Lineage

I gritted my teeth angrily, staring at the enormous figure sitting on a throne, half-obscured by the darkness of the chambers. Zane stared at the figure in horror, moving his hand for his sword only to be spoken to directly by the figure.

“Don’t bother dear boy,” it said with a chuckle. “You’ve both ruined the ritual that was going on. I’ll be gone from this plane in a few minutes.”

“You’re surprisingly calm about that fact,” I said, acting overly-brave while staring down what I had been informed was my grandfather.

“What would getting angry accomplish?” he asked, standing up and getting out of his throne, revealing his even more titanic form. He was clad in thick, dark grey plate armour, standing at nine feet tall with a broad, hulking figure tucked away under the armour, dark red light shining out from each gap in the plate, a pristine dark red cape clad on his back, and a large insignia, resembling a twisted N with stars dotted around it on his chest. He had large horns, a common possession of demons, that were thick and gnarled like an old tree trunk, his eyes glowing bright red from underneath his goat-like helmet.

“I’ve never believed in throwing tantrums, Richter,” he said with a shake of his head. “They only make you look immature. So tell me, boys. What are you looking for?”

It’s only now that I think back to this that it seems completely ludicrous. The three of us, a superhuman man, an alicorn/incubus hybrid, and the lord of the hollow realm all standing around in an underground chamber having a polite conversation.

“We’re looking for Elron,” I answered. “We need to talk to him… though I’m guessing he isn’t alive anymore?”

“Right you are,” the demon said, walking over to me. I tensed in response, raising my sword slightly only for him to wave it aside with magic.

“Relax, Richter,” he said with a chuckle. “I mean you or your friend no harm. I’d accomplish nothing by killing my prize grandchild and his best friend. I’d rather not antagonise you both.”

“Why?” I asked. “From what I’ve heard, from what I’ve seen, you and your demon spawn have done nothing but attempt to antagonise people.”

“Richter, I am not the one responsible for creating the methods of summoning myself back to this realm,” he said, crossing his arms. “I often like to accomplish goals with as little bloodshed as possible and duly punish those who go overboard in their efforts. And from how you slaughtered your cousins, I’m guessing you’ve saved me the trouble.”

“Cousins?” Zane asked in confusion. “You’re related to them? How?”

“Oh. You don’t know of Richter’s lineage?” he asked.

“He’s an alicorn, I know that much,” Zane commented, still weirded out about this situation.

“And part incubus, just like me,” my grandfather chuckled, patting me on the shoulder with a huge hand. “And quite the committer of parricide. Still, the stronger plants always do kill the weeds in the garden.”

I looked up at him with a dark look in my eyes, the demon cocking his head at the look and questioning me.

“Why such a hateful gaze?” he asked. “I don’t believe I’ve done anything to you, have I?”

“Demonic influence,” I spat. “Taking control of my grandmother.”

“... I’ve seen you grow into many things over the years, Richter,” my grandfather said in a disapproving tone. “But a hypocrite was not one of them.”

“What the fuck do you mean by ‘hypocrite’?” I demanded angrily. “You use your magic to take control of women and rape them without their consent! I saw that still affecting Celestia when I brought you up to her before!”

“A hypocrite all the same,” he said, turning away from me and sitting back down on his throne. “Tell me, Richter. You’ve slept with many a woman, have you not?”

“That’s not the-”

“Have you not?” he asked, holding his hand up in a quizzical manner. “It’s a simple question.”

“... Yes,” I spat after a moment’s silence.

“Then answer me this,” he said, holding his hand out towards me. “How many of those women you’ve bedded slept with you for you, and not because you controlled them?”

“I’ve never used a hypnosis spell before in my life!” I snarled angrily. “You’re talking shit!”

“Not consciously,” he shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “I’m sure you’ve been told of your incubi powers before? Most importantly: the attraction spell? The passive attraction spell?”

“I… that’s…” I began, trying to find a way to word it before realizing that I had no idea. Had all of the girls I’d slept with done it because my incubi presence has stripped them of free will? Had passive magic taken control of them and made them dependant on me? I’d felt like I’d charmed a few of them in the past, like Caletera, but… women like Karra, Larra, Svea… they’d been making suggestive passes at me within minutes of meeting me. Svea started flirting with me just a few seconds after trying to crush me. Was he right? Did they do it because I’d made them? Even if I didn’t realise it?

