//------------------------------// // Misery loves company // Story: Escalation of everything // by Elidjz //------------------------------// "But company does not love it." 'Thank you ponies but your misery is in another temple.' After an agonizing trek filled with obstacles, gravity defying roads, more chimera and duct taped 173 millimeter weaponry (Twilight counted) only to be greeted by a sign with that sentence written on it. Also the temple they had seen was just a massive cardboard cutout. And now another one could be seen further away. So they flipped a coin which, just happened to be there, landed on heads telling them to head towards the temple. So they decided to do the opposite of the opposite of the opposite of the opposite and add a random of opposites to get the result. Which was to head towards the temple. "Perish tou fiendish fiend." Luna shouted as she bucked the armored covered chimera who had grabbed her. Her kicks did nothing against its thick helmet and just as thick skull. Twilight was too busy Trying to defuse a bomb attached to a cat made out of plasma. The tiny bear was eating some cooked steak that had been laying there. "Why do these sharks have magic?!" Luna screamed as a dozen sharks were bitten through a door. "They're lazers, nothing magical about the..." Twilight was interrupted by a barrage of shots by one of the sharks, all of which were swimming through the air, which had a laser minigun attached to its back. The tiny bear was taking a nap. "I understand your distress at this sight but thee are definitely overreacting." Luna told Twilight who was busy having a seizure or stroke, maybe both, after having seen a block of ice that was on fire. And the fire was being melted by the ice. And the fact that it was floating in the air was just an insult to injury. The bear was enthralled at Twilight strange movements. 'Temple of misery. Affiliate of misery and co.' They had reached it, after 164 kilometers of travel through backwards everything and non-euclidian anything. Twilight, who had somehow become orange, and Luna, who had lost around 43 percent of her mane, both collapsed out of exhaustion. Twilight tried to get rid of her orange fur color with a few counterspells, which caused her to become every color in the book except for purple. The tiny bear laid beside the exhausted Luna, who was busy trying to salvage as much of her ravaged mane as possible. After managing as much damage control as possible, they opened the door. Obviously the door had to open in a backwards and complicated manner. The inside looked abnormal and colorful like everything else. The most notable thing was that the stairs were attached to the ceiling. Twilight poked her head inside and was instantly pulled inside and thrown onto the ceiling. She stood up and walked onto it like she was onto the floor. "Gravity is reversed." She told Luna. Luna then followed inside before being thrown onto the ceiling herself. The bear landed on her. Getting their bearings back from the sudden reversed gravity. They look... "Hello, I adore company. Are you company?" Both the ponies and the bear turned around and looked at the figure now standing behind them. It was a bipedal red scaled lizard gecko with a longtail and feathers around its neck and lower limbs. It was wearing a black robe with a hood on and there were two chains with censers hanging on  the sides of the hoody. "Let me guess, thee is misery." Luna said with a semi-sarcastic tone. "No you idiot, I'm Torment you. Misery loves company and I clearly said that I adored company. The difference is obvious." They answered with the most nonchalant and joyful tone possible. This left Luna slightly speechless. "Okay, we were told to head here, but we weren't told what to do." Twilight interjected. "Yes you were. You were told to come here and now that you're here you can head towards your next objectif and also the door you entered through has disappeared and bad luck getting out." Torment said before leaving through a door too tiny for them to physically fit though. They then pocked their head back through the door. "Also there's one other guest that came here before you and they're lots of fun, bye." And then they left again.  Both ponies sighed out of frustration. "Let's just try to find to exit to this henious building as quickly a possible."  So she opened the nearest door. The first thing she noticed, besides how unnaturally big this room was, was that Twilight was tied to rail tracks. "How did thee get there?" She asked. "I don't know, I blinked and then I appeared here." Twilight answered nervously. On a board the words 'The trolley problem' were written on them with a lever beside it. Two arrows were painted on the ground one pointed towards Twilight and the other towards... a bunch of plushies which suddenly started crying in terror and pleading for help all of which were tied on other tracks. It was obviously a recording coming from the granophon that lay besides the plushies. "Wha..." Was the only thing they could both say before a trolley fell onto the plushies and blew into a medium sized fireball. After untying Twilight they quickly left. Luna was the one to open the door again. She saw an unnaturally big room and Twilight tied to the tracks again. Before she could turn her head to see where they had come from, she was fully thrown through the door which then proceeded to disappear with a ridiculous sound effect. A board with 'The double trolley problem' written on it lay in between the tracks. This time only one plushie was tied to the other tracks. This one actually moved slightly and the word help was repeated over and over again from the radio that was duct taped to its head. "That's an animatronic." Twilight pointed out, which got her a curious glare from her companion. "Its a new thing in the Griffonian republic, the Grifonnian empire, the republic of France and the kingdom of Gryffon Sale." She added. Two trolleys then fell onto the animatronic. Twilight got untied and then they left through the nearest door again. This time twilight opened the door only to find herself tied to rail tracks again. "How!?" They both shouted. 'The trolley conundrum' was written on the board this time. Both ponies shoute in frustration as they came to the dreadful and also very obvious conclusion that this place was going to be extremely frustrating. "Luna, waarom heb je me verraden?!" The crushed and burning cardboard cutout of Celestia shouted through its multiple megaphones. Even if it had been a carbon copy of celestia, instead of a cardboard cutout, Luna wouldn't have fallen for that ruse. Mainly due to the fact that had a very deep voice of a stallion with a very deep accent that Celestia never had. And also while the imitation spoke a language that Luna had mastered, she knew that Celestia didn't even know a word of that language. Twilight got herself untied again. "83." "What?" Luna asked. "This is the eighty third time that we've done this." "And it's getting boring." A veyr androgynous voice said. An ethereal figure then appeared besides Twilight. "You're entertaining and your friend speaks funny." It then added. Luna was busy looking at its hide which looked like a strange, yet beautiful night sky. Twilight was trying to come up with a scientific explanation for the mildly glowing multi limbed creature in front of her, as she knew that she had seen or read something about such a creature. "This is going to be fun." It added non-chanantly as its featureless face started smiling."