“Scootaloo,” Master said, his voice was dark sending pricks of cold down my spine as he came into the room. “Scootaloo, you better be in here.” He came over to the bed. A glowing filled the room causing the bed to get lifted into the air. “Why are you hiding under the bed?” he asked, his voice harsh.

“Please don’t make me do it,” I begged, getting up.

“And what do you think I’m going to make you do?” I looked down. “Don’t be shy, tell me what you think I’m going to make you do.”

“Kill Rainbow Dash,” I said, my voice shuttering.

“She killed Deity, and wounded me. She’s not going to get off with you just killing her, believe me, it’ll be much worse than death. When she begs for death, then you may give it to her. It’s justice and you can show mercy at the end.”

“Please Master, don’t do this, please, I can’t take losing a friend because of me, please, anything, I’ll do anything to keep her from dying.”

“You don’t have a choice!” His magic picked me up, but I didn’t struggle as he carried me through the air. “We’re going to be having fun with your hero, and you won’t complain the entire time.”

“Please Master, anything, anything!”

Master didn’t say another word as we went to the torture room. Dash was spread out on the metal table, strapped down completely. I was set down on the metal table. She already had dozens of cuts all over her body. It was clear she had probably a broken bone or two somewhere from the pained look on her face.

“Scootaloo.” Master’s voice made me turn to him, he was looking at the wall. “What would you like to do?”

“Hmm,” Dash said, and I turned back to her. Her eyes were open now, and tears started to brim upon seeing the room.

What was I supposed to say in this situation, what was I supposed to do? If I fought Master he’d only make it worse, he’d even control my body. Emptiness filled me as I stared at Dash’s scared eyes.

Wait, this wasn’t my fault. This was Dash’s fault, all of this that was happening right here and now! If she had just listened to me and left when I told her, if she had just walked away from the fight, if she had given up the first time I told her to. If she wasn’t my hero, then—I wouldn’t be here.

“You need to let your kindness show Scootaloo,” future me’s voice echoed in my ear and I froze.

“Scootaloo, what do you want to do?”

She was right, this was wrong. Wait, that question, Master was giving me a choice of how to do this. Oh my gosh! Dash had said something before, how if she didn’t call in or something by sometime, then Celestia or someone would come for her! Fire hit my chest from the plan. If I could prolong it as long as possible, then, then, I could save her. The others would bust in here for her! Looking around my eyes went to a black box, passing over the dozens of new toys. It was stored under the wooden table that was next to us.

“That box!” I pointed.

“The silence box?”

“Um, yes?” he went over to it moving it out and opening it. His horn lit up and water from the nearby sink filled it up, parts of it becoming ice. “What does it do Master? I don’t want her to die quickly.”

Dash’s eyes went straight to me, and Master turned, shock across his face from my words. “Say that again.”

“I don’t want her to die quickly, I want it to last for as long as possible, I want her to beg and scream and pray for somepony to save her just to rip it from her grasp and spit into her face knowing she’s going to die a miserable death.”

“Wow,” Master said, and came over removing Dash’s gag. “Did you hear that? She completely hates you,” Master said giddy.

“I don’t believe that for a second!” Dash shouted and he put the gag back into her mouth shutting her up.

“If she’s a good little pony, then I think she might not be lying.” His magic lifted up the metal table and moved me to the wooden one. The metal table was moved over the open black box and slowly lowered into it.

Dash started to yell as she was laid into the box, ice cold water lapping against her sides in painful pushes. Her shaking and struggling only made it worse as it started to splash in her face and up her nose. A bit of pain stabbed through my heart as I saw small bits of ice spikes form and stab her painfully, but not break her skin. Her screams soon hit my ears but then silence as the lid was shut.

I’m sorry Dash, but this is the price I’ll need to make you pay to save your life, I swear that nothing will stop me from saving you, but I need to play his game. Master sat down staring at the box, blasting it with a bit of magic every few minutes.

“Master.” He stopped and looked at me.

“Yes?”

“How long is this supposed to last?”

“Well normally a few hours, but this kind of torture is boring. Being a good torturer takes a lot of imagination, time and effort. If you don’t keep things constant or give proper breaks, then they die, or any number of things. So, the first thing is to cause your subject to lose sense of time and where they are. This black box is a good choice. It removes every sense but sound. It’ll cause her to get numb and start to panic further because the water will make her struggle breathing, and which will cause her to panic further.”

“So then after that, what next?”

