By the time Acry had gotten the soot groomed and washed out of her coat and mane, and had pulled out a few splinters that had remained stuck in her tail, the sun had risen along with the temperature, and the voices of ponies in the street carried through the open ‘window’ of the little house. Her ears twitched at their voices as her hair slowly dried in the light, spending the time watching the town go about its business. Corvus was perched to her right on a little jutting piece of wood, preening his wing, the feathers shimmering green gently.

She’d never been to Appleloosa before, it was all so different, the architecture, the fashion, the environment they chose to live in. No walls, guards or blacksmith, just bakers and farmers and a rather huge orchard just outside the town, she could see hundreds of trees from her vantage point.

Strangely, she was already beginning to feel comfortable there. Though she suspected having unintimidating company was helping rather a lot with that.

At this point, she realised that breakfast had gone completely forgotten, having that healing sleep did not help the matter, she needed sugar. She wondered if the town bakers made cookies instead of apple pies, which seemed to be the most popular option around here, she could smell the pastry even above the street level.

It occurred to her that she could easily escape through the missing wall, the wooden structure would greatly help the climb down, but Corvus was watching, and she theorised from his earlier magic display that Blitz could be watching her through him.

Blitz had left shortly before she had gone to see the view, it was nearing midday now and she hadn’t spotted him in town for a while, having lost track of him behind one of the buildings.
Maybe he’d return with food…

Corvus cawed and stretched out his tidied feathers before folding his wings, tilting his head at the young unicorn.

When she turned to ask what the look was about, though she most likely wouldn’t understand any answers, he suddenly took off through the room door which had been left open, Acry hesitantly followed a moment later, hearing him call from the floor below somewhere.

-

Checking on the runes on the foundation of his house was important, but this time it was simply procrastination.

Blitz had indeed disappeared behind a building after trying to delay the inevitable, for he had opened a strange, green rift and hopped through while nopony was around to see such a suspicious sight. He had been called upon not too long ago, and it seemed quite urgent, though he despised having to go back to the dullness of his true home, it was necessary.

Almost instantly, he was thrown right back out of the rift on the other side, landing on cool, masonry flooring, the commotion of the town fell away as the portal closed, leaving him with the echoing clicks as he walked along the hallway he had been transported to.

Voices in his head filled the quiet as he approached the nearest wall.

“Another disagreement? Almost as bad as us two at that!” The first mocked, only to have his laughter shut down by the second in a deep, bored tone.

“We only disagree because you can’t help yourself be anything other than a moron.”

“At least we can actually agree on things!”

Blitz enjoyed a few more moments of wonderful silence before they started up again, using his magic to draw a door into the wall.

“Hey, what do you think Eon did this time?”

“I don’t really care.”

“Think we can steal some food from the kitchens before we go?”

“Don’t ask me...”

With a sigh, Blitz decided to speak up as the door formed and glowed green. ‘I’ll grab food if you shut up, how about that?’ There was a pause before he added, ‘and Chaos, Evil, I mean both of you. Not a word...’

He stepped through into the oddly bland throne room, demonic, heavily armoured guards stood at the double doors on one side, there was nearly as little decoration as the rest of the place.

Everyone else had already arrived of course, he’d expected that, though two in particular didn’t even spare him a glance, too caught up in their own argument, one was an alicorn who sat upon the throne, the other was a charcoal pegasus with red eyes and a jet black mane and tail, he stood defiantly at the bottom of the steps that lead up to the demon lord.
At Blitz’s approach, Crystal, his sister, turned to face him, “you’re late.”

He didn’t bother to make an excuse. “What happened this time then? Wanna get it over with...”

“Was expecting that,” she looked up as the sound of commotion grew, both ponies now stood, teeth bared at each other, “particularly bad disagreement, Eon’s attitude towards his and our fathers position started a fight, he mentioned you a few times if I recall correctly, they heard you were spotted somewhere in particular, I’m sure you know…”

“Ah… Well, suppose I’m lucky that I can actually get out of here, he understands why I stay away, surely.” Of course they would still keep relations to the other fire demons, there was no way to avoid that, at least their queen had known better than to intervene. Though explaining himself would be rather annoying.

