"Hisssrrr..."

The Imp growled at the three pegasi guards. All ten of its eyes locked on to each one of them. It swiftly crept toward them, not a single sound or warning. The demon stood up on two legs and walked at its targets.

"Hey, do you think we're gonna see any action soon?" A guard asked.

"No. Nothing ever happens when patrolling the castle," the second guard sighed. "All we do is just stay on the rooftops and see if any trouble happens, which is rare..."

"You guys sound depressed!" The third guard said, who was a mare. "So who cares if trouble doesn't occurs! At least we know that means everything is safe."

"I guess you're right on that, but... Hmm?" The second guard turned around at a sound he heard. "Hmm..."

"What's wrong? Did you hear something?" The mare asked her friend.

"Yeah, Star... Let me see." The guard cautiously approached the area where he heard the sound. He slightly smiled inwardly as he suspected something might finally happen to make his job interesting. He reached the source of the sound, but saw nothing.

An empty rooftop.

"Hey did you find something?" Star, or Starry Light, shouted at him, since he had gained some distance between them.

"No! It's a false alarm. It was probab- Ah!!!"

"Sky!" Both guards shouted as they saw a tall figure ambush their friend. The two of them rushed to rescue their comrade, but the when they got to his position, he was gone.

"Where did he go!? The stallion asked, deeply concerned.

"I-I don't know! He was just here when... There he is!" Star pointed at a figure dragging their friend across the courtyard down below. The guards leaped off the rooftop and swooped down to the thing.

The Imp had managed to knock out the single guard. It dragged him by holding him from the left hind leg, but dropped him when it noticed two life forms approaching it. The demon took a fighting stance and formed a fire ball in its right hand. It threw the projectile at one of the pegasi.

"Lookout!" The stallion yelled, seeing a glowing ball coming at them. "Mov- Ahh!" He was struck in the chest by the plasma ball.

"Thunder Wave!" Star saw her friend spiral for the ground. She dived at full speed to catch before death met him on the ground. Thunder was approaching the ground fast, Star picked up her pace to save him.

The Imp got on all four and leaped on a wall, climbing upward, then disappearing on the other side.

The mare caught her friend barely just a few meters above the ground. She landed and slowly placed her friend gently on the ground.

"Thunder? Are you alright? Thunder?" she asked.

"I... I'm alright," Thunder grunted. "Just... Urgh, hit..." He suffered burn damage to his chest, some fur had been burnt off from the attack. The armor he wore was easily penetrated by the demon's projectile. "I'll be alright... Go check on Sky."

Star hesitated to leave him but complied to what her fellow guard said. She galloped to the body of Sky, and saw he had a few slash marks on him. "Sky?" She nudged him to get a response. "Sky? Are you alright? Sky? Sky!"

The guard, Sky, made no response to her words.

"Sky! Sky!?"

Star shook his head to try to wake him up, but the worst seemed to occur. But then Sky grunted and cracked open an eye.

"W...What happened?" He raised his head to meet her eyes. "Where did that thing go?"

"Sky! You're alright!" The mare wrapped her fore hooves around his neck in joy. "I thought you were... Dead."

"Ow! Ow!" Sky yelped in pain. "That's where it hurts!"

"Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry!" Star immediately released her fore hooves from him, noticing she was damaging him.

"No, it's not your fault," Sky said with a meek reassuring smile. "It's just that I think I'm..."

He removed a fore hoof from his belly and exposed a large slash mark. The Imp had used its sharp claws on him, the wound looked grave.

"...Damn."

"We need to get you medical help!" Star frantically announced. "Plus Thunder, because he got hit by a fireball that monster threw at us!"

"Alright, let's get some help."

Star carefully helped Sky get up and walk to any other guards nearby, since they were by themselves in the courtyard. Thunder managed to get up on his own, he covered his wound from any exposure to anything, and the pain. The three of them regrouped and proceeded to get help immediately.

But one thing followed behind them, one certain creature: The Imp.

