It turned out to be surprisingly easy to get most of the information on the circle’s neighbors: As Cash put it “If there is a demand there’ll be those selling” – and to Speaker’s surprise this also applied to information that would require extensive stalking of your neighbors. Apparently it was groups of foals organized by adolescents who – being too young to do much else – would run around and keep tabs on who came and went from their local neighborhoods, selling that information to anyone willing to pay. With this type information gathering services available, for a fee, the circle was quickly clued in on what ponies near them disappeared and when.

“Ok, so most of our esteemed neighbors – of the ones who do try to sneak off with any regularity – go to visit lovers, shady business partners, rival business partners they aren’t meant to be seen with, or other things that we don’t really care about. The Pipsqueak Watchers told me that there’s only four ponies they haven’t been able to keep tabs on, and I have their home addresses here” Cash proclaimed, displaying a list of addresses to the rest of the circle.

Speaker had a look at the list: Two of the ponies were wealthy guild merchants, one was a renowned sculptor, and the last one was listed as a ‘blue hat’: “What’s a blue hat?”

Sullen Hoof quickly explained that council officials, such as tax collectors or license vendors, had as symbols of office various colored hats instead of any kind of uniform. It was a cheaper solution, plus it made them easier to spot at a distance when moving through large crowds of ponies as one would when walking about in the city - so this particular neighbor was a property tax assayer: “…and him sneaking off probably means that someone is bribing him regularly to keep their tax levels low”
“Actually, the blue hat is a mare” Cash said, looking at his notes.
Shimmer looked at the rest of the list: “Well then we can cross her of the list - we’re looking for a stallion”
With the list reduced to three, the circle split up to allow for a quicker search. They understood that Shimmer would ultimately have to verify the unique scent loss phenomena – but to begin with it seemed reasonable not to have everyone stalk the same pony.
“Also, Cash, please send another messenger or two to Sunrise and Red – if we’re dealing with demons here we’ll need both of them” Speaker noted.
Leaving the town house after breakfast, the circle split up. Sullen Hoof went after the sculptor, leaving Cash, Speaker and Shimmer to check on the two merchants.
Cash approached his target like an investor performing due diligence on a potential investment opportunity – indeed, through a mix of petty bribes and smoothtalking he managed to convince most of the merchant’s house staff that he was investigating their master as a potential target of investment. This quickly gave Cash almost unrestricted access to the merchant’s records – which when coupled with the interviews he did with the merchant’s staff, quickly told him where the merchant was sneaking off to… namely a brothel in Harlotry where the merchant got spanked, regularly – so this wasn’t the pony they were looking for, especially not after Cash checked that the merchant was actually in Harlotry getting spanked, although he did get a few pictures of it in his Recorder of Everlasting Blackmail Material. Also it turned out that the merchant had a lot of debt, so Cash didn’t invest any money in his business.
Speaker let Shimmer track the other merchant like she would any other creature she was hunting – allowing him to fiddle around with his wyld-shaping techniques, plus check up on the clinic. It had been vandalized ever so slightly, with a few rocks through at the large storefront window, but to Speaker the most telling thing was the numerous small piles of rocks and pebbles outside the clinic… there had clearly been quite a few ponies who had come for help and treatment while the clinic had been closed.
Against his better judgment Speaker left the rocks undisturbed, instead entering the clinic and using his wyld shaping technique for the first time to conjure up something useful: Donning his magi-mechanical hoof and securing himself with his chaos-repeling wards, Speaker pulled in all the stray wyld energy of the area and shaped it into a neat pile of pristine silken bandages.