“I don’t know…” I answered with a heavy sigh.

“Of course you don’t,” he said, shaking his head in a disappointed manner. “Because your family lies to you, Richter.”

“No they don’t,” I snapped. “My family-”

“Hasn’t trusted you since the day you popped out of your mother’s womb,” he interrupted quickly. “Why can’t you use your magic, Richter?”

“Because I couldn’t get the method right,” I growled. “It wasn’t because-”

“The method? The singular method to unlocking your power? You believe that there’s only one method to doing such a thing?” he asked with a laugh. “There isn’t. There’s more than a few of them, they’ve just never told you. It’s the same reason they’ve never taught you about me or the others in your family. Hell, I doubt any of them have taught you anything about your power or your history. Because they’re liars, Richter.”

“Not they aren’t,” I growled in an angry manner. “I’m just not very-”

“No, my dear boy,” he interrupted yet again. “It’s not you, it’s them. They’re the ones keeping your potential locked away because they’re afraid of you. You’re an incubus, you have no strength limit like the alicorns do. They’re trying to keep you weak and controllable so you don’t become a threat to them. There’s evidence everywhere you look, you just haven’t because you’re comfortable with that lie.”

“They’re not lying to me,” I said in a quiet tone, my belief in that statement beginning to wane.

“Luna never taught you anything about magical release, strengthening, or training, did she?” he asked, pointing towards me with a slew of fingers. “Celestia never attempted to teach you to read magical runes, did she? And your mother never taught you how to draw strength from the environment? Each one of them set you up with a task or a situation in which you’d fail constantly, that would break and wear you down to the point where you believed it was your own fault. Luna trained you in things you couldn’t do. Why? To make you believe you were weak. Celestia taught you in subjects that were too complicated for a child to grasp, but told you that the other alicorn could do it perfectly. Why? To make you believe that you’re stupid. Your own mother never pushed you past your limits, always told you to be comfortable with who you are and to never try to improve. Why? So she could make you comfortable with being pathetic, so you’d never strive to improve. So that you’d never become a threat.”

“No…” I said, connecting all the dots he was drawing and trying my hardest to deny them, but knowing there was some kind of truth in what he was saying. “They wouldn’t do that…”

“Yes they would,” he said, leaning forwards in his chair. “Your family is the last group of alicorns on this planet. The others all died off throughout the years. How did your family survive as public figures? By being shrewd, manipulative, and scheming to keep themselves on top of the world. You’ve heard your family say it before, talking for hours about whoring themselves out for their own benefit, arranging assassinations to get rid of threats, and using and manipulating rules and regulations to get what they want. You’ve had the wool pulled over your eyes for eighteen years, dear boy. You’ve been lulled into loving a family that despises and fears you because you’re living with a comforting lie.”

“Stop it,” I growled. “You’re lying to me!”

“Why would I?” he asked. “What do I have to gain by making you despise your family? I want what’s best for all of my family, be it from my side or not, and I strive to see you become what you’re supposed to be. Not have your power left dormant and yourself shackled to failure by relics of a bygone age, still clinging to life through lies deceit and manipulation. That’s not the life you’re supposed to have, my boy.”

“I…” I said, at a loss for words. “That can’t be right. You have to be lying… demons are evil, I know that.”

“Yes, the popular culture has lead the modern people to believe such a statement,” he said, sitting back in his chair with irritation in his voice. “But I can show you the truth. All you need to do is return with me to the Hollow Realm to explain things.”

“Richter,” Zane said in a warning tone.

“I promise that once I have explained everything to you, I will return you to this very room,” he said, holding his hand out for me to take. “You have my word.”

I looked at him in his glowing eyes, then at Zane. The thought rushed through my mind, wondering whether to believe the stories I’d been told for my entire existence and ignore learning of both sides of the story, or whether to take his hand and take the risk, but also have a chance of learning the truth.

I shook my head quickly, closed my eyes and held out my hand, gently taking my grandfather’s, his fingers closing around mine.

