Demonic Dues

Chapters

Chapter 1 - The Order Of Things
Chapter 2 - Pleasant Joke
Chapter 3 - Recruiting Policy
Chapter 4 - Woe To The Vanquished

Chapter 1 - The Order Of Things

A thousand years ago, when the world was still whole, the twin Alicorn sisters Celestia and Luna ruled. Under their prosperous light, all life thrived, pony-kind and all others.

However, one particular night, Luna, feeling resentment at how pony-kind seemed to prefer the light of Celestia instead of hers, performed a horrible ritual. She seeked to tap into the Ether, the plane of magic itself, and siphon its energies.

This ritual went awry, drawing the attention of the ire of Celestia herself, but Luna was too corrupted by the power she seeked to pilfer, inadvertently birthing forth the first Demons from the Ether.

Celestia managed to seal away the horrors and rescue her sister from the Ether’s grasp, but it cost her own life.

Luna, heartbroken, vanished as well, even in her ponies' most dire time of need.

But the sealing was not perfect.

Slowly but surely, the Ether began to creep back into the world, and along with it came once more the Demonic tides of—

Thunk.

Twilight stops reading her book, glancing at a small wooden timer on the table in front of her.

Break time's over.

The scribe puts her book into her satchel bag before neatly pushing her chair in. She leaves the scriptorium, heading back towards the archives.

As she walks through the halls, she glances up and out the stone windows, towards the crimson sky.

The sun shrines a brilliant red, as always. Although, the anti-gargoyle wiring and armored pegasi patrollers do hamper the sight, somewhat.

Eventually, she reaches the archives. The unicorn notices an aisle with some out-of-order books, and quickly gets to sorting them.

Although most ponies probably wouldn’t enjoy such a menial job and life like this, simply shuffling books around, Twilight is perfectly content. She knows she serves a small but important purpose within The Order—

"AHHHHH!!!"

There’s a piercing shriek in the next room over, followed by a bang.

Twilight immediately looks over the direction with shock, but hesitates.

Should she get help??? If there’s something or somepony dangerous over there, then there’s no way she could handle it…

Against better judgment, she runs to the room.

Her eyes widen at the grizzly sight.

A pony lays splayed out across the floor, face down…

Atop a giant pile of books!

A few of the shelves on a nearby bookshelf look like they fell out, making a huge mess!

Twilight immediately runs next to the pony and pile, with a mixture of concern and annoyance.

“Minuette! What happened???” She asks.

The fallen unicorn picks her head up, rubbing her temple slightly. Her blue coat somewhat frazzled.

“I was trying to put a book on one of the top shelves, but I missed my footing on the ladder and a bunch of the aisles fell down!” She exclaims.

Twilight groans.

“We need to sort this before we get in trouble!” she says, hastily picking up and putting the shelves back into place, before putting some books in their correct orders.

Minuette slowly gets to her hooves, somewhat embarrassed, before helping the other unicorn.

As Twilight puts the books away, she tries to not actually look at them too much.

Scribes like herself aren’t supposed to actually read the various tomes and books that their Monastery has, only sort and catalog them. The information in these could prove very dangerous in the wrong hands, and leave them more susceptible to Demonic influence.

Although, she can’t help but peek a few words here and there. One that sticks out in particular to her is “Vessel”.

She tries to focus on the task at hand, as the two continue to hurriedly putting books back.

“Come on! We can’t let anypony—”

“See what such a mess you’ve made?” A smug voice says.

Minuette and Twilight’s eyes go wide and they immediately freeze, slowly turning over to the source of the voice.

Senior Scribe Starlight.

She casually strolls next to the two lower scribes, simply looking them up and down with semi-squinted eyes, and a smirk.

“I knew you two were subpar, but this is a whole new level!” She says.

“Hey, Starlight. Care to help?” Twilight asks, completely unphased.

“Oh sure. Make me clean up your mess during my break. The senior responds.

“Actually it was my mess, so—”

Starlight holds a hoof to Minuettes face without even looking at her. Minuette slinks down and away.

“But sure. I’ll ‘help’. ” Starlight chides.

Her horn glows a light blue. All of the remaining books are quickly and accurately put back into their respective spots with little effort.

The act completely mugs what Twilight and Minuette could do with their magic combined.

Minuette feels the burn, but Twilight looks relieved.

“Thanks, Starlight.” She says with a smile.

Starlight’s smugness smirk becomes a frown, not getting the reaction she wanted.

“Bah! You can stonewall me all you want, but it won’t pay off. Especially not today!”

Twilight looks confused.

“What’s happening today?” She asks.

Starlight puts a hoof to her mouth, feigning unintention.

“Oops! I’ve said too much... Doesn’t matter though, since it won’t pertain to either of you anyways!"

With a magical flick of the door, she takes her leave, snickering.

Minuette looks at Twilight, somewhat bewildered.

"How did you manage to stay so calm? You know she's messing with us, right?"

Twilight shrugs. "Yeah, I know. I just don't let it get to me."

Minuette huffs. "I wish I was able to ignore it half as well as you do."

"You'll get used to it." Twilight replies. She puts a hoof to her temple. "I do wonder, though. What was she talking about right before she left? Something about 'today'?"

The blue unicorn rolls her eyes. “She’s just talking about that Delta-Level Demon Hunter coming this evening.”

Twilight lights up, surprised. "Delta-level??? That’s huge! The highest I've ever seen before is an Epsilon!” she exclaims.

Minuette raises an eyebrow. “That’s only one level lower than Delta, Twilight.”

“Yes, I know, but still! The differences are exponential, Minuette!”

Twilight pauses.

“Wait, how come you know about this and I don’t? Did I miss something?” Twilight asks.

“All of Monastery Light has known about it for a while! Have you not talked to anypony else recently?”

Twilight looks down somewhat, clearly a bit embarrassed. Minuette’s eyes widen.

“Uh! I mean… I had my last shift with Starlight, and that’s all she would talk about. She kept rambling about how she was going to be the ‘chosen one’ and ‘be free’ from here.” The blue unicorn clarifies.

Twilight looks somewhat confused. “What? ‘Chosen one’? ‘Be free’? Is she crazy?”

Minuette shakes her head. “Apparently, whenever a Demon Hunter reaches Delta level, they’re assigned a personal scribe to record and recount their events and hunts, for both morale and documentation reasons. And obviously, that scribe has to come from somewhere. Most scribes are trained at Monasteries, so thats usually where they get them from." Minuette explains.

Twilight thinks for a few seconds, before the realization hits her, eyes widening.

“Are you saying that one of us is going to be picked?!” She asks.

“Uh… yes? I mean, that’s why they’re coming here—”

Twilight puts both hooves onto Minuette, with a crazed look.

“This is terrible! What if you get chosen? What if I get chosen?!” She exclaims, fearfully.

Minuette gently pushes her away.

“Is there a problem I’m not seeing, here?” She asks, a bit confused.

“Yes! A big problem! We’re going to have to leave the safety of the Monastery and go… deal with all the Demons and stuff on the outside!”

“Twilight, the job is following somepony around who actually does all of that stuff. It’s not like you’re going to be swordfighting monsters or something." She huffs. "And besides, Starlight is probably the one going to be picked, as much as I hate to admit. She’s the senior, and also the most magically attuned out of the three of us.” Minuette calmly explains.

Twilight’s still freaking out a little, but relaxes somewhat upon hearing Minuettes logical explanation.

Surely the senior scribe would be the one picked, right?

She tries to turn back to the book-shelf to shake off her thoughts, forgetting that Starlight put them all back.

“Oh. Right. Starlight re-sorted them all already.” She says.

“Does this mean our shift is done?” Minuette asks.

“I… guess? I mean—”

“I’m gonna head out right now, I’m sure we’ll be fine, considering the arrival today! See ya, Twilight!” Minuette says, leaving with some unusual haste.

Twilight frowns. She was hoping to keep working as to take her mind off the Hunter stuff...

She just sighs as she looks at the perfectly sorted aisles.

Twilight, Minuette, and some other Novice members of the Monastery watch the main gate from the Abbey, anticipating the Hunter’s arrival. Down at the main gate, a similar crowd has formed as well.

“Where the heck is he??? They said noon, right?” Snips exclaims, having to tip-hoof over a railing to get a better view.

“Patience, man. For all we know, he could be killing Demons right now!” Snails says.

Minuette face-palms. “Unless the Demon was right outside the Monastery, I severely doubt that.”

“Bunless da demon was wight outside— bahaha!” Snips mocks. Snails laughs alongside him.

Minuette squints. “How does it feel knowing neither of you will be chosen to accompany them?” She jeers.

Honestly, she doesn’t care that much about being selected, but she knows they do.

Snips and Snails groan.

“I don’t know why they’d want some lame scribes like you guys! Clearly, they should have some future hunters like us!” Snips says, striking a dramatic pose.

Minuette rolls her eyes. “Yes, because you’re just the spitting image of physical ability.” she says, scoffing.

Twilight just says nothing, looking at the gate with anxiety, tapping her hooves.

Eventually, they hear a tell-tale loud horn, signaling the gate being opened. Earthen begin to turn winches and pull ropes, the massive reinforced doors to the gate beginning to rotate. Various soldiers on the ground and pegasi above take positions, just in-case of any un-expected guests.

The gate creaks open enough for entry, and a figure walks in.

“Is that him?” Snips asks.

Minuettes eyes widen. “That’s not a him! That’s a her! Look!”

They look closer, seeing that the Delta-Rank Hunter is indeed a mare. The distance hampers their attempts somewhat, but they can make out some details.

She has an orange coat, yellow mane, and wears some sort of hat. Her face is one of pure stoicism, not showing any real emotion, besides possibly boredom. A large amount of her body is covered in armor and other garments, but from the small amounts that are clearly visible, they can see she has a well-built physique, as expected of both an experienced Hunter, and to a lesser extent an Earthen. Her face is covered with a few scars.

The other novices chatter amongst themselves, although try to keep it on the down-low. Unfortunately, not all of them have that level of respect.

“Ewwww! A girl!” Snips says. Twilight and Minuette glance at him with some disdain and annoyance.

“A fat one, too..." Snails chips in.

That one pushes Minuette over the edge. "That's not fat, idiot. That's muscle, something you two are clearly unfamiliar with."

"Ohhh!!!" The other Novices jeer, looking at the three unicorns. Snips and Snails mutter under their breath and look away, slightly red.

Twilight just continues to stare with a mixture of awe and fear. She can’t imagine having to be an assistant to a pony like this, and do whatever it is that they do.

Something dawns on her, though. “Where's Starlight? Isn't she supposed to be up here with us?" Twilight asks towards Minuette.

Before she can answer, the two see Starlight all the way at the gate already, quickly approaching the Hunter. They can’t hear what the unicorn says, but they visibly see her bow while closing her eyes. The Hunter barely stops to register her presence, simply walking on with a slight glance her way.

“What a suck-up.” Minuette says, rolling her eyes.

As the gate is closed behind her, the leader of Monastery Light, Abbot Firelight proceeds to meet her. The two exchange a few words, before proceeding towards the Abbey alongside some other members of the Monastery.

The Hunter glances up, her gaze meeting with Twilight's.

The unicorn’s eyes widen, quickly shrinking and looking away from the edge. Hopefully the Hunter doesn't recognize her later.

Twilight thinks for a moment. Surely, they need to make like... arrangements and preparations or something similar? She should maybe have an hour or two before—

An older pony enters the chamber. “The scribes among you, please do make your way down to the Nave. The selection will begin soon.”

Minuette nods, and quickly begins to head there, while Twilight just stares blankly.

It’s happening already?!?!

Twilight, Minuette, and Starlight stand together, in that order. They’re in the center of the Nave, the most important room in all of Monastery Light.

The Monastery has really went all out with this, storing away all the pews, tables, and a lot of other decorations in order to give a more open and flat area for the process.

All around the room, a large amount of Order ponies stare and watch the three. Abbot Firelight and the Hunter stand by side in front of the trio, almost inspecting them.

Starlight looks as confident as ever, trying not to look obviously smug. Minuette just looks with a smile, prepared for whatever happens next.

Meanwhile, Twilight is trying to keep herself from completely breaking down. Not only from being stared upon by basically the entire Monastery, and also not just from the situation in general, but having to face Abbot Firelight and the Hunter directly.

Up-close, the Hunter is even more imposing. She’s easily the largest mare Twilight has ever seen, bordering or even surpassing the average earthen soldier. She’s easily half a foot taller than Twilight, and even taller than the Abbot, a rather tall stallion himself.

The Hunter scans her eyes over the three, one at a time.

Twilight’s mind races.

How is this picked?! Does the Hunter choose? Does the Abbot choose? Do they have to agree? Is it random???

After some seemingly internal deliberation, the Hunter simply points a hoof.

“That one.” She says with a strong voice.

Twilight looks at where the hoof is directed at.

Her.

She can immediately feel her heart sink.

There’s some murmurs from the spectators. Minuette looks surprised, and Firelight looks shocked. In particular, Starlight looks completely flabbergasted, jaw dropping.

“A-are you sure you’re not mistaken? Starlight is the center one.” The Firelight whispers. It’s loud enough for the trio to hear, but not the spectators.

“I’m sure.” The Hunter responds, simply.

Firelight stammers a bit. “Surely you—”

“I made my decision.” The Hunter says, a bit more sternly. Firelight gulps a little, backing off.

Twilight barely has a reaction of her own, just frozen.

Starlight’s is enough to make up for Twilight’s slack, though.

She steps forward, clearly angry.

“Father, is this serious? She—”

Firelight immediately puts a hoof up, snapping to face her.

“Silence.” He hushes, sternly.

Starlight immediately slinks back to her spot. She shoots a glare at Twilight, and then at the Hunter.

The Hunter meets her stare, facial expression not changing whatsoever. She then turns back to Firelight.

“Alright. Take us to your Captain.”

Twilight, the Hunter, Abbot Firelight, and the Captain Hammerhead sit around a table within a private room of the Monastery Light's Chapter Hall.

Twilight and the Hunter sit on one side, and the Abbot and Captain sit on the other.

It’s obviously very awkward for Twilight, who’s upper half barely sits above the table's level. Not to mention, she’s still in shock.

Hammerhead Mccolt, commander of the Monasteries' fighting forces, looks at the Hunter with a bit of confusion.

“Er… just for clarity, you picked her to be your personal scribe?”

He doesn’t ask the question with disdain, more like genuine confusion.

The Hunter nods without saying a word, leaning back in her chair somewhat.

Captain Hammerhead and Abbot Firelight share a brief glance, before looking back at the two others.

“Okay then. Suppose we need to finalize it then.”

