Sweetie Belle Exorcist

Chapters

CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 1

It was late, the sun was setting. Sweetie Belle was walking through the streets of Ponyville. It would have been highly unusual to see the unease she was feeling displayed on her face. Not wanting to attract too much attention to herself, she tried to keep a neutral expression. She arrived at the Golden Oak library and, after some hesitations, knocked on the door.

“Coming!” a voice from inside said.

Sweetie heard hoofsteps approach until the door opened.

“Oh, hello Sweetie Belle.”

“Hello, Twilight,” Sweetie Belle said, looking down, as if not too keen on making eye contact at the moment.

Twilight Sparkle looked around, surprised. “Where are Apple Bloom and Scootaloo? It's not like you to come to the library without them.”

“Um…” Sweetie Belle hesitated. “I just wanted to come alone… without the Crusaders.”

Without a word, Twilight let the little filly in.

Sweetie Belle looked at the shelves, looking for a specific book. She finally found it and levitated it down to her level. She sat down and started reading it. Twilight glanced at the cover of the book.

“‘Exorcism’? I didn’t know you were into that kind of thing,” she commented.

Sweetie Belle didn’t respond. After skipping through some more pages, she asked. “Um, Twilight. Can I… borrow this book?”

“Of course! Just be sure to bring it back when you're done reading.”

“Thanks…” Sweetie Belle took the book with her as she left the library.

Twilight watched the young unicorn trot away, wondering what she was up to. ‘It's not like Sweetie to be so quiet,’ she thought. ‘…or even to borrow a book from the library, I guess. I hope she's doing okay…’

****

Sweetie Belle arrived at the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ clubhouse. She opened the door and saw a silver-coated filly who had been waiting for her alone.

“Have you brought the book?” Silver Spoon asked. She tried to sound level-headed, but Sweetie Belle could see that, under the surface, she was clearly stressed.

“I have,” Sweetie answered, placing the book on the floor between them. “I still have a hard time believing in this kind of stuff.”

“Magic comes in many forms, Sweetie Belle. You will have to believe in anything at some point.” Silver adjusted her glasses and walked up to the book. “Now let's see what kind of demon possessed Diamond Tiara.”

“You're still sure we shouldn't tell anyone else?”

Silver Spoon looked Sweetie Belle in the eyes. “They probably either wouldn't believe it or would be against us. We can't afford to take risks… I'm sorry…”

They sat together and silently read through the book for a while. Meanwhile, outside, the moon was rising.

****

Silver Spoon and Sweetie Belle arrived at the gate of the Rich manor. Sweetie was wearing a long, dark gray cape with a hood to cover her face.

“Are you sure she won’t recognize me?”

“For sure. Demons like the ones possessing her aren’t smart enough to see through the thinnest disguises. This cape is more than enough.” Silver Spoon walked up to the intercom, but then stopped and turned toward Sweetie Belle. “Are you ready?”

“Y– yes…”

“Do you still have the key I gave you?”

Sweetie Belle reached for a silver key she was wearing on a necklace. “Yes, I have it.”

“Good… It is not only a familial treasure, but also your most important weapon as an exorcist, so don't lose it.” Silver Spoon pressed the intercom button. “Good luck…”

Somepony answered the intercom. “Hello? Who's this?”

“Hello, Mr. Rich. It's Silver Spoon. I was hoping I could see Diamond Tiara today.”

“Ah, Silver Spoon! I'm glad you're here. My daughter really needs a friend to cheer her up right now. Come in!”

The intercom beeped and the manor's gate opened. The two fillies walked in.

****

Filthy Rich arrived with Silver Spoon and Sweetie Belle in front of Diamond Tiara's room, which was closed. On the door, there was a sign saying: ‘NO BLANK FLANKS ALLOWED (that means you)’.

“I'll let you two with her, now. I'll go back to counting my bits.” Filthy Rich said, as he headed back downstairs.

Once the fillies were alone, Silver Spoon cautiously knocked on Diamond Tiara's door.

“Who's there?” the voice from inside the room almost screeched.

“It's me, DT. I… wanted to check on you, to see if you're doing alright.”

After a brief moment, the room could be heard being unlocked. Diamond Tiara opened the door. “Hello Silvy.”

She let Silver Spoon inside, somehow not noticing Sweetie Belle's presence as the caped unicorn also came in.

“So…” Silver Spoon sat in the middle of the room. “Are you feeling good?”

“Of course I am,” DT sat down with Silver Spoon. “You're not going to bother me about it like those blank flanks did all day, are you?”

Silver Spoon gulped. She couldn’t read Diamond Tiara's expression. “If you don't want to talk about it, I'm fine with that.”

While the two friends were talking, Sweetie Belle was installing things around them. Diamond Tiara couldn’t see her, and Silver Spoon purposefully tried not to bring any attention to her. Sweetie first emptied a salt shaker around them, in order to trace a circle of salt.

“So… what do you want to do, then?”

“I don't know,” DT answered. “You're the one who came to see me uninvited.”

Then, Sweetie Belle put seven candles around the circle and lit each one of them up with her magic.

“Do you want to play ‘Monopony’, then?” Silver Spoon asked.

“Please! Father makes more money in real life in ten minutes than playing this game. It's so long and boring.”

“If you say so…” Silver Spoon said, seeing Diamond Tiara's veins becoming black, but trying to ignore it as best she could.

Sweetie Belle placed the book in front of her to read the instructions one last time. She then faced toward the salt circle surrounding DT and Silvy. She took a deep breath, and began focusing her magic on the candles.

Suddenly, the salt on the floor turned into flames. Silver Spoon jumped out of the circle just in time as the flames formed a wall surrounding Diamond Tiara.

Diamond Tiara finally noticed what was going on. “An exorcism? Really?” Her dark veins began pulsating heavily as the wall of flames shone brighter, burning something inside her. “Oh no, you won't.”

A black ooze came out of DT's mouth, then spilled on the floor in front of her. DT fainted unconscious while the ooze took the shape of a serpent.

“Um, Silver Spoon?” Sweetie Belle was worried. “I don't think the demon was meant to leave her body on its own.”

“Just stick to the plan! It's still in the circle!” Silver Spoon exclaimed.