“Thank you for trusting me,” he said in a soft tone. “I’ll show you what you need to see.”

With that, the two of us teleported from the underground chamber, the cold dampness of the cave we were in being replaced with the coolness of rain and the feeling of grass underneath my feet. I opened my eyes, seeing myself standing in a wet field on the outskirts of a small city made out of… stone. A stranger kind of stone than I was used to, but still stone. With people wandering around inside the city, demons of course, but there was no fire and lava, no pits of torture, and no eternal pain.

“This…” I said as he let go of my hand. “This isn’t what I was expecting.”

“You were expecting fire and brimstone, weren’t you?” he asked with a chuckle. “It was to be expected. No, hell and the Hollow Realm are two very different places. This is the kingdom I rule, with the people I rule over.”

“Why were you being summoned to my realm then?” I asked. “Why couldn’t you just leave here normally?”

“It’s complicated” he said with a sigh. “Just know that my time in your realm was limited due to the ritual failing and that I was able to bring us both back here. And do not worry, I shall return you to your home plane soon enough. Now, walk with me.”

I did as instructed, following after the larger creature as he explained to me how he felt he could help:

“Richter, your power is untapped. This is a problem you face every day, constantly throwing yourself into danger with creatures far beyond your power level because of that untapped magic,” he explained. “I believe that I can help you unlock your true power and surpass even Celestia herself.”

“And how exactly do you plan to achieve that?” I asked.

“Like I said, there are many methods to unlocking your potential, but sadly, all of them take quite a while to achieve,” he said. “I cannot help you while I am stuck in here, and I believe that the Hollow Realm may have a negative effect on someone as young as yourself.”

“Why?”

“Because the energies of this place a much more… unpredictable,” he answered, his time taken to find a word making me quite skeptical of his explanation. “The magic we use runs completely off emotions due to the raw strength of them. Emotions such as anger, hatred, sadness, and the like. I feel that being around such, for lack of a better word, negative energy could cause a negative effect on yourself, making you become angry and violent, something we don’t want when you’re just learning to use your magic, as it can lead to you lashing out and draining yourself to death.”

“So what do you suggest?” I asked.

“I’m suggesting helping me come with you back to your realm in order to train you without being dragged back to the Hollow Realm as I did just now,” he continued. “You see, there was a curse laid on the Hollow Realm by the angels around the time your race was created.”

“Created?” I asked in confusion. “Created by what?”

“Created by angels and demons to honour a pact that has long since fallen through,” he said in a heavy tone. “Your kind was created to be more powerful than anything on earth at the time, and were used as peacekeepers to protect against any kind of threat, as well as keeping angels in their realm and demons in theirs as a way of honouring the pact to leave earth out of the conflicts.”

“If we were,” I asked, seeing a flaw in his statement. “Then how come there are still demons in my realm?”

“Descendants of rogue agents that fled my kingdom a long time ago,” he answered. “They listen to no one and blend in with regular humans, making them extremely hard to detect.”

“Okay then,” I nodded. “So how do I help you remain in my world?”

“I’m glad you’re willing to help, dear boy,” he said with a chuckle. “There is a large obelisk in the West Bhuties on a small tropical island. It was placed there at the time of the pact between the races and has remained there ever since. I need you to go there and remove the red gem set into the obelisk to unlock both gates, angel and demon, to allow us both back into your world, and allow you to help train you in ways your family wouldn’t.”

“Alright… okay,” I nodded. “Sounds easy enough. When can I start doing that?”

“Right now, if you want,” he said in a pleased tone. “I’ll send you back to your world and you can set about freeing us all. For your own good.”

“Alright then,” I said with a wide smile. “Thank you, Grandfather.”

“Thank you, Richter,” he said, placing a finger to my forehead and teleporting me out. I’m guessing I could leave because I wasn’t a demon, but I’d have to ask about that.

I dropped back into the cave where Zane was still standing and the smile dropped off my face, replaced by the anger that had slowly been boiling inside me as listened to that horrendous line of horseshit.

