Author's Note

This chapter is the first part of a 5 chapter series that takes place at roughly the same time as each other.

A Pirate's Accord

Once Dane’s associates were rallied, Johnny, Kinize, the Equestrians and the associates returned to the Ultor building to plan their strategy to take over New Hades and draw Satan out of hiding.

In addition to the targets and activities pointed out by Dane, the other associates pointed out some points of interest as well.

Since Blackbeard was being offered a share of Ultor’s profits, he repaid the favor by pointing out five treasure chests that he hid in New Hades; one in each district. The chests held an impressive fortune in solidified sins, the currency of Hell. The only catch was that Blackbeard magically locked them and the only means to open them were three glyphs for each chest hidden throughout each of the districts. The currency would go a long way to fuelling the war effort.

Vlad was irate when he saw the state of his castle. When he saw it, the place had been invaded by Frat Demons, demons that acted like an out of control college fraternity. Their fraternity was known as Omega Omega Omega. The Omegas trashed Vlad’s castle while he was away in Satan’s penitentiary and he wanted to make the demons pay for it. His idea was to infiltrate the pledge rallys and use their hazing paddles to beat them away to their deaths. The sins they would leave behind would go a long way to repairing the castle.

Shakespeare had mentioned that a particular husk was mysteriously appearing in places throughout the city and he mentioned Johnny many times and how it was a mistake to allow a psychopath like Pinkamena into the Saints. Dane was able to put the facts together and point out that his former Chief of Security, Dex, was roaming Hell. Pinkamena and Johnny were really looking forward to seeing how many times they can kill Dex.

Viola and Kiki had some information too. The found ways to help the winged warriors augment their new powers with some variations. They pointed out the locations of eight altars located throughout the city and they would have to use the corresponding power on the altar to activate it. They then had to feed power to the altars by feeding them demon souls.

“I have some more information as well,” Dane pointed out. “Seeing as there are twelve of you flying around and disrupting his shit, Satan’s decided to activate his aerial defense system sooner than I expected. There are twenty-six spires in all and I suggest you deal with them because ignoring them is just going to make you have a bad day. They look like giant living phalluses that end in claws.”

“How big are they?” Pinkamena asked.

“Big enough that you’d have to be almost as big as Blackbeard’s ship to stick it inside yourself without getting ripped apart in the process,” Dane answered, knowing that the phallus part was what she was going to cling to. “In order to disable the spires, you need to literally reach into it and rip out its heart.”

It was then that Dane remembered one last thing that might help the Equestrians and Saints out. “One last thing, there are some really powerful weapons out there. Thanks to the industrious nature of Hell, seven powerful weapons were made utilizing the Seven Deadly Sins. I can’t tell you too much about them though, you’ll have to find out on your own.

As the Equestrians were leaving, they suddenly picked up on a sensation that they hadn’t felt in years. The last time it was felt was when it spontaneously happened on Equus. Given Pinkamena’s experience with the televised shows on Earth, the music that they felt seemed Disney-esque. She soon realized that Johnny and Kinzie were also infected by the music as they started singing about how pressured they were in rescuing the boss and that the only thing they could do right now was to stay the course.

“Huh, guess Heartsong happens in Hell too,” Pinkamena noted.

“Why don’t we join in?” Pinkie asked.

“Because the writer is lazy and didn’t feel like writing lyrics for us.” Pinkamena sighed and changed the subject, “Let me ask you something, If you were given the opportunity to become a princess, would you take it?”

“Nope.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Because silly, I don’t want to lead a nation for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. I’m terrible at leading. Besides, I don’t want to outlive my friends in ponyville. Sure, it would be nice to plan parties forever and being friends with the descendants of your friends is nice, but when your old friends are gone, you never see them again...well, unless you somehow end up getting killed but I don’t know if alicorns can die.”

Another sigh, “I already know about the eternal youth of the alicorns and the likelihood of outliving my friends. If I do lead Equestria’s first crime syndicate as an alicorn, I’m gonna have a bucking good reason for doing so. If those other gods are going to ask me to become one, they better make a convincing argument because when you’re killing and torturing for millennia to come and being alone along with it, eternal life is overrated.”

“So what will you do when we get back? I don’t think Princess Celestia will let you run free because no offense, but you’re a danger to ponykind and I’m pretty sure she will try to keep you sealed in Tartarus.”

Pinkamena shrugged, “None taken. I’ll figure something out if I do reject the offer.”

The Equestrians spread their wings and flew off to their assigned districts to provide assistance to Dane and his business partners.

