Slayer

Thanks to Twilight's meticulous organization of her library, it took no time at all for her to retrieve the spells she needed, along with a history book in order to confirm her destination.

After finding both the correct date and rough location of that certain Church of Discord camp, Twilight found herself hesitating slightly. She shook it off quickly, though; there was clearly a mystery to be solved, here, and she was dead set on finding out the truth.

Taking a deep breath, Twilight walked into the center of the library, lit up her horn, focused on the spell, and vanished in a flash of purple.

Despite being many, many years in the past, Twilight still managed to recognize some of the scenery around her once the usual teleportation disorientation wore off. One of the upsides of living so close to the Everfree Forest, she presumed.

Shadows passed by suddenly, and Twilight looked up to see armored pegasi flying above the trees, along with the occasional glimpse of otherworldly, grotesque beings, the two groups usually in combat.

Looked like a demon invasion, alright.

After engaging the cloaking spell, Twilight started walking forward. The history books mentioned that the camp was in a clearing, so she simply had to follow the trees until they thinned out enough.

It wasn't long before the strategy paid off, and she came across a collection of ragged tents nestled between the trees, with a couple dozen ponies wearing robes walking about. There was much less aerial activity here, but she could tell that even the ponies of the Church were keeping at least one eye on the skies at all times.

Closing the distance, Twilight was glad to see that none of them even acknowledged her presence. There was a small elevated platform near the center of the camp, with more robed ponies talking in low voices around it. Just behind the platform, there was a crude recreation of Discord carved out of wood, a few ponies taking the time to bow to it.

Twilight idly wondered if Discord himself knew about the Church, or if he even cared.

Suddenly, there was a rustling at the treeline, and everypony in the camp, including Twilight, whirled around to see a group of demons march forth, their numbers rather large. Their sizes and shapes varied greatly, with a few even being seemingly restrained by others, as if they were no more than animals. Regardless of their exact form, each one was grotesque in their own way, and struck fear into Twilight no matter where she looked.

The ponies around her clearly felt the same way, and concerned murmurs started to circulate.

"Tis the demons, nay?"

"By Discord, there's so many!"

"S- Should we stand and fight?"

"No, my brothers and sisters, stand down for now."

Twilight turned to the last voice, making sure to maneuver herself so that she was out of the way of any sort of accidental collision. One of the robed ponies had a small, ornate necklace, signifying them as a leader of sorts. He walked forward to meet the demons head on, the others falling into step behind him, albeit much more nervously.

The demons, curiously, did not attack. They seemed to have a similar conversation among themselves, as a particularly large demon, which looked like a horrifying, pink version of a minotaur, started to take the lead of their own group.

The two parties met at the edge of the camp, and stopped in place, staring at each other. The ponies were filled with very obvious unease, while the demons had entirely unreadable emotions, assuming they had emotions at all.

Finally, the leader of the Church spoke up, his voice loud enough for everyone present to hear. "My brothers and sisters! Verily, this is a sign from the lord Discord himself! He wants not the reign of two false princesses, and so these demons are here to aid us by overthrowing the throne!"

Suddenly, he knelt down, his voice just as loud as before. "We shall fight with you, fine warriors of chaos!"

The rest of the ponies seemed concerned at this turn of events, but quickly fell in line, the rest of the crowd kneeling down behind their leader. The demons took this in, looked between each other, then seemed to reach an agreement.

The lead demon simply motioned his head towards a part of the formation, and began walking away, with about a third of the demons staying behind. The ponies noticed this and started to slowly rise up, but remained in place as the remaining demons started to filter into the camp. Clearly, the ponies of the Church were conflicted about whether or not to cower, since the demons weren't attacking any of them.

While it wasn't the reason she came back, Twilight still found herself fascinated by what she had just observed. Nothing in the history books mentioned that the Church of Discord allied itself with the demons, even if it sort of made sense in hindsight that they would.

Suddenly, there was the distant sound of an explosion, and everyone, pony and demon alike, stopped what they were doing to look in that direction.

Twilight felt her stomach drop, especially when another explosion went off, this time much closer.

Perhaps there was a reason the Church's demonic alliance was never written down.