“He must think I’m a fucking moron,” I snarled, turning around to Zane. “We need to get back to the Academy. You go on ahead, I’ll stay here and finish up with looking for anything about the Highmoore. Then I’m gonna contact my family and get them to pick up the pace a little, alright?”

“What happened just then?” Zane asked in confusion.

“I promise, I’ll tell you later,” I swore. “But you need to get going, okay?”

“Alright, fine,” he nodded. “I’ll see you back at the academy.”

“Right,” I nodded, switching over to my link to Grael and speaking directly to him. “Grael?”

“Mmph?” he asked in a tired tone after a moment’s silence.

“I need to borrow your body to talk to Celestia and Mom,” I said. “No it can’t wait, either. This is life and death right here.”

“Alright, fine,” he grumbled. “Ready when you are.”

I closed my eyes and performed the switch, myself jumping into Grael’s body and him switching into mine. I opened my wolf eyes and got out of Grael’s bed, shaking the tiredness away with the mix of panic and anger I felt. I hurried out of the room I was in and through the corridors, tracing the schedule of my family before giving up on it and asking one of the nearest servants.

He pointed me towards the archery range and I took off at a sprint, shouting a thank you behind me as I rocketed through the hallways, leaping out of an open window and taking several rooftops to get down to the large open field, where I spotted my mother and Cadance practicing archery, Celestia sitting in a chair and verbally instructing Cadance while she missed every shot she took.

I barked loudly on the approach, getting their attention and a kind smile from them both as I skidded to a halt, my powerful wolf lungs feeling no exhaustion from the exertion at all.

“I need to have a word with you guys,” I said. “It’s bad.”

“Richter?” Celestia asked, looking over the edge of the chair. “What’s the matter?”

“I was told by Luna to dig around a mansion with Zane to find out how some Baron knew about the Highmoore when he shouldn’t have, and instead ran into a massacre in his mansion. Traced the carnage into the basement and ended up coming across a blood ritual that was semi-successful at summoning dear old Grandad into this plane of existence.”

The second the word grandad dropped from my mouth, Celestia’s eyes lit up with fury and disgust.

“What?” she bellowed furiously, standing up hard enough to launch her chair out from underneath her. “Where is he?”

“Gone, couldn’t sustain himself for very long,” I answered. “Not sure why, but he told me some interesting things. Some I believe, some I don’t, and some I need to talk to you guys about.”

“What did he tell you?” Celestia demanded in a type of rage that I’ve never seen before. “What did he ask you to do?”

“He wanted me to deactivate some gem in the West Bhuties to ‘free all the angels and demons’ but I knew it was horseshit,” I explained. “He wants out so he can come after you and Mom, doesn’t he?”

“Yes,” Celestia growled. “Yes he did… thank you for not believing him, Richter.”

“Yeah, that reminds me…” I began, trying to find a way to word my next set of questions. “Are… are you guys… afraid? Of me?”

“What?” Cadance asked in a confused manner. “Honey… why would you ever think that?”

“It’s just that… he explained to me that the reason you told me there was only one way to use magic, the way I couldn’t do it, was because you guys were afraid of me becoming stronger than you, that you hated me and never wanted to see me surpass you.”

Cadance and Celestia looked at each other with horrified expressions, Cadance throwing her bow aside and kneeling down in front of me to wrap her arms around my chest and hug me tightly.

“No, honey. We’d never think of you like that,” Cadance said, looking at me with a bright smile. “You’re the best thing in my life, I love you more than anything else in this world, and I’d give up anything to keep you safe. I could never hate you.”

“Then why didn’t you teach me how to use magic a different way?” I asked. “Why let me stay weak and pathetic?”

“Because it was more of a risk to you than it was to us,” Celestia said with a sigh. “Despite what your… grandfather said to you, the way we tried to teach you was the best way for you to learn. The other method that works for our kind if by fuelling our power with anger. But this is one of, if not the most dangerous thing we can do as Alicorn. If we do nothing but light and stoke nothing but the fire of hatred to use our magic, then every time we power up to use magic, we add more power to the Nightmare Form locked away in our bodies. I could easily teach you to break through your magical blockade and learn to use your magic, but if you unleash your Nightmare Form, a true release, not like what happened to Luna, where it locks you away in the space it used to be, like it can very easily… I’d have to kill you to stop it. I wouldn’t be able to reseal it without risking emptying the body of a soul entirely and killing both of you permanently.”

