The stallion gasped as he awoke with a start, his mind and body reeling as if he’d just had a bad dream. The pegasus began to take in deep breaths, but the air around him felt suffocating and dry. It took a moment for his lungs to adjust to the odd sensation, but once they did he began to observe his surroundings. What he saw though was nothing short of mind-boggling. There were no lights, but he couldn't rightly call it darkness for whatever reason. There was only emptiness. A… void
A shiver traveled down his spine, despite there being no cold to speak of. His senses were all out of whack, screaming at him to feel this, or react to that, but when even the air itself was nonexistent in this place, how could he even attempt to do so? There was an irritating pressure bearing down on him, and every breath felt hollow and empty despite his body insisting he continue to do so. He couldn’t have been dead, could he? The stallion placed a hoof to his chest in an attempt to find his heart. If he were alive, he would feel the pulse, and If not…
.
.
.
*thump*
The orange pegasus sighed with relief as he felt the comforting sensation of his heartbeat. He was alive, as far as he could tell, but who knew how long that would last? Wherever this place was, it certainly didn’t seem hospitable for a stay longer than a few minutes. Then again though, he couldn’t feel anything despite his body’s insistence. Maybe things like food and water were unnecessary in the void, and maybe something like aging would be a worry of the past? He’d almost say he’d be glad to become immortal, but hiding away in an endless abyss like a coward wasn’t his style. Besides, staying here would have likely driven anypony crazy, and that was a fate worse than death.
“No way am I letting that happen to me.” He muttered to himself before picking a direction and jogging towards it, determined to keep moving until he found a way out. As he continued walking, he began to notice something very strange. No matter how fast or slow he went, it felt like he hadn’t moved an inch from his previous spot. It was almost like he was on a treadmill or something. With a grunt, he tried to fly, but even after soaring upwards at his max speed, he touched down on the ground only an inch beneath him.
He tried for what felt like hours to move, but all that succeeded in doing was tiring him out. If he wasn’t sure about food or water existing in there before, then he was certainly hoping he’d find some soon.
The stallion thought back to the moments leading up to his awakening, but to his horror, he couldn’t recall a single thing. He pulled up anything and everything he could, but the only thing he could even latch onto was his name, Firestorm. The worry and fear he had so vehemently ignored before began to resurface the longer he thought. Was this void eating away at his memories? Would he truly go mad in here? He could only hope that it wasn’t the case, but even if he didn’t know much he knew he hated being this unsure for this long. He needed out, and he needed it now.
“Hello! Anypony!?” his voice carried an echo into the void, which would seem impossible, but to him that only proved that there had to be an exit. “Listen up, you wanna be black hole! I am done being here! Either you let me out, or you will feel my wrath!” The fiery pegasus shouted into the darkness, and carefully listened for any kind of response. He understood that the void itself might not have even been sentient, but if there was anypony else stuck in here, or preferably outside of here, that could hear him, then he hoped they got the message.
He waited...
...and waited…
...and waited…
...but nothing called back.
He glared at the darkness, clenching his teeth as the rage threatened to be released in the form of a whirlwind of anger filled expletives. He wanted to scream, to shout, to curse the void and all things that inhabited it, but in the end, he just couldn’t. He sighed in defeat and fell to the ground, ready to accept his fate. It had already been days, and not a single thing had come along to greet his cries for help.
He couldn’t move, he couldn’t shout, he couldn’t fly. He felt so helpless, but what more could he even do besides wait and hope somepony else could find him? Perhaps a nap would be enough to soothe his mind? With an annoyed sigh, and a lack of better options, Firestorm laid on his back and prepared to doze off, but not even that small peace of mind could continue without the void interrupting it.
The sound of a doorknob turning scratched at his ears, so he tried rolling over and ignoring it in favor of some sleep. He continued on that train of thought for roughly two seconds before springing to his hooves and facing the direction of the sound.