“We’ll do anything you want, but basically if you want to prolong it, you do mostly superficial damage. Nothing that will make her bleed much, or anything that will cause her to bleed out internally or anything like that. You need to keep it civil in the way you do it, as to make her think it’ll never end by how you pace it. You have to appear that you enjoy it as to scare her.”

“So is this what you did to me?”

“Pretty much, torture is fun if they are scared or scream, otherwise it’s like beating a dead animal, and that’s boring.”

“So if I don’t scream or act scared, you’d not torture me?”

Master frowned. “I’ll still torture you on principle alone Scootaloo. Now go wash your face, you have blood on it.” I jumped over to the sink and washed my face. “So what do you want to do next?”

“Um, what do you think would be slow, but won’t kill?” I asked, looking around at all the items, they seemed terrifying to just look at. “I don’t know all this, I don’t know what would kill her or cut off her limbs.”

“Cutting off limbs is one of the last things we’d want to do. She’d probably bleed out if we did it wrong before Sethi could get here.”

“Oh, so, um, let’s turn her blood into acid or something.”

“That’d kill her almost instantly, but we can inject liquid fire into her veins, it’ll cause her to feel like her blood is on fire, but really isn’t. Normally it’d cause her to claw at her throat to rip out her blood, but it naturally will close any open wounds. So, it just depends on what we want to do, but we should actually do that after slicing her up so the drug will have a better effect.”

“Master, I’m sorry for your friend.”

“Thank you Scootaloo, but that doesn’t make me feel any better, she’s not going to get away with killing him. It’s like that one guard, you didn’t let him go for killing your maid. I’m just as mad.”

“Yes, but at least it was quick.”

“Which is why this won’t be,” Master growled and blasted the box with a large dose of magic, making it vibrate. “She’s going to wish to be dead, and then I think she might make a perfect whore.”

“Master, you’re not going to cheat on me with her, are you?”

“Of course not, you’re going to enjoy her and fuck her. I think you’ll have a lot of fun with her. In fact, I might rip her brain out and stick her into a doll. That way it’ll feel like she has no skin when you touch her, she can’t breathe, hear, or see, just nothingness but the ability to feel and know pain. That sounds most fitting to how we’ll end her. After a few hours in that form her brain will die.” He grinned and blasted the box in several different spots. “You’ll enjoy her limbs so it’ll feel like her organs are bursting with each touch.”

That idea scared me a bit, I didn’t have a clue about magic and how far it could take torture, but that sounded nightmarish. I needed to make sure we never got to that stage, or Dash would be in real trouble.

“When would the end be?”

“When she begs for death,” he said, blasting the box again.

“So, what do we do while we wait?”

“Nothing, just think about what we’re going to do next. Oh, and I think I just thought of it actually. Al-Asitis brought the perfect present.” He got up. “Scootaloo, I’ll be back shortly, you watch Ms. Dash. Do not open it.”

“Yes Master.” Master left the room and I looked at the box, I jumped over to the wooden table and looked down at the black box. It was curious as to what it was like, but this needed to last as long as possible. This was my kindness, and I was letting it show. This was the only thing I could do. I punched the box, it rang against my hoof guard. “Dash, you lied to me, you’re just a fake, you can’t save me, all you can do is die. You should have let me hit the ground that one day. You should’ve let me go.” Tears brimmed.

Master came back some time later, and I looked up seeing him set a few boxes on the ground and then precede to start assembling a machine of some kind which hung from the ceiling, it had a lot of arms and needles.

“What is that?” I asked when it was almost finished. It looked like the bottom of a spider of some kind.

“It’s called a spider thread machine. It’s designed to encase the victim in spider silk, or I think, I’m not one hundred percent on what exactly it does.” A booklet floated up in front of him and he started to look through it. “Ah here it is, it encases the subject into spider silk, and then it starts to prick the victim with muscle relaxant as if they were spider bites. The thread has the ability to cause the subject to think they are covered with spiders.”

“That’s, how long does it last?”

“It says it’ll keep the victim alive for around six days since it infuses water into each of its injections. Wow, this is complex.”

“Alright, let’s do that.”

“We’re not leaving her in that for six days, maybe a couple of hours, but it’ll be for a long time.”

“Oh.”

“Shall we?” Master asked, as he put several bottles on top of the machine. I nodded and the box opened showing a very pale Dash. Her eyes were red from crying and her breathing was very rough, her body was shaking from being so cold. “Why hello Ms. Dash, I’m so glad to see that you’re alive.”

The metal table floated out of the water and I watched as he set it back on its stand, locking it into place. “G-g-g-g-g-go ta-ta-to hell,” she said, shivering.