The serpent demon's face was unreadable, but somehow the fillies could sense it smirking as it leaned toward one of the candles and just blew it off. The wall of fire around the demon then disappeared.

Before Sweetie Belle could say anything, Silver Spoon shouted at her: “Stop whining! That's why we have a plan B!”

Sweetie Belle nodded and immediately went back to the book. The demon tried to catch up to her, but Silver Spoon sprayed it with a bottle of holy water she had on her to stop it in its tracks. The demon was stunned long enough for Sweetie to find a spell in the book.

“Is this really what exorcism has come to?” The demon said, regaining its senses. “I've seen novices do better on their first day.” It turned to face Silver Spoon. “And you, I recognize your scent. You're from the Silver House, correct?” The demon giggled. “Too bad you're an Earth pony. You'd have made a pathetic successor to your ancestors.”

Silver Spoon stared at the demon's face, frowning. But then, to the serpent's surprise, she grinned. “Well I'm glad that you're even more pathetic. Seriously, I didn’t even need to do anything to distract you.”

Suddenly, magical chains appeared around the demon out of the blue. Sweetie was the one who summoned them. Her horn started glowing brighter while she focused all her strength into a large light beam that opened a portal underneath the demon. The chains slowly but surely pulled the demon into the portal.

“Also…” Silver Spoon continued. “Sweetie Belle isn't pathetic in the least.”

The demon grunted while the portal closed over its face. Sweetie Belle was out of breath, but Silver Spoon pointed toward the key necklace she gave to Sweetie, reminding her to use it. Sweetie Belle used her magic to grab the key, then turned it to the right. Somehow it made a click sound, as if Sweetie had just locked a door.

“Silver Spoon…” Sweetie Belle asked, while trying to catch her breath. “I recall you saying that exorcists are rare nowadays.”

“My family used to be the biggest house of exorcists… Demons killed most of them, while the rest simply abandoned this career…” Silver Spoon looked sorrowful, yet she didn't drop a tear, for she had already cried enough.

Diamond Tiara slowly woke up, grunting. “Ugh… I have one of those headaches… HEY! What is SHE doing here?” She turned her attention to Sweetie Belle.

“I think I'll just go home now,” Sweetie Belle said, taking the exorcism book with her. “Bye Silvy. Bye DT.” She left the room.

Diamond Tiara snarled, then she looked at the salt and burnt candles on the floor around her. “What in Equestria happened while I was asleep?”

Silver Spoon shrugged. “I'll clean it up.”

“Nah, I'll just fetch the maid.”

Author's Note

I know it isn't well written, but honestly it's better than nothing to me. Please keep in mind when critiquing that I am still very new at this and that nitpicking every minor flaw that don't make the overall reading experience bad would be useless at this point in time. Like I said I am new and am hoping to become better later.

August 25, 2024 update:
I added slight fixes to chapters 1-3, mainly removing the spaces before question marks and exclamation marks.

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2

What happened the day before stayed between Sweetie Belle and Silver Spoon. Neither of them said a word about it to their friends, not even to Diamond Tiara who kept asking Silver Spoon what Sweetie Belle was doing in her house. Silver simply avoided the topic.

Sweetie Belle was hanging out around the apple farm with Scootaloo and Apple Bloom in front of the Cutie Mark Crusaders clubhouse. They were building what was meant to be a flying machine out of wood and ropes, trying to get their cutie marks as aircraft engineers. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were passing by and noticed it.

“Hey, blank flanks!” Diamond Tiara shouted. “What are you doing there? Wasting your time or wasting planks of wood?”

“I mean, what even is THAT supposed to be?” Silver Spoon pointed toward the strange construction of planks that were tied and hammered together. “Is it, like, abstract art or something?”

“Calling it art would give it too much credit,” Diamond Tiara chuckled.

Scootaloo stood up from the planks she was nailing together. “Don't you two have anything to do with your lives besides harassing us?”

“What? ‘Harassing’? Puh-lease! We are merely passing by and stating the obvious,” Diamond Tiara replied.

“Come on, Scoots. Ya ain't gonna get anything but trouble if ya listen to ‘em,” Apple Bloom said, not getting up from the planks she was sawing.

“Well, sorry Apple Bloom, but I still think it's rude that she talks to us like that when we tried to help her yesterday.” Scootaloo sat back down, crossing her forelegs. “You'd think she'd at least say thanks…”

“What is she talking about?” Diamond Tiara asked Silver Spoon.

“Ya were in a very bad mood yesterday.” Apple Bloom answered. “We tried ta cheer ya up, but ya weren’t listening.”

“You hit Sweetie Belle in the face!” Scootaloo interjected.

Diamond Tiara gasped in shock. “Silvy, is what they're saying true?”

Silver Spoon simply shrugged.

“Don't try to sweep it under the rug,” Scootaloo said.

“It's okay, girls. I forgave her.”

Scootaloo looked back at Sweetie Belle in surprise. “Are you sure you're okay, Sweetie?”

“I– I'm fine. It didn’t even hurt that much.” Sweetie Belle continued tying ropes around her planks. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo looked at her with concern, then got back to work on their ‘flying machine’ contraption… thing.

Diamond Tiara looked puzzled. “Wuh– whatever. I'm not hanging around those weirdos. Come on, Silvy.” She took Silver Spoon by the foreleg and trotted away.

While going with Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon quietly mouthed to Sweetie Belle: “We meet at my house later.”

Sweetie Belle discreetly nodded.

****

It was the evening. The CMC said goodbye to each other as they went home for the night. Sweetie Belle however, instead of going home, went to Silver Spoon's house. She pressed the doorbell and waited until a butler let her in. Silver Spoon was waiting for her in the main hall.

“Hi Sweetie.” Silver Spoon looked down, scratching her right foreleg. “Sorry for what I said to your friends earlier today…”

“That was really mean and unnecessary… But this isn’t why you wanted to see me, right?”

“I thought you'd figure it out.”

Silver Spoon waved a hoof, inviting Sweetie Belle to follow her. They went to a living room upstairs. There, Silver Spoon took a photo album from a shelf and invited Sweetie Belle to read it alongside her on the couch.

