded vaguely like, "Rainbow Dash...!" filtered through a broken nose.

Their eyes met one more time, and Dash pitched over onto her side and shook.

And shook.

And shook.


***

Princess Luna wondered why there were no ponies around to hail her arrival.

After the surprise runaway success of last year's Nightmare Night, one would think such a matter would be trivial. She had even come in full costume this year, ready to scare the apples out of of the children, a thing they professed to enjoy.

There was a crowd, but it was around an emergency tent that had been erected on the fairgrounds.

Luna investigated, but determined that getting through the crowd would be time consuming.
She drew a quick breath to issue a royal notice of her arrival, but thought better of it when Twilight Sparkle's observations on the matter came to mind.

She swallowed the breath, and with it a sip of pride.

In the end, she was taller than most of the surrounding ponies, so she just hooved-up onto two that were in front of her.

The chaos that ensued went mostly unnoticed by those inside the tent.

***

Nurse Redheart shook her head.

"Honestly, I have no idea. It took all the blankets I had to get her to stop shaking."

"I can't find any magical reason for it either," Twilight Sparkle added, crestfallen.

"And she won't swallow soup. Oh, I don't know what else to do!" Fluttershy whimpered.

Among the voices of the throng, one stood out in approach. Flanked by two heavy-jawed pegasi in white work suits, a single red stallion approached. When Scootaloo saw who it was through the bandages covering her face, her eyes shot open.

"It's a gran mal seizure," Doctor Atmosphere said, approaching the fallen pegasus' hospital cot.

Scootaloo, on the next cot over stood up shock straight.

"You-you've-"

"Please calm yourself. My name is Atmosphere, and I'm a Doctor of Engineering and Flight Pathology. I was hoping to interview Ms. Rainbow Dash concerning her resistance to the oxygen deprivation damage that is normally associated with sonic rain-booms, but I see I am too late."

Doctor Atmosphere went on to explain Rainbow Dash's sudden onset epilepsy as a side effect of her traveling at super-sonic speeds without any kind of protection.

He was initially concerned that the number of gawkers would make the explanation difficult, but the sudden appearance of Nightmare Moon appearing at the back of the crowd and frightening everypony away made it surprisingly tranquil, in an eye-of-the-storm kind of way.

Assuming one realized that Nightmare Moon was, in fact, Princess Luna in disguise, of course.

"Brain damage?" Twilght Sparkle repeated dreadfully. "Unicorn schools of thought look at such things as 'madness' and 'that thing that happens to old unicorns.' The traditional cure is to build them a tower with no doors."

"Pegasus science had better words and research for such things," Dr. Atmosphere assured her.

"Is there some brain medicine that'll work on 'er?" Applejack asked, hopefully.

Dr. Atmosphere shook his head, and was about to clarify when Rainbow Dash woke from her post-ictal slumber.

She was promptly drowned in care for her well-being.

"Easy there, guys," Dash mumbled, drowsily, once the filly-pile had let up.

Disheveled and on her back, bound up in most of Ponyville's horse-blankets and a few tattered strips of cardboard, Dash looked, for a the world, like she'd just woken from a rough, sleepless nap. Her eyes crossed those of her closest friends, all simultaneously glad and worried, save for Fluttershy, who was desperately trying to keep her hooves lodged in her ears on account of all the screaming going on outside the tent.

Dash's eyes eventually fell to Scootaloo, face inscrutable behind her mask of bandages, and Doctor Atmosphere, where she stopped.

"Oh," Dash said, as if she had remembered something long forgotten. "Am I late for work?"

Doctor Atmosphere narrowed his eyes inquisitively and asked, "Are you?"

Dash rolled out of bed to the best of her ability, eventually finding purchase on unsteady legs. The last strips of cardboard armor fell free of her, shucked like a loose snake skin.

"Sorry, Doc. I'll get right to it," Dash said, then, almost as an afterthought. "Enjoy the party, guys!"

And flew off towards Cloudsdale.

Only Nurse Redheart broke away from the group train-wreck syndrome quickly enough to try to stop Dash from leaving, but even fatigued, the pegasus was so fast that eating her dust was the only foreseeable option.

Scootaloo climbed out of her cot and tried in vain to free herself from the bandages encompassing her face. It was sensitive where Dash had kicked it in, which was pretty much everywhere.

She tried to mouth a protest, but her raw, broken nose made her enunciation a nonsense.

Thankfully, Twilight picked up on her important question and asked it for her.

"Don't you need to follow her, Doctor?"

Doctor Atmosphere inhaled sharply, touched his hoof to his brow, then tried to look at everyone in the tent.

"Honestly? Rainbow Dash's problem is only going to affect her so much. Her amnesia and-"

"Amnesia?!" was repeated by the assembled ponies dramatically.

