Pyre's Reckoning

The large metal door creaked loudly as Flashpoint and Cold Facts entered the halls of 'Iron Hell'. Inside, it was very dark; there were no windows in the entire facility. From what they could see, everything was destroyed, torched by Pyre when she escaped. Cold began to cough a little from the ashes that polluted the air around them.

"You still remember your way around?" Flash asked Cold as he eyed what appeared to be a front desk. Flash walked over to it and gently touched it with his hoof, only for the whole counter to break apart, hitting the floor with a loud crash, ashes and dust clouding around him.

Pyre's ears shot up...

"Good job..." Cold coughed as he approached the ash-covered Flashpoint, "And I believe I do..... That way." Cold started to walk through the hallway on the right, a coughing Flashpoint following behind him.

As they walked through the hall, the two stallions would often come across a scorched corpse of some poor pony or some other creature. Neither said a word as they both wanted to get what they came for and leave this Hell as soon as possible.

Flashpoint and Cold Facts finally arrived at a stairway, "Down there, that's where Vast's room and all his research is, lets go..." Cold said as he began to trot down the steps...

"AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"

Flashpoint raced to see and saw Cold hanging on the stairs; there was a huge gap. Flashpoint grabbed Cold's hooves and pulled him back onto the solid floor. They were both breathing heavily, Flashpoint cough because of the ash.

"Thanks..." Cold got to his hooves.

"It was nothin'..." Flash coughed, "But now we've got a problem, how are we going to get down now? That gap is way too wide to jump..."

Cold smirked, "I believe I can fix that.." He approached the ledge of the stairs and began to groan. Flash saw that Cold's horn was glowing an icy blue, and sweat that was trailing down his face as he concentrated on his spell. Flashpoint then started to shiver as a small flurry of snow formed around the two stallions. Cold groaned some again as he used his magic to move the flurry down the steps, filling the gaps with ice and had it continue down into the darkness.

"There, *pant* it should go on to fill any other gaps with ice." Cold looked at Flash, who was hesitant to step on the ice. "You won't slip..." Cold sighed as he started down the frozen steps, "We need to hurry."

As the two of them journeyed down the dark, icy stairway, Flashpoint grew more and more uncomfortable and anxious. He felt strange, like there was something watching him from... somewhere... He thought back to the incident with the window and the... thing... he saw. It had given Flash the same feeling...

"Look..." Cold spoke, startling Flash, "There's a dim light at coming from the door at the bottom." It was a faint purple light coming from down the hallway.

Cold Facts and Flashpoint quickly went down the rest of the stair and entered the dimly lit hall, hoping to find out more of Vast did here...

Pyre crept through the hall, eager to find out what, or who, caused that noise. Then all of the sudden, she began to shiver.

"I'm... cold?" Pyre muttered as she created a blanket of flame and wrapped it around herself. Ever since Timberhill, Pyre has had an extremely low tolerance of cold air or any frozen. It was one of many methods Vast had to keep Pyre in line.

"How is there cold...?" Pyre wondered as she continued to wander down the hallway until she reached the stairs.

"It's coming from here....?" Pyre looked in the stairway and saw that the gaps in the steps were filled with ice.

"How in the hay...?" Pyre began to gather the ash around the room with her magic and formed a grey-black cloud of ash that she then climbed on top of. The cloud then carried Pyre down the stairs, as to avoid the icy steps.

Soon she was at the bottom, facing the dimly-lit hall. Pyre was shake, not from the cold, but from her fear. She had never been down those stairs before, not even after she torched the facility, Pyre knew that this hall led to where Vast had worked privately. She could tell because of the light that came from it, as purple was Vast's favorite color as she remembered. Pyre started to hear voices coming from down the hallway ahead. She sighed, took a deep breath and began to ride the ash cloud down the hall as to avoid making noise.

"Vast is gone..., Vast is gone..., Vast is gone..., gone forever....." Pyre kept whispering to herself as she floated down the dim purple-lit hall, though at many times, she thought the opposite was true...

Flashpoint and Cold Facts reached the end of the hall and entered into a strange room where the purple light was coming from. It was filled with strange metal devices with screens and there were papers scattered everywhere. On the right side of the room there was a metal desk with schematics of something but there were blood stains on it so they couldn't make it out.

"Your dad had some weird hobbies...." Flash commented on the decor of Vast's room.

Cold said nothing as he wander through his father's room, looking for some sort of files, or notes, or anything of that nature. He searched through all the drawers and shelves, and he came across several strange discs. In every one, there were many of those strange discs that resembled small records.

Cold took out all of them and placed them on the desk. "What the hay are these things?" Flashpoint asked.

"I'm not sure, but they seem like small silver record.."

"Well, maybe they are.... Look, there are numbers written on them." Flash pointed out.

Cold looked at the disc he was holding, it was labeled 284. "Hmm...., I remember us passing a door with the same number on it...."

"Hey, Cold!" Flash called, "There's a slot in the machine that's the same size as those discs. Maybe this thing plays 'em."

