Angel of Darkness

Angel of Darkness
Chapter 43: Getting settled and... some good news?

POV: Twilight Sparkle

I watch from the airship as Damien jumps off and dives straight for the large green muscular demon. He slams into his back making him stumble slightly and then pierces his heart with this scythe.

"WHAT!?" I barely hear the large demon yell in shock before screaming in pain as he shrivels up and turns to ash making me wince at the sight.

The smaller demons look at Damien in fear as he speaks to them but I can't hear what. He then sends six of his fire dragons into the demons turning at least a couple hundred of them to ash.

He then looks towards the next archdemon as the airship's cannons fire into the large crowd of attacking demons.

Damien takes off into the air again while killing any harpies who get in his way.

"Dude... That bucker is brutal," Rainbow says as she watches the battle beside me.

"Well, his city is under attack... I can understand him wanting to protect it and his people," I reply and watch as he reaches Desire who has the archdemon she's fighting pinned to the ground.

It's looks like a large burnt tree with arms and legs. It also has sickly looking green fruit hanging from its leafless branches. It's struggling to get up but each time it does, Desire knocks it back down while tossing explosive magical orbs into the lesser demons trying to kill her.

Damien wastes no time in hacking up the tree demon and seems to find its heart before stabbing it with his scythe. Once done, Desire focuses on the lesser demons and starts blasting them apart. Damien though flies over to Luna who's fighting a surprisingly small three foot tall demon that looks like a bipedal rat wearing black leather armour and a pair of wavy bladed daggers. A kris I believe they're called, but the demon is fast and very agile as it evades Luna's attacks.

The rat then lunges at Luna making her yelp in surprise, but Damien appears next to the rat and pins it to the ground with his scythe. I can faintly hear the rat's feminine screams as she's reduced to ash.

Luna nodded to Damien before flying up and starts blasting into the horde with her magic. Damien makes his way over to Selene next but he's greeted by a blushing and embarrassed alicorn who's covered in ash.

Damien facepalms and then points to the lesser demons that are now rushing at them. Selene quickly nodded and charges into the enemy forces carving them up one after the other.

My wings then spread and a blush is on my face as Damien then changes form where two horns grow from his head, another set of wings appear, and his skin turns purple.

He flies up and starts bombarding the horde with more of his fire dragons which quickly decimate the demons near him. In just a matter of a minute, he's killed at least five-thousand demons.

Cannon fire is still going off from both the airship and the ones mounted on the strong metal wall surrounding the city. Where did they even get all this metal from? Wouldn't it have been cheaper and easier to use stone?

I can only watch the destruction and death in both sadness and awe. Damien was right, Equestria wouldn't stand a chance against his forces and technology if they decided to attack...

"I've heard stories about wars from the elders before, but none of those compare to this..." Thunderhorn says in awe.

"Aye. I'm glad Damien spared Scarlet and I," Ironhoof replies and gulps nervously while hugging his wife with his right arm. "This is entirely different compared to the battle with the pirates... makes me think he was just toying with them and us."

After a while Damien flies back up to us after decimating nearly half the demons down there. He's panting hard and sweating slightly, I can smell his scent strongly making me shiver.

"Captain! Get us into the city now!" he orders the Captain in a no nonsense tone.

"Aye-Aye, my Lord," he replies and starts shouting at the crew.

I look back down to the carnage and destruction to the admittedly once beautiful landscape sadly. The dark red grass around the front of the wall is now scorched earth with a few burnt tree stumps and boulders remaining.

"Don't worry about the land, the fel ents can restore the flora over time," a dark blue coated succupony tells me with a smile before heading back to do her job.

I turn to face Damien only to see him sitting against the railing breathing heavily.

"Are you alright?" I ask him with worry as Desire, Luna, and Selene land on the airship.

"Just tired, I used too much energy too quickly, I just need to catch my breath," he replies with a wave of his hand dismissively.

"Well, at least you took out a nice chunk of their forces," Desire comments also looking just as tired. Same with the alicorn sisters.

I just sit beside Damien along with Desire as the ship flies over the city towards the tall Castle that looks even bigger than Canterlot's.

It doesn't take that long to tie the airship to the small dock attached to the side of the Castle.

"Alright then, I'm going to find my sons and find out what is going on here. The rest of you can stay here or explore the Castle, though some areas are off limits. Meet back in the Throne Room in two hours," Damien says and walks off the ship.

Desire and I follow him as well as Rainbow Dash. "I'll admit, this place looks cool," Rainbow says getting a smirk from Damien.

The walls while mostly bare, have intricate designs and dark brown wooden framework along the lower half. There are a few landscape paintings of places I've never seen before and demons running back and forth carrying supplies or boxes.

After about fifteen minutes of walking, Damien walks into a room with a large round table with a map of all known Tartarus’ locations on it. There are demons everywhere talking, writing, and planning with two naga demons like Slitherana and a inccupony talking together while examining the map.

The room suddenly goes silent as they one by one look at Damien with wide eyes.