He pulls out a small ink-pad and document, sliding it in front of both ponies.

“Please stamp this with your hooves, it will officialize the selection.”

The Hunter looks at it with some brief disdain, before stamping her hoof into the ink with an audible thump, creaking the table somewhat.

The noise snaps Twilight out of her trance, eyes re-focusing on the room around her.

The Hunter proceeds to roughly presses her hoof onto the paper, creating a deep blotch with small dots around it in a mess.

Twilight looks down at the paper herself, barely paying attention, but enough to know what she’s supposed to do, but also what stamping it will do.

What option does she have? Can she refuse it? Is it possible to run away???

Her thoughts are interrupted by the Hunter snorting, and flicking her own head slightly.

Wrap it up.

Twilight quickly dips her hoof onto the pad, before gently and tidily pressing onto the paper, something she’s rather experienced at due to her work as a scribe.

The contrast between the large, deep, and messy print next to the small and fine one is almost comedic.

The Hunter sneers.

Hammerhead takes the paper away, the large blue stallion clearing his throat.

“Alright. Scribe Twilight Sparkle, and Demon Hunter…”

He pauses, looking towards the Hunter, expecting her to say her name.

She simply stares back at him without changing her expression whatsoever.

“Demon Hunter. I’ll just say Demon Hunter. You are now bonded by order, law, and Celestia herself. Inseparable through whatever trials and tribulations that may face you in your futures.”

The words strangle Twilight like she owes them money.

Inseparable.

“Insoupable, yeah. Got it. Besides the scribe stuff, mind tellin’ me why you summoned me here?” The Hunter asks.

Hammerhead looks around, as if to make sure there’s no prying eyes or ears around.

“We believe there’s a Devourer terrorizing the outskirts of Monastery Light. It’s been praying on exploration and scouting squads, we assume somewhere around five or six victims to date.”

The Hunter’s stoicism streak breaks, being replaced with one of anger and shock.

“You waited until NOW to call me?! Depending on where that darn thing started, the Anima it’s fed on could have propelled’ it to either Epsilon or Delta level!”

Hammerhead and Firelight look ashamed.

“We… didn’t want to request help. We believed we could handle—” Firelight is cut off.

The Hunter stands up, slamming her hooves on the table. There's some small cracking noises.

“You believed wrong. Because now we’re dealin’ with something much worse than a simple Devourer! Hunters exist to be called upon, not to be the clean-up for when your mess' gets too big to handle!” She growls.

Firelight and Hammerhead both shy away from her.

Twilight just stares forward, blankly.

Anima? Devourer?

She’s gone from being forbidden learning even moderate Demon terms to apparently being in a situation that requires utmost secrecy due to the direness. She can't even imagine attempting to ask what those words mean right now.

Hammerhead regains his bearings somewhat, clearing his throat.

“We’ve narrowed down its feeding patterns and grounds, however. It prefers to attack groups of two to four, which should make you two viable targets.” He says.

The Hunter sits back in her chair with a creak.

“Great. You made a fed Devourer and now I have to play bait with a helpless Scribe?” She scoffs.

Firelight and Hammerhead slowly nod.

Twilight would probably feel offended if the Hunter wasn’t completely right.

“It would probably be more effective if you had a scribe who was more… magically gifted.” Firelight says, just low enough to not be a whisper.

The Hunter glares at him, clearly understanding the implication.

“We’ll give you two any resources you need, but you’ll have to do it on your own.” Hammerhead chimes in, trying to appease and defuse the Hunter.

The Hunter scoffs.

“Wouldn’t have asked it’ any other way.” She says, clearly unamused. “Give me a map, sharpen my sword, and I’ll be out of it.”

She unsheathes and drops a large sword onto the table, with a large clunk. Hammerhead and Firelight both eye it nervously.

Back at the main gate, Twilight and The Hunter wait for it to be drawn open once more. The Hunter taps a hoof, simply waiting, while Twilight looks incredibly afraid. From a distance, she can see Minuette, Snips, and Snails watching back at her, just like she did earlier. Minuette waves her goodbye.

Starlight is nowhere to be found, but maybe that’s for the best right now.

Eventually, the gate is pulled open, an unfamiliar and cool air hitting the unicorn. The Hunter immediately walks off towards the outside, not even telling Twilight to follow, but the unicorn hastily catches up.

After the two exit, the gate isclosed behind them with a mighty thud.

Twilight looks at the new world around her…

And..!

It’s nothing. Nothing special.

The immediate outside of Monastery Light is some kind of rocky mound, elevated over a clear position, but the outskirts aren't like what Twilight expected whatsoever. She sees forests, hills, outcroppings, clearings…

it’s just... normal.

She expected fire and brimstone itself to be raining down or something, Demons immediately waiting to pounce. But it’s not that.

Now she truly doesn’t know what she’s getting into.

“Come on.” The Hunter says, beginning to head down a path. Twilight follows.

The Hunter brings out a small scroll, tossing it behind her head. Twilight barely manages to catch it. She pulls it open, seeing some kind of drawing.

“You’re the scribe. Read the map.” The Hunter says, still not turning around.

Twilight squints at the map. Firelight Monastery is listed at its center, with various environments around it. There’s various symbols, lines, and other markings, but she doesn’t understand what they mean.

“Uh… I dont—”

The Hunter quickly snatches it away from her, giving the unicorn a bit of a startle. The Hunter glances at it for a few seconds, before immediately knowing what to do.

“We’ll be headin’ west, and then turning north until we reach the crest’ of the Outskirts, then loop back around on the other side.”

“Okay…” Twilight says. She’s basically a passenger right now.

After about an hour of travel, Twilight feels like they should've been attacked long ago, but The Hunter knows better.

Hunts are about endurance. Unfortunately, that is something Twilight sorely lacks.

She’s already beginning to get tired, her gait becoming shaky and unsteady. Meanwhile, The Hunter doesn’t look like she’s broken a single sweat, even with carrying the heavier equipment.

“Can… can we stop somewhere to… rest…?” Twilight pants.

“No can' do. The longer we wait, the worse this becomes.” The Hunter says, continuing to walk.

Twilight takes a deep breath and tries to keep up.

After about twenty or thirty more minutes, she can’t take it anymore. She collapses on the ground, exhausted.

The Hunter hearing the ‘thump’, pauses. She turns around with an unamused look, and approaches the unicorn.

“L-look… just give me like a… ten minute brea— wuh—!”

The Hunter lifts her into the air with one hoof, tossing the unicorn onto her back and continuing to walk like nothing happened.

“Like I said. We can’t waste time.” Is all she bothers to say.

“A… are you sure… about this?” She asks.

“Please. My armor probably weighs more than you do.”

Twilight feels a mixture of embarrassment and shame, but is honestly too tired to protest or try to get back on her hooves. She simply collapses against the earthen’s back.

Twilight is shaken awake, or more specifically, tossed. The Hunter simply leaned to a side, letting Twilight roll off into the dirt below.

“We’ll set up camp here for the night.”

The unicorn slowly picks her head up, spitting out some dirt. She processes the words.

The night?!

Not only does that mean this psycho wants to stay out here throughout the night, but…

Twilight looks up, seeing that it’s been long enough for the Moon to begin rising.

How long was she out???

The Hunter is already rolling out Equestrias smallest sleeping mat. Not even a pillow or blanket.

Thankfully, Twilight had time to pack those for herself, but she's still having to effectively sleep on bare ground.

“Do you really just sleep like that?” Twilight asks, gesturing to the Hunters' lackluster sleeping arrangement.

The Hunter barely glances at her.

“Yeah.” She says, disinterestedly.

The earthen turns away to gather some nearby trees to gather some wood for a fire, snapping off a few branches and making a small pile in the dirt. Twilight simply watches her, unsure of what she's supposed to do.

She uses one of the few spells she knows – Illuminate – to hopefully let the two of them see their surroundings better, creating a small cone of purplish light.

The Hunter gives her the side-eye. “Turn that damn thing off.”

Twilight immediately does so, a bit surprised from the crassness.

The Hunter lifts a single hoof to the pile, holding it there for a second or two. Twilight wonders what she’s trying to do, but her question is quickly answered.

A small jet of fire erupts from her hoof, easily lighting the wood on fire. Twilight looks shocked.

“D-did you just use magic???”

The Hunter takes a seat, intentionally looking away from her.

“No.”

She doesn’t elaborate further.

The two sit in silence for some minutes, The Hunter making no attempt to talk with Twilight.

Twilight tries to do it for her.

“So… I don’t think I caught your name back at the Monastery, did I?”

“Nope.”

There’s another few moments of silence.

“...so what is it?” Twilight probes.

“Is it important?” The Hunter says, finally looking at her, but with a glare instead of any sort of reciprocation.

Twilight gulps.

“...yes?” She says.

The Hunter thinks for a moment.

“My name is S.O.” She says.

Twilight lights up a little, feeling like she’s getting somewhere.

“Really? That’s an interesting name! Does it stand for something?”

“It does. Screw. Off.” The Hunter says, now fully turning away.

Twilight’s very quickly frowns, mainly out of disappointment, but also a little sadness.

Those two emotions slowly begin to compound on each other, until a new one is in their stead. Anger.

Anger at being taken away from something she enjoyed. Anger from being thrust into this situation without a choice.

“What is your problem???” Twilight asks, with an annoyed tone.

The Hunter perks up somewhat, still not looking Twilight's way.

“I don’t get it. Aren’t we supposed to be like… partners or something? You come to the Monastery, pick me instead of the other Scribes… and then what? You just ignore me forever? What do you want me to do?”

With a surprising amount of speed, The Hunter turns around, and closes the gap between the two of them. She doesn’t even avoid the fire, walking straight through it.

Twilight naturally scampers back, but The Hunter grabs her by the mane.

“Let’s get one thing straight. I didn’t pick you. I picked a scribe. I was forced to get one of you useless shits’ against my will. I ‘picked you’ because you were the first one in the line. There's nothing else to it. That stupid paper may say we’re ‘partners’ or somethin’, but I don’t care. You’re nopony and nothing.”

She leans in further.

“You and I may both be in The Order… but don’t push it. There’s two more scribes back at Firelight, if something were to… happen to you.” She says, under her breath.

She lets go of Twilight’s mane, ending with a shove. Twilight is thrown back, recoiling. Less from the blow, and more from that entire horrible lay-out and threat. She just slinks back, afraid.

The Hunter looks around, now fired up. She growls, looking up at the moon now having begun to rise in the horizon.

She mutters something under her breath.

The Hunter turns back to the still quivering Twilight, tossing something near her hooves. Some sort of dagger.

"I’m goin’ to go search for something. Do not move.” She instructs.

Before Twilight can even protest, The Hunter has already disappeared into the tree-line.

Twilight scoots up to the fire, holding the dagger. The closest thing she’s ever held before was a kitchen knife, and that still made her a bit queasy. Now she’s holding this clearly worn and used dagger, huddling around a fire in the middle of a dark clearing.

Minutes pass. Still nothing.

Her mind quickly begins to race with paranoia. What if the Hunter abandoned her???

She did threaten to kill her… or something similar. But if she really was going to do that, why would she leave Twilight to her own devices? What if she just didn't want to do the deed herself??? No... a pony like that would have no trouble killing something... right?

Her panicked thoughts are interrupted by some nearby sounds.

“Help! Help!”

It sounds like a distressed stallion.

Twilight immediately gets to her hooves, looking at the direction.

“Help! I’m st-stuck! Help!” he cries again.

Twilight’s gaze flashes between the direction of the voice and her knife.

The Hunter told her to stay here no matter what…

But if that pony needs her help, and The Hunter truly did abandon her…

Then somepony has to do it.

Steeling her will, she rushes towards the sound, dagger in-hand. She lights up the area around her using Illuminate.

Eventually, she comes across some sort of cliffside, hearing the voice very close.

“Help! It’s here!” The voice says again.

“Hello?! Where are you!” Twilight says, not being able to find the source.

“Help! Help!”

Twilight finally manages to pin down the voice's location, running nearby to some sort of ditch.

She’s about to peer in, but…

“Help! I’m st-stuck! Help!”

The voice calls again… with the exact same cadence and stutter as before.

“Help! It’s here! It’s here!” The voice says again. It’s beginning to sound more gurgly…

Twilight begins to back away, picking up that something isn’t right.

She feels the ground shake below her, and hears dirt and rocks being moved. The ditch visibly moves and vibrates.

“It’s here! It’s here! It’s here! It’s hereeeee!”

There’s a pause. Twilight doesn’t dare move.

“IT’S HEREEEE!”

A worm-like creature bursts from the ground from the inside of the ditch, immediately locking onto Twilight.

It has four limbs like a pony, but each looks like it has too many joints, some of them having different amounts as the others. It doesn’t have a head, instead its torso simply extending upwards and out, with a giant row of sharp teeth and a multitude of beady eyes. It has the remnants of what could be described as some sort of ‘mane’, a few mangy pieces of hair on its ‘head’.

It screeches loud enough to hurt Twilight’s ears. She screams in terror, sprinting away as fast as she can, as it crawls after her.

In her fear, she dropped both the dagger and the Illuminate spell. In the darkness, it doesn’t take her long for her to take a wrong step, tripping over a rock and sprawling out.

She continues to crawl as the Demon chases her, eventually being pushed to the edge of the cliffside.

Twilight looks straight down, not being able to judge the distance of the fall. Even if it was short, this thing would have a much easier time surviving the fall than she would.

She can only scream as the Demon reaches her, immediately grabbing her and lifting her up with its ‘forelegs’.

“HELLLPPPP!!!” Twilight cries.

“HELLLPPPP!!!” The Demon cries back, in her own voice.

The Demon proceeds to begin to lower her into its mouth from above. Its many rows of teeth rotate violently and rapidly within its maw like a blender. Twilight shakes and thrashes, but she can’t budge it's grip by the smallest inch.

Before her hindlegs touch the gaping maw, though…

“HEY!”

Both the Demon and Twilight look over.

The Hunter stands on a piece of the cliffside, a few meters away. Her sword is drawn.

She glares straight at the Demon with an intensity even greater than she did during her lay-out of Twilight.

“Let. Her. Go.” The Hunter says with a cold lethality.

Twilight looks at The Hunter like she’s crazy.

Is she trying to talk to this monster?!

Suddenly, Twilight hears some sort of... heaving?

No…

Laughter.

The Demon is laughing.

It proceeds to lift Twilight high in the air with one leg, safely taking her away from its maw, but now beginning to shake her like a bag of groceries.

It stands more upright, pointing its head and body towards the sky, using its spindly hindlegs as a stable base.

“Anima. She.” Each word is in a different voice.