It wasn’t much – by Lookshyan field hospital standards it wasn’t even half a day’s worth of bandages – but at the sight of the neatly rolled up bandages Speaker wept, for he recalled the glories that had been made reality through that technique in the first age… and so much of it was not just gone now, but forgotten, meaning that it would never be possible to recreate any of it.
Shimmer came across Speaker in that weeping state, unsure of what troubled him: “You ok?”
“I… yes, just waxing nostalgic – how was the hunt?” Speaker asked, wiping away his tears.
Sighing deeply, Shimmer regaled how she had tracked their sneaky merchant and his disappearing act to Sijan-town where he apparently bought the bones of dead ponies in secret – then had them ferried to the Nighthammer district where the bones were hammered into tiny bits and used in steel production: “Now, I honestly don’t know that much about making metals… but pony bones, really?”
“Bone can be used to draw out impurities of iron when smelting it – makes it into steel – but still… that’s horrible” Speaker said, getting up and giving himself a shake, as the thought of someone’s old granny being pillaged for bone to make swords and spears gave him the chills.
One thing the two very much did agree on was that such a questionable business practice certainly explained why the merchant hid it so carefully – half the city would probably eat him alive if it was known to the public.
“Oh well, we can use the information later if we need to blackmail him for a cheap deal on steel – for now let’s get back to the others” Shimmer suggested.
Back at the town house the circle spoke of the two merchants who turned out to be duds – Sullen Hoof wasn’t there however, indicating that the sculptor was the pony they were looking for… and possibly indicating that Sullen Hoof was in trouble.
“Cash, do you still have the sculptor’s address?” Speaker inquired with a worried and hurried tone.
Cash quickly delivered, leading to Speaker, Shimmer and Cash rushing down out the door and down the street. The sculptor’s studio and townhouse wasn’t far away – but it was a few blocks away.
The sound of earth quaking and the screams of ponies hinted that the circle had indeed found the demon rapist – although as Speaker, Shimmer and Cash rounded a corner and was nearly struck by none other than the Emmisary as its cloaked and silver-masked form flew right past them and slammed into a building wall they also got the distinct feeling that Sullen Hoof’s remark of needing Red for this fight was very much right.
Down the road was a townhouse with its façade in ruins, Sullen Hoof in the middle of a maelstrom of whirling kitchen knives and cleavers, and a strange pony who looked like something out of Firewander – its body was strangely large, enormous even, making its head which was the size of an ordinary adult pony stallion’s head look quite small. Its hooves were even greater, but the strangest and most worrying thing was that he was glowing with baleful emerald fire off skin which seemed to be of black basalt stone and glowing hot brass. Also the demonic stallion looked exceedingly angry if his roars were any indication.
“Shimmer, I think you’re up” Cash meekly suggested, Shimmer taking no time at all to shift into her warform and below a mighty warcry as she leapt at the demon-essence-infused pony, tackling him as her feathers grew together to form a near impenetrable carapace.
Looking at Speaker, then back at the monstrous pony who’s roar radiated such infernal heat that it melted the outermost layers of Shimmer’s carapace, Cash hesitantly asked: “So… do akuma normally look like that?”
Shaking his head, Speaker’s worried expression said it all: This most certainly was not how akuma looked – at least from what little he knew. That he couldn’t see the glowing image of two crossed brass sabres on the monster-pony’s brow didn’t help either – but then again, such things had never been seen before in creation, so who knew what that meant anyway…
The monster-pony, in retaliation to Shimmer’s bulrush, struck back with a blow from a hoof that on impact was so powerful that it shattered the basalt skin that covered it, revealing a solid brass core that burned with green emerald flame – Shimmer cried out in pain but slashed back in return, her claws like moonsilver scythes as they cut at her foe.