At that thought, the room suddenly lit up with blue and red flames as their rage spiked, the arguers showing off their own burning colours. Now was a good time to step in.
But as Blitz moved towards the two, Eon suddenly roared and took off out of the room, deciding on his own that it was time to leave, sparing Blitz a split-second glance as he passed, the guards barely got the door open in time as he fled. A few small explosions and crackling followed shortly after as he took his anger out on the castle interior.

“Huh, guess he’s learnt from last time he tried to start a real fight.” Blitz shrugged off such a reaction and turned back to his father, the room dimming back down to grey. The older demon appeared to be showing more age than usual as he spoke, and the topic he brought up was one that Blitz had been dreading.

“We need to discuss your place in this kingdom…”

And then Chaos and Evil made it worse.
“Not this again!”

-

By the time Blitz has finally escaped that tiresome discussion, well actually a near-argument really, and had shut Chaos up with food from the kitchens, it was pretty late in the afternoon. He’d nearly forgotten about Acry completely, but he trusted Corvus, that bird was a lot smarter than the average crow.

He stepped into the house to find the two of them sharing cookies, a coin bag now considerably lighter on the table and crumbs everywhere. At least from what he could see they had been smart enough to stock up the cupboards he’d never really used, he wouldn’t have to do that himself now.
He made it quite obvious he was looking at the mess of crumbs before speaking up a moment later, “been busy have we?”

Even Corvus managed to pull off an apologetic look, though Acry had to talk for him, “sorry, Blitz.” She held up the last cookie for him, “we got supplies to make up for it! I didn’t really know what to buy though, usually the adults pick everything we need back home.”

Blitz accepted the offer and took the cookie, “thanks…” At a thought he turned and opened one of the higher cabinets, “been trying to use your magic?”

Acry nodded, “yeah! Didn’t wanna try climbing on the counter, so I had to levitate everything up there, it's the only spell I'm good at... Why?”

“Just wondering… Need to train that magic up.” After seeing what food had been put in there, he closed the cabinet door and turned back to Acry, “so… Show me.”

Acry tilted her head, surprised, he was right though, her Elder had told her she needed to practice more. “Now? How?”

“Just using your magic often will make it stronger.” He gestured to the window and continued, “use your magic to throw those crumbs out of the window.”

That seemed simple enough to start with. Acry stood so she could see where exactly she was aiming, her horn lit up and the larger crumbs nearby lifted into the air. Since she’d forgotten to in the first place, she had to extend her magic to somewhat easily open the window, which was quite obviously barely used, and then she sent the crumbs flying outside.

While she continued the task of clearing up, Blitz ate the cookie and leaped up to his loft area, beginning to search for something.

It didn’t take long for the kitchen to look much better, Acry stopped trying to pick up every last crumb when Blitz called down to her, “heads up.” She glanced up and spotted the weights he had found right before he dropped them suddenly, Acry just about managed to catch them in her magic before they could give the wood flooring a sizable dent.
“That was close…”

Seeing that she had caught them, Blitz smirked and turned to the last ‘weight’, a large rock. Acry looks up as the loft shifted under the sheer mass of it, hearing him grunt as he struggled to push it to the edge.
“In time… When I’m done with you,” he stopped and looked over the edge of the loft, “you will be able to throw this guy around… Stand back for this one.”

That didn’t sound good. Acry immediately protested and backed away, “wait… You’re not gonna drop that, right?”
The rock started leaning over the edge. “No… Don’t!”
It fell anyways as Blitz gave the final push it needed, Acry tried her magic despite her doubts that she could catch it, and sure enough there was barely any change in its descent speed, even just the second she tried to stop it was a huge strain on her magic, it was a massive jump from crumbs to a boulder larger than her.

Acry braced for the destructive impact of the rock, yet the floor remained somehow untouched. However, everything that wasn’t anchored down shook from the force, it felt like the entire building rattled actually. She uncovered her eyes and stared in shock. “What?...”

