Faced yet again with the sight of perpetual darkness, the young stallion hesitated, but only for a moment. Having already gone through a similar door before, Firestorm felt a bit more comfortable, if barely, as he ventured through this new abyss. Already he had considered it a step up from the last, as he could actually feel himself moving across its expanse this time. In the distance, he saw another door, but unlike the portal from before it seemed to be an out of place brown mahogany door with a simple black metal handle. He would have considered himself lucky to not be forced into another exitless void, but given his circumstances, he couldn’t rightly call anything about his situation lucky.
He stopped just in front of the door, hesitating to reach for its handle as the memory from only several minutes prior began to plague him. The sheer absurdity of it all, the gravity of what laid in store for him, and the one title that seemed to make it all end in blood-boiling rage. That title was ‘The Trial of Sustainment.’
Just the mere thought of that name infuriated him beyond belief, and seeing as how he was finally alone for once, he decided that now was as good a time as any to finally let it all out. By it, he meant a deluge of profanities and curses upon anything and everything in this new world he had landed in. It felt cathartic, venting it all out against the darkness with no supernatural beings, or shadow monsters, or annoying maids to chastise him for showing a basic pony emotion. Soon his enraged babbling had been reduced to a single echoing scream into the abyss, as he forced out as much of his anger and frustration as he could.
There was still a great deal left, some so deep that he feared he may never truly rid himself of it, but regardless, he felt content with the relative calm that followed. Something about this void felt oddly comforting to him, and that was thanks to the fact that he finally had some time to himself. With a tired sigh, he grabbed a seat on the shadowy ground and decided to enjoy his isolation while it lasted. As far as he knew, there was no time here anyway.
As he sat in silence, his thoughts of course shifted to the trial. Calling it cruel would have been a gross understatement. It was barbaric, inhumane, it was… pure diabolical evil! The thought of these creatures pulling ponies from other dimensions, each with their own family, friends, and lives, only to have them murder each other in front of the whole world was just sickening. The host and the papers both claimed it was for the survival of their dimension, but Firestorm wasn’t having any of that. What kind of world sacrificed innocent lives like that, just to go on and consider itself worth saving in the end?
Nightmare Moon, Sombra, Discord, Tirek, Chrysalis, hell even the Noxxa Clan seemed more tame in comparison. He knew that his old friend Freedom Fighter would have been inclined to disagree, especially after what they did to their family, but in the heat of the moment, he just wanted to feel right in this. When pulling something this depraved, on a scale this large, he wanted to believe that all of his friends would consider this as big of an affront to nature as he did.
After burning a sizable chunk of his frustration away, Firestorm sighed and stood up once again. He didn’t want to go back into that world, but even so, it’s horrors managed to beat out the void. Even if it was by some minuscule margin. Whatever his fate entailed, he wouldn’t figure it out by wasting away in the darkness. If there was any chance that he could find a way out of this later, he’d take it, and make sure that everyone else got that very same chance. He vowed it.
Exiting the door, Firestorm stepped into a similar brown and redwood hallway to the last. He turned and was unsurprised to see the door he had just come through nowhere to be found, instead replaced by a smooth wooden wall. Scanning from left to right, he saw no signs of life waiting to take him anywhere as the host had promised. Feeling confident, he took a step forward and began looking around for any kind of path or exit nearby, but his sense of defiant searching was quickly interrupted by a familiar voice.
"Oh! You're here!” Called the sweet as honey voice of Wet Nurse. Firestorm turned and found himself face to face with the twin maids once again after they had seemingly appeared out of thin air. Wet Nurse stood politely with her hands in front of her while rendering a noticeably tired smile, while Foal Bearer sat on the carpeted floor with her head hanging beside her knee, snoring like a bear halfway through winter.
Wet Nurse gave an embarrassed chuckle and shimmied closer to her sister before giving her a light kick in the side. Foal Bearer woke up with a snort and began looking all around in groggy confusion. "Wha? Huh?" The older twin looked around, eventually getting used to where they now were, and rested her eyes on Firestorm. "Finally! Took you long enough." She said with annoyance as she stood up and dusted off her uniform.