“Oh, we haven’t even started, and since you put off my trip, I’m going to have plenty of time to enjoy your company. I mean, I even have a new toy for you.” Her eyes went up and she gasped. “It’s a spider machine, it releases spiders all over your body as it encases you in a very tight thread.” A remote floated into the air and the bottom was pressed causing the spider like legs to move.

Master’s magic unlocked her restraints, however it didn’t matter since her joints were all but frozen. Four of the eight legs shot down spiking through her legs making her scream as they went clean through lifting her up by her leg wounds. Her screams were painful to even listen to, making me cringe.

My body locked up watching as another two legs lowered and started to sew thread through the edges of her limbs, passing the needle down below her to be used on the other side, sliding through the wound hole and coating the thread red as it slowly cocooned her. Her forelegs were pinned to her sides and hind legs were painfully skewed back as she was encased entirely by the thread. The four arms moved to her corners holding her up as the other arms came down and began to prick her skin through the cocoon rapidly.

“So we sit here for how long?” I asked, my limbs becoming light as my heart flickered with each needle stab. Dash’s screams were finally muffled as a needle stabbed her throat, making her gurgle a bit.

“You’re impatient Scootaloo, and seeing as you’re so impatient. I think we need to move to more active torture that you’ll do yourself!” Master snapped at me, making me flinch scared of him.

“Wait, I’m good waiting, I’m good.” I looked down. “I’m good at waiting, please, not yet.”

“Good,” Master said flatly, returning to a flat line instead of a frown, letting the fear quell inside me. “Now I want you to sit there and watch her. I’ll be gone for a while, probably taking a nap or nothing at all. If you finally get bored of this, you can come and grab me, and we can switch around torture. Or if the machine stops, then you’re to come get me as soon as possible and tell me.”

“Yes Master.”

“Scootaloo, you need to relax while she’s suffering.” He went up to me. “I understand that you don’t want this, but you need to learn from this. You need to be patient, you need to be able to fight any fear and not flinch. You need to calm your heart and stay strong even in situations like this. You need to plan, you need to think, and you need to understand everything around you. If you don’t have those things, then events like this happen to you and those around you. If you hadn’t walked outside mad at me and stayed out there. I might’ve let Rainbow Dash go, but now, this happens!” He slammed his hoof down

“Wait, you’re doing this because I got mad?” I asked, my voice cracking horrified by the answer, and already knowing it.

“OF COURSE!” he shouted mad, almost appearing in front of me. “I lured Dash back here by feeding her friends some information about us leaving on a trip tomorrow.” Master started to laugh grinning. “Her friends took it as you were going to leave the country tomorrow, and that their little plan in two days would be ruined if I left the country for more than a month!” He started to really laugh making me go pale. “Come now Scootaloo, I love you, but do you really think, I’d allow you to just leave?”

“Please, I’ll never walk away from you again if you let her go, I’ll do everything I can to be the perfect pet, wife, anything, please, just let her live.”

“Punishment only goes so far Scootaloo, her killing my friend takes the cake however. If it wasn’t for that, I know you would’ve tried to release her by now. In your sick twisted little beautiful head, you think that just because she murdered somepony like you did, she deserves to die painfully.” I moved backwards from him as he moved forward causing me to fall onto my back as he hovered over me. “And that is exactly why I’m not afraid of leaving you here completely alone with her, leaving this door completely unlocked and unwatched. That little sense of doing the right thing is what will allow you to kill your hero!”

“Master stop,” I said, crying knowing just how true his words were. I was allowing this to happen, I could at least try and stop it. My body trembled as he kissed my neck, pulling me into a hug.

“I love you Scootaloo, but Dash is going to die because of you, and I know as well as you, that you know it.” He let me go, pushing me away slightly. “Now watch as she suffers your hypocrisy. Put that last piece down and become the monster that I know I’ll love seeing you be for the rest of our lives.” Master left the room making me think about yelling, moving, doing anything to stop him, even argue but I couldn’t move my body, I couldn’t even breathe as what he said cut deep inside me.

Once the feeling settled, I was able to sit up and stare at Dash. Nothing, there was simply nothing left inside me. Even now staring at her, my body wouldn’t move to find a knife to free her, there was nothing pushing me to help her. Master was right, too right. If I let Dash die like this then I’d finally become that monster I knew I already was, but at least now Master would be sure that I was that monster. It would be great, I would finally be everything Master wanted me to be.

