Sebastius Mareton made no effort to resist the guards. All that could happen at this point was that he'd rip one of his limbs off.

Though tearing his head off wasn't the worst idea he'd had. That would spare him the pain of an infamously cruel Marabian execution.

The four guards dragged them to a dark room with metal walls. In a moment, bright florescent lights came on, causing Mareton to squint. In the center of the small room were four metal balls, each made from ten iron circles forming the longitudinal lines, and one circle representing the equator. Each ball was big enough to hold a large stallion. Like Sebastius and Bravado.

"The spheres are ready," one guard said.

"Turns out we will only have two today," one of Sebastius' escorts said.

"The prince will not be pleased."

"It's all we can do."

"Pray to Alab that the prince will not decide to use you as one of his pinballs," the guard standing by the spheres said. He grabbed Mareton's front hooves and lowered him in through the opening in the top sphere.

"Believe me," the guard said with a shudder, "I have not stopped praying since I saw our thin roster."

"Remember to aim for hole 7," the sphere attendant said. "It is the only way to survive, even if it is horrible."

Two of the guards looked sick.

"We'll be fine," one of Bravado's guards said as they stuffed the gray earth pony into another sphere. The guards pulled a bar across the biggest holes in the spheres so that a pony could no longer fit through any of the holes.

Sebastius explored his new prison. The metal ball was heavy, but he could make it roll a bit by placing his front hooves on a bar in the direction he wanted to go and leaning. If he wanted to effect his direction more than that, he'd have to run. He wasn't sure he'd be able to run.

Time to practice. Hole 7. He had to remember that. He had to survive.

Okay, so he had no idea what he'd do with his life now that he was a cripple. But he knew that nothing good lay on the other side of death. At least not for him.

But this was baffling him. He knew all the traditional execution methods that the Marabians used; he had even watched several of them performed. Yet he'd never heard of Marabians stuffing criminals in metal balls, or anything to do with holes with numbers. Marabians were nothing if not traditional, so what was happening?

"Everything is ready," one guard said. He gulped. "Show the prince in."

Two guards pulled open two doors at one end of the room. All the guards then flung themselves down on the metal floor and pressed their faces to the ground in an ultra-humble bow, even for Marabians.

Sebastius didn't bother bowing. What were they going to do? Execute him twice?

The prince was of the age when most ponies would have just earned their cutie mark, not that horses had cutie marks. Like all members of the ruling class, the prince was an unnaturally intelligent horse. Most horses were little more than beasts of burden, with a brain like any other animal's. The Marabian rulers' ancestors had been subjected to magical experiments, were hailed as children of gods, and took charge of the kingdom. They were still in power to that day.

The prince in particular had a dark brown coat like his father and a purple mane like his mother. He wore the traditional trappings of a ruler- a fancy saddle and headdress- but they were arranged carelessly. In addition, the prince had a haughty, cruel look in his eye.

"What?" the prince said. "What. Is. This?"

He didn't raise his voice, but he poured on the sarcasm.

None of the soldiers answered. They remained with their faces planted into the floor.

Finally the prince stepped on one guard's ear. "Answer the question."

The guard lifted his head with a jerk. "A-ah, the prisoners, your highness."

"I thought there were going to be four," the prince said. "Do you doubt my competency to juggle all four?"

"No!" the guard said hastily. "No, not at all, your highness. We don't doubt your abilities at all. No."

"Then where are the other two?" the prince said, arching his eyebrows. "Can you count?"

"Yes. Yes. But, uh, Alab has decreed his will and has allowed some of the prisoners-"

"Alab, Schmalab," the prince said, rolling his eyes. He stomped around the room for a bit. "But I demand more entertainment. And where can I find entertainment, my little zebras?"

None of the guards answered. Slowly, the guard who'd been holding his head up lowered his head to the floor again.

"Up!" the prince said, grinding the zebra guard's ear under his hoof. The guard whined softly. "Get up, you worthless excuse for a guard. You. Ball. Now." He looked pointedly at the other guards, who were all lying on the floor shivering. "Eenie, meenie, miney…" he leapt on the back of a random guard, making him cry out in shock. "You also. Get going. I demand four balls."