It couldn’t be real, could it? Was he losing his mind already? It seemed that the distinct sound of a door opening in the distance begged to differ. He couldn’t see where it was coming from, but he knew that it had to be somewhere. This was his ticket out, and he’d be damned if he lost it now. He ran towards the noise, ignoring the treadmill floor beneath his hooves, and instead only focusing on the prospect of freedom.
As he ran, he nearly missed the sound of a hushed voice echoing all around him. “Hmm, I think there’s somebody inside of here. We should… help them right?” The dainty female voice asked, her voice a mix between a whisper and a second pair of thoughts rattling in his head. He didn’t want to stop his sprint, for fear of this being some trick to keep him in the void, but he finally halted as a second voice responded to the first.
“Yes, we should help our guest. Even if he is just adorable trying to find his way out.” The second female said, her voice similar to the first but more commanding and haughty. Who were these two? Were they the ones responsible? Had they been watching him this entire time? They thought his meltdown was ‘cute’!? It must’ve been the case, since even though he couldn’t see them, he could feel their eyes gazing down onto him from every direction.
As soon as he got out, he wanted to have a few words with his ‘hosts’. If this were the way they treated their ‘guests’ then he’d gladly show them a thing or two.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a door opening behind him, but unlike last time, this sounded like the real deal. He turned towards the sound and saw a strange portal of some kind with a white light emitting from it, illuminating him against the all-encompassing darkness. While he couldn’t see anything past the light, he could feel a comforting warmth emanating from the surface. Walking up to the doorway, he tentatively placed a hoof into the light and felt a mysterious energy starting to surround it. He gave a shiver as the foreign entity coalesced around him, and pulled his hoof back.
“Don’t you want to be free?” The first voice asked, sounding confused as to why he hadn’t passed into the door already.
“Yes, please come in. I assure you it’s much better over here!” The second voice said, her voice becoming clearer the closer he stood to the gate. As suspicious as he was about the two voices and the foreign world beyond, he couldn’t stand being in the void any longer. Placing both hooves into the entrance, the fiery-maned pegasus took a deep breath and dove into the door, his entire body becoming absorbed by the light.
The moment he entered the gateway he felt his center of gravity shift, flipping him around until he was falling face-first into a bright tunnel full of shifting colors. The orange pegasi immediately tried to open his wings, but as expected they remained glued to his body. He quickly fell towards whatever destination laid beyond, but with nothing else to do he merely stared at the wormhole surrounding him and waited for the end to approach.
After more wasted time waiting for the portal to finally spit him out, Firestorm suddenly heard a loud whoosh of air as the exit opened around him. He shouted aloud as a well-carpeted floor came to greet him until a muffled thump marked the end of his descent.
By some kind of luck, or cruel fate, he survived slamming face-first into the wooden floor, but surviving didn’t exactly translate to not feeling pain. He felt guttural nausea, aching on every piece of his body, and an indescribable need to just lie there and die. Unfortunately for him though, there was a familiar voice there to prolong his suffering.
“Hmmm~. This stallion looks very fine indeed. Wouldn’t you say?” The mare said, her unmistakably infuriating voice having no possible owner but the second girl he’d heard in the void. He attempted to look up at them, and through blurry vision, he could see two strange creatures standing before him. He wanted to guess what they were, to ask what was happening, but the effects of the void had already begun to take their toll, laying those thoughts to rest.
“Yes sister, very good indeed,” The first voice replied, her voice somehow even softer in the flesh. “He must be a guard of some sort with muscles like those. He could be a keeper.” The Stallion mumbled something to them, so the creature approached. “What was that?”
Firestorm lifted his dizzy head and tried to say something, anything, but his words only came out as gibberish. “Here, Drink this. It’ll help.” The voice said, lifting the orange pony’s head before bringing a glass vial to his lips. Even if he had wanted to refuse, he didn’t think he had the strength to anymore. The liquid traveled down his gullet, and at first, he quite literally felt nothing as his body became numb.
