Monk of Aura

==General POV==

Three days had passed since Allen went to the underworld to stop the mutilated from twisting hell and its residents. The human's body was asleep in Mikael's lap as the incubus pony just stroked at the human's hair softly, wrapped in a melancholy as the demon looked to his love interest with grief and sorrow, silently begging that his interested would forgive him for taking Alexie away. Mikael was stung by Allen, but not hurt as the human made it a point to check on and talk to Mikael, his friends and his family, doing what he could to make time for everyone. Alexie being made as a martyr for Mikael to have his crush upset him and Sarah had come over to explain.

"Mikael?" She landed in the yard and ponies hid to eavesdrop. The incubus said nothing and Sarah spoke. "Mikael, do you know how pathetic and embarrassing it is... was to do your job so absently." He said nothing and rested his hands on Allen's cheeks. "You didn't do you job for weeks before doing it begrudgingly. After he vanished for who-knows-how-long and here of all places, you felt nothing. The humans you bed for their seed, used you. You didn't care though. You felt nothing, you did nothing to stop it- it was more than concerning. It was scary. I had intended for this to have been done in a year at most."

Mikael looked up, upset and crying. "And what about Alexie?" Asked the incubus struck with anger. "She was his wife. She was basically your daughter!"

Sarah took the sting and knelt down. "I did it for you." Mikael's tears streamed down his face, hitting Allen's cheek. "You are my brother, and as big a goof or slut as you are, I do look out for you and your health." She placed a hand on his shoulder, as the siblings locked eyes. "You didn't let go of him even after all that time had passed." They looked to the resting human. "When you got news he was here, then coming to the underworld, you nearly knocked yourself out trying to look presentable."

"And when I saw him... I choked." He was on the verge of crying again when he felt a warm hand caress his cheek and he felt... eased. "I just hope he can forgive me for taking her."

"I'm expecting him to despise me for lying to him like that." He looked at the resting human with a mother's gaze. "I'd be more than surprised if he forgave me, if only for your sake." Mikael looked at his sister, who adopted a pony look of her own thanks to her glamour, and shared a hug.

As this was taking place, Allen was in a void, weak, tired and drifting. Down, downward, ever downward. He could see with closed eyes, hear with deaf ears, but he could not reach out with his hands or call out with his voice. He desired something to see and hear outside this black emptiness, something belonging more to gods than mortals, when a teal jewel opened like an eye, resembling a cat's eye. It saw beyond the void, a window to the outside, where he could see and hear Mikael, crying and petting him. As Sarah arrived and talked, a piece of ground manifested and Allen landed on it as he fell no further. He witnessed Mikael's turmoil and reached up, caressing his cheek. "No... crying." His peaceful words attempting to and successfully calming the incubus as more ground was made.

His spirit and mind got to work on recreating his landscape as his physical body rested. The landscape was growing like a rising island, being remade from a visible dark mist and shining particles that were swarming with color. The barren land that once made up the majority of his space was filled anew with fresh air, healthy greenery and the same massive tree that once held his tests. The church looked newly constructed and well maintained as opposed to the run down building it once was, with Allen now levitating again, above the alter akin to a sleeping angel.

As he continued to sleep, his repaired mind could see out to the world, to Ponyville, to Mikael. Mikael was currently in trouble. The ponies had been convinced through some means that he was a demon, summoned by the human or lured to the human's smell. Allen had no time to accuse anyone, he had to get out but he was trapped. Only one person could help, one who answers cries from their dreams.

Meanwhile, Mikael was trying to quell the ponies fears, attempting to look as non-threatening as possible. "Please, be at peace this isn't a war zon- ah!" He dodged a rotten tomato and flung it to the yard, keeping it off and out of the house, away from Allen.

The ponies were rioting with unusual bravery, openly swearing and jabbing insults at a demon, thinking that no demon had morals or decency. It was enough to make Mikael loose some of his reasoning as he was ready to yell and cry. "WHO IS THE ONE RESPONSIBLE FOR DISTURBING THE PEACE!" Saved by the bell was the only good thought that came to the Incubus mind as Princess Luna and Queen Chrysalis descended on the town.

"The princess is here, we are saved." A mare cried in victory before the lunar princess stomped a hoof, creating an airborne shock wave, silencing the crowd.

Chrysalis turned back to Mikael and their eyes locked in an awkward reunion. "Um... hello, Chrysalis."

The queen got another look and held an expression of bewilderment. "Alexie?"

"Not... exactly." The incubus looked so nervous and innocent that Chrysalis wrapped him in a hug. "Ah! What the hell?!"