“Can we even do anything here?” Cash wondered, looking despairingly at his own hooves and his magic claw-shooting shoes.

Thinking for a moment, then looking around to spot any nearby mercenaries, Speaker got an idea: “Yes you can – go spread the news that the demon rapist has been spotted and is being fought. Get as many mercs as possible to come help, remind them of the bounty”

Nodding, Cash quickly ran off. Speaker looked back at the fight – Shimmer and the monster trading blows, but from the looks of it then it seemed that Shimmer was losing, if the blood leaking from under her feather-fused carapace was any indication. Summing Gift as quickly as possible, Speaker spent the precious seconds waiting for the disk to appear from elsewhere trying to understand the monster-pony’s fighting style – for it was far too coherent and calculated to be the work of blind rage and unrestrained fury… although the difference was hard to tell at times, with the monstrous demon-pony bellowing fire and brimstone as he kept pounding on Shimmer’s cracking carapace armor.

It struck Speaker that the demon-pony’s right fore-hoof was particularly… wrong: It seemed to be of solid black basalt that never cracked with glowing old realm glyphs, its edges sharp and very solid nature allowing for supernaturally mighty blows, further enhanced by the grotesquely bulging muscles of the pony that just kept swelling – truly, the demon-pony was too swole to control.

Shimmer’s slashing kept proving futile, telling Speaker that Gift probably wouldn’t be able to do much damage either – unless he could find some kind of weak spot – and where was Sullen Hoof? Oh wait, there he was, no cutlery-tornado around him, but three hearthstones on strings hanging from his mouth! Clever pony, now the demon-pony here at least wouldn’t be able to get any first age weapons.

As Sullen Hoof disappeared himself, Speaker finally felt Gift near him in the material realm – he assumed the tense and strong stance the informed the Thousand Wounds Gear style and rushed into the fray, throwing the disc in such a way that it would strike the demon-pony from behind, while Speaker would strike from the front.

Getting close to the demon-pony allowed Speaker to see a series of gruesome details of the demon-pony’s anatomy that had previously been occluded by its swift movements and the dust thrown up by the debris around them, as well as the fight: Four rows of small crimson horn-like protrusions lining the demon-pony’s brow, and the pony’s teeth… curled fangs like only a demon could have, but those were by far not the worst feature that getting close to the demon-pony revealed…

As Speaker quickly began to regret engaging the monstrous stallion, its muscles rippling and bulging as if empowered by each blow it struck – even if it’s massive stone-covered hooves missed, he could feel a dread sensation: The ambient essence around the demon-pony was the strongest Speaker had ever felt. It contained a power far beyond that of normal unicorns, or any of his circle-mates. Even the gods that Speaker had met in Yu-Shan would not be able to match such raw power. Only a hoof-full of elder unicorns in Lookshy had ever felt that powerful, and possibly some of the sidereal elders Speaker had met – but while they had felt potent, they hadn’t radiated such baleful power.

A brief look with essence sight nearly left Speaker blinded, as he staggered backwards – the vision of the demon pony’s soul up close having been as if looking into an angry hell-star… a very apt comparison, for the only thing Speaker could think of was that this pony seemed fueled by something so similar to the primordial emerald-fire sun that was the very heart of the demon realm. Also not being able to see properly was generally considered a really bad thing when fighting.
To Speaker’s brief reprieve a figure with pale white hooves hanging from out under an off-white cloak suddenly appeared between Speaker and the demon-pony. At first Speaker thought it was Sunrise… but this pony wore a silver mask – oh dear… it was the Emmisary, who Speaker had earlier seen get flung into a now very collapsed building. The Emmisary didn’t look any worse for wear, the cloak and mask looking completely intact and unblemished.

With a pale hoof the emissary pointed at the demon pony: “You shalt not commit wanton violence. You are in violation of the dogma. Cease and desist this instant”

The Emmisary’s voice sounded weird in Speaker’s head. It wasn’t spoken – there was no sound from under the feature-less silver mask – but there was a voice inside his head… it was quite strange, for the voice still came with a sense of direction towards the Emmisary who said it, plus it had absolutely no gender-intonation what so ever.

The demon pony roared incoherently for a moment, and just as it seemed out of hellish heat-breath – which kept trying to ignite the floating Emmisary’s cloak, but every tiny emerald flame that sprung up seemed to choke and die instantly – he spoke, with a shrill voice that sounded quite weird compared to his absurdly overgrown body: “I bow to no authority in Creation – I will kill you all, in his name!”

Responding to what was clearly non-compliance from the sculptor turned demon-pony, the Emissary swiftly turned from floating in the air to careening towards the demon pony, clearly trying to strike the fiend with its pale hooves – which it did, with a resounding thunderclap as it made contact. Every window in ear-shot instantly shattered and a thick layer of black basalt shattered off the demon-pony’s body in awave pattern centered on the point of impact, revealing a blazing hot brass sub-dermis and bone-structure. Beyond that ‘mere’ physical response to being struck, strange prismatic crystals began to coalesce in the air around the demon-stallion, crystals that in a flash grew out as long spikes that stabbed into the Emmisary’s cloak.

