"I don't know about this guys..." Sweetie Belle said, staring off of the expansive cliff that peered off towards Ponyville, from her end of the hang glider.
"Ah c'mon it will be fun, just you wait - We'll have our hang glidin' cutie marks in no time at all!" AppleBloom said assuredly to her worried friend.
"Yeah, its simple, we jump off of this cliff and the hang glider will carry us over Ponyville and into the hay beds we set up at Sweet Apple Acres." Scootaloo said with excitement in her voice as she reved her hind legs in anticipation.
Sweetie Belle looked down the cliff, the drop so great a distance aloft, she then found her hooves feeling glued to the ground. "B-but what if we fall?"
"The winds in our favor!" Scootaloo said pointing upwards, still showing her intense excitement.
"Didn't AppleBloom already try this?" Sweetie Belle said, still trying to find a way out of the attempt. She didn't want to disappoint her friends and abandon them.
"Yea..but ah didn't even make it off the cliff the time ah did it, but now we should be soarin' over Ponyville this time." AppleBloom said, still trying to convince her friend that it was safe.
Sweetie Belle gulped down her fear and closed her eyes to take a deep breath. She opened her eyes and saw the soft clouds travel in the air and thought about what it would feel like to be next to them, and found joy in the thought. "So you're sure its safe?"
"Positive! Especially with these safety harnesses to keep us on the glider." Scootaloo said while checking to make sure she was strapped in tight.
Sweetie Belle followed the example, almost choking herself in tightening the harness, but she didn't want to take any risks. She took another deep breath and put in her brave face. "I'm ready."
The three dragged the hang glider a good distance of about ten feet from the edge and gave each other a quick nod.
They kicked off of the ground and entered a quick gallop, carrying the hang glider ahead of them as they picked up speed and felt the tug of the glider going upwards in the wind.
Sweetie Belle held her breath as they jumped off of the cliff and entered free-fall for a moment with her heart sinking in terror.
The hang glider picked up on the wind and began traveling forward to their destination.
"Yeah!" AppleBloom and Scootaloo said in unison as they took flight.
Sweetie Belle sighed in relief and felt the wind flow through her mane. She looked down and felt a giddy sensation invading her body, forcing a smile on her face and making her laugh uncontrollably in joy.
Scootaloo yelled over the wind "See? Told you this was fun!"
Sweetie Belle looked up at the clouds again, and saw that she had just brushed against one. The cloud was rolling off of her shoulder and she felt the plushness of it and it reminder her of her sisters clothing smooth surface. She was enjoying it so much she didn't notice that AppleBloom was holding on her other shoulder, yelling.
"Sweetie Belle!" AppleBloom yelled, trying to get her attention as she tugged away at her shoulder.
Sweetie Belle couldn't hear her friend, her ears were buzzing with a strange sensation, and was enjoying the ride so much she didn't feel the tug at her safety harness.
AppleBloom tried to pull Sweetie Belle closer to herself to try and prevent the accident, but when Sweetie Belle finally turned to face her friend her face went from pure enjoyment, to sheer terror.
The cord of her safety harness snapped and she was hanging on to the bar of the hang glider with AppleBloom trying to pull her up.
"AppleBloom!" Sweetie Belle yelled helplessly at her friend as she dangled five hundred feet in the air, suspended by her hoof grasping onto the metal bar of the hang glider.
"Hold on! ah got ya!" AppleBloom said, using all of her strength to help Sweetie Belle stay on the glider.
To no avail, Sweetie Belle lost the grip with of her hooves and was only being held by AppleBloom and she looked downward and felt like she was staring at the face of death.
With tears in her eyes she looked back up at her friend who was also tearing up as she held onto Sweetie Belles hoof with unknown strength.
Regardless of their efforts, the lack of grip that was natural with hooves, Sweetie Belle started to slip from the iron grip of AppleBloom.
She closed her eyes for a moment to think, but then opened her eyes again to look up at her good friend... and smiled through her tears, causing AppleBloom's face to twist in confusion as her own tears started to drip off of her face.
Their connection was broken and Sweetie Belle began to plummet in the sky, not flailing her hooves, but just in a state of free-fall. She closed her eyes for the last time and felt no fear, no regret, but she was filled with the strange feeling. The feeling felt almost happy, as if she didn't care she was only a hundred feet away from the cold hard ground. She could smell the grass and leaves below her, along with the scent of dust from the whirling air. The last thing she could hear before the world went black around her, was a soft thump of her own body striking the ground.