“Like I told you, my family was a long lineage of exorcists, some of the best out there.” Silver Spoon pointed a hoof to a photo in the album. It was a photograph of a mustached unicorn stallion with a gray coat and a silver mane rather similar to Silver Spoon's. “This is my great-uncle Silver Key,” she said. “He was considered by many as the very best exorcist of his era… and one of the last. He was the one who made and used to own the very silver key I gave you yesterday.”

“…so, what happened to him?”

“Like a bunch of other family members, he just disappeared one day. Many suspect that a demon killed him, along with most of the other exorcists of his time. One of the few things we have left of him is, well, the key.”

“I see…” Sweetie Belle took the key out of her saddlebag. “I didn’t give it back to you yesterday.” She floated it onto Silver Spoon's hoof.

“You should keep it.”

“Why?”

“You'd make better use of it than myself, since I can’t use it at all. So I insist on you keeping it.” Silver Spoon hoofed the key back to Sweetie Belle.

“I don't know… I don't think I could live up to your great-uncle. He was the best, right? Or at least one of them. And I'm only just learning about all these things. I'm sure some novice could do better…”

Silver Spoon placed a hoof on Sweetie Belle's shoulder and looked her in the eyes. “Sweetie Belle, the spell you cast yesterday was in no way a technique some novice could've pulled off. A filly your age summoning the Chains of Tartarus was never seen before in exorcist history.”

Sweetie Belle nodded and put the key necklace back around her neck.

“Also, my family would never allow another member to become an exorcist,” Silver continued, looking slightly downcast. “They burned all the books on the subject that they owned. We used to have an entire library about it.”

“That's why you asked me to get the book from Twilight's?” Sweetie asked.

“Yes, that is why. Before my parents could burn all our books, our butler donated a few of them to the library, in an attempt to conserve them.” Silver Spoon leaned close to Sweetie Belle's ear. “Don't tell mother and father or they’ll fire him.”

Sweetie Belle nodded again and mimicked the gesture of zipping her mouth with her hoof.

“…Sweetie Belle?”

“Y– yes?”

“Do you see yourself with this cape, and this key, fighting demons and locking them in Tartarus when you're an adult?”

Sweetie Belle put a hoof on her chin, thinking. She shrugged.

“Do you want to train your exorcist powers, just in case?”

“Okay. I don't see why not.”

Silver Spoon closed the photo album. “Come with me, then.”

****

They arrived in what looked like a large, empty gym room. There were mirrors across the walls and the roof and floor were silver colored. The two fillies sat in the middle, facing each other.

“Alright,” Silver Spoon started. “Do you remember the chain spell you used yesterday?”

Sweetie Belle nodded.

“Well then, use it again.”

Sweetie focused her magical energy into her horn, making it glow in a green aura similar to her eyes. Another green spot glowed on the ground between her and Silver Spoon, and from it, a gray, metal chain with a shackle on its upper end came out. The chain was floating around, one end still attached to the green spot it came out of.

“This chain and all the ones you can summon with exorcist spells are directly linked to Tartarus.” Silver adjusted her glasses. “With these, you can bind a demon and pull it back to Tartarus. Now try moving it around.”

With a thought, Sweetie Belle started moving the shackle and its chain around for a bit.

“You need to get used to its weight, its shape, and its mobility, so that you know what you can do and what you can't in the midst of the action. Try summoning more and move them around.”

Sweetie Belle created two more glowing spots on the ground, with another chain coming out from each. She moved the chains around, and noticed that they all went in the same direction at the same time.

“Against some demons, you will have to use a lot of chains, so you'd better learn to move multiple of them separately. Now let's talk about the key.”

Sweetie Belle let go of the chains from her magic, making them disappear, probably sending them back to Tartarus. She reached for her necklace with a front hoof and felt the key attached to it.

“There are many ways to push a demon into a portal, but only one to prevent it from coming back. Always remember to turn this key when you're done exorcizing to lock the beasts in Tartarus. If you don't, they WILL come back.”

“Got it,” Sweetie Belle said.

****

Silver Spoon waved Sweetie Belle goodbye as the latter went on her way home. When she arrived at Carousel Boutique, Rarity wasn’t there, and had simply left a note on the counter.

‘My dear Sweetie Belle.
I have been summoned by Princess Celestia to Canterlot for urgent matters, so I probably won’t be home until tomorrow morning. The boutique will stay closed until then. I left you some food in the fridge (don't try to cook it, please). I know you are capable enough to take care of yourself, but I will ask anyway: please take care of yourself.
– Your big sister, Rarity.’

‘P.S. : Don't forget to feed Opalescence too.’

“Meow.”

Sweetie Belle's attention was taken from the note to the meowing of her sister's cat. Opalescence was staring at Sweetie, meowing continuously. Of course she was hungry. The two went to the kitchen, and Sweetie took some fish from the fridge that she placed in Opal's bowl. Opal immediately started eating it.

Sweetie Belle was hungry and tired, but before cooking herself something for dinner, she decided to pat Opalescence on the head, because that's just what you do sometimes when you live with a cat. But as Sweetie Belle reached out her forehoof to pet her, Opal stopped eating and froze in place with a shocked expression on her face.

She was looking at Sweetie Belle's necklace, specifically the silver key, that was dangling in front of her face from the filly's neck.

Sweetie noticed Opal's reaction, but didn’t know what to make of it. She just shrugged it off and went to make dinner for herself.

Opalescence still had the same expression on her face as she kept staring at Sweetie Belle. She was still seated in the same spot in front of her bowl, and her eyes eventually shifted to anger as a name crossed her mind.

‘Silver Key.’

Author's Note

Ayo.

I know this is taking long to make and I'm sorry for it. I don't consider myself as a very good writer, so I take my time to write this story to make it at least decently readable. Don't expect a consistant release schedule. :fluttershysad:

Despite this, however, I hope that you enjoy reading it anyway. If there are some parts in story-telling for example that you think I could try to improve on, you can tell me in the comments. Please be civil down there, obviously.

Also, I am not 100% sure which tags would be the most appropriate, so you can give suggestions as to how I should update them as the story progresses.

