Shin Equus Tensei: A World Without Light

Chapters

Introduction
Demon
Ally

Introduction

Spoilers for Devil Survivor 2 below. Read at your own risk.

INTRODUCTION ACT: From Heaven to Hell

Far beyond the reaches of time and space, there was the delicate, scratching sound of ink-stained of scraping against the flat body of well-worn scroll. Looping, straight down, directly up, forwards and backwards…the words flowed across the dry paper as easily as a boat sailing down a gentle stream. The owner of the quill and the scroll--A alicorn, sat on a violet, velvet-lined cushion in her personal library, so lost in her own work that she ignored the goblet of sparkling water and the fresh, hot pastries her servant placed on her desktop. Beads of sweat trickled down her white body, and her red mane magically whipped and twisted by itself in her stress.

A single world could describe the library she was in—quizzical. To the average newcomer, it was near-impossible to comprehend. A gigantic mishmash of wood, glass and steel filled with an almost infinite number of shelves and an even greater number of books that seemed and did stretch on forever…that was the library in its simplest. It was as if someone had placed a wooden plank, a shard of glass and a steel bar in a bog as three seeds, and over a dozen millennia this was the result. The skylight windows were shaped in the forms of varying animals, plants and objects found throughout the universe. Every single door was built in a different style, ranging from futuristic steel to ancient cathedral double doors and everything in between.

As the alicorn dipped the quill in the black moonstone ink, the single glass door swung open and a humanoid creature draped in a dusky brown cloak walked in. His footsteps echoed like thunder as he strode across the quiet room towards the alicorn.

“O, Almighty Goddess. Once again, you stand before me as the shining beacon of radiance and pureness in the dark, foul swamp of the universe.” The man said, his tone as greasy as the oil waterfall flowing in the room behind them. There was a visible smirk on this face, a curly smile that hinted the beginning of a game, something without seriousness; merely playing around. “Those shining blue eyes, that perfectly groomed mane, your soft velvet coat and wondrously curved body…no wonder you have not descended to the mortal plane in millennia. I say they would simply die in your presence. Even I, your very own servant, don’t feel worthy enough to be in your magnificent, divine and holy presence—”

“Benetnasch.” The alicorn suddenly spoke, not bothering to look up from her work.

“Yes, my goddess?” the man simpered.

“Quit flattering me and cut to the chase. What is it?”

The man, apparently named Benetnasch, pouted. With his disappointment, his cloak billowed behind him, revealing the shiny black cloth lining the insides. “Already? Five seconds, now? You’re no fun, younger sister.”

“I have lot of work to do.”

“Because you’re the current administrator of the universe…yeah yeah, tons of responsibilities and all. But I can’t at least occasionally come and pester you like I did back in the old days?”

“No.” Came the alicorn’s reply, short and succinct like the full stop at the end of her recently written sentence. “Now tell me, what is going on?”

Benetnasch rolled his eyes and shrugged. No more games, it seemed. How unfortunate, they were his favourite hobby. “We have a visitor. I found her lying in front of the Heaven’s Throne.”

The alicorn did not pause from carving notches in the scroll. “Describe her to me.” She said calmly.

“It’s a unicorn, similar to your current form. Female, and looks absolutely nothing like you.” The greasy smirk was back on Benetnasch’s face and his eyes glittered like jewels. The alicorn, ears pricked upwards, actually turned around and gave him a flat look that said in spades: ‘Don’t you even think about it.’ Much to her disdain, he went on anyway. “In other words: completely ugly; the opposite to your majestic, awesome beauty, dearest younger sister. A roughly combed mane resembling a birdnest, covered in grime and dirt, a body the color of a grape, eyes that have seen years of overuse—which might mean Obessive Compulsive Disorder? She’s roughly eighteen or nineteen years old, too.”

“That’s it, my older brother?” The alicorn muttered with obvious boredom, having shifted her attention back to her work. The ink-stained quill was back, and the delicate scratching sounds rang through the silence. “Nothing else? If so, then leave and throw her out.”

“Can’t you call me Benny for once?” Benetnasch said, with all of the emotion of a child being refused candy by his mother. This was a tone that the alicorn had heard more than a dozen times; Benetnasch had always been the type to fake sadness, just to further his own little humorous (and fortunately, harmless) schemes. It was how he had convinced Grandfather to make his Star form smaller and much wieldier than all their other siblings. “Fine my pretty little equine sister, I suppose if I have to tell you..”

“And you do.” The alicorn interjected without any enthusiasm.

“…there are two things of interest. For one, our mysterious unicorn visitor is cradling a fractured gold crown like it’s her own baby or something.”

There was a pause as the alicorn eyes shifted upwards, now focused on a certain paragraph written on the scroll.
Whispering to herself, her eyes widened a fraction. She turned and gave her older brother a very frank look.

“Answer me honestly, Benetnasch. Does the crown have a jewel in the shape of a six-pointed star on top?”

Benetnasch blinked and had the decency to appear surprised for once. “How did you know—” his voice trailed downwards upon laying eyes on the scroll his younger sister was levitating in front of him. “Ah, right. Akashic records; they let you know everything that is mortal. Then I guess you know there’s a gaping big hole where the unicorn’s heart is supposed to be, and it’s somehow bleeding like crazy with no sign of stopping? Or the fact that the mare still hasn’t died of blood loss?”

“It’s because she’s already dead.” The alicorn said.

“A dead soul, forced to relive her cause of death for eternity, eh? We haven’t had one come to the Akasha Stratum in over ten thousand years.” The cloaked man mused, placing a gnarled finger under his chin in interest. He did remember the last guest; a good-natured human being who coindicentally had been the savior of his world. Would this new guest ever compare? “A terrible fate indeed, but is it the type she deserves? What do you think, or rather know, dearest sister?”

The alicorn flung the scroll into Benetnasch’s face and stood up, crimson tail swishing about. The report was completed, boasting a grand total of around ten thousand words with a gold seal and beautifully inscribed signature at the bottom. The cloaked man ripped it off his face, unaware that blotches of ink were stuck to his cheeks and began reading it with interest.

XXX

Inside the Heaven’s Throne, a unicorn stared blankly at a wall, mind smashed to pieces by the cause of her death and the realization of its consequences. Before, she had been crying; the salty tears that spoke volumes of anguish and self-loathing flowing out and dripping onto the tiled ground. Now, she had stopped. Her eyes were soulless, her mouth was sealed shut and her heart might as well have halted altogether.

She was more or less an empty shell.

“Why? What’s happening? Where’s the spark? Why aren’t the elements working?”

The heretic princess’s eyes widened, she smiled and a gigantic malevolent aura burst out of her like water rushing out of a broken dam. At once, the six foals opposing her were overwhelmed by the massive killing intent, images of brutal pain, death and a fiery hell clouding their already panicked mind.

“Foolish child!” the heretic said, laughing crazily like the insane, spiteful fiend that she was. With each breath, she revealed her razor-sharp teeth, sharp icicles that were ready to bite anything that stood in her way to pieces. “Did you really think the Elements of Harmony could stop me?”

“But…but…” the unicorn stammered, “Princess Celestia said the Elements would work! She’s always right!”

“Princess Celestia is a fool! After all, she sent six girls to fight a deity like me. You never had a chance.” A tentacle, made out of a grisly blue star-like aura, grabbed the unicorn and hoisted her high up into the air, then squeezed her tight. Bones cracked and skin tightened. The heretic princess then began to smirk along to the unicorn’s tearful screams…

Near her, two twins—a humanoid boy and a humanoid girl—that were dressed in lime-green and sulphur-yellow robes hoisted the crown that the unicorn had carelessly tossed aside in her grief and began to play with it, giggling as they did so.

“Wow, it’s so big! I feel like a princess.” the girl said, wearing the metal structure on top of her head. She began speaking in a falsetto; fake, regal tone that had great similarities to one of their older siblings. “My name is Princess Mizar! I order you, my subjects, to write two thousand book reports otherwise I’ll send every last one of you to the dungeon. Court dismissed!”

The two twins shared a quick laugh, peals of their enjoyment ringing through the massive room. The girl then got another idea.

“Hey brother, do you think it’s made out of real gold? Do you? Come on, tell me!”

“Gimme that!” The boy snatched the crown off his sister’s head and clasped it in his hands, palms that were tattooed with the images of the star and the moon. Blue eyes carefully moving up and down, the boy then gave it back, much to his sister’s delight. “Nah, I don’t think so. It’s cracked. If it was real gold it wouldn’t be so broken.”

“You’re stupid, Phecd-A.” The girl laughed airily, her child-like shrieks bouncing off the walls. Her happiness was almost infectious. “Gold is soft and stuff. It bends and breaks easily. I know because sister Faust told me.”

“Nuh-uh! You can’t be right.”

“Oh yeah, who says? Sister Faust said so, and everything she says is right.”

Phecd-A, the young boy, jerked his thumb in the direction of the silent unicorn. “Yeah, well maybe sister Faust was wrong! Um, why don’t we ask her? She’s the one who owns the crown…”

Her friends had abandoned her. She was alone, flailed across the hard ground with every single limb in her body crushed to pieces and blood gushing out of the many wounds slashed across her body. Her vision was blurry.

“You poor, poor foal.” The heretic princess said, teasing the unicorn by putting on a fake, benevolent tone. Her voice sounded far away, as if she was speaking from the other side of the dark tunnel. “Look at your limp, pitiful form. Your princess sent you here to die, on a wild goose chase to find some magic stones that couldn’t even defeat me. Your friends have left you in the dust, the selfish fools that they are. You are all alone, without any hope nor salvation.” A false sigh. “Whatever are we going to do with you?”

The unicorn looked up hatefully. She couldn’t speak; her tongue had been burned to ashesby the heretic’s flames.

The heretic appeared to pause for a moment, contemplating. “I think that death would be rather suitable, would you?”

A flash of moonlight glinted off a sharp horn. Seconds later, a small lump of flesh and blood, veins and arteries—the unicorn’s heart—was impaled on top of it.

“Hey miss!” the girl waved a hand so that it would cover the majority of the unicorn’s vision, and beamed her most cheerful smile. “Is this crown yours? Can you tell us if it’s made out of gold or not, because me and my brother really want to know.”

There was no response. The unicorn’s eyelids didn’t even flicker.

“Hellooo? Anybody home?”

The girl frowned, crawled to the front of the unicorn and waved her hands and arms around like a windmill. Efforts fruitless, the girl then began to poke the unicorn with her index finger, increasing strength with every jab. When even that turned out to be a complete waste of time, the girl made a long face and went back to Phecd-A’s side.

“How’d it go?” the boy asked.

“She’s a stupid, mean unicorn.” The girl said, her voice petulant. Crossing her arms, she shot a nasty glare at the equine creature before returning to face her brother. “She won’t even talk to me. I don’t remember our last guest being this mean.”
“Maybe she doesn’t like you, Phecd-B.” the boy said in an innocent tone.