Sweetie Belle woke up minutes later, dazed, but mostly confused. She pulled herself up to see that she had fallen in a grove of trees and then looked up to see where she had fallen from. She questioned her survival, she was happy to be alive, but most ponies didn't live from a five hundred foot drop.
She heard a crunch behind her and she whirled around, expecting her friends, but instead saw a peculiar stallion with a hooded robe standing a few feet away.
"ARE YOU SWEETIE BELLE?" The stallion asked.
"Yes, who are you?" She asked in return.
"I AM PALE HOOF. YOU ARE THE SWEETIE BELLE THAT RESIDES IN PONYVILLE CORRECT?"
"Yes?" She asked, now confused that the stranger knew her.
Pale hoof dug into a pocket of his robes and pulled out a thin slab of wood that had some odd language on them along with a few words she could make out at the bottom in english, and handed it to Sweetie Belle.
She took it and read it out loud. "To....Hell?" she looked back at the stallion. "What?"
Pale hoof pointed behind Sweetie Belle and she turned around and saw her body on the ground. She was alarmed and even more confused about seeing her own lifeless body on the ground. She looked at the piece of wood again and then realized. "I'm...dead?"
A dark hole appeared below her as she said the words and she plummeted into a dark abyss.
"AAHHH!" She screamed as she re-appeared in the sky and fell down into the grey rocky surface.
She landed on the cold ground and cringed at the pain of landing on her backside. "Ow.." she said as she rubbed her flank.
Sweetie Belle looked around and saw other fillies and colts piling rocks around the landscape. She saw one close to her and she spoke. "What are you guys doing?"
The filly next to her didn't speak, but kept piling rocks into a pile.
"Weird..." She turned her attention back in front of herself and saw that her hooves were subconsciously piling rocks aswell. "Huh? When did I start doing this?" She kept piling rocks as if an unknown force was making her, and she went with it, finding slight comfort.
Sweetie Belle piled the last rock around her into the pile. "Done." and she looked up into the cloudless crimson sky. 'Is this hell? it's not that bad I guess..' When her gaze returned to the rock pile she wondered what she would do next.
SMACK
The pile of rocks were hit away and scattered over the ground, angering Sweetie Belle.
"Hey! I just stacked those!" She shouted at the mare who had just knocked over her rocks, but then she noticed the familar face. "Applejack?"
The mare spoke and lifted up her hat out of her eyes, pushing her golden hair back behind her and changed her stance, showing her three apple cutie mark and holding the club she used to knock the rock pile down over her shoulder. "Applejack? Nope, Ah'm the guardian of Foal Limbo."
"Foal Limbo?"
"Yes ma'am. This is where yer gunna spend the rest'a eternity stackin' rocks." She said through a sneer.
"What if I don't want to stack rocks?" She argued.
Applejack pointed with her club in front of her. "Ya already are."
Sweetie Belle again returned her gaze in front of her to see her hooves mindlessly picking up the rocks and re-creating the stack. She then focused on making the pile nice and even and when she finished the admired her perfect tower. "Done!" She exclaimed through a smile.
SMACK
The pile of rocks fell again from Applejack's club. She was smiling as she returned the club over her shoulder.
"Hey! Why are you doing that?!" Sweetie Belle's anger rose while throwing her hooves in the air.
"It's ma job, see?" Applejack trotted over to several other filly's rock piles and smashed them with her club, causing the children to cry and she reveled in the joy of her job. Applejack returned to Sweetie Belle. "Now get stackin'."
Sweetie Belle began to stack the rocks again, this time in a thicker structure so that it wouldn't be knocked down so easily. She wiped the sweat off of her forehead from the effort and sighed. "Done."
SMACK
Applejack struck the pile again, now laughing hysterically.
Sweetie Belle growled at her work being tore down after her excessive effort. "Can you please stop?!"
"It's ma job!" Applejack said, almost singing and she twirled her club around.
Sweetie Belle began to try to stack the tower as high as possible, and she did it quickly. She got down to the last rock, having to stand on her hind legs to reach the top. "Done..."
Applejack appeared from thin air and had her club wound up in a swing. "Batter up!"
The pile toppled over and left Applejack confused, still in mid swing, staring at Sweetie Belle, who was still on her hind legs, who had pushed her own pile over.
Sweetie Belle began to smile, pushing over rocks strangely appealed to her, and had even chuckled slightly. "Wow that's fun!"
"B-but thats my job..." Applejack stammered.