I think that's all I have to say for now. Remember that I am not Shakespeare, and have a nice day. :twilightsmile:

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3

What Sweetie Belle had just cooked for her dinner looked nothing like ratatouille, smelled nothing like ratatouille, tasted nothing like ratatouille, and sounded nothing like ratatouille. So nopony in their right mind could've ever guessed what it actually was… or was meant to be. It didn’t seem to bother Sweetie Belle though, as she was somehow eating whatever was on her plate.

What did bother her was Opalescence, who was sitting on the floor to her left, staring. She was looking at the key that was still attached to Sweetie Belle's necklace. She continued staring in silence until Sweetie finally finished her dinner.

“Where did you find it?”

Sweetie Belle almost threw up in shock. She looked over to her flanks to make sure she hadn’t suddenly gotten Fluttershy's cutie mark and learned to understand cat speech. She hadn’t. The cat had indeed just spoken.

“Answer my question.”

“I– I think I deserve answers the most here,” Sweetie Belle replied, stuttering.

“You haven’t asked anything though.”

“Do I really have to?”

Opalescence sighed in annoyance. “Fine, I'll explain. I am Opalescence, though it isn't my real name more than my undercover identity. My actual name is Øpre-S'ion.”

“‘Oppression’?” Sweetie Belle got off her chair and took a few steps back from the ‘cat’ she was talking to. “Are you…”

“A demon? Bingo. I only took this appearance a bunch of years ago. I needed some place to hide in the overworld in case the exorcists were to ‘pop back into fashion’. You catch my drift?”

Sweetie Belle took another two steps back from this ‘Oppression’. “I– I don't understand… Where is– where's Opal?”

Oppression looked unamused. “I'm in front of you, dummy.”

Sweetie Belle was confused and panicking. She took some more steps back toward the door. Before she could leave the kitchen however, one of Oppression's paws turned into a giant, ugly, lanky arm with big, sharp claws that were now holding the key on Sweetie Belle's necklace, threatening to rip it from her neck. Sweetie Belle was paralyzed in terror and could do nothing but watch and breathe frantically.

“This key.” Oppression started fiddling with it using one of her claws. “It belonged to Silver Key. I recognize its scent, its look, its texture…” Oppression's neck suddenly extended up to Sweetie's face. Her head was now bigger, her teeth somehow multiplied by the hundred, and her eyes big and beady, fixating on Sweetie's necklace… or maybe her neck.

“Let me tell you something that you don't wanna know: I was the one who got rid of Silver Key. I did it personally, and I enjoyed EVERY. SINGLE. SECOND. OF. IT. Now let me ask you again: where did you find this Celestia forsaken key?”

Sweetie Belle didn’t say a word. She couldn’t say a word. She was taken by too much panic to think straight, or even think at all. Instead, she just stood there silently, with a headache from her heart beating so fast, pumping too much blood upward to her head.

“The silent treatment, eh? Well that's alright.” Oppression's other front paw, the one that wasn’t already touching Sweetie's necklace, extended into another long, big, creepy arm that was now about to reach for the filly's head. “I will find out, eventually.”

Before her head could be either squashed or ripped to shreds, Sweetie Belle snapped back to reality and summoned a chain from Tartarus, shackling the arm that tried to attack her. Oppression shot an angry glare at Sweetie, then used her other arm that was holding the necklace to rip it from Sweetie's neck. Before Sweetie could do anything to take the key back, Oppression's mouth grew wider and wider before snapping shut in the little pony's direction.

Sweetie Belle managed to dodge the bite that would've cost her life and galloped out of the kitchen. She knocked over some mannequins as she traversed the front boutique. Meanwhile, the feline demon's neck expanded as her head barked and bit while pursuing Sweetie, destroying most of the furniture on its way. As she ran, Sweetie Belle tried to use her telekinesis to open the front door she was heading toward, but Oppression's head caught up and cut her path to the exit, forcing Sweetie to turn around.

Not having many other places to go at this point, Sweetie Belle ran for the staircase and went upstairs. She hesitated which room she would go to next for a second, first thinking about the comfort of her own bedroom, ultimately going to Rarity's workshop instead. Without thinking, she locked the door shut behind herself. She then heard violent knockings and scratchings on the door for a while that eventually stopped after what felt like a long minute. It seemed like either the door was very solid or the demon isn't half as strong as she seems. Though Sweetie Belle remembered having read that some demons can sometimes be stopped with mundane things like stairs, beans, disguises, or even a simple wooden door, which seemed to be the case here.

Sweetie Belle then realized that her book on exorcism, which most likely contained a solution out of this situation, was in her bedroom, which she had decided not to go to a minute ago. She face-hoofed once she was done regaining her breath.

Suddenly, awful banging and scratching noises could be heard again at the door. Sweetie Belle startled. Whatever Oppression was trying to do, she was still clearly after the young unicorn and wasn’t ready to give up. Sweetie Belle looked around the room, trying to look for something. Anything that could help her in the immediate instant would do.

Her eyes settled on the fabric on Rarity's work table. It worked last time, so it should work again, right? Even though this demon is probably of a higher level, it's still worth trying.

****

After banging on it for about half an hour, Oppression finally broke the door open. She looked around the room with her wide, glowing eyes, but couldn’t find anything living. Her face’s expression was undecipherable at this point, but she was clearly out for blood. She was out for sweet little pony blood. Her neck extended further into the room to get a closer look around.

Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle was standing still just beside the doorway, breathing as quietly as possible. She was wearing a dark gray cape like the one from yesterday, covering her face and body. Once she was sure that Oppression wasn’t looking in her direction, she discreetly moved through the doorway, crouching under the demon's still unnaturally long neck. Sweetie then headed to her bedroom, where she took her exorcism book. She then went back downstairs, still trying to move as quietly as possible.

Oppression's neck was all over the house, like a giant snake from which one couldn’t see both ends at a time. It was mostly still, but moved slightly and slowly as the demon breathed. Sweetie managed to make her way into the kitchen, where one of Oppression's paws was shackled in place, while the other paw was stretched up to the ceiling, holding the silver key out of Sweetie Belle's reach. Although she could try to take the key with her magic, the demon's grip looked very intense and would most likely not let it go easily at all. Plus the fact that pulling something so important from her claws would not go unnoticed by Oppression. Sweetie needed a plan.