Firestorm opened his mouth, prepared to voice his confusion, but before he could Wet Nurse interrupted. “You may have only felt like you were gone for a few moments, but you were actually gone for a couple of hours. The rest of the prospects have already been registered, so we were simply waiting to be warped here upon your arrival." Firestorm mouthed the word 'warped' in confusion as she'd explained, but he quickly dropped the thought altogether after considering how fluid their use of time and dimensions had been so far.
"Well, sorry for keeping you waiting," He offered after some slight hesitation. "But given the circumstances… I hope you understand why I took my time." Wet Nurse nodded, and Foal Bearer gave a short yawn followed by the shake of her head.
"Well technically it was our time you were taking, but whatever," She replied candidly while looking off to the side and stretching her arms. “Honestly, I wish you would’ve stayed in there until you were trapped, I finally had a good nap going.”
Firestorm glared at the annoying mare, his deep reserve of frustration quickly shortening his temper. "Oh, poor baby! Did I get in the way of your beauty sleep?” He said with feigned sympathy until he looked at her from top to bottom and changed his tone to one of disgust. “Or in your case… just sleep?”
Foal Bearer shot him a glare in response, before returning to her signature smug smile. “You know, being a maid isn’t my only job. I specialize in castration too,” She then lifted her hand, summoning a giant battle-ax that seemed far too heavy for her to wield with her thin arms, but somehow she managed to catch it without even flinching. “I could demonstrate if you’d like.” Firestorm suddenly found himself at a loss for words and gulped down the emotion that was most definitely not fear.
“That’s what I thought,” she said while desummoning her weapon and walking down the hall. "Now come on you idiot," Foal Bearer said with a bit of a chuckle. "We'll take you to your quarters. You'll be able to take all the time you want when you’re there." Firestorm growled under his breath as he followed the maids down the hall, keeping his distance from Foal, but allowing Wet to walk beside him.
The hallway fell into silence as they walked, but it wasn't long until Wet Nurse lightly nudged his arm to get his attention. “You certainly like poking the bear, huh?” She asked with a smile. Firestorm gave her a smile of his own and nodded his head towards Foal Bearer.
“Now, do you call her a bear because she’s strong, easily provoked, or because of the way she snores?” He asked with a chuckle.
Wet Nurse tapped her chin for a moment and pursed her lips as she thought. “Yes.” They both shared a decent laugh at her answer until it naturally died down. After it did, she looked up at Firestorm with a contemplative smile on her face. “In all seriousness though, my sister's a really sweet pony. Underneath her rough attitude is a pony that cares a lot about the contestants that come through that portal.”
Firestorm raised an eyebrow at her, skeptically. “Eh, I’ll believe it when I see it.” He said with a dismissive wave.
“Well actually, you already have,” Wet Nurse said, piquing Firestorms interest once again. “You know that potion we gave you when you first came here? It was actually a potion made to help you deal with the pain of your body transforming. Trust me when I say that you wouldn't be walking around right now without it.” Firestorm looked down at his hands and gave them an experimental flex as she talked, and took notice of the small bit of soreness he felt in his joints. “Originally, we weren’t supposed to give that to everypony that changed.
“At first, the host denied the consumption of pain killer potions for the contestants until they were registered, but Foal Bearer was the only one brave enough to butt heads with him on it. The host got... pretty mad when she did…” Wet Nurse gave a slight shiver as she remembered the event, painting a horrifying picture without needing to say a word. “But after a lot of pushback, she somehow managed to change his mind. Thus, for the past couple of years, the new potion has been put into place for the ponies who transformed.” She finished her brief recap with a smile and continued walking in silence, seemingly happy with not receiving a response from him.
Firestorm nodded along as he mulled over her story, and looked off towards Foal Bearer who was still quite a ways ahead of them. He certainly didn’t want to take her story at face value, since it was normal for siblings to try and make their family sound nice, but even so, he understood what she meant by telling him that. Foal Bearer was just a pony doing her job, like almost every pony else who could be easily seen as evil. Holding the sins of this world against her personally wasn’t fair.
