Slayer

Once they were certain that The Slayer had moved far enough away from the shelter, Twilight and Aegis started leading the survivors back to the entrance. They stopped to gawk at the carnage left behind by the warrior immediately outside the shelter, but quickly moved on.

Thankfully, it seemed that he was drawing all the attention from the demons now, as they reached the entrance elevator entirely uncontested.

That didn't stop Aegis from being cautious, however. "One of you pegasi guards, fly up and see what the situation is topside."

A guardsmare saluted. "Yes ma'am!" She flew off, slipping just above the elevator before ascending the shaft.

Twilight took this time to do a full headcount of the ponies with them. While it was more than she expected, it was still less than she would have hoped.

"Did he tell you anything?" Aegis suddenly asked her.

"W-what?"

"The Slayer. Did he... say anything to you, when you freed him?"

Twilight hesitantly shook her head. "I didn't really have time to ask him many questions, but he did nod when I asked if he was the demons' enemy."

Aegis sighed. "Sorry if I sounded a bit harsh on you back there, but... Well, you understand, we still barely know anything about him. Although, given the circumstances, I probably would've done the same thing, if I was there."

Twilight thought for a moment, before making a decision. "I know for a fact he only attacks ponies if they attack him first. We'll be fine."

"...how exactly do you know that?" Aegis asked. "Sure, he didn't hurt you or anypony here, but that doesn't mean he treats everypony like that."

"Well, funny story-"

At that moment, the guardsmare came flying back down, looking somewhat panicked. "There's demons topside, too!"

Twilight's blood ran cold while the ponies around her started to murmur worriedly. Aegis, meanwhile, was back to all business. "How are the casualties?"

"I couldn't say for sure. Luna and her guards are just barely holding them back, and according to her they're already starting to soften up their assault."

"The main entry point probably is down here, after all..." Aegis thought out loud, before nodding to the guard. "Thank you."

"So, what do we do?" Twilight asked.

Aegis thought for a moment, scanning the surrounding area. "Set up a temporary camp here. Once we receive word that the demons are gone up top, we'll get everypony out of here."

Twilight looked down the hall they just came through. "What about Princess Celestia...?"

Aegis put a hoof on her shoulder. "Go ahead and go to her. We can handle things here."

Twilight wanted to protest, but quickly fought it down. "Okay. Stay safe, okay Aegis?"

Aegis smirked. "Is that an order?"

The two shared a light chuckle, before Twilight took off, galloping down the hall.

As she got deeper into the lab, the sounds of combat grew louder again, so she probably still had time before The Slayer reached Celestia.

Hopefully she could arrive in time to defuse whatever situation might occur.

The Slayer certainly made it easy to follow him. Once Twilight made it back to the shelter, all she had to do was follow the trail of demon corpses and body parts, and try not to step in too big a pile of blood.

She considered flying, but by now the smoke collecting at the ceiling was starting to become just thick enough to choke anypony who got up there. She didn't trust her flying enough to skim the ground without issue, so she just resigned herself to tracking a little blood in her wake.

As the sounds of explosions, demonic growls, and tearing viscera grew louder, Twilight eventually caught The Slayer in the lab's mess hall, where he was doing his best to make it live up to that name. Demons were coming in at almost all sides, and he was doing an expert job at bouncing from one demon to another, constantly pumping them full of lead and/or ripping them to pieces with his hands.

Twilight almost found herself captivated by the bloody show, but shook her head and headed elsewhere. She had more important things to do than watch a thousand-year-old warrior work.

While it was impossible to tell which labs were the Delta-Four labs, due to the state of destruction the area was in, it was thankfully rather easy to spot thanks to the magical force field projected in front of the door. A few possessed ponies were beating at it, but it seemed to be doing nothing.

Firing up her horn, Twilight quickly teleported past the ponies and the force field, and knocked on the door. Just like before, a somewhat panicked voice answered her.

"W- Who is it?"

"It's Twilight Sparkle, I'm here to see Princess Celestia!"

There was some discussion on the other side, before the door slid open. She quickly filed inside, and took stock of the situation in front of her.

Unlike the shelter, this room was almost entirely filled with guards. The only non-guard pony was deeply focused on a door at the opposite end of the room, which was being protected by a golden force field while a large horde of demons tried to claw their way past it.

Celestia looked over at the sound of the door closing, and forced herself to put on a smile. "Oh, Twilight, thank goodness you're okay. How are Aegis and the others?"

"At the entrance right now. Demons invaded above ground, too, but Luna and her guards are fighting them off.

Celestia seemed conflicted by the news: horrified that demons were also in the castle proper, yet relieved that her sister was on top of it. "And what of The Slayer?"

"He's... in the mess hall, right now," Twilight said. "He was a bit... busy when I came by."