Speaker had always heard stories of the terrible might of the Emissary. How every imperial legion that had occupied Nexus always found its senior officers turned inside out or eerily dead by mass suicide – all thanks to the strange powers of the Emmisary, but now he was seeing the Emmisary bleed… and the blood was just ordinary red blood. On some level Speaker felt disappointed: He had always pegged the Emissary as a powerful, if not misguided, guardian spirit or something similar. No, this was a pony of some sort, probably an exalt if nothing else… although Speaker couldn’t feel any measure of power or essence coming from the Emmisary – but that was probably hidden or veiled, because normal ponies didn’t float in the air.
As the crystal spikes were broken off with a twist of the Emmisary’s body, scarlet drops leaking through the holes in the cloak where the spikes penetrated, the demon-pony laughed heartedly: “Ah, so the illustrious Emmisary does bleed! I will paint all of Nexus with your corpse!”

With a furious flurry of blows that looked less like a martial onslaught and more like a completely maddened and unrestrained flailing of log-thick limbs of stone and metal, the demon-pony threw all of his weight at the Emissary – who somehow managed to parry most of the blows as if they were nothing, despite each blocked blow shaking the ground so that the ruined townhouse they were fighting in front kept groaning and disgorging a few more bits of rubble that tumbled down into the pile of loose bricks, broken timbers and furniture on the ground. Well, the Emmisary managed to block most of them – for the demon-pony, despite his grotesque bulk, moved his striking hooves with a speed that even Red would find it difficult to match… and so the Emissary was unceremoniously swung around a few times as a rag-dool, then launched into another building with a resounding crash and more screams from mortal ponies that tried to flee the seemingly expanding war zone.

The Emissary once again out of commission – at least for a short while – Speaker found himself and Shimmer once again targeted by the demon-pony… although Shimmer seemed to have made good use of her shapeshifting powers to regenerate her wounds, leaving her more than ready to once again engage her foe – even more so now that speaker was there.

As Shimmer let out a decidedly bird-like shriek of a battle cry to get the demon pony’s attention away from Speaker, the Twilight caste solar quickly began to think up a possible way to actually hurt this monster – so no more buildings would be torn down… because there were clearly innocents trapped in all that rubble, both in the buildings wrecked by having the Emissary impact them, but also the sculptor’s own town house, as Speaker spotted several horrified servants trying to dig out their friends and co-workers, while throwing horrified glances up at their now decidedly demonic master every now and then to see if it was safe to keep going.

While Shimmer wrestled with the demon-pony, trying to match her wits and now disturbingly elastic body with the raw and unbridled might of her hell-infused foe, Speaker bounced Gift off the sculptor’s basalt-sculpted body a few times – it truly did seem as if the stallion’s skin and coat had become as stone, making it decidedly difficult to break through… but he had seen Shimmer do it a little, and the Emissary even more so – so a plan started to come together, but it would require that the Emissary cooperated, something the Emissary wasn’t know to do… at all.

“Shimmer, keep him tied up – when I say so, try to make an opening for the Emissary to hit!” Speaker shouted as he ran towards the pile of rubble that the Emissary was buried in.

Shimmer didn’t acknowledge the command with words, but a brief flaring of a crest of feathers did communicate an understanding and compliance – while Shimmer’s bird-limbs and claws elongated like snakes or squid tentacles to further wrap around the demon-pony who’s body seemed ablaze with fury over being prevented from moving freely.

Speaker, upon arriving at the pile of rubble where the Emissary was buried, was met by three dozen mercenaries already working frantically to peel away rocks, bricks and wooden beams to unearth their lord – for the Emmisary was nothing if not the head of the council of entities.

Calling on his singing staff, again a process that took far too long – all the while Shimmer found her snake-vice grip on the demon pony not just broken, but reversed as the demon-pony lit himself aflame with hellfire that burned so hot it melted part of her feather-carapace and face. Speaker played a quickened tune of the unearthed treasure as Shimmer was swung around like a meat popsicle at the hapless mercenaries which tried to reign in the demon-pony before being flung into the air – a mistake some might argue, as Shimmer quickly used her wings to gain control of her trajectory and swoop around for a new assault.

As the music of the singing staff spread through the pile of rubble, every stone in the pile melting away into the ground, the Emissary exploded out of the pile now that there was much less debris holding it down.