He would be lying if he said he hadn’t specifically named her when cursing into the void, but now that he’d had a moment to cool off, he understood that Foal Bearer and Wet Nurse were not the ones to focus on. The shadow creature responsible for bringing them here was the true face of evil, despite his literal lack of one. If anypony deserved some slack to be cut their way, then it might have been the maids who, in all honesty, were the only ones so far to treat him with an ounce of respect.
The walking continued for another minute or two with the similar-looking halls blending together the further they went, until they'd finally arrived at their destination. There against the wall, feeling completely out of place compared to the rustic decor and warm-colored wood surrounding it, was a dark solid metal door. It honestly looked more like a large safe than a room in the wall.
"This right here's your room, you’ll be staying here until somepony says otherwise," as Firestorm and Wet Nurse approached, Foal opened up the door to reveal the well-furnished quarters inside. The entire area looked as big as an upscale Canterlot apartment, and the decor was so exceedingly lavish that he felt like he'd just wandered into a royal suite meant for a princess.
"Yeah, yeah, drink it all in," Foal Bearer said while rolling her wrist impatiently. "Now, we have to go to a meeting with Twilight and we are already behind schedule. Little miss OCD will have our heads on plates if we don't hightail it over. We would stay and show you how things work, but thanks to your little break we'll have to just take a rain check." She said with a grin.
Firestorm looked towards her, and this time he decided to take a deep breath and meet her halfway. "Thank you… very much Foal Bearer." He gave a slight nod, garnering a raised brow of confusion from the mare.
"Well, make yourself comfortable," Wet Nurse said with a wave as Foal Bearer began to close the door. "Your partner should be here, but if he's not then he'll be over soon. You will become a team during the phases that are to come. Good Luck!"
Firestorm's face immediately dropped as he heard this bombshell of sudden news. "Wait, what?! Partner!?" But by then the door had already closed. He attempted to open it up and continue his line of questioning, but unsurprisingly the handle refused to move. "Of course,” He growled as he slammed his head and fist into the door. “Just drop that bomb on me as you're leaving, that’s totally fine. And yet they wonder why I didn't feel sympathy for them."
With a sigh, Firestorm let go of the door and walked further into the room, deciding to take this time to inspect all it had to offer. As stated before, it was a pristinely decorated marble white room that seemed completely out of place compared to the humble and warm wooden interior of the palace they had been traversing so far. He figured that this place was yet another pocket area that they used portal magic to hold. It seemed like so far nothing about the rooms he’d seen had any cohesion, aside from the lingering air of menace.
To his left, he saw a walk-in kitchen with an assortment of common appliances and storage areas. There was a fridge, a sink, a rack filled with an assortment of utensils, and a wooden marble top island in the middle of the kitchen. He saw a few other items that he couldn’t quite put his hoof… or finger on, such as a metallic box with a window on it, but he figured that the kitchen was the least of his worries for now.
He stepped further inside and looked at the modestly sized lounging area on his right. There was a large alabaster couch with golden accented stitching on its sides, big enough to fit three ponies of his size, and two smaller lounge chairs with identical fabric color and stitching. All of them sat on a pristine and fluffy white carpet below facing a wooden stand against the wall with a large flat black object in the middle of it. He gazed into its glassy screen for a moment, pondering its purpose, but eventually left a pin in that conundrum as well.
He looked further off towards the back of the suite and noticed a hallway leading into what he presumed to be the bedrooms, but he decided to leave that for when he actually got tired. He shifted his gaze back down to the mass of newspapers under his arm and squinted at them, determined to delve even further into what knowledge they held. He had only skimmed them when in the office, but now was as good a time as any to educate himself further on the world's perception of the trial.
He walked around to the front side of the large couch while flipping up the top newspaper from an agency called ‘The Citadel Times’. He grabbed a seat after reading the title out loud, but his train of thought was interrupted by a sharp pain in his rear end. He reached for the source of the disturbance, eventually pulling out a small black tool covered in buttons. As he gripped it, he noticed that his thumb had been pressing down on a large button near the top, and as he released pressure the strange device against the wall flicked to life
He jumped back in surprise as the pitch-black screen suddenly became filled with colors, images, and sounds of all kinds. They flashed around for a moment before landing on a strange stage where four well-dressed ponies behind pedestals stood facing a massive wheel in the floor. “Alright, Lemon Meringue, are you ready to try your luck… and give it another spin?” A different pony who was not in frame asked the scrawny light brown stallion with glasses.