"Busy?"

"He was fighting the demons."

Celestia let out a thoughtful "Hmm." After putting a bit more focus on the door, she continued speaking. "You wouldn't happen to know how The Slayer managed to escape, would you, Twilight?"

Twilight looked to the ground. "After the demons started invading, I... well, I panicked, and I was convinced that The Slayer was an enemy to demons, so..."

Celestia shook her head slightly. "Do not worry, Twilight, I am not upset at you. Given the situation, it would make sense to use such... drastic measures."

Suddenly, Celestia's horn went out, and Twilight was ready to freak out, but stopped as she noticed that the shield was still holding. A few nearby unicorn guards seemed to take over maintaining the shield, their own horns lit up as they focused on it.

Now free of the need to concentrate, Celestia walked over to Twilight. "How long do you suppose until The Slayer reaches us?"

"Impossible to say. He moves fast, but he's focusing on the demons right now, and it seemed like they wouldn't stop coming for him."

"I see." Celestia started walking away, towards a corner of the room. "In that case, perhaps I should take the time to somehow disguise myself. While I trust that he is not hostile to ponies, since the survivors are safely at the elevator, I admittedly have no idea how he'll react to seeing me."

Twilight looked to the floor. "Yeah, that makes sense..."

"So, how exactly were you so sure about why we should free The Slayer?" Celestia suddenly asked.

Twilight froze up. "U- uh, well..."

As Celestia kept looking at her, like a disappointed parent, one of the guards near the entrance door suddenly gasped as his horn went out.

"Holy...! Something big just hit the shield! It broke!"

Nearby guards instantly took up defensive positions around the door, while the guard responsible for the shield fired the spell up again. For a brief moment, there were no sounds, save for the collection of demons still clawing at Celestia's shield, as everypony in the room held their breath.

And then, there was a knock on the door.

It was loud, but steady, and all the guards looked between each other in response. None of them moved for the door controls, however.

Once again, the knocks rang out, louder this time. Whoever was on the other side, they did not like being ignored.

Celestia and Twilight seemed to reach the same conclusion about who it was. "Keep the door closed!" Celestia called out. "Wait until I-"

Her orders were cut off, as the knocking was instead replaced with a horrible grinding noise, forcing nearly everypony in the room to fold their ears against their head. Slowly, the door was forced open, until it was just wide enough for a certain bipedal figure to walk through.

The guards instantly readied their weapons against him, but started backing up once they recognized who it was. The demons, too, seemed to fly into a frenzy at the sight of him, becoming even more agitated as they kept trying in vain to get past the shield.

The Slayer scanned the room, paying no mind to the spears and crossbows pointed his way, until his gaze locked onto Celestia and Twilight. Both of them froze under his vision, and he started walking towards them.

Twilight went to step forward, to try and defuse the situation, but the moment she moved a hoof, The Slayer shot her a glare that paralyzed her with fear.

The guards started to move in on him, keeping their weapons trained, especially as he got closer and closer to Celestia. At some point, one of the guards managed the courage to shout "Halt!"

However, the order went completely unacknowledged by The Slayer.

Soon, he was now almost face to face with Celestia, whose eyes were still wide as she stood in place. After a moment, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and bowed her head slightly.

"Hello again, Slayer," she said, her voice betraying no emotion besides... acceptance?

He just continued staring at her, although Twilight noticed that he was slowly forming his hands into fists.

Not noticing, Celestia continued. "I would like to... apologize for the way I treated you in the past. I know now that-"

Celestia didn't get to finish, as The Slayer suddenly wound up and punched Celestia directly in the snout, causing her to let out a yelp as she fell to the floor with a small blood spray.

While Twilight found herself far too shocked to do anything, the guards started to do two things. Some of them panicked, and started freaking out. Others started charging The Slayer, their weapons ready while they gave out battle cries.

In response, The Slayer turned around to face them, which was enough to make several guards hesitate in their charge. Only one guard actually kept the attack, and swiftly embedded his spear into The Slayer.

Or, at least, he tried to. The spearhead failed to penetrate his suit at all, and his momentum meant that the spear quickly snapped in half, and he found himself barreling right into The Slayer's leg.

Once he recovered from his daze, he looked up to see The Slayer looking down at him, at which point he started seriously reconsidering all of his life choices.

At that point, a lone crossbow bolt flew into The Slayer's helmet, ineffectively bouncing off. He quickly snapped his view up to the offender, which caused somepony in the line of guards to let out a yelp as they cowered behind their comrades.

Before anything else could occur, Celestia shakily raised a hoof. "S- Stop attacking!"

Everyone in the room snapped their attention to the princess, who was unsteadily rising back to her hooves. She was very noticeably bleeding from both nostrils, but otherwise seemed not much worse for wear. Twilight in particular noticed this, since she had seen exactly what a punch from The Slayer could do to a living creature.