****

After reading some pages of the exorcism book, Sweetie Belle had come up with a plan. Not because the book itself gave her the plan, but reading it somehow calmed her enough to come up with one.

She summoned another chain to shackle the paw holding the key, which she immediately pulled violently toward the ground, at her level. She then could use her hooves to push the claws apart and take the key with her magic. She jumped away from the demon's claws just in time when they tried to scratch her to death. Both of Oppression's front paws were tied up to the floor, leaving her only with head, tail, and hind legs free. Sweetie summoned three more shackles to immobilize the tail and hind legs.

Meanwhile, Oppression had felt everything. She knew that Sweetie Belle was in the kitchen and that she had taken the key back. Without wasting any second, she unextended her neck from all the way across the house back to the rest of her body in the kitchen. But before her head re-entered the kitchen, a thought crossed her mind that made her stop. If she were to let her entire body in a single room, that filly could easily just shackle her neck and throw her in a portal to Tartarus in one move. Oppression wouldn't let that happen.

Back in the kitchen, Sweetie Belle was surprised to see that the demon hadn’t just brought her head back to mindlessly attack her. Sweetie wanted to sigh in relief, but a second thought quickly brought her back to her guard. She understood that Oppression probably had a plan, but she couldn’t predict what it was.

Suddenly, the neck started unextending again. When Oppression had brought her head back in the room, Sweetie Belle immediately tried to shackle her neck. But the demon had wrapped her own neck with thick layers of crudely stitched together pieces of clothing, preventing the shackle from closing itself around the demon's neck due to the lack of space to do so. Sweetie was shocked and honestly amazed by the makeship cloth armor, then she felt bad for Rarity's dresses having been wasted on this, then she thought that Rarity would probably be more distraught by her cat turning out to be a demon, then she remembered that she was in the middle of a fight with said demon just in time to jump out of the way of a bite attack.

Oppression wasn’t smiling or frowning, but her quiet chuckles made it quite obvious that she was enjoying the situation. She turned toward Sweetie Belle and said: “Oh, my little pony. My little, foolish pony. What did you try to achieve with this? Exorcists are no more; we demons annihilated them. Soon, Equestria won’t belong to the ponies anymore. It will be ours, and you will be dead. You will pay for daring to bring exorcism back. YOU. WILL. PAY. WITH. YOUR. LIFE.”

Sweetie Belle wasn’t moving. She was just looking back into Oppression's eyes, blankly. She was shocked that a simple wrap of cloth was strong enough armor to stop her shackles. It felt dumb. Actually, it WAS dumb. While Oppression was delivering her little speech, Sweetie Belle just discreetly levitated a pair of scissors and used it to cut open the dresses around the demon's neck. The cloth ‘armor’ then simply fell onto the ground under Oppression's neck. Sweetie then shackled the neck, having Oppression immobilized with little effort.

Sweetie Belle's expression was still blank, unable to think of which emotion would be appropriate to the situation. She opened the portal to Tartarus, then pulled Oppression inside with the chains. Oppression was shouting about something, but Sweetie Belle didn’t listen. While she locked the portal back with a turn of her key, she thought about what had just happened.

Opalescence, Rarity's cat who she had been living with for so long, had been a demon in disguise all this time, at least according to her own words. This demon, whose name sounded like ‘oppression’, had tried to kill her in cold blood when she saw the silver key. This demon was also apparently the one who had once killed Silver Key, one of the greatest exorcists of his time who was also Silver Spoon's great-uncle. Sweetie Belle had been living with a powerful murderer all this time. Sweetie Belle had just defeated not just a demon in hiding, but also a crazed, dangerous killer who had once murdered, and with who, for a long time, she had been living with.

At this point, she just needed to sit down.

And so she did: she sat down, looking blankly at the cloth ‘armor’ she had cut open, which was laying on the floor, for the rest of the night.

****

When Rarity came back home in the morning, she was gaping at the sight of her shop in ruins. Furniture was broken all over the place, dresses she had spent days and nights working on were destroyed; it looked like a wrathful beast had been in there.

When Rarity's thoughts came into focus, she panicked. “Sweetie Belle!” she screamed. She rushed inside, ready to look for her little sister all over the place. Luckily, she quickly found her in the kitchen, seated on the floor, looking blankly at a bunch of stitched together, ruined clothes in front of her. She was wearing a dark gray cape and a necklace with a key, but it didn’t matter to Rarity in the moment. She ran to her little sister and immediately hugged her.

“Sweetie Belle! Are you okay? Please talk to me, Sweetie!”

But Sweetie Belle didn’t talk. She glanced up at Rarity, let out a few sobs, then looked down into space again.

“Sweetie Belle.” Rarity looked at her in the eyes. Saying she was concerned would be a huge understatement. “What happened?”

Sweetie Belle didn’t look back at Rarity.
“Opalescence left…”
She didn't speak another word.

Author's Note

Again, I'm really sorry if I take so much time to write. I'm writing this alone and most of my pre-readers are french. :twilightblush:

I hope you enjoyed this chapter ! :raritywink:

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 4

Rarity and Sweetie Belle sat on chairs next to each other. Sweetie Belle was looking down pensively. As Rarity looked at her little sister, she couldn’t prevent a feeling of melancholy from creeping up in her heart. She turned toward the therapist who was sitting on the other side of the desk.

“I'm worrying, Doctor. She hasn't spoken to me or even smiled once during the last two days…”

Doctor Starsong adjusted her glasses on her muzzle with a wing while nodding. She turned toward the younger sister and asked, “Sweetie Belle, do you wish to talk to me alone?”

Without looking back up, Sweetie Belle nodded.

“Alright.” Doctor Starsong turned back to Rarity. “If it's okay with you?”

“Of course. If that is what Sweetie Belle wants.” Rarity walked out of the room.

Sweetie Belle looked up at Starsong once she heard the door closing behind Rarity. She said, “I don't know if I can really tell you everything.”

“I won’t force you to tell everything. And I promise that whatever you say, it won’t come out of this room, unless it's from your own mouth.”