"Oh my god you are so precious." The queen stated bubbly like Pinkie Pie. "Look at your cute, glowing cheeks. AH! This is too much! You're as innocent as a foal!" The town could not believe the attitude Chrysalis was displaying and Luna just smirked, trying to refrain from the activity, admitting the incubus was indeed precious.

"Alright!" The demon in question soon lost his temper from the doting queen. "I get it, I'm cute but now is not the time." Chrysalis excused herself and apologized. "Thank you. I just want to know why nothing happens for three days and all of a sudden a mob comes banging on the doors of one of their fellow citizens."

"He isn't a-"

"SILENCE!" Luna's command hushed the offending stallion. "Citizenship is currently irrelevant while everyone here has a torch, a pitchfork, a butterknife of all things and one of you is holding a rose like a weapon- I see that." Everyone just lowered their tools without dropping them. "Now I have no clue as to what was said by who, when or where and that does not matter. The point is you gathered here to drive someone out of town for no reason and no crimes against them, so disperse and return to your business." The ponies begrudgingly did what they were told and left the property.

Mikael was cleaning Allen's face and body of any rotten food and knelt next to him when the two royal figures sat next to him. "I don't know what to tell him." They looked to him, confused by his statement. "Allen will wake up, expecting me to have an answer to everything that has happened. I want to explain myself and kiss him but... it feels wrong."

Chrysalis spoke up first. "If life was filled only with good things then we wouldn't grow. We face evil to better understand it. We embrace good to find our place in the world. Nothing is cut and dry simple. Life is complex." Mikael looked to the queen, confused and scared. "Nothing is purely good or purely evil. Context and action both matter because what you do will be remembered, not what you meant to do."

"And what I did was horrible!" Mikael yelled as the ponies listened in. "Alexie was your daughter and Allen's wife. I've been into Allen since the night we..." He blushed, hushing himself to save himself embarrassment, but Chrysalis knew from her feelers and she blushed from the reaction his body was trying to hide. "I stole Alexie from this world. Never mind the fact she was made to be a martyr from the start, she was important to you and Allen." Mikael continued and immediately added, "And I don't want that 'everything has a purpose' bullshit, that alone has some dark implications when taken at face value."

Luna was next to calm the demon. "Alexie was indeed a dear friend for what little time we knew her and the changelings knew her for much longer. While her time here was not very long, she got to see, hold and love Allen after being tormented by her identity crisis." She then placed a hand on his shoulder. "Now Allen is healing up after his battle and he will need someone there once he wakes."

Mikael looked to Allen sadly and found the resolve to smile, his warmth radiant to Allen's spirit plain that he awoke within, feeling the tender kiss of an innocent and loving soul. His eyes opened and Allen saw the smiling face of the tender incubus. He looked outside the church he was in and the new life within stared back. Standing up right, the turned human closed his eyes to leave his world and wake up.

Mikael had closed his eyes, ready to cry again. Before either royal mare could tell him different, the human's hand rose and tenderly caressed his cheek, giving the incubus a start as he looked back at the now opened and lonely eyes of his love interest. "Allen....? This isn't a dream, right?"

He shook his head and leaned up, looking back at him. "I caused you suffering because I was unsure of myself, and Zarafell gave you love that I could not. Now, after realizing, concluding and hearing everything, I come to find that I caused you more grief, to the point that you were..." He shook his head, getting back on track to the problem he felt he caused. "You have taken Alexie, but I took your heart. I took your affections and never repaid them after our night of love." Ponies held a gasp while Chrysalis was trying to keep her mind from going to the gutter while Luna had juicy details to share with her niece. "So I am asking you here, if you forgive me for what I did." The demon then did something without feeling it, something most demons never do. Mikael cried for Allen in front of the town.

"You aren't...?" Allen shook his head. He wasn't angry with Mikael. He was more fired at himself and Sarah for what the Incubus had been through for the past millennium. Unable to hold his emotions for Allen any longer, Mikael wrap his arms around his human lover, tackling him to the floor and kissing him as Allen returned the love with equal fervent. The wrapped their arms around each other and Mikael's wings grew erect as the blush under his fur could be more presently seen. While ponies were shocked a mortal creature would kiss a demon, nevermind of the same sex, the royal mares had juicy details to keep or share.

"So," started Chrysalis, "I'll just be on my way then so you two can get reacquainted." Luna silently agreed and the two left after closing the couples living room doors after the couple flipped a middle finger to them.