While everyone was facing away from her, Twilight decided to grab a spare robe from one of the tents. It was dirty, and smelled like things she didn't want to think about, but it at least made for a decent backup plan if her concentration broke enough to disrupt the cloaking spell.

She emerged back into the open just in time to hear yet another explosion, this one coming directly from the edge of the clearing. While she didn't see any signs of it, there was instead a splash of red from the trees, staining the grass.

And right behind the spray of blood, was the entire reason she was in the past.

The Slayer.

He was currently reloading the same weapon he wielded as a statue, and Twilight tried to take in as much detail as she could at this distance. His armor was a deep green, save for the helmet, which was entirely grey, save for a single small spot of red; although whether or not that was blood was unclear.

Despite the distance, Twilight could feel her heart rate increase as she saw the figure that had been on her mind since she first heard about him.

The rest of the camp seemed to share her sentiments, as they all went incredibly still at the sight of the armored figure. Even the demons, she noted, were frozen to the spot, as if they themselves could not believe what they were seeing. Meanwhile, the ponies were much more confused, but they dared not do anything, lest they anger their new demon overlords.

The Slayer finished reloading his weapon as he walked over the spray of viscera, his gaze flowing over the entire population of the camp. From this distance, Twilight couldn't make out a face, or even if he had a face at all.

Once The Slayer was satisfied with his distance from the camp, he stopped. Weapon ready, but not aimed, his helmet still scanning between everything in the camp, as if trying to take everything in at once.

Twilight noticed that he cracked his neck as he looked on, and she felt chills run down her spine.

Perhaps this was a huge mistake on her part.

Before she could entertain the idea of slipping away to teleport back to her own time, one of the demons let out a loud hiss, and made a beeline straight for The Slayer.

Once it closed the distance, he didn't even budge, and instead brought his weapon up.

With another deafening explosion, the attacking demon was reduced to little more than a spray of blood and meat, Twilight's eyes wide at the sudden and catastrophic amount of gore she played witness to.

Just as the spray of blood hit the ground, all hell broke loose.

All at once, the ponies started screaming and panicking, running for cover in the tents or simply cowering to the ground. At the same time, the collection of demons let out their own shrieks and hisses, before charging The Slayer. One of the demons summoned a fireball in one of its claws, and sent it hurtling towards the warrior.

The Slayer was slow before, but as soon as the fireball started to close in, he became a blur of movement, quickly running out of the way and moving to meet the demons head on, weapon at the ready. The first demon he fired at was a bit too far to be reduced to giblets like its brethren, but it was still enough to cause them to stagger.

The Slayer took advantage of this, and sprinted the rest of the way towards the demon. Once it was in reach, he grabbed its head before slamming it into the ground, sending out a splash of blood as its skull was reduced to pulp.

Another demon tried to use the distraction to attack The Slayer from behind, but he caught on just in time to spin around, delivering a punch hard enough to tear right into the demon's chest, sending more blood onto the grass.

Twilight had a hard time keeping her breakfast down. Even without a weapon, The Slayer was able to turn demons to mulch with just his claws!

The battle continued, but Twilight's gaze was drawn elsewhere. One of the demons had stayed behind with the ponies, and started doing... something to a few of them. There was a flash of red, the pony would scream, and then they'd slowly stand up, before shuffling towards The Slayer, their eyes blank.

Admittedly, Twilight was not shocked by the development. Demons were rumored to be able to perform possessions of ponies, so this made sense to her.

What was more surprising was what happened after a few ponies were successfully possessed. "Members of the Church!" the leader called out, now on his hooves and reaching for a nearby spear, "our chaotic overlords have an enemy! We shall assist them!"

A few ponies slowly voiced their agreements, causing the rest to follow suit, as each one grabbed a weapon and started galloping into the fray, interrupting the demon before it could finish its possessions.

Twilight was curious as to how this would play out, even if the results would be... less than pretty.

Her attention was now back on The Slayer, who had already amassed a number of bodies around the clearing. She noticed that he was actually quite fast, able to dodge just about everything the demons threw at him. At some point, the rest of the demons that passed by seemed to join the fight, as there were even more demons than before.

