Chapter 4: One Last Step

The white pegasus groaned as he turned over on his bed and flexed his burned wing. Beta had just completed injecting some sort of metal into the bone of Alpha's right-wing, making it magnetic to the wing's outer metallic frame.

"Ugh..." Alpha moaned, as the metal inside his bone started to cool and expand. "How long will this take again?" He asked, trying to sleep through it.

"If my calculations are correct...The metal should cool in about 4 hours."

"How long again? Remember, I never got the luxury of going to school."

"The same amount of time it took to create one 'feather' for your wing. And you don't need to remind me about your life."

"Well, I'm going to try to catch some sleep."

"Alpha, we need to go over the plan again."

"No we don't, Beta. We have gone over it 200 times."

"156, actually." Beta corrected.

"You know what I mean. I memorized it already. I need to sleep."

"I know...I'm just-" Beta took a deep breath.

"What's wrong?" Alpha looked at the mirror, watching Beta's expression from seriousness to being worried.

"It's...nothing." Beta hid his worried look with a smirk. "I'm just anxious and nervous. Go to sleep."

"If you say so..." Alpha placed his head on his pillow and drifted off to sleep.

Beta looked at Alpha. "Sweet Celestia, I hope this plan will work." Beta's image from the mirror slowly faded away as he fell asleep within Alpha.

Alpha slowly woke up, walked out of his cell, and headed for the showers. He washed out the sweat in his mane and relaxed. After he dried himself, Alpha walked to the lockers, grabbed his left-wing glove and his torch then walked to his workplace. He smiled as he saw his wing, completed and finished, waiting for him on his desk. Alpha and Beta had worked for 3 years straight on the Wing. Creating it was a hell of a puzzle.

The frame of the wing was made of a metal that Beta was able to create, combining Dark magic with steel. Dubbed 'The Dragon Metal', this metal was very light but was able to withstand extreme amounts of pressure and damage. It also turned blue or red depending on the creator's/user's feelings (a side effect of using dark magic). Beta decided it would be a good idea to create the wing out of this metal. Creating the metal took about 2 years. The top of the wing, where Alpha's bones would be, were made of hollow Dragon Metal tubes. The wing needed to be able to open and close, so a bolt was placed in each tube to connect them with the frame. That took about a month. Then came the feathers. Each feather was made of sheet metal. When all feathers were completed, which took about 11 months, Alpha welded them on to the tubes. Each feather overlapped one another, creating an air resistance-like wall, similar to what an actual wing would create. The wing needed to be able to cover part of Alpha's Right wing. Alpha created a pocket within the wing in which he could put his own wing in. The last part that was needed was to make sure that the wing would not come from Alpha's wing in flight. Beta took care of that problem last night, injecting some sort of metal into Alpha's Right-Wing's bone, making it magnetic. Because the wing was created with dark magic, the wing had joined itself to Alpha's soul. If the wing got damaged, Alpha would feel pain where it was damaged.

Alpha walked over to the wing, and slipped his burnt wing into the pocket. He felt the metal in his bones expand as they configured itself to the metal of the wing. After about 5 minutes, Alpha, with Beta's guidance, moved the wing for the first time.

"Carefull, Alpha. Let's not get ourselves hurt by it."

Alpha grinned in glee as he flexed his newly created right-wing. It was a dream come true. He finally had his wing back. Although he knew that was not true, that he did not have his real wing back, he did not care. After about an hour of moving the wing back and forth, up and down, he relaxed his wing, bringing it down to his right side. He walked to the cafeteria, and ate some food. He noticed that most of the ponies were staring at his newly created wing. Alpha chuckled as he let Beta out, letting him have some fun as well.

While Alpha was walking back to his cell, he saw the red mare, the one who he stopped 3 years ago, being pulled to a room by guards. Curious, he followed them, keeping Beta at the ready if anything were to happen. Instead of going straight to the torture room, they took a left. Alpha was now really curious. "Where are they taking her?" he said to Beta.

"I don't know, but this isn't really a good idea. Let's go back."

Alpha was not going back to his cell. He saved the mare once. If needed, he would save her again. He followed the guards down a hallway with windows. He was about to go through some doors when his eye caught something in the window. Making sure he was alone, he stood on his hind legs and looked out the window. Once he saw the machine, he knew what the Factory was for. He always knew the Rainbow Factory was used for something evil. But he never knew it was used for something like this. He watched as fillies were strapped into the machine and brutally tortured and killed. He didn't wait to see why they were killed though, as he raced to find the guards with the red mare, hoping he could stop them from killing her. Alpha had just reached the guards as they entered the room with the Machine.

"Can we stop them?"

"The problem is not if we can stop them. The problem is how to stop them. I cannot stop the machine."

"Then we do the next best thing." Alpha said, watching the guards strap the mare into the Machine. He felt Beta rise within him, taking control.

"We destroy it." Beta said, finishing Alpha's sentence.

Beta ran into the room, killing both guards instantly with the raw edge of his hate. He looked at the mare, the machine slowly crushing her corpse. He swore, then looked around for a way out. He ran toward the doors in which he came in from and found out that they were locked. He looked at the machine and noticed some pipes leading either into or out of the machine. "We already killed two guards. If we stop now, we die." Beta told Alpha with a sigh. "Well, there goes our plan."

"So? What's the worst that can happen?" Alpha told Beta as he took control over his body and used his wing to sever the pipes. He looked at his wing, surprized that it cut the pipes. A rainbow-liquid started to come out of the Machine.

"That looks weird. Let's do some more damage. Place your left wing on the pipe on your left."

Alpha placed his left wing on the pipe on his left, like Beta told him and felt the tip of his wing get quite hot.

"Take off your wing and see chaos unfold."

Alpha took his wing off just in time to see a ball of light on the pipe explode into hundreds of tiny balls. Each ball flew in different directions, bouncing off everything. Once a ball touched an object like a pipe, the pipe would slowly turn into golden light, then explode into more balls of light. Alpha laughed. Each ball of light was basically a virus in a physical form. Everything around him was starting to turn into small balls of light. Once the room was turned into balls of light, the balls stopped moving, then split into two groups. One group went to the door behind Alpha to spread the infection. The other group went a wall to the right of Alpha. Alpha followed the balls to the wall. He watched as the balls melted into the wall and turned the wall into a huge wall of light than dissapear. There was no wall in front of Alpha. It was dark. Alpha made sure there was no wall, then slowly walked through.

"Look up."

Alpha did as Beta said and gasped. He saw stars. He was outside. Alpha looked behind him and saw the Factory glowing. All of the Factory glowing. He then spread both wings, and for the first time in six years, flew off into the night. He was finally free.