The first guard gasped, "I have a family…"

"Couldn't care less," the prince said, stalking off the guard's back and into a corner. "Now. All of you, help them get ready. Unless you want to take their place?"

The other guards quickly scooped up their doomed comrades and hustled them into the remaining metal balls.

"I'm so sorry, please forgive me, I'm sorry…" one guard whispered over and over.

"I understand," one of the guards said sincerely as he was lowered into one of the metal cage balls. "Please… tell my wife and son I love them."

The other guard leaned far against the bars and whispered to one of the other guards, "Hole 7?"

"Hole 7," the free guard confirmed. They nodded.

Hole 7. Hole 7. Lucky 7. Mareton needed to remember the number 7. His life depended on it.

None of this brutality was terribly shocking. What did surprise him was that the prince was getting away with it. When Princess Celestia had signed a treaty with Marabia, she'd practically demanded that many forms of execution be stopped, and also generally forbade cruel and unusual punishments. How spoiled was this stupid prince that he'd somehow managed to get this through?

And… what did Hole 7 really mean?

Mareton guessed that they would be rolling around in these stupid metal balls. So maybe it was like… like those pegboard games they played at carnivals. You rolled the metal balls down, and bounced off pegs, and landed in a hole at the bottom.

Sweet merciful Celestia, Sebastius was horrible at that game. How could he aim for darn Hole 7 if he had no idea why the ball decided to bounce one direction or another?

"My controls?" the prince said.

"Right this way, your highness," one guard said, leading the prince out of the room.

"Get ready to roll," another guard whispered to a guard in a metal cage. "May Alab be with you."

After a moment, one wall slid aside. The bright sunlight blinded Sebastius for a second, and he shielded his remaining eye.

"Gooooood morning, Marabia!" an overly cheerful and magically amplified voice said. It sounded like this announcer was the kind of pony who ended every sentence with at least one exclamation mark. "I'm your host Zulu, coming to you live from the Dalquen stadium to bring you this pulse-pounding round of… princely pinball!"

The crowd that Sebastius couldn't see went wild. Pinball? Was that what they called that pegboard game in Marabia? Sebastius had never heard the term before.

"And now, let's meet our unlucky contestants!"

The crowd laughed.

I will hunt you down one by one, Sebastius thought. He lowered his hoof as his eye adjusted to the light.

The stadium was huge. The members of the crowd were too far away for Sebastius to see.

As Sebastius had suspected, they were on top of a tall, steep hill made of a slanted board. What was odd was the… 'stuff' attached to the board. There were no even rows of pegs. Instead there were a few giant… mushroom-like things that looked like they were made of plastic. There were only about twelve of them, scattered around the hill. There were holes, but they were in the middle of the hill rather than at the bottom. And then there were strange flipper things that were flapping back and forth.

"First up," Zulu said, "We have the Mareton brothers, arrested for brutal murder and for being in a thief's market-"

"I didn't do anything!" Bravado shouted, but his voice was swallowed up by the huge stadium.

"-and two guards, arrested because they failed to arrest anyone to take their place!"

This was met with laughter.

"Let's review the rules for our first-time contestants!"

This was met with more laughter. Every contestant was a first-time contestant.

"The object of the game is to stay alive as long as possible, for the contestants. For our beloved prince, the object of the game is to kill off all the contestants. Obviously, the prince always wins."

We'll see about that.

"The balls will roll down the hill, and the prince controls the flippers to hit the balls into these holes." Blinking lights shone around the edges of the holes. "Inside each hole is a different gruesome death. Our wonderful DeathCam™ will show you their demise up close."

Mareton couldn't see any sort of screen for the camera to project its picture onto. Probably it was overhead.

"And in honor of our beloved god Alab, we have certain special features for this month. First, the lightning gates!"

Poles stuck out of the board in various locations. Bright blue electricity crackled to life, linking the poles into pairs.