"Mother! Father!" the inncupony shouts out happily as he and the two naga make their way over.

"Hello, my boys. I hope nothing too disastrous has happened while we were gone," Damien replies as he and Desire hugs their sons.

"We have lossst a few townsss to Tirek'sss forcccesss. But the other sssmaller onesss have ssstripped themssselvesss and evacuated to the larger cccitiesss," one of the naga replies.

"I see," Damien says with a frown. "Any idea where Tirek could be?" he then asks them.

"Sssorry, father. But we've been unable to locate him ssso far, he keepsss sssending hisss forcccesss through portalsss ssso we can't track him," the other naga replies.

I then speak up. "How long ago was the last portal?" I ask them.

They all look at me with a raised brow. "About two days ago to allow that large force to attack us," the inccupony tells me. "Who are you?" he then asks.

I lose some of my nerve with everypony looking at me. "I-I-I'm Damien's marefriend..." I reply getting a chuckle from Damien.

"You're taking another wife?" the first naga asks Damien.

"If she wants to be my wife, but we'll talk about it later. Right now, I want to know everything that's happened in the last few months," he replies and walks over to the table.

I hear Rainbow laughing at me making me blush in embarrassment.

"OW!" I then hear Rainbow yelp.

I look back to see her frowning and rubbing the back of her head with Desire grinning at me.

Three Weeks Later

It's been three long weeks since we arrived in Fel Haven, the assaulting forces were forced to retreat as Damien and the other demonlords along with their superior weapons cut them down after two days of constant fighting. Though Damien and his sons believe this force was just testing our defences.

The man'o'war airship was sent back to Felfire to bring back Slitherana and their daughters. It took them four days due to how slow it was but they arrived safely.

During those four days, Damien showed us around Fel Haven. It's so much bigger than Canterlot and has five times the population as well, but despite so many living here, it's surprisingly clean and friendly.

Desire also showed me Olivia's lab and I am ashamed to admit, I fainted at the sheer splendour of it. Workbenches with tools and apparatus I've never seen before! Chemicals and magical runes never heard of! Though I've been told to wait for Olivia to come back and let me in which was torture to me.

On the sixth day I got to meet Olivia and I like her already. She's very smart and knows many spells and enchantments. I've discussed possibilities of combining pony spells with demonic ones with her over the course of six days and I can't wait to get started!

Spike and the others arrived with Arachne and her husband along with the other scientists that were evacuated before the attack.

Shining and Gilda are spending all of their time together, he even took her out on a date to a restaurant. I think it's safe to say that despite what Cadence thinks, Gilda will be part of the family... I guess that if they got married together that would make Gilda my sister-in-law.

When not with Gilda, Shining has been fascinated with Damien's guard training program and equipment forging techniques.

Ironhoof and his brother have been hanging around the airshipyard learning all they could about the airships and how to pilot them.

Rarity as promised, was treated to a full spa course from Damien's twin naga daughters; Yuna and Slitherine. Rarity never felt so pampered in her life and is ashamed to say that even the Ponyville spa can't compare to Fel Haven's.

Pinkie has been collecting all sorts of toys and games like those pogs and trading cards. She’s stored them in a personal pocket dimension she discovered she had. She’s also been sampling all the baked goods she can find in the city.

Pinkie has also been trying to make a portal back to Equestria but keeps getting frustrated as something is blocking her power.

Fluttershy has been staying mostly in her guest room with her animals teaching them more words and just trying to stay out of everyponies way.

The last week has just been sorting out search parties to find Tirek's location but we've found nothing so far. I couldn't even trace the origin of the portals used to send demons to attack our towns and convoys. We've resorted to using the small airships to transport supplies where they're needed.

The lesser demons that came with us from Skullcove Bay have settled in and have been given some money called decans to find places to either live or sign up for the army.

The inccupony and succupony that came with us have decided to settle down together and bought a house for themselves.

The three lycans and two orobas have decided to start up a mining company and are making a mine near Fel Haven with Damien’s permission.

The wraiths are just hanging around the Castle as they don’t need to eat or sleep. They’re basically acting like sentries right now.

And the two thestrals are experimenting with their new abilities. It seems that Thestrals get stronger by drinking the blood of other demons besides other thestrals.

Rainbow got curious and Applejack allowed her to drink some of her blood. The result was Rainbow was able to fly twice as fast, was physically stronger, and could react to situations quicker. Though it only lasted for an hour.

I sigh as I sit down after an hour helping Olivia on something she's been working on for the past year. Something Damien called a dune buggy which intrigued her. It has an elongated cage like frame and four large rubberish wheels and a system called hydraulics to reduce the shock from uneven terrain that's connected to two axles that hold the wheels.

In the back behind the single seat is a half finished engine that Olivia has been trying to get to work. She tried to minimise the engines the airships use but that just caused the first test to explode due to a power overload from the thunder crystals.

She's been trying to find an alternative energy or fuel source for months but nothing seems to be working.

