So...these are my girlfriends.

The wave struck him with the force of eighteen Peterbilts hauling blocks of lead; his skin, clothes and furry legs where soaked all the way to his bones, which no doubt where probably broken. The ringing from having his eardrums almost blown out subsided but they hurt like no tomorrow. He gagged on the water he forced from his lungs but then...a different kind of pain coursed through him. "AHHHH! WHY AM I BURNING UP!?" The screams knocked what was left of the precious air he had in his lungs.

The Dazzlings had ceased their choral hold of the waves as Sunset and Trixie trudged through the muddy ground, their wave attack had left in its wake; the trees along the lake side path atop the gully the other girls had driven to the lake (which thankfully missed their jeep by a few hairs) where all soaking wet from branches to leaves, and a few of them where bent dangerously over as if a storm had ravaged the area. If anyone had to guess, The Dazzling's wave had crashed taking out a good chunk of woodland in it's wake, animals ran and broke through the woods in the darkness, their homes suddenly flooded out by the strike. As far is it seemed none of them had been hurt by the attack, if Fluttershy had been there she would have been relived.

"Girls!" Sunset shouted over the dying breaking of the ocean like surf that pounded the ground not accustomed to it. "Thank Celestia you're alright!" She said giving each of them a quick hug. The girls all turned to her and smiled at her.

"Glad you could make it Sunset." Adagio replied helping her onto the rock with the others. "Look at him," she said referring to the demonic guy. "Can't believe he took a wave like that and is still standing." She continued watching as he started writhing and moaning in agony. His suit getting muddy and filthy as he dug into the damp ground in his pain.

"He could have broken bones or something worse." Trixie commented as the lead siren (to her) seemed to be enjoying her handiwork.

"So?" Aria added giving her a surprised look, as it almost sounded as if Trixie felt sorry for what the six of them where seeing. "Trixie if what that little hell-spawn bastard said is true, he deserves it." She said flicking her hands at him sending some droplets of water onto him just for kicks.

"Not even The Dazzlings, hell not even I did things as bad as that." Sunset added when she was caught up on the details. The six noticed how once the water touched his bare skin; he instantly reviled in more pain and threw his hands to face to wipe the drops away. Yet none of The Dazzlings, Sunset, or Trixie reacted this way to the water. From some long hidden away memories of her days as a student of Celestia, Sunset recalled notes on monsters and entities she had gathered with her teacher.

"I've read about this, While a common belief holds that it requires special water," She recited almost directly from her study session at the castle. "To harm a monster save those that live in it such as sea dragon or serpent, a source of water that has the grace of a "pure one'".....A being like an Allicorn or a divine." She added for the unenlightened humans. "It's only needed if a source can't be pure and clean. Otherwise the water can weaken the black souls of creatures and monsters from its properties of purification." She finished smiling with pride, not in a million years since she came here, would Sunset Shimmer ever think she'd get a chance to recall her lessons on defensive magic against monsters.

"This is lake water," John said. "I doubt the metric tons of dirt, all that fish and algae are "clean and purifying" girls."

"Then what could've?" Sunset said, but the others where not questioning that at the moment, what they where curious about was.."Trixie! What are you doing!? Get away from him!" Sunset shouted as the girl took her hat from her bag and placed her pentacle necklace around her neck, as she did she turned around and looked at them all, she raised her hand and smiled as her eyes began to glow with a soft blue hue. The others turned to see the white canoe that had sat on the small island where the statue to Terpsichore had washed ashore, looking even further they could see that the statue was no longer a statue.

Terpsichore; in her divine beauty stood on the statue's platform. She was dressed in the flowing white linen with woven sandals and a crown of olive branches in her hair. she held her hand out and pointed to the canoe; then she showed them five of her fingers, and finally made the gesture of them all to come over to her. "Only five? asked Adagio turning to the one that would have to be left behind, Trixie.

"Go," she replied, I know what I need to do." With that the four got in the canoe, it slowly made its way over the now glassy surface of the lake. It was the hours of the early break of dawn; the sky bright purple as the light came back, the sun's glow breaking ever so softly over the tree tops in the distance, Sunset had to remind herself that in this world, such a feat was not controlled by the principal and vice principal of her own school. Trixie approached him; the defeated, cold, and with every bone in his body broken demon. He shivered and sobbed softly; cocooned in a thick lather of the mud he'd been flailing and writhing about in pain in.

