Can you handle this?

Rainbow Factory

Rainbow Factory

"Now a rainbow's tale isn't quite as nice as the story we knew of sugar and spice."

There's long been rumors as to how exactly rainbows are made in Equestria. While a great amount of Pegasi ponies are employed in the Rainbow department of the weather factory, almost all of them do the low-end work. What's known is that great streams of Spectra, the individual colors of the rainbow, flow through large grates and into vast vats. From there, workers carefully and equally mix the spectra into the coagulated rainbow pools that dot and run through the factory and surrounding city.

Next, that mixture is pumped to the floor below, where other employees atomize it and store it until the active weather Pegasi deploy it in field.

However, no one knows how individual Spectra is made. Supplies are never seen being brought in, leaving not even a clue what goes into a rainbow. Tourists, when visiting the factory, are treated to an extremely foreboding and plain wall, with massive solid doors baring entry to anypony at any time. While most of the facilities various signs and architecture is bubbly and welcoming, the Rainbow Factory's upper floor was protected by harsh imagery of potential hazards and death, and the cloud wall was made not out of the clean white of the rest of the city, but of a black, quietly thundering fog.

To become an employee of the upper Rainbow Factory meant sacrificing any life outside those black walls. Workers are sworn to secrecy and forbidden from leaving, and live inside the facility itself. Those few who ever managed to make it out not in a body bag were twisted and disturbed, too damaged to ever bring themselves to talk about it. A lot of theories were proposed; Dark magic from captured unicorns, chemicals and environmental hazards that no sane pony would tolerate, and even thoughts of another unknown sister of Celestia's, destined to create the Spectra instead of raising the Sun or the Moon. None of them could be farther than the truth. ---

"But a rainbow's easy once you get to know it with the help of the magic of a pegasus device."

"C'mon, Orion! We're gonna be late for our final test!" Scootaloo called to a friend of hers.

She was older now, in her last year of flight school. She, like all other pegasus in the school, was terribly nervous about the final test. Those that passed were granted freedom into the world, to find their cutie marks if they haven't yet, and become working ponies. Little is known, or at least little thought-about fact, was of what happened to the fillies that failed their test. While uncommon, one or two from every class generally didn't have it in them to perform the rigorous acts and maneuvers.

Those that failed their tests were looked down upon in the worst of ways, shunned, and hated. Cloudsdale had always bred a form of nationalism amongst its occupants. If you weren't the best, or didn't show the potential of being the greatest, you weren't allowed to be part of the 'glorious collective'. Scootaloo moved a little to the side as Orion, a tall, yet fairly skinny pony, settled next to her. He fluffed his light brown feathers and gave a worried attempt at a smile as he stared around where he sat. They were sitting in the large open waiting room onlooking the coliseum, with all the other graduating pegasi. Just visible in the distance was The Factory. Orion glanced at it and gulped.

"What's the matter, Orion? You afraid of getting a dead end job on the snow line?" Orion chuckled a bit, then closed his eyes and sighed.

"No.. It's just... I don't know. I don't think I can do this. What if I fail? What if I don't fail, but do just bad enough to still be disliked by everyone? I don't know if I can take being deported. Where do we even go, anyways?"

Scootaloo gave Orion a friendly punch. "No one knows, you dolt. And we're not going to fail. Everyone here is going to be fine. I know I will at least pass," she laughed. "Thanks to the tips from Rainbow Dash, I'm sure to be fine."