It makes a low rumbling noise.

“Anima. YOU.”

It makes a high pitched screech, the vibrations metaphorically and physically shaking Twilight to her core.

The Hunter herself almost laughs. “Oh, you want me instead of her?”

“Anima. YOU. Anima.”

The Hunter nods a few times, puckering her bottom lip like she's being amicable.

“Alright. How about this? Let her go, and I’ll make your death as painless as possible.”

“ARE YOU SERIOUSLY THREATNING IT RIGHT NOW?!” Twilight screams, still being dangled in the air.

"Not a threat if I'm goin' to do it!" The Hunter retorts.

The Demon laughs back.

“She. Go?”

Its spindly leg suddenly holds Twilight off the edge of the cliffside. She looks down with terror.

The Hunter’s confidence is instantly replaced with one of horror.

"NO!" The earthen yells.

The Demon simply gives another laugh.

“Go?”

It lets go of Twilight.

The unicorn screams as she plummets off the cliff.

The Hunter bites her tongue, sheathing her sword and leaping off the cliff-side as fast as she can.

She rockets into Twilight, grabbing and curling around the unicorn in order to protect her.

The two smack the ground hard, The Hunter first and Twilight atop her.

Thankfully, the fall wasn’t as big as either expected, but they’re still dazed.

As the Hunter lays on her back, looking up, her eyes widen when she sees a dark blotch in the moonlight rapidly get bigger and closer.

She quickly tosses Twilight aside, causing the unicorn to skid onto the nearby dirt.

The Hunter herself barely has time to get away, the Demon smashing onto the ground at the position she previously was, before immediately lunging towards the earthen.

The Hunter reaches for her sword, but realizes it was thrown aside in the fall. She's about to dive to try and grab it, but the Demon tackles into her, sending the two sprawling away.

They roll on the ground a few times, the Demon screeching straight into the Hunter’s face, sending her mane all over the place. Its maw spins like a cyclone as it attempts to get at her face, as The Hunter desperately tries to hold it's head back with her forehooves.

Unfortunately, the body-weight of the Demon is working against her due to being below the monster. The Hunter yells back in fury as she tries to resist.

Twilight gets back to her senses, eyes re-focusing and widening upon seeing The Hunter's predicament. The unicorn is completely lost on what to do.

She thinks about the dagger the Hunter gave her, before realizing she lost it when the Demon first appeared.

But then she sees something glowing in the moonlight nearby…

Her eyes widen further.

She immediately sprints to grab The Hunter’s sword. It’s very heavy, with her being barely able to lift it at all, let alone swing the thing.

But she won’t need to be able to swing it for this.

Managing to push down all her rational thoughts and fears, she simply runs forward, sword in hoof.

The Demon and The Hunter react at the last second, seeing Twilight rapidly approach in the corner of their eyes.

SHANK!

The Demon screams as Twilight runs through its side with The Hunter’s sword, plunging straight into its torso. The blade goes surprisingly deep.

It swings at Twilight wildly with one of its legs. The unicorn manages to step away quick enough to avoid the first strike, but gets glanced immediately by the next one, sending her sprawling to the ground.

The Demon continues striking wildly, now towards The Hunter, but the earthen is better prepared this time.

The Hunter catches one of the Demon's arm with one hoof, before pulling on it hard and striking at one of its joints with her free hoof. The Demon screeches as its disproportionately spindly and thin leg gets broken.

The Demon shoots up, attempting to fall back down and crush The Hunter with its mass, but the Hunter manages to roll to the side of The Demon that her sword was embedded in.

She points her body up, bucking at the still-lodged sword. The blade is forced upwards further, cleaving the Demon's torso a third of the way across. It screeches once more, blood now flowing from its mouth.

Before the Demon even has time to try anything else, The Hunter is already back to her hooves. She grabs the sword with both forehooves and forcefully pulls it all the way around the Demon's torso, bisecting it into two nearly even halves.

The Demon gives a shrill screech as it's sliced apart, before collapsing. It’s bottom half disintegrates almost instantly, but its top half still has some life in it.

The Hunter quickly cleaves its ‘face’ both vertically and horizontally, leaving its maw mouth looking like a paper fortune teller.

“He… lp…” Is all the Demon can manage to gurgle. The voice sounds like Twilight's, but distorted and bloodied.

After giving one final look of disgust, the Hunter simply points her hoof at the Demon's shish kabob'd face.

The Demon's few remaining functional eyes briefly focus onto the hoof, before it's entire head is engulfed in a jet of flames, completely incinerated.

After a few seconds, The Demon's remaining body disintegrates into nothingness, vanquished.

The Hunter quickly goes to Twilight’s side.

The unicorn twitches and spasms on the ground somewhat, although more likely from adrenaline or shock rather than her injuries, which are thankfully rather minor. Her eyes are dull and barely open.

The Hunter puts her hooves on the unicorn, shaking her firmly.

Twilight’s eyes come back into focus, instinctively throwing a hoof into The Hunter's face. Shocked, the unicorn quickly raises her hooves to her own face.

“Sorry!” She cries.

The Hunter recoils a little, but simply looks back like nothing happened.

She extends out a hoof. Twilight thinks The Hunter is about to punch her or something, but she holds it there.

“Come on. Take it.” The earthen says, shaking her hoof a little.

Twilight cautiously takes her hoof, The Hunter lifting her upright. The unicorn is somewhat confused.

“W-Where’s the Demon?!” Twilight says, looking around rapidly.

“Exorcized” The Hunter says, nonchalantly.

She barely has time to feel relief, before she suddenly buckles to the ground, slumping over. The Hunter barely catches her.

“Can… we just go back to... the Monastery?” Twilight mutters.

The Hunter somewhat gently slings Twilight across her back.

"Yes. We will go back right now. Our job is done." The Hunter says.

Twilight coughs.

“When... we get back there... I'm done. I’m quitting this whole thing when we get back… document be damned.”

The Hunter has a somewhat sorrowful look.

“I have bad news for ya'... Anypony who has had a large hand in slayin' a Demon of at least Epsilon-level will become—”

Twilight blacks out.

Author's Note

New story time! Hopefully I don't run into the same dead-ends as the previous story.

Criticism, advice, and feedback is GREATLY appreciated. Please tell me about any and all honest thoughts you have, no matter how critical.

Please beat me up if you see any typo's, errors, or excessive repeats of phrases/words.

Chapter 2 - Pleasant Joke

Badlands.

The ‘official’ designation for any area without a direct Order presence, usually being areas such as Demon Wastes, Outlaw settlements, or even territories of other factions such as the Ebony Guild, Un-Axis, or Bottomline Industries.

Anything and everything can happen in these lawless and volatile lands.

Although, Scootaloo could probably care less about the specifics when she’s simply trying to survive.

The pegasus filly eyes her surroundings carefully.

It's been weeks since her escape from her villages' destruction, but she barely feels any more familiar with this place than before.

She grabs a nearby rock, before chucking it as far as she can manage. The throw is rather weak and pitiful, but it gets far enough.

A few seconds pass, and nothing.

This is as good a signal as she can get that the ‘coast is clear’. She cautiously inches out of her burrow, proceeding to venture further through the rocky trail she’s found herself in.

In hindsight, traveling to somewhere this barren probably wasn’t a good idea when the goal was to find food or water, but that giant snake thing scared her straight out of the nearby forest.

After some more scavenging, her eyes widen. She finds a jack-pot.

A clean stream of water!

She immediately runs over as fast as her tiny legs can manage, beginning to drink straight away. She briefly recalls something about ‘not drinking too fast when you haven’t drank water in a long time’, but she doesn’t care right now, continuing to drink to her heart's content.

The filly suddenly hears a noise behind her. Like a stick breaking.

With no hesitation, she skitters away as quickly as possible, finding a suitable hiding spot inside of a bush.

She peeks a singular eye out, staring at the direction of the noise.

Eventually, she sees the culprit.

A ‘pony’ walks — no — stumbles into view. It’s clearly not a regular pony, moving more like it’s being puppeted, and having hollow black eyes. One of its legs is visibly broken, and it’s covered with various cuts and bruises, but it doesn’t seem daunted whatsoever.

When it moves further into view, Scootaloo can see it appears to be dragging what looks like another pony. Either a corpse, or an unconscious pony.

The shambling pony drags it near the stream, letting go. Its jaw unhinges, revealing a black fog similar to its eyes. After the fog fully leaves the body, it dissipates into the air, and the pony collapses. It’s body falls into the stream, being carried away.

Scootaloo barely reacts to this bizarre display. She’s seen much worse and stranger things recently.

But she’s more enticed by the dropped pony. She does her rock trick again, and after ‘confirming’ it's clear, she slinks out towards it.

She gives it a few pokes, trying to see if they’re really dead or unconscious. Either way, they don’t respond.

Scootaloo wastes no time beginning to rummage through the ponies clothing for anything of value.

A little part of her feels guilty about always doing this. It’s essentially grave robbing. But then again, it’s for survival, and also there’s no grave, so maybe—

"RAHHHHHHHH!!!"

The body suddenly shoots upright, eyes hollow just like the pony that fell into the stream.

Scootaloo screams as well, and scampers backwards. She tries to run away, but the re-animated pony grabs one of her legs, pulling her back roughly. It violently jerks and throttles her leg at an unnatural angle. She hears, and more importantly feels something and snap. Her eyes open wide as she screams in agony.

Instinct and fear fuels her to kick at the creatures' gangly grasp with her other leg, barely managing to free herself. She tries to make a run for it, but a horrible and throbbing sensation keeps her down. She quickly turns her head around, inspecting the aftermath of the Demons attack. Her leg looks like a jagged branch, crooked in unnatural angles. The filly can only somewhat see it straight, adrenaline causing her view to become unfocused.

With no other option, she continues to try and run, or more accurately hobble away as fast as she can. But the Demon is faster.

It leaps onto her, quickly grabbing her and forcing the filly onto her back, facing upwards. It appears to focus more on keeping her down, rather than actually killing or hurting her. But it's not exactly being gentle, either.

Scootaloo struggles, thrashing wildly, but the Demon is far too strong for her. It eventually pins her down fully, angling itself almost perfectly straight above her. Facing upwards and looking with terror, Scootaloo can see nothing except a rotted face and two hollow eyes looking back at her. She doesn't have time to take in the sight, though.

The monsters jaw unhinges, and a black fog begins to flow outwards, exactly the same thing that happened right before.

Scootaloo's already wide eyes shoot open even more. She realizes now. This thing is a Possessor! That black mist is going to take her over as a vessel!

Realizing this horrible fate, Scootaloo struggles even harder, but it's still no use. The mist bellows out further and further out of the Demon's face, inching and creeping towards her. She tries to shut her mouth, but the creature forces it open.

But... right as the mist fully leaves the creatures face and enters into hers...

Something moving very fast strikes into the creature from the side, almost immediately throwing it off of Scootaloo. She's taken a short distance away due to the monster still holding onto her, but it's separated from her anyhow. She tumbles a few times, still in immense pain, but manages to look in the general direction of the monster.

She's more surprised to see the backside of some new figure. Another pony!

She has a pink mane and tail, and a light pink coat, along with some weird clothes that Scootaloo doesn’t recognize. She's also quite big and lean, although everypony is when Scootaloo is the pony they're being compared to.

The monster quickly shoots back up, looking at the new pony with as angry of an expression its decrepit face can make. Like being attached to a chain, the mist went with the creature as well, slowly receding back into its mouth.

The pink pony simply looks back at it, before leaning back a bit and extending a hoof. She gestures forward, tilting her head slightly.

The monster lets out a horrible screech as it rushes at her, before easily being side-stepped and hoofed in the face. The blow looks like it deals immense damage, the monster's face being visibly smashed in and cracked in multiple locations.

Clearly not deterred, it does a wild swipe with one of its gangly legs, but the pink pony easily avoids it and strikes back with a similar level of force as the first hit.

Not waiting for the monster to act first this time, the pink pony delivers a rapid barrage of punches, each one hammering into the shambling pony like a punching bag.

Eventually, the creature can barely stand anymore, simply gurgling at the pony's direction.

The pink pony simply laughs as she leaps towards the monster, spinning in mid-air. Her tail almost appears to 'strike' the creature, sending it flying back with a loud crunch.

She puts one hoof to her side, looking at the beaten foe like she's satisfied with her work.

Scootaloo looks in awe. Is this one of those Demon Hunters??? She has to be!

The pink pony is about to turn around, but stops when she hears creaking and cracking. Scootaloo hears them as well, her amazement becoming one of confusion.

Both ponies look on as the battered creature suddenly stands up once more, its broken body beginning to somehow break even more, but seemingly on purpose this time. Its body splits open and apart, giving it a larger and wider stature. Bones and flesh snap and mold into spikes and horns, with two particularly large and curved ones bursting from the "pony's" forehead. The black mist fills in the gaps between its now dislocated limbs.

When it’s all finished, it's MUCH more imposing than before, now dwarfing the pink pony with a mass of spikes, horns, and mist. It roars towards her, the air even reaching Scootaloo quite a ways away. The filly looks horrified.

Can this pony take that thing down??? All she hears is the pinky pony chuckling in response.

The Demon screeches, wildly flailing forward, trying to stab the pink pony on its spikes. She easily side-steps them, even ducking at one point.

She jumps backwards, hoofing for the demon to come closer. It obliges, only for her tail to spring her straight into its unprotected face, giving it a swift kick.

She grabs onto its front horns, using them like handles as she continues to kick its face multiple times. After a while, its face is little more than a pulp.

The demon roars, spinning around to try and throw the pink pony off.

"Wheeeee!" She says with a laugh.

Eventually, the pink pony kicks off and away from the Demon's face, ripping off the a large part of both horns in the process. The sudden force changes causes the still-spinning Demon to lose its footing, and smash face-first into a large rock nearby.

Scootaloo looks in awe. This pony is insane.

Her amazement is quickly undercut by the sounds of further cracks and pops filling the air.

The Demon slowly gets back to its hooves, all the visible damage it took being repaired and reconnecting in real-time. Even its broken horns are pushed out and replaced with new ones.

The pink pony puts a hoof to her temple.

"Hm." She says, somewhat unamused.

The pony reaches into her pocket, pulling out some sort of sharp glass object.

Scootaloo cant get a good view of it, but certainly sees it.

Is it some kind of dagger? Syringe?

The pink pony looks at a nearby tree, a smile coming across her face.

“It sure does suck how that tree always had a propensity for falling at the worst possible time!” The pink pony says.

The demon barely has time to turn around, hearing creaking and cracking behind it. It roars as the tree comes barreling onto it, smashing its body into the ground and pinning it down.