"Have you tried using a battery instead of directly integrating a thunder crystal? You could use thunder crystals to charge the battery then use the battery to regulate the power through the engine? We use mana crystals to power most of our appliances and filter how much magic flows through them," I tell Olivia making her stop examining the engine and slowly look towards me with a blank expression.

"A... battery... A FUCKING BATTERY!?" she yells enraged and screams in frustration making me flinch in surprise. I've learnt a few hours after meeting her that she got her vocabulary from Damien. "IT'S SO DAMN SIMPLE!" she then yells in disbelief and facepalms.

"I know how you feel. I felt the same when Damien show'd me a pencil," I tell her and giggle slightly. I then take a bite out of a sandwich I've started craving lately of waste worm slices with pickled buzzard eggs and black cabbage.

"I don't know how you can eat black cabbage without gagging. It's so sour," Olivia tells me.

"I'm not sure why, I've just had a strange craving for them lately," I reply and take another bite. Despite the sour taste, the eggs and meat kinda cancel it out. I've also been craving more lust from Damien as well for the last two weeks.

She glares at me for a few seconds before going wide eyed and rushing over to me making me yelp as she places a hand on my stomach.

Her right horn glows and after a few seconds she gasps. "I know why! You're pregnant!" she tells me with a big grin and dances on the spot. "I'm gonna have another sibling!" she says and squees in excitement.

I drop the remainder of my sandwich in shock and scan myself, and sure enough, I have a foal starting to grow in my womb.

That's when my eyes roll up and I faint in my chair.

POV: Damien Jackson

I frown as I stare at the map of Tartarus with many areas crossed out, only leaving the unexplored areas left possible that Tirek could be hiding.

Luna and Selene have gone back out into the wastes to figure out how to open the Tartarus gate from this side for the last four days while Desire is running the city with Slitherana. Twilight has been spending her time with Olivia in her lab when she isn't with me.

Rainbow dash is in the medical wing due to her attempt to fly above the flare clouds which burned her on contact, fortunately a few inccuponies caught her on the way down. There’s a reason why no demon flies that high as I’ve discovered over the years that this world has a complete cloud cover and three suns orbiting the planet. That explains why there’s no night here.

"Have we checked the dread swamp yet?" I ask my sons as they're also here.

"No, father. We'll send a frigate to scout the area within the hour," Tidus replies.

"Alright, I want scouts here, here, and here," I say pointing to the Swamp, the edge of the crag plains, and the border south of the blasted wastes.

The door bursts open with a very excited looking Olivia.

"Olivia? Something the matter?" I ask her.

"You won't believe what I just found out!" she says and starts jogging on the spot while doing a spin. "Twilight's in the infirmary with something to tell you!" she yells and screams before rushing back out.

Hearing that Twilight is in the infirmary has me worried and I rush out after Olivia with my sons right behind me.

Despite Twilight being younger than my kids, they all like her and while not yet calling her mother like Desire and Slitherana, they treat her with respect.

We reach the infirmary after a tense few minutes and I find a stunned looking Twilight laying on a gurney with Olivia jumping next to her.

"What happened!?" I demand getting one of the succupony nurses to smile at me.

"Miss Sparkle was brought in after fainting. She has no injuries but she has some good news to tell you, my Lord," she informs me making me frown in confusion.

I walk over to Twilight who doesn't seem to acknowledge me. "Twilight?" I ask a bit worried for her.

"I can't believe it..." she mutters and looks at me fearfully.

"What? What's wrong?" I ask her.

"I'm... I'm pregnant..." she tells me making me go wide eyed.

I then frown thinking back to the times we've had sex over the last few weeks and each time she's used the anti-pregnancy spell... except...

"I know how," I say making her look at me.

"How!?" she asks me nearly panicking.

"Remember when we were on the ship to Fel Haven when we first arrived?" I ask her making her gasp.

"I forgot to cast the spell..." she says in a whisper. "B-but I'm not ready to be a mother!" she tells me going hysterical.

I smile at her and gently stroke her cheek. "You'll be fine. You have Desire, Slitherana, and I to help you. We do have over forty-five years of experience raising children," I comfort her making her calm down slightly.

"I-I-I... I don't know I-If I can do it though..." she says on the verge of tears.

I sit beside her and start stroking her hair. "It'll all work out. Wouldn't you like a child to raise and teach all you know?" I ask her hoping it will lift her spirit.

Her eyes slowly widen at the thought. "That w-would be nice," she replies but still looks worried.

"Just take it easy from now on. This also explains your strange eating habits lately," I say teasingly making her giggle slightly.

"I trust you to help me through this, Damien," she tells me and leans up to kiss me. I smile and lean down to meet her halfway.

"Well, at least there's some good news lately," I say and stand back up. "I need to head to the war room and continue the hunt for Tirek. I'll see you tonight alright?" I tell Twilight.

"Alright... I'll just head to bed early then," she says and I help her up.

We leave the room where Olivia goes with Twilight and my sons and I head back to the war room.