That didn’t last long, however, as he suddenly became overwhelmed by a flood of signals attacking him all at once. He fell into a state of shock and violently convulsed on the ground beneath them. His muscles spasmed as the horrid pain swept through his body, and for a moment the stallion feared that he’d been poisoned. It continued for what felt like several minutes until his synapses returned to normal. He was alive… but after that experience, he wasn’t even sure it was worth it anymore.
Now that he had regained control though, he felt that a certain ass-kicking was in order. He was no stranger to managing his anger, but when an issue like this presents itself it can be hard to hold back.
“What... the HELL did you do to me!?” He roared as he tried standing back up, only to fall onto his face. He looked down at his legs to see what was wrong, only to be greeted by what used to be his legs. His eyes widened as he gazed upon the strange gangly arms, the ends of which were bulbous appendages with five strange stumps on the end. He sat up and looked at his back legs, thankful to see that these had remained as hooves for whatever reason.
He looked himself over as best as he could, noting the stark differences of his new body except for his neon yellow eyes, fiery mane, his Flaming-X-Shaped Cutie Mark, and his orange fur. He was understandably confused by all of this, but that confusion only seemed to further fuel his rage.
He carefully balanced back up to his hooves, the experience being much easier for him than he expected, and glared at the two figures. They were bipedal pony creatures much like him, except they were crystal ponies if the glints in their identical bob cut manes was anything to go by. They were coral-colored ponies wearing matching maid outfits, and call him a betting stallion, but he was willing to guess that they were twins. They looked mostly identical, with one maybe being an inch taller than the other, but even then he wasn't too sure. He couldn’t see their cutie marks under the clothes, but he could see strange intertwined female symbols on their outfits. He figured that was as good a guess as any.
By the time he'd wrapped up his inspection, his anger had simmered down a bit. But even so, he still felt an overwhelming need to punch something. If these two didn’t explain how they were involved in this, and just what it was they gave him, he wouldn’t be liable for what happened next.
Sensing the tension that had filled the room, the twins softly smiled at him, as if to convey that they understood his situation. “We’re sorry for the inconvenience you had to pass.” The first one said, her soft voice coming off as mostly sincere.
“We hope that it didn’t feel too bad.” The second one added on with a grin, immediately after the first one finished, her voice sounding almost like a taunt.
“No, no, I’m fine,” He said through clenched teeth as he paced from side to side in front of them. “I just spent what felt like an eternity freaking the hell out in a void, thinking I was going to die, and then getting turned into a Godforsaken abomination of Tartarus! I’m fine!” The orange pegasus shouted while gesturing to himself.
The reserved girl flinched for a moment at his outburst, but the second taller one simply placed a hand on her wide hips sassily. “You want to run that by me again? Because it almost sounded like you were insulting us.” Firestorm opened his mouth for another tirade but stopped as he felt an ominous aura radiating off of them. He closed his mouth and swallowed his pride, holding his words in just long enough for the presence to fade.
The taller one let out a hmph of disappointment and placed a hand on her sister's shoulder, calming her down. “Let’s just start with names, yes?” She asked condescendingly. Firestorm growled under his breath, but ultimately remained silent and nodded his head. “My name is Foal-Bearer,” She said while placing a hand over her chest. “And this is my sister, Wet Nurse.”
“Uhh, nice to meet you.” Wet nurse said as she gave a short bow.
Firestorm raised a brow at this, and in the silence, he just couldn’t control it. “Is that… those can’t be your real names,” He said in disbelief. Wet Nurse tilted her head in confusion while Foal-Bearer crossed her arms. “I-I mean, not to be rude or anything, but it just seems a little too on the nose." He quickly amended, fearful that he might provoke the presence once again.
They gave each other a side glance as he asked this, and he could tell by the looks on their faces that it was a particularly sore subject. “Sorry… forget I said anything.”
