Author's Notes:

Hey, just wanted to put a quick heads-up. I'm aware that the characters aren't entirely accurate to the original story, but there's a reason for that. This is an alternative universe, where there's a third organization, Celestia is aware of The Factory, and there are a few extra side characters. Hopefully, you can tolerate them. Anyway, enjoy!

Rainbow was in the locker room of The Factory, but not because of a spill or anything. After Pinkamena had been captured, they immediately took her, and the bodies of other employees, back to The Factory. Like the rest of the bodies of previous employees, they were disposed of in the backup Pegasus Device, since the first one is still being upgraded. This way, no death is a waste. The remaining employee was told to say nothing about the details of the mission to prevent a panic and to go on standby until further orders.

Pinkamena was put into a special holding cell, mostly used for isolation if some employees were harder to break than others. Being completely alone, no one to talk to, left alone in a dark, cold room for an extended period, that would break anypony. But she wasn’t put in there to break; there was just nowhere else to put her. She wasn’t a Pegasus so she couldn’t be placed with the failures. They got prisoners like her few and far between; it didn’t happen common enough for them to make room for it. To make sure she stayed asleep, she was injected with some sleeping medicine. She would be out cold for a while.

Rainbow had sustained a considerable amount of injuries, but, surprisingly, nothing lethal. There wasn’t a single injury on her that was fatal, and from what she could guess about Pinkie, she did this on purpose. She probably wanted to mess with her, and then knock her out and torture her. Rainbow was extremely lucky she had planned for a similar scenario, or she might not have made it out of there alive. Not only had they far underestimated Pinkie, but they had also walked straight into the lion’s den without expecting a fight, and that was the biggest reason they failed.

Now, she had taken a shower to wash off the blood, both hers, and Pinkies. She had gone into the locker room, to patch herself up. She was now standing in front of her open locker, her black combat suit in her locker, beside her lab coat. A first aid kit laid open beside her, as she looked into the mirror. Injuries were all over her body, some she wasn’t even aware of until she was out of the blood covered suit. Cuts, bruises, and a few other lacerations. Some seemed minor, while others would take weeks to heal.

But the most injured part of her body were her hooves; those would probably take months to heal. She knew she went overboard, she knew it when she was beating her, but she couldn’t stop. Rage was pumping through, there were other emotions, but rage was the most evident. She let her emotions consume her, and now she would pay the price for it. But. even now, as she looked at the injuries all over her face, she could still feel the rage boiling through. Rage that someone would dare do this to her, rage that somepony would kill her employees, but she felt something else too, excitement.

It was true when she passed her flight exam all those years ago, that The Factory had broken her and rebuilt her into something better. But there was one thing they couldn’t get rid of, something that made her, her: Her nature to look for a challenge. She lived for the thrill, the rush of doing something hard, or fighting a tough fight! But in here, she didn’t get to fight nearly as much as she’d like. But now, there was an enemy! Not just that, but she wasn’t just some pushover! She was a threat, someone who had the potential to kill a lot of ponies by herself! But, that was the biggest letdown, she was by herself.

Sure, by herself, she could kill a lot of employees. But that didn’t mean anything; they had numbers, huge numbers. At best, she was an annoyance, but there was no chance she would be able to take down the entire factory. But, in the meantime, she would be a perfect distraction! She wanted to fight her on equal terms, no advantage for either side! She wanted to see who was truly better, who would win, who would lose, and what it would take to break her! It excited her to no end!

As she was rubbing alcohol on her wounds and bandaging them, a smile slowly grew on her face at her thoughts. Her excitement was becoming too much to contain, her hooves were practically shaking. Her wings were expanded outwards, barely able to hold herself back!

“RAINBOW! YOU HAVE A LOT OF EXPLAINING TO DO!”

And just like that, her wingboner was gone. The sadistic smile on her face was quickly replaced by a scowl, her wings quickly going limp and retracting. She put the gauze and rubbing alcohol back down in the kit, the scowl never leaving her face as she did. She barely had time to start patching herself up; her coat was still wet from the shower, she really didn’t want to have to deal with this so soon. She slowly turned around, really not in the mood to deal with him right now.

Like she had expected, Dr. Atmosphere was standing in front of the door, looking absolutely livid. His wings were extended out to his sides, probably in anger. His usually black mane and tail had streaks of gray in them, his beard was the opposite, gray with streaks of black. Whether it was from age, stress, or both, she had no idea. He seemed to be breathing heavily, either from anger or from him running over here, she wasn’t sure. The look on his face matched the rest of his coat, red. His glasses were absent, he was either in such a rush he forgot to put them on, or he was afraid she'd hit him. Which, admittedly, was a slight possibility. Not having his glasses was clearly affecting his vision, he seemed to be squinting at her across the room. Yeah, she expected this sooner or later.

“What’s up, doc?”

Rainbow asked sarcastically, a smirk now replacing the scowl. At that, Atmosphere seemed to get angrier. He stomped over to Rainbow Dash, to the point of getting to her face.

“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU’VE DONE!”

He screamed in her face, but she didn’t even flinch.

“Captured someone who’s killed multiple of our employees?”

That just seemed to make him angrier, this couldn't be good for his heart.

“Not only did you kidnap one of the most important figures of Equestria from their home, but you also did so in such a way, it would be strange if it didn’t raise suspicion! You left so much evidence behind that could lead back to us!”

While that was true, that wasn’t really her fault. Most of the evidence was left behind was because of the others, not her. But, since she was commanding the squad, it was, by connection, her fault.

“Maybe, but it got resu-“

“YOU LOST TWO EMPLOYEES!”

He yelled in her face, filling the entire locker room with his yelling.

“SHE KILLED FIVE!”

Rainbow yelled back at him, louder and angrier than him. She was already getting sick of being yelled at.

“THAT DOESN’T MATTER! If you had let Barricade handle things like you were first told, we wouldn’t have lost any!”

Barricade was the one who handles all safety stuff in The Factory, so, any infiltration, escapes, or outside ponies who killed employees, was his area to handle.

“You were already pushing it with your little pet project with The Device, and the counsel only let you handle this because it was your fault it happened in the first place! But now, when I tell them that you let two ponies die, you’d be lucky if they just fire you!”

Atmosphere screamed in her face again; she could already feel a headache coming on. They wouldn’t fire her; she was too much of an asset, she would have to do something seriously stupid to get fired. And this wasn’t that thing, probably. He just didn’t like her, like, at all. He has been trying for years to get her fired, and he wasn’t the only one. She has done some…questionable things in her time, and even more things that pissed off ponies in charge. If Rainbow hadn’t been as good at her job as she was, she definitely would have been fired by now.

“Yeah, sure, and Pinkie is going to escape from here while killing dozens of ponies! I’m never getting fired from this place, Hide, so you might as well stop trying. So, why don’t you take your attitude and complaints to somepony who actually cares, and get the buck out of my face.”

Rainbow said aggressively, her words sounding more like a threat than a suggestion. Atmosphere said nothing in return, his anger was slowly being replaced by fear, he knew she had a temper, but she had never actually hurt him. Now, as he looked at her face, he realized, she was far angrier than he originally thought she would be. He quickly ran out of the room, Rainbow looking at him as he did, smiling all the way.

Her smile kept until he left, then her face returned to normal. She turned back around and picked up the gauze and rubbing alcohol; then she continued to put the bandages on her face. After all, she had somepony to meet in a few hours.