“Emissary, the lunar will try to make an opening for you – you have to break the monster’s stone shell, then I’ll come in with a blow towards its innards!” Speaker shouted as the Emissary’s dust-covered cloak seemed to clean itself in the sunlight. The Emissary briefly turned towards Speaker and nodded, then rushed towards the demon fiend with Speaker finding himself grabbed by an invisible force and spirited towards the demon pony as well.

Seeing that the Emissary wasn’t wasting any time setting up an attack, Speaker quickly shouted: “Shimmer, now!”

In the first age the lunars most loyal to their solar mates had found ways to exploit that bond, to briefly use it to guide their hooves, claws or whatever other limbs they were sporting – to relinquish control of their minds to a greater power and to have it strike with a certainty and a precision that conscious thought could not afford. It was a method inspired by the very first eclipse, when Luna had sheltered Creation from Celestia’s scorching radiance as Celestia gave part of her infinite light to the solar shards that the Great Maker was bringing into existence, on the eve of the primordial war.

To onlookers it simply appeared as if Shimmer’s limbs became as motile silver as she ‘splashed’ into the demon pony, her limbs reforming with an iron grib as spinning silver vortexes around her spat eerily familiar iridescent white string out at the demon pony who was shrouded in emerald-green fire… the bloody thing had an anima!

Completely tied down - at least for a few precious seconds – the Emissary appeared above the monster and raised a hoof in a strange and arcane gesture of martial prowess and magical skill that not even Speaker could identify – it then used the fine opportunity given to strike at the monster pony with all of its mystic might, a kaleidoscopic fracturing of the light around the monstrous stallion who appeared so attuned to malfean brass and stone. This was followed by a resounding and booming crackling noise, like a mountain snapping in half (A sound Speaker only recalled from the First Age) with a shower of black stone shards erupting from the demonic stallion a split second later.

This was it. Speaker had silently positioned himself on top of the rubble pile of the sculptor’s collapsed house, using his balancing charm to easily scale the many loose bricks and rickety timbers without knocking anything loose or making a sound – it hadn’t hurt that his intended target was distracted by the Emissary. His singing staff had been stashed in elsewhere, and now with the demon-stallion he could see that the time was right! From his vantage point he leapt at the demon-pony, Gift on his right hoof and held back for a might blow. Using everything he knew about the Thousand Wounds Gear style he revved Gift using essence and thought, the golden blades around the rim of the disc not just sputtering to life with a puff of steam and whir of primordial engine design, but also with elongated cutting edges of essence reminiscent of what Speaker had used to scale the abyssal manse back in Chung Do appeared as well – and anyone familiar with the usual engine noise of Gift would have easily recognized that it sounded louder, stronger, as if in a different gear for more torque. Trailing just behind gift were equally two phantom images of gilded light and white glow, as Speaker’s very anime – his soul – attempted to follow the path cut through the by the disc with the rotating blades.

Speaker had cut metal before with Gift – not often, but he had done so. Cutting spears in half, chewing through armor, so this shouldn’t be any different. It was deadly intent, but it was also meant to save lives: This monster clearly didn’t care about collateral damage or hurting others.

The demon stallion’s ears fluttered for a brief moment as silent wind told him of battle and carnage yet unseen – and so, with the layers of rock still ablating from his body in response to the Emissary’s undoubtedly magical hoof strike, the monster spun around and reared for an impossibly mighty buck as Speaker closed in for the kill against exposed brass flesh and bone…

Shimmer couldn’t cry out loudly enough as she saw Speaker be struck – or Gift and its two after-images striking the monster-pony’s legs and sending out showers of hot sparks, metal shavings and stone shards. The monster-pony’s absolutely massive legs rippled as they impacted Speaker as if growing stronger yet again, with Speaker barely having time to register what had happened before he blacked out… the force of the mighty buck knocking him out cold, even with the advanced shield charm he knew active, it briefly shattering like a sheath of golden glass before reforming around him.

When Speaker came to he found himself in terrible pain – his right foreleg and shoulder had been absolutely destroyed, leaving but a bloody crumbled stump behind. An anesthetic charm, a very conscious effort not to let his mind dull by the feeling of euphoria, and finally lots of medical charms fixed that up in no time at all – although the new limb did feel a bit sore…

It was then that Speaker noticed that he wasn’t really touching the ground. He was up in the air.

Author's Note

Try to guess what charm the Slayer used...