“It’s alright,” Wet Nurse commented before her sister could provoke him any further. “We understand your curiosity, but for now why don’t we move on? I’m sure you have questions that you’re just dying to have answered.” Wet Nurse pointed towards the door where Foal Bearer was standing, and with a roll of her eyes, the mare opened it up. "Come with us, and we can take you to somepony who will help."
"Hold on, I'm not going anywhere until you explain to me what just happened." Firestorm retorted, understandably unnerved by her insistence that he follow them. The twin by the door glared at him as he asked this, but Wet Nurse merely smiled and nodded her head.
"Of course," she said politely while showing a small empty vial. "You were pulled through in a pretty bad state, but we have these potions to revitalize you upon entry. It's a common occurrence which is, unfortunately, pretty painful."
"Yeah," Foal Bearer added on. "But you're a big stallion. You took it like a champ, well, after all of that girly screaming of course." She said with a low chuckle. Firestorm shot a glare of his own at the twin, but surprisingly, Wet Nurse was the one to speak up.
"Foal!" She chastised with a hissing whisper. Her sister looked at her in surprise before raising her hands in surrender and looking out at the hallway beyond the door. "Sorry, We truly are. But if you come with us, we can take you to a pony who can answer all of your questions better than we can." Firestorm didn't want to trust them, but there was something about Wet Nurse's endearing smile that just got through to him. With a deep and calming breath, he agreed to follow.
They led him out of the room in silence and down an ornate wooden hall, the interior of which reminded him of a cozy log cabin or hunting lodge. Since his time in the void was over, he slowly started remembering more and more about his life, all except for how he had ended up here, which was arguably the most important fact. Thankfully though, he was able to rely on his training back home to move relatively unhindered by his new physique. It turned out that he was already well versed in walking on his hind hooves.
The maids led him to a door on the side of the hall that entered into a large study of some kind, with bookshelves, desks, and a lit fireplace at the far end of the massive room. As they entered into the center of the room he saw two creatures in simple leather cushioned study chairs facing each other.
One was a familiar-looking lavender pony with a two streaked pink and purple mane. While she certainly looked a lot like the Princess Twilight he knew, she was still bipedal and certainly lacked the wings associated with royalty. She was wearing some kind of bright white button-up shirt, as well as a pair of smooth pants. He was curious as to why she and the maids needed to wear clothes at all, but also began to wonder if he should be wearing any. In her hands was a large clipboard and pencil where she presumably took notes, and he could only guess that they were about the creature sitting across from her.
It was equine in stature, had what looked to be four hooves, and had what seemed to be red claw marks as his cutie mark. His skin was covered in scales of a sickly green color as opposed to fur, and similarly, he had no mane to speak of while his tail resembled that of a barren and slender reptile.
He heard the two conversing from afar until Twilight nodded her head and pointed towards a door beside them. The creature nodded in return and walked off towards the door, stopping in front of it as it opened on its own. Before he entered, he looked back and stared Firestorm in his eyes, the creature’s black orbs and red pupils causing him to shiver. The lizard pony flared out his forked tongue in true reptile fashion, then trotted into the dark room without a word.
“Hey!” Firestorm snapped out of his trance and looked towards Twilight as she waved the trio over to her. “Come on you two, bring him over! We’re on a tight schedule.” She said with a hint of exhaustion in her voice as she tapped her clipboard impatiently. The twins looked back at him and smiled before gesturing to the empty chair. He looked at them with some slight trepidation, but he figured that this was likely his only option for the moment. Perhaps if he were left alone with Twilight, he’d be able to get some help.
He walked towards the chair confidently, but the sounds of the maids following him made him grit his teeth in frustration. “Tight schedule? You just finished with the last one the moment we got here.” Foal Bearer teased with a grin.
