Fire and Fear
Note: This story is a sequel to the alternate ending of Cupcakes by Siren Scythe. Also my first fan fiction so constructive criticism is appreciated.
A Nightmares Return
Chapter 1
As she pounded against the oven door with her front hooves, Pinkie not only heard her own voice screaming out to Rainbow Dash, she also heard other voices. As she listened closer to them, she began to understand what they were saying and then realization hit her. She knew these voices and it was pure irony, that she heard them now.
‘’ You dirty, little, whore, when I get free I’m going to kill you and all of your fucking friends’’, Gilda screamed as Pinkie ripped her feathers out one by one.
Pinkie sat down remembering, how many ponies she killed and baked, right in this very oven. No, she didn’t want to die in here. Not where everypony she killed could see her die. NO! As she heard the sound of the heat knob being turned up, she lost all hope. An inferno danced around her and she screamed in agonizing pain as she burned to ashes. She got a little foretaste of what her soul will see and feel at the place she will now go to. HELL!
Outside of Sugarcube Corner Twilight Sparkle looked at the overclouded sky.
‘’ Is Rainbow still asleep or is she training again?’’, she asked herself as she saw a cyan-blue dot at the edge of her vision.
She looked down and saw the pony in question. But something was off. Then Twilight noticed the deep gash on Rainbows side. She ran over to her as fast as she could manage. At the moment she reached her friend, Rainbow collapsed on the ground. Twilight panicked, what had happened to Rainbow? Why did she stumble out of Sugarcube Corner like this? But one question screamed louder than any other question: Where is Pinkie and did something happen to HER? Twilight called out for help and several minutes later Rainbow was on her way to the hospital. Twilight looked after the ambulance wagon and turned to face Sugarcube Corner. Whatever happened in there, she’s going to find out. Twilight entered Sugarcube Corner through the door Rainbow stumbled out of and walked right into the kitchen. She looked around there were some time, pans scattered on the floor and the oven was running at full blast. Somepony clearly had a fight in here. Twilight switched of the oven; she didn’t want the Cakes to waste too much gasoline. But why was the oven running in the first place? She opened the door and looked inside, just to see a pile of ashes scattered at the bottom.
‘’Well somepony must have forgotten to turn it out in time before everything was burned up.’’, Twilight muttered to herself while closing the oven again. ’’Where could you be Pinkie?’’, the unicorn asked out loud.
She began to search through the sweetshop but couldn’t find the pink mare. At last she came back into the kitchen and looked down to the basement.
‘’Well if she is not down there, I could add another thing to the ’Things about Pinkie Pie you cannot explain’ list’’. Twilight chuckled to herself remembering the accident with Pinkie’s Pinkie Sense.
She trotted down the stairs into the basement, dwelling in thoughts about her friends. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she saw nothing but darkness, but her eyes adapted themselves quite fast to the new light conditions and what she saw was far worse than any horror story she had read in her entire life. The sight of the crimson red painted room burned into her head, with his skulls and dried intestines all over the place.
She turned around and hurried out of this sick and twisted place as fast as her hooves could carry her. Her destination was the hospital. She had to get to Rainbow. She had to know where Pinkie was. SHE HAD TO KNOW WHAT HAD HAPPENED.
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Nurse Redheart was at the information desk as a purple unicorn come crushing through the front door shouting, while looking at her. She often saw ponies getting worked up over minor stuff, like little cuts so she slowly walked over to the unicorn and looked her in the eyes.
"OK now calm down or I have to throw you out. This IS a hospital after all." The Unicorn seemed to calm down and stopped talking after a little while.
"Fine, now tell me who you are and why are you here?"
"My name is Twilight Sparkle and I called an ambulance earlier this day, because one of my friends got hurt very badly. I have to know where she is."
She recognized the purple mare after a little thought.
"Ah, Miss Sparkle. Yes your friend is here, but I’m very sorry I can’t let you in her room."
" WHY?"
"Miss Sparkle, I told you to calm down. For your friend, she’s in a state of shock. She’s awake, but she doesn’t respond to either doctors or nurses."
"Can I see her at least?"
"I can show you where the room is but you are NOT allowed to go in, ok?"
"Okay."
They trotted down a long corridor until they stopped in front of the room Rainbow lay in. Twilight looked through the window in the door. She saw a sterile, white room. On the left side was a bed in which her friend sat with a blank look on her face. As Twilight watched Rainbow she felt a deep sense of compassion for her friend. Whoever hurt her friend like that got him in some bad trouble. But first things first, she needed to ask Rainbow where Pinkie went. For that reason she had to get rid of Nurse Redheart. As Twilight dwelled deep in her thoughts, she heard a constant, unnerving sound. She didn’t notice what it was, but the reaction of the nurse made it pretty clear. She rushed into one of the neighboring rooms to help the patient, whose heart just stopped beating. Thank you Celestia, this is MY CHANCE, Twilight thought and immediately slapped herself for taking advantage of somepony, who could die any moment. But she had to ask Rainbow, what had happened so she entered her room as silently as she could manage and rushed to the side of her bed. She took a good look at her friend. Rainbow sat in her bed her side bandaged up with some minor scratches on her face and body. But her eyes told a different story. She just looked out of the window with a lifeless look. Twilight didn’t recognize her friend anymore. The once so agile pony was now gazing out of an open window instead of flying in the sky, like she used to do. Twilight couldn’t stop the tears anymore.