Dr. Atmosphere paused. "May I finish?" To which he received a few concerned nods.

"Rainbow Dash will continue being Rainbow Dash. She's disoriented at the moment, but she'll soon find that the 'job' she's set off to do doesn't exist. She will be confused, and redirected back here. She will probably seize again, and every time it happens, it will get worse. Furthermore, performing sonic rain-booms will most likely exacerbate the problem," he continued.

Scootaloo's eyes burned like fire from the tears.

"But she won't remember any of it. She doesn't remember how she got to this tent, and most likely doesn't even remember the events that led up to it.

"She might not even remember that it's Nightmare Night until she notices all the fleeing ponies in costume.

"Honestly, her condition is more likely to effect you, her fellow bearers of the Elements of Harmony, which are so important to Equestria's safety.

"She will need you to be there for her, to help her up when she falls, and to tolerate her when she asks you about things you may have just told her yesterday."

Scootaloo tried to listen, but her ears glossed over a lot of what the Doctor was saying. It was all she could do to absorb Doctor Atmosphere's explanation of the further nuances of her mentor's condition.

Her stomach turned, her nose burned where the tears fell into it, and worst of all she couldn't help but feel a little glad that Dash wouldn't remember the Haunted House fiasco unless someone told her about it.

Twilight's voice broke her internal silence.

"Doctor Atmosphere, everypony here will do everything they can for Rainbow Dash. Right, girls?" She extended one hoof for solidarity.

Pinkie Pie was first. "Dashie would do the same for any of us," she asserted, putting her hoof atop Twilight's.

Fluttershy nodded and added her hoof to the stack, with tears streaming down her face. She whispered something, but no one heard it.

Rarity added hers resolutely. To her, at least, nothing further needed to be said.

Applejack added hers with a positive sound, but wouldn't take her eyes off the red pegasus doctor, until Scootaloo reached up in attempt to place her hoof at the top of the hoof stack. Neither her height nor the strength of her tiny wings would take her high enough.

Twilight noticed, and crouched down, lowering the hoof stack enough that Scootaloo could reach the top if she stood all the way up on her hind legs. It hurt her bruised neck to stretch, but this was more important.

"Meff," she managed, as resolutely as possible.

Fluttershy burst into wrenching sobs.


***


After instructing the six of us as best he could, and assuring us that that our resident Zebra would be better at prescribing medicine for Dash than he, Doctor Atmosphere returned to Cloudsdale.

He eventually caught up with Rainbow Dash, who had been trying to get into the 'upper facility' in the Rainbow Works Department of Cloudsdale's Weather Factory.

He listened to her story and told her that the Spectra Facility had to suspend operations while they were moving. He told her to return to her cover identity in Ponyville for the time being, and that she would need to come into his office in a week for a check-up before she could come back to work.

He used the time to set up some electro-convulsive therapy for her. It was hard to watch, but got Dash back on track, and out of her disturbing delusions.

All of us, Scootaloo included, have agreed to keep tabs on Dash, whom the Doctor says probably won't live a full life after this, especially at the speed she's used to living it. But she has enough fans, and a pet that should have another hundred years in him to anchor her down to reality, should her amnesia slip again. I believe she is in the best of hooves here.

Scootaloo has made a fine recovery, and once she gets out of the neck-brace I'll be taking her to Cloudsdale. Her wings are still too weak to get her very high into the sky, but Doctor Atmosphere says he'll be happy to help her get into the Cloudsdale Engineering Academy's Flight Science Division. She wants to help make sure that nopony else has to suffer what Rainbow Dash is going through.

I write these events to you in summary because it's hard to tell what lesson I should be learning from this.

It is obvious that we would look after a friend in such deep need. But the senseless nature of the problem, long undiagnosed, coupled with the lack of a solution, leaves me boggled.

Why is it that a pony that goes out of her way to save other ponies when they are in trouble cannot be saved by any magic in my, or even the royal, library?

Why does Rainbow Dash have such a wonderful gift in her ability to perform the amazing sonic rain-boom, the very event that brought all of us friends together, but that it would directly cause her long-term harm?

If the very event that brought us together is poisoned in this way, what does that mean for us?

Please, Teacher, advise your faithful student,

                        -Twilight Sparkle.
                       
                       
***                       
                       
                       

Epilogue:

It was a matter of course that the weather teams of Cloudsdale would arrange for a light rain for Rainbow Dash's funeral.
Princess Celestia even had the Wonderbolts deliver clouds from Canterlot as a matter of tribute to a pony who had touched the lives of so many in such a short time.
The line to pay respects to the exquisite pegasus rampant memorial was so very long.  Nurse Scootaloo pushed Doctor Atmosphere's wheelchair to the entrance to the Cloudsdale Fairgrounds, but they ended up having to waste an hour talking to the ushers, as they desperately tried to find them a VIP entrance that had not been blocked by mourning ponies.
By the time they arrived, the ground surrounding the magnificent statue was littered with mementos and flowers. Necklaces and wreaths hung from every upturned angle of Dash's magnificent marble wings, obscuring much of the statue.  There was but a single living figure on the cloudy grounds though. A single, bitter Griffon stood watch near the base of the statue, obscured by its shadow.  Her fire-eyed stare had made a nonsense of all but the stoutest ponies.

