A Rainbows tale

Paty had counted ten days due to the number of meals he had each time. This was miserable. The only thing he could do was talk to Storm and sleep. However, not even sleep was really anything to do because Paty was having strange dreams that he really couldn't remember. The one good thing out of all the things that had happened, Paty grew a relationship with Storm Cloud, one of the Ponies that had bullied Paty was now Paty's closest friend. The treatment and the heavy boredom change the two ponies dramatically. They talked about a million different things and it turned out that they had a lot in common. What they didn't know is that they could have impacted each others lives a lot before this had happened.

"So I said to Spree that I could win the bet. I got into position and launched," Storm said laughing.

"Really, and what happened then," Paty asked.

"So, okay, I was flying as fast as I could when…" Storm started laughing so hard he had to stop mid-sentence.

"What's so funny?"

"I slammed into my own house head first and broke three teeth."

"That's crazy!" Paty laughed a little bit himself. In his mind, if this was his fate, he should have failed a Flight Exam earlier. In this world, nothing was wrong. Everything was good and he found another happy place other than the view of the Rainbow Factory. Paty Cake sunk into this mind set of which felt like his home. Safe, comfortable, and not overwhelmed by a bunch of other ponies that were laughing at him. The huge metal door clicked and swung open and three guards appeared. One of them stepped forward and said," Your cell has been selected." Paty Cake awoke from the world in his mind and he snapped back into reality.

"Which of of you is Number 76," they asked. Storm arose from the bunk and answered as calmly as he could, but his voice was a little nervous.

"That would be me, Sir," he said. The guard did not hesitate.

"You need to come with us immediately. If you do not comply, we will be forced to stun you. However, if you feel it necessary, you can have a short moment to say good-bye to your cell mate." Storm turned over to Paty.

"Very well," he said. There was a short pause and in the moment, Storm had no idea what he was going to say. He put together a very unexpected sentence and let it out. "Paty Cake, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything me and Spree ever did to you. I guess we just don't know any better. But now that I understand you better, you turned out to be a really cool friend. That's something that I thought I'd never say." Paty had no idea how he was going to respond to that.

"I'm sorry about fighting you, kicking you in the eye and swearing you out," Paty said. Storm smiled.

"Life lesson learned I guess." Storm then followed the three guards out and once again, the door shut and locked. Paty was now stuck in a cell by himself and trapped by his own mind. There was nopony to talk to and nothing to do. Thunder Game and Skullcrusher ended up somewhere else somehow and now the only thing Paty could do was eat and wait. Wait for whatever fate Storm Cloud had been taken to.

"I'm all that's left," Paty said out loud. He took a massive breath and sighed heavily. He went to the bunk to take a nap. He closed his eyes and felt himself drift into another universe, but something woke him back up.

"Wake up, Paty Cake," a voice said. The voice sounded really familiar. Paty opened his eyes to see the pony that spoke to him, but what he saw broke his understanding of his reality. It was him, the copy of Paty that was seen before taking the Flight Exam. Paty was trying to understand if he was sleeping or not. "Come on Paty, get off the bed and let's have a nice little chat together, just me and you." He still had that bloody white suit and had a white hard helmet on his head. His sinister smile streaked across his face like a upside-down rainbow.

"What the freak are you," Paty asked confused.

"I'm you," it responded.

"No, I'm me, you're not." The strange copy started laughing.

"Well, obviously there are some differences. You're a physical form and I'm in you head." Paty blinked a bunch but this time the copy didn't disappear. "So, I'm beginning to think that you don't like an appearance." Paty Cake frowned.

"Well, for one, I'm purple, not some weird looking blue purple color."

"Well, let me change my outfit and see how you like that." Suddenly the suite, helmet, and blood disappeared off the clone. "You now what, Paty Cake. With change comes a name. You can call me Patrick Rainbow Cakes. Yeah, I think that name suits me just fine," Patrick said.

"Your name is creepy. Look, can you just go away, please? I have a long boring day ahead of me. Actually, a pretty dull life is ahead of me."

"Actually, your life is about to have a fantastic time. Paty Cake, you're home." Paty looked at Patrick confused even more.

"What are you talking about?" Patrick Cakes laughed at the question.

"Do you know where you are, Paty," he asked blaring a smile of misfortune.

"No, how could I know," Paty answered. Patrick stepped closer and got up in to Paty's face. Paty swallowed a brick weighing a ton out of pure nervousness.

"What if I said that you're still in Cloudsdale," Patrick said.

"Don't be ridiculous, there's no way that I'm still in Cloudsdale. That's impossible!"

"Did you ever wonder why you suddenly got sick, Paty Cake? Let me tell you right now that the crash you experienced was not a natural occurrence."

"What do you know? Aren't you in my head? How could you possible know what's going on outside of me head?"

"Oh, Paty Cake, you dumb fool. You really are blind. You got played and you don't even know it." Paty Cake looked at him almost too seriously.

"What is that supposed to mean," he asked.