Outside the house, the mane six just stared in confused arousal and intrigued wonder at the now obscured sight of a human openly and affectionately kissing a demon, an incubus no less which is said to impregnate females with their own sperm or from sperm their female/original counterparts collected. Such information was rare to come across and very obscure but a good read for setting up defenses. Twilight just stared at the same spot for minutes in confusion while Pinkie, Rarity and Rainbow all smirked with a nasty thought about themselves and Applejack smirked at the joke of her brother liking how the human might feel before shooting that down while she and Fluttershy both get their friends away from the house, knowing full well what was likely to happen next but were avoiding assumptions for very obvious reasons.

They all met up at the library where Twilight then proceeded to have a melt down. "What the bucking tartarus was that sassafras!? A human kissing a demon? What the buck?!" She started to hyperventilate as Spike and AJ attempted calming their friend by patting her back. "It just does make sense. Some stories claim that an Incubus and a Succubus can sap life force from a victim with a kiss and that human is plain making out with a demon that can do such! Does he have a death wish?!"

"Twilight, darling, you need to calm down, this energy will ruin your complexion and your good mood." Rarity chimed expertly like a therapist.

"Not like we could stop him anyway, if what happened in tartarus was any idea." The girls shook at the images they saw, the sights of the mutilalted that were now burned into their brains.

"Speaking of, I better write a letter to Celestia about that. No telling what they've become after the source of it has either returned or changed." Spike got some parchment and a quill before Twilight took both in her magic.

Dear Princess Celestia,

As you are aware, my friends and I traveled to tartarus to accompany and escort the human and Alexie in case of any actions taken against Equestria. This letter is more to fill in the blanks for what you did not see. We arrived at the gates of Tartarus and were told that what we see is the entry to the underworld and the Twisted were witnessed on the floor mentioned and before the gates. However, further in, we saw these new twisted powering through the foul and dense air with a smell of filth that made us revolt and nauseous. I am unsure as to what these new creatures are or how they came to be, but they are able to twist and merge with all materials now, as if it were part of them.

To make matters worse, they are able to infect unaffected bodies with a single touch, as if their very skin were as infectious as the main body. Allen was affected and he'd managed to not only removed the affliction, but touch the creatures after a time seemed to harm them, to the point of turning them to dust. It is likely that the affected are converted into the same type of matter throughout their bodies and thus having their... aura if I had to guess, drained from them completely. This seemed to boost the human's powers, though I doubt he's entirely human anymore.

When my friends saw him for the - if I'm remembering right as it was all a blur with how intense it all was - second time, his body had accumulated so much aura that he had formed wings of pure, unfiltered mana. This seemed to continue throughout the ascent out of the underworld until he possessed a barrier of mana, along with wings, a horn, a halo and crystals of mana on and across his body. This also seemed to make him more instinctual than territorial. To put it simply, he sniffed at the demon, trying to determine something though I doubt he could say now.

Please take this information into account as we still know so little about these new twisted or the human.

Your Faithful Student,

Twilight Sparkle.

P.S. Alexie is no longer with us but we will have information about that to tell you in person.

P.P.S. The human and incubus are now... well acquainted at this point. Ask your sister for details.

Fluttershy approached her friend after Spike stamped and sealed the letter before sending it off. "I don't think anyone was prepared for what happened down there. I read stories about creatures like them but these were... different."

"Fluttershy's right." The apple farmer chimed in. "We may not have any lick of sense to what's happened to those things, but one thing we can agree on, they're dangerous." The girls nodded and AJ remembered Johnathan's core values. "And, I trust that it'd be better if we helped them fight these creatures." The girls looked at the farm mare like she just grew new heads and limbs. "If we focus on driving out the demons we might win that fight, but remember, the old stories about Allen say he summoned the twisted while our family has passed the tale from parent to child."

"What was the tale?" Rainbow asked, curious and nosy.

"I'll keep it short." The cowgirl explained. "Upon steel as strong as his soul, he flew across the land, with a body strong as heaven and a fury as hot as rage, he tore open and through those that were tainted, freeing them of pain while damning those that had no spirit. Upon our gold mountain rang a desperate cry from our own, a final call to be spared, only to be chastised and slain for the despair wrought by our own."

"You're saying a pony brought it to us first!" Twilight screamed in disbelief.

"The details are a bit sketchy, guess we didn't want to sully the dead any further than they'd been, which explains the beads, the book and the sword, all three of which are now useless or missing." Applejack stood by the example of Johnathan the Just, a stallion who stood be telling the truth for his and others' own good. She smiled as she looked to the clouds and sighed happily. "I feel much better getting that out there."

"Does that mean I have five thousand birthday parties to plan for one person!" Pinkie freaked before her friends chimed up.

"No!" The mares smiled as they felt so much better after finally having a chance to talk out their grief and views, though Twilight was still wary of Allen, wary of the form he took. Was it a savior of Equestria, or its destroyer.