He was holding back.

Celestia quickly brought up a hoof to cover her snout, in an attempt to make herself look more presentable. "It was... an understandable action," she admitted, her voice slightly nasal due to the damage to her snout. Despite the situation, Twilight couldn't help but spot the ghost of a smile behind her hoof. "So, are we even, Mister Slayer?"

As usual, The Slayer didn't say anything, and simply nodded as he started walking towards the shield holding back dozens of demons.

Twilight found herself at a complete loss. "What the hay just happened?"

Celestia used some magic to reshape her snout, wincing as she did so. "I believe that was payback for imprisoning him."

As Twilight tried to process this, she noticed The Slayer walking up to one of the guards who had a crossbow. The guard cowered under his gaze.

Unceremoniously, The Slayer reached out and grabbed the crossbow for himself, as the guard ran away to the other guards. After inspecting the weapon for a bit, he shrugged and kept walking towards the shield, tinkering with the weapon slightly in a way Twilight couldn't make out.

Once he was directly in front of the shield, he turned around and pointed to Twilight, before pointing to the shield, then behind him.

Understanding his intentions, Twilight created a shield spell of her own, trapping The Slayer between two different color force fields.

"Let the other shield down!" she called out to the guards. They seemed hesitant to do so at first, but a confirming nod from Celestia helped them make the decision.

Their horns went off, and the golden shield dissipated. As soon as it did, The Slayer fired the crossbow into the horde, which Twilight noticed now had some sort of cylindrical object on the bolt. It embedded itself into an unlucky demon's head, and a moment later the object exploded, reducing all the demons around it into little more than red paste.

The Slayer was in the fray immediately after, doing his usual routine of carving demons into pieces with either his weapons or his fists. Several of the guards were clearly disturbed by the display, and even Celestia winced slightly at some of the more gruesome actions.

While The Slayer was doing his thing, Twilight turned to Celestia. "So, about how I knew about him..."

"Yes, Twilight?"

Twilight let out a deep breath, and decided to get it over with quickly. "I went back in time to see for myself what happened just before you imprisoned him."

Celestia was quiet for a moment, and Twilight forced herself to look from the ground to her eyes.

"I see," Celestia eventually said. "Did you decide to do this based on what Discord told you?"

"...yes."

Celestia let out a small hum. "So, were you the 'survivor' we spotted running from the camp?"

Twilight winced as if she was struck. "Yes..."

Celestia sighed. "While I'm a bit disappointed that you would try to use time travel again, I suppose this was for the better. I would hate to imagine how today would have gone had we not freed The Slayer as early as you did."

Suddenly, the chamber that The Slayer was fighting in started to glow ominously. "What's going on?"

Celestia seemed equally nervous. "The device is activating? That can't be good."

They both moved closer to Twilight's shield, trying to see what exactly was going on. The Slayer was still locked in combat, but they couldn't see any reason for why the ancient teleporter was now activating.

As the fighting continued, the glow increased in intensity, until nopony could see through it. Celestia started to order the guards to do something, but it was quickly drowned out by the sound of the device turning on, a sort of electrically-tinged magic sound. Soon after, the glow died down enough that they could look inside, and found the chamber entirely empty of living things. All that remained was a portion of the demon corpses left by The Slayer.

Twilight quickly lowered her shield, and they all quickly filed into the chamber. As the guards fanned out to make sure that there were no demon stragglers, Twilight and Celestia headed to the device in the center of the room, which was still glowing faintly.

"Where did they go?" Twilight asked.

"It's difficult to say," Celestia said. "The demons were coming directly from Tartarus, but..."

She fired up her horn, in an attempt to trace where the magic in the device teleported them. After a moment, she stopped, her eyes wide.

"Twilight, we need to go, now."

As Celestia started galloping away, Twilight struggled to keep up. "W-what?! Why?"

"Because that teleporter apparently sent them to just a few miles outside of Manehattan."

Discord finally made it back into Equestria proper, and he immediately took to the sky to see what was going on.

In the distance, he could make out a few rising plumes of smoke around Canterlot.

"Oh, no..."

Looking back down to Ponyville, he was relieved to see that, for the moment, it was still peaceful.

Still, since he was apparently too late, he knew it wouldn't stay that way.

Snapping his claw, he teleported right to the front of Fluttershy's cottage, just as she was leaving the house.

"O- Oh, Discord!" she said, only slightly phased by his sudden appearances by now. "How are you?"

"Fluttershy, we have a problem. Help me get everypony in town inside Twilight's castle."

Her smile was replaced with a deeply concerned expression. "Why?"

"Because Tartarus is about to come here."