Sebastius felt faint. But he wouldn't let any dismay show. He wouldn't look weak in front of Bravado.

"Second, two of our holes, chosen randomly, have had their gruesome deaths replaced with pools of electric eels!"

The guards looked at each other nervously. Sebastius could just feel himself turning paler. Please say they didn't swap out hole number 7…

"And finally, we have our jackpot! Every time the prince can hit the jackpot, we will give out one round of free T-shirts to the audience!" Zulu sounded way too enthusiastic. "And this month's jackpot iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis…." -somehow Zulu managed to draw the two letter word 'is' to epic lengths- "-A hive full of electric hornets!"

Electric hornets?!

In the center of the playing field, a huge circle slid aside and a gigantic beehive rose into view. Large green insects buzzed around the beehive sleepily. Even from high up, Sebastius could see their stingers. They were at least two inches long and reminded him of hypodermic needles. They glowed with blue lightning.

Wonderful, he thought. Electrified needles. My doctors would have killed to have electrified needles. They love electricity. They love needles. With electric hornets they could have tortured us twice as effectively.

"Are you ready for action?" Zulu asked.

The crowd cheered wildly.

"I said, ARE YOU READY FOR ACTION?!"

The crowd exploded. Metaphorically, unfortunately.

"Then let's get ready to ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLL!"

The floor tilted.

For some reason, Sebastius Mareton found himself praying. Dear God, if you exist, then please save me because you love everyone unconditionally right? Or at least don't let me get electrocuted. Please?

The balls slowly rolled forward. Sebastius scooted backwards in an attempt to make the ball stay where it was. Not that his efforts did anything more than delay the inevitable. Inch by inch, the ball slid off the edge.

The sudden change in pitch and speed caught Sebastius off guard, and he fell over as his ball hurtled down the slope. He rolled all the way down, banged up by the metal bars. Everything became a blur as he tumbled head over heels, banging into things that made dinging noises and being smacked by flippers. The only thing he knew about the game was the commentary.

"Aaaaaand they're off! Look at those balls go! The prince is racking up lots of points on those bumpers there!" Sebastius heard the sound of screaming. "Ouch! Looks like we have our first victim of the lightning poles, Guard number 2! The prince has opened the gate to the jackpot! Which lucky pony will hit it?" More screaming. "Looks like it's the younger Mareton brother! Prepare to receive your t-shirts, fans!"

Sebastius wished he could have seen that. Bravado getting attacked by electric hornets, that is. He didn't much care for t-shirts.

He smacked hard into a wall and stopped. The very first thing he did was throw up. The world was a blur around him and his head felt like it would fly off. Actually, it might.

He was resting besides one of the holes. He couldn't quite make out the number, especially when he was so dizzy, but it didn't look like the number 7. Too many curves.

He spat some vomit down the hole and saw a pillar of flame shoot up. Yikes. Better avoid that one.

First he made sure he'd emptied his stomach completely. No point in trying to hold his lunch down in a game like this.

Then, slowly and with a lot of wobbling, he pushed his ball slowly to the side. A little further and-

-the flipper activated, smacking him all the way to the top of the board. Sebastius was knocked off his hooves, but when the ball reached the crest it slowed a bit. This gave him a chance, while not to get back up, to rock himself to one side, pointing the ball more towards the hole labeled 7. Then he began to plummet downward again, trying his best to steer-

-he just barely skirted the edge of hole seven and fell straight into the next hole. The metal ball barely fit and rattled against the edges as he and the ball fell down.

The fall made him feel like all his bones had been shaken, and he started bleeding in one shoulder. He slowly got up and looked around. There was nothing at the bottom of the hole (especially no electric eels, praise Celestia) except a small pipe sticking out of the wall. However, Sebastius had been in enough ancient temples to know what a dark pit with a pipe in one wall meant. Oh dear.