"I'm going to sit back and see how you react to the next upcoming events. I want to watch you fade into the darkness and I want to see the blood of others on your hoofs. I want to watch every agonizing moment and I want to see you transform." Patrick then seemed to disappear out of existence leaving Paty alone in the cell by himself once more, and this time, he was going to sleep.

The next few days were just the same. This time for breakfast, it was salad with shredded hey and vibrant green leaves. It was fantastically delicious! However, Paty had nopony to enjoy it with. All he could do was stand by and wait. This had to be the most stressful time of his life so far. He wanted to know how Thunder Game and Skullcrusher were doing, but they were no where to be seen by anypony. Paty still had a million questions but had no way of getting answers. Paty managed to get back to his cell before everypony else did. He was alone in it though and he thought he was going crazy the more and more he was in it. He was seeing a copy of himself and was having dreams that really didn't make since. Paty was giving up. There was no point to anything anymore. What seemed like twenty lifetimes was only three days after Storm Cloud left the cell. Three days since his last contact with Patrick Rainbow Cakes and three days since he didn't feel like a total bastard toward himself. Three days since a guard stopped by the cell other than to take Paty to breakfast. That all changed the the lock on Paty's cell door clicked. He returned to reality to see three guards enter his cell.

"Number 77, you need to come with us immediately." Paty knew what this meant. The wait was finally over and now it was time to face the fate that Paty wanted to experience in the time he had spent getting to this point. He didn't respond and walked over to them. They took him away from the cell and locked it as always. They left the area and Paty was taken through many checkpoints and hallways that seemed to go on for a lifetime. But this time, Paty was actually thankful for that. They finally led him to a long hallway with only one door which was at the end of it. Then hallway was dark and the smell of smoke became stronger while the sound of machines could be heard in the ceiling. When they got up to the door Paty realized how big it was. It looked heavier than the one Paty was originally locked behind and it was guarded by two ponies. A sign on top of the door added on to the questions as Paty read Main Factory Room. The two guards by the door unlocked it and let them through it with no problem.

Paty walked into a massive room filled with ponies in lab suits and hard helmets which were white. Above there were two balconies. One of them led to what looked like an office area and the other had a pony manning a strange panel. Paty kept on walking forward and when he looked at the pony operator again, he realized that the balcony was in front of something horrible. It was Storm Cloud who was shackled and hung about sixty feet above the ground. At first, Paty couldn't make out the details, but when he got closer, he noticed the horror that he was looking at. Storm's color was gone from his mane and the rest of his body was white. There was a tube going into his chest and massive quantities of blood were being drained from him. His body was almost meatless and dry. Under the tube, his lower intestine was dangling out of a long slit that the tub was getting the blood. Storm almost looked like a skeleton and was clearly dead. Paty stopped when he saw Storm and the guards had to force him along. He quickly let his eyes follow the tube to a big machine. The machine was silent. On one side, the blood ran into the machine and on the other, streams of individual color spectra were shooting out in vibrant color. It was the same spectra to make rainbows. "No," Paty said under his breath. He felt sick to his stomach and had this feeling of overwhelming danger that muffled his thinking process. The three guards made Paty stop in front of a red line. Ten feet away was a massive pool of Storm's blood. The blood was almost black and it was dry.

"Okay everypony, just like you were taught. Drop the old and grab the new!" Paty looked up at the other balcony to see who said that. It was a cyan pegasus pony with a rainbow colored mane. She was also wearing the lab coat but she didn't have a hard helmet. The operator on the other side pulled a lever on the panel and the blood flow from Storm had stopped and the spectra, too. Suddenly, the floor where Storm's blood was split apart and the floor started opening up. It revealed loud spinning blades. The pony pulled another lever and the tube that was in Storm pulled out and all his guts poured out in half's and dangled toward the ground. The operator grabbed another lever and paused.

"Okay, drop the old," said the cyan pony. Then the operator pulled the lever and the shackles holding Storm was released and the corpse started falling. Paty watched as the corps hit the weary loud blades and the sound of metal smacking bone was heard. Barely an ounce of blood gushed. Paty got sick and blew chunks on the floor in front him. Chunks of green salad and gold hey could be seen in the mush of pink stomach acid. The cyan pony shook her head. "Can somepony clean that shit up once were done?" Paty wanted to throw up even more but his stomach couldn't push anymore out. After Storm's mutilated corpse was gone, the floor closed again. The operator pulled another lever and the shackles were then lowered. They dropped near the floor and hung. "Grab the new," the cyan pony said. Paty felt the hoofs of the guards grabbing him and shoving him forward. He almost stumbled to the floor but gained his balance. They eventually got Paty in front of Storm's puddle of thick blood. With the pull of another lever, the shackles that held Storm were then lowered down to Paty. The guards turned Paty to face them and begun to shackle his front two hoofs. He tried to pull his hoofs out but instead got struck across the face hard. A lever got pulled and the shackled raised Paty off the ground and hung him by the two shackled hoofs. It left Paty in an extremely painful position and his limbs felt like they were tearing out of their sockets. He started to flap his wing to get comfortable but once again he got struck. His balance was lost and he fell a little bit back into the position before. The guards then pulled out a rope and tied it around Paty preventing any flight that could relieve Paty's pain. Then they shackled his bottom hoofs and stepped back.

