Chapter 59

It was cold. Extremely cold.

How long had it been? Eight hours? Ten?

Fluttershy wondered this as she sat in the pitch darkness, covered in ice and frost. She hadn’t been able to open her eyes for a few hours now, the moisture from her tear ducts had frozen and spread across her eyes, dealing them completely shut.

Her mouth was frozen shut as well, after a layer of ice had built up from the moist air that came from her nose every time she exhaled, creating something of an ice-beard that covered the bottom half of her face. It had been probably an hour or so since her nostrils had frozen shut as well, cutting off her airway completely, which sent her into a panic when it first happened.

While she knew intellectually that she wouldn’t die of suffocation, but the comfort of breathing wasn’t something that she was prepared to have taken away from her, so having her airways blocked agitated her greatly at first…but eventually she grew accustomed to it and was able to calm herself down again.

Despite all this, and feeling the incredible cold on her skin, still wearing only her skirt and tank top, she felt OK. The cold did not hurt, but it was still uncomfortable. She would much rather be snuggled up in a blanket in her warm bed…or in Rarity’s hot tub.

Finally, after what seemed like weeks, there was a loud clang as the heavy door unlocked and swung open on its own, chucks of ice falling off of it as it broke away, falling onto the floor.

She faced in the direction of the sound, wondering if this torture test was finally over when she felt two sets of padded hands grab her by the arms, hoist her up and drag her out of the room.

She felt the warmth in the adjacent room once she was in there, but was still unable to breathe or see what was going on.

Then she heard Stubz’s voice.

“Clean her face off.” he ordered.

She suddenly felt someone holding the back of her head, followed by the blunt strike of a hammer hitting her in the eyes, repeatedly chipping the ice away until she was able to open her eyes slightly, just enough to see through the blurry chips hanging from her eyelashes.

She could see Stubz standing in front of her with a binder, writing down some notes while wearing a thick coat.

She started to scowl at him when the hammer was swing again, this time hitting her in the nose and mouth, chipping away the glacier from her chin, allowing her to finally take a deep breath when the airways were opened again.

Fluttershy looked back at stubs again to see him pull a laser thermometer from his pocket and aim it at her skin. After a short moment, he put the thermometer back into his pocket then tilted his head as he wrote more notes down.

“Skin temperature…minus sixty-five Celsius…sixteen hours in there will do that.” he mumbled to himself as he wrote. “B-r-r-r-r-r-r!” he shivered as he looked back up at her. “I can feel the cold coming off you even through my coat.” he smirked. “How do you feel?”

She shifted her eyes up to meet his, giving him a blank stare. After a moment, she shook her head to flick some of the ice from her face. “Pretty fucking cold, Stubz. What the hell does it look like?” she answered quietly.

Stubz snapped his binder shut and held it down to his side. “I see your attitude hasn’t improved. I thought the maybe this test might cool you down a bit.”

Fluttershy stood there, taking a deep breath…still cuffed around the ankles with her hands still tied close to her hips as white vapours emanated from her body while she stood in the warm room absorbing the heat into her body.

“Well, not to worry.” Stubz continued. “You’ll be nice and warm after the next test.”

She glanced up at him. “When?”

“Right now.” he replied abruptly, turning to point at an open door on the opposite end of the room. “In there.”

Fluttershy didn’t want to do it, but the ever-present voice of the next innocent kitten was echoing around in her mind…forcing her to comply with his orders, unable to doom another one of the furry creatures to an early death.

She shuffled her feet in the short cuffs across the room, and eventually through the door into the next room. It was a larger room, where she found a few metal tables with what looked like restraint loops on them with large machines mounted above…a variety of different machines. Machines that she didn’t like the look of…

“Stand there…” Stubz ordered from behind, pointing at four vertical bars, arranged in a circle with the inward facing sides lined with rows of holes.

Fluttershy shuffled into the apparatus, standing in the middle of the circle of bars as Stubz bent down and locked her foot-cuff chain to a hook on the floor.

She stood there, surrounded by the bars, noticing how the metal had blue splotches all over it, indicating that they had been very hot at some point…

“Oh no…” she thought as the ice was starting to drip from the tip of her nose.