Twilight looked at her with tired eyes and groaned. “That last one was especially… chatty. This time I’ll keep the questions to a minimum. Now run along back to the portal and check on the void you two. We still have a few more prospects scheduled.” She said while referring to her notes, and Foal Bearer merely shrugged in response. Firestorm however was stuck looking between them in confusion, as all of their talk about prospects and schedules did little to ease his racing mind.
“Can’t be helped I guess, but the least you could do is smile, Twily,” Foal Bearer said as she turned to leave. “Come on sis.” She beckoned with a hand as she made her way to the door.
“Oh!” Wet Nurse said with a start as she watched her sister abruptly leave. She faced Firestorm and Twilight and bowed with both hands in front of her. “Hope to see you soon, and good luck!” She gave a cute wave to Firestorm and quickly rushed to her sister's side, before exiting in unison with her.
The door closed with a loud creak, drowning the room in silence. Firestorm turned towards Twilight and took note of her tired expression as she furiously flipped through her papers. “Are you okay, princess?” He asked instinctively.
She stopped for a moment and glanced up at him, her head unmoving. She gave a deep exhale through her nose and continued flipping through the pages on the clipboard until she finally stopped. “Princess… how many times am I going to hear that today?” She grumbled under her breath.
Firestorm sat up straight and tensed his muscles as she said this, her delivery and exasperation setting him on edge. “Let me just get this out of the way,” She started as she lowered her clipboard. “I understand that you may know me, but you don’t know me,” She pointed to her back and raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you see a pair of wings on my back?”
He slowly shook his head, his pride taking a massive hit as he avoided looking at her face. “No… I suppose not.”
“Then it’s safe to assume I’m not a princess,” She leaned back in the chair while crossing her legs and examining the sheet of paper in front of her. “You’re Firestorm, yes? Part of an elite strike team of guards in your dimension. Keeping the peace with maximum deniability? Saved Princess Twilight Sparkle, well that explains it.” Firestorm cocked his head back in surprise as she nonchalantly threw his business out into the open. His confusion could wait however as he focused on one phrase in particular.
“In… my dimension? What are you talking about?” He asked with an expected amount of skepticism.
She just gave him a droll stare and shook her head. “Yes, yes, there are different dimensions. Don’t act so surprised,” She said in such a condescending way that, for some odd reason, made him even angrier when it came from the mouth of Princess Twilight. “It says here that you’re a quadruped, but it seems like the portal has changed that little fact.” His mind raced as he put what little pieces he had together.
"The portal? Dimensions? Changing me? What the hell is going on!? Where am I?” She ignored all of his questions and continued to look through his file. “What about the others then,” He said in a quieter voice, holding back his frustration as the new memories came back to him. Her train of thought ended and she once again looked at the pegasus as he gripped the arms of the chair. “Where are Noble Blade and Freedom Fighter?”
Twilight let out another sigh and skimmed the file for a moment. “Partners of yours I assume?” She stopped at a certain point and nodded to him. “They’re both fine. Only the prospects chosen by our leader are sent to the void.” Firestorm let out a sigh of relief, but his elation was short-lived as his thoughts continued to race.
“You keep calling me that, prospect. What does that even mean? Who is this ‘leader’?” She lowered the clipboard and levitated a mug of coffee into her hands from across the room. She then took a drawn-out sip before answering him, eliciting a growl from the stallion as he dragged his hands across his face.
“Ah that’s good,” She commented as she placed the mug at the foot of the chair. “You are a prospect, a being chosen for our event, the details of which will be revealed to you after this identity check. Our leader… well he’s the one who will be personally briefing you once we’re done,” She took another sip of her coffee, letting out a satisfied groan as it’s revitalizing caffeine coursed through her. “If you have questions, ask them now, time’s almost up.”
He had so much he still didn’t understand, so much he couldn’t comprehend. It was difficult even finding a place to start. “Okay, well how did I get here? Where are we?” Twilight leaned her head back in thought.