The demon silently crawled next to the bushes, its demonic senses indicating it where they were. The guards continued on without wariness of the dangerous threat. The ponies were approaching two large metal doors at the end of the courtyard. The mare grabbed one handle and Thunder pulled the other.

The door slammed with a thundering sound when the trio entered. The Imp could only back away into the shadows as it was not allowed to murder anything as it remember the specific orders of the Maledict. It climbed the wall and awaited for another time to attack.

But then a stray guard passed by it, not knowing the presence of the Imp. The Imp could only expose its rows of carnivorous teeth as it had all eyes on the pony.

This was going to be pleasing for the demon.

*****

"Come on! Something's happened!"

Shining Armor rushed back to his quarters with two guards. The guards were confused, the captain just ran up to them and randomnly told them to follow him. But by the look on his face they knew something was wrong and had to be dealt with. The guard on the left behind Shining Armor glanced to the guard on the right, who stared back at him with bemusement, then back to the captain.

"Uhmm, Captain?" he asked. "What's the problem or the situation?"

"Something just happened! Something that I think is bad!" he replied.

The guard on the right rolled his eyes when the captain's response was short and lacking definition. The three approached the door where Shining Armor came from, until it burst open by a pink alicorn with a suspicious look on her face. Shining came to a screeching halt when his wife unexpectedly appeared with a single guard behind her.

"Cadence?! What are you doing out here?"

"I should be asking you the same thing. What are you doing out here?"

"Cadence, didn't you hear or at least see something strange by our room!?" he asked frantically.

Cadence nodded her head. "I did but I'm thinking it's my aunt Luna." Shining tilted his head in perplexity at Cadence's belief it was Luna behind the bizarre activity occurring.

"Honey, since when does your aunt, which is also my boss," he announced quickly," decide to play some silly trick on us?"

"He's got a good point, ma'am," the guard behind the princess commented.

Cadence had to admit Shining Armor was indeed correct. Since when does Luna ever play a prank on her own family members? Sure she has done some pranks, but that was very rare. Something had to encourage her, to motivate her. But that motivation nearly did not exist. Something else was responsible.

"Let's get back to see what that thing on the floor is," Shining Armor said, leading the group back to their quarters.

When they arrived the marking was still glowing vibrantly. The three guards twisted bemused looks at the savage icon. Tiny traces of black smoke rose from the marked area like if it was smoldering. One of the guards came up to it and tapped a hoof carefully against it.

"It's not hot at all," he said, amazed to see the marking was not burning or heating at a high temperature.

"Hmm... Let me see." Another Guard pony approached it and rubbed his armored hoof against it. The marking did not fade away. Not a single piece was capable of being swiped away from it. "Well, it looks like it's tattooed against the floor, Captain."

"This is really weird," Cadence slowly shook her head. "Where did this thing come from?"

"I don't know," Shining Armor said, "but I don't think it's not going to go anywhere."

The ponies stared at the symbol in perplexity for a while. Shining Armor suddenly heard Cadence yawn. He could see her trying to keep her eyes open and her balance steady. "Let's deal with this tomorrow. I want all of you guards to resume your nightly patrols."

"Understood, Captain. Rest well," a guard said before departing with his two other companions. The royal couple entered their room and closed the doors to rest for the night. The three guards trotted calmly back to their positions, but one them suddenly stopped letting the two go ahead.

"Hey, you alright?" the pony on the right stopped and asked, noticing him looking down with concern.

"Yeah I'm fine, but where's Silver Stone?" he asked. "He was with me, but then I went with princess Cadence and I didn't see him come with us."

"I bet he's somewhere patrolling," the Guard pony on the left assured. "Come on, let's get going."

The three continued on, but not that far from them laid the dead body of the pony Silver Way. So close they were to discovering his terrible fate. And an unlikely intruder wandering though the castle in the murky shadows.

Time will soon reveal the two horrifying anomalies.

*****

Three brute, malicious giants stomped down the orange-red dirt road under the night sky. The Hell Hunters.