Stubz pulled out a flint striker from his pocket, then flipped a switch on the wall before walking back to the bars as Fluttershy picked up the scent of gas surrounding her.

He flicked the striker at the top of each of the metal bars, which sent a small blue flame traveling down the length of each one. Stubz then quickly left the room, closing the metal door behind him.

She was left alone in there, standing in the middle of the circle of flaming bars…he breath starting to elevate as she anticipated the horribleness she was about to endure. The ice was now starting to drip off of her quite a bit now…

Suddenly, four large fireballs burst out of the bars, engulfing her completely in orange flame. She screamed as she felt the cold leave her body rapidly, the ice steaming off of her, her clothes setting on fire as she continued to be blasted by the blinding fire.

She closed her eyes, feeling the fire change to a white flame, then a blue flame, which blasted her with tremendous pressure. The sound was deafening, the heat was intense, but not painful…and the shy girl couldn’t believe it was possible, even after months of living as an immortal.

She stood there, shrugging her body into itself as the intense fire blasted her for over two minutes straight until the flame suddenly subsided, reducing back down to the little blue trickles on the bars for a few seconds, before puffing out of existence with a little whoosh sound.

Fluttershy looked around the room, then down at herself after realizing her hands were covering her face. The waist belt that her handcuffs were tied to was burnt off, and to her horror, so were her clothes…her green skirt, panties, tank top and bra were all gone, burnt to ashes after being blasted by the blue flames.

As she looked at her naked body, now completely dry with all the ice gone, blackened by the soot of unburnt fuel, she noticed her handcuffs were glowing bright orange…and were softened by the heat. She frantically wrenched her hands around, stretching the metal cuffs and slipping her right hand out, then using it to pull her left hand free. The dropped the glowing metal restraints to the floor as she hugged one arm around her breasts to cover them, then covered her crotch with her other hand, looking down at the foot cuffs to see if they were also hot.

They were, and she pulled one foot free, stretching the glowing orange metal as her foot yanked through, followed by the other foot.

She scampered over to the metal door that Stubz had just walked out of. “STUBZ!” she hollered. “Give me some clothes!”

There was a pause for a moment, then to her surprise the little slot in the window opened, and a gray pair of pants and T-shirt were shoved through to her. She quickly grabbed them without thinking, and they instantly burst into flames against the heat of her skin.

The shy girl squealed as she dropped them to the floor, her heart sinking as she helplessly watched the cure to her embarrassment be consumed by fire on the floor.

She looked back at the door, gritting her teeth in frustration. She removed her hand from her crotch to bang on the door with her fist. “HEY! They’re on fire! I need more!”

The sound of Stubz’s laughter came through the door at her. “You should have waited for the water, FS1.”

She froze for a moment, shocked by the brash response, then her face contorted in anger as she hammered the door with her fist again. “Don’t call me that, Stubz! Now get me more clothes!”

“Too bad,” he replied, “I would have to go all the way back to the linens room to get some. You should have waited for the water, like I said.”

“What water??” she asked angrily, just as a sprinkler nozzle came on just above her on the ceiling. She couldn’t even feel the water touching her at first…it was flash boiling from the heat on her skin, surrounding her with crackling steam and a deafening hiss as the entire room started fogging up while she was slowly cooled off again by the water.

Eventually, the water seemed to be beading on her dirty skin, indicating that she was cooled to a somewhat normal temperature.

Then Stubz’s voice returned. “Get on that table on the left.”

“No.” she muttered, not thinking clearly.

“You want another dead furball?” he asked, reminding her of the presence in her mind.

She sighed in defeat, still wrapping her arms around herself to cover her nudity. “Fine…” she said quietly. “But can I at least have some clothes?”

“I gave you clothes already…” Stubz replied. “You destroyed them.”

Fluttershy closed her eyes, clenching her jaw in anger at her handler, listening to the sound of a large fan start up as it drew the hot steam from the room.

“Now get on the table and put your wrists and ankles through the loops.” he ordered again.

