The Storm Factory

'The Storm Factory' is a short story written by Raritybell. And was her first attempt to write something with a low gore content.

Style
The story is written in thrid-person perspective and is written in 3 large chapters, each devided with a little explaination before it begins and a picture of a heavy storm.

Summary
Shooting Star Dash is the proud daughter of Rainbow and Soarin, she studies at a school in Cloudsdale to work in one of the many weather factories. One day, the most importend day, she gets the test which will clear up in which factory she will go to. She studied hard for it and is ready to make the test. Then the time comes, to make the test of her life.

A couple days later she returns to school to hear the results, after hearing them, Star is devastated, she has to go, to the worst factory of them all, the Storm Factory. When she tells the result at home, Rainbow nearly collapses, she knows the stories of the place. But she knows it is unavoidable that her daughter has to leave. They can only hope, for the best.

A couple more days later, it is time for Star to leave, leave to the factory. When a chariot arrives and a colt steps out, she know she can not return. The colt introduces himself as professor BlackHeart, head of the factory. Star goes with im without questioning and the both leave in the chariot, leaving the Dashes in tears behind at home and Star starts to tear up in the chariot as BlackHeart tries to comfort her.

When they arrive at the factory, it just looks like any other factory with the exception of it being made black clouds. When Star first enters the factory she is stunned by its friendly interior and is pointed to her room, being room 923. It is not much, but what is needed stands there. She is given a tour through the factory and in the coming days, she has to stand on each department to learn how the weather is made and also to find out which departments fits her perfectly.

After the first day by standing on the cloud department, BlackHeart sits in his office boiling in anger, he commaned a undiscribed and unnamed Unicorn to lift the spell off of Star, revealing the factory as it really is, not the sweet and nice looking place as she saw it, but a prison.

Over the couse of the story Star tries to keep up with the fast pace of the different departments, as BlackHeart confronts Doctor Atmosphere about this matter. That he had to had a Dash. Atmosphere doesn't take this very well and goes into the counter, releasing a massive argument.

Eventually, Star is placed in the lightning department and helps in releasing the biggest storm Los Pegasus had ever seen while BlackHeart was given the commands. As the days travel on, Star starts to look worse and worse. Almost at the point of flying into a lightning coil. She has more then enough of the factory and awaits her chance to speak to Atmosphere, which she is able to, only to hear more dissapointment. There is no way out of it.

But one night, with the help of another Pegasus named Thunder Dasher, they manage to escape the factory, but Thunder is shot down and falls to his death on the ground. Star just keeps flying as fast as she can, back to Ponyville, back to her family. Eventually she returns home and keeps herself quiet for the time being.

BlackHeart has one last argument with Atmosphere and raises the pace in the factory even higher then it already was. And Star changed back to her old, happy self in a matter of days.

Some days after the escape, Atmosphere personally gives Star a letter and leaves than again. Star reads the letter with her family after which Rainbow flies out to find Atmosphere and thanks him for his deeds. He explains that is generosity stops there and that Rainbow is part of never to be spoken again about Pegasus history. Rainbow understands it and she walks back to her home, to enjoy her daughter being back.

Characters
Next to Rainbow Dash, Soarin and Applejack all characters in the story are original characters.

Shooting Star Dash: One of the two daughters Rainbow and Soarin have together and is quite the study head. She studied endlessly for her test but eventually ends up in the Storm Factory. The story followes her the most. She looks the most like Rainbow in apperence only her manes are not in rainbow color, but in a bluebow color.

Rainbow Twist Dash: The other daughter of Rainbow and Soarin. No description is given on her apperance or anything else.

Miss WhiteBoard: The school teacher of Star. also no discription of appearnce has been given.

Professor BlackHeart: The head of the Storm Factory, a grey coated colt with black manes and deep blue eyes. He commands the factory with an iron hoof, but has a weak for Star since he knows sh doesn't belong there, but doesn't show it. He also acts very nice in the beginning, but when the spell is lifted and the factory reveals its true colors, he is a tyrant.

James CloudChacer: Foreman of the Cloud-Department in the factory. He and Star become quite good friends but his life ends in a tragic 'accident' after he flew against a lightning coil.

Doctor Atmosphere: Head of Cloudsdale Weather Department and tries his best to never reveal anything about the Rainbow-Department. No apperence is given. He often gets in arguments with BlackHeart about the situation with Star but in the end, he has a change of heart and transfers the young mare. He is a cold hearted colt who goes to any extend to achive his goals of covering it up without getting his hooves dirty.

Thunder Dasher: A pegasi colt with a white coat, purple manes and brown eyes. He is the colt who help Star escape the factory to redeem is own soul, it is unknown what he did or why he came to help Star, but during the escape attemt, he is shot down and falls to the ground where the unavoidable happens.

Making the Storms
Clouds are made by boiling water in enourmous boilers which have to be fed by coal. When the steam is releashed, it is black as a thunder cloud, the blackness depends on the amount of coal used.

Thunder is made by the hundered Tesla coils which stand in the factory, coördinators set up the general area where the lightning has to strike and push the button that they are ready, the the coils fire up and send the lightning all over Equestria to here it is needed.

Hurricanes are made with the help of drivers for the wind. No information is given out how they are really made.

Rain is stored in bassins ready to go into the clouds, how this process works is still unknown.

For the storm over Los Pegasus, BlackHeart says a chant which is a modified version of the Kraken Summoning Chant from Pirates 2 Dead Man's Chest.

Trivia

 * The idea of the fiction originated from a thunder storm Raritybell was in and she started to think about where storms really come from.
 * Star's roomnumber 923, is also the number Pinkamena pulls at the end in one of her earlier works, CupCakes 2.
 * This story is loosly linked to Rainbow Factory (story) due to the pressence of Doctor Atmosphere and the references. The story does not have to be read to understand this story.
 * This story is also her first attempt to write a story with a low gore amount. All her fictions up to this point, were gore fictions.
 * This is also the first story which introduces more then one OC and in which an OC takes the lead.
 * MLP FiM Fiction The Storm Factory trailer