The pony in question took in a deep breath and nodded. “I’m ready!” He exclaimed before the wheel beneath him began to spin around in circles. Firestorm watched on in complete bewilderment as the strange device played the events before his very eyes. It was much like going to the movie theater, but instead of a projector and massive canvas, it was all localized in something no bigger than a common dresser mirror. He had no idea what he was even watching, but something about the crisp images and sounds it made was enough to completely entrance him.
The screen zoomed in on the stallion's face as he watched the wheel spin until everything abruptly changed to static. Once the interruption had dispersed, the previous broadcast had been replaced by a singular shot of two ponies, a pure white mare, and a beige stallion both wearing suits, sitting at a desk while looking into the camera.
“We interrupt this program to bring you a breaking news update on the trial of sustainment,” The stallion said in a voice reminiscent of a politician. The only difference was that he didn’t seem to have the tell-tale condescending voice one would expect. “We have just received confirming reports that all 24 Prospects have been received!” He said with a smile as the camera panned over to his face and displayed a picture of several silhouetted ponies beside him. The ponies had no distinct features and were covered in shadows, leading Firestorm to believe that it was just an example image.
The camera suddenly panned outwards to keep the mare beside him in frame as she began to speak as well. “With us is the host of the trial. You know her well, the premier party pony herself, Pinkie Pie!” Firestorm gasped as the shot panned over to reveal the pink party pony in question. She wore a sparkling black dress, as well as perfectly straightened hair that seemed almost unreal when mentally compared to the frazzled mess he’d known the Element of Laughter to have. “Tell us Pinkie Pie, what can we expect on this, the 50th annual trial of sustainment?”
Pinkie tossed her hair aside and scoffed at the question. “Oh! You know I can’t go revealing the big surprise right now, we’re so close to the main event!” She said with an almost unsettlingly big smile.
“Really?” The mare asked in what looked to be feigned surprise. “It’s not like you to keep secrets from the adoring fans at home, Pinkie.” As they continued talking back and forth about sharing ‘the big secret’ Firestorm started wracking his brain together to do the math. They said this was an annual tournament, the 50th annual tournament to be exact. If there were 23 contestants dead, times forty-nine tournaments, that would mean there were just over eleven hundred different ponies already sacrificed to this world.
His stomach churned for a moment as the voices on the screen faded into the background. Hearing them speak about this with smiles and laughter through a strange magical mirror made it feel like a bad dream for a moment, but once the moment had passed it somehow felt even more real than before. He started taking deep breaths, calming himself back down and forcing his brain to relax for a moment and think. If over a thousand other ponies had been here, then some of them must have tried to escape, right? He knew it was a long shot to believe that any of them had succeeded, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t something they left behind to lead him in the right direction. If he were in their horseshoes, and he knew that more ponies would come, he’d have left a trail of some kind exactly where nopony but a contestant would find it.
As Firestorm mulled over his options and rapidly changing survival plans, he heard the ponies on the screen saying something mid-sentence that caught his attention. “... really true that the previous winner, Beatrix Belladonna, will be joining us this year?”
Pinkie gave a knowing smile and leaned back in her chair. “Oh well, I guess there’s no reason to try and keep that one a secret,” They all shared a good laugh like friends at a picnic, but Firestorm merely groaned and rolled his eyes at their fake joy. “The rumors are true,” She said while looking at the screen. “The previous winner who’d had a surprise victory in last year's trial is returning not as a competitor, but as the newest trainer for the newest of prospects.” A picture appeared beside her depicting a new purple-skinned, platinum maned, unicorn mare. She was wearing a cone-shaped, wide-brimmed, hat and a high cut legless leotard ending in a thong.
Firestorm couldn’t deny how stunning she looked from just the image alone, but there was also a hint of intimidation that came with it. He could tell that she was very powerful just by appearances, her confident face giving off the impression that she was more than well prepared for anything the world could throw at her.
“Never before has a pony stayed with us after claiming the champion status,” Pinkie continued. “but that just means she must love the games as much as I do!” She said while turning to the newscasters.