Sweetie Belle had moved over to the filly next to her and pushed over her pile of rocks with a giddy smile.
"Hey!" Both the filly and Applejack yelled in unison.
Sweetie Belle began to laugh heartily as she ran around the grey rocky field, pushing over the other filly's and colt's rock piles.
Applejack and the other foals and grouped together to watch Sweetie Belle go on her happy rock tumbling rampage with complaints soaring through the air.
"Stop!" yelled most of them.
"That's mean!" Said a filly who was now crying.
"That's ma job!!" Applejack yelled, now angry.
"Push!" Sweetie Belle said as she pushed over the final pile. "That was so fun!"
"Y-...you horrible filly.." Applejack said, almost tearing up.
"What? You did it first..." Sweetie Belle argued.
Applejack rubbed her eyes and returned with a glared expression towards her. "You deserve to be put deeper into hell!" She clapped her hooves together and the dark hole reappeared under Sweetie Belle.
She looked down in terror of the dark swirling void grab her hooves and began to slowly pull her down into the abyss of pitch darkness.
"AHH!" She screamed as she fell towards the now red tinted dusty ground.
She landed with the returning feeling of pain on her flank as she rubbed it. "Not again..."
Once the feeling returned to her backside again she stood up and looked around, she had fallen in a small canyon. The walls of the canyon were a light red, same as the ground, and the ground was mostly flat, only slightly rocky compared to the heavily rocky grey exterior from the first level of hell.
"Oh my, a plaything! its not very often there's a filly bad enough to come here." Said the familiar voice.
Sweetie Belle spun around and knew right away it was her sister, who was standing next to two burly stallion pegasi that were holding odd pronged bidents.
"R-Rarity..?"
"Rarity? No, darling, I am the keeper of this section of hell. So you're the filly who was causing all of that commotion in the Foal's Limbo?" Rarity said lifting an eyebrow while she asked the question.
Sweetie Belle rubbed the back of her head. "Well, you heard about that?" She chuckled nervously.
Rarity cleared her throat before she spoke. "Well, for an outrageous filly like you..." She moved aside and showed a large black kettle with steam rising out of it. "The pot is waiting."
Sweetie Belle recoiled. "What!?"
The two pegasi had used their bidents to raise Sweetie Belle by wrapping the prongs around her waist. They hoisted her into the air with Sweetie Belle flailing her hooves.
"Hey! Put me down!" She tried to protest as they lifted her over the pot, which was a bubbling dark substance that was so hot even the steam above started to burn her.
Rarity had a large smile on her face as she saw her squirm above the pot and laughed hysterically. "Throw her in!" She yelled excitedly as she pointed at the pot.
Sweetie Belle was released and she dropped into the pot of boiling liquid. She quickly surfaced flailing her hooves and her face had become flushed from the heat while yelling. "Hot! Hot! hot!"
"Oh, hot isn't it?" She sneered. "Isn't it painful?" She sat down to enjoy the view and lifted her hooves in the air. "Oh! This makes me feel so good!" She said, still enjoying Sweetie Belle's outbursts from the hot liquid.
Sweetie Belle began to beg frantically. "Please let me out, its really hot.."
Rarity and the pegasi watched Sweetie Belle squirm in the pot for a few moments.
Rarity grabbed one of the pegasi's bident and used it to grab a large piping hot rock that was at the side of the pot. The rock was steaming by itself and she lifted it over the pot and dropped it in over Sweetie Belle.
Sweetie Belle dodged the rocks, still cringing from the pain. The liquid began to become even hotter, causing her to become infuriated and burst out. "What are you doing?! You're going to kill me!"
Rarity continued to laugh in delight, running out of oxygen. She spoke as she tried to breath in more oxygen "You can't die darling; this is hell."
Sweetie Belle was dumbstruck, and then took in the information that she couldn't die. She stared down at the boiling water, of course it still hurt, but it was almost like the spa treatment she got when she went with Rarity to Aloe and Vera's spa. She let out a sigh and reclined, resting her head on the edge of the pot and just allowed herself to float in the pot.
"W-what..." Rarity saw that she was starting to enjoy the boiling water. "W...why?"
Sweetie Belle let out a small yawn and replied. "Well, if I'm not going to die, there's no use in struggling."
"No way!" Rarity's smug expression returned. "But you can't take it, can you?" She said while flipping her hair with her hoof.
Sweetie Belle had closed her eyes, almost as if she was napping in the boiling liquid.