On the edges of the blackened horizon, waves of dark storm clouds were casually forming and moving toward the Badlands. The Hunters continued to drudge forward, nothing was going to stop them. As they marched on, the Berserk Hunter actually took its time to observer its surroundings, which was VERY unorthodox, since none of the demons wasted a single second to scan their environment and instead rush to their objective or prey immediately to end it.

The muscular and hulking demon glanced up to the starry sky. It could see countless of bright white and blue stars with a small segment of the galaxy above. This was nothing like its home. The home that was Hell. This place was full of life and adventure, so much to see and learn, so much wonders and curiosity; a place of full of bright colors of day and night.

But Hell was nothing more than a godforsaken pit of darkness and suffering. The damned that were cursed to be there and never see the light of joy and life. Only the screams, crying, wails of eternal punishment dwelled there to be seen. Scarred with symbols of true evil.

True evil never dies.

Creeping out of the vast array of stars, two stars appeared unique out of all them. There was blue star on the left and a red one on the right. It was the planet Earth and Mars. They may look beautiful down below in the countries of this planet, but they did not know the morbid truth of what civilization occupied both planets, and the horror that was destroying the Red Planet.

No matter. It was all pleasing for the demons.

The three Hunters continued their march. The desert seemed endless, it just continued on to the very distant horizon. The red-orange dirt path was the only road to somewhere. The Invulnerability Hunter gurgled a bit when it felt its carnivorous mouth run dry but it managed to hydrate it again quickly.

The Berserk Hunter suddenly stopped when it heard a sound from the left. The muscular demon turned its huge body to the left, and saw a small desert fox digging into a hole that appeared to belong to some other desert creature. The Berserk Hunter glanced around to find an object of a decent size. One that was merely large enough to outsize the fox.

The demon made a surprised grunt when it spotted a small boulder casually resting next to a dried brush. The Berserker Hunter made its way to the rock. The other two Hunters stopped when they noticed one of them wasn't travelling on with them. They watched with some curiosity as their companion randomly grabbed a small boulder.

The Berserk Hunter lifted the heavy object into the air, locking its eyes and senses at the animal. The demon threw the boulder at the desert fox, it slammed itself onto the animal with a murky plume of dirt. The Berserk Hunter eagerly watched the area of impact and patiently waited for the dirt to clear.

Perfect.

The boulder had the animal crushed underneath its heavy weight. And shockingly, the boulder actually made a tiny crater around itself. Crimson red blood spilled silently from under the boulder. Not a single trace could be seen of the fox.

The Berserk Hunter let out a roar of triumph with a fist held up high in the air. The two other Hunters slowly turned around with unamused looks (even though it wasn't visible) as their companion simply slayed a desert fox for no apparent reason.

Murdered victim number two for Hell.

An hour later the three demons at a new location. They were out of the desert to be precise, somewhere more thriving. The land was no longer dry as a bone and parched from its life. They were in an unknown valley, this could be easily determined by the dark silhouette mountains to the east and west. The Hunters were at fork in the road.

There were two paths to take; one heading to the left down a creepy, dark plant infested road and trees that appear morbid with the branches of their stumps corrupting the path as they rested upon it. The path on the right appeared normal. It led farther into this strange land, but the lights of a small town could be seen miles away down the path.

Which one to take? Which path will guarantee a quick route to the Hunters' objective?

The three Hunters motioned their heads to the left and right in unison. Each of them determining which road to take.

"Separate. One will go alone while the other two travel together," the Maledict spoke to them.

One of them took a step to the left, followed by floating a figure. The other Hunter took a step to the right. The Helltime Hunter and the Berserk Hunter proceeded down the path that lead into the Everfree Forest, as for the Invulnerability Hunter that stomped down the right, heading straight for Ponyville.

Destruction and rampage would soon engulf these two places of interest.

Author's Note

Yay! I updated the story since it has been a loooong time! ...Don't kill me...

But does anyone know what the planet the country of Equestria or any of the other countries are on? I wanted to use the planet's name somewhere in this chapter but I did not know what it was called. And I didn't want to make up a name because I'm not good at that.

Answers?