Gilda and Limestone flew back to The Barrens to find out what tasks needed to be done to secure the smallest of the five districts in New Hades. The grumpy duo had to wonder why the place held any importance to the infamous pirate and resolved to ask him that when they returned to his suspended ship.

Along the way, a glowing spear of red light flew toward them. Both mare and hen tried to evade the projectile but the missile continued to chase them. While Gilda was already a skilled flyer who could easily evade the pursuing light, Limestone was still only a novice flyer at best so the missile impacted against her and exploded. Thankfully, the magic of the Alicorn Amulet gave her some protection from the blast so she only fell from the sky and onto the brimstone below without suffering too much damage.

However, whatever launched that projectile at them needed to be taken down or it was going to harass them in the skies again.

Gilda looked around the area and saw the object that Dane mentioned earlier, a large, slimy tentacle that ended in claws that charged a single bolt of red light between them, likely another missile. The body of the tentacle had a yellow sack inside it that the griffon suspected was where the heart of the spire would be. The tentacle was also guarded by several demons.

Limestone soon recovered from her attack and joined Gilda to look at the living structure. “I hope there aren’t too many of these around here, I’m already getting a headache from the first one.”

“There shouldn’t be too many around here given the size of the area,” Gilda figured. “I bet there are only two or three to cover this small hunk of rock.”

Limestone hoped that was the case as she charged forward and hit the ground defenders with a Stone Blast that petrified them before she grabbed one of them and used him as a stone club to smash the other defenders on the ground. Gilda handled the flying defenders by summoning a few shadow imps who landed on the backs of the flying demons and slashed their wings off. When the demons were ground bound, the imps burrowed into the demons’ backs and feasted on their insides. The imps disappeared once they had their fill.

With the defenders gone, Gilda charged her shadow magic into a talon and reached into the spire, feeling around until she could feel a thick lump of flesh before she pulled it out, causing the now dead turret to recede into the ground.

Limestone and Gilda repeated this task two more times as they scoured The Barrens of more of the phallic-looking turrets. It was like Gilda had thought, the district was so small that Satan felt that only three turrets were needed to protect the area from flyers.

With the spires dispatched, Gilda and Limestone headed for Teetering Hope to find the legendary pirate.

Blackbeard greeted the duo as they landed, “Just the two I wanted to see. This place isn’t so big so it shouldn’t take long to take the whole thing.

“Can you explain why this piece of nowhere is so important? What do we gain from this place?” Limestone asked.

“Aye, this place may not seem the best place to be in terms of resources but we don’t need them here, that’s Dane’s problem,” Blackbeard answered. “The Barrens is the perfect staging grounds for all manner of operations against Satan. We just have to secure it.

Limestone and Gilda looked at each other and shrugged since that was likely to be the best answer they were going to get from the pirate.

The first task Blackbeard had for the duo was to locate the glyphs to open the chest on his ship. When asked about the locations of the glyphs, Blackbeard simply claimed that he forgot and that they were on their own in finding them.

Gilda and Limestone quickly found the chest and one of the glyphs next to it. Unsure what to do, Limestone placed a hoof on the glyph and it disappeared. Gilda noticed that the same symbol appeared above the chest three times. She saw one of the symbols above the chest disappear.

Knowing what to do, Gilda looked beyond the ship and saw the same yellow glow nearby. Limestone spread her wings and headed for the light while Gilda did the same except to look around and find the last glyph.

Gilda spotted the last glyph on a small mountain near the second glyph and flew to it. Once she touched it with her talon and Limestone touched the second one, the duo returned to the ship and checked the chest.

They quickly noticed that the last two symbols above the chest disappeared so Limestone attempted to open it. The chest opened to reveal a large cache of Sins. Blackbeard promised to deliver the contents of the chest to Dane for use for the war effort.

Blackbeard directed the duo to the place where they first arrived in Hell, Angel’s End, to defend the area from an onslaught of Satan’s minions. Past experience for the two told them that this would be similar to another virus injection scenario except the objective was more about defending the area until the demons were scared off.

Once they arrived, a large number of Dark Inciters appeared nearby and attacked the two with spells. Gilda used her Aura ability to assume a shadowy form and used her talons to tear through their shields while Limestone perforated the weakened spellcasters with a pair of SMGs. A few flying demons showed up which prompted Limestone to use a Stone Blast to petrify them and send them falling onto the brimstone and shattering them.

When the demons realized they were outmatched by the duo, they soon fled the area and left control of it to their enemies.

After reporting their success, Blackbeard felt that it was time for them to stage an assault on the seat of power of the local Archduke. The pirate pointed them in the direction of a large pit in an area called Forever Sands.