The pink pony immediately leaps next to its face, stabbing into it with the glass object. Its screams turn into gurgles, and then simply heaves.

The Demons body quickly shrivels up, the glass object appearing to fill with some sort of red fluid.

The pink pony takes it out of the demon, flicking it a few times to watch the liquid vibrate.

Scootaloo isn’t so sure this pony is a Demon Hunter anymore. This went in a strange direction.

She should probably get out of here.

The filly begins to crawl away, but accidentally steps on a stick, a loud crack ensuing.

She bites her tongue.

Looking back, Scootaloo sees the pinky pony perk up somewhat, ears twitching a few times.

Crap.

Okay. She just needs to get back to her other hiding spot and she can hopefully wait this out…

She looks back at the direction of the pink pony once more, only to see she's entirely disappeared out of sight.

What..? She was just there a few seconds ago… Where—

“Who are we hiding from?” A voice says from behind Scootaloo.

The filly screams as she bursts out of the bush and tries to scamper away. Emphasis on the 'try', due to her busted leg.

The pink pony just nonchalantly walks after her at a brisk pace.

Eventually, she smacks into a rock, being unable to move further. She quickly turns around to look at the pony, staring straight at her.

She has a toothy smile on her face, similar to one that a psycho killer might have. But that’s far from the worst part.

Her eyes are red, with pupils and ears sharper than what a normal pony would have. Most ominously, her teeth are visibly pointed, nearly fangs.

All tell-tale signs of a monster.

“DON’T KILL ME! OR EAT ME!” Scootaloo cries, trying to cover her face with her hooves.

The pink pony tilts her head, frowning. “Why would I do that?” She asks.

“Because… you’re a monster..?” Scootalo says, nearly phrasing it like a question.

“Oh really? What type of monster am I, then?” The pink pony says, leaning in a little. She looks unamused.

“Uh… vampire?”

“Nope.”

“Werewolf.”

“No.”

“...Ghoul?”

“What?! Do I look like a ghoul to you?” The pink pony says, leaning in further to give Scootaloo a good look at her face. She almost seems offended.

“M-maybe you’re like a fresh one or something? Haven’t rotted yet..?” Scootaloo says, unsure.

The pink pony chuckles. “That was good, but still, no.”

She sports an even wider smile, while also leaning in even further. “I’m a Demon.”

Scootaloo covers her face with her hooves and screams, again.

The pink pony covers the fillies' mouth quickly. “Hey! Don’t scream. We don’t know if there’s any more Demons out here!”

“MMPMPPH MP MMPHM!” Scootaloo says, muffled.

“Oh, sorry.” The pink pony takes her hoof off with a ‘pop’.

“What do you mean more Demons?! You’re a Demon!”

The pink pony face-hooves. “Demons like… that guy.”

She hoofs towards the shriveled and crushed corpse, while leaning in. “Be real. Who scared you more?” the pony asks, putting on a pleasant smile and blinking a few times, fit with overly large eyelashes.

Scootaloo can’t help but admit that she sure looks a lot more amicable than the giant spike dude thing.

“Okay… why did you save me, then? Are you going to possess me?”

“I can’t do that.”

“Use me for blood sacrifices?”

“I don’t use blood for rituals.”

“Eat me?”

“I already said I wasn’t going to kill or eat you!” The pink pony snaps.

Scootaloo looks down, afraid.

The pink pony suddenly softens, feeling bad.

“Okay, look. Here’s an important lesson. There are different kinds of Demons, just like there’s different kinds of ponies! Some are bad, and some are… Well, less bad? Point is, I’m not gonna kill or eat you or something.” The pink pony assures.

“Oh yeah, of course you would say you’re a less bad Demon.”

“Would a not-less bad Demon not have not spared you already?”

“...Yes?" Scootaloo pauses. "Wait, no. I lost track of what you’re saying.”

The pink pony thinks. “Crap. I lost track too. Look, I’m just trying to say that I’m not gonna hurt you.” She says, genuinely.

She steps away, giving Scootaloo some space.

“As a gesture of good will, I’ll even tell you some things about me! I’m what’s known as a ‘Fiend’, a half Demon, half pony! So if it makes you feel any better, I’m not actually a full demon.”

“Fiend? Isn’t that like… a term for bad people?” Scootaloo asks.

The pink pony frowns. “It’s just a name. A word. Why don’t you tell me your name?”

Scootaloo is about to answer, but thinks. She remembers hearing something about Demons and ‘true names’ having powers… maybe she shouldn't give her real name to this thing.

“Cassy. My name is Cassy.”

“Okay, Cassy. You know what Cassy sounds like? Ass. Are you an ass?”

“Okay, okay! I get it. It’s just a name.” Scootaloo says, putting her hooves up defensively.

The pink pony ‘hmph’s, a bit.

Scootaloo stops to think about what she said before that.

“Wait, did you say half Demon and half pony? How even does that work..?”

The pink pony waves a hoof. “It’s simple, really! My mom was a Demon and my dad was a very courageous stallion.”

The filly blinks a few times.

“Just kidding! That’s not how this works. I was actually created through the ritual of merging a Demon and pony’s essence into one composite being, haha!” the pink pony clarifies.

Scootaloo can’t tell which is worse.

“Anyways. Fiends have much more autonomy than regular Demons do. Full Demons are usually mindlessly or fully evil like Mr. Spike over there, unless they're being controlled by somepony. But Fiends are basically equal to regular ponies in what they want to do! We don't go around posessing little fillies or something like that.”

Scootaloo looks a bit unsure. "Can I know your name?" She asks.

The pink pony smiles widely. "Sure! My name is Pinkie Pie."

Immediately, Scootaloo begins to think. If this Demon is actually a danger to her despite what she's saying, then maybe she could use its name against it...

Although, she doesn't even know if that was its true name. Or if the true name stuff is even real. And even if it was, she'd likely be killed the moment she tried to use it...

As she thinks, the fillies' eyes drift towards the glass tool still in Pinkie’s hoof, and the red liquid within.

“Uh. Is that… blood?” Scootaloo asks.

Pinkie looks at herself, thinking she has blood somewhere on her clothes, before looking at the vial.

“Oh! No. This is called ‘Anima’. It’s kind of like blood, but it's more magical and cool! It’s also mainly a Demon thing, but everypony has it in them. Including you.”

Scootaloo looks at herself with some surprise. “I’m a demon?!” She exclaims.

Pinkie face-hooves.

“No, I just said everypony has it. But in regular and average ponies, it's so small that it barely even registers. That’s why most Demons try to prey on stronger ponies!”

“So what was his deal, then?” Scootaloo asks, gesturing to the shriveled corpse, again.

“Probably was just a loser. Or didn’t like fillies. Some Demons are like that.”

The filly looks at the Demon again.

"...is it actually dead? Aren't Demons supposed to like, disappear when they die?" She asks.

"That's just the remains of whoever it was possessing. Those don't get exorcised. The actual Demon is already gone, though."

Scootaloo blinks a few times. "Huh." She tries to get to her hooves, but stumbles a bit, the bad leg hampering her.

Pinkie frowns, seeing her injury.

“Say, how about I take you back to my place? You look like you could use some help!” Pinkie exclaims.

Scootaloo puts her hooves up. “Listen, I’m thankful for being saved from a horrible demonic fate and all… but I don’t know about going back to… wherever you live.”

Pinkie frowns. “Come on! What else do you really have going on for you back here? Judging from your current state, it looks like the world hasn’t been kind to you.” She says, looking at the malnourished and injured filly.

Scootaloo realizes Pinkie is right. It's a living hell out here. Besides, it's unlikely she'll ever be taken back at The Order with how much she's interacted with this Demon.

At least she could probably get some good rest.

“Fine. But I don’t think I’m in any state to travel right now…”

Pinkie smirks, tilting her head. “You know, it sure is lucky how that Demon didn’t hurt you at all.”

Scootaloo is about to say something, when she realizes the pain in her leg is gone. She quickly lifts it, seeing it look as good as new.

“Wh-what?! How did you do that?” Scootaloo asks, bewildered.

“Retrocausality. I can alter how things went in the past to make different effects in the present.”

Scootaloo blinks a few times, trying to wrap that around her tiny filly brain.

“Wouldn’t that mean you’re, like, a god?”

Pinkie laughs.

“Hah! Sadly, no. I’m not that powerful. I can only alter something so much, and it become significantly harder the more distant or larger the change is. I also need to say it out loud for it to work, so that's a natural balancer.”

Pinkie briefly inspects Scootaloo’s extremely unhealthy frame, frowning.

“How old are you?” She asks.

“Fifteen.”

The Fiend puts a hoof to her temple.

“Oh geez. Older than I expected… oh well!”

She takes a deep breath.

“Thankfully, you’ve been fed well and physically active for the past…" Pinkie pauses to think of an appropriate amount of time. "...year.”

Scootaloo immediately feels different. She looks down at herself, lifting a leg to get a better close.

She’s still skinny, but she doesn’t look or feel like a skeleton anymore.

She jumps a few times, not feeling any pain!

“Woah! This is amazing! Thank you!” She exclaims.

Pinkie gives a somewhat weary smirk, visibly a bit tired. "You're... welcome."

“...but uh… can you go further..?” Scootaloo asks, tilting her head and smiling. She wouldn't mind being more fit.

Pinkie immediately frowns.

“Doing that already was quite energy intensive. It only gets harder the further I go from the baseline reality, so… technically, yes. Practically? No."

Scootaloo thinks, her eyes widening.

"Oh! what about... my wings..?"

The filly flares out her wings, or at least she tries to. The pathetic and shriveled feathers and bones barely move at all.

Pinkie cringes a little, not out of disgust... more like pity.

"How long have you been like this? Is it genetic or did it happen after you were born?" She inquires.

Scootaloo thinks.

"I've been like this as long as I can remember." Is all she can say.

Pinkie shakes and lowers her head.

"I'm terribly sorry... but... no. Changing something that drastic is beyond my ability."

Scootaloo frowns and lowers her head, herself. That would have been too good to be true.

The fiend elaborates. "For context, the largest change I ever made was making it so that an opponent of mine had a coconut dropped on their head as a baby. You can imagine what that did to them in the present. But that put me into a coma for a few weeks and also permanently weakened my powers.”

The filly is a bit curious at that last part. “What are you like right now, then?”

“Lemme see... minor psychic powers, enhanced strength, regeneration, speed, flexibility, prehensile tail, and of course the retrocausality stuff.”

Scootalo blinks a few times.

“And this is you being ‘weakened’?” she asks, bewildered.

Pinkie laughs. “Yeah. I used to be super broken!” She says with the same tone of someone reliving a nice memory.

She claps her hooves, turning back to and approaching Scootaloo.

“Anyways. Ready to leave?”

Scootaloo gets to her hooves.

“Yeah. How long will it take to get there?”

Pinkie smirks. “A few seconds.”

“What?”

Suddenly, the entire world around them appears to vibrate and shake. Scootaloo isn’t being moved whatsoever, but she feels like she is. She wobbles around, trying to get her footing.

“WHAT’S HAPPENING?!” she shouts.

In a flash, it’s like everything around them has changed. Scootaloo screams as she falls a few feet from the air, and lands in some mud below. Pinkie lands gracefully without any issue.

“Oops. I probably should've told you about the drop.” She says, helping Scootaloo to her hooves.

Scootaloo looks up, wiping mud off her face. They look like they’re in a completely new location.

The sky is neither the crimson red of day, nor the blackness of night, instead being a more greyish color.

“What… where… Did we just teleport?” She asks with awe.

“Yes, and no. We shifted to another ‘Pocket’ of reality. We simply 'hopped' over, if you wanna call it that."

Scootaloo looks at her with pure confusion.

Pinkie sighs.

“Okay. Think of it like a stack of pancakes. We were at one pancake, and now we’re at a different one. Same stack of pancakes, but different pancake in the stack. Make sense?” She asks.

Scootaloo gets it a little better. "Sorta..?"

“Alright! Let’s go then.” Pinkie says, prancing ahead. Scootaloo hastily catches up with her.

After a few minutes of trekking through the unknown land, they come across some… place?

It’s clearly a sort of settlement, but it’s certainly not in any style that Scootaloo is used to.

A crude but large wall surrounds a rural sprawl of various shacks and other buildings, like an enclosed shanty-town. While the front-end of the town is open, the back-end is completely dominated by a giant 'U' shaped valley that stretches into the sky itself. An extremely large passageway deeper into the valley above is visible from where they stand.

“What is that place?” Scootaloo asks.

“That here is the main grounds of Jocus Jucundus, the group I work for.”

Scootaloo raises an eyebrow.

“And by ‘group’ you mean cult?”

“I’m a literal Demon who just stole another Demons life force, before taking a filly to an alternate plane of existence. Do you really think I'd pretend like this isn't a cult, Cassy?” Pinkie asks.

“Fair enough.”

The two head into the town, passing through a large gate. Pinkie tells Scootaloo to stay near her. While nothing here would randomly attack her, it would be unwise to let her wander freely.

Scootaloo looks around with a mixture of awe and fear at the different types of creatures all around her. She can’t tell where the Demons begin and where the other monsters end. A few shoot her weird looks, but stop when they notice Pinkie chaperoning her.

Eventually, the two reach the beginning of that giant passageway. A pair of huge, scary-looking guards stop them, crossing spears in their path.

One of the guards bellows deeply. "HALT! WHO GOES-!"

Its eyes widen when it looks down. “Oh, hey Pinkie!” It says in the highest pitched tone ever.

“Who’s the kid?” The other asks in a more normal tone.

“She’s with me. I’m taking her to see the boss!”

“The who?” Scootaloo asks.

The guards nod, unlocking their spears and pushing open the gates for them.

“Thanks!” Pinkie says, directing for Scootaloo to follow.

Scootaloo gives an awkward wave as she passes through. One of the guards waves back.

After a stair-case that felt somehow too long and too short, the duo enter some sort of large cavernous chamber. It looks quite eccentric, with various bones, candles, torches, and other paraphernalia lying around.

Scootaloo accidentally steps on a bone, and it breaks apart.

The pegasus immediately looks down in shock, but is instead confused. "Is this Styrofoam..?” Scootaloo asks, looking down.

“Oh yeah. We wouldn’t wanna use real bones. That would be nasty!” Pinkie says.

Scootaloo really wonders what is and isn't nasty to these guys.

The two venture in a bit further, and come to a large throne or similar type of seat. Some kind of cloth and straw puppet sits atop the chair, slumped over.

The filly stares at it, not really sure what to make of it.

“So... is this like the stand-in for when your boss isn’t here, or something?” She asks, trying to get ahead of the game this time.

“So close!” Pinkie says.