Sweetie Belle inhaled. “Okay… I– I will try to… explain some of it…” She sobbed a little, then swallowed her saliva. “So… Opalescence, Rarity's cat… I know why she disappeared. It was… my fault… kinda…”

Doctor Starsong didn’t say anything. She simply nodded as she listened.

“And…” Sweetie Belle continued. “It earned me my cutie mark.”

Sweetie Belle lifted her cape, which she had been wearing since the incident, showing the mark that had appeared on her flank that fateful night: a silver key that oddly bore a strong resemblance to the one which hung from her necklace. She then let the cape fall back over her, hiding the mark.

“It sounds… like a complicated story.” Doctor Starsong commented.

The young unicorn simply nodded. She appeared silent once again, looking at the floor.

“You know that Rarity doesn't blame you, right?”

Sweetie Belle nodded once again, hesitantly.

Starsong placed her hooves under her chin. “You know what I think you two need?”

Sweetie Belle shook her head.

“You need some bonding time together.”

Sweetie Belle looked back at the therapist.

“You two sound like very loving and understanding sisters. There is no bad blood between you both, so you shouldn't let whatever happened that night break your relationship. That’s why I'm proposing that you two get to spend some time together, having fun.” Starsong smiled gently at Sweetie Belle. “What do you think?”

Sweetie Belle scratched her chin, looking at the door behind her, then back at Doctor Starsong. “Okay… We could try… It's not like I could hide my cutie mark for very long anyway.”

****

“What's the name of the play, by the way?” Silver Spoon asked Diamond Tiara as they sat down on their seats, in the front row.

“It's called The Frenemy,” Diamond Tiara responded. “It's fiction, but it's somewhat loosely inspired by Princess Platinum's relationship with Clover The Clever.”

“I see…” Silver Spoon took a mouthful of her popcorn as the lights in the theater went dim and the stage was being spotlit, indicating the start of the play.

As the audience stopped chatting among themselves, a mare walked on the stage. She announced: “I'm about to tell you the story of two friends. One was a princess, the other a baroness. What brought them together wasn’t their interests, but rather, their gold and social class, nothing else.”

◇◇◇

Two ponies were walking down the castle halls. The first one, a pink unicorn mare with a purple mane, was clearly looking tired. “Walking, walking, over here, over there. That's it!” She turned toward the other pony. “Baroness, I need porters to carry me, quick!”

The other pony, a gray pegasus mare with glasses and a chic suit and bowtie, rolled her eyes. “Just to go from your bedroom to the room across? Please! I know you're lazy, but this is ludicrous.”

The unicorn took offense in that statement. “You do not talk to me in that tone, Baroness!”

The baroness sighed. “And you can just insult me minutely, Princess?”

The princess, clearly not taking this well, snapped back. “Shut up! Should I remind you that I outrank you?” She paused, then took on a sinister tone. “Be careful, Baroness, for I'm richer too. You would be better off on my good side, my friend. All of my enemies wish they could make amends.”

The baroness wasn’t at ease, but she tried to keep a straight face. “I… understand, Princess. I won't bother you more.” She fixed her bowtie and walked away, not looking back at the princess.

“You better not, Baroness. You don't want a war.” The princess stood in silence for a while. She looked down at her legs, then shot her head back up. “Baroness, come back here and fetch me some porters!” She waited for a while, hoping for the baroness to come back, in vain. She grunted. “Why can't my underlings just follow my orders?”

The baroness had gone for a walk in town. It wasn’t too unusual for her to go in the streets of her barony alone. She liked to talk to the town ponies to hear what happened in their daily lives, to be in touch with them. That was something that she was heavily discouraged to do when around the princess, who she was often demanded to accompany, whether it be for a trip, a ball, or just to chit chat. Today however, the princess was waiting in her castle for her staff to bring her porters, so the baroness would have some alone time in town.

The baroness trotted in front of a boulangerie and stopped to think for a moment. “Maybe I could buy myself some bread for a snack,” she said. She adjusted her glasses in reminiscence. “I don't recall ever coming here in the past.” She entered.

Inside, there was a white earth pony with a curly, pink and purple mane who was baking bread. She turned her head around as the entry door's bell rang to see her new client. “Ah, isn't that the baroness? Welcome! Welcome!” She took the now baked bread out of the oven and placed it on display with the rest. “What brings you here today? Surely not my bread buns.”

“Actually, your bread is exactly why I'm here.” the baroness replied in a friendly tone. “But if you want more from me, then talk, I'm all ears.”

“Well, a good chat would be a good start, wouldn't it?” the baker said as she leaned on the counter. “I reckon you don't come here often to visit. So tell me: what brings the baroness here today in my humble boulangerie besides what I bake?” she said, as she put the baroness's bread into a paper bag.

The baroness sighed. “I just wanted to get out of those castles and talk to real ponies that don't make all things so bland.” The baroness threw her forelegs upward in exasperation. “Seriously, I just had one who wanted porters to move her across her own hallways and quarters!”

The baker chuckled. “That sounds amusing.”

The baroness joined in the chuckles while she paid for her bread. “Trust me, it's annoying. The princess is someone I prefer avoiding.” She stopped chuckling and frowned. “Alas, as her ‘friend’, I can’t abandon her.”

The baker cocked her head. “Are you two really friends?”

“No, I just can’t stand her,” the baroness replied, while taking the bread she had bought with a wing. “But enough about me. How was your day, Baker?”

“Is there much to say about a quaint bread maker?” the baker said cheerfully.

It turned out, there indeed were a bunch of things to talk about from the baker's life. Things that the baroness found way more interesting than her boring castle life.

The two bonded together rather quickly, first over small talks and conversations, but soon they would start to hang out regularly. Whenever the princess wasn’t dragging her along with her, the baroness came to the boulangerie to spend time with her newer friend.

Over time, the baroness would start to rethink her relationship with the princess.

◇◇◇

Later that day, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon left the theater.

“That was boring,” Diamond commented. “The play went on for waaay too long. Also, they were trying so hard to make the princess look like the villain it was actually pathetic.”

Silver Spoon didn’t listen to Diamond Tiara's rambling, nor did she even make it look like she paid attention to it. Instead, she was making herself her own opinion on the play.