“You were pulled into the void via our acquisition casters. You’ve arrived in a parallel universe that needs you.” A universe that needed him? He couldn’t fathom as to why that would be, but that question was certainly not the most important he had.
“Well, what happened when I left? How do you know so much about me?” He asked while leaning forward, even more eager to hear the explanation for his gap in memory.
“While I can’t divulge too much, I can say that you won’t have to worry about anypony missing you for now. The leader can tell you more.” Firestorm's eyes went wide as he heard this, a wrenching feeling twisting about in his gut. “As for how we know so much… well we do extensive screening of new prospects before choosing them. We’ve seen you quite a lot in the past few weeks,” He calmed down somewhat as he heard this, but he couldn’t help but feel like she was intentionally leaving things vague enough for him to freak out over it. “Any more questions?” She asked between more sips of coffee.
“Yeah, too many!" He replied angrily. "Why am I here!? Why am I like…. This!?” He said while gesturing to himself with a look of disgust.
“I take offense to that,” She replied nonchalantly. “We aren’t sure why, but sometimes the portal changes ponies who come through it. It changes them into a body type more… common in our dimension,” She explained with a wave of her hand. "As to why we need you here-” She was interrupted from the much-awaited explanation by the entrance door opening once again. “Ah, and it seems our time is up.”
“No, no you have to tell me!” Firestorm insisted, but Twilight almost immediately ignored him.
“Head to that door, your left, my right, and wait for it to open. Our leader will see you now.” She said in a dry and robotic tone, the sound of which giving the impression that she had rehearsed it many times over.
“No!” He shouted while taking a stand before her. It didn’t matter if she looked like Princess Twilight. No princess he ever knew acted so cold to others like this. “I am not leaving until I get some answers!”
Twilight looked up at him, dropping all semblance of politeness and tolerance of his presence. “Do you need to get your ears checked? I already told you that the host will tell you everything you need to know about your stay here. So either you go through that door,” She pointed to the ornate wooden door in question. “Or Foal Bearer over there will throw you through it.” She pointed to the mare in question who stood at the entranceway with a big smile. Beside her was Wet Nurse and a newcomer.
With them was what seemed to be a tall grey diamond dog with a white underbelly and a long-sleeved dark brown jacket. He glared on in silence, but his eyes seemed to shift every so often to the maids beside him. If he had to guess, it might have had something to do with the freshly made black eye he sported on the right side of his face.
Firestorm glared at Twilight once more and tsked at her angrily before making his way to the door. The unicorn didn’t even acknowledge him though, opting instead to just continue her work. “Odium I presume? Please, have a seat.” shortly after leaving the mare, the door began to open. Behind it was an all-encompassing darkness that started bringing back horrid memories of the void.
He quickly pushed those thoughts out of his mind and stepped through, preparing himself for anything that could have lied beyond. Once on the other side though, he was greeted by an innocuous-looking office room, with a simple mahogany desk, some potted plants, and a large sliding window door leading to a star-filled balcony beyond.
Firestorm stood there in silence, wondering why the door had led him to an empty office, when he suddenly heard a loud and sinister chuckle. In the chair behind the desk, a small swirl of shadows began to manifest into a new creature, one very similar to the ponies he’d seen so far. This one sounded very stallion-esque, but all of his features seemed to be draped in shadows aside from his glowing yellow eyes.
“Welcome Firestorm. I’ve been expecting you,” He said while gesturing to the seat on the other side of the desk. Before moving, Firestorm looked around the room for any exits or weapons, but the only things he could see was a decorative sword on the wall next to him, and the balcony. “No need to be afraid, just have a seat and I’ll start explaining why you’re here.”
He looked at the shadowy figure nervously, then looked back to the sword. He shook his head and took a seat in front of the stallion, eliciting a low chuckle from him. “Smart choice. You’d be surprised how many imbeciles reach for the thing, believing they can actually do me harm with that dull old piece.” A moment of silence followed them, the only noise being that of a ticking clock on the wall.