The girl simply huffed, grabbed the crown and put it back on her head. “That’s impossible. Everyone likes me.”

She was fading. Her body felt like ice. Every part of her, except for the heart that had been ripped out and splattered across the ground, was freezing. The darkness was overcoming her, blinding her and soaking her in its endless, eternal embrace.

And suddenly, she was floating no, flying through an unknown space. All around her, visions popped up like bubbles, and through them she could see the fate of her world.

“No…”

An unholy darkness was blotting out the sun, forcing it to retreat behind the clouds and never return. Its guardian, the ruling princess of the land, was beheaded in front of her crowd, her final expression displaying a mixture of sadness and defeat. All around the scene, the royal guards bowed and kissed the ground in front of their new empress…

“No...this can’t be happening…”

Torture. That was her five friends were experiencing. Nailed to wooden crosses, they howled and screamed and wept as hot pikes and spikes were inserted into their frail bodies. One was unconscious, another had soiled herself. The life was being sucked out of their bodies by some sort of machine...

“Stop…stop this at once…”

A rift was appearing in the sky. It cracked, and split open, unleashing a fiery hell onto the night-shrouded world.
Monsters, fiends, creatures of the night and beasts; they crawled out of the rift and descended on the inhabitants of the kingdom. The stench of bloodlust filled the cool air…

“This isn’t supposed to happen…this isn’t it how it should be! This can’t be happening! Stop it!”

But she couldn’t. She was helpless, only able to watch as her world was destroyed by the heretic princess and the beings originating from the hole in the sky. She howled and screamed and kicked against the flow, but received nothing for her efforts.

The rule was clear: dead mares tell no tales nor help others…

The twins had stopped playing with the crown and were now deeply focused in an exciting game of tic-tac-toe, drawn on a sheet of paper Phecd-B had withdrawn out of his pockets. Snatching the blue crayon, Phecd-A scribbled a cross on the upper-left square, securing a complete trio and thus winning the game. A big smile gleamed on her rosy face.

“Aw, you beat me again. You always do that.” Phecd-B grumbled, watching his twin sister jump up and whoop around the room in an ecstatic victory dance. He plonked his bottom on the hard ground and sulked, mouth drooped in a big frown. He stared at the unicorn, who was still unmoving, and back to the piece of paper, which now appeared to have been the site of a blueberry jam explosion. Suddenly, an idea struck him like a bolt of lightning. He flipped over the paper and drew another nine squares, eyes blazing with childish determination.

“Best seven out of thirteen?” he called.

“You’re on!” Phecd-A stopped in her tracks and touched down to the ground, gazing intently at the piece of paper. Her body vibrated with enthusiasm and sparks flew from her fingertips, singing a few spots on the tiles that the twin dutifully ignored. Her brother had already started off by drawing a circle in the circle square. Phecd-A yanked the crayon out of his arm the moment he had extended it and scrawled a thick cross in the lower-right.

So absorbed in their little game; the two twins did not register the soft, clopping noise of hoofsteps entering the throne room. It was only until the overbearing presence of the alicorn had forced it through the sanctum that they looked up.
“Hello, sister Faust!” they said in unison, adorable and charming smiles on their lips.

“Good day to you both, Phecda twins.” Faust the alicorn said back, a hint of a smirk appearing on her lips. “Since the two of you are in my throne room playing…ah, tic-tac-toe, I assume that you’ve both finished your lessons?”

“Yeah.” Phecd-A grinned cheekily. “Sister Mizar didn’t give us a lot of work to do. She said she was tired and she wanted us to start interdimensional advanced calculus next time, so we got let out early!”

Faust raised an eyebrow sceptically. “I will be checking on your words with Mizar; you do realize that?” As cute as the Phecda twins were, the goddess was no fool and knew that her siblings were mischievous little buggers, prone to playing hide-and-seek around the dangerous parts of Stratum, unleashing tricks at very inappropriate of times and finally, sneaking out of classes they found boring. She shot them a stern look, just for emphasis.

Phecd-A and Phecd-B just smiled back. “Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye!” they both chanted, tiny halos practically appearing above their thick, blonde hair.

“We sat through the lesson, we did.” Phecd-A started.

“Sister Mizar told us she would give us treats if we behaved…” Phecd-B continued.

“…so we studied hard, and got lollies at the end…”

“…they were really delicious! You can go and check with her, she’ll tell you everything. Then we came here because we were bored and we felt a visitor arrive.”

“Oh.” Faust said curtly, nodding in the direction of the blanked-eyed unicorn. Despite the fact that the alicorn was radiating sheer power just by standing on the spot, the unicorn did not tremble nor pay attention. Being divine creatures, the two twins were also unaffected by the raging maelstrom, but this was because they too possessed an extreme amount of power that countered the effect. “I see that the two of you have met our guest.”

“Yeah.” The smile dropped from Phecd-B’s face. She frowned, and said, “The unicorn’s mean, unlike you sister. She let us have her crown, but she’s still mean because she won’t talk to us.”

“She lent you two her crown?” Faust said with suspicion, frowning a little. The regal ornament sitting on top of Phecd-B’s head, she observed, was exactly like how Benetnasch had described it: gold, cracked and with a six-pointed jewel. There was also something else about it; a trace of power that hinted of a great force when its horned owner had been alive, but was now weakened and almost useless. “I find that rather surprising, considering that she cannot talk. Did you take it without her permission?”

“Well…” Phecd-B said weakly.

“It’s because she didn’t talk to us. We were only going to borrow it for a while and then give it back once she asked, honest. We didn’t intend to keep it, sister Faust.” Phecd-A explained, hoping to the stars that their equine sister would accept his explanation and let go without any punishment. Faust was infamous amongst the Stratum for her strictness.

Faust sighed. “I see. Hand it over to me; I’ll make sure it’ll be returned back to its rightful owner.”

Grudgingly, Phecd-B took the chunk of gold off her messy blonde nest and tossed to the red-haired alicorn, who caught it with her magic the moment it nearly connected with her chest.

“Sister Faust, do you why the unicorn isn’t speaking to us?” Phecd-A asked, “Phecd-B and I tried to get her to play with us, but she didn’t respond and we really want her to play with us.”

“It’s because she’s suffering from a bout of trauma. Once I talk to her she’ll be fine again. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to play with her.” Faust replied gently. She knew from expertise that the twins always fell into gloom when they couldn’t play with anyone new. She was correct.

“But, why?” Phecd-A whined.

“Yeah, how come?” his feminine twin demanded, voice high.

“Where do I start? Firstly, she is dead.” Apparently the notion of their new ‘playmate’ being dead was something new; the two twins exchanged shocked glances. They had never had a dead friend before. Divine ones yes, but never dead ones. Eyes wide, they stared at their sister. “She is a lost soul, having briefly wandered around the land of the deceased before somehow ending up in the Akasha Stratum. If you have been paying attention to your lessons, and I sincerely hope that you have…” Faust’s voice trailed off warningly, to which the two twins gulped before giving the alicorn nervous smiles.

“We’ve been playing attention!”

“Yeah!”

“…you will know this signifies that she is special; a lost soul holding a great amount of power for a mortal. Like both of you, I am curious as to why she managed to make her way to the Stratum, and to find out I must talk to her. Unfortunately, this conversation must be conducted in private, which means that both of you will have to leave.”

Both twins gave audible groans, before muttering childish curses under their breaths. Although their words were angry, Faust could tell that both them were genuinely sad. Feeling the tiniest bit of sorry for them, she activated her magic and affectionately ruffled their hairs. It helped; Phecd-B smiled a little, while her male counterpart grimaced and rubbed his forehead (“Stop it, sis…”).

“Why don’t you two play with Benetnasch?” Faust suggested. With her magic, she projected a magical bubble in the air, showing an image of the cloaked man sitting on a table in the library, rapping on his forehead with a pencil. His boredom was so apparent that even the twins picked up on it. “As you can see, he’s free. I’m sure he would be happy to accompany you two for a while.”

“Really?” Phecd-A cried, now happy again. Benetnasch was a great playmate. He would often help them reach the cookie jar on the highest shelf of the pantry. “Do you think so, sister Faust?”

Faust forwarded them an amused look. “Why don’t you two go and ask?” She pointed her two wings, magnificent feathered pieces of muscle that had experienced aeons of training and good care, at the door, where the grand hallways of the Akasha Stratum invited themselves enticingly. The twins lit up instantly.

“Super special awesome Phecda twins of the Ursa Major go!” A leap and a bounce, and the two twins were charging down the hallway, footsteps loud and emotions gleeful. Within seconds, they had disappeared in the direction of the library. Faust smiled again and shook her head. Her two little siblings were a real handful with their overexcited and hyperactive natures, but the cheerfulness and joy they brought into the Stratum more than made up for it.

Her expression hardened the moment she remembered why she was here. The guest was waiting, and Faust seethed internally. She knew exactly why that unicorn was here, and she was positively furious. It wasn’t because the foal had entered the Stratum without permission; all guests did that. No, there was a far greater, more personal reason for why the Almighty Goddess was so angry.

She strode towards the unicorn, hooves quaking across the pearl-white tiles. Somewhere in the universe, a planet cracked and disintegrated.

“So,” she growled, staring down at the guest., noting that Benetnasch’s analysis had been spot on. It was quite astonishing how much the goddess now resembled a vicious, rampaging dragon, “You’re here.”

Despite the sheer amount of force pouring from the alicorn’s body, filling the room with an enormous killing intent, the unicorn still ignored the goddess’s words and continued to stare blankly at the wall.

“The Elements of Harmony failed to activate. Nightmare Moon defeated its bearers. Equestria has been covered in eternal night.” Faust’s words were as icy as a ten-ton glacier submerged in deep, cold seawater. Unlike some of her siblings, her anger was sharp and harsh, reminiscent of a knife silently slicing through raw flesh. It had the quality of freezing the receiver on the spot, rendering them unable to do anything besides suffer the wrath of the goddess. “You, on the other hoof, are—”

“I know.”

Faust’s words caught in her throat as she abruptly realized the unicorn had just spoken. The voice was utterly flat, no emotion behind it whatsoever. The foal was still staring, unblinking, at the wall. There was a brief pause before Faust regained control of her speech.

“What did you just say?” she snapped venomously.

“I know that I’m dead.” This time, the unicorn turned and faced the Almighty Goddess. Faust was mentally struck by how empty the foal’s eyes were. No joy, no sadness, no regret nor anger; they were mu. It was like staring into straight into a black hole; dark, endless and unable to look away. “I know I failed my country. I know it’s become shrouded in eternal night; and that Nightmare Moon is now Equestria’s queen. I saw all consequences of my loss the moment I died. You don’t have to tell me twice.”

Faust drew a deep breath. She was much more furious now, and was sorely tempted to vaporise the foal on the spot. One concentrated burst of solar energy, and she would not have to deal with the insolent fool ever again. Only millennia of royal discipline and a quick reminder of her duties prevented her from doing so.