"And the firstborn of the Mareton brothers shall be the first to die!" Zulu said. "Sebastius Mareton has activated death trap number 6: death by slow drowning! Take a look at that death cam, folks- but not too closely, or you might miss the rest of the action- Ooh, there goes guard number 1 down hole number 7!"

Sebastius tried to hear if the guard had screamed or not, but the gushing of water stopped him from hearing anything.

Water quickly covered the floor of the small pit. Sebastius frantically searched for the bar in the metal ball that could open and close. When he found the lose bar, it turned out to be on the top of the ball, quite fortunately. He jerked it back and forth a bit. The lock that held the bar shut looked sturdy enough, but the hinges were looking a bit rusty. This probably wasn't the first time that this particular ball had been dropped in water. He banged the bar back and forth vigorously. With a little luck it would break up.

"And there goes the youngest Mareton into the jackpot again!" Zulu was saying. "Ready for t-shirts, adoring fans?" The crowd cheered wildly.

The water rose rapidly. It was already all the way up Sebastius' back legs. But not his front legs, because those were wrapped firmly around the bar, banging it back and forth, back and forth.

"The prince nearly has a hundred thousand points!"

The water rose up his waist, and then up to his chin. Sebastius raised his head, trying to keep his nose above water. Bang, bang, bang went the bar.

"And Guard number 2 looks like he's going to join the eldest Mareton in- oh, wait, no, he fell in hole number 7 too. Too bad; that's the boring hole, don't we agree, audience?"

Wild boos ensued.

That was promising. Sebastius banged the bar back and forth some more.

The water rose above his nose. Sebastius held his breath and fought hard to pull the bar out, but it wasn't that much looser than when he'd begun. He was going to drown…

The water receded a few feet, to Sebastius' surprise. Then it came back.

Oh, right. This was death by slow drowning. As in, it would probably keep almost drowning him until he finally died from the effort it took to get a breath.

Sebastius prepared himself for the water's return, taking a huge gulp of air quickly before the water covered him again. The metal ball prevented him from swimming upward, but he pressed his nose as high as he could make it go and kept working on the bar as best as he could. One screw popped loose.

The water was now rising and falling so fast he barely had time to breath in. He braced himself against the top of the metal ball and pushed as hard as he could. The hinges pulled slowly away from the rest of the ball. The various cuts on his legs sprang open.

"And look at that criminal die, folks! Blood in the water is a beautiful sight to see, don't you think?" Zulu said.

The crowd cheered.

The water rose over his head, and this time it just kept going higher. Sebastius yanked with all his might-

-the bar broke.

Dizzy from lack of oxygen, Sebastius frantically swam to the surface. The water was now high enough that he could get out of the hole by bracing all his legs against the sides and grabbing the edge of a bumper with his mouth to pull himself out. He dragged himself out and flopped on the ground, exhausted.

"D-did you just see that? I don't believe it folks, I don't believe it. Sebastius Mareton has escaped. Yes, folks, somehow he has escaped!"

The crowd went wild. Go figure.

Sebastius knew he couldn't stay. He staggered to his feet and loped dizzily towards hole seven. He tried to look down.

"Ooh, the prince isn't having any escapees," Zulu said. "He lines up the shot, aaaaaaaaand…"

The sound of a flipper striking a ball met Sebastius' ears. He turned around and saw Bravado's metal ball hurtling towards him. He turned and leapt down hole number 7, plunging towards freedom-

-and gasped.

The bottom of hole 7 was covered with very long spikes.

The bodies and balls of the two guards were each to one side, both of them impaled on the sharp points. That was Mareton's only comfort as he was stuck full of needles on his landing. Bravado's ball landed on top of him and pushed him further down the spikes. Then Bravado screamed as he, too, was treated to a nice and spiky death.

Like all the other times he'd died, Sebastius Mareton was still in terrible pain as he slowly slid downward, with spikes stuck in his chest, stomach, legs, and even one in his head, shooting from his chin out one nostril. It was agonizing.

"And the prince is four for four on hole number 7," Zulu said. "That's all, folks. Join us next week, same time, for another exciting episode of Princely Pinball!"