The puppet suddenly begins to come to life, body cracking and snapping as it corrects its position, slowly sitting upright and eventually taking a pose similar to a real pony.

It lifts into the air, approaching the two, moving ike it’s being puppeted by strings, despite none being visible.

It stops just short of physical contact.

At closer glance, Scootaloo can see the puppet appears to have a semi-detailed face, with buttons for eyes and straw making up the mouth, cheeks, and eyebrows.

“Ah! Pinkie! Welcome back!” The puppet says in a jovial tone. It's face actually moves to match its emotions and words.

It snaps up to Scootaloo at an unnatural angle.

“Who’s the filly?” It asks.

“Oh, this is my new friend!”

The puppet rapidly floats to and away from Scootaloo's face, while waving its hooves around like a ghost in a very threatening manner.

“Beeeeee not afraid, child! I meeeean no threat!” it says, in a mystical tone.

Scootaloo blinks a few times.

“I’ve seen way scarier things than you, dude. Like ten minutes ago there was some crazy body-swapping ghost spike thing.”

The puppet's face cringes. “Oh. Really?" It now has a completely nonchalant tone. "Wait, do you mean a Vessel? Those things are scary as shi—”

Pinkie loudly clears her throat, glancing at the puppet.

“Scary as heck!” It corrects.

The Fiend pops up between Scootaloo and the puppet.

“Yacci, meet Cassy! Cassy, meet Yacci!" she says, grabbing their hooves and putting them together in a hoof-shake.

Scootaloo still looks with a bit of reluctance.

"Who... what are you?" The filly asks.

"I am Yacci, Arch-Demon and Head of Jocus Jocundus."

Because that totally clears it up.

Yacci leans on his side while tilting his 'head'. "Now, your turn! Who are you?"

"Uh... Cassy. Just an orphan pegasus filly, I guess."

Yacci leans closer. "No, I mean, who are you, really?" He asks, still strangely jovial.

"W-what? I'm-"

Scootaloo pauses, realizing. She sighs

"Okay, okay! I'm not 'Cassy'. My real name is Scootaloo." She says, a bit ashamed.

The filly looks at Pinkie, who has no reaction other than a blink or two.

Scootaloo does a double-take. "Are you not surprised?" She asks to Pinkie.

"Huh? I already knew that wasn't your real name." The Fiend responds, simply.

Scootaloo smacks her forehead. "Forgot you said you were psychic." She groans.

Pinkie quickly waves a hoof. "Oh, no! Not that kind of psychic! I can't read minds or anything. I can just move stuff from afar by thinking about it!"

The filly raises an eyebrow. "Isn't that just... levitation?"

"Technically yes, but 'psychic' sounds cooler!" Pinkie responds.

"How did you even know, then?" Scootaloo asks, confused

"Dunno. Had a feeling that it wasn't your real name."

"That just sounds like actual psychic-stuff to me." Scootaloo retorts.

Yacci clears his throat, making both ponies look at him.

"Oh, right." The filly says. She backs away a bit, somewhat afraid of what might happen next.

Yacci simply gives a warm smile. “Don't worry, Scootaloo. It’s pretty common for ponies to be afraid to give their real names away to Demons.”

“Is it because the true name stuff isn’t real?” Scootaloo guesses.

Yacci quickly leans forward. “HECK NO! It’s real as can be! It’s just true names for regular ponies don't do jack!” he explains, now wide-eyed.

“Oh.” Scootaloo says, defeated again. But she wonders.

"Wait, so is Pinkie actually her true name then?" The filly asks, gesturing to the Fiend.

Pinkie blows with her mouth, trying not to laugh.

"I don't even know my own true name! Pinkie is just a nick-name I made for myself. Only Yacci knows what it really is." The pink pony says, glancing at the puppet.

Well at least Pinkie technically didn't lie about what her name was.

Yacci elaborates. "No Demon will ever tell you their true name unless they're insane or absolutely trust you. They'll make all sorts of insane nick-names instead. Like one guy I saw was called 'Shitbeard'. Another was called 'Kevin'. Kevin. 'Hey guys! Let's summon Kevin.' Blegh!" He says with disgust.

The puppet then floats next to Pinkie.

“Anyways. You two said you encountered a Vessel, right? Do you have the—”

Pinkie pulls out the vial of Anima. Yacci grabs it from her in a flash and injects it into his cloth skin with a satisfied groan.

Scootaloo looks a bit uncomfortable, watching both the process and reaction.

“Hate to ask… but is that like… a drug to you?” She asks.

Yacci coughs. Or atleast, makes a coughing noise.

“One. I cannot feel anything! Two. No. Injecting Anima into me is how we plan to bring forth the second coming of Jocus Jocundus's Exalted One, Ridiculus!” he exclaims, grandiosely.

Scootaloo has no idea what an 'Exalted One' is or who 'Ridiculus' is, but it sounds ominous.

“Uh… isn’t that like… bad?” Scootaloo asks, a bit worried about the reaction.

Pinkie and Yacci share a serious glance.

Scootaloo bites her lip. Did she screw up?

Suddenly, the two Demons start to laugh wildly, throwing their head backs and holding each other by the shoulder.

Scootaloo's fear turns into mild annoyance as the two mad-ponies laugh wildly like they just had the greatest in-joke of all time.

After a few seconds, they wipe their eyes, or buttons in Yacci's case.

“ 'Bad’ is relative, dear. For everypony else, yes. But for us, no! If we manage to summon Ridiculus into the physical plane, then we shall receive eternal bliss.” Yacci explains.

"Uh... why isn't everypony trying to do it then?" Scootaloo asks.

"Because they are!" Pinkie says with glee.

Yacci elaborates further. "Every cult has their own guy they're trying to bring back. Imagine, like, a big race, but the first pony to win causes the other ponies to immediately explode. And also they are able to re-shape the entire race-track into a paradise for them and their fans."

Scootaloo shivers a little at that somewhat menacing description. The worst part is, it must be so common knowledge that Yacci has no problem explaining it to a random filly who isn't even apart of the cult.

The puppet 'stretches' a little. “Pinkie, I don’t mind expositing to small children, but why exactly did you bring her here? I have no problem with it, just wondering…” he inquiries.

“Oh! I was wondering if she could join us!” Pinkie says.

Scootaloo’s eyes widen. “Woah, woah! I said I would come see the place, not… join a cult yet! Aren’t we moving a bit fast?”

Yacci makes a blowing noise while waving a hoof.

“No need to say ‘cult’ so derogatory. ‘Cult’ has honestly lost all meaning nowadays. You know, I once saw a ‘cult’ about elderly grandmothers baking for their grandchildren. It was honestly kind of wholesome, but they still got arrested en masse by The Order. The point still stands, though. Cults' are just modern day fan-clubs now.” He explains.

Pinkie chips in. “Yeah! Some ponies even use cults as a way to just get more people to join their thing! How stupid is it to advertise or name yourself as being one thing, only to create something entirely different?!”

Pinkie and Yacci stare off into the void for a few seconds, facing forward.

Scootaloo shakes her head. “Look, I’m just saying I’m not sure about all this Demon stuff yet… just like twenty minutes ago I thought all Demons were evil monsters, and now I’m having a tea party with two of them!” She exclaims.

“One and a half.” Pinkie corrects, leaning in.

Scootaloo squints at her, before looking back at Yacci. "Can I at least know my other options, cult-wise..? No offense."

Pinkie frowns a little.

Yacci floats back to his chair, rubbing his chin with his hoof.

"Hm. Well... lets see. The largest one is Daemoni Dominatio, Demons who believe Demons should rule the world. There's also Vae Victis who are ponies who believe that they should rule the world. And then of course there's also Fatum Fatale who just want to destroy the world. There's a few others but you get the idea. I assume you don't want to be a slave to Demons, slave to ponies, or obliterated to nothingness?" Yacci asks, bluntly.

Scootaloo blinks a few times.

Yacci simply shrugs. “If you don’t want to join us, then that’s perfectly fine. It's up to you. But, Scootaloo, I will say. We can give you the things we know you sorely lack right now. Safety. Shelter. Friends. Family... All can be well… if you join us.” The puppet calmly says, sticking out his forelegs in both directions like an embrace.

Scootaloo thinks on it. While it may have been the most obvious pitch ever, she does lack everything he listed.

The filly feels some anger form within her. The Order always said how Demons are the ultimate enemy… yet here they are, giving her a new, better life.

Something The Order couldn’t, and wouldn’t.

"Maybe we could even find a solution to your wing problem, there..." Yacci says with an honest smile.

Scootaloo's eyes widen. That's the finisher.

She takes a deep breath. “Alright... I’ll join.” The filly says.

Pinkie looks elated. "Yay!" she says, jumping into the air.

“Wonderful! We’ll just need to stab you, though.” Yacci says, plainly.

“Come again?” Scootaloo says.

Yacci pulls out a comically large and jagged knife, almost the size of one of Scootaloo's legs.

Scootaloo's eyes widen and she backs away with fear.

Pinkie looks at the knife with wide eyes as well. "Yacci! Wrong knife!" She whispers.

The puppet looks at the knife with some brief confusion. "Ah! My bad. This is the regular knife. You need the filly one!"

He puts the large knife away, and replaces it with the world's tiniest knife. It has the proportions of a regular knife, but is smaller than a toothpick.

Scootaloo stops backing away. “Oh. Okay.”

Do they really do this enough to require a designated filly knife?

Yacci hands the knife to Pinkie, who proceeds to prick the filly, drawing a single drop of blood.

She can barely feel it whatsoever. Thank Celestia Scootaloo decided to join at this age.

The puppet takes the drop of blood carefully, before opening a crimson-red tome. He flips to an empty page, dipping the drop in, and closing the book. The tome glows red briefly, before going back to being dull.

“Scootaloo... you are now officially apart of... Jocus Jocundus!” The puppet says with grandiose.

The filly waits a few seconds, expecting some immediate change or effect, but nothing happens. She’s honestly a little disappointed.

“Okay, Pinkie. I’ll let you do whatever you want to teach Scootaloo here the ropes, but on one condition. You must return to me as soon as I summon you. Do you understand? Yacci asks, with some seldom seen seriousness.

“Aye aye!” Pinkie responds, saluting with her hoof.

Yacci floats back to his chair. “Good. Now... it's sleepy time.”

The puppet proceeds to collapse back into a state similar to when they first got here.

Scootaloo suddenly perks up. “Wait! I have one more question!”

After a short pause, two hear a whisper in the air.

“It’s sleeepyyy timeeeee…..”

Pinkie shrugs. “We can ask him later. Right now, it’s time to begin your new and awesome life!” She says, somewhat giddy.

Scootaloo gulps.

She can only hope she made the right choice here.

Author's Note

Prepare yourself for THE LATIN. We latinmax out here.

As always, criticism, advice, and feedback is GREATLY appreciated. Please tell me about any and all honest thoughts you have, no matter how critical.

Please beat me up if you see any typo's, errors, or excessive repeats of phrases/words.

Chapter 3 - Recruiting Policy

Twilight’s eyes begin to flutter open. A white light fills her sight.

“Twilight…” A pleasant voice calls.

Is this… heaven?

“Twilight…” The voice calls again.

The voice sounds familiar to Twilight. It reminds her of...

Her thoughts are interrupted as a hoof cups her mouth, squishing both cheeks together.

She’s quickly brought back to reality.

Twilight looks around, seeing herself to be lying upon a bed in the Monastery Infirmary. Abbot Firelight, Captain Hammerhead, and a few medics look at her, all somewhat perturbed.

The Hunter sits aside them too, but simply stares without any notable reaction besides a slight eye-brow raise upon seeing the unicorn awaken.

“Whart ish goin onuh?” Twilight mumbles, mouth still being cupped by one of the medics. The medic hastily releases her hoof from the unicorn’s mouth upon seeing her able to speak.

“The Hunter brought you back to the Monastery after you two apparently completed your mission. You were rendered unconscious, though.” Captain Hammerhead says.

Twilight raises an eyebrow. “Apparently?”

“The Hunter says the Devourer was vanquished, but hasn’t given us any specific details of how the hunt went.” Firelight clarifies.

Twilight raises a hoof to quickly respond, but The Hunter shuts her down.

“Gentlecolts, may I have a moment' with my scribe? Promise' it won't take long.”

Everypony else looks pretty confused, including Twilight.

Firelight speaks up first. “Surely something of importance should be told to all of—”

“It’s private Hunter matters. Between my partner and I. I’m askin’ you to give us the room.” The Hunter reiterates, a bit sterner.

The other ponies besides Firelight quickly get the memo, leaving with haste. The Abbot stands alone, barely realizing that everypony else left. He looks to his sides and then back to the Hunter with some nervousness.

“Try to make it short, please.” He pleads on his way out.

The Hunter watches the door close. She waits a few seconds, before calmly walking up and pressing her ear against it. After making sure that nopony is snooping, she returns to her seat next to the confused scribe.

“Alright. How much do ya' remember?” The Hunter probes.

Twilight thinks for a few moments, realizing she can’t fully recall how she got here.

“I remember we got attacked by that... uh... Devourer? We fell off the cliff, and then you started fighting it, then I stabbed it with your sword, and then you finished it off... Everything after that is blank, though..."

The Hunter mutters something under her breath, looking away slightly before turning back to Twilight. “Do you remember how you said you wanted to 'quit this no matter what’?”

The unicorn tilts her head. “I don’t remember saying it but I remember thinking it.”

“Well, ya said it out loud.”

Twilight grimaces. “Am I in trouble?” She asks, leaning back a little.

“That depends on what your definition of trouble is, and what ya' decide to do from here.” The Hunter responds.

Twilight blinks a few times, clearly not understanding.

The Hunter sighs.

“I’ll just say it' how it is. The Order has a certain... policy regardin' the recruitment of new Hunters. Anypony who contributes significantly to the exorcism of an Epsilon-Level Demon or higher is automatically drafted into becoming a new Demon Hunter.”

Twilight’s jaw nearly drops in shock. “WHAT?! ARE YOU—”

With surprising speed, the Hunter shuts Twilight's mouth with her hoof. “Yes, I’m serious. And keep it down, please."

The Hunter slowly takes her hoof away, but it doesn't do much good. Twilight almost immediately begins to freak out, holding her hooves to the sides of her head and beginning to shake. Her eyes nearly look in different directions, but point straight forward, unnaturally still. She feels a cold sweat coming on.

“This can't... be happening... Why… WHYwould that policy even exist?!” She says in disbelief.

“Findin’ new Demon Hunters is more difficult than ya' might expect, despite the demand for em' and how many ponies would be willing become one. Any uninitiated pony who has the skill, luck, or courage to help slay an Epsilon-Level Demon would be a worthy stock, at least in The Order’s eyes. It has… mostly worked out.”