Rarity slowly edged to the pot. "It's not hot..?" She dipped her hoof in the pot and her eyes grew wide and bloodshot. "YEOWCH!" She quickly withdrew her hoof, which was bright red, and began to blow on it in a futile attempt to cool it.
Sweetie Belle opened her eyes and swam to the edge were Rarity was blowing on her hoof. She smiled as she saw Rarity with a burnt hoof. "What, is it too hot for you?" She began to bring her hooves the the surface and began to test the liquid.
Rarity looked up from her burnt hoof to see her playing with the water. What is she doing..?
"Splash!" Sweetie Belle said as she pushed her hoof quickly through the liquid towards Rarity.
A wave of steaming liquid and landed on her chest.
Rarity began to dance in pain while trying to cool herself off. "Yeowch! Hot!"
Sweetie Belle turned to the confused pegasi and gave them a large splash from the pot, making them shout in alarm while using their wings to cool off their bodies.
She began to enjoy herself as she splashed the three ponies around her, who were all dancing from the pain of the hot liquid. "Splashy splashy!" she said cheerfully as she continued.
The pegasi used their bidents to get Sweetie Belle away from the pot.
Rarity was on the brink of tears as Sweetie Belle was suspended in the air in front of her. "Someone like you needs to be sent deeper into hell!" she waved her hoof under her and the black void appeared again.
The pegasi released her and she fell into the black void.
Sweetie Belle was again becoming entangled in the dark hands that pulled her even deeper into hell. Her vision was blacked out and felt the cold chill up her spine, terrified of where she was being taken next.
"UGH! Why does this keep happening!" She yelled as she fell from the sky and saw the landscape from birds eye view. The ground was pale and had several hills around the landscape, some almost the size of mountains. She fell into a burning cage that was hotter than the pot she had just been in by ten fold. She had landed on her flank a third time and felt the pain but before she could try to calm the pain from the fall, she began to feel the intense heat. "Yeowch! Hot! Hot! Hot!" She looked around frantically at the burning cage and saw the flames constantly running across the bars. "I'm burning! I'm burning! Somepony save me!"
"It's no use."
Sweetie Belle looked outside of the cage and saw Twilight hooked up to the cage, looking over her shoulder to face her.
Twilight had a pleasant smile as she spoke. "You can't get out of the cage. Welcome to the hell of the Flaming Chariot!"
"Twilight?"
"How does it feel? Is it hot?" She asked, now having a smile of delight over her pleasant grin."
"Don't ask me how I feel! I'm burning!" Sweetie Belle cried out.
"You silly young filly, that's because its hell!" Her delighted smile turned into a sinister sneer.
Sweetie Belle stopped panicking and tilted her head. "So I'm burning and that's it?"
Twilight became confused. "Huh?"
"Earlier I heard that I wont die because I'm already in hell." She looked around the cage and into the hilly landscape. "So what do you do here?"
Twilight was dumbstruck, but managed to reply. "W-well.. we will travel all around hell while you s-..suffer in the burning cage..."
Sweetie Belle smiled at Twilight, willingly. "Okay! Let's go!"
Twilight turned to begin to pull the chariot. "A-alright.."
The chariot picked up speed and they began to roll along the landscape of hell, with Sweetie Belle enjoying the ride. She looked at the tall hills in the distance and tried to estimate how tall they were.
The chariot was slow and bumped along the road.
"This ride isn't very comfortable.." She complained.
"Of course not! You're supposed to be suffering!" Twilight shouted over her shoulder, slightly annoyed by the opposite effect that she was wanting. "Please suffer some more..."
Sweetie Belle sat down in the cage, bored, and looked ahead and saw the familiar rocky grey ground ahead. "This looks familiar.."
"What you see is Foal's Limbo." Twilight said, head drooped low from boredom.
Sweetie Belle stood up and looked out the side to where her spot was earlier and saw Applejack walking around with her club. She shouted out to her while waving a hoof. "Hi Miss Demon!"
Applejack looked over and saw Sweetie Belle and recoiled with some children running to her side. She pointed away and yelled at Twilight. "Git away! Don't bring that filly back! Git out of here!"
"Alright, alright!" Twilight yelled back. She teleported them away from the spot and reappeared on another path with the familiar faint red soil. She began to trot along the path, still bored out of her mind from the filly's lack of pain. "Next is the hell of burning oil.
"Hey, I remember this place too!" Sweetie Belle changed to the other side of the cage and saw Rarity in the distance with her boiling pot. "Miss Demon! How are you?" She yelled out at the hell keeper.