“Then, you are no doubt aware that Princess Celestia is dead.” Faust paused. “My daughter is dead, and she’ll never return. My other daughter committed deicide by slaying her, and plunged Equestria into chaos and destruction. Because you failed in your duties, my homeworld was destroyed, eldest daughter slain and the youngest damned to eternal punishment. Tell me foal, what do you have to say for yourself?”

The unicorn just shrugged and continued to stare at the wall. “What should I say, or do? Sob my eyes out? I already did that. Beg for your forgiveness? I’m a dead mare, with no hope of salvation. Punish myself for my failure? I can’t think of any ways to make the pain I feel even worse, and torturing myself is a waste of time, as it won’t fix my mistake instantly. No, the only option I have is to do nothing and wait until I pass into the afterlife. I don’t even know why I’m here, sitting in this divine plane.”

Earlier, Faust had put on a calm and rational façade around Benetnasch and the Phecda twins, as she detested the idea of unleashing her anger on people who had no idea about her personal problems. Her family had nothing to do with Celestia’s death, and they did not deserve to suffer the Almighty Goddess’s wrath. But now, alone, she was literally shaking with rage. Her enmity was pouring out of her heart like a leaking dam, devastating the air with her power.

How dare she…how dare she shame the memory of my precious daughter by sitting there, drenched in her own apathy, uncaring about the state of her own home!

She wanted nothing more to punish the unicorn for eternity; to fling her into the deepest corners of the underworld and let her pay for her actions.

But, a rational voice said in the back of the alicorn’s mind before she lashed out, the foal is correct. There really is nothing she can do. Do not forget your purpose, former queen of Equestria.

Faust stopped dead in her tracks. As much as she hated to admit it, the little voice was right. Destroying the foal’s soul would do nothing to fix the problem Nightmare Moon had wrecked across her kingdom. No, she reminded herself, violence was not the solution here.

What would Celestia do?

The akashic records had told her the future of Equestria. She could read them because was a goddess, existing beyond time and space. Her eyes had seen tales of conquest, war, famine and ultimately death; and they had disgusted her.
No. the voice spoke up again, You cannot allow Equestria to fall into ruin. It’s already bad as it is. Calm yourself, Almighty Goddess. Remember why you are here.

Faust forced herself to calm down—not an easy task. Her emotions were tumbling and mixing inside of her: sadness at Celestia’s death, anger at Nightmare Moon for deicide and dragging Equestria into ruin, rage at the foal for her apathy (even though there was a good reason) and loathing towards herself for allowing events to transpire this way. After many, many deep breaths, the number of which she had lost count, her heart had stopped beating like a hyperactive hummingbird and she strode over to the unicorn.

“Listen, you foal. I am only going to say this once.”

The unicorn just looked up again, not a hint of interest displayed on her blank features. “What?”

“There is a way for you to go back and save Equestria. What do you make of that?”

For an instant, Faust noticed a spark of light igniting inside of the foal’s eyes. Then, as quickly as it disappeared, it was snuffed out and the foal resumed to staring at the wall. “You lie.” She said softly, with a hint of what may have been animosity. "There is no way."

Faust scowled, “Do you know who I am, child? I am the Almighty Goddess, mother of Princess Celestia, conqueror of life and death. Do not think that returning a deceased soul to the mortal plane is beyond me. I created death in your world; I know everything about it.”

“If you know so much about death, why don’t you send Princess Celestia to save Equestria, then?” the foal said listlessly. “She’s stronger than I am.”

“Because my daughter has already passed onto the afterlife. Dead souls cannot be returned if they have resigned themselves to the ultimate end. Even a creator such as I is bound by her own rules. Now, I will ask you again. I am offering a chance for you to go back to save Equestria. An exact replica of your body will be created for your soul to inhabit. The process, however, will be painful and it may backfire on you. If it does, you will spend ten thousand years in limbo, before forced into reincarnation. Do you accept my terms?"

The unicorn swiveled her head and gazed into the Almighty Goddess’s eyes for the longest time, not saying a single word. Unwilling to back down, Faust simply glared back. She had almost believed that the unicorn’s silence meant no, and was just about to resign and condemn the foal to true death, until she saw the mare’s mouth move.

“I can’t tell if you are lying or not. I’ve thought about it, and it doesn’t matter anyway. This is either an illusion or real life.” The unicorn said, words soft as ever, “If your words are true, return me back to life. The thought sounds appealing, I have to admit.”

“Is that your final answer?”

“Yes.”

“Very well, then. We shall begin.” Faust horn glowed and she shot the unicorn with a beam of divine energy. The results were instantaneous. The unicorn howled in agony, uncharacteristic in comparison to her early silence, as her soul rapidly decomposed into individual spiritual molecules, transposing her into a cloudy mass suspended in thin air. The crown followed suit.

Another ray of energy hit the floor, and a portal appeared. The molecules floated downwards into a dark, endless pit, and the portal sealed up as quickly as it had appeared.

It was over.

Faust panted and gasped. Sweat was pouring down her brow. Creating life from scratch, even a relatively simple type as such an empty body, was never an easy task. To top it off she had willed herself to remove the unicorn’s apathy and uncaring nature, despite the extra effort. An emotionless fool would never be able to restore Equestria, a land once full of happiness and kindness.

Despite herself, the goddess found herself speaking in the empty room. “Good luck, foal. You will need it…”

XXX

“Wake up, little pony.”

Her eyes snapped—no, hammered open. What…what happened?

A white palace, a goddess, falling down into a pit and drawing blood, losing unconsciousness…that was what had happened. Twilight blinked and reasserted her senses.

Right now, she was in an unfamiliar place with nothing she knew in sight. This was rather terrifying.

It was dark. The pitch blackness spread everywhere, but Twilight could see them clearly—a small human boy with long blonde hair, and a human woman dressed in black. A thick veil covered her face. None of it made sense—most of all the fact that the overwhelming darkness was so intense she couldn’t see any part of herself, yet she could still see the duo in front of her.

Are those humans? Aren’t they just little filly tales? To think that they actually exist…

The human boy whispered something to the woman. Twilight had no clue what he was saying, but from the way the woman’s mouth upturned into a malicious smirk, she began to worry.

“Young foal,” the woman said, “It pleases me to inform you that my master has chosen to give you a gift.”

“A…a gift?” Twilight croaked out the words. Her throat was on fire. Everything hurt.

“Yes. A very rare gift. The almighty Goddess has decided to give you a second chance, as you already know. Our master had offered to help; he has taken quite an interest in you.”

What’s that supposed to mean?

“Who…are you? Where am I? And what’s this…gift?”

“Please don’t move. This will be a trifle unpleasant.”

“Wait, you didn’t answer my questions!”

The woman came towards Twilight, and with a surprising amount of strength, pinned Twilight down on the dark ground.

Despite herself, Twilight was stunned. Are all humans this strong?

Her strength was powerful or her weight was incredible—Twilight couldn’t tell, but she was completely immobilized. But her mouth still moved, and she could still see the little boy walk over to her, stand over her body…

He held out a long centipede like insect, with the biggest pincers she had ever seen.

“Wha…what’s that?” Twilight gasped.

“Don’t worry, the pain will be over soon.” The woman said soothingly. It did nothing to quell Twilight’s rapidly rising fears.

“What are you going to do to me?” Twilight shouted, “Let me go!”

“You cannot survive in your world the way you are now. It has changed for too much for your liking. You must become a demon. Now, just lie still for a moment please.”

It took several precious seconds for the woman’s words to register in Twilight’s brain, for her to figure out what the human had just said to her.

You must become a demon.

A demon.

You must become one.

You must become a monster.

…no…

NO.

“NO!” Twilight shrieked. Her body kicked into overdrive. She did not want to become a demon! She went berserk—she screeched, she thrashed, she bit, she kicked, she flailed and her strength increased a millionfold as she tried to escape. Everything in her body was rebelling against the human woman.

She tried to throw the woman off with her magic, only to find that it didn’t work. She couldn’t feel the familiar buzz of the energy running through her horn, solving all of her problems in an instant.

My magic! What’s going on? Why is this happening to me?

“Noooo! NO NONONONONO!” Twilight repeated the word over and over again, as if it could get her out of this situation, as though it was a magic key that could get her out of this predicament. “No, no, no! I won’t let you make me a demon! I won’t! I won’t!”

The blonde haired boy, who had been silent for all this time, finally made of noise. It was a snort, a cough of amusement. “Didn’t you want to save your home? Well, this is how. I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.” He smirked.

This…this isn’t happening! This isn’t really happening, it’s just a nightmare. A really vivid nightmare, but still a nightmare.

But even in her nightmares, Twilight didn’t want to become a demon. The idea went against everything she knew. Nightmare Moon was a demon, and she had destroyed her life! There was no way Twilight becoming as bad as the heretic princess! She continued to fight them, but this only made the woman hold her down tighter, immobilising her legs so that all she could do was attack them with her voice, using offensive slogans that would’ve made the nobles of Canterlot faint with shock.

“You…how dare you! I am Princess Celestia’s personal student! She will smite you down for this!”
“Princess Celestia is dead.” The woman said, “You already know that.”

When that didn’t work, she tried pleading for herself, for her life and her status as a pony. “Please…please don’t do this…I don’t want to be a demon…please!”

“Don’t move.” The woman stated, ignoring Twilight’s pleas. Twilight didn’t listen, she continued to thrash around. Normally she wasn’t like this, but now she was completely helpless. So far, anger, pleading and begging hadn’t work; she had to think of something fast.

But the woman’s strength was overwhelming—she couldn’t move. All Twilight could do was watch as the awful parasite flailed above her in the air, held by the young boy, its gigantic sharp mandibles snapping in anticipation.

“PRINCESS CELESTIA! PRINCESS CADENCE! ANYPONY, HELP ME!” Twilight screamed out their names, the crushing sense of hopelessness weighing down on her soul.

“Somepony…please…help me…anypony…”

“We are.” The woman told her.

Then the young boy let the centipede go. It was falling towards her, cartwheeling through the air as though in slow motion, doing two full rotations as it came closer and closer to her.

It landed on her face. It felt cold and clammy, like an iceblock with one hundred legs. It was scuttling, sniffing across her nose, trying to seek out something but she didn’t know what. It wasn’t very big, only about ten centimetres, at the longest, but its gigantic mandibles were incredibly sharp and it was coming up to her right eye, so she was getting a good look at them—

“AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!”

And now it was biting into her eye. Its pincers were biting it, tearing off chunks out of it and she screamed murder because IT WAS DIGGING INTO HER EYE. Her head flew back and slammed against whatever it hit and she howled, howled until she was running low on oxygen and it turned into a high-pitched squealing.

I’m…I’m shrieking like a little filly…Rainbow Dash would have a field day with this. Said a tiny part of her brain that was strangely rational about the whole thing.