Twilight can’t help but feel like it won’t work out for her. “Has this always existed?! How come nopony has ever heard of it here!?”

Truth be told, Twilight would likely not hear about it even if it was known knowledge, considering how she isn't the most extroverted pony. But she's still mad.

“If this was common knowledge, then everypony and their mother’ would be killin’ themselves trying to hunt an Epsilon-Level Demon. No reason to have this be some sort of giant death game.” The Hunter says. “Don’t tell anypony about this policy, by the way.”

Twilight can’t even think of gossiping right now, still agonizing, freaking out, and muttering incoherently.

The Hunter sighs. "Ya' know... There might be an out, if you really don't think you can do this."

Twilight pauses her freak-out, looking at the Hunter with some confusion. "W-what..? How? Didn't you say I would be 'automatically drafted'?"

"Yes, but..." The Hunter looks around, as if to make sure nopony is spying on the two. “You don’t have to say what actually happened. Nopony knows what went down except you or I. And if nopony knows, nobody will bug ya'.” She says, plainly.

“You’re telling me to lie to The Order???” Twilight says, a bit bewildered.

The Hunter raises both hoofs, appeasingly. “Nopony said 'lie'. Just… you don’t need to tell the full story if you don’t want to.”

“Why can't you do it, then?” The unicorn asks. She tries to not sound too jaded.

The Hunter shrugs. “I’m a horrible liar, but I can keep a secret, and won’t go outta' my way to poke any holes in your story. When they ask us, you answer them, and I’ll try to agree with whatever ya' say.”

Twilight eyes The Hunter with some suspicion.

"Why... would you cover for me? Why are you helping me?" The unicorn asks, confused. Everything she knows, or at least, thinks she knows about the Hunter would seem to contradict what she's doing right now.

The Hunter turns to look at the wall with a blank gaze. "When I was younger, I was put into this exact same situation, same as you. Cept', nobody gave me the option to back out." She turns back to the unicorn with a bit of a solemn look. "So... I'm givin' you the choice I never got." She clears her throat, a bit awkwardly. "I can give you some time to think, if ya' need it."

Twilight still doesn't look very convinced. This could be a test or a trick of some kind. But there’s no way for the unicorn to know.

Let's assume it isn't. She could back out. Never have to worry about this ever again, never have to worry about what she did or didn't do. Did or didn't say. She can just return to her life of organizing and cataloging tomes, and be happy. Forever.

But...

She looks back at the Hunter. She tries to imagine what a younger version of her would look like. The thought that she could have once been just like Twilight is a surreal thought at best. Looking at her eyes, the unicorn can see there's more to them than before. No longer a vague sense of distaste, annoyance, or hatred. One more akin to compassion and care.

She thinks about how helpless she was when the Devourer attacked her. She tried to help somepony, and almost died for it. What if she got put into a situation like that in the future?

What if...

Knock Knock.

"I-I don't mean to intrude, but are you two ladies done in there?" The Abbot says, clearly a bit rushed.

The Hunter gets to her hooves and looks like she's about to bash the door down, but Twilight stops her.

"Let them in. I think I'm ready." She says.

The Hunter raises an eyebrow. “You sure?”

Twilight nods in response.

The Hunter looks at her for a second or two, before getting back up to go to the door. Opening it, Firelight and Hammerhead almost instantly rush back into the room, before trying to act like they did no such thing.

Abbot Firelight clears his throat, straightening his ragged robes from the sudden movement. “Alright... Now that Scribe Twilight is awake, and you two had your private discussion, would you mind explaining what happened, exactly?” He asks.

The Hunter gives a disinterested shrug. “I’ll let my scribe explain.” She says, barely looking at the two.

All eyes are on Twilight now. The unicorns own glance drifts between The Hunter and Firelight a few times. She takes a deep breath.

“After we set up camp, the Devourer attacked the two of us. It took The Hunter off-guard, managing to wrest her sword away. As the two struggled, I grabbed her sword, and drove it through the side of the Demon, allowing The Hunter to exorcize it.”

A little bit of embellishment, but effectively what actually happened.

Firelight and Hammerhead both look at Twilight with utter shock, their jaws dropping at the recounting.

Even The Hunter looks surprised, but also impressed. She cracks a small smile at the fact that Twilight had the gall to tell the truth.

Hammerhead looks to The Hunter in pure disbelief. "Is this... true?" he questions. The Hunter simply nods.

Firelight nearly jumps into the air. “Oh, how glorious this day is! Monastery Light has produced a new Demon Hunter for The Order!” He exclaims, instantly understanding the ramifications of Twilight’s story.

The scribe frowns a little from the enthusiasm.

“We must immediately assemble an escort party to transport her to Citadel Raven!” Hammerhead excitedly says back.

Firelight and Hammerhead nearly begin to fan-girl to eachother, before The Hunter stops both of their parades with a single hoof raise. “That won’t be necessary. I will take her there myself. I would also like to take her as my apprentice.” she says, with a smirk.

Twilight looks at The Hunter with confusion. “Aren't I already your scribe? Is that not like an 'apprentice' or something?"

Hammerhead and Firelight don’t say anything, but also stare at The Hunter with their own faces of confusion, presumably wondering the same thing.

“Nope. Apprentices and Partners are two different things. Think of it like comparin’ a student’s tutor to their classmates, or whatever would make sense for you.” The Hunter explains.

Thankfully, that analogy hits home enough for Twilight to understand.

“...Won’t we need to get a new Scribe for you, though?” Hammerhead asks.

Firelight lights up. “You know, we still have two other—!”

“Nope. A pony can be both an Apprentice and a Partner at the same time. It’s rare, but possible, and very convenient.” The Hunter elaborates.

Firelight backs down, disappointed.

The former-scribe raises a hoof, a little confused. “Excuse me, but what did Captain Hammerhead mean by 'transport to Citadel Raven'? Am I going to be taken somewhere?" Twilight of course knows what the Citadels are, but not the meaning in this specific context.

Firelight looks bewildered. “Did you believe you were going to stay at the Monastery this whole time? Even if you weren’t granted the glorious opportunity of becoming a Demon Hunter, as her scribe you still would have had to accompany her on all of her glorious quests and hunts!” He explains, a bit excited.

Before Twilight can even respond, Hammerhead and Firelight hastily and giddily leave the room, saying they’re going to ‘begin preparations’ for something.

The unicorn face-hooves. Somehow that thought never dawned on her before.

She can’t tell if the fact that she was going to be forced to leave even if she didn’t accidentally become a Demon Hunter makes it worse or not.

“Do you think you’re goin’ to be alright to leave?” The Hunter asks.

“I don’t have a choice, so what does it matter? Either way, even though I enjoyed my job as a Scribe, I won’t exactly be leaving much behind here. I only have a few friends, and no family to speak of.” The unicorn says, looking somewhat solemn.

The Hunter frowns. “I was just' an orphan filly when I was 'recruited'. I only had a grandma and brother, no parents. Had a little sister.”

Twilight understands the implication immediately. The Hunter managed to one-up her sad background.

“At the very least, we can be thankful there’s no big fuss. Usually that's the hard part, with new recruits bein’ taken away from their families and whatnot.” The earthen says, trying to see the bright side.

“How often does this happen?” Twilight asks.

“Quite a bit.” The Hunter dryly responds.

Twilight frowns. Should she feel bad that she isn't too torn up about leaving?

“Well... I will miss my job here. Cataloging and reading is my passion. Or, I guess, was."

The Hunter blinks a few times.

“That’s what you’ll miss? Not being able to live a semi-normal life? Not having to travel everywhere? Not having to fight’ for your life on the daily?” The Hunter says, in some disbelief.

The unicorn realizes she kinda made herself sound a bit pretentious. ‘Oh yeah my life was perfect, but I’ll reallllly miss the reading!’

The Hunter huffs a little. “Reading is the one thing you won’t be missin’ anyhow. Demon Hunters are forced to read a ton of stuff. I can barely keep up with the amount of crazy crap they expect me to research and study.”

Twilight's eyes nearly double in size. She almost leaps out of the bed, going for the door. The Hunter grabs her in surprise.

“LET ME GO! I NEED ITTTTT!” The manic unicorn yells.

The Hunter gently shoves Twilight back onto the bed, a bit entertained by the strange enthusiasm.

“Hold your horses! We’ll be leavin’ soon, yeah. But are you sure that there’s nopony you want to see off before you leave? Nopony at all?” The Hunter inquires.

Twilight puts a hoof to her chin.

"Well..."

“WHAT?!”

Minuette yells in Twilight’s face, blowing the purple unicorns’ mane away.

“What do you mean you’re a ‘Demon Hunter’ now?!” The blue unicorn yells again.

“I said apprentice. Apprentice Demon Hunter. Apparently there’s some strange rule where if a regular pony helps kill a strong Demon then they automatically get recruited into being a new Demon Hunter. And the one who came to us decided to take me under her wing."

Minuette blinks a few times.

“Oh. Don’t tell anypony that. Or that I told you that. And also don’t try it yourself!” Twilight stresses.

“I’m honestly just more surprised that you aren’t incoherently bawling on the floor or something — No offense.” Minuette says.

Twilight rolls her eyes. “Yeah. I already got that out of my system earlier. Besides... it's not all bad. The Hunter said Demon Hunters apparently get access to all sorts of extensive knowledge and information to interact with. I’ll finally be able to see more stuff than what we can as scribes!”

Minuette huffs. “Lucky! Guess I’ll still be stuck with ‘fillies guide to Demons…’” she says with a sigh.

Twilight cracks a small smirk. “Hey! Who knows. Maybe one day I’ll come back here and take you as my Scribe.” She coughs. “Or something.”

“Yeah right! As if you’d want to pick little old me instead of some way cooler and better pony.” Minuette says, a bit sarcastically.

That last comment reminds them both of a certain other Scribe.

“You should totally rub this into Starlight’s stupid face!” Minuette says, a bit giddy.

Twilight frowns a little.

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to see her off.” Twilight says, clearly not reciprocating Minuette’s revenge fantasy.

The blue unicorn frowns. “Meh. Are you sure you even want to see her at all, though? I heard she’s taking it pretty badly.”

Twilight waves her hoof. “Oh please. How bad can she be?”

Twilight visits Starlight’s quarters within the Scriptorium. ‘Visit’ is stretching it, as the three scribes, well technically two now, have rooms only a few feet away from each other.

There’s a clear, but crude makeshift “DO NOT DISTURB” sign on her door.

The purple unicorn knocks on it. “Starlight? Hello?”

She hears some rustling from the inside.

“Go… away!” A voice from the room says.

“Starlight! It’s me, Twilig—”

Before she even finishes her sentence, Starlight has already thrown open the door with a glare.

Her mane is a complete mess, and her face a pure scowl, fit with baggy eyes. If looks could kill, Twilight would be in the morgue by now.

“What do YOU want? Here to rub it in?” The senior scribe growls.

Twilight looks surprised.

“No..? I’m just saying goodbye.”

“Oh so you are here to rub it in…” Starlight mumbles.

Before Twilight can even respond, Starlight gets in her face, putting both hooves on the unicorn.

“What made you so good that the brute decided to pick you, huh???

Twilight gently moves the other unicorn away, backing up as well.

“She said she picked me because I was the first in line. That was all.”

Starlight takes a few seconds to process the words. One of her eyes twitches a few times.

“Ohhhh!! I see…” She says, slamming a hoof to her own temple.

“I didn’t get picked because of pure… random… chance..?” She says, teeth grit.

“...yes?” Twilight replies.

Starlight just stares at her, before laughing a few times, even snorting.

Suddenly, her horn glows. Various objects around the hall are levitated into the air and float around Twilight.

“LIES! YOU LIE.” She roars.

Twilight steps back, half due to fear, half in surprise.

Starlight continues her menacing display, looking like she’s about to take it even further, before she suddenly huffs, hunching over.

All the objects drop with various clatters and crashes.

“Just get out of my sight, already.” Starlight scoffs. The unicorn slams the door on Twilight’s face.

Twilight feels a little bad, but if Starlight wants to act this way then it can’t be helped.

She simply walks away, hoping the senior scribe doesn’t do anything crazy.

The Hunter and Twilight sit within the Scriptorium. The earthen looks around a bit awkwardly, unfamiliar with the room and its various devices and utensils.

Twilight wanted to meet with her here for some further elaboration.

“So… where in specific are we going? I remember Hammerhead saying something about ‘Citadel Raven’, but like… what is that, exactly?”

“You can think of Citadels like bigger Monasteries. Each Monastery is assigned a single Citadel to serve, and each Citadel is assigned multiple Monastery’s to protect and watch over. If you would liken’ a Monastery to a town, then Citadels are a city.”

The Hunter leans back in her overly small chair, the piece creaking a bit.

“The one we’re goin’ to is Citadel Raven, led by Master Moonlight Raven. That’s the one I'm currently stationed at, and also live at.” The Hunter explains.

“What is it like?” Twilight inquires.

“I mean… it’s pretty much like this place, but just... better? It’s very well defended, and is actually pretty relaxin’... but some of the Demon Hunter stuff gets intense every now and then.” She pauses. “And yes, they do have very nice stores of information and libraries.” The Hunter says, knowing what Twilight is looking for.

Twilight lights up a little, especially at that last part.

Maybe this won’t be so bad after all!

The Hunter appears to notice this, and quickly shoots it down.

“Don’t get your hopes up just yet. Actually gettin’ to the Citadel is goin’ to be a challenge in-of-itself.” The earthen says, bluntly.

The unicorn frowns. “Er… how long did it take you to get from Citadel Raven to Monastery Light?”

“About a day.”

“That’s not too bad.” Twilight points out.

“A day of near continuous travel. And without having to protect and look over a tag-along.” The Hunter clarifies.

Twilight grumbles, but knows she’s right.

“I’ll try not to be that much of a burden…” She mutters.

The Hunter gives a small smirk. “You can try all you want, you still will be.” She says, a bit jokingly.

Back at the main gate once more, the two are being seen off by the Monastery once again. This time, The Hunter drags along a small cart of supplies for the two of them.

Twilight sees Minuette, and even Snips and Snails waving at her. This time, she waves back with a smile.

Starlight is still nowhere to be seen. But Twilight feels like she’s watching them from somewhere, anyways.

The gate is pulled open, and the two step through it together.

The Hunter gestures with her head for Twilight, which she quickly does.

“You know… I never bothered to ask. What am I supposed to call you, anyways? ‘Master’?” Twilight inquires.

The Hunter gives a small smile.