Rarity saw Sweetie Belle and panicked, she hid behind one of the pegasi pleading for help. "Save me! She's a demon!" She peered out from behind the pegasi. "What are you doing here?!"
The chariot stopped on the path a few feet away from Rarity and her pot.
"We're traveling around hell." Replied Twilight.
"Well you don't need to come here! Now get away with that..that demon!" Rarity said while ducking back behind the pegasi.
"Fine..." Twilight teleported the chariot again and they found themselves back at the beginning where the trip first started.
Sweetie Belle had her hooves crossed and sat down in the center of the cage, bored out of her mind. "I'm so bored!"
Twilight spoke up as she unhooked herself from the chariot and faced her. "Just what did you do? I've never seen them act so scared before."
Sweetie Belle looked at Twilight who was right outside of the cage with a curious expression. "I don't know.."
"And even as your engulfed in flames, you're not suffering at all!" She said, now becoming depressed.
Sweetie Belle saw that she had hung her head low and tried to cheer her up. "But I am suffering! It's really hot!.. Really."
Twilight looked up and questioned her. "Why don't you try going to heaven..?" Then she was struck with an epiphany and she had a sinister smile as she spoke. "Then you'll discover how truly insufferable hell really is!" Her horn glowed and the flames around the cage died and she had begun writing on a piece of parchment with her quill dancing across the page. "I'll write you a letter of introduction..."
The door to the cage opened up and Sweetie Belle hopped out and trotted over to Twilight.
Twilight folded up the paper and handed it to Sweetie Belle with a pleasant smile. "Here you go!"
Sweetie Belle grasped the paper in her mouth and she was instantly shone with a ray of white light that quickly lifted her upwards into the hard ceiling of hell where she phased through it and teleported away from the barren wastelands.
"Weee!" Sweetie Belle enjoyed the ride upwards and found herself being pushed through a thick blanket of clouds. When she finally reached the end of the ride she popped out of the clouds and then fell back down onto the plush surface. She was grateful for the soft landing.
A ball of light appeared in front of her, its bright light almost blinding her. "Hello, Welcome to heaven."
Sweetie Belle rubbed her eyes, they were still adjusting to the change of light from the dark hell to the very bright and hazy heaven. "Oh. Thank you." She replied pleasantly.
"May I take that?"
Sweetie Belle handed the ball of light the letter and it levitated in the air as it read the letter. "It seems you have been sent here from hell."
"Y-yeah.. What are you going to do to me here?" She asked, wondering if there was some sort of trick involved.
"Nothing at all. This is a world of tranquility with no hardships. When souls are released from their bodies they come here to rest for all eternity."
"Oh..." Sweetie Belle said, relived that nothing was going to happen to her next.
"If there's anything wrong, just call me, bye!" The ball of light disappeared from view.
She looked around and for miles all she could see were clouds and a bright blue sky. She smiled felt tired. "Nap time!" She allowed herself to fall backwards onto the soft cloud and she landed with a light poof. "It's so fluffy.. it feels great..I should fall asleep at any moment now..." She closed her eyes to rest.
Sweetie Belle popped back up, now feeling excited. "I'm not tired at all! Lets play!"
She began to run through the clouds, enjoying the light puffs under her hooves. She searched around for something to do, but for miles all she saw were clouds. After an hour of searching she felt more bored than she was in the cage in hell and sat down in the puffs, trying to make the best of what heaven was.
"What? You want to go back!?" The ball of light asked in a confused tone.
"Yeah." Sweetie Belle replied.
"You really want to go? This is heaven after all..." The ball of light tried to reason with the filly, but to no avail.
"Yeah, I'm done.." She said through a yawn, showing her boredom.
The ball of light pulled out the letter Twilight had sent with Sweetie Belle and it read. 'This pony is banished from hell for all eternity.' She finished reading the letter she folded it and spoke. "Then, why don't I bring you back to life?"
Sweetie Belle was startled by the offer, and she thought her friends, the bustling town of Ponyville, her family and the normal grassy ground. "Okay."
Sweetie Belle was being carried with the bright light down towards her home. She saw that her body had appeared in front of the door to the Carousel Boutique and she landed next to it. She looked down and felt the chill front earlier from seeing her own body. She yawned and stretched out before she stood over her body and her soul was sucked back into her physical form.
Sweetie Belle stood up and looked at the starry sky above, grateful to be alive again. She turned around and opened the door, walking inside she called out to Rarity joyfully. "Rarity! I'm home!"