She was crying now, crying with her good eye, and silently begging for the princess to help her. She tried to wipe at her tears with her hoof, but her legs were pinned down to her sides. She tried to wriggle her head left and right but it had little effect other than giving her a debilitating headache. She kept on screaming, as the centipede burrowed further until it had burrowed through her eye, and until she couldn’t see through it.

She wailed with renewed vigour at the horrible, unspeakable, unforgettable, excruciating agony.
There was pain in her mouth, just as there was pain anywhere else, and the dimly rational part of her mind informed her that she had bitten her tongue clean in half, so that was rendered mute as well as half blind.

She was convulsing, still shaking. Ever part of her was opening wide in horror, but she was too preoccupied to notice. She couldn’t breathe. She was dying, down her neck and into her hooves, and her mouth screeched incoherently as she tried to will herself to die, to sleep, to just let this pain to end.

But it wouldn’t happen. She was wide awake.

Her strength and her soul were flowing out of her. Everything was flowing out of her. Her identity, personality, magic and mind…it was all leaving with her increasingly desperate gasps for air. She was dying. The pain would end, everything would stop and the nightmare would be over.

She didn’t know when she lost unconsciousness. She was unaware that her old self was now gone from the world, just as the world had gone from her. She had flowed out of her body, leaving an empty shell that writhed, gurgled and finally…

Transformed…

After it was all over, the two figures stared down above her, their expressions unreadable.

“Looks like a success.” The old woman said to the young boy, “I never doubted you, young Master. It’s clear that you can see something in her that the others cannot, least of all that abominable heretic. Let us leave her here. Her trial begins now…”

The boy looked up at the woman, and whispered something into her ear.

“Yes, I agree. We must move quickly, or everything will be delayed…”

She looked down at the pony in front of her, knowing that right now, Twilight was in her nightmares.

“Sleep well, young foal. My master expects great things of you…”

XXX

She was falling again. She couldn’t see anything but dizzying brightness, couldn’t hear nor speak over the rush of the air. The source of the light was above her, pulsating in time with her beating heart.

You who have returned from death into life, show me your soul.

Her body was burning up, searing hot and images began to flash in front of her. A mare and a stallion. A brother. A group of friends. A beloved mentor. A home.
“What…what are these?” she whispered.

There is no need for you to have such useless memories. Therefore, they shall be removed.

In an instant, the images disappeared and she could not recall that they had ever existed. Her old life was flowing away from her. Everything she had once knew, was gone.

…This is unacceptable. You have nothing in your heart, not even a hint of reason.

“…a reason? What are you saying?”

For one who is destined to change the world, this must be remedied.

Darkness erupted through her. She was diving into blackness and pain.

Go! Explore this world divided between equine and demonkind. Find your true self…

A crash landing, and then there was silence…

XXX

…
…
…
The mare awoke with a debilitating headache. It was so painful, that she felt obliged to write a report to the princess explaining the concepts of pain, its purpose in the equine nervous system and why it was one of the most uncomfortable experiences in existence.

Her next thought was: what’s a princess? ‘What’s my name?’ came soon after. Something to do with the stars, her mind conjured. It had something to do with the night, the day and the heavenly beings above.

She sat up and her nerves went haywire, forcing electrical needles through every inch of her system.

“Ow…” she groaned, rubbing her aching skull. What did this all mean? Where was she? Who was she?

She looked at the area around her. For a moment, her brain projected a vision of a magnificent library, rows and rows of books neatly stacked together like toy soldiers, their almost infinite sum of knowledge waiting for her to consume. The image quickly disappeared. The walls were stone and the room was large. It was dark. A ray of moonlight peeked through an ancient, open window. The ugly scent of dust filled the dry air.

She was standing on top of a stone platform, six granite orbs placed around her in a neat semi-circle. Something glinted out of the corner of her eye, and with her new-found curiosity, she swooped down to check.

Nothing. There was nothing lying at the nearest stone orb. The mare eyelids opened and closed like shutters, visibly confused. Before she could stand up again, she heard the sound of a throat clearing. Curious yet again, she turned around…

…and came face to face with a ghost, who was staring at her. “Wow. You finally woke up. Didn’t think you would.”

The mare blinked, and stared back. It wasn’t everyday that you saw a ghost. “What?”

The ghost floated in front of her, pegasi wings flapping and the silver earring hooked onto its left air dangling around as it watched her look straight ahead with a blank expression. “I said, you finally woke up. You’ve been asleep for seven years straight, hardly moving a single muscle. I would know; I’ve been stuck in this castle for that long.”

A brief moment of silence, before the mare cocked her head and blinked yet again. “Excuse me? What did you just say?”
The ghost rolled its eyes and rapped the side of its earring-less ear, with an expression that was more or less a gigantic neon sign displaying, ‘ARE YOU DEAF?’

“Is it a new trend for demons to have blocked ears, or what? Geez, you’re one annoying unicorn. I said, you’ve been asleep for seven years, I’ve been stuck in this castle because my soul is rooted here and…”

“No no no,” the mare clarified, waving her front hooves around. “I’ve been asleep for seven years? And I’m in a castle? And you mentioned something about a demon?”

“To answer your questions, yes, yes and yes.” The ghost said tiredly. “By the way, every time I poked you a magical force-field would erupt around you and shock me in the scrotum. Afterwards, I stopped doing that. But I sure as hell am annoyed about it!”

“Okay, I understand that.” The mare continued, her face betraying her complete ignorance towards the ghost’s irritation.

“But where’s the demon?”

There was a long pause. The ghost floated forward and poked a hoof straight at the mare’s chest. “Right here.”

A slow, numb feeling rose up inside her stomach. Her pupils shrunk and she gasped. Taking a few steps back, she tripped over one of the stone orbs and banged her head against the hard wall, thus meeting her old friend the headache. The

ghost couldn’t help smirking. After all this time, finally some revenge. “You mean I’m the demon?” she gasped.

“Yup.”

The mare’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. She trembled a little, frowned and the ghost thought she was on the verge of bursting into tears and galloping around like a sissy, which would be a very unusual and humiliating thing to do for a demon.

All of a sudden, her facial muscles relaxed and it was back to the blank, half-sleepy expression the ghost had gotten to know so well. He groaned internally. “Oh, okay then.” The pony stated, “I thought I was a mare, not a demon. Confirmation is nice.”

“Well, it kinda hard to not see as you as a demon when you keep muttering ‘my name is Twilight Sparkle, and I am a demon’ in your sleep.”

“…I said all of that in my sleep? Is Twilight Sparkle my name?” the mare questioned.

“Apparently so. What else could it be?”

“Twilight Sparkle. I like it.” the newly christened Twilight Sparkle said, tapping her hoof against the hard floor. Dust scattered and floated about in the air. “And I’m a demon, too.”

“Yes, demons exist in this world now. What, were you living under a rock through the apocalypse?”

“…apocalypse?”

“You know, the heretic princess returning from the moon, the deicide of the sun goddess, demons eating ponies, chaos reigning across the land and whatnot?” Then the ghost slapped himself. “Oh yeah, you were asleep for seven years.” He growled sarcastically. “My bad.”

“…sorry.”

“Whatever. Well, since you’re all new and all, let me be the first to welcome officially welcome you to this night-shrouded excuse of a world. Have a nice stay, see the sights, maybe eat a few demons while you’re here, perhaps even bring back a souvenir or two. Just don’t stand around pestering with questions. Luna, I already know you for two minutes and I think I want to punch you in the face. If eternity was gonna be like this I would’ve done more with my life…”

“Ah.” Twilight Sparkle said with an air of realization. “You’re dead.”

“You only just realized that? Christ, I didn’t think anything would be that stupid!” The ghost ripped his earring off in irritation and flung it towards a barricaded double door. It bounced off and reappeared in his hoof, undamaged. “Look, there’s the exit. If you want to get out, to which I suggest you do because it will benefit the both of us, then go through there.”

“Um, alright then.” Twilight Sparkle said. “I don’t really have much to do anyway, and I wonder if there are other ponies out there…

“Good luck with that.” The ghost snorted, gliding out of the way to allow the newly-christened Twilight to trot away, “Well, nice knowing you…”

Twilight was already gone, ripping open the door and walking through it. The ghost watched in disdain as it slammed shut in front of him.

“…you weirdo.”

Demon

A/N: Rewrote the first chapter, go back and read it. It still contains spoilers for Devil Survivor 2.

What…what is this…just what is this?
It was although Twilight Sparkle had opened a doorway leading straight into the ocean. One moment she had been trotting around the room she had awoken in, only dimly aware of the howling gale whooshing through the open window, the next she was trying to open the door and step out of the room into the rest of the castle. Something had obviously gone wrong, because she was now face down in a murky, thick liquid that resembled very much like…

It’s blood. It’s BLOOD!

Instantly, she had leaped to her hooves as if a thousand volts had just been ejected through her skin. The crimson liquid was dripping down her face, she noticed, leaving behind streaks of dark red that smudged and blurred her vision. She rubbed her eyes; now the blood was smeared around her eyes and hooves.

This awful place, what or wherever it was, was mostly definitely not connected to her starting location in anyway. It was a nightmare of swirling red mist, blood and crimson stuff pulsing through the walls. As she looked around, disembodied skulls floated, with purple mist drifting around them and disheveled corpses shuffled and groaned their way through the bloody water…

Too much.

Her body rebelled and she retched, the bile forcing itself up her throat and out her mouth. She dropped down, body shuddering and trembling. She was caught in a cloud of raw, sticky odor, from the blood and the walls and everything else, that made nearly made her faint—and to fall face-down in a stream of steady liquid while unconscious would be fatal.
This isn’t right…this isn’t right at all!

“Oh god, somepony help me…” she whispered through her newly falling tears. For the first time she could remember, she was experiencing fear. The icy tendrils were crawling up her spine, strangling her in its powerful grasp. Before she knew it, she was clasped in a prayer, a proper one with her head bowed and her legs in the correct position. “I’m sorry for whatever I did…I don’t deserve this at all, somepony save me, forgive me!” She babbling, a stream of incomprehensible words spewing from her tongue as she prayed to whatever god was above her, for him to protect her, guard her, to just get her out of the hellish place!

What answered her was not a god, that she was one hundred sure of.

Stand up.

It was a man’s voice, harsh and unforgiving like an insanely cold winter. There was real power behind those words, a force that made Twilight Sparkle tremble slightly in her hooves.

“A…a voice?” she gasped, “Am...am I going mad in here?”

You are not. I am here to help you. Now, stand up.

She leaped to her feet. “Okay, but, um, where are you?”

Come.

Through the red haze she could barely make out the shape of a circular gateway. Was that the exit?

“Through…here?”

Yes.

She didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want to be in this nightmare, this suffocating, blood-ridden, flesh-lined world. She didn’t want to continue forward, to go deeper into the red haze and the stench of blood.