“Oh,” I said, lowering my head and looking at my mother as she began to scratch my neck. “That makes sense.”

“The only reason I gave up on trying to teach you to access your magic was because you refused to try the way I and the others use to power up,” Celestia said, crossing her arms. “But, and I know this may dishearten you, I don’t think you have the personality type able to access it.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re too headstrong, focus too much on anger and frustration to truly empty your mind and remain calm,” she explained. “You’re too emotional and pessimistic to truly come to terms with yourself and everything around you. It’s not your fault, Richter. It’s just not who you are inside.”

“Right, okay then,” I said, lowering my head even further in a depressed manner, feeling my heart deflate slightly as I learned the news. “So… there’s a chance I’ll never unlock my magic?”

“I’m afraid so, Richter,” Celestia nodded, a forlorn expression on her face. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said, moving back slightly and giving my mother the hint that I didn’t want a hug anymore. She took it, letting go and backing away slightly, looking at me with an upset expression. She always got upset when I did, and that only upset me more which in turn got her doubly upset. She cocked her head slightly as she looked at me, studying my wolf face for any sign of emotion before I lowered my gaze again.

“I tell you what,” she said in a chipper tone, trying to cheer me up. “When I see you next, we can both get a cup of hot cocoa, sit by the fire, and have a nice long talk about this, if you want? Then, if you’re feeling up to it, you can have another hug, okay?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Okay… that sounds nice.”

“Then hurry up and get home,” she said with a gentle smile. “I’ll find your favourite cocoa at a market stall and make it just the way you like it. Mommy’s special touch, okay?”

I nodded weakly, spotting the small, affectionate smile on Celestia’s face behind her daughter as she spoke to me, wondering if she was remembering times like this with her doing the same for Cadance. I nodded again, looking up and saying that I still had stuff to finish back in Winter’s Maw, giving them both a lick on the cheek before switching bodies with Grael. I returned back to the dark, dank environment and away from the sunshine of Equestria, seeing that Grael had made me sit in the throne and try to take a nap. I chuckled quietly as I got out of the chair, reminding myself that I still had to fuck Svea before I could get some rest tonight before getting out of the chair.

It was at this point I remembered that I’d heard screaming down here and that it had stopped a while ago. A tortured scream, too. I looked around the room, picking out what I could in the dark before spotting another door behind the throne some distance away. I headed down the small hallway and opened the door, strangely unlocked too, and walked inside, seeing a sight I hadn’t expected:

It was a dead female demon, naked and beaten, with blood covering her body, chained to a wall. I couldn’t tell her age by looking at her, but I could tell that she shared the same skin colour as Vermon, meaning they must’ve been the same breed of demon. Her skin was a bluey-purple colour, with almost black purple hair with gnarled horns streaking back over her head.

I walked over to her, kneeling down next to the body and examining her wounds. They were torture wounds: longer than they were deeper and cut with a serrated blade, intended to cause more pain than they were to kill. I looked over her body, spotting what appeared to be semen coating her lips, breasts and cleavage, but upon examining the insides of her legs, she didn’t have any in or around her vagina, at least from what I could tell without touching inside it, nor did she have any around her anus or buttocks itself.

“They molested her,” I said with an angry growl.

I continued to examine her wounds, several days old and beginning to scab, others fresh and still bleeding. They were mostly around areas lacking in fat, like her wrists and shoulders, but several were down her thighs and calves, with more than a few being nearly an inch deep and reaching all the way down her legs. There seemed to be none of the similar mutilation to her genitals that the other women had had, which meant two things: that they didn’t want to do it.

Or that they hadn’t gotten around to doing it yet.

I looked around for any kind of fatal wound, searching her throat, wrists, and locations where major arteries were located for the killing blow, but found nothing. I unshackled her wrist, seeing the limbs remain up and rigid as I did so, indicating that rigor mortis had set in already.

“She’s been dead for over two hours, at least…” I muttered to myself, finding the inconsistency immediately. “Then who did I hear screaming down here?”