Hours went by, or so I guessed as the machine seemed to flow to some kind of rhythm, relaxing me to Dash’s grunts and soft cries. It was like she was an instrument and the machine was the artist. I could feel her pain flow through me, that part of me that was horrified by what was happening to Dash disappeared, and all I felt was that joy, that peace, that-that love Master gave me so freely.

“I love you Dash, I’m sorry you didn’t listen to me, but this is what you get for betraying me, lying to me and disobeying me so many times. I tried to warn you, I even begged you, but you’ll be free of that pain soon enough. You’ll be free of ever worrying about me ever again in your short little life, and I’ll be free of you.”

This is what I needed, Master was right, this was the last piece I needed. All I needed was to get rid of her, then everything would be good. The others wouldn’t come after me, they didn’t care as much as her, I’d be able to be happy with Master. Finally, I’d be able to live with him without worry or a care.

The sounds of the machine stopped snapping me out of my daydream. Dash’s body twitched a bit, but she was still alive from what I could tell. Jumping to the floor I yawned, going to the door and out into the hallway looking around.

“Scootaloo,” Sethi said standing next to the door, and I paused looking up at her. Was she spying on me? That couldn’t be, Master didn’t need to, or was she waiting for me? That’d be odd as well.

“Sethi, hi.”

“Are you alright?” She looked at the door, and I closed it with my back hoof.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“Good to see you’re not hurt.”

“I’m fine, I’m just going to go talk to Master, do you know where he is?”

“He just finished speaking to De in his study. They were talking about doing the trip at a later time.”

“De?”

“Oh, you probably haven’t met him yet, although I believe he was invited to the ball either, I thought you met him.”

“The only De I know was blown to bits by Dash, he’s dead.”

“Oh, that, you see he’s sort of immortal, so long as a glob of him exists and he has a source of water, he can rebuild himself after a short period of time. I actually scooped him up and sewed him back together.”

Silence in my heart didn’t make it skip a beat, there was simply nothing. What I expected was some kind of crack in my heart, something to shatter, but I understood now what had happen. Master was playing a game on me like the one he did with Balai, but all that meant was she was innocent, there wasn’t a point in torturing her. Master had attacked her in the first place, she doesn’t need to die.

“Does Master know that De can do that?”

“Yes, he’s known for a very long time. In fact, when they first met, Jerard had cut off De’s head. Why do you ask?”

“There wasn’t a reason Sethi, thank you for telling me. Uh, is Kila here?”

“He’s actually not, he broke a leg because of Rainbow Dash earlier. So he’s sitting pretty at home, did you need to talk to him?”

“Is Al around or Sig?”

“Al is asleep, and Sig is with Diamond Tiara, she’s been teaching Diamond how to be a servant. She seemed very happy today.”

“Where are you headed?”

“To my office, is something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, just keeping up on where all my helpers are.” I turned leaving her and heading for the study. As I reached the door, I stopped, peering inside for a moment. Master was looking over several papers, he looked up as I entered the room, stopping. “The machine stopped.”

“That took a lot longer than I thought it would.”

“I’m not sure if she’s dead or not.”

“Let’s go check it out.” He grinned, getting up and jogging past me. I know I should be mad, but all this had done was made me think, plan and understand. I couldn’t wait for Dash to be freed, I needed to do it myself, and this was the last time I’d allow anything like this to happen, he lied to me. While that feeling of being betrayed was gone, that feeling of Dash being my hero was gone as well. I knew this was something I simply wanted to do. Master shouldn’t have done this, he’ll pay for tricking me twice.

It’s almost funny, he did make a monster. There weren’t any more strings which had hooks in my heart. A grin spread as we walked into the torture room, and he picked up a knife with his magic, slicing the spider silk with it, causing Dash to fall onto the metal table with a loud thud. The spider web was pulled back into the machine ripping out of her skin as Master bound her back to the table.

“Can I torture her how I want to?” I asked.

Master turned to me, and floated me up onto the table. Dash’s eyes were glazed over, but she was alive and completely awake. “Sure, tell me what you want to do, and you can do it yourself.”

“Can she feel things?”

“Yes, she just can’t move, every muscle in her body is relaxed, it’ll take a few hours before she can speak let alone walk. Probably afternoon when she’d be able to walk like she was drunk.”

“I can do anything I want to her?”

“Yes.” I went up to her neck and took a deep sniff. “But you don’t want to drink her blood right now, it’ll relax your muscles.”

“Knife please.” A knife floated over to me, and I took it. Her eyes followed me, as I rolled the knife around in my mouth and pointed it down cutting very slowly making her body shake a small bit as I carved, ‘Your blood tastes like heaven’, into her skin. Her body tensed up as I made sure the wounds were plenty deep.