The nightmare she was standing in was a long corridor. Twilight turned around, and saw that there was no door behind her, no room with bloodstains on a stone platform and a freaky ghost of a pegasus, no escape by going back. If she wanted to leave, she had no choice but to go forward, towards the voice. Towards safety.

She took a step forward, then another step and a third step. It was hard going- the blood was sticking against her hooves. She walked; her hooves squelched and squirmed. She tried not to think that the viscous fluid was in her mane and up her body—it was making her sick.

She had to find the voice. It was helping her. She was nopony or nobody else and once she found the source, everything would be fine, right?

There was a problem: walking through the blood had made a lot of noise and the other…inhabitants of the place had heard it. The disembodied skulls and corpses, they were turning towards her now, and she began to hear mutters.
“Magatsuhi…Magatsuhi…eat…”

A chill ran up her spine. Whatever these things were, it would be bad business if they attacked her all at once. Don’t look at them. She told herself. If you don’t look at them, they’ll ignore you. Just keep moving.

From the burned corpses she could see glimmers of hungry smiles and the skulls—they couldn’t smile—but she sensed the unholy blood-lust radiating off them. Twilight felt uneasy. They were becoming difficult to ignore. “Ah…voice…little help here?” she gasped, her voice painfully weak.

Now, show me.

“Show you what?”

Show me your power.

“What power?” The monsters were coming towards her.

The power that was granted to you. Show me the power of a demon.

“A demon? Wait, I don’t have any—”

“Maaaagatsuhi!” The monsters rushed forwards through the bloody water at a speed she couldn’t believe, and suddenly they were on top of her, biting, scratching and hitting. She screamed, curled in a ball out of instinct as they pounded her, dragged her down until she was buried under a pile of monsters and covered in blood—not just from the path she was standing in, but her own.

Fight back.

She was curling up into a ball, cowering on her hooves in order to make herself seem less threatening. It only seemed to make the monsters more frenzied. “I can’t…” she whimpered. For the first time in her known life, she was experiencing fear. Although the room was hot, the cold sensation was crawling up her skin, curling and strangling her with its powerful noose. She wanted to run, to hide, to get away from this nightmare and put as many locked doors and walls between her and the monsters as possible. “Please help me, voice…”

I cannot. Nobody can. You must do this on your own.

“No I can’t…”

You must.
Twilight gritted her teeth and yelled at the voice in fury, at the top of her lungs. “I DON’T KNOW HOW!”

The voice screamed back. You weren’t returned to life just to die again! FIGHT BACK!

“I…I can’t…”

RIGHT! NOW!

That did it.

Something inside Twilight’s mind snapped. She had no recollection of learning martial arts or any ways of defending herself, and she didn’t have any weapons but it was now or never, she had to fight now or die, so she bellowed and lashed out, aiming a kick at one of the floating skulls.

That kick was one thrown of desperation without any real strength behind it, from a mare who inexplicably remembered had always been terrible at sports, coming last in every race she had run, horrendously unfit and preferring books to exercise, who had always fought using her magic and not her legs, who had been physically weak as HELL…

The kick went straight through the skull, smashing it to pieces, then following through and taking out three more skulls as it moved through the air in a blur. It was although the skulls were made out of potato chips; it was so easy. Just a single whoosh—and that was that. She stared at the skulls she had crushed, the pieces falling into the muck and the purple haze disappearing.

Very good. Keep going.

She climbed to her full height, shook herself free by throwing the corpses and skulls off her, got into a sorry excuse of a fighting stance, just in time to be knocked off her feet by a second wave. The skulls and corpses were running towards her now, punching, kicking and biting her and she retaliated by kicking and headbutting back, grappling with corpses and rolling around, waving her legs about with no real direction—but it didn’t matter! She was ploughing through bone, muscle and sinew and the monsters were falling like rain as she tore holes through them. More and more were attacking, and she just kept fighting—a corpse fell into the pool and she stomped and crushed it until she had hacked the thing to pieces.

Then it was finally over, silence except for Twilight snarling like a wild beast, nostrils flared and adrenaline zooming through her system. She wasn’t even tired, not even out of breath. It only occurred to her seconds later that she had just done that she shouldn’t have been able to do.

I…this…what…How did—why—how did I just do all that?

For the first time since waking up, she closely looked at herself, to see if anything was out of the ordinary.

Her body was one of womanly sinew and muscle, something that common sense told her was as rare as a diamond. She was so astonished that she did several poses for an imaginary audience, briefly forgetting about the hellhole she was in. She did a few practise kicks, amazed at how they blurred through the air, much faster than should have been possible.

Woah!

That wasn’t the only change, though. Her body was covered in glowing tattoos, lines and curves that started from her horn and spread downwards. The markings were all over her body, faintly glowing green and blue on her legs, her hooves, her chest; every part of her body she could see. She thought, briefly, of looking underneath her body to see if the tattoos stretched down to her rump, but decided against it.

“What’s happened to me?” she said aloud, gazing at the destroyed skulls and corpses. Not killed—they were already dead to begin with. She hadn’t killed them. She wasn’t a murderer.

He has given you power.

“Power?”

The power of the Magatama.

Well, that didn’t explain anything.

“I don’t understand…what is Magatama? What is this place? Why do I have tattoos across my body? How did I beat those things?”

You are in the depths of Amala, and your markings symbolize your bond with the Magatama—the demonic parasite given to you by our Lord, known as the Magatama Marogareh, the sphere formed from primal chaos. It is the raw essence of demon power.

“Parasite? What parasite? What Lord? I don’t remember anything…”

Of course you don’t. Your memories were taken as forfeit.

“My memories were taken? Is that why I cannot remember anything? I don’t understand…”

There was a pause. Once, you committed a grave mistake in homeland, resulting in your death. Because you died, your homeland fell into ruin, many of its inhabitants dying. The divine ones took pity on you, and decided to give you a second chance. But as payment, your memories were wiped and you were put to rest for seven years. Your soul is now a blank slate, ready for the world to sully it with its colors.

That explained her amnesia. Despite her horrifying surroundings, Twilight Sparkle felt slightly at peace with herself.
Your duty is to fix your mistake through any means necessary. Whether you abide by the law and help others, or descend into chaos and crush all in your way if entirely up to you.

“Do you know who killed me?” she asked.

A heretic princess, once long forgotten by your land. It was her decree that you perish, along with many of her own subjects. You are only alive through a defiance of her will.

“I don’t get it.” Twilight whispered, not believing the words she heard. “Why would the princess want to kill me? What did I do to her?”

You offended her in a way that you obviously cannot remember. But while she has forsaken you, another deity has blessed you.

“That lord…just who is he?” Suddenly Twilight felt alone. It was a cold emotion similar to fear. She wanted somebody, a companion to talk with.

He is the morning star and light bringer, the eternal opponent of the forces of law ever since he was banished and cast out into the depths of Amala. He is our Lord, the Lord of all demons including you, the Great King and the Protector of Darkness. It was under his orders that you received the Magatama.

“Oh.” Supposedly the Protector of Darkness was supposed to sound intimidating, or at least generate some form of respect inside of her. But she had no knowledge of any religion nor royalty, and didn’t feel much at all. “What power does the Magatama give me? Other than making me a demon, I mean.”

A power that none have ever possessed. The power to change your destiny. You are not a true demon, but what is known a half-demon known as a Demi-Fiend. Obviously, your clan is the Fiends. A demon can live forever, but his heart will never change. A pony can learn many things, but eventually his body will fade into dust. You, a balance between both sides, are perfect for carrying out such an important task…

“An important task? Wait—”

Her words were cut off as she heard rumblings around her. Moans, gurgles and demonic screeches danced in her ears. More monsters were coming, lured by the scent of the dead corpses and broken skulls at her hooves.

It seems that more are coming. You must break through to survive.

“More monsters…?” Twilight spun around, kicking up a slew of blood and skull fragments. The pieces of bone smashed across the walls, creating a resounding crack that attracted the attention of even more monsters. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and her tattoos were now the same color as her vision. The smile was back, and it wasn’t a happy one.
You know what to do, do you?

“I have to survive. I have to fight them.” She said eagerly. But before she could do anything, another voice reached her ears, this one totally unrelated to the harsh voice speaking to her seconds ago.

“Yes. Please, survive…”

Her grin vanished. She whirled around in shock. There was a shimmer in the air before her, and suddenly saw a young woman in black standing next to an old fogey, a man with wispy silver hair and spectre that seemed almost alive.
Beside the two of them was an alicorn, a female one with a deep blue body and short mane. With a black tiara nestled in her mane, she was hardly bigger than Twilight, and her cutie mark was in the shape of a moon. Even from this distance, Twilight could make out her regretful eyes and her pleading voice.

“Please Twilight Sparkle, you must survive. You can’t die! You cannot squander this second chance of yours.”

“Wait!” Twilight shouted, her bloodlust temporarily forgotten. “Who are you? Do you know me?”

“I am the mare who holds the key to your memories.” The alicorn said softly, making Twilight’s jaw drop and her eyes expand rapidly.

“You...you know who I really am?” she cried.

“Yes, I do. But right now I cannot reach you.” The alicorn said, her voice tinged with sadness. Twilight opened her mouth to speak, but was swiftly cut off. “You must survive this trial and the others that you will no doubt encounter. You must venture into my old kingdom and fight for its restoration! Only then will you find me, and your true self. I believe in you, Twilight Sparkle. My family does, and so will I.”

Twilight began to shake, not out of sadness, but out of a curious sense of happiness.

My memories…she holds my memories.

The alicorn was so far away, obscured by the floating skulls and the shambling corpses. It looked about twenty metres from where Twilight was standing from the corridor to the end, but it might as well have been two thousand.

“…”

Twilight eyes narrowed. A growl rumbled in her throat.

You hold my memories and you told me to survive…then I’ll survive for you! It’s just that simple. I’ll find you and get my real self back!

She glared at the mass of demons in front of her.

The skulls and corpses did not answer, merely smiled in anticipation of the kill.

Twilight smiled back for the same reason, and roared. “What are you waiting for? Come and get some!”

The demons lunged at her, claws and fangs extended. She gave a mighty war cry and rushed forward.

The lady in black and old man observed her, enjoying the spectacle of a former scholar turned demon rampage through corpse after skull with shrieks of rage, smashing bones and leaving destroyed corpses in her wake. The alicorn on the other hand, felt nothing but regret.

Very good.

Twilight kept kicking her legs, charging and headbutting anything that moved.

Your strength is outstanding.

The monsters ahead of her began to tremble in fear. Twilight didn’t care that they were scared. The corridor, the stream of blood, the demons and the walls…they were blurring in a haze of red. All she cared was violently destroying the next thing she came across.

We look forward to your growth, young Demi-Fiend…

XXX

“Want eat…want eat…want eat Magatsuhi!”