“I don’t think anypony loves these games as much as you do Pinkie Pie,” The stallion said with a chuckle. “As we wait on the prospects to be finalized and brought to the stage, we’ll take you on a little trip down memory lane. Here are the highlights of the 49th trial of sustainment.” Firestorm leaned forward in anticipation as the screen suddenly changed from the newsroom to a bird's eye view of a jungle of some kind.
There were several flashy cuts as it showed many different ponies, some normal, and some who had changed just like him. Their pictures went by far too fast for him to soak in, but the final picture it had lingered on was the supposed winner named Beatrix casting a form of magic from her opened palm. What followed was a series of gruesome scenes recounting the conflict of the previous years’ trial.
A couple of ponies wearing survival gear and backpacks ran down a hill as a band of tigers chased after them. Then it showed a group of ponies all fighting each other in a massive clearing, with some firing magic at others, and some being impaled on spears and arrows. What followed was a slow scene of the winner Beatrix, and a shorter blue-coated bipedal pony standing together by a waterfall.
“We’ll make it through this,” The mare said, her voice filled with determination and hope as she faced him. “I know we will!” Then, directly following that scene, it switched to an angle looking up into Beatrix’s angered face as she pointed her hand down and lit an unseen object on fire. The recording ended on her image as the force of the spell blew her hair backward in a terrifyingly elegant display, then slowly faded back into the newsroom filled with the laughter of the news ponies.
“Oh man, what a wild ride those 12 days were.” The stallion said as he wiped a tear from his eye and turned towards the mare. “Who were you rooting for?”
The mare waved her hand and gave a slight chuckle. “You know me, I was a fan of that brave young stallion who was paired with Beatrix. He was the youngest competitor so far, at only fourteen, and yet he was still scrappy enough to make it into the final hour.”
The screen finally panned out, showing that Pinkie had disappeared all of a sudden, and lingered on the newscasters. “Well, that’s all we have so far. We return you to your regularly scheduled program, but stay tuned for more updates that are sure to come!” With that, the screen changed back to the program it had shown before, but by then Firestorm couldn’t care less. All he was interested in now was getting as much information as possible.
After what he’d just witnessed, he was left with far more questions than answers. It seemed like the deaths of almost everypony was becoming more of an inevitability the longer he thought about it, but there was still hope that the contestants before him had made progress. He also caught glimpses of the arena from last year and wondered if it’d be the same for the 50th. He couldn’t remember off the top of his head if he’d have an advantage, but at least being a pegasus would have it’s uses in a hard to see environment like that.
He thought back deeper into the broadcast, cursing Pinkie Pie for not having looser lips on what to expect, but then remembered a crushing possibility. The youngest competitor to date had been fourteen years old, and that was last year. Would that mean that another child could become a contestant? He prayed that it wouldn’t be the case, but he couldn’t say that he wouldn’t expect it from these savages.
And just like that, his thoughts gravitated back to the big surprise for this trial, the previous winner returning to have a hand in the games. Just who was this ‘Beatrix Belladonna’? Why in the world would she stay here after her victory? It could've been that she was just being kept here against her will, but as far as he knew, it was just as likely that she was a monster who only enjoyed the stardom. He just hoped that the thing she’d set on fire in the recap hadn’t been the literal child she was paired with.
Firestorm pulled up the rest of the newspapers that he had yet to read, eventually sorting them into the most interesting headlines, and was about to commence until he was interrupted once again. “Woah! Hey there!” He snapped his head towards the long hallway he had neglected to search and saw another bipedal pony leaning against the wall. He was a Cyan pegasus with a crimson mane and a white fedora on his head. He wore a simple pair of black jeans, as well as an undone dark blue button-up over a white t-shirt. “Was wondering when you’d show up!”
The stallion took a step forward, prompting Firestorm to tense his muscles and stand in defense. As soon as he did though, the stallion's eyes widened in shock before he tripped over his own hooves. Firestorm relaxed for a moment as he watched the clumsy stallion pick himself up while silently cursing at himself, and even cracked a faint smile. “Sorry, just not used to walking like this yet. You should have seen how long it took for me to get these clothes on.” He said with a chuckle as he shakily stood back up.