"Maybe..." Cold walked over to the device and inserted the disc. The screen lit up and an image appeared on it. It was a grey unicorn stallion, same color as Cold Facts, but instead of a short blue mane, his was lang and dark purple, and was also wearing a lab coat.

"Father...." Cold muttered as the recording of Vast cleared his throat.

"Patient 284. Typical split-personality case. Stems from childhood trauma and parental abuse. Collapsed after twelve questions. Little useful data gathered from subject. Will be disposed of."

The screen went black leaving the two of them to process what they just saw.

"I can't...." Cold turned away, "He's changed....., even more than I thought...."

Flash put a hoof on Cold shoulder, "We need to keep watching these. One of them has got to be about Pyre." Cold nodded and they looked for more of those discs...

Pyre reached the door way at the end of the hall when she heard a familiar voice.

"No! It can't be!" Pyre gasped silently as she peeked inside. She saw that the voice came from a recording of Vast on the screen, and then she saw... "Him!" Pyre saw Flashpoint, watching the recording with some other stallion, who made Pyre shiver just looking at him.

Pyre sat low behind the door and listened in as the two stallions played more recordings...

"Patient 375. POW from the Griffin Kingdom. Sent here for interrogation. Will make excellent test subject for my new technology. Will record results."

Cold put his face in his hooves; they had been watching these recordings for the past twenty minutes.

"I can't do this..." Cold walked over to the table, "I can't sit here and listen to all these recordings of how disgusting my father was!" He slammed his hoof on the table, causing everything on it to scatter.

Flash noticed some more discs that were underneath the blueprints, "Hmm...." Flash walked over and looked over them, "Cold! I found 'em, look!"

Cold came over to Flash and looked at the discs. They were all labeled 'Candelle' with a number after them.

"Very well...." Cold sighed as he went and inserted the first of the discs into the machine. The screen lit up as the recording played.

"I've received a new patient today. A filly named Candelle, who the high officials dumped me with. Apparently she is responsible for the fire in Timberhill I heard about. Most interesting..."

The recording ended and Flash put in the next one.

"After my first session with her I can clearly tell that she's quite emotionally unstable. I will need to find ways to restrain her."

Pyre listened in as Flashpoint and Cold Facts played through recording after recording, each one making Pyre remember all the 'sessions' she had with that monster.

"He's gone...... He's gone...." She whispered, trying to keep herself together...

Flash and Cold have gone through most of the recordings until there were two left.

"Candelle has been quiet through most our recent sessions, only speaking about some 'Fire' that keeps talking to her. Obviously a delusion of her own insanity. Unfortunately, she becoming a lot less amusing to me and I'm afraid she will have to be disposed of soon. Such a pity...., Candelle had given me such great data. It has allowed me to complete the prototype for my new device. With it, I will be able to pierce into the minds of my subjects, giving me access to their thoughts and memories. Thanks, Candelle...."

The screen fizzled to black and Flash took out the disc. He then took the last disc when he noticed that their was some blood on the title.

"What do ya make of this, Cold?" Flash handed the disc to Cold Facts who examined the title.

"I can't make it out..." Cold sighed, "Just put it in..."

Flash put the final disc in the machine and the screen lit up with Vast's image, only it was dark, with only the purple light glowing, and Vast was covering his right eye with his hoof, which was red from blood.

"Pyre..... That's what she called herself when she attacked me... I was too secure in my assumption of her passiveness... Heh.... She escaped.... She torched the whole facility.... All the other patients and staff are dead.... Now I have nothing..... Nothing, but HATE." The image of Vast removed his hoof from his eye too reveal an empty socket.

"The little wretch took my eye from me! She took all that I had left in this world!!" Tears started to form from Vast's left eye. "I'm sorry Hidden Truth, my love..... The stallion you loved is dead! Forever! Gone!" In the middle of his crying, Vast suddenly started to laugh maniacally.

"But I won't die without a fight!" Vast turned away in the recording and picked something from off the table, "With this, I will find her...." He was holding a strange metallic sphere in his hoof. "This..... This is the result of several year of research and hundreds of test subjects.... This 'eye' with allow me to pierce into the thoughts and memories of anypony's eye I look into.... With this...." Vast began to insert it into his empty socket, "I will BREAK CANDELLE!!" He shoved it into his socket, causing Vast to scream in pain, sparks shooting out from the 'eye'. Cold couldn't bear to watch his father scream in such agony.

The recording showed Vast covering his right eye with his hooves, then slowly lowering them to show his new cybernetic eye. It then switched on and a purple light gleamed from it, its whirring and buzzing being drowned out by Vast's hysteric laughter becoming louder and louder.

"Watch out, little Pyre....., for my little 'eye' will find you in your Fire..... Hehehe.... Hehehehe...... HAHAHAHHA! HAHAHAHAHA!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAAAAAAAHH!!!!!!"

The screen went to black...., leaving the room absolutely silent...