“I think not.” With a single swipe of a bonesaw, the hungry demon’s head was sent flying across the room, leaving a trail of green blood in its wake. It was then swiftly followed by the slicing of more heads, the hacking of limbs and the disemboweling of internal organs. The aftermath was an entire stone floor covered in demon guts and a very dirty bonesaw, to which the owner started wiping immediately.

Dr. Dark was a dead man—literally. He was nothing more than a disembodied spirit, a collection of misty energy and magic strung together by a consciousness. What made Dr. Dark special, though, was that unlike most ghosts he had enough power to become tangible, and interact with the dark world around him.

He used this power to treat injuries. In Amala, he was considered to be the best, being able to heal someone from near death to peak fighting strength within mere seconds. It was also true most demons would rather be healed by anything or anyone other than Dr. Dark, and only resorted to him when there were no alternatives left. This was because his procedures were so painful that self-castration often seemed like a viable alternative. His eccentric and sadistic philosophy on life didn’t help matters.

For days, he had holed up inside a room in the castle, under orders from his master. Wait for the Demi-Fiend, the Master had commanded. When she appears, treat her wounds gently and tell her the path she should take. Well, he had waited. A week had passed, and only true demons had came through via breaking down the door, all of which had tried to eat him.
His patience was running thin. The demons couldn’t bite him physically, but they were extremely irritating. He was beginning to make mistakes. How he longed to head back into Amala and sing to the screams of the patients lining up for his services!
The room, or his makeshift surgery as he liked to call it, was nothing out of the ordinary. Dismal grey walls, a small window as large as a picture frame, two granite tables with deep scratch marks along their legs, cobwebs in every corner and a few wooden chairs that were close to breaking in half…it was practically like any other room in the castle. In comparison, Dr. Dark’s private surgery as well-lit, comfortably heated by a series of purple torches, much more expansive and outfitted with all the latest tools.

There was one thing of interest, though—a fat drum-like object with runes carved on every side. Upon contact, the runes would light up and spin around. Dr. Dark knew exactly what the drum was, and in fact he was under strict orders not to tell the ‘Demi-Fiend’ about it.

Why exactly am I here? This feels like an utter waste of time. I haven’t cut open a sane and coherent demon’s stomach in days! All I’ve been doing is killing demons that force their way in here. Just when is this so called ‘Demi-Fiend’ going to show up? He or she better show up soon, otherwise I’m leaving and damning all consequences!

Muttering curses under his breath, Dr. Dark resumed wiping the blood off his bonesaw and was promptly disrupted when a gaping black hole appeared in the wall opposite the window and something fell out. He spun around, and stared in shock at what just entered the room. It was a pony, a young female unicorn with a purple body and an almost-matching mane. Her cutie mark (Lucifer, how Dr. Dark hated the term) took the form of a demonic insect. What was more interesting were the green-blue marks crossing her entire body, clearly occult in origin. She was covered in blood, caked and drenched from horn to hoof. In fact, she resembled a…

“Hello.” The mare said before Dr. Dark could drive this particular train of thought of his further, “Are you a ghost?”

Unaccustomed to being interrupted, Dr. Dark spun around and gave the tattooed equine a glare so powerful that it could’ve reduced a full-fledged demon to rubble. A strange feeling, almost satisfaction, grew inside of him upon seeing the mare neither flinch or look away.

“I am.” He said, “Now then, are you a demon?”

The mare nodded.

The mad doctor’s eyes narrowed. A creature that looked a pony but was actually a demon? Could she be the Demi-Fiend the Master had talked about?

I must find out.

“Explain yourself, self-proclaimed demon.” He said, not blinking nor sickened by the stench of the sanguine fluid in the room. He had bathed his spiritual hands in pits of it more times than he could count. “Why are you covered in blood, and where did those tattoos of yours come from?”

The mare turned her-blood soaked face towards him, looked up and down for several seconds, then spoke. “It’s because of the Magatama.”

Dr. Dark stared wildly. Without noticing, he licked his lips. “Magatama? That’s a demon parasite! Go on, mare. Tell me everything you know about it.”

“I don’t know much, to be honest. I’m an amnesiac.” The mare admitted, scraping her hoof against the ground with a scrunched up face. Her emotions were raging in and out of her soul, conflicting and creating a big jumbled up mess. Back in Amala, she had torn her way through a horde of demons in order to survive. She had enjoyed it, relished it. She wanted more; didn’t want to stand around and talk to a floating soul. She wanted to fight!

“Minutes ago, I woke up somewhere else in this castle and I saw a ghost like you. He said that I had been sleeping for seven years and I was muttering a lot in a my sleep.”

“Another lost soul, eh?” Ironically, Dr.Dark’s face hardened at the mention of his disembodied kin. He did not like them. “Go on…”

“The ghost told me to leave the room and find other ponies. So I exited the room and immediately found myself in this corridor full of blood and walking dead bodies. Then a voice rang from above and told me about being a demon and a mistake I made in the past, which I have to fix apparently.” Twilight shrugged, “Also, the voice told me I had died once, and was returned to life in exchange for my memories. It’s rather bothering, to be honest. I wish I had some knowledge of who I am, apart from name and race.”

“I see.” Dr. Dark said stiffly. The mare didn’t seem to be anyone dangerous, he concluded. Though if she was not the one he was looking for, she would have to die. He lightly fingered his bonesaw in response. “One more question. Are you a Demi-Fiend?”

The mare blinked. “I guess I am. I’m not a true demon, only half. That’s what the voice told me.”

Time to sing praises to Mother Tiamat and rape virgins in thanks, because I can finally get out of here soon.
“Good. Now, please wait.”

The doctor placed the bonesaw on a table and retrieved a set of syringes, needles long and sharp and filled with murky liquids of varying colors. He shuffled through them, tasting the sleek plastic with his fingers and anticipating when they would eventually stab through raw flesh, sending shivers of pleasure up his intangible spine. He smirked as he chose the right syringe containing the syringe medicine and felt the saliva of yearning gather around the corners of his mouth.

Twilight watched the doctor, ignorant of the ecstasy the disembodied soul was experiencing. Her heart had long stopped beating so quickly and the aftertaste of bloodlust had already faded from her system. Now she was surveying the room, sniffing the mixture of cobwebs combined with grime and flickering her worn eyes to adjust to the gloom.

“What’s this drum?” she asked, pointing to the giant, marked structure in the middle of the room.

“Nothing you should be concerned of.” The soul said without turning around. His words contained a sense of finality that made Twilight want to shut up and not answer questions. That bonesaw looked vicious.

“By the way, if you touch that thing, it’ll explode in your face. It would very unfortunate if you were to die so early in your journey.”

Well, that decided it.

She surveyed the room instead. It was certainly an improvement to the corridor full of haze and blood, she thought. It was true part of her had relished the depths of Amala, but at least here it didn’t spell of rotting meat.

“Did you know that it is natural for every living thing to die?” the soft, velvety voice of Dr. Dark snapped her out of her thoughts. “Treatment, therefore contradicts nature.”

Twilight looked at the floating soul, the syringes in her hand, his equipment lying on the table nearby and back to Dr. Dark. “You’re a doctor, aren’t you? I can tell.”

“Indeed. I have been waiting for you, Demi-Fiend. My master and my Lord has ordered me to defy nature and treat your wounds.”

“Your Lord…” The two words rang a bell inside Twilight’s head, “You mean the Protector of Darkness, the eternal opponent of law or something?”

“So, it seems that even you are not ignorant of the roots of chaos.” Dr. Dark smiled thinly. “The voice told you, am I correct?”
Twilight was astonished, “How did you know?”

“I am a famous soul amongst the demon world. There is much I know, Demi-Fiend. If you wish to find out the owner of the voice, there is a certain path you must take. But that is a speech for another time, and it is not my position to tell you.” The doctor motioned to one of the tables, which had been scraped and cleansed of all grime and dirt. “If you are ready, please lie down on the table over there. We can then begin.”

“Is this going to hurt?”

Dr. Dark gave a cruel smirk. “If you want to.”

Twilight hesitated, before gingerly pulling herself up and lying flat on her back. “I hope not.”

“Then it shall not be.” Much to my disdain…

The next two minutes consisted of Dr. Dark rubbing Twilight’s body with a cloth soaked in alcohol, applying white cream that magically sealed up her wounds within the half-second and injecting the liquids inside the syringes into bloodstream to block pain, restore lost blood and increase her resistance to disease. The treatment took a creepy turn as Dr. Dark shoved both his hands through Twilight’s backside to check if there were any bruises there. It felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice-cold water on her body.

“Stop moving. I cannot treat you if you jiggle about.” The soul scolded, jabbing a syringe into her foreleg and making her wince. Twilight was briefly tempted to rebut about how awful it felt to have intangible hands shove themselves up her butt.

As if he could read her mind, the soul snarled at her angrily. “I know how much it hurts. Demons do not complain; neither should you.”

He then dumped a mass of slimy goo on her back and started rubbing it in.

Eventually, Dr. Dark finished poking around the various nooks and crannies scattered throughout her body and let her stand up.

“The process is complete; you are now fully healed.” He said as Twilight climbed off the table, where upon she sniffed and inspected herself. She mildly stank of alcohol and chemicals, but all her cuts and bruises were gone. Her appearance was devoid of blood. “Under normal circumstances I would charge you a hefty sum for my services, but my Lord has asked me to give you a free pass. The next time we meet, bear in mind that I will not be so courteous. One lives, the other dies…that is how it should be.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Twilight asked.

“One day you will understand, and you will despise me for it. Now, there is a message I am supposed to relay to you. Once I do, I can leave.” Placing his tools aside, Dr. Dark turned and faced the Demi-Fiend with a calm expression. “This world, a night-shrouded kingdom, is a demon-dominated society. The castle that the two of us reside in is no exception. Once you leave this room, you will be assaulted by your kin, all of which will be thirsty from your blood.”

As if to prove his point, terrible sounds and growls began to echo all around them. Twilight looked a bit wary.

“The floating skulls and dead corpses you fought were not demons.” Dr. Dark continued. Surprise appeared on Twilight’s face, “They were merely inanimate objects brought to life by magic; extremely easily to destroy. Even a new-born demons could crush them.”

“So when I fought off a whole horde of them, it wasn’t much of an achievement?” Twilight asked, sounding rather disappointed. Her body language showed, she began to scrape the hard ground with her hoof.

“That is correct. Outside, there are real demons, ready for you to test your strength against. And that brings me to my next point. Our Lord has observed your first burst of growth and is pleased with the result, but he wishes to test you further. Thus, he has sealed off half of the castle. You are trapped in this half. The only way to leave is to first find a key to unlock the barrier, and then defeat the guardian that protects the exit. Only then will you be able to leave and enter the world outside. The dark, chaotic world populated by bloodthirsty fiends…” the mad doctor trailed off with a maniacal smile. Twilight now felt a little nervous. Did this guy get high off the thought of blood or something?

“So I have to do all that, then I can leave?” Twilight asked. She wanted to find the mysterious alicorn soon. She was also curious as to what the outside world looked like.

“If you can.” Dr. Dark clarified. “I would wish you luck, but I don’t believe in such nonsense. Now, I must leave.”
Twilight was confused, “Why?”

“Orders from my Lord. I have stayed here for seven days, and I yearn for my personal clinic in the depths of hell. There is no reason for me stay in this musty, dirt-ridden excuse of an operating theatre.” He spat out the last words with an air of venom. “Farewell, Demi-Fiend. Perhaps we shall meet again…”

“Okay.” Twilight said, as she watched the disembodied soul pack up his equipment, ripples spreading throughout his body, “Thanks for treating my wounds.” she called out.

The doctor nodded in response as he faded away. Twilight stared for a moment, before trotting over to the door and cautiously swinging it open. Hearing and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, she slipped out and closed the door behind her.

In the empty room, the drum began to light up and spin around wildly…

Ally

AN: Ugh, don't think I did a particularly good job with this. Hope you readers can get some form of enjoyment out of my writing.

Darkness everywhere—the newly christened Twilight Sparkle couldn’t see any torches, lamps or other sources of light. It appeared that her demonic powers had granted her improved eyesight, because she had no trouble seeing through the gloom.
Right, where next?

She stood at the end of a corridor, the rotten, wood door swinging uselessly behind her. With new and amplified eyesight, she could just make out the outline of the passage, including the fork at the opposite end.

Her ears twitched in the still, eerie silence. Her body felt tense. For all of Dr. Dark’s talk about how demons like her were roaming the castle this very moment, she couldn’t see any sign of them. The fact that she knew of their existence, yet they were conspicuously absent in her field of her vision, only made things even more unnerving. Small pockets of blood on the floor didn’t help matters.

A nearby window attracted her attention. She trotted over it, curious, looked out and came face-to-face with a shining, silver moon.

An unbelievable sight—that was what it was. She stared at it for several long minutes, despite the brightness hurting her eyes. It fluctuated as she gazed at it, pulsating as though it were a giant heartbeat, its changes in light almost rhythmic. Strangely though, the light was more soothing than disturbing, again like a heartbeat, that it took several minutes to Twilight to regain control of herself and tear her eyes away.

My heart. She thought to herself, placing a hoof on her chest, Why does it beat so fast?

She tried to move on, go down the corridor, but the moon attracted her. She wanted it. She lusted for its bright embrace.
Before she knew it, she had climbed up the windowsill. Her rational equine side screamed at her to stop. She ignored it. Then she tried to jump out of the window…

…and a force-field activated, shocking her and sending her flying back into the opposite wall. Smoke trailed from where the electricity had burnt her made. The yellow barrier, tinged with blue pulses, shimmered for a moment before disappearing.
Behind it, the moon shifted from full to waning, and Twilight Sparkle’s sense rushed back into her.

What had she been thinking, jumping from god-knows how many storeys high? She might’ve been killed! The image of her dead body, splattered across the hard ground like a jam stain, eyeballs rolling out of their sockets flashed in her head. She shuddered.

Good thing that barrier protected me. And now she knew that leaving through jumping out of the windows was impossible.

My head hurts. The moon made her go mad. Perhaps she shouldn’t try to look at it anymore.

She galloped down the corridor and opened a door, leading into what appeared to be a kitchen.

XXX

The castle was vast and immersive, as Twilight quickly found out. She had absolutely no idea where she was going. All she could do was move on.

As she climbed down the stairs towards the lobby, two things became apparent. The place had been badly damaged, almost as if an earthquake had hit it. A buckled roof, pieces of stone littering the floor, damaged statues nearby—it was a disaster, or rather it would be had Twilight actually lived here. Unfortunately, she only desired to leave as quickly as possible, and had no sympathy for the ruined structures.

The second feature made her angry. A mass of stone and rubble, thick as a glacier, obscured the front entrance. Escape was impossible, at least from this side it was.

“A dead end...huh…” she muttered to herself, annoyed. First the windows, now this. It seemed that whoever was toying with her destiny was determined to make sure she exited the castle the proper way: by defeating the guardian and then passing through.

If she killed said guardian, would the stone disappear?

She snorted violently and paced the ground. The world outside, just a few metres away, and she couldn’t reach it because of a wall of rock. Fate taunted her. It laughed and mocked her futile attempts to escape.

Well, there was no use standing here, wallowing in her own rage. She turned around and was just about to leave the room when a voice came from the pile of rock.

“Heeee-ho!”

The voice was faint, but definitely real. It made Twilight stop and walk back towards the rubble.

“Whose there?” she asked.

“Under here! I’m stuck.” The voice replied, frantic in tone, “Help me-ho!”

Twilight trotted over and gave the pile of rock a little push. Bits of gravel fell out and fell from the ground. Nothing else happened. “How?”

“I don’t know-ho, lift up the rocks somehow-hee.”

“Lift up this lot? I can’t.” Twilight said, frowning. “And why should I? Just who are you?”

“That doesn’t matter-ho.” The voice snapped, “I’m dying here, and I need your help-hee. Please get me out of here, hee-ho.”

Twilight took another look at the pile of rock and decided against it. She didn’t have time to waste with this strange, frosty voice. She needed to find the alicorn who had her memories and get her real self back. Without remorse, she turned around and started heading for the staircase, like she intended to.

“Wait, here are you going? Come back!”

“I’m sorry,” Twilight replied, “I’ve got my own problems to worry about. You’ll have to dig yourself out.”

“Huh, hang on, no! Get back here-ho! I’ll reward you if you dig me out! I’ll give you a house! I’ll give you a hundred thousand Macca. I’ll give you a hot Succubus you can impregnate with!”

“I’m a girl.” Twilight said flatly.

A brief pause. “Oh, um…”

“Bye.”

“Noooo! Come back! I don’t wanna be stuck down here! It smells of coal mines!”

XXX

“Well, look who’s in a hurry to die!”

“Damn, what a racket you’re making! This is supposed to be a quiet castle!”

“What—ANOTHER demon? You’re probably like the rest of them, hungry for Magatsuhi! Piss off!”

After that rather odd conversation, Twilight Sparkle found herself sprinting through the corridors, trying to find the exit. Ghosts popped up around her, most of which jeered and shouted at her. She ignored them, sometimes dashing through their bodies. The feeling was similar to jumping into an ice-cold lake.

Up, down, left, right…with no map, her hoofsteps directed her through random nooks and crannies. She still was unsure of where she was. Why couldn’t Dr. Dark have given her some directions?

A sound pricked her ears. Yells and snarls and cries—a battle on the floor above her! Blood-lust rose up inside her head. Her teeth bared themselves instinctively and she ran up a nearby staircase towards the distant sounds. But even with her strong muscles and enhanced speed, she was too slow—the battle was already over by the time she arrived.

She stood in a yet another hallway. Windows lined the sides, all of which she presumed were protected by barriers.

The aftermath was visible, but her attention to it was diverted by something else behind the destruction. Through a window, she saw a gigantic wall of magic, yellow sparks shimmering up, down and around it, standing in what appeared to be an annexe. It fizzled and shone, and Twilight felt the raw power emanating from it. If she tried to touch it, she already knew this, she would be flung back, injured. The thing was similar to the window barriers she had encountered earlier.

On the floor was blood. Black blood, unlike her red blood. More than that, there were corpses—eight of them, and none of them were like anything she had ever seen before. She saw purple, small beings, with bloated tummies and enormous canine fangs hanging from their mouths. Their eyes, white soulless holes, stared back up at her.

Their bodies smoked. Some looked as if a flamethrower had charred them. Others appeared to be cooked from the inside. Others, completely rigid, had more blue parts than purple.

A foul stench hung in the air. Half of her hated it, the other relished it.

There was a noise up ahead, near the gently pulsating barrier. It sounded like sparks of electricity accompanied by a high shriek. Someone was up ahead.

What was that?

She followed the noise, came up to its source, just in time to see a small figure face-plant onto the floor. As she came closer, she had no doubt but to conclude that this was certainly not another pony, nor was it a human.

It had a humanoid body; that was a fact. The creature in question had tufts of brown hair growing out of her scalp and wore a purple leotard, with similar colored gloves and stocking. The problem was that she was tiny, way too small, height ending at around thirty centimetres. None of this mattered, Twilight thought, as she noticed that the minuscule creature was hurt—perhaps even badly injured. Covered in burns and bruises and in a state of unconscious…Twilight felt an strange urge to help the little thing. She bent down to pick the humanoid off the floor.

No reaction.

From the depths of her subconscious, her rational unicorn side activated her innate magic, and she forced the tiny humanoid into a sitting position. She was so light Twilight had no trouble levitating her; it was as if she was made of air. Twilight had no comprehension of first aid nor medical treatment, so she did the first thing she thought of: poke the creature in the side and speak to her.

“Hey, are you okay?”

The creature’s eyes snapped open, and Twilight found herself staring into blood-red eyes of pure evil. The shock momentarily stunned her.

“You’re…you’re a…”

The humanoid scowled, noticed that she had been touched while unconscious, and immediately drew her own conclusion. She kicked herself out of the grip of Twilight’s hand, pointed her finger at the half-equine and shouted.

“YOU BIG PERVERT!”

A flash of light from her finger, and Twilight yelped in pain. An electrical shock had passed through her, almost as if she had grabbed a live wire. She staggered back, and the next instant the girl was hovering in front of her face, and they stared into each other’s eyes…before the girl scowled and swiftly punched Twilight in the nose.

“Ow!”

She just electrocuted me and punched me in the face. Now she’s floating in the air. How…how did she…

“Take that, pervert!” The girl shouted, “You’re not getting my Magatsuhi!” Twilight could now see she was flying, two tiny wings beating like a hummingbird’s, almost invisible; red eyes of rage boring into her skull, pointed ears laid back as though they were on a beast. She scowled as Twilight continued to stare at her, “What, you want more of this? I’ve got plenty of Zio where that came from!”

A monster! It’s a demon! Twilight’s feral half yelled.

“You’re a demon!” The words escaped from her mouth before she knew it; the phrase was almost stupid.

A flicker of stunned belief crossed the girl’s face but was quickly gone. “That’s right, pervert. I’ve never seen a demon like you before but you better run back to your clan before I shock you to pieces. Fear my lightning!”

She snapped her fingers, and blue sparks appeared at her fingertips. “Prepare to die!”

She’s going to shock me! Second thought: Kill her!

“No!” Twilight snarled, and charged forward and slammed the girl into a nearby wall. Before she could recover, Twilight had grabbed the girl with magic and held her tight. The girl struggled and Twilight tightened her grip.

“Let go, pervert! It hurts!” The demon yelled, staring up at Twilight with those red eyes. But the anger and violence had gone, replaced by fear and tension and pain, pain that Twilight had caused and which surprised her greatly. She didn’t seem like a stereotypical demon anymore, more like an eight or nine year old child who had just lost her parents. She was trying to hide her fear, shaking in her leotard as she defiantly glared up at Twilight.