Not that it seemed to faze The Slayer at all.

She also noticed that his weapon was different, now. While the previous one only held two barrels, this one had... three? No, nine, and they all spun in a circle while firing at the creatures, each shot being its own small explosion.

At least, until he transformed the weapon so the barrels were far more spread out. Then the sound became a constant, loud drone, the shots turning even the larger demons in front of him into little more than a pile of meat after a few seconds of sustained fire.

By now, the cultists managed to reach him, and tried to attack with their own weapons. Their intrusion into the fight seemed to surprise him slightly, as The Slayer took a direct hit from a sword into his helmet. The attack bounced off harmlessly, but he still whirled around at the attacker, and appeared to hesitate upon seeing it was a pony.

The hesitation didn't last, however, as the attacks continued, both from demons and the ponies of the Church. The leader was the next to attack, but he was halted by The Slayer effortlessly snapping his spear in half, before taking the sharp end and jamming it into the pony's chest.

Twilight winced, but forced herself to keep watching. Unfortunately, the battle started to become obscured by nearby tents, so Twilight crept around it to keep up.

This was incredibly poor timing, as the moment she could see The Slayer again, a stray fireball hit the tent right next to her. Twilight panicked and jumped away, and while she avoided being set ablaze, her concentration broke enough for the cloaking spell to drop.

She was glad she picked up the robe earlier, because a few demons gave her a glance thanks to her newfound visibility, but then proceeded to ignore her anyway in favor of attacking The Slayer.

Speaking of, he had become even more of a brutal, blood-spilling whirlwind. It seemed that, every other time Twilight got a look, he was holding a different weapon. Other than the two she already saw, she spotted a smaller weapon that appeared to be reloaded with a pumping mechanism, a large tube that fired rockets, a solid white device that shot small blue balls of energy, and even...

Was that a chainsaw?!

Twilight could feel her stomach turning at the sight of The Slayer butchering a demon with the woodland tool, carving right through its limbs with little effort. Once he was done, he simply started using one of his other weapons, and just left the demon corpse to fall apart.

As the body count grew, Twilight started to notice a trend. While the demons were absolutely annihilated in all manner of ways, the way he treated the ponies was... relatively tame. Sure, he still struck them down in brutal ways with no hesitation, but it seemed like he was prioritizing quick, minimally painful deaths for them.

As opposed to the demons, which were subject to just as quick, but likely much more agonizing deaths, usually in several pieces, assuming they weren't reduced to red mist.

All the while, The Slayer never once slowed down or staggered. Even when he was struck by an attack from a demon, he would immediately retaliate, and then simply continue fighting. She could tell that he still felt pain, by the way he flinched and otherwise reacted to attacks, but he still never stopped the slaughter.

Eventually, the bloodshed got to Twilight, and she had to look away to empty her stomach. As she did, she also noticed that the camp was pretty much entirely on fire now, and that some of the ash was already starting to stick to her fur and tail.

She ignored it, however, as she walked further from the camp, and slightly closer to the battle. She wanted to reengage the cloaking spell, but at this distance she had to keep an eye on any stray shots, from either the demons or The Slayer, so she didn't have the time to focus long enough.

Hopefully, once she saw enough, she'd be able to high-tail it into the woods.

By now, the ponies were all dead, and only a handful of demons were left to challenge The Slayer. While most of them only lasted long enough to receive a face full of firepower or a fist through the skull, there was one that Twilight recognized as the supposed leader of this group of demons, which appeared to be strong enough to take several shots from The Slayer's weapons.

It wasn't long before they were the only two fighters left, and Twilight watched with rapt attention as they continued their dance of death, The Slayer avoiding every lunge and fireball given by the demon while returning fire with his own weapons.

However, before a decisive blow could be struck, the sky lit up bright white, and The Slayer, the demon, and Twilight all looked up to see a huge magical wave passing over the land, and soon passing right over them.

They all watched as it seemed to dissolve the remains of any demons it touched, while leaving the bodies of the Church ponies, as well as the blazing inferno that used to be their camp. It passed over Twilight with no issue, and she turned to watch as it approached the combatants.