Elaborating on what Dane said earlier about the Marshalling Grounds, in order to conquer the place, they needed to channel their magic into the control stones in the area that looked like pentagons with upside down stars and demonic runes to convert them. Once all of the control stones were converted, they would need to channel their magic into the portal in the center of the pit.

However, converting the stones would force the Archduke out of hiding in order to defend the portal from the intruders. The Archdukes were some of Satan’s strongest demons so taking one down would be a challenge.

Gilda and Limestone checked their ammunition to make sure they were fully armed and ready because they knew they would be in for a tough fight.

Spotting the pit, the duo flew in and started slaughtering demons with their magic and weapons.

Both admitted to themselves that it was strange for two Equestrian races to be using magic that was usually limited to unicorns and alicorns. It was hard to imagine being able to use such powers outside of a virtual simulation.

Gilda and Limestone scouted the pit while knocking flying demons out of the air and looking for the control stones. It didn’t take long to find a pair of red-glowing stones in small caves on opposite sides of the pit. Each took one of the control stones. Gilda sliced through the defenders of her stone with shadowy talons while Limestone petrified her enemies before stomping to shatter them.

With the defenders cleared out for the moment, Gilda and Limestone each placed a talon or hoof on their respective control stones. They could feel a slight tugging of their magics as they channeled into the stones but the feeling only lasted a few seconds before the pentagon images were changed to that of Pinkamena’s cutie mark. Limestone wondered why her sister’s cutie mark was displayed and silently decided to ask her about that later.

A loud crash was heard outside followed by a deep and powerful roar.

Limestone and Gilda looked outside the caves and found a tall, black-armored demon carrying a fiery sword and a buckler made of fire with the reverse star symbol on it and his belt buckle. His horns resembled that of the imps from Blackbeard’s ship.

The duo jumped to the bottom of the pit to confront the Archduke who charged at Gilda with his sword in the air and his shield facing forward. Gilda was able to jump out of the way and fired her SMG at the demon only for the bullets to bounce off him. Limestone hit him with a Stone Blast which petrified him for a second at best.

Gilda attempted to claw at the demon’s flesh with her shadowy claws while the Archduke reacted by bringing his blade down on Gilda. The griffon was able to catch the blade with her shadowy talons before the Archduke kicked her away. Gilda was knocked back several yards because of it.

The Archduke targeted Limestone next and attempted to bring his blade down on her. The mare was able to dodge the strike by rolling to the side and followed up by summoning stone imps which leapt up on the Archduke and started clawing and biting at him. The Archduke unleashed a wave of energy that knocked the imps off him and sent Limestone flying back several feet.

The demon slammed his sword into the ground and unleashed a fiery shockwave at Limestone while she was recovering and sent her upward. The Archduke headed toward her to skewer her on his sword only to be hit from behind by an explosive impact.

The demon turned around and saw Gilda with an RPG. The Archduke reacted by swiping his sword horizontally and kicking up a fiery whirlwind that headed for the Griffon. Gilda had enough time to dive out of the path of the tornado and started shooting at him again. The griffon did notice that the Archduke was getting hurt by the bullets but they were barely doing so at best.

While Gilda continued using clip after clip of SMG ammo, Limestone petrified him with a Stone Blast. While the demon was petrified for that one second, Gilda noticed that the bullets were chipping away at the demon. When he broke free, he showed signs of bleeding from the area where Gilda shot him.

When the demon noticed this, he stomped the ground and sent the duo into the air. Gilda recovered midair but Limestone wasn’t so lucky as she received a blow from the demon’s sword which sent her flying away to the edge of the arena which left a small burn on her right foreleg.

Gilda attempted to get behind the demon and slash him from behind but he blocked it with his buckler.

The battle started turning desperate for the griffon and the pony. Gilda’s attacks were hardly doing much to the Archduke and Limestone was still fighting while the magic of the Alicorn Amulet was working on healing her burn.

The Archduke had finally cornered Gilda and was about to bring his sword down on him when he felt a pair of knives plunge into his back. The blades were quickly pulled out and the culprit pulled away before the Archduke could swing his buckler behind him to hit whoever stabbed him.

Gilda looked around to see Johnny shooting at the tough demon and evading the flaming sword. The Saint yelled at Gilda, “I’ll hold him off. Get back to Dane, he says he has something for you. Whatever it is it better be good enough to take out this sonnova bitch.”

Gilda nodded and spread her wings. She yells at Johnny in reply, “Make sure Limestone doesn’t get killed by this dweeb.” With that, she flew back to the Ultor building.

Gilda arrived at the office building within two minutes and went inside to see what Dane wanted.