"Hey....you okay there?" She asked slowly reaching out to him; he had his back to the blue girl and Trrixie couldn't help but the think the second he touched him, he'd turn and their'd be a horrifying face of some unholy monstrous creature letting out an otherworldy howl or shriek or roar at her, but that never happened. Instead as her hand rested on the little patch of his suit that didn't have mud on it he only curled up into a tighter ball and shivered harder.

"What do you want?" He asked with a slight hint of coldness in his voice, but more a coldness of a being that been in unspeakable pain.

"The great and powerful Trixie wonders...what troubles you?" She said using her magic to clean some of the mud from him, her magic got it off good as new, layers of cheap; stitched, white under the caked on soil.

"Don't you remember me? and what I tried to do to you on the train station?" He asked still not looking at her as she got more of the mud off him. Trixie's other hand glowed with a soft green glimmer as an aura of lime greenish hue left her hand and washed over him, it stopped the convulsions and made him less shaky. "What did you?..."

"Calm spell, Sunset and I where practicing magic on the way over...thought I'd have to be dropping rocks on your head or something like that." Trixie said softly using her cleaning hand to pull the grime and dirt from his hair, she couldn't help but notice even though the color was still of yellow and still almost like a faux blonde, it wasn't greasy or faded looking anymore.

"You really are one of this world's first witches....mages, magicians whatever you want to call yourself." He said turning over and finally looking at her, Trixie still couldn't see his eyes from being hidden by his cracked glasses, but she wondered if they where still red. "I...I think a lot of my bones are....AHHH!...yes definitely broken." He said girting his teeth as the pain in his arms and legs seceded. He looked at her and tried to look away. "Why are you helping me?"

"That water should have burned you away to a pile of damp ashes, instead your alive. Every limb in your body broke, lungs ruptured, and most of your muscles are bruised alive, but alive none the less." Trixie said almost...happily as she patted his head softly. "You're still alive for a reason, Tri....I may not know what that reason is, but I think it's one worth helping you realize." She said as both her hands glowed a soft orange and wispy trails of magic circled and entwined his body; he flinched and moaned in pain as he felt the cracks and breaks set themselves, the dislocations work back into place, and the cuts close up.

"Ms. I must admit, your'e quite skilled in the school of illusion and healer magic." He complimented chuckling softly as his knee cap re-bonded to his patella and the patella snapped back into place.

"Thank you, now if you don't mind," She said as she made a green aura cause four tree roots to rise from out of the soil and grow around his limbs holding him in place on the ground. "let's you and I have a little talk." She said smirking at her captive as she made the root cuffs tighten around his ankles and wrists.

"I understand your reasons for not trusting me."

"Care to just tell Trixie if you have a proper name smart ass?" She said smirking at him again and twirling her pentacle necklace.

"...The closest to a mortal name I had in the event I had to give one...is Nicholas Tophiles."

"Not very subtle where you're from are you?"

"Was...was the Mephistopheles and Tophet connection that obvious?" He asked lowering his head.

"Trixie is well read in the classics, I had to take AP Litrature recently...didn't like it too much, Trixie is more a Stephen king and Art Spiegelman kinda girl." She gave a soft giggle as they both broke out into laughs.

"Not enough to get you to release me?" He asked as his laughter died down.

"mmmm I don't know, how's your speech-craft skill?" She asked pulling her hat down in slight embarrassment at that comment.

"hmmmm, did you know that hat makes you cute?" He said smiling at her softly.

"Flattery get's you no where with Trixie." Was all she could say, giggling softly again as she looked over him again. "Wasn't your suit black before?" She asked looking down at him.

"Hey...as a matter of fact, it was." The captive Nick said looking down as best as he could at his clothes, while still dressed in a cheaply made suit the color had gone from black to white like it was washed in a tub of bleach. There where a few other things too. "Trixie?...are their horns on my head?"

"well...about that." She took a mirror compact from her bag and opened it in front of him; where the long curly goat horns had been, they had fallen off. "I found this too." Trixie added holding a shriveled up serpentine tail in her hand, which she let fall to the ground. "Let me get those glasses off you, let me look at your eyes, maybe they..." She paused, taking his glasses off revealed eyes that where still..."Red, your eyes are still red." She said holding the compact at them, but they didn't glow solid red with their color of blood red they way they had before, they had regressed into natural human eyes with red irises.

"Guess not every part of myself can be cleaned off, no matter how hard they scrub me down." he said glumly as he felt the blue girl's hand on his ear. he turned his head with a quizzical look.