“Speaking of clothes… have you tried any on yet? I know I was asleep for a while.” He said while awkwardly trying to keep his eyes glued to Firestorm's face.
“Uh, clothes? Why would I need that?” He asked in confusion.
The stallion coughed into his hand and rubbed the back of his neck for a moment. “Well, let’s just say we aren’t as ‘covered up’ as we normally are on four hooves.” He said while motioning his head downwards. Firestorm followed his gaze and realized what he meant, but unlike him, he was pretty unfazed.
“Uh… I guess?” He said with a bit of uncertainty. “Is it for protecting yourself? Like armor or something?” He asked, still unsure as to what the use of clothes would be to him, and to an extent, the other ponies of this world. In his experience, if the clothes weren’t meant for the express purpose of protecting you, or part of some formal event, then all they really succeeded in doing was slowing you down.
The stallion looked from side to side, then back to Firestorm like he was crazy. “You’re joking, right?” Firestorm merely shrugged in response. “Well, it’s because the ponies in this world have specific rules about… decency, and…” The look on his face was growing increasingly more uncomfortable, until he’d finally reached a point of acceptance.
“You know what? Whatever dude, you do you,” He said with a wave of his hand, effectively shirking any kind of responsibility on future events relating to this. “Just trying to give you the heads up so Foal Bearer doesn’t get on your case like she did with me,” The stallion then walked closer and took a seat on the couch, before looking up to Firestorm and extending his hand. “Name’s Silver Chance by the way.”
He nodded at the stallion, now known by the name Silver Chance, and accepted the handshake. “Firestorm,” He replied as he took a seat beside him. “And thanks for the advice, but I think I’ll take my chances with Foal Bearer, try as she might, she doesn’t scare me.”
Silver Chance let out a laugh at the proclamation as he picked up the remote and started pressing buttons. “I guess that makes one of us. You ask me though, Foal Bearer is nothing compared to that terrifying sister of hers.”
Firestorm raised his eyebrow at Silver, unable to tell whether or not the stallion was joking. “Who? Wet Nurse? The timid girl? She’s a total sweetheart.” He reasoned, unable to see the logic in being afraid of her of all ponies.
“Oh come one, don’t you know the first rule of being somewhere this crazy?” He asked while gesturing to him with the remote in his hand. “Never trust anypony, especially sweethearts, because those are the ones who are really messed up in the head.”
Firestorm mulled it over for a second, and couldn’t help but agree that it was sound advice. “Well, I guess you have a point. Something about those two just rubbed me the wrong way the moment I laid eyes on them.”
“It’s too convenient, right? The way they act? Classic good cop bad cop routine!” Silver Chance added in as he flipped through the images on the screen. Firestorm thought back to the moments he’d been in their presence and suddenly kicked himself in the head for not realizing it sooner. They were of course running the good cop, bad cop, shtick on him, and he fell for it every time! He needed to remember to keep his guard up when around anypony from this dimension.
He gave Silver Chance a side glance as he continued fiddling with the remote, admiring his quick and calm thinking when under the pressure of the situation. It reminded him a lot of his friends back home and gave him a prime reason to make him an ally for the days to come.
“You seem to be taking this situation in stride, eh Silver?” He asked nonchalantly, trying to get some insight into how he ticked before springing any of his own information out.
Silver Chance shrugged and let out a tired sigh. “Hey, when you’ve seen your whole family die in front of you, you learn to take the world-shattering revelations as they come. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with the world kicking me in the balls.” Firestorm looked at him with wide eyes, but then smiled along with him and even gave a chuckle. He’d layered what seemed to be a tragic backstory full of death into a concise dark-humored joke while explaining some of his own coping mechanisms at the same time. It was practically like he’d found a fedora toting replica of his friend Freedom Fighter.
“I’ve seen a bit of the news from this world, and I sort of know what’s going on. All I can say is, I’ve come too far to die here. I ain’t letting any of these schmucks kill me,” He said with a confident bit of swagger before looking off to Firestorm. “Uh, no offense.”