She tried to struggle as I cut into her, writing little bits of happiness into her skin, smiling and giggling at how cute Dash looked with a dozen bleeding hearts all over her chest and belly with little notes of love intermixed. This was more like an art show than a torture method, even her tears streaming down her face were so cute.

“She’s bleeding quite a bit Scootaloo, we need to either bandage them or inject her with the liquid fire.” A needle with clear liquid in it floated to me. I took it and stuck it into her neck, injecting it with a single push.

Dash’s body locked up in immense pain, her wounds stopped bleeding in less than a minute as it was spread throughout her body. I pulled out the needle tossing it into the sink to our right.

“Are you enjoying it Dash?” I asked going to her face, as her body struggled to move but simply wouldn’t. “I had something like that inside me once to, I loved it. I hope you’re enjoying it like I did, it made me so wet. I couldn’t handle it.” Her body spasmed all over the place as her wounds slowly started to close, but oddly enough they didn’t seem to heal completely, just melt closed.

“Good word play,” Master said, smiling.

“Thank you. You said not to cut off limbs, so that means we can’t use the splinter thing, and I can’t simply cut off her limbs. Then, oh I know, electricity!” A metal pole with a button on it floated over to me. Pressing the tip to her chest, her body locked up. I took it off for a moment and smiled as she whimpered. “I love you Dash, so when I kill you, I want you to know that you are the most beautiful pony I’ve ever met, the strongest and the greatest. You were a pony that deserved to be my hero.”

“S-st-op,” Dash mumbled out.

“Say that again Dash, I love hearing you beg.” I slapped her hard, the strap on her head barely stopped her head from turning. “Say it again.”

“Stop,” she said, droll running down her cheek.

“Good.” I kissed her cheek. “Master, will you give me that thing on the wall?” I pointed at a metal mallet, it floated over to me and I took it. “Master said you had to die and I think your brains spraying everywhere would be a fun way to end this.” Raising it up into the air above her head Master’s shield blocked it as I brought it down as hard as I could. I turned to him, he was rather shocked, but then frowned.

“Scootaloo! I didn’t say you could kill her, I thought I explained about sticking her in a doll, I have it all prepared and everything. You can hit her elsewhere, just not her head. I need her brains.”

“Sorry Master, I forgot.”

“Don’t do it again.”

“I’m sorry, I won’t, but I’m doing good so far, right?”

“Better than I had ever imagined.”

“Can I have a kiss? I want to really dig into her while we’re making out. I think it’ll make me really wet.”

“You’re so darling when you’re cruel.” Master chuckled grinning, beaming with happiness over my attitude. He came over to my right.

Using my left wing I picked up the mallet as I kissed Master, making it so he didn’t have a single chance of seeing it as I swung the mallet around and cracked Master right into the side of the head sending him slamming to the floor, rolling against the wall completely knocked out cold.

“Silly Master,” I giggled. I started to undo Dash’s restraints, and she looked around. I helped her sit up, but she managed mostly by herself. The liquid fire seemed to have burned through a lot of the muscle relaxant.

“Scoots, what.” She paused, looking at Master on the ground. “Did you do?” her speech was slurred.

“I knocked him out so I could get you out of here. Come on, let’s get you home.” She did most of it herself, but with my wings and flying under her I was able to help her walk outside, laying her down onto the ground. The gate guard ran over quickly.

“What happen?!” he asked, looking over her.

“Take her swiftly to Ponyville. Do not stop for anything or until you get her to Princess Twilight Sparkle. Do you understand?”

“Yes Madam, right away.”

“No wait!” Dash said, and we looked at her.

“Come with me.”

“My place is here Dash, after everything that I’ve done and lived through, I could never go back to Ponyville. I’m a monster, and I married the monster of my nightmares. Go, don’t stop till you’re safe. Take her.”

“Yes Madam.” He picked her up and ran moving at almost blinding speed and disappearing down the road.

Sitting down I let out a breath looking up at the night sky. Tonight was so beautiful, I was glad to see it one last time. Master was going to kill me after tonight, I knew he was, and it felt good to get fresh air—one—last—time. Sunlight turned the sky a beautiful morning orange, but with the walls, I couldn’t see anything the light touched. Giggling, I got up and turned back toward the front door.

“Stay safe Rainbow Dash, thank you for trying,” I whispered before entering through the doors, and letting them slam behind me.

Author's Note

Editing done by wubsy mcwubsington