Blitz couldn’t help but laugh as one of his other personalities jumped into control, Chaos’ voice was noticeably different to Blitz’s and it got Acry’s attention as he spoke, “you weren’t supposed to catch it! That thing weighs almost two tonnes!”
Before Acry could ask about the lack of damage, Chaos explained, “oh, Blitz carved reinforcement runes into the foundations, you can tell where that rock smashed through last time…”

Sure enough, when she took a closer look, it did seem that some of the planks of flooring looked a little bit newer than the rest.
Acry did have more questions though, quite important ones.
“I’m really happy for all the help, but why are you getting me to practice magic?”

“Trust me. You’ll eventually need it if you’re staying with us.”

Acry still didn’t entirely understand, she was one of the demon hunters after all, surely there was more to it than that. That thought was interrupted when Blitz’s amulet began glowing and a winged version of him appeared, again with a slightly different voice.

“Idiot… What Chaos meant to say is how we often run into trouble...”

“Who even are you two?... Do you live in the amulet or something?” Acry glanced between them, she couldn’t recall them being mentioned previously.

It was now that Blitz split himself and Chaos apart so he could answer, “no. They’re separate entities that I created to house my other two personalities.”

Acry pretended that information wasn’t lost on her and nodded, “ohhh, okay.” She tilted her head, remembering something Chaos had mentioned, “how long will I be staying with you? I wouldn’t think you’d want to take care of a kid, I mean… Well…” He was a demon and she was a hunter, but she felt like it was bad to mention that. It had been easy to forget that up until now really.

“Well, that very much depends on you, I can’t force you to choose…”

It was obvious by now that Acry trusted Blitz, and in time also Chaos and Evil, but it felt like he was implying that she could stay permanently, despite her only having been there for a day or so.

“I wanna know what happened to my family… And the town too. Maybe when things are re-built I can go back…” It was difficult to think about how much damage was sustained that night, and she had no idea if everypony even made it out, after all she hadn’t exactly been awake to see for herself.

“Crap… I hoped this subject wouldn’t come up yet.” Chaos and Evil suddenly reformed with Blitz at this subject, he continued after a moment. “Honestly, I don’t know, but I can take you back to the village.”
Even she knew her family weren’t that fast at building. “Not yet… I don’t think it will be safe for a while… But I don’t mind staying here a little longer, I like it here! I just still don’t understand why-”

Blitz interrupted to finish the sentence, “why I care?”

When Acry nodded, Blitz thought for a second and then answered the question.
“I can’t quite understand it myself… But for now, it’s because I felt like it.”

-

That evening the boulder had been moved out of the way and Acry had claimed a table to draw at after Blitz had found parchment and quills, of course those supplies were meant for letters, but they would do for now, it was something to pass the time with. Blitz had promised to go out and buy some crayons soon.
Once again, Corvus was perched nearby, keeping an eye on her and making sure she had some company while Blitz was out of the room.

Acry stared at the blank paper though, unsure of what to draw and rather distracted as she thought about all the information she had learned in the previous hours.

It wasn’t like having a demon for an ally was a completely unique situation, she remembered her Elder talking about how some decided against fighting the village and agreed on a truce, though that was still rather different. It was impossible for all demons to only concern themselves with causing violence, there were intelligent ones out there even if they were a little rarer, she supposed she was very lucky to have found one.

Having a demon for a friend though… Now that was definitely new.

She tapped the feather of the quill against the table edge absent-mindedly and glanced out the window at the darkening red sky.

This was surely something great, having better relations instead of worsening ones for once, this could prevent further fighting in the future, some good news to return to her family with whenever conditions in the village were good enough for them to move back in.

Acry was absolutely sure her family was fine, so she did her best to ignore any of her worries for now. She was going to enjoy her time in Appleloosa while she could, and she would learn more about Blitz in the process.

Finally coming up with an idea, Acry smiled and dipped the quill in the ink, making sure to use her magic like earlier, and began sketching.

Author's Note

Due to an easier way to use Google Docs, this chapter was far more of a collaboration with Blitz's owner than the other chapters so far. https://www.fimfiction.net/user/PainfulHeart
Credit for a lot of characterisation and dialogue goes to him, considering how little I had to work with from the original version of this story, I definitely needed the help! Thank you so much! I had a lot of fun working with you. ^u^