She thought about the characters, and their arcs…

Then she thought about her own life, and compared it to the play…

‘I can’t keep hanging out with her,’ Silver Spoon finally thought, while glancing at Diamond Tiara.

Author's Note

I'm trying something with this. I hope you will like the way it'll pay off in the next chapter. :twilightsmile:

Also, yeah, Starsong is a therapist in this universe. Go figure.

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 5

“Sweetie Belle!” Silver Spoon ran up to the unicorn she was calling.

Sweetie Belle was sitting in front of Carousel Boutique, reading her book on exorcism. She was so taken by the book that it took her a while to notice Silver Spoon. “Oh, um… H-hi Silver Spoon,” she said, slightly taken by surprise.

“I see you've taken quite the interest in that book.” Silver Spoon said, smirking.

Sweetie Belle wasn’t smiling back. She didn't reply, and instead simply closed her book and slid it in her saddlebag, under her cape.

Silver Spoon noticed that Sweetie Belle wasn’t too happy, along with the ‘CLOSED’ sign on the door next to her. “Isn't your sister's boutique open at this hour–?”

“Silver Spoon, please, I don't want to talk about that.”

Silver was surprised. She realized that Sweetie Belle wasn’t doing okay at all. The unicorn had bags under her eyes, looking like she hadn’t slept well. Her eyes also looked bloodshot, like she had run out of tears from crying a lot. Something had to have happened the previous day, while Silver was at the theater.

Silver thought that it would be best to respect Sweetie's wishes and not to press further on the subject, so she switched the topic. “Say, Sweetie Belle.”

“Hm?”

“What are you doing today?”

“Oh, um… Rarity and I are going to the Six Wings Great Venture.” Sweetie Belle seemed more at ease with talking about that.

“Sweet! Um…” Silver first hesitated, but then shook her head and asked, “could I… come with you two?”

Sweetie Belle finally smiled a little. “Sure! But I would have to ask Rarity first.”

Silver Spoon's ear perked at the sound of somepony trotting by. She turned to see it was Rarity herself walking up to them. “Heh, speak of the devil.”

Sweetie Belle hit Silver Spoon on the shoulder. “Don't ever call her that again,” she said firmly.

Silver Spoon simply nodded while rubbing her hurt shoulder. “I'm sorry,” she mouthed quietly.

Rarity walked up to the two fillies. “Are you two alright?” she asked.

“Y-yes we're fine,” Silver Spoon answered.

“Rarity,” Sweetie Belle said. “Silver Spoon wanted to join us at the amusement park today. Is that okay with you?”

“Why of course, darling. I can get more tickets for your friends,” Rarity answered. She raised an eyebrow and glanced at Silver Spoon as she continued. “Although, I expected you to want to invite other friends.”

Sweetie Belle bit her lip as she thought for a moment. “Well… Silver Spoon is kind of a new friend, so I wanted to spend some time with her. I'll have plenty of time to spend with both her and the Crusaders later, you know?” She grinned.

Rarity looked confused for a bit. “Well, if you two are getting along now… It's decided then. We will be going with Silver Spoon.”

“Thank you, Miss Rarity.” Silver Spoon replied with a genuine smile on her face.

◇◇◇

“So, Baroness,” the princess asked. “Where have you been these past few days?”

The baroness didn’t reply immediately, instead chewing slowly on her dinner while the unusually patient princess looked at her impatiently. Then, the baroness finally answered: “It is none of your concern what I do away.”

“Who is it?”

There was an awkward silence that followed the princess's last question. The baroness had stopped eating.

“Who are you ditching me for?” the princess continued. “Answer.”

The baroness clearly wasn’t too keen on answering this. Her face had a visible scowl. “Let's just say, Princess, that you're much poorer than her.”

◇◇◇

“Hey, Silver Spoon. Wake up.”

“Mm… what is it, Sweetie Belle?”

“We're almost here,” Sweetie Belle said, pointing at the window.

Silver Spoon, who had been napping during most of the trip, looked out of the train's window. She saw the city of Fillydelphia, which they were entering, and, in the distance, she saw the large cloud that held the Six Wings Great Venture floating in the outskirts of the city.

The train finally stopped at the Fillydelphia station.

****

To access the Six Wings Great Venture, there was a hot air balloon station at ground level, which served as the entry to the park. Visitors would buy their tickets there. They would also be given bracelets that served both as verification passes to enter the actual park and as charms that would allow them to walk on clouds, which was what said park was made of.

Rarity, Sweetie Belle, and Silver Spoon got seated in their hot air balloon, which soon took off and flew toward the giant cloud above.

Silver Spoon was looking at her bracelet pensively.

“Are you alright, dear?” Rarity asked her.

“Oh– um, yes, don't worry. I'm just a little, um… afraid of heights,” Silver Spoon responded, stuttering a little. She looked up at Rarity and noticed her now concerned look. “Oh, no no no. We don't need to go back. I'll be fine, really. I can handle it.” She tried to grin reassuringly.

Rarity smiled, relieved to see that Silver's fear wasn’t too disabling. “If you ever don't feel well, do not hesitate to tell me.”

“I will tell you, Miss Rarity.”

Not wanting to look at the landscape distancing itself further down from her, Silver Spoon dozed off while the hot air balloon continued to go up.

◇◇◇

“So, my friend, are you still flying away from me?” the princess asked, a sly smirk on her face despite the bitterness in her voice.

The baroness, who was flying by, landed on a nearby cloud and looked down to the ground, where the princess was standing. “Are you talking to me?” she asked her.

The princess had replaced her smirk with a scowl.

The baroness sighed. “Will you ever leave me be?” she said in exasperation, flying down to ground level.

“Who is she?” the princess asked sternly. “And don't talk in riddles like last time.”

The baroness closed her eyes in exasperation as she sighed. “Fine,” she said. “Recall the merchant street down that town of mine?”

“You own a town?” the princess asked, puzzled.

The baroness wasn’t humored at all. “Seriously?” she asked, arching an eyebrow. “You gave it to me!” she reminded the princess, who still didn’t seem to understand what she was talking about.

After a few seconds, it clicked in the princess's mind. “Oh, right! You meant the one within your barony.”

The baroness rolled her eyes before continuing. “Yes. So I met a baker and befriended her.”