She reluctantly walked over to the table, pausing for a moment before she exposed her body again in order to climb up and lay down, putting her limbs through the loops as instructed. The restraints promptly clamped down tightly, holding her from moving as she laid there, her naked body covered in soot and beads of water, a small amount of steam still trailing off as the last bit of heat left her.

The door to the room opened and Stubz walked in, casually walking over to her as he finished up a few notes. “Maximum temperature detected…3167 degrees Celsius.” he raised his eyebrows. “That’s pretty impressive.”

He looked at the shy girl, who was staring at the large machine directly above her forehead.

“Ah,” he continued. “We’re gonna try some cutting next. We’ll start with carbide first, then laser…and so on.”

Fluttershy shook her head with a scowl on her face. “How do you not realize by now that I can’t be killed? How stupid are you?”

“Pretty stupid, I guess.” he replied, making some adjustments to the machine, before wrapping a strap around her forehead to keep her still. She could see him glancing at her body over and over again, causing her face to get warm as the humiliation of what was happening to her set in.

She closed her eyes as he cinched down the strap across her forehead.

“Why are you doing this to me?” she asked again, just like she had countless times before.

He groaned. “I’ve told you a million times, you will be tested, conditioned, trained and deployed.”

She rolled her eyes. “What does that even mean?” she asked angrily. “I’ll never agree to work for you guys…why don’t you just send me home?”

Stubz leaned down closer to her. “I’ll let you in on a little secret…” he whispered. “You are going home.”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened. “What? I am?”

“For your deployment…when you’re ready.” he answered.

She frowned. “What?…”

“We suspect there are more like you in that town…” he explained. “When you are ready, and follow our orders unconditionally, you will be sent there to bring them to us.”

Fluttershy gasped softly, her eyes shrinking down to little dots as she realized what they were planning on doing with her. “They want to use me to…capture my friends?? Oh no…I can’t…I just can’t…”

“You know…” Stubz said, snapping her out of her shock. “I kind of hope you’re right about not being able to kill you…it would be a shame to damage this lovely body of yours...”

She clenched her jaw, squeezing her eyes shut. She waited in silence for him to do whatever it was that he was supposed to be doing, then she felt something that made her stomach turn…

His fingertip was lightly dragging over her right breast, then stopped on her nipple, where he held it there, like he was pushing a button. She squirmed her hands and feet around, wishing she could get away, squeezing her eyes shut tightly as she pursed her lips.

“Hm…” he chuckled, before continuing to run his fingertip down past the bottom of her breast, then down her belly, where he finally stopped just below her navel.

She prayed that he wouldn’t go any further as her discomfort slowly turned to rage, feeling that sick man touching her like this. She forced herself to open her eyes and look over at him. “You’d better smarten up…” she growled in a low tone.

He looked down at her grimly, followed by a smug half-grin as he lifted his finger from her.

She looked away from him, studying the utensils hanging on the wall, wondering what some of them were for when she felt something pressing against her forearm at the edge of the table. She shifted her eyes to see what it was, and was mortified to see his hips against the edge of the table…with a bulge in the front of his pants that was pressing against her arm.

She clenched her teeth tightly, glaring up at him with fire in her dark teal eyes.

He saw the look, and responded with a casual chuckle as she turned away. “Let’s begin.” he said as he started to open a box of utensils on the other table.

“Um, Mr. Stubz?” Fluttershy said softly.

He turned to look at her, somewhat caught off guard by her tone.

She kept her eyes locked on him in a blank stare. “You’re gonna lose that little cock…” she said, adding a bit of sternness to her voice as she narrowed her eyes at him. “I Pinkie promise.”

*****

Fluttershy didn’t know how long it had been since they put her in this latest room. She didn’t know how long it had been since she was brought to this facility in the first place…Days? Weeks? It felt like years already to her…

She had clothes on now, a pair of light gray pants and a dark gray T-shirt, neither of which fit her very well. She was unrestrained, but that didn’t mean she hated it any less in this place. It was a small booth, with an opening on one side that faced out to a long shooting range with a paper target at the far end. Along the bottom of the opening was a conveyer belt that would move from right to left, carrying a firearm of some type in front of her where it would stop.

She would then be instructed to disassemble the weapon, inspect it, then put it back together and fire it at the target. It was a different type of gun every time, although there were some models that had come a few times and she was starting to get fairly proficient at getting through those ones.

She had no idea that the actual time she had been forced to do this was now over 72 hours…non stop. It was starting to drive her mad, the tediousness of it, the repetition…she wanted to stop in the worst way.

Fluttershy stood there, watching the belt bring another weapon in front of her. She rolled her eyes when she saw it. “Beretta again??” she thought to herself, shaking her head.

She stared at it for a moment, feeling the frustration boiling up inside her…then she finally burst, grabbing the pistol and firing it into the room behind her.

The bullets ricocheted around the space as she hollered, emptying the weapon until one of the stray shots bounced off of her temple, causing her to stumble to the side. She touched the side of her head with her fingertips, looking down at the empty weapon in her hand.

She was panting heavily, her anger still just below the surface…and she finally stood up and hurled the weapon through the opening, into the shooting range.

“FUCK YOU!!!” she screamed, balling her fists up at her sides…not caring about anything else but getting out of that room. “I DON”T WANNA DO THIS ANY M-”

She stopped suddenly when she heard the distressed animal voice in her head, something that was always there, but in her rage had forgotten about. She flinched when she felt the sudden harsh crack in her mind, followed by the mind of the animal disappearing into silence. She covered her mouth as she froze in place, then a moment later as small panel on the door slid open and a furry little corpse was stuffed through the hole where it fell to the floor in front of her with a soft thump.

Fluttershy covered her face with both hands, a lump forming in her throat suddenly as she dropped to her knees and wept. “What have I done?” she cried to herself, curling up into a ball on the floor.

*****

She finally did get out of the shooting room, but things didn’t get any better for the shy girl. The next thing they did to her was even worse.

She was mindful this time of the third little kitten’s voice in her head as she tried to keep her temper under control so she wouldn’t be responsible for another innocent death.

How did she get like this? She was supposed to be the kind, sweet, gentle shy girl…now she was full of rage every minute of every day. Why would they do this? Why would they want her to hate them so much if they expected her to obey and even work for them? It just didn’t make sense to her...

This time, she found herself in an auditorium, chained up on the stage by one ankle. It was dark in the room, but it didn’t take long for her eyes to adjust, allowing her to see what appeared to be well over two-hundred people. Every single person who worked in that facility must have been in that room.

Her heart almost leapt out of her chest. She stared at all of them with pinpoints-for-eyes, wondering what she was doing on a stage in front of everyone.

Stubz’s voice rang out over a loud speaker, making her jump. “Grab the microphone from the stand in front of you…and you will sing for us.”

He heart started racing as she shook her head frantically. “No… I can’t…I-“

“You’ll do it, shy girl. It’s time to get over your fears.” Stubz said, cutting her off. “You will sing ‘I will Always Love You’ by Whitney Houston. You will sing it a-capella, and you will sing it loudly and clearly. If you don't do it the way I've asked, then you will do it again.”

“I…” she started.

“Do you want another dead furball on your conscience??” Stubz asked harshly.

Fluttershy could feel the animal’s sudden distress in her mind, making her stomach twist inside of her. “They’re hurting him…”

She either had to do something she couldn’t even dream of, singing in front of a huge crowd of strangers…or let another innocent little creature die. She knew that having to sing, even though it was going to be awful for her, wouldn’t kill her, so she put her hand out to reach for the microphone and pluck it off the stand. “OK…OK.” she pleaded. “I’ll do it, just…please don’t hurt him anymore…”

“A wise choice…” Stubz replied as she raised the microphone to her mouth, drawing in a shaky breath…but then she was cut off by him again. “Oh, I almost forgot…” he said with a coy expression. “There’s one other thing…”

“W-what?” she asked in a quivering voice.

“Take you clothes off too.”

Author's Notes:

I hate doing these chapters, but on the bright side, this is the last one. No more are needed...I think I've got the point across that this place sucks.