“Ah, just the griffon I wanted to see. I spent a fair amount of sins to purchase this weapon from a Sinterpol Armory vending machine. At first, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to buy some protection, but for some reason this SMG’s been whispering your name in my head...literally.” Gilda raised an eyebrow. “Don’t look at me like that. This is Hell, you can purchase just about anything that relates to a vice in the vending machines here. Plus there are no gun control laws down here, obviously.”

Dane pulled out the gaudiest looking weapon Gilda ever saw. The SMG was either made entirely out of gold or it was gold plated. The handle had diamonds in it and there were three coin dispensers on top of it. Next to the coin dispensers was a gold and green sign with diamonds around it that said “CA$H”.

“What is that thing and what does it want with me?” Gilda asked.

“If I were to guess I’d say that’s one of the Seven Deadly Weapons: Diamond Sting, the manifestation of greed. Would have kept it for myself despite its demands but when the thing started heating up and nearly singed my hand, it wasn’t worth keeping. For whatever reason, it wants you to wield it.”

Gilda cautiously walked toward the golden weapon. As she drew closer, she could hear the weapon whisper to her with promises of unimaginable wealth. The griffon shook those thoughts away as she remembered that she needed to get back to Johnny and Limestone to save them from that powerful demon.

As she wrapped her talons around the weapon, something weird happened. The SMG melted in her hands and the gold wrapped itself around both of her talons. The material then shaped itself around her talons and began to harden. After the weapon hardened, each of the new gauntlets that she now wore bore the emblem of her family, the Grimfeathers. The coloring of the emblem changed to that of a black griffon head with a purple background.

Since she was in too much of a hurry to learn about the golden gauntlets she now wore, Gilda ran out of the office and flew back toward the Marshalling Grounds in The Barrens.

Johnny was holding his own against the armored giant, but his attacks were hardly doing much against the demon and he was starting to get worn down from parrying the flaming sword.

The Archduke was about to deliver a heavy strike that Johnny would not be able to block completely before something stopped him from lowering his blade. It was only for a moment before the blade was lowered against Johnny.

Only for the Saint to receive a faceful of currency to the face.

“What the fuck?!” Johnny shouted.

The Archduke was surprised as well as he saw that his sword dissolved into a pool of currency. He felt a slight nudge at his left side from his buckler. He looked to see the griffon from before with a smirk on her face and a golden talon on his shield. The Archduke’s eyes widened when he saw his shield dissolve into currency.

Before the Archduke was able to reproduce his sword and shield, Gilda imbued her shadows into her talons before she slashed wildly at the demon which caused his armor to dissolve which was soon followed by his flesh and soon his very being dissolved into money.

Johnny’s eyes widened at the display. “The hell did you do to him?”

Gilda looked at her new weapons before shrugging. “Dunno, I had no idea these things could do that.”

“Whatever they are, don’t touch me with ‘em. Last thing I wanna know is my personal worth.”

Suddenly, the gauntlets retracted from Gilda’s talons and took the form of a pair of bracelets. “Huh, at least I don’t have to worry about turning everyone to money when I touch them.”

While they were talking, Limestone entered the center of the grounds and channeled her magic into the area. The portal changed from red to blue to complete the conversion of the grounds.

“How you holdin’ up, Limes?” Johnny asked.

“I’m fine, my wounds are healing up and I should be able to finish Blackbeard’s tasks too,” Limestone answered.

“Just don’t push yourself, the last thing I need is your sister turning me into a rug because you got injured,” Gilda said.

Johnny returned to the mindless violence he was committing before At some point, he found and eviscerated Dex during the slaughter.

Back on the ship, Blackbeard informed the duo that Satan was tormenting souls with his magic at Garden of Souls and they needed to save the tormented husks.

The duo quickly flew over and saved numerous husks. Limestone grabbed the ones headed for the ground while Gilda used her shadowy talons to break the shields around the skybound souls and save them. The task was completed in a short time.

Blackbeard thanked the two for their assistance in the task and they were free to help the others. However, there was one last area that was still outside of the rebels’ control.

Gilda and Limestone went to the area known as Feast of Worms to investigate. It was there that they found an altar with the symbol of the Stomp ability on it. Neither were sure on what to do there but Limestone figured that there was no harm in seeing what stomping before the altar would do.

Johnny arrived at that moment to see what they were looking at. He soon got the same idea that the others had and stomped before the altar which caused it to zap him with magic. The Saint started glowing a little with holy light.

The demons soon arrived to investigate the commotion and the situation turned into another Survival scenario where Johnny tested out his new Holy Stomp ability which burned the demons with holy light.

The demons soon fled the area screaming which officially brought the entirety of The Barrens under the Saints’ control.

With their part of the takeover done, Limestone and Gilda returned to Ultor to rest.