Gilda reached up and pulled a black leather cap from her head at Scootaloo and Dr. Atmosphere's approach. Even though her eyes softened to see them, the violet flame markings surrounding them kept her from looking anything but predatory.

"Yo," was all she managed. She had more to say, but hours of keeping every pegasus and their brother from drowning poor Dash's memorial with rolled up posters from her air-shows and other, less relevant junk had worn her already meager supply of kindness down to something that barely qualified as civility.

Scootaloo looked up to the magnificent statue without saying anything.
Twilight Sparkle's magical sculpting had captured a moment of Rainbow Dash's triumph that the orange pegasus mare remembered from her own childhood.
The days of Discord, and Nightmare Moon.
Scootaloo looked up from the statue to the royal box, where the familiar but distant Princess Luna stood, committing the last of the  scene to her eternal memory.
Finally, Scootaloo looked back at Gilda.

"Where's Twilight?"

Gilda scoffed uncharitably.
"She ducked out hours ago. 'Said something about wanting to remember her as she was in life," she pantomimed, narrowing her eyes and raising her voice to mimic Twilight Sparkle's. The Griffon squeezed her cap with a terrifyingly strong claw and clicked her tongue angrily.
"Must be nice not to have to worry about kicking off anymore."

Scootaloo didn't respond immediately, and Gilda turned her head, paused a moment, then reached a menacing talon into her black vest, emerging with a cigarette.
She stuck the cig into her beak and popped her hat back on, shielding the stick with the hat's bill, then lit it with a snap of her stone-hard talons.

Dr. Atmosphere coughed hoarsely. Scootaloo looked down at him, then up to the Griffon's cig.
"Um, Gilda-"

"Right, whatever. Cool ponies are extinct now anyway," Gilda said callously, crouching down for a takeoff.

"Thank you. For sticking around as long as you did."

Gilda paused, then turned her head back. Her proud eagle face squeezed out the beginnings of a tear.
"Dash… deserved better."

Scootaloo nodded and blinked away a few tears of her own.

"We gave her all the time we could, Gilda," Scootaloo responded, but  the Griffon was already distant.

"I'm just glad we kept her out of the upper factory," Doctor Atmosphere said, holding his formal hat against his chest.
Scootaloo blinked a few times as she processed what she just heard.

"Upper factory?" Scootaloo repeated, dumbfounded. "Dash made that up, right? It doesn't exist."

"Of course it does. Where do you think the spectra that rainbows are composed of comes from?" the doctor asked, turning to face her.

Scootaloo felt her jaw go slack as she struggled with this revelation. Doctor Atmosphere was not prone to jokes, though he occasionally fancied a practical joke, as all ponies tended to. His just tended to be a bit grim at times.
Going with this, she stopped herself from assuming the worst, and followed him on this. She turned from the spot where Gilda had taken off to face the doctor directly. Scootaloo noted with some discomfort that the setting sun had back lit Rainbow Dash' memorial which menaced directly behind him.
"I don't know," Scootaloo said, finding her mouth dry.  "Where does Spectra come from?"

"As a young engineer pony, I spoke of my passion for rainbow engineering to Rainbow Dash's class for my foal's career day. When I was on my way back to work, Rainbow Dash and three of her classmates followed me."
Doctor Atmosphere paused as he recalled the distant details.
Scootaloo's back shivered as she heard an unusually loud noise from the Cloudsdale Weather Factory some miles away.
Anypony living in Cloudsdale for more than a year or two learns to recognize the sound the factory makes right before it produces a rainbow.

"I wasn't very careful, but for the most part, it worked out for the best.
"When the kids saw us load a pegasus into the spectra tanks, Rainbow Dash noisily hyperventilated, alerting me to the presence of the other three.
"They wheeled her out, but I ended up getting three assistants out of the deal.
"I hadn't realized it then, but Rainbow Dash had already accomplished her first sonic rain-boom the day before. She seemed to have no memories of the experience afterward, but perhaps she remembered a little fragment  that came back to her in a dream. "

The Doctor paused, as a double rainbow of unprecedented size encircled Cloudsdale. Scootaloo's heart nearly beat free of its moorings.

"Rainbows really are made from dead pegasi," the doctor said, donning his hat again as the rainbow illuminated the fairground. "But the factory does not take live specimens.
In this way, their colors mingle with Cloudsdale's flock, and live on eternal.