"They're still a little pointed at the tips too, not as noticeably as before unless you really look close." She said smiling at him with a chuckle.

"My mother's ears and eyes, She made sure nothing could take them away."

"Did you know her well?"

"Trixie....My mother was Lilith, the mother of the succubus and incubus, first woman crafted from earth? ring any bells?"

"Oh...so you weren't very close family wise...down there?"

"Out their Trixie, not down, there is no concept of down or up. Everything just exists in its own place beyond in the Macroverse." He said with the solemn air of both a preacher and an intellectual.

"So you're an....incubus?" She asked him a bit worried given she knew just what those are and do.

"Only on her side, my father...my real father never told me until he no longer wanted anything to do with me." He said solemnly struggling in his roots.

"Here, let me help." Trixie raised her hands and made the roots slacken just enough that three of them released him and allowed him to stand up off the ground, but he was still bound by one around his ankle like a shackle. He stood up beside her and stretched, healed bones and joints clicking as they awoke.

"Be careful, I don't know how well the healing worked, your limbs and ligaments and such could be highly sensitive and tear easily."

"I know but I can't help it, I need to stretch so badly." He said grunting for breath and yawing like he just woke up from a long nap. "any chance you'll let this last root go?"

"Not until the others get back." She said looking out onto the lake, but the strangest of things had happened; the surface was blanketed in a thick fog, as thick as one on the sea. "Looks like it'll be a while." The two looked at each other in silence for what felt like ages, untill he finaly broke it.

"I lied."

"What?...about what?" She asked placing her hands on her hips and glaring at him.

"I didn't kill Star-swirl the bearded, I only cased the castle and scouted the routes the assassins took for them. I was just an errand boy for all of them. I'm used for the most most minute and menial tasks in the plains of the dark verse where I'm from, and when I go back...The ancient ones are going to make me suffer for this failure." He buried his face in his hands.

"Who says you have to go back?'

"Trixie wake up; my father was the king of the Greek gods Zeus, he knocked up the first succubus and didn't want anything to do with me to hide his shame...he always loved Athena best, and even my half brother Hercules, at least he was offered the chance to ascent to the tower with him, I didn't get to ask why he forsaken-ed me to that horrible place, because what I didn't lie about was being tormented and forced to look into Pandora's box, and all the other things they make me do in the dark-verse, I only lied on the part of enjoying it." He said looking into the glassy lake surface. She places a hand on his shoulder and opens her other one revealing a note, she smiles at him.

"Read it." She says doing her best to make it not sound like a command.

I Nicholas "Nick" Tophiles, being of sound mind mind and body, swear my undying loyalty to Trixie Lulamoon now and for all eternity not to any being else in any vector of the macro-verse, may I be claimed by the dark-verse should i break this loyalty.

"It's more a formality, but its a deal even the forces of darkness must honor.'

"You mean I wont "have" to become your undying thrall if I agree to this Trixie?'' He asked looking over at here.

"I think you'll become more...my familiar or...my assistant if you prefer in agreeing." She said closing her eye's cutely and softly blushing as she patted his head again, it was then they noticed a seal at the bottom of the paper. "See? even "they" agree."

"No Trixie, they just don't want me anymore, but goodbye and good riddance to the lot of them....hey I didn't get zapped or torched! I'm free!" He said happily hugging her at the realization. For if he had still been bound to the dark-verse, his impudent words would have cost him dearly with a harsh punishment, but no such thing came. "I'm free! Free! Oh Trixie! thank you so much!"

She smirked at him softly, "now wait just a minuet there Nick boy." She said ruining her hand under his cheek, "You're mine now you know, You're my familiar, my assistant, my loyal servant to the end and back. You're mine now." She smiles deviously and waits to see his reaction.

"What?! Trixie...please? I...I trusted you....I thought maybe..." He said with tears forming in his eyes and his face scrunched in a wince of distress.

"HA oh Trixie got you good Nick!" She broke out into hysterical laughter and when she calmed down she continued, "Ohhh you should have seen the look on your face, ahhh; it's okay Nick, the great and powerful Trixie only asks you stay with her and her friends....and please...try to shape up and right what ever it is you did wrong, what you did is in the past no matter what it was and no longer matters, that isn't what you'll be remembered for. That is all up to you know."

"I won't let you down...oh great and powerful Trixie." He said playfully taking a bow.

"That's what Trixie like's to hear; now come on, let's go wait for the others."