But slowly her grief was replaced by hate. Hate for the pony who did this. She heard hooves in the other room; she had not much time left. And then she made the biggest mistake so far.
’’ Rainbow, do you hear me?’’
No answer.
‘’Who did this to you?’’
No answer.
‘’Where is Pinkie?’’
Suddenly Rainbow grabbed her head and Twilight was pulled close to her face. The cyan mare held her tight in her steel-like grip. Twilight looked franticly around and after a while back to her friend. Her eyes were no longer lifeless and it seemed that their color would turn red from rage any second now.
She hissed into Twilight's ear ‘‘Life is a party, do you understand? LIFE. IS. A. PARTY!''.
‘‘Rainbow calm down it’s me, Twilight. Don’t you recognize me?’’.
Rainbow fixated her horn and she grinned madly. ‘’Your horn. She will tie it on her necklace’’.
Twilight heard the door being opened behind her and a familiar voiced called out ‘’Miss Sparkle, what ARE you doing?’’.
‘’ Fast get her off of me!’’ Twilight begged Nurse Redheart.
She felt hooves grabbing her from behind and pulling her out of Rainbow’s grip. As Rainbow suddenly let go of her she fell backwards. She stumbled a long way, finally falling down. Twilight shook her head, because she had hit her head on something hard. She wondered what she had hit on her way down.
‘’Miss Sparkle would you kindly GET UP!’’
Oh right, she had fallen on Nurse Redheart and nudged her head on the Nurses chin. Twilight stumbled on her hooves quickly apologizing to the Nurse, whose head was now a crimson red.
’’Miss Sparkle, I told you that you should not go in here. Your friend is in a state of shock and you just WALKED in here and startled her like that.’’
Redheart shoved Twilight out of the room back into the corridor.
‘’I … I … I am sorry. I just want to find my other friend. She just v … v … vanished and I need to find her. AND Rainbow was the last pony who saw her.’’ Twilight stammered, trying to explain her motivations.
Nurse Redheart glared at her. Her glare was colder than anything Twilight had ever seen.
‘’ That does NOT justify such a behavior, Miss Sparkle.’’ The Nurse’s voice was even colder than her stare.
‘’ I … I … I know but, Pinkie got lost somewhere or worse abducted and I can’t think about any other way of finding her.’’
‘’I don’t know what you are talking about or why I should even care. I only want my patients to be safe and to fulfill this duty I will now lead you to the exit.’’. Twilight didn’t resist, as she walked slightly behind the nurse thinking about what she just had done. She had put a lot of stress on Rainbow and STILL had no information about Pinkie’s whereabouts.
As she stood outside of the hospital, she noticed that Celestia’s sun had already set and Luna’s moon had risen to enlighten the dark night. She reasoned with herself and finally drew the conclusion that for now she couldn’t do anything and that she might as well get home and sleep for a while. As she arrived at the Library, which was build into an old tree, she still thought about the events of this day. How Rainbow came tumbling out of Sugarcube Corner and the horrors of the basement. As she recapitulated her experience in Sugarcube Corner, she noticed something odd, but she couldn’t put the hoof on it. Something about an oven. She tried desperately to remember, what she has missed. Then it struck her like a lightning bolt. The fact that the oven was still turned on, was NOT the oddity, but its contents were. Can an oven produce a heat that is capable of incinerating backed goods? Maybe it can, but Twilight knew that the oven of Sugarcube Corner was an old type, so it was a rather low-heat oven and on top of that it was in a rather bad condition. How could she have forgotten such a fact at the time she was in the kitchen of Sugarcube Corner? Well maybe, because she was in a hurry to find Pinkie and didn’t thought about such an unimportant detail. But the story how she found out that this particular oven was in such a bad shape was rather funny. Before drifting off into this memory she gripped a hold of her train of thought and redirected it into the right direction. Concentrating on the matter in hoof, she thought, on which other way did the ashes get into the oven? As she thought of possible explanations, she made herself ready for bed. At the time she finally lay in her bed, she had come up with two possible courses of action. One would be that the oven backed the same item for a huge amount of time, but she quickly scrapped this idea, because Sugarcube Corner IS a cake shop, so the oven would be used every single day. The more plausible explanation for the ashes would be that somepony put it there. But why would anypony do something like this? Thinking about this question, Twilight slipped off into a wonderful dream, filled with laughter and Rainbooms.
