III
In the end, He would claim what is rightfully His

That morning most of the students of the Academy of Silence were sent home early with no explanation by a very agitated Great Master and Knight Spike.

“The High Council haves an important meeting! Classes are suspended for today! Go home!”

Also as a safety measure, Irish sent the most skilled Knights to escort the students back home to make sure everypony went back home safely.

Luckily most of the students lived nearby the Academy and in less than an hour, all the members of the Hight Council were back at the Academy where Irish and Spike told them the bad news.

“So those things are back?” asked Emerald Horn. “The damn bush only gave us six years of peace? ONLY SIX YEARS?”

Irish nodded sadly. “I’m afraid so.”

“So, what now? Are they going to hunt us down and kill us again? The same story cannot repeat itself.”

Spike and Irish shook their heads.

“No. We will not let them touch you, we’ll think in something, I promise. We cannot let East Wind down! She sacrificed herself in order to give us a future, and as the new Great Master is my duty to ensure that future.”

“Please don’t sacrifice yourself in vain!” scolded Emerald, still hurt by the lost of East Wind.

“Yeah, there has to be another way, you cannot waste your life just like that!” said Eternal Wings, touching her eyepatch.

“We need a plan!” said Spike thoughtful. “Also we need to warn all active Knights. The beasts have returned, we have to watch our backs.”

Flash Sentry frowned as he rubbed his chin. “I know the students won’t like it, but I think we should close the Academy until further notice. We cannot endanger the students.”

“At least now we don’t have to hide from the Crown, and they’ll help us protect the students, but I agree that we have to close the Academy for safety.” agreed Irish Coffee.

They continued discussing their next course of action not noticing that they were being watched from the sewers by two pairs of red and dead eyes. Finally, when they considered that they have watched and heard enough, they went back into the sewers.

“Great! Now they have an Academy officially recognized by the Crown, we messed up the timeline great time!” complained Midnight.

“Yeah, shit happens! But there’s nothing we can do now, right?” said Undash.

“We can travel through time one more time but we may mess up big time a second time!” joked Gothic.

“Shut up! We already proved that traveling through time didn’t change anything. Ironically it would be a waste of time.” complained Midnight.

“At least we’re back at the point when we turned into this and we already know what will happen from now on.” said Pin-Kill-Die thoughtful.

“Like the idiot of Igneous? Poor bastard, he was one of our first kills remember?”

Undash laughed. “Yeah, we couldn’t keep him alive more than ten minutes! We didn’t know how to kill dragons yet and we overdid.”

“Well this time Night Terror overdid too.” said Fleshy Smile.

“I already told you I’m sorry!” said Night Terror crossing his arms.

“Yes, darling but you had already kill your share. Why did you had to kill him too?” asked Gothic.

“I told you that I kinda lose control!”

“Awww, Nighty-Tighty is getting older even if he’s a corpse!”

Midnight ripped her tongue off.

“Shut the buck off.”

Gothic giggled, as she regenerated her tongue. “Awww, are we getting too sensitive darling?”

“Enough!” scolded Fleshy Smile. “No, no, no, girls! No fighting between us. We have to decide what to do now! Obviously it would get a bit more difficult to kill the Great Master now that they are under the protection of the Crown. So what we do now?”

Undash raised a hoof.

“I say let’s forget about them for now. They know we’re back, so they’ll have their eyes open. And we know the Knights of Silence are the worse kind of plague. No matter how hard we try they always come back. We need to know how the Griffons got rid of them first!”

They all turned to Undash.

“What?”

“Yeah, the Griffons. Wasn’t East Wind’s master a griffin?”

“You know? That’s a great idea! They originated on the Griffon Empire, so they should know how to get rid of them!”

“Ya’ have more brains than A’ thought Dashie!” congratulated Jack the Reaper.

Undash took a knife with her wings and cut the top of her own head to expose her brain to her friend. “Well, I have!! A pretty big brain if you ask me!”

The monsters laughed and then went to the Griffon Empire. The bird would tell them what then needed and if they not, they’ll find out one way or another.

As they were walking, Jack noticed the two skeletons hung with shackles on a corner. It was all that was left from Flim and Flam. Flim died out of fear on the first night, but she managed to keep Flam alive for a while. Then they got sealed so probably the unicorn died of starvation.

“Next stop Griffon Empire!!” cheered Pin-Kill-Die.