“You can call me Applejack.”

Starlight fumes as she tries to focus on her stupid job, shuffling around stupid books in the stupid library.

This is so unfair! It’s criminal! She was meant to be the one picked… not Twilight..! Stupid… Stupid!!!

She tears down a shelf in rage, causing a collapse of books everywhere.

Her anger is briefly diluted with shock and surprise.

As the senior scribe goes to begin fixing her mess, another hoof reaches out into the pile at the same time.

Starlight is about to yell in blind rage at whoever this pony is, but when she looks at them, her eyes widen.

It’s the Monasteries' resident Demon expert, the Demonologist.

Even in her fury, the senior scribe has enough wherewithal to apologize to her direct superior.

“D-Demonologist M-Mistmane!” she stutters, quickly bowing.

The elderly unicorn chuckles.

“No need to do that, my dear.” she says, calmly

Starlight lifts her head up slightly, still unsure.

Mistmane looks down upon the young unicorn with a gentle gaze.

“It appears to me that something perturbs you. If I may, what troubles you so?” Mistmane asks.

Starlight feels her anger begin to well up again.

“The Demon Hunter came to the Monastery just a mere day ago… and picked Twilight Sparkle instead of me! It’s not fair! She shouldn’t have picked that useless loser! That stupid brute—”

Starlight catches her tongue, realizing how crass and immature she sounds.

She expects a chewing out from the elder unicorn, but instead she simply leans in with a whisper.

“I believe I may know a remedy to your ache… but you’ll need to keep it a secret between us.” Mistmane whispers, with a smile.

Chapter 4 - Woe To The Vanquished

"Okay, ready?" Pinkie asks.

"Ready." Scootaloo replies.

Still within the Pocket of Jocus Jocundus, Pinkie prepares to shift the two back to base-line reality.

Scootaloo takes a stable position, ready for it this time.

Just like before, the world vibrates, and goes out of focus.

"Three... two... one!" Pinkie counts.

The two appear back where they left from.

Scootaloo proceeds to scream as she falls straight on her tail, entire body facing upwards towards the sky. She then falls backwards, now up-side down on the dirt, groaning.

Pinkie gracefully orients herself right-side up, and lands without trouble.

“Forgot to mention that shifting will sometimes change your rotation, too. At least you didn't land on your head!” Pinkie says.

Scootaloo sits up, dirt on her face giving her some impromptu bangs.

“Lucky me.” She says, sarcastically.

Pinkie giggles as the filly wipes her forehead.

“Why did we even come back here? If you wanted to show me more Demon stuff, wouldn’t it have made sense to do it over at the Demon place thing?”

The Fiend clicks her tongue.

“It would, but this seems more fun. Where better to get knowledge than first-hoof experience!” She says, shooting a wide smile.

“I’m not sure what ‘first-hoof experience’ is supposed to be in this context, but okay.”

“We’ll just be doing a few errands, is all.”

Scootaloo looks confused. “Errands? You do errands?” she asks, in disbelief.

“Duh! Barely anypony in cults just gets to just sit around and be lazy bums! We’re always up and about.”

Scootaloo frowns. There goes her ideas of relaxation.

“Having to go somewhere else will also give us a great excuse to partake in some walkin’ and talkin’! You can simply tell me what you do or don’t know about Demons and Cults already, and I’ll help fill in your gaps!” Pinkie responds.

“Uh. If we need to go somewhere else, why don’t we just… teleport there? Are you making us walk solely just to have more time to talk?” Scootaloo inquires.

“Oh you silly billy! What we just did is called shifting, not teleporting.”

“That just sounds like the same thing.” Scootaloo responds.

“Well it isn’t. See, teleporting is magically deconstructing your very being and reconstructing it at an intended location. Very difficult. Shifting, meanwhile, is more like sliding yourself to your intended location.”

“That still sounds like the same thing.”

“They’re completely different.” Pinkie reiterates.

Scootaloo can see they’re going in circles already.

“Okay… why can’t we shift to where we need to go, then?”

The Fiend clears her throat.

“Shifting within the same Pocket of reality is MUCH harder than shifting between Pockets. It’s like the difference between opening the door to a house and walking outside, as opposed to trying to ram through a solid wall of the house itself into another one of the house's rooms. Possible, but very difficult.”

“How do you have so many analogies…” Scootaloo asks, with genuine wonder.

“You’re not the first pony I’ve had to explain this stuff to before, and likely not the last. It makes things much easier! The Fiend leans in. “Unless you can understand Quantum Physics." Pinkie quickly leans in. "Do you understand quantum physics?”

“No..?” Scootaloo asks, backing away a little. “Do you?”

“Nope!” Pinkie responds, turning away to continue walking.

Scootaloo rolls her eyes.

“Couldn’t you shift to somewhere in a different Pocket, and then shift to where you want to go in the original Pocket to avoid that problem?” The filly asks, trying to game the system.

“Good question! Technically, yes. But doing stuff like that is frowned upon for both superstitious and literal reasons. Not to mention it’s unreliable as heck! You’d be surprised how many walls have the corpse of some overly ambitious or courageous Fiend or cultist lodged inside them after a botched shift." Pinkie says with nonchalance.

She continues to walk alongside the filly. “Besides. Nothing wrong with a bit of walkin’ and talkin’!”

As the two chat, Scootaloo feels a bit weird at the back of her mind.

She’s had to fight to survive for weeks out here, barely getting any meaningful sense of security, only to now suddenly feel safe because of a Demon.

It’s almost surreal.

Scootaloo explains to the best of her ability everything she does and doesn’t know. Myths, rumors, beliefs, etc. Mainly things she’s attempted to extrapolate from living in the Badlands.

“Hm. Well, once we get to Thornwood I’ll try to explain whatever we see on the spot.”

Scootaloo blinks a few times.

“Come again?”

“Oh. Did I forget to tell you? We’re going over to Thornwood Junction.” She says, plainly.

The filly begins to freak out a little.

“Isn’t that an outlaw town?! Aren’t those places like super dangerous?!” She exclaims.

“Nah, not really. They always exaggerate the danger those places have to try and prevent ponies from venturing there. They’re not that bad once you which ones to avoid and how to act." Pinkie explains. “Thornwood also allows Fiends and Demons, so we won’t need to worry about all that noise!”

“Isn’t that bad..?” Scootaloo asks.

“If you were a Fiend, would you rather go somewhere that Fiends are allowed, or somewhere that Fiends are attacked on sight?”

“Point taken.” Scootaloo says. “But I’m not a Fiend. Something bad can still happen!”

The Fiend rolls her eyes. “At any moment a meteor could hit you or me and that would be it. Does that mean we should all hide underground forever? No!” Pinkie exclaims. “You can’t live your whole life in fear.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re the super strong Demon and I’m the helpless filly.” Scootaloo retorts, looking away a little.

Pinkie frowns.

“You know, I can’t remember anything about myself before I became a Fiend. My fears, my desires... however weak I was, so you got me there. But still, I promise I’ll protect you no matter what happens.” The Fiend says with a smile.

Scootaloo seems a bit re-assured by the promise.

“No need to worry right now, though. First, I need to visit a friend.” The Fiend exclaims.

The filly raises an eyebrow.

“Do you mean like a friend-friend or a ‘friend’ as in how you seem to just call everypony a friend?” She asks, somewhat skeptical.

“She’s a friend.” Pinkie reiterates with a smile, proceeding to prance away, Scootaloo hastily trying to catch up with her.

The two come across some kind of small cottage in a nice prairie. There appears to be a small colorful patterned wagon parked nearby.

Scootaloo spots a blue unicorn with a light blue mane sitting in front of the door, staring out into the field, somewhat disinterested. She wears purple robes and a small hat.

“Heyyyy!!!” Pinkie calls out, waving a hoof, as the two approach close enough to speak.

The unicorn looks at the two with no enthusiasm, contrasting Pinkie’s reaction.

“Pinkie Pie.” The unicorn says, dryly.

“Been a while, huh?” Pinkie asks, a bit gleeful.

“Hardly. Are you finally here to kill me?” The unicorn asks.

Scootaloo’s eyes widen. She quickly gets in between the two, trying to push them away before anything else happens.

“Woah woah! Hey! What’s going on here?” She asks.

The unicorn slightly glances at her.

“Oh great. You brought a kid to watch you do the deed?” She asks, sardonically.

“I’m not here to kill you, Trixie!" Pinkie looks away briefly. "And I never will be, by the way. I need your help.”

Trixie looks unamused. “Is that all you ever show up for anymore? ‘Help’?” She asks.

“Well, in my defense you did explicitly say ‘dont ever come back here again unless you need something from me’.” Pinkie recites.

Scootaloo looks at the Fiend with pure confusion.

“What exactly are your guys’ relation to each other?” The filly asks.

Pinkie perks up. “This here is Trixie Lulamoon! She’s an associate—”

“Slave.” Trixie corrects.

“Not a 'slave'! You willingly agreed to work with us!” Pinkie says back.

“Under duress. And I didn’t know the deal involved selling my fucking soul.” Trixie says, looking at the Fiend with a serious glare.

“Woah! Language!” Pinkie says, covering the fillies’ ears.

Scootaloo pops her head through the Fiend’s impromptu ear covers.

“Do you guys really own her soul?” She asks, looking up at the Fiend.

Pinkie waves a hoof.

“Pfft… No! She still has her soul. We just… erm… own… her?” Pinkie says, nervously.

“That sounds like slavery to me.” Scootaloo says.

"See, she gets it!" Trixie says, throwing her hooves up.

“It’s not!" Pinkie says, stomping her hooves, before clearing her throat. " ‘Own’ was the wrong word… she’s more like an employee. And besides, we gave her awesome powers!” The Fiend exclaims.

Scootaloo looks at Trixie with some intrigue.

Trixie looks back at the filly, rolling her eyes.

As Trixie’s horn glows, the entire world around Scootaloo suddenly becomes dark.

The filly can barely see anything.

“What?! Pinkie?! T-Trixie?!” Scootaloo stammers.

Out of nowhere, a giant, incomprehensible monster appears, roaring straight at her.

"AHHHHHHHH!!!!" Scootaloo screams in fear.

But within an instant, it’s all gone.

The filly looks around, seeing everything is normal once more.

She looks around still in a panic. “Wh… what…”

“Trixie is an illusionist! She can make ponies see stuff that isn’t real, or alter how they see things that are real. Very useful power for support purposes!” Pinkie exclaims.

Scootaloo looks at the Fiend with wide eyes. “D-did you see that too?”

Pinkie shakes her head. “Nope! It’s a by-pony basis. She can make you see somepony is red and others see the same pony as blue. Either way, whatever you saw was likely much more impactful than her usual output, as illusions work much better on ponies with weaker will-power.”

The filly frowns. She thought the one thing she had going for her was her will-power. Guess not.

“So, what exactly do you want?” Trixie asks, still unamused.

“We’re going to be heading into Thornwood Junction to pick up some things.”

“And?” Trixie replies.

“What’s wrong with wanting another friend to keep us company?” Pinkie asks, batting her eyelashes.

Trixie stares at her with squinted eyes.

“Okay, okay. I need a façade.” Pinkie says, giving up the ploy.

“A what?” Scootaloo asks.

“A façade is an illusory disguise layered over a pony or object to make them look like something or somepony else." Trixie explains.

Scootaloo looks at Pinkie with confusion. “Why do you need a disguise? I thought Thornwood was okay with Fiends?” She inquires.

“Oh, they are. It’s just that I might as well try my best to not draw any attention when we have you in tow!” Pinkie elaborates.

Trixie loudly clears her throat, glaring at the Fiend.

Pinkie gulps. “...and it’s also because I’m somewhat of a wanted mare..?” She says, chuckling awkwardly.

“How wanted—”

“Basically every major cult and faction wants a ‘word’ with her.” Trixie says, bluntly.

To punctuate her point, she whips out a crudely made ‘WANTED’ poster of Pinkie. She’s smiling and posing in the picture like it's a schoolbook photo.

Scootaloo can’t see the specific number of bits attached, but it’s clearly in the six digits.

“Okay, yes! That’s also a big reason. But still! If push comes to shove, I’d rather flight than fight when we have to take care of Scootaloo here, if you catch my drift.” Pinkie says, poking the filly.

Trixie shrugs.

“Fine.”

Pinkie looks elated, but Trixie raises a hoof.

“But. I demand my soul back. Full ownership.” She says.

Pinkie throws her head back in a sudden laugh.

"HAHAHAHAHAA!"

“No.” The Fiend sternly says, immediately stopping the laugh.

“Half?” Trixie asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Nope.”

“Quarter?” The unicorn asks again, now looking a bit desperate.

“Nada.”

“Eigth!” Trixie pleads.

Pinkie thinks for a moment.

“Fine. But Yacci will have to agree too.” She relents.

“Good enough for me.”

Trixie’s horn glows as a blue aura suddenly covers Pinkies' face. After a second or two, the Fiends' eyes, ears, and mouth look just like those of a normal pony.

“How do I look?” Pinkie says, striking a smile for Scootaloo.

Scootaloo looks with some unease.

The Fiend looks indistinguishable from an actual pony.

“H-how common is this type of technique?” Scootaloo asks.

“Somewhat common, but few can do it as good as Trixie here. She was a natural even before we souped her up!” Pinkie exclaims, talking about Trixie like a prize.

Hopefully, Scootaloo won’t be needing to worry about Demons walking around in broad daylight looking just like regular ponies or something.

The filly turns to Trixie, who doesn't seem any different “Don’t you need a disguise, too?” She asks to the unicorn.

“No. Because I don’t go around punching Demons in the face while smiling for a squadron of Order Knights taking my picture.” The unicorn loudly exclaims, making sure Pinkie hears her.

Trixie leans next to Scootaloo’s face. “You know, in Order Demon Bestiaries, her face is one of the official illustrations for what a Fiend looks like.”

The two look over at Pinkie, who sweats and taps her hooves nervously.

“I thought those guys were from Actio Audax! Leave me alone!” She cries.

“Are those bad guys too?” Scootaloo asks. She doesn’t recognize the name from Yacci’s listing.

“They’re dreamers.” Pinkie responds

“Dreamers? Is that like some Demon or magical term?” Scootaloo inquires.

“No, I mean they’re literally dreamers. They have some pretty radical but well-meaning goals.”

She pats the filly on the head. “I’ll tell you about them when you understand the complicated societal and political landscape of Demon and pony-inter relations better.”

Scootaloo’s eyes drift apart, trying to process what the Fiend just said, before shaking it off.

“Okay. Besides all… that. Do I need a disguise?”

Trixie rolls her eyes. “Yes. Because the first thing Bounty or Demon Hunters will be looking for is some random filly.”