Twilight saw how insignificant the demon was compared to her, how weak and small, how her life was completely in the half-demon’s hooves—one powerful squeeze, and the small girl would be crushed into a mess of bones and blood, fully dead. The demon was scared of her because Twilight could kill her, the mare realized. It would be very easy to do so.

No. the rational side of Twilight spoke up. Let her go.

So she lowered her magic, enough for the demon to break free. She fell to her knees, coughing.

“You bitch…I’m gonna kick your ass so hard. You’d be so dead if I was fully healed…just wait until I’ve used my Dia spell.”

“I’m sorry!” Twilight protested, “I just wanted to see if you were alright. You’re badly hurt.”

“Yes I am.” The girl said between her wheezes, “Thanks to you and your magical grip.”

“I’m really sorry for hurting you.” Twilight told her, making the demon stop and look up in surprise. “What happened? Why are you hurt?”

“Why do you care?” the girl snarled. “Bah, fine. Anything to make you quiet.” Actually, she was stalling for time—it would take a while before the Dia spell worked properly.

So the demon and the half-equine talked. The demon had come to the nearby area, having heard that a powerful source of energy had been placed in village of Tipereth. Foolishly, she had let Jack Frost create the portal. As a result, it shouldn’t have been much of a surprise when they found themselves in the basement of the castle, off course, although it was closer than what Jack usually got. The two of them had then travelled through the castle, eating a bunch of other demons that had gotten in their way. They had been very yummy.

The girl was then amused when that little snippet of information caused a sliver drool to fall from Twilight’s mouth, before it was replaced by a look of disgust.

Continuing the story, they’d tried to get out of the castle but found the doors locked shut, so they went around hunting for keys, only to find that none of them worked. Out of options, they’d tried to open another portal to the garden. Sixteen attempts later, they had been teleported to anywhere EXCEPT the garden. On the seventeenth try, they had teleported back into the castle, only to find themselves in the midst of a mob of Pretas.

A big battle had followed; in which she had defeated the demons while Jack did nothing, except for three that ran off.
“The Pretas dropped a golden key that Jack said would allow us to get through the barrier, but he said that it would take too much time and tried to teleport the two of us to the garden, but then we somehow got separated. I still had the key, but then a random Preta stole it and hurled me into the barrier, electrocuting me. Then you came along, started touching me and now we’re here, you big pervert!”

“But I’m a girl.” Twilight replied, unsure of what exactly to say in this situation.

“Oh…so you’re a lesbian.” The demon said, “Yeah, I’ve heard that half-demons like you get side-effects like that.”

“I’m not a lesbian!” Twilight protested, “I touched you because I wanted to see if you were okay. And how did you know I’m a half-demon?”

The girl rolled her eyes, “Duh? Don’t you know? You’re not the only pony who willingly absorbed a demon’s essence into your body out there.”

“I have amnesia. I wouldn’t know.” Twilight Sparkle said evenly, “I don’t know what’s out there.” She paused. “What is out there, by the way?” she asked.

“A lot of weird crap.” The girl replied, “What, are you desperate to know or something?”

“You could say that.”

The demon thought for a moment, then grinned. “Alright, then listen. I’ve just got an idea. Let’s team up to get out of this dingy castle. We’ll beat up those Pretas, take the key and go through the barrier. You get to go outside, I can meet up with Jack Frost again. Simple as that!”

“You want us…to work together?” Twilight said, swallowing a little. This felt odd, and she couldn’t tell why.

“Yeah, why not? You look kind of flabby and weak,” Twilight glanced down at her legs and found herself silently disagreeing, “But at least you should be able to take a few hits before you drop. You keep those demons off me, and I’ll electrocute their asses. Whaddya say?”

Twilight blinked. Teaming up with a demon was new, and she felt rather apprehensive about it. But the image of the mysterious alicorn was still fresh in her mind, and she yearned to escape from the castle and see the world outside. She was also alone, and needed whatever help she could get to escape.

There was just one problem and the conscience of her rational equine side ordered her to bring it up. “But you’re still wounded. If you get injured—further”

“Injured? Who, me?” The girl flew up in the air, grinned and zoomed around Twilight, showing off her speed and agility. Her burns and bruises had disappeared, just like magic. “My Dia restored me to full health! How about this—I’ll fix you up when those Pretas cave in your skull, okay?”

She had no intention of healing the mare at all. Anything to make this idiot help me. I’m missing the party in Tipereth. Thanks for nothing, Jack! Unknown to her, her best friend was currently lying under a ton of rock, and couldn’t go any parties even if he wanted to.

There seemed to be no other option. Twilight nodded. “Okay, we’re partners. My name is Twilight Sparkle. What’s yours?”

“Pixie,” she replied, “Pixie of the Fairy Clan, and we don’t do no stupid equine rituals. Name and clan, just like me.”

“Oh, sorry.” Twilight mumbled, “Uh…Twilight of the Sparkle clan, then.”

Pixie gaped. “What the hell are you, a commoner?” she yelled, failing to notice the look of confusion on Twilight’s face. “I wasn’t born yesterday! Tell me your clan! Your real one!”

Twilight shrugged, “Is it really that important?”

“Yes! I refuse to team up with you until you introduce yourself the proper way: your name followed by your clan affiliation. So hurry the hell up and tell me!”

Seeing the pure murder inside the tiny demon’s eyes, Twilight paled a little and desperately racked her brains for an answer. Back in Amala, the mysterious voice had told her she was a Demi-Fiend. This obviously meant that she was half-demon, half-equine, but she had never really paid attention to the ‘Fiend’ part.

As she shifted through her memories, the familiar, harsh voice rang through her head.

…You are not a true demon, but what is known a half-demon known as a Demi-Fiend. Obviously, your clan is the Fiends…

Yes, that was it. Her clan was the Fiends.

“I’m, uh, part of the Fiend clan. My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I’m of the Fiend clan.” She said, the words somewhat unnatural on her tongue.

Pixie mulled this over. “Fiend, huh? You don’t look like a living skeleton,” And then Twilight was reminded how little she knew about demons…or anything in general, “But I know there are Fiends who are more than just bones. Okay, you’re a Fiend. Nice to meet you, Twilight Sparkle of the Fiends. Let’s be friends!”

What have I gotten myself into? Twilight thought.

XXX

“Magatsuhi! Magatsuhi! Eat! Eat!”

“What are they doing?” Pixie asked.

Twilight grunted and continued to look through the peephole. “I…I really don’t know. There are three purple things, and they’re standing over a corpse of…something. One of them has got a key around its neck.” The two of them stood outside the room Pixie had indicated, getting ready for battle. “They’re chanting about eating Magatsuhi…whatever that is.”
Pixie shrugged, “That’s them, alright. Only two goals in life: eating Magatsuhi and killing. Not that’s exclusive to them alone, mind you. They’re just a little rabid about it.”

“How did you know the key was in here, anyway?” Twilight asked, to which her companion stared at her with a blank look on her small face.

“Can’t you feel it? The key radiates Magatsuhi. I know you’ve got amnesia, but you can’t be this stupid.”

“Uh, yeah…of course.” Twilight said. She did not appreciate the idea of her being an idiot. “So, what’s the plan?”

“I already told you,” Pixie replied, sitting on top of Twilight’s head, “Charge in, beat the crap out of those icky Pretas, and then revel in their victory. I’ll hang behind and support you with electricity. Why—something wrong?”

Twilight nudged the stone door. “Yes, this is locked.”

Pixie frowned, and hovered down towards the lock. “Huh, so it is.”

If she had arms, Twilight would’ve crossed them. “Well, now what?” They couldn’t break down the door; it was made of stone. Now, if it was made out of wood, that would be a different story altogether. She had beaten up those corpses back in Amala, and she could definitely beat some Pretas. If the door was made out of wood, she would break it down and face the Pretas all by herself. They would scream as she crushed their bones, howl as she smashed them against the walls, cry as they…

She shook her head. What is happening to me?

“Hey—hey! Pervert!” Pixie gave Twilight a clout on her ear, “Stop spacing out, will ya?”

“Sorry!” Twilight said, near automatically, “What now?”

“I’m gonna lure them out with their snappy native tongue. They come out, we crush them, and then we go and look for the key. Sounds good?”

“If you say so.” And Twilight nodded.

“Alright, give me a moment.” Pixie cleared her throat, then spoke in a much deeper tone. “Gruuuuuuuuuah.” Her speech was not so much coherent words as it was an animalistic grunt.

Demonic shrieks and grunts could be heard from inside the room. “Gruahhh…who there?”

“Gruuuuuh…” Pixie moaned, “We….bring…Maaaagaaatsuuuhi…lots…”

“…Gah! Lots Magatsuhi!”

Pixie pointed to Twilight, signalling her to get ready. The mare blinked and got into a crouching position.

“Yeeeesss…lots…Magatsuhii….”

I’m actually doing this. I’m actually going to kill some demons. The half-demon couldn’t help but tremble with fear…or was it anticipation?

The door suddenly unlocked, and was thrown open as the Pretas inside rushed out, with gleeful shouts of, “WANT MAGATSUHI!” They were the same monsters she had seen dead on the ground before, purple beasts with bloated tummies and spindly arms. Twilight briefly wondered what it felt like to break their bones. Similar to snapping toothpicks, perhaps?

Wait, why am I thinking about this?

She waited until all three Pretas had bounded out of the room and looked around the corridor in confusion. “Gah, where Magatsuhi?”

“RIGHT HERE, HAUNT SCUM!”

The Pretas whirled around, saw Twilight and charged directly at her. But before they could attack, she jumped upon them, crushing them, with Pixie whooping from her vantage point upon the half-demon’s head. “Yaah! Take that, you icky things! CHAARGE!”

And Twilight obeyed—she ploughed straight through the Pretas, snapping bones and sending them flying into walls. Things broke, and they weren’t the walls. They crumpled onto the floor.

“Magatsuhi…” one of the Pretas moaned.

The fight ended in a flash—Pretas almost dead, covering and whimpering on the floor, while Twilight stood where she was, not even sweating. It had been so one-sided she hardly exerted herself.

Unholy hell. Pixie thought from the position on the mare’s head, That demon’s stronger than I thought.

“Alright!” she cheered, leaping off her head and doing a few laps around the place, “You kicked their asses, Twilight of the Fiends! Let’s finish them off, quick!”

No response, for the mare had pulled a magic trick and disappeared from the dusty hallway. The stone door swung on its hinges, creaking as it did so. Pixie saw the scene, shook her head in exasperation and snarled.

“Hey—Pervert, what are you doing?” She already knew the answer to that question: Twilight had already dashed into the recently vacated room in search for the golden key.

Such a freakin’ busybody! Bah, no way am I healing her, then.

She flew in after the mare, took in the sight with disinterest, then began to search for the missing chunk of metal.

Comments and criticism are warmly accepted; they are a great source of motivation.