It was past midnight, on Canterlot Central Library. Twilight have been reading book after book, and when she finished she threw it on a pile that was getting larger. This wasn’t unusual in her, but that night she seemed a bit more agitated than usual.

Basically the problem was that she didn’t even know what she was looking for.

Looking at her with concern, Moon Dancer approached and refilled her lamp with oil.

Twilight turned to her and smiled; she had been here longer than she expected. But again, this was normal for her.

“Thank you, Moon Dancer!”

“My pleasure!” smiled the unicorn.

Twilight nodded as her friend examined the pile of books. Moon Dancer had aged gracefully. Her mane was as long as usual, but she didn’t tie it anymore, and it fell beautifully over her shoulders. She replaced her glasses from contact lenses and finally she replaced her sweater by an elegant denim jacket.

“Today is larger than usual.” said Moon Dancer. “I think you should stop.”

“Stop? You have no idea of the situation we’re into. If I don’t find an answer soon…”

“Let me rephrase it, you need a break. I know for experience that a tired brain cannot focus. Just calm down, breath, and take a break. Is also time for my break, would you like a cup of tea?”

Twilight sighed. “Yes, tea sounds good!”

Moon Dancer smiled at her, as she gave Twilight a cup of tea at the employee break room.

“So what’s on your mind, Twilight?”

“The usual, I don’t know what to do and came to the books looking for an idea or some inspiration. The problem is that there isn’t that much information about Demonic Pacts.”

Moon Dancer frowned.

“What? Okay I don’t know why you want to read about that but, why are you all by yourself? What about Spike, or your friends?”

Spike sighed.

“My friends are looking for some information in the Canterlot Archives and the Crystal Empire. And Spike haves his duty as a Knights of Silence.”

Moon Dancer groaned.

“Pst! The Knights of Silence, really? Huh, I used to like Spike.”

“You don’t like the Knights of Silence?”

Moon Dancer sighed.

“Nothing against them personally, is just that after years of studying and getting more prestige on the Academy, I finally got access to the most restricted documents. My efforts finally paid off. And, a couple of days later they publish all the restricted documents for everypony. All that effort for nothing!”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” said Twilight.

Moon Dancer sighed. “I graduated and all and got a couple of documents from them that I’m still thankful but I don’t like them. Anyway, we’re talking about you!”

“I don’t know where to start…” said Twilight.

Moon Dancer rubbed her chin. “Well, you mentioned Demonic Pacts. What did you mean by that? What are you looking for exactly?”

“Thanks Moon Dancer, but I don’t think you are able to help me.”

“Give me a chance, I’ve read every single book on this library.”

“Okay, what do you know about the undead?”

Moon Dancer frowned. “Oh, not much about them. All I know is what Celestia made public after she revealed their existence to the world after the first Great Master died. Creatures who have no ability to think, guided only by the dark desire of…”

“Murder, murder and more murder. Yeah, they are known as the invincible beasts.”

“The only way to defeat them is to use the Elements of Harmony to put them to sleep and then seal them in especial prisons.” said Moon Dancer.

“The thing is, there’s something nopony knows. That there are some kind of sentient undeads. We thought we sealed them for good but then they freed, and we don’t know where they are or how are we going to stop them.”

“Sentient udeads? But how’s that possible? When you become an undead your soul descends to hell automatically and only your body remains!”

“It’s hard to explain but their souls are stuck into their bodies, making them sentient but also they have the undead obsession to kill and their invincibility. Those are truly frightening things.”

Moon Dancer frowned. “I’ve heard the rumors. They are actually you, or an alternate version of you. Right.”

Twilight nodded.

“Yes, and we locked them up but they escaped and now we’re out of ideas.”

Moon Dancer sighed.

“I cannot help you with this, nopony can. But if I were you I would keep an eye open. You cannot make deal with the Devil and then walk away just like that. I don’t know how did your other selves manage to get away from him as long but in the end he would claim what is rightfully His.”

Twilight shivered. Moon Dancer was right.

In the end the Devil would claim the souls that were denied to him. He would claim it their other selves would be forced to return to Him.

Author's Note

So okay, this is more like a foreshadowing chapter to what is about to come. Anyway, I hope you liked it and don’t worry. It won’t be another showdown between Undeads and Knights of Silence. The story would take a different turn.

Read ya’ later!!