Putting the question aside for now, I continued examining the body to find a cause of death, or something close to it. There was none of the severe mutilation to the body that the other women had, suggesting that it had been a different person to inflict it, and judging from the types of wounds she had, it was a different tool used to perform the torture. I shook my head, ruling out any of the weapons I’d spotted with the demons in the other room, meaning that it had to have been either a fourth demon down here or they’d disposed of the tool.

“But you usually get rid of a body first,” I said under my breath. “And judging from how calm and relaxed those guys were, I’m guessing they weren’t planning on getting rid of either any time soon.”

I stood up, gathering my thoughts on the body as I closed my eyes, putting together an analysis as best I could:

“So we’ve got a torture victim of the same race, dead for at least two hours, and locked away in a cell next to members of her own race, with none of them being the torturer,” I surmised. “So we’re looking for a fourth member of this little party, someone who may be carrying the weapon used to cut the poor girl up… and I still need to figure out what the hell was causing the-”

I was cut off by the sound of a hollow scream mere feet behind me, tearing my blade from its sheath and whirling around in a defensive stance, heart in my throat as I did so. I scanned the entire room in less than a second, hearing tuned as best as it could to hear anything besides the screaming. After a moment the screaming literally faded away, my ears tracing it to something in the corner. I slowly moved towards it, sword extended before realizing what had created the sound, and the scream I’d heard earlier:

A Gabber Rock.

They were magical items imbued with the ability to remember what had been said in front of them, often used by espionage agents to record incriminating statements from certain, high-profile people, or in more common cases, used by forgetful mages and brewers to recall what they were supposed to be doing that day, what ingredients they’d used in a potion, or what spell parameters they were to use for a test that day.

Twilight.

I picked the small, chicken egg-sized rock out of the pedestal, turning the emerald green object over in my fingers and looking at its core, seeing swirling white mist inside it indicating quite a large recording of sound. The sounds of this poor girl being tortured. I tucked the gem into a spare pouch, deciding to give it to Luna to listen upon her return as I didn’t have the stomach to listen to torture without becoming enraged by it, before taking out my journal and sketching the corpse, the injuries and their measurements, and any odd details about the size and shape of the wounds.

Deciding to get a sketch of the other room, just for reference, I noticed a large circle drawn around the throne in chalk, different runes and symbols that I didn’t recognise dotted all around. This was normal for a summoning chamber; you had to get the correct summoning patterns down or else ruin the entire thing. But the strange thing was the fact that the chalk was scrawled over another set of runes. I first sketched the runes in the chalk ring on its own page before turning over another, wiping the chalk runes away and studying the runes beneath them.

I’d only seen anything similar to the calligraphy used on the etchings, and even then that was only recently. The runes were the same that the Highmoore used in their city, meaning that this summoning chamber was connected to the Highmoore. But the odd thing was the stone used to make this room. From what I could see, it was imported stone, definitely not native to Winter’s Maw, and was no older than fifteen years, whereas the Highmoore city was over thirty thousand years old.

This place had been built recently as some kind of seance room for the Highmoore Elves… but to seance what? I’ll admit I didn’t know a damn thing about their beliefs or religion, but it didn’t seem like they believed much in the afterlife. And even then, a seance only helps you convene with a certain plane of existence, which is purgatory, as the other realms lock spirits away… so then maybe it wasn’t a seance room? Maybe it was a shrine? No, that couldn’t be right, there weren’t any artifacts in the room to act as one. Then maybe it was a prayer room of some kind? It certainly wasn’t an prayer altar of any kind as there was no altar in this room.

It made more sense for it to be a prayer room as Elisa had mentioned that the Highmoore worshipped some kind of gods, or goddesses. The Mothers, she’d called them. Maybe Elron was trying to contact them? I could see someone trying that… but Elisa said they were gone, didn’t she? If they ever existed in the first place, that was.

“Ah, fuck it,” I growled to myself. “I’ll look around the house more, see if I can find anything from Elron left about and see if I can solve the mystery of our missing fourth demon… and all this because I was supposed to fuck a dragon. I wonder if this ever happened to any other Alicorn during their trial?”