The Equestrian Inferno

As we passed the prince, who now stood off to our side, each of his bodyguards saluted him with a wave of their spiked tails. The prince in turn, now with his rear end toward us, saluted them back with a rather loud emission of flaming gas from his buttocks. I thought it a queer custom on their part but once more did not bother questioning it. When all that had passed, we continued forward.

At some point we left the bridge and turned onto a bar of rock. And in this way, various small islands were scattered throughout the lava, all of them connected either by rocky ridges or similar iron bridges. Upon these, we travelled as we journeyed to the next circle. I kept my eyes constantly open for a chance to converse with an inhabitant of this region however due to the nature of its punishment, this was often impossible. All the souls hid beneath the surface of the lava, with only the bravest ones daring to leap out for a brief moment to seek a temporary relief from the pain. The ripples from these actions travelled slowly but surely across the surface of the thick lava.

We had now just entered another small island with a large mountain taking up most of the space in the center. Because we were loath to climb the thing, we decided to walk around it and followed the perimeter of the island. It was in this fashion that we came across a group of souls obstructing us as they lay on the ground as if sunbathing. The fire equines were shocked at the apparent audacity of these souls and in their brief moment of hesitation, all the souls but one dove into the lava and vanished. The remaining one seemed to be asleep. A guard by my side galloped up to it and using his long tail, whipped the soul awake before seizing it and flinging it against the side of the mountain. Slowly, our fire equine escort moved in to surround it.

Galaxy and I followed them to see what would happen. "Psssst, Galaxy" I whispered. "Yeah?" she answered. "See if you can find out anything about that soul." I was too scared to attempt anything myself.

Galaxy boldly walked up to the soul and asked it for its name and occupation in life. The soul answered rather weakly, "My name's Pumpkin Cake. When I was young, my father decided to sell me into servitude at Celestia's castle. During the course of my stay, I became a very high ranking servant. One day, I was contacted by Queen Chrysalis who asked me if I would be willing, in exchange for an enormous amount of bits, to appoint as cooks several changelings of her's disguised as ponies. They planned to weave evil magic into the food and in this way weaken the royal family before attempting a second time to overtake Canterlot and eventually all of Equestria. I accepted the bribe and for this, I must suffer here forever."

"Well" interjected a fire equine behind me, "it appears you haven't actually been suffering at all though." In a rage, he changed forward, impaled the helpless unicorn with the sharp tip of his tail, and flung her again into the air. Her body landed with a loud thud a few feet from where it had been before. Blood rushed out of her puncture wound. Another unicorn pony once again galloped up to her and began whipping her. After a few moments, the unicorn stopped his assault to laugh out loud at her plight. I took advantage of this time to ask Pumpkin Cake who else was with her. "Let me see…" she replied, "There was a pegasus named…what was it…oh yeah, Butttons. He was often an athletic judge however accepted bribes from players and teams to judge in their favor."

The fire equine beside her resumed his attack, this time using his hooves to trample her. Once again, after a minute or two, he galloped off to let somepony else try. "Hey" said Pumpkin Cake, "you know if I could go back to the shore a moment, I could call up some of my friends who were with me earlier and you could talk to them.

"Oh, and let them have even more relief from their pain?" sneered a fire equine. "Well" said Pumpkin Cake, "when they're done talking, you could punish them likewise for leaving the lava." The fire equine became thoughtful as he pondered this.

"Pfffft" said another, "she's lying. She just wants to get close enough to the lava to jump back in and escape from us." This statement started an argument between the fire equines over what they should do. In the commotion, Pumpkin Cake suddenly made a dash for the shore. She was more than halfway to it when the fire equines, all caught up in their arguing, finally noticed. Immediately, they galloped after her but it was too late. Pumpkin Cake dove in and disappeared under the shining surface of the lava. One of the fire equines flew over the lava. Seeing a slight movement, he struck the lava with his tail before realizing his mistake and yelping in pain. His tail however was stuck and his bat-like wings, weaker than those of a pegasus, were not strong enough to free him. A companion of his flew in after him and attempted to untangle him however being in the awkward position of hovering and not having hands to grip with, they ended up both tumbling into the lava. The remaining eight fire equines watched in dismay, unsure what to do.

"Hey" whispered Galaxy, "let's go. I don't trust them. With any luck, when they've gotten this all sorted out, they'll have forgotten about us." As always, I followed Galaxy's advice and the two of us left them.