The demon turned to The Slayer and made one last desperate swipe, but was too late as the wave impacted him and seemed to absorb him within, its roar being carried along with it.

And so, only The Slayer was left, standing in the middle of a bunch of burnt grass and dead ponies. Suddenly, he snapped around to stare directly at Twilight, and she froze.

She had gotten a bit too close while watching the fight, without noticing.

Twilight knew that she had to run, she was wearing the same robe as the cultists he just killed, but she couldn't bring her legs to move an inch.

At any moment, she expected him to bring up that double barreled weapon and end her life, but it remained pointed at the ground, as the stare-down continued. This close, Twilight could see that, while he was now splashed with blood, that spot of red she had seen on his helmet earlier was actually some sort of symbol, the significance of which she had no knowledge.

Just as she thought she was going to pass out from fear, The Slayer turned his head to the sky, and Twilight forced herself to follow his gaze. There, she saw two blurs approaching fast from the sky, one dark blue and the other a bright gold.

This was enough to kick Twilight into action, and she started sprinting madly towards the treeline. She heard the sound of two figures landing just as she dove into the foliage.

Before she got too far in, however, she stopped.

She knew that she had to return to the present as soon as possible, if she didn't want to disrupt the timeline and get in massive trouble, but she couldn't help herself.

Slowly, she crept back to the edge of the forest, to sneak a look at what was about to happen.

Sure enough, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were both standing there, wearing the Elements of Harmony, wearing their old armor, and glaring directly at The Slayer, who simply stood in place and glared back.

"Tis odd, sister," Luna said. "The spell did not return this one."

"Indeed," Celestia agreed, before taking a step forward. "What is your business here, creature?!"

The Slayer offered no response.

"Cease this foalishness," Luna said, stepping next to Celestia. "If one prison shall not hold a demon, than another shall have to do."

The Elements on her chest started to glow, and Celestia sighed.

"You are right, Luna."

Her own Elements started to glow, too, and The Slayer tensed up slightly, as if ready to attack at a moment's notice. Shortly after, a massive rainbow shot out from the princesses, before arcing down and landing on The Slayer.

Though he still made no noise, The Slayer very visibly struggled against the magic, and managed to reach one arm out towards the princesses, his weapon still lowered. Alas, it would not help, and it was not long before he was fully encased in stone, in a pose that Twilight very much recognized.

Once the Elements powered down, Luna wiped her forehead. "Twas... oddly simplistic, was it not?"

"Nevermind that, sister," Celestia said, "I saw a survivor of the Church flee into the woods. We should search for them."

Twilight's blood ran cold as Luna nodded. "I'll look from the skies, then. You assemble the guards to bring this... creature back to the castle."

They both launched into the air in opposite directions, and Twilight thanked every deity she knew that Luna thought she went a lot farther than she actually did. Wasting no time, she fired up her horn and started running through the time travel spell as fast as she could.

Just before she went back to her own time, Twilight gave one last look at the imprisoned Slayer.

Taking a deep breath, Twilight walked into the center of the library, lit up her horn, focused on the spell, and vanished in a flash of purple.

About five seconds later, there was another flash of purple, and Twilight reappeared, wearing a tattered robe and with her legs and tail mostly coated in ash. Once she was on stable ground, she started hyperventilating, everything she just witnessed starting to finally catch up with her. In an attempt to cope, she started running through all the facts she discovered with her irresponsible experiment.

One, The Slayer was, with one hundred percent certainty, an enemy of the demons.

Two, the hatred he appeared to possess towards demons did not carry over to ponies, but that did not stop him from killing them if they attacked first.

Three, Celestia and Luna were being entirely honest with her about their brief encounter with him.

The thinking was enough to make Twilight calm down, and she quickly realized the state she was in, as well as the robe she had inadvertently taken from the past with her. Casting a quick disintegration spell on the robe, followed immediately by a cleaning spell on herself, Twilight started galloping to the nearest window.

She knew enough, now, to make a decision.

The Slayer was no demon at all, he was their enemy.

And an enemy to demons could prove a vital asset to the protection of Equestria.

Right?