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Pinkie hit the ground hard. Her entire body felt different from one moment to another. The feeling of agonizing pain vanished and a deep sense of nothingness replaced it. She couldn’t open her eyes for a brief time and only had her hearing to observe her surroundings. What she heard somehow bewildered her. The whole air around her was filled with screams from fillies, stallions and mares. But one sound dominated the others. There was a constant ‘Thud’ as if a block of cement slammed against a rock wall repeatedly. At the time she finally could open her eyes she saw, where the sound was emitting from. She sat on a lonely island in the middle of a big lava stream. Around here she saw other islands with hazy, phantom-like creatures on them. But the creature that was causing the ‘Thud’ sound wasn’t so hazy. In fact it was a normal stallion. His coat was a turquoise tone and his hair was brownish-red, but Pinkie believed that the second color in his hair was not natural. So, Pinkie thought to her, magma everywhere, ponies screaming 24/7, either this is my personal paradise or hell. And from the smell I would say it’s the last one, thought Pinkie sniffing and recognizing the sulfur in the air. So that left one question open.
‘’Why, in the name of Celestia, are you slamming your head against the wall?’’
The pony didn’t seem to recognize her, but it seemed he mumbled something under his breath. ‘’What was that?’’ Pinkie asked him. Suddenly the turquoise stallion snapped and yelled to no one in particular. ‘’STOP TALKING. HE SAID STOP TALKING!’’ Pinkie winced at the sudden outburst but quickly gained back her composure as the stallion resumed his activity of slamming his head against the wall. ‘’So it seems we have a new arrival’’ a mysterious voice snickered in Pinkies ear. ‘’ Who is there?’’ Pinkie exclaimed, more out of surprise than out of curiosity. Suddenly a pillar of flames was beside Pinkie and nearly scorched of her coat. As she looked at her coat she realized something. ‘’Note to myself, find out why my coat is red.’’ Pinkie whispered to herself. As another surge of flames grazed her, her head snapped to the place, where the flame pillar was moments ago. But there were no pillar anymore, but an alicorn which looked like a crooked version of Celestia with darker tones and a red touch.
‘’Ah so you finally snapped out of it. Good. I’m Princess Mot. I manage this whole place. By the way do you even know, where you are?’’
‘’I would bet both my sisters on the fact that I’m in hell.’’ Pinkie exclaimed.
‘’ Well than you would have lost both your sisters by now Pinkamena Diane Pie’’ the red alicorn snickered.
‘’Because you, little Pinkie, are not in hell for such a place does not exist in this world. Why does everypony, who enters this place, think that this is a place called ‘hell’?’’
‘’Well, because Celestia always says that bad ponies get punished in hell by evil beings called Demanes.’’ Pinkie explained with a teacher-like tone.
‘’Exactly WHAT did my dear cousin tell you? It is true that bad ponies are punished down here, but not by something as simple as Demanes, they get tortured by their own consciousness. You see this stallion there.’’ She pointed to the turquoise stallion.’’ He constantly hears a voice that keeps saying ‘Shut up’ and something along these lines. And why? Because in his live his voice brought ponies nothing but sorrow, because when he wrapped them up with his silver-tongue, he broke them apart afterwards. So he sits her and keeps smashing his head against these walls, because he let so many ponies dumbfounded and hurt, that the time has come for HIM to be brain-dead and hurt.’’
‘’Oh and this place is not called something simple like ‘hell’. It’s called Tartaros.’’ Pinkie subconsciously winced. ‘’ So I believe you heard that name before?’’
‘’Yeah Twilight said something about this place, as this big doggy came to Ponyville.’’
‘’So you know our guardian Cerberus? That’s good; than I don’t have to explain that you can’t get out of here. So you now know where you are and what’s ahead of you. I wish you a great amount of fun down here ’’. With this sentence Princess Mot disappeared in cloud of smoke.
‘’ Well that certainly explains why he keeps beating his head in, but what is my punishment?’’ Pinkie called out to the leader of Tartaros.
A soft whisper in her ear explained: ‘’Well, that is something your consciousness will find out’’.
Pinkie sat there waiting on this island for some time till she heard the voice in her head. It was a weak growl, but it grew stronger any second she listened to it. It was an animalistic growl, like that of a predator. But what exactly did it say? At the time she finally understood what the voice said she was filled with delight. ’’GO BACK. END, WHAT YOU BEGAN. KILL HER ‘’. So, even her consciousness was a murderer. That greatly calmed her down. So now the only thing she had to do was, find a way out of Tartaros. But what she didn’t know was that the voice she just heard was neither her consciousness nor anything else out of this world. It was something … different and she would soon find out what.