“So… you were going to be explaining?” Firestorm asked impatiently. The shadow stallion chuckled once again, his eyes closing in what looked to be amusement.
“So eager, but I suppose you have a right to be. My lovely assistants can certainly be very… cryptic to say the least.” Firestorm rolled his eyes and scoffed at the remark.
“Yeah, understatement of the century.” This elicited another chuckle from the creature, one much heartier than before.
“I like you Firestorm,” He said with a nod and a point. “Well let’s get down to business. You and your fellow prospects have been summoned here to take part in our wondrous sporting event, the Trial of Sustainment. In it, you will be tasked with fighting, and hopefully, killing the other contestants.” His eyes narrowed in what Firestorm could only deduce as a form of a smile, but he was not willing to share his enthusiasm.
“KIll the other contestants? Trial of Sustainment? You’re joking.” Firestorm’s gut reaction was to storm off, but he was far too flabbergasted to even attempt.
The host let out a sigh of longing and leaned back in his chair. “I rarely joke mister Firestorm, especially about something as important as this,” He leaned forward and summoned several newspapers from the shadows and pushed them forward. “I assume Twilight has already informed you of alternate dimensions? Well, I’ll spare you the details and simply tell you this. We need sacrifices to keep our timeline running, and we don’t have the luxury to just ask others politely.
“This competition is imperative to our survival, but at the same time, we try to keep an air of enjoyment about the process. It helps alleviate the guilt in my subjects.” Firestorm looked onto the papers in disbelief, the headings all advertising various annual Trials that had come before. All of them consisted of a battle royale between 24 contestants from parallel worlds, and in the end, there was only one survivor from each.
The news hailed the process as their worlds only hope for survival, while at the same time sensationalizing the murder of these contestants. It made him sick to his stomach. He pushed the papers away and looked at the host in disgust. “What the hell are you? What kind of… monster does something like this!?”
The host narrowed his eyes again, but his voice remained calm. “Everything that I have done here has been absolutely necessary. Trust me when I say that this was not my first choice. Look on the bright side though, if you win then all of this will just become a bad dream.” Firestorm clenched his teeth in anger and fear. He felt the need to rush for that sword on the wall, but even when angered he knew that it would likely be the death of him.
"Keep in mind, mister Firestorm, that nothing will happen to your home or your friends. To them, it will feel like an instant. And in the event of your demise, we will simply create a replacement, although your soul will unfortunately stay here." Firestorm stood out of his chair and slammed his hands on the desk.
"Who the hell do you think you are!?" He yelled. "You think you can just do this to ponies and glorify it like it's some kind of sport? 'Look at the blood and guts, fun for the whole family!'" He mocked. Suddenly the room grew dark as several black tendrils sprouted from the shadow pony's back.
The Tendrils reached out towards Firestorm, backing him up towards the door. "I'm the one who's giving you a chance at survival. Because at any point… I could simply kill you and get it over with." The tips of the Tendrils reached closer and closer, but just before they had they stopped.
The host shook his head as a small chime began to ring from the clock above him, then quickly retracted all of the shadows. “I understand that you’re upset, but I think some time to think will help you cool off,” He pointed to the door he had entered through, its interior still pitch black. “Enter through there and you will be taken to your quarters. More details about the trial will be revealed once all of the prospects have arrived.”
Firestorm bit his tongue and looked at the ground as a flurry of emotions bombarded him. This vile creature wanted them all to kill each other for his world's enjoyment? Whoever this villain was, WHATever this villain was, he vowed that he would not let him get away with it. For now, though, he had to bide his time.
Stowing his fear, Firestorm approached the desk and reached for the newspapers, much to the host's surprise. “You wouldn't mind if I take these, right? For some light reading?” He asked while doing his best to hide his rage.
The host gave another happy chuckle and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t see why not.” Firestorm stacked the papers on top of each other and headed for the exit. Once more stepping through into the unknown.