The princess's eyes were wide in shock. “PARDON ME?” she exclaimed. “You said she was rich! Not a beggar!”

The baroness frowned. “She is rich.”

The princess frowned in return. “Really? Are you sure it's real money?”

The baroness turned away from the princess. “You'd be surprised how rich peasants are. It's stunning.”

Before the princess could respond, the baroness took off and flew in the direction she had been going toward before being interrupted.

◇◇◇

They finally landed on the cloud. Rarity, who was very excited, was the first to hop off the balloon, followed by Sweetie Belle, who was trying to shake the bad feelings out of her mind, then by Silver Spoon, who was hesitant to step on the cloud surface at first. Once Silver had her four hooves on the floor, she started moving forward. She couldn’t take her eyes off of her legs at first, but she gained slightly more confidence after each step. Shortly after, she had enough courage to look up and was quickly amazed at the sight of the park.

The Six Wings Great Venture was one of the most impressive amusement parks in all of Equestria. The rides were known for being gigantic and thrilling, and indeed they were. Water slides, roller coasters, and multiple other rides were visible as far as eyes could see.

Silver Spoon realized that her glasses were sliding off her muzzle, so she pushed them back on.

‘Sorry Princess, but I'm glad you aren’t here to ruin the fun,’ she thought, grinning. She then trotted after Sweetie Belle and her sister, who were already thinking about which rides they could try.

They went to a roller coaster first, but a security guard asked Sweetie Belle to take off her cape before stepping in the ride, to avoid it being stuck in the machinery. Sweetie didn’t feel comfortable taking it off, which Rarity noticed. After a bit of an argument, Rarity and the guard managed to come to an agreement: Sweetie Belle could keep her cape, but she had to keep it tied around her barrel in order to prevent it from flying in every direction in the wind.

As they sat in the roller coaster, Silver Spoon noticed that, while tying her cape, Sweetie Belle was always trying to keep it over her flanks.

“Did you receive your…?” Silver started to ask.

Sweetie Belle shook her head, frowning, as if to say: ‘don't talk about my cutie mark.’

“Fine,” Silver said. “I won't pry.”

Sweetie Belle smiled, happy with Silver Spoon's answer. “I promise that I will tell you everything as soon as we're back home,” she said, while fastening her seatbelt.

The following hours were spent in relative fun. Rarity was probably the most excited of the three. She was laughing and from ride to ride like a pre-school filly most of the time, dragging the actual fillies along. Sweetie Belle was rather moody at first, thinking about the events of a few days earlier, but the thrill of the roller coaster snapped her out of those gloomy thoughts, and quickly enough she started smiling a lot more. Silver Spoon was very happy too, but she got dizzy, both from the altitude and motion sickness. By the middle of the afternoon she had to excuse herself for a restroom break.

****

Silver Spoon finished vomiting in the toilet bowl. She was about to flush when she heard a familiar voice.

“Do you not like flying anymore, Baroness?”

Silver Spoon was startled. She finally flushed and stepped out of the cabinet. Looking around, she didn’t see anypony, so she simply shrugged and went to wash her forehooves and face at the sink.

“Or perhaps it's the wretch that's giving you sickness?”

The voice now sounding closer, Silver Spoon immediately shot up her head and looked around the room. She still saw nopony. Though she did recognize the voice.

“DT, is that you?” she asked.

“Please, do not change the subject. You've been ditching me. At least give me some respect.”

Silver now knew where the voice was coming from. She turned around to face the mirror, but was shocked to see that her reflection was replaced by Diamond Tiara's figure.

“You tried replacing me by this accursed peasant,” the pony in the mirror said. “Don't deny it. You know the truth is unpleasant.”

Trying not to look afraid of the apparition of her ex-friend, Silver Spoon huffed at her. “Yeah, nah. I don't care. You've been nothing but a bully to her and her friends. I just don't want to condone this behavior anymore.”

“Oh, is that so?” the figure asked.

Suddenly, the mirror cracked and the room's lights flickered, becoming dim. This alarmed Silver Spoon, who started stepping back, away from the glass. She stopped however when she bumped into something behind her.

When she turned around to see who this was, Silver Spoon was shocked.

It was the figure who had reappeared on the other side of the mirror.

She tapped one of her forelegs on the ground, shattering it like glass and giving it the shape of a knife. She then launched at Silver with it, trying to stab her between the eyes.

Silver Spoon wanted to scream.

****

Rarity and Sweetie Belle were sitting at a Café's terrasse, eating ice cream while discussing this and that.

“And what did you do next?” Sweetie Belle asked, captivated by Rarity's story.

Rarity chuckled, swallowing another spoonful of mint ice cream. “I simply continued complaining, and eventually they let me go. They even gave me the gems.”

Sweetie Belle's eyes grew wide. “All the gems?”

“All of them,” her big sister replied with a prideful smirk.

Rarity was glad that Sweetie's smile was returning. Her little sister was happy, and it was the most important thing at the moment. This trip to the park among them three was a good idea after all.

Rarity winced, realizing that somepony wasn’t here right now.

“By the way, is Silver Spoon still in the restroom?” she asked. “I haven’t seen her for a while.”

Sweetie Belle looked around the terrace, not seeing any trace of her friend. “Weird. I did tell her to come back here when she's done, right?” she asked, turning back to the older unicorn.

Rarity nodded. “We should check on her,” she said, finishing the remains of their ice cream bowl.

Rarity quickly paid for the food before she and Sweetie Belle departed toward the restrooms.

****

As the two sisters entered the room, the first thing they saw was a broken pair of glasses being thrown in their direction. Just before it could reach Sweetie Belle's face, Rarity had the reflex to catch it in her magic.

In the middle of the room, Silver Spoon, who didn’t have her glasses anymore, was backing away from another filly of around her age. This filly looked almost identical to Diamond Tiara, with her pink coat, white-striped purple mane, and namesake on top of her head being the same.

However there were two giant differences between her and the actual Diamond Tiara: one of this filly's forelegs was shaped like a shard of broken glass which looked as sharp as a knife, and instead of her face was what could be described as a blurry, distorted mirror that melted seamlessly within the rest of her head.

The following happened within only a few seconