Chaos' Old Friends

When they arrived back at their den, Wolfy suddenly stopped, as though struck with a thought. “umm, Dema? We forgot something.” He quickly padded after her, as she hadn’t noticed him stopping.

“Hmm? What do you mean? I don’t think we forgot anything.” She stopped and turned to him, confusion written large on her face.

“We forgot the Council.” He said grimly.

Dema’s eyes widened. “Oh. Quick, go catch Discord!” Wolfy nodded and disappeared in a puff of smoke. Dema followed suit and reappeared in a field near Cloudsdale, turning into a purple pegasus pony with a jagged black mane and tail, reddish eyes, and a messenger bag for a cutie mark. She flew up and landed outside the Cloudsdale Package Distribution Center. She quickly clocked in and began gathering the shipments she was to deliver that night.

A light brown pegasus with a winged package for a cutie mark trotted up and said, “Lettermane, you’re early.” He eyed the packages she was loading up. “And you’re overloading yourself. What’s going on?”

Lettermane turned to the pegasus and said, “Something came up. I’m going to get all my packages delivered as fast as possible so I can have time to deal with it. I’d never try to deprive you of your best delivery mare on such short notice. I will tell you, though; I may end up quitting in a week. If everything goes the way I think it will, I’ll be moving too far away to keep this job.” She continued loading up as she spoke.

“Well, I’m not going to let you deliver all this yourself. Let me help you.” He started hitching himself to the cart she was loading everything into. She quickly stopped him with a hoof, and turned all her attention to him, giving him a careful look.

“Now, I respect you, Brown Package, but you’re not fit to be pulling this much weight with your wing still being injured from Dew Drop’s dropping a package on it last week. And don’t try to lie to me and say it’s fine. I can tell from the way you move it’s still bothering you.” She checked to make sure she had all her packages. “Besides, this’ll be easy for me to carry. Don’t worry, I’m a strong pony.” She grinned at him.

He gave her a calculating look and finally said, “Alright, I guess you’re right. But if I find out you’ve injured yourself with this load, you’ll be in deep horseapples, missy.” He gave her a warning look and trotted away.

Lettermane smiled as he walked away. “He’s a good pony. I should try and stop by and help him sometime if I end up working with Discord.” She said to herself. With that, she trotted out the doors, pulling her massive load behind her. She pulled it to the city limits and flew off the edge of the cloud city, straining her wings to stay airborne. As soon as she was out of sight of the city, she teleported herself and her load to the limits of the first city she was delivering to. She quickly unloaded the packages and flew off again, teleporting once she was out of sight of the city. She repeated the routine until she had finished delivering everything around midnight. “Record time. Of course, this is record time with cheating, so it doesn’t really count, now does it.” She said to herself.

Suddenly, Discord was flying alongside her. “So, is talking to yourself something you do nowadays?” he noticed her cart and curled up inside it.

She corkscrewed, dumping him out of the cart. “Of course. Been doing it for a couple a years now. You’re heavy for a creature that floats half the time. Have you been laying into the cloud cake?” she glanced at him, grinning to show she was teasing.

“How could you accuse me of such!? I’ll have you know, I have more interesting things to eat than cloud cake.” He said, pretending to be offended.

Dema snickered. “What, like the glasses used to hold chocolate milk?”

“Yes. They’re quite delicious, you should try one sometime.”

“I gotta go. I have to get this cart back to the Cloudsdale Package Distribution Center and then I have an important meeting to go to.” Dema said, flying faster.

“Ooh, is it with this Council Nosey mentioned? Can I meet them? And why are you working for the Cloudsdale Package Distribution Center?”

Dema bopped his nose. “Yes, no, because I want to. I will teleport if you don’t stop bombarding me with questions.”

“Oh, all right. You better tell me when I can deliver this letter, though. It’s burning a hole in my pocket!” Suddenly, Discord was wearing pants and the letter was slowly burning its way through the pocket.

“Well, then, take it out of your pocket and put it in your Hidey Hole until later.” With that, Dema teleported to the field below Cloudsdale and flew up to deliver the cart. She quickly dropped the cart off at the CPDC and quickly returned to the field. There, she returned to normal and activated a used a spell on herself. Glowing blue lines suddenly covered Dema from head to toe, and a portal appeared next to her a second later. She trotted through the portal and once more found herself walking on clouds, though these ones were formed to look like normal streets. She trotted to a large, official-looking building. Inside, she asked the Angel on duty what the Council was deliberating about.

“They’re deliberating on the movements of the Enemy Demons and how to counter that with placement of you Holy Demons. Any particular reason you’re here today?” the Angel peered at her curiously.

“Actually, I’m hoping to talk to the Council about a job change. A cover job, that is.” She switched to her half-sent. form so she would be more on level with the Angel.

“Really? Well, now I’m curious. Let me announce to the Council that you’re here and then you can head on in.” The Angel wrote something down in a book then turned and walked through a door off to the right. A few minutes later she popped her head out and beckoned to Dema. Dema quickly sped through the door and stopped when she reached the center of a large, circular room with multiple Angels sitting around it.

“Dema, I understand you’re here to talk about a change in your cover job? Has something come up?” An Angel she knew well and one that had been nicknamed by her and her friends as Angie. She was supposedly the Handler of the Holy Demons.

“Yes. A very… unique opportunity has arisen.” Dema replied, carefully folding her hands behind her and launching into an explanation of the whole event. The Angels listened calmly, though she could tell they were getting mad at her for what she said.

A different Angel, the head of defense who had been nicknamed Macer, stood up and glared down at her. “We will have to deliberate on this, but let it be known I do not support this idea.”

Dema nodded and replied, “Your continued resistance to anything I do is noted. Shall I leave so you can deliberate in peace?”

“Yes.” Macer frowned at her as she left. As soon as Dema had closed the door, he sat down with a smile.

Angie, seated next to him, sighed. “Macer, why do you insist on pretending you hate Dema?”

“I don’t hate Dema. I hate the sneakiness all the Demons employ. I’ve always said we should be honest with the Mortals.” He crossed his arms.

“You keep forgetting that Mortals are extremely frightened of Demons. If the Mortals discover that Demons are amidst them, they’ll get very frightened, and try to fight the Demons, who’ll fight back in self-defense, and then Mortals will die.!” Angie accentuated her words by slamming her hands on the table in front of her.

“Your way too melodramatic.” Macer said, shaking his head at her.

Dema sat in the lobby and talked with the Angel there about children. It turned out the Angel had a young son who was always tipping things over, usually to disastrous results. After talking for about 15 minutes, Dema looked at a watch that suddenly appeared on her wrist and strode back into the chamber, right into the midst of an argument.

“Allowing 3 demons to be exposed to a plane would be disastrous!!” Angie yelled, standing up and pushing her chair back.

Macer, who had ended up moving to a different part of the room, yelled back, “If they follow through with their current plan, then the ruler and practical God of that plane would be there to smooth everything over!!”

“Look, I don’t care about all this Exposure talk! That’s not the important part! The rules state that the Demons cannot get involved in the lives of the primary sentients of each plane!!” A different Angel kept shouting, but his words kept getting overshadowed by Angie and Macer.

“ALRIGHT LITTLE ANGELS, TIME TO STOP YOUR ARGUING!!!!” Dema said, striding in confidently. The Angels fell silent, shocked by her brash manner. “First of all, we’d be keeping it almost completely on the down-low until I got the job, if I got the job. Second of all, Discord, who I’d be interfacing with most of the time, is a Draconequus, not a Pony, the primary sentient of that particular plane. Anymore arguments?”

“Yes! What gives you the right to bust in here like that!?” cried the self-same Angel who was getting overshadowed by Angie and Macer.

“simple. You never finish deliberating until someone else comes in and gives you the answer you’re looking for. And don’t try to call me out on it, because it always happens.” Dem crossed her arms and gave the Angel a challenging look.

Angie giggled. “She has a point. Now, in light of that incredibly compelling argument, I believe we should start the voting.  Who votes for allowing Dema to get this job?” She looked around at the rest of the Council and counted the raised hands. “Alright. Who votes for not allowing Dema to get this job?” She counted much more quickly this time. “It seems the overwhelming vote is for her to get this job.” She didn’t sound happy.

“Thanks, Council. I should get going. I have to get an interview scheduled.” Dema spun on one foot and walked out.

“You have fun angering the Council, don’t you?” said the Angel in the lobby, chuckling.

“What can I say? It’s easy and fun!” Dema said, grinning. She saluted to the Angel and left. She turned back into her natural Demon form and re-opened the portal she’d used to get there. Once back in Equestria, she teleported to the statue garden and turned back into her pony form. She quickly stretched her wings and Lunar Armor appeared, disguising her. “I’m glad I kept this stuff.” She muttered. She quickly trotted through the palace to Discord’s quarters. When she finally reached the proper room, she teleported inside. “Discord, you can deliver the letter now.” She said, ignoring the crude painting of Celestia Discord was making.

“Finally! I’ll have to give it to Luna instead of Celestia since you took so long.” Discord dropped the brush and pulled the letter out of thin air. Dema examined the painting, added a few things to make it a more flattering picture of Celestia, then disappeared herself.