Firestorm shook his head and smirked at him. “None taken, because I don’t plan on killing you,” This time, it was Silver Chance’s turn to raise an eyebrow at him. Firestorm leaned closer, just for the added effect, and whispered to him. “I plan on getting out of here, and I think that together we might just be able to do it.”
Silver Chance hummed in thought as he brought a hand to his chin, then looked at Firestorm intensely. “Really? You look pretty strong. You might even have a good chance at winning. Why even bother?” He asked.
Firestorm leaned back, his mind drawing a blank when it came to answering that question, but soon his heart took over and told him exactly why he couldn’t leave things as they were. “Because what’s happening here is nothing short of barbaric. I won’t let them turn me into a puppet for their entertainment, and I’d be no better if I didn't try to offer that chance to everypony who came here with me. If I’m going home in a body bag, then I’m going on my terms. Are you with me?” Firestorm knew that on the ‘rousing speech’ scale that it was a C at best, but he could see the gears turning in Silver's head. Right now, a C might have been all he needed to turn the tide.
Silver hummed in thought some more. “That sounds like a very stupid plan, one that will not only fail and get us caught, but surely get us killed before we even have a chance to be in the tournament.” He said while still rubbing his chin.
“So in short, the best kind of plan?” Firestorm said with a quickly widening grin as Silver Chance also started to smile.
“I like the cut of your jib.” Silver said as he leaned back. “Welp, I’ve certainly gotten away with stupider shit. I’m in!” With that, they shook hands once again, finalizing their alliance. As soon as they parted, however, a loud twisting noise was heard near the metal door. From the entrance stood a bored-looking Foal Bearer, sans her sister, with the very same intimidating oversized purple battle-ax against her shoulder.
Quickly, both Firestorm and Silver Chance stood up and prepared for a fight, fearing that she’d heard their plan to escape and arrived to deal with them. Foal Bearer raised an eyebrow at them questioningly, before breaking the silence with a scoff and a roll of her eyes. “Come on you two, ceremony’s about to start. We need you to get medically evaluated, then it’s off to parade you on stage for the world to see.”
Silver Chance and Firestorm shared a look, then nodded in unison. They were good to go for now and just needed to bide their time until they had a moment to strategize on their own. “Alright, I guess there’s no getting around it.” Firestorm said as he made his way to the door.
“Uh, dude?” Silver Chance interrupted, gaining the pegasi’s attention. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” He then gestured to himself with both hands and an ‘are you serious?’ look on his face. Firestorm looked down and gasped in realization, although he still didn’t feel that it was as urgent as Silver Chance made it seem.
“Oh, right, clothes. I guess it is a big event they’d expect us to dress up for.” Suddenly, Foal Bearer groaned in disappointment from behind him.
“Aw, come on! You made me lose a bet, you candy-colored idiot! We were trying to see how long he’d go like that!” She yelled to Silver Chance who flinched for a moment, before quickly recovering and coming to a sudden realization.
“Oh, so that’s the reason you never told him? Some stupid bet?” He asked in disbelief.
Suddenly, Foal Bearer gave a coy smile and started looking at Firestorm from top to bottom. “Well… one of the reasons.” Firestorm cringed for a moment as she said this, and suddenly the thought of being anywhere near her while undressed made him feel very uncomfortable.
“Eugh, I’m gonna go and change.” He said while shooting her a look of disgust as he made his way towards the hall.
Silver Chance just shook his head and sighed as he followed his new partner into the back rooms. “You’re going to need some help.”
Foal Bearer let out a hearty laugh as she watched them leave, one that actually held a hint of joy as opposed to cynicism. “Don’t spend too long touching tips in there, we’re on Pinkie’s time now. She’s got a short fuse, and that psycho’s bad side is the last place we want to be!” She yelled after them.
Once Firestorm and Silver Chance entered the room, they closed the door behind them and let out a sigh of relief. They were out of Foal Bearer’s earshot, and despite not having much time, they were still able to agree on one simple rule. Together they’d keep an eye out for anything that could aid them, including possible exits, clues, and other ponies they could rely on. After all of that, they would reconvene in the room and share their findings when away from prying eyes. The ceremony would be their first chance to meet the other contestants, and as many wise ponies said, first impressions were everything.
They needed to play their cards right if they were going to get any of the others on their side.