Paty wanted to scream and freak out, but his mouth wouldn't open; he was in shock. Then another lever was pulled and the lights in the room shut off into complete darkness. Paty felt his legs being pulled apart as the pain became unbearable. A red light started flashing every few seconds giving Paty the view of himself being raised high above the ground. When Paty's trip up stopped, the red light then stopped flashing and instead stayed on lighting the entire room with a red glow. Tears of pain ran down his cheeks and he felt himself urinate. He was truly terrified. Another lever pulled back and the ceiling in front of Paty opened up and a giant metal arm-like device dropped in front of him. A small gear near the front quickly spun and a massive blade popped out of it and pointed at his chest. It was clearly drenched in the blood of others. Paty wanted to escape, he wanted to yell, he wanted to move, but he was frozen in time and couldn't think clearly. Then the cyan pony yelled, "Pull it!" The operator pulled one more time and the massive blade massive blade sprung forward at Paty.

"What happened," thought Rainbow Dash. She was looking out the window at the main factory and the devastation was massive. The doors were blown open, the machinery nearly destroyed, the Impale was completely bent backwards with the blade being completely wrecked, and the Puller was dead. Dash was confused on the recent event. There was no way that something like that could have happened. Thankfully, the Pegasus Device was intact so rainbows could still be made. One of Dash's friends walked through the shattered doorway. Dash turned turned to her. "Hey, Glaze," she said. Glaze looked at her in puzzlement.

"Sir, I have some strange news," she said.

"What is it?"

"It's about the boy. Command wants you to watch him." She took her hoof and rubbed her face slightly.

"What do they mean by 'watch' him," Dash asked.

"They want you to put him to work and be his personal supervisor."

"No way am I foal-sitting somepony that nearly blew the factory up, killed one of my workers, and destroyed our equipment." Dash was pissed. However, she was also intrigued.

"Listen Dash, they just want you to give him a janitor job," Glaze said.

"And how in the world are we supposed to trust him. He nearly killed us all and escaped." Glaze shook her head.

"Dash, I don't understand it, but he doesn't seem remember anything that happened and he's confused. He doesn't know what's going on with his surroundings and he can't think clearly."

"Fine, bring him to my other office, I want to see him personally."

"Also, Dash, Sir, what do we do about the Impale. Do you want to replace it or bring the grinder into full use again."

"Just replace the damn thing, you know how I feel about that fucking grinder." Dash went to her other office which wasn't destroyed and waited for the boy. The pony was dropped of by guards and placed in a chair by Dash's desk which was full of files and documents. Dash sat at the desk and looked him over. He was staring into blank space and didn't move a muscle. He was purple with an orange mane that was a total wreck. Blood was stained on his checks from the hit he took to the face. "So, what in the world are you," Dash asked. The boy didn't respond or move. "You are in a lot of trouble with me, you know? I hate you and everything about you. You killed one of my men and destroyed this supply run. Do you even hear me?" The boy still didn't say anything. His eyes were a dark void of nothingness. Dash moved her eyes to his flank and paused. There was no cutie mark.

"Your blank flanked," she thought out loud. Then Dash froze in place. She started sobbing and begun talking again. "If you can hear me, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the horrible things that you went through. I missed that you didn't have a cutie mark. How did I miss that?" She froze again. Then she became emotionally confused. "What am I doing? I need to get my head together. Just don't think about it. Come one, why does the one pony that I have to watch over have to be blank flanked? Why does everything in my life have to go horribly wrong?" Dash was trapped and now she was trapped with a blank flanked pony. She used to be able to leave freely as long as she came back to do her job, but because of her friend's promotion to Princess, she was cut off from the world. Her sanity was rock bottom and now she was stuck watching over a blank flank that could possibly haunt her for the rest of her life. This is not how she wanted things to be when she was trusted with this task. She was not prepared for this at all. She was confused on why Command wanted her to watch this pony and give him a job. Was he secretly trusted with making rainbows, too? She stared the pony down and said, "I don't want to care for you or give you a job. You don't even know what's going on." The ponies eye's flickered to meet with hers.

"You look like my mommy," he said. He was obviously delusional and had no idea what he was talking about or who he was looking at. How was she supposed to put this pony to work? Why did command even care a pony that's really a nopony. Dash didn't get it. At the same time though, what choice did she have. They would have her head on a plate if she didn't follow orders.

"What has Cloudsdale come to," she asked herself. This was absolutely the craziest day of her life. Nothing added up and the only possible reason why this pony couldn't understand anything was that he just saw horrific things and probably entered into shock. At least that's how Rainbow Dash felt about the situation. She tried to calm down and wiped the tears from her face. "I'm going to keep you in here until your mind gets straight. Meanwhile, I'm going to see how repairs are coming along and try to fix the mess that you created," Dash said to the pony. She got up from her desk and headed for the door. Then she stopped and turned to the boy. "Nice sonic-rainboom," she said as she walked out the door and shut it behind her. The boy just sat there and stared into space.

Then he blinked while reality woke him back up and then he asked in uttered confusion about the world around him," where am I?"