“Mmmm… Her worries might be valid. She’s a part of Jocus Jocundus, you know.” Pinkie responds.

The unicorn looks at the Fiend with shock.

“You inducted a child?!” She yells.

“Uh… yes? Is there a problem?” Scootaloo asks.

Obviously, being a child in a cult sounds bad, but Jocus Jocundus hasn’t seemed all that problematic so far.

“That depends. If your definition of a problem is being drafted into an unholy war of subterfuge, chaos, betrayal, massacres, and cults tearing apart the very fabric of the world apart, then yes there is a problem.”

Scootaloo blinks a few times.

Pinkie quickly covers the filly's ears once again. “Don’t listen to her! She’s just a hater.” The Fiend hisses.

“A hater of filly abuse, maybe.” Trixie retorts.

Her and the Pinkie share a glare.

“Didn’t you literally scare the crap out of me with that giant monster for no reason?” Scootaloo retorts.

Trixie yawns.

“It wasn’t for no reason. It was for conditioning. If I scare you a lot right now then you’ll be less scared once you see what the world has to actually offer.”

Scootaloo grumbles a little, seeing a bit of merit in that logic.

The filly suddenly perks up.

“Oh, speaking of cults. What does Thornwood think about cults? Should we keep ourselves a secret, or..?”

Pinkie puts a hoof to her chin.

“Wellll… officially the BIG cults aren’t supposed to be there en masse, but if the town tried to enforce a total no cult rule then they’d probably be crushed. So, practically, they just encourage you to keep to yourselves and make nothing obvious.” She shrugs. “But, yeah. If we make ourselves clearly known, we might get trouble. So just don’t do that!”

She claps her hooves.

“Either way, we need to get going! You know what they say, 'Time is Anima'!”

“Nopony says that.” Trixie jabs.

“Shush! Let’s gooo!” Pinkie exclaims, dragging Scootaloo behind her.

As the three continue their travel, the landscape around them slowly but surely begins to change. The semi-barren wastes being replaced with a lush and surprisingly pleasant forest.

Scootaloo honestly prefers this type of biome. Much easier on the eyes, usually is more peaceful, and also has way more good hiding spots.

Eventually they come across a crest and a large clearing. Scootaloo sees only what she can assume to be Thornwood Junction.

It looks like a large shanty town built over the ruins of an actual town. Natural rock formations and overgrown trees and vines intertwine with pony-built wooden and stone structures, and large hills and mountains around give a natural and clean shade to the whole area.

It doesn’t look that bad, all things considered.

Scootaloo was expecting some cartoonishly and obviously evil criminal town or something of the like, although she just hopes that her fears aren’t realized once they get down there.

As they approach closer, the filly can see tents and what appears to be various carts and draped wagons without any wheels.

“Ponies actually live here?” Scootaloo asks, a bit surprised.

“Of course they do! It’s called a town for a reason.” Pinke responds.

The filly looks around, still unsure. “That seems risky. What if something happened to the town as a whole, like an attack?”

“Well those ponies decided the benefits of having a permanent residence outweighs the downsides of the chance of an incident. That’s what we call ‘investment risk’ in basic economics.” Pinkie explains.

“Why do you know all of these complicated and complex things?” Scootaloo asks, dryly.

“Oh. I’m like, fifty years older than I actually look. Being a Fiend does wonders for your skin!” Pinkie responds, somewhat gleefully.

Trixie rolls her eyes.

“Oh sure. I may be a literal Demon and freak of nature, but at least I look perty!” The unicorn says, batting her eyelashes.

Pinkie sticks her tongue out.

“Hey, I didn’t choose to become a Fiend. That’s like me making fun of you for being a unicorn.” She responds.

“I wasn’t making fun of you. Just saying it how it is.” Trixie replies with a yawn.

Pinkie shrugs. “And I accept how it is. That includes the benefits!”

“‘Benefits’ uh-huh. Tell me, if you were given the choice, knowing what you know now, would you have chosen to become a Fiend?” Trixie inquires.

“Abs-ou-loutely.” Pinkie enunciates. “You know, you could be one too if you want.”

“Over my dead body.” Trixie scowls.

“That could be arranged…” Pinkie says with a joking smirk.

“Guys? Maybe we should stop talking about Fiends and Dead bodies and stuff.” Scootaloo says, noticing how they’re within ear-shot of other ponies.

Trixie shrugs. “Not like we won't be seeing any of those here.”

Just like Jocus Jucundus’ grounds, all sorts of different unicorns, pegasi, and earthen mill about. There’s plenty of unscrupulous figures, but only a few of them look clearly demonic to a level like Pinkie, and there’s even fewer obvious Demons, mainly a few low-key ones like Imps.

Scootaloo spots a few ponies that look somewhat demonic, but in irregular ways, such as their bodies or faces being asymmetrical, or having strange growths and leisures.

“Is that a Fiend?” she asks, nudging Pinkie and subtly hoofing to one specific earthen.

One of the ponys' eyes appears to be swollen shut with some dark flesh. On the same side of their head, a large curved demonic horn sprouts outwards.

Pinkie glances over. “Ah, no. That's just a regular pony. They've just underwent 'Shaping'."

“Shaping?” Scootaloo asks.

“Yeah! You know, blessed, cursed, gifted, whatever. The main idea of Shaping is that some Demons can change something about a mortal pony, either as a punishment or reward."

“Do you think that guys’ ones were a punishment?” The filly asks, making Pinkie look again.

The Fiend shrugs. “Maybe they like having a single big horn or something? Ponies are weird!”

Scootaloo puts a hoof to her chin. “Does Jocus Joco— Jocund— does our cult do anything like that?” She asks, struggling to pronounce the name.

“Oh, of course!” The Fiend subtly gestures towards Trixie, the unicorn not appearing to notice.

“You mean like her illusion stuff?” Scootaloo asks.

“Nah. Something else.” The Fiend responds with a smile, before turning forward and continuing to walk.

Scootaloo isn’t really sure what she’s supposed to extrapolate from that, but keeps walking as well.

Trixie begins to look around, somewhat annoyed.

“What are we here for, anyways? I don’t wanna hang around here all day.” She mutters.

“I’m looking for some medication for a friend, is all.” Pinkie answers.

Scootaloo looks a bit surprised. “Do they really have that here?” She asks.

“Outlaw Towns like this are entire societies in-of-themselves. They have everything from toys to bombs here. You can find anything if you look hard enough.” The Fiend explains.

She glances around, suddenly noticing some vendor in the distance who looks like he has what she’s looking for.

Unfortunately, he looks to be in the process of leaving.

“Crap! Trixie, watch over Scootaloo, would ya? I’ll be right back!” She says, quickly sprinting off.

“What?! Pinkie!” Trixie yells, but Pinkie is already gone.

The unicorn slowly glances at the filly next to her, looking back at her with big beady eyes.

Trixie sighs, leading her to a nearby shack wall and taking a seat.

“Don’t do anything stupid. We’ll just wait until she comes back.” The unicorn instructs. Scootaloo nods.

The two sit for ten, maybe twenty minutes.

Scootaloo begins to get a bit worried, but Trixie doesn’t bat an eye, knowing exactly how Pinkie is.

The filly tries to pass the time by watching all the various ponies and things around her, while Trixie slowly dozes off, dropping her hat in front of her eyes.

Something catches Scootaloos’ eyes, however.

In the short distance she sees two ponies bump into each other, both being repulsed by a small amount. One quickly shoves the other to the ground, before beginning to menace him.

Some ponies and even Fiends nearby the scene simply just move away, walking past the two like nothing is happening. The standing pony even begins to even strike at the fallen one while yelling.

Scootaloo nervously bites her lip. Is anypony going to stop this???

She’s seen much worse before, scenes of death and destruction. But those were just the aftermaths, things that already happened and nopony could do anything about.

This is something that could be prevented.

Scootaloo tries to muster her courage, taking a deep breath. She gets to her hooves, and proceeds to approach the two.

“Hey!” the filly yells. Her voice is too quiet to be heard from the distance by the ponies, but she keeps getting closer.

Trixie, however, is immediately awoken by the nearby high-pitched yell. Her body perks up and eyes widen when she sees what Scootaloo is trying to do.

“Shit!” she says, quickly getting to her hooves as well.

She should go over there as well, but she does not want to fight somepony right now. She’s not the best direct combatant, and it would go even worse if she manages to attract the ire of bystanders.

Her mind begins to race, but she thinks of something that just might work.

The unicorn covers her horn with her hat to the best of her ability, concealing its glow.

Scootaloo continues walking towards the two ponies.

“Hey!” She yells again.

This time, the aggressor actually looks her way with some immediate distaste at who would interrupt him. However, his emotion quickly turns to one of shock and fear. The pony quickly begins to step away.

Other nearby ponies look at Scootaloo with some shock and surprise as well, some also moving away from the scene. Even the victim pony looks the same.

The aggressor looks towards Scootaloo’s direction, but not directly at her. He looks like he’s staring at something above her head by a wide amount.

“U-uh… I was just leaving!” The aggressor says, quickly running off. The victim gets to his feet as well, also making a run for it.

Scootaloo blinks a few times, incredibly confused at what just happened.

Suddenly, Trixie comes from behind and grabs one of her hooves, hastily leading her away to somewhere concealed.

“Ow! Hey! What’s your problem?” Scootaloo says, pulling her hoof away from the rough grasp.

Trixie’s horn glows a little, her face a scowl. “My problem? You could've gotten yourself hurt!” The unicorn says, in an angry whisper.

“But I didn’t get hurt! Those guys were acting strange, anyways…” the filly says, trying to defend herself.

“Both of those were because of me. I casted a façade on you to make you look super intimidating. Thankfully neither of them were foolhardy to try and hit you, otherwise that would've been the end of this.” Trixie states, bluntly.

The unicorn leans in until her nose is nearly touching the fillies.

“I get you’re new to this, but the most important rule of this life is don’t fuck with other peoples businesses. Because if you do, then you could be attacked, killed, or worse. Do you understand?" Trixie hisses.

Scootaloo slinks down a little. “...oh.”

Trixie softens her glare, feeling a bit sorry from the fillies' reaction. But she doesn’t take back any of her words.

“Come on. Let’s just go find Pinkie.” Trixie states, now leading Scootaloo by the hoof.

After coming back to the more populated area, they see Pinkie coming back towards them with a smile and a small bag in tow.

“Well, the guy didn’t have exactly what I was looking for, but this should be a good enough substitute!”

She frowns a little when she sees Trixies’ and Scootaloos’ less than pleasant faces.

“What’s wrong?” She asks.

“Scootaloo here tried to play hero when she saw some pony being beaten up.”

“How’d it go?” Pinkie asks, immediately curious.

“As good as it could've. I casted a façade on her in the knick of time, and it scared the attacker off. Thankfully she didn’t get stabbed or something.”

Pinkie snickers a little. “Oh the make-something-unintimidating-look-super-intimidating trick. What a classic.” She says.

She clears her throat while tilting her head. “But uh… For future reference, maybe don’t—”

“Yeah. I get it.” The filly says, a bit dryly.

There’s an awkward pause between the three.

Pinkie clears her throat.

“Alright! We should probably get going before we get into something else—”

BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!

In some other part of the town, a massive explosion happens, a clearly visible fireball erupting into the air.

Scootaloo immediately hits the ground out of instinct and fear, while Trixie and Pinkie quickly turn towards the blast.

They can see multiple large and small silhouettes appear in the red sky above, which quickly begin to descend upon the town.

Gargoyles and pegasi.

One Gargoyle lands on a shack a mere few meters away, immediately beginning to tear it apart with its talons, even scooping up some hapless victim and ripping them apart in seconds. Scootaloo watches on with horror.

Pinkie instantly notices and identifies various marks and insignia on the attackers' bodies and clothes. They're from a cult.

“Trixie! Make us some cover, now!” she yells at the unicorn.

The Fiend quickly pulls Trixie and Scootaloo closer to herself, nearly wrapping them in a hug. Trixies' horn begins to glow, and the three suddenly disappear.

Scootaloo looks around. Or at least, tries to.

She can’t see anything. It’s complete pitch darkness.

“What—”

She feels something cover her mouth, and she begins to panic.

“You can’t see anything when you’re invisible. Don’t move or talk.” It's Pinkies' voice.

Scootaloo stops struggling, simply staying quiet and still as ordered.

The hoof is lifted off of her mouth, but then a pair cover her ears, presumably Pinkie's as well. She can’t hear nor see the Fiend anymore, but can feel their bodies in close proximity of each other.

The ear-cover isn’t entirely perfect. Scootaloo can still hear muffled cries, screams, and the sounds of chaos around her. There’s an especially loud noise every now and then, or vibrations which physically shake her body from the inside out.

She just closes her eyes and waits.

Trixie unveils a small portion of her own eye, allowing her to peek out at the scene around her.

Thankfully, she overestimated the amount of time they needed to stay hidden, the danger having long passed. But the aftermath is fully present.

The unicorn collapses, exhausted from the effort. Pinkie and Scootaloo, now visible and able to see, quickly look around.

From their angle they can’t surmise the full damage of whatever occurred, but they can clearly see there was some kind of large assault upon the town.

Bodies and corpses in various states of damage lie everywhere and anywhere. Not even the structures were spared, with various buildings and trees being torn apart as well. Some bodies of the victims lie next to those of the attacking Gargoyles and pegasi, showing that not everypony went down without a fight.

Some surviving ponies slowly emerge from around the area, unsure if it's safe to come out too, while others still huddle and hide like the attack is still going.

A few even begin to massacre and butcher the corpses of the attackers, either out of practical reasons such as looting, or out of a misbegotten feeling of anger or sadness.

“W-what… w-was that…” Scootaloo says, quivering. Pinkie holds the filly close, consoling her.

“Vae... Victis." Trixie coughs, dryly. "They’re psychos who want... nothing except power." The exhausted unicorn explains.

Scootaloo still stammers for words. “I-I don’t understand… w-why couldn’t we have… just shifted away…”

Pinkie shakes her head, solemnly. “I can only shift if our surroundings are calm. All of that happening earlier wouldn't have allowed it."

The Fiend looks down at the collapsed unicorn, with a bit of worry. "Thankfully, we had Trixie with us."

Trixie looks back with a weak glance, eyes barely open.

“C-can we just leave…” Scootaloo whimpers, beginning to tear up a little.

Pinkie quickly nods, beginning to shift the three of them out of there.

As the world warps around them, Scootaloo stares straight ahead. There's a mangled corpse of a fallen orange pegasus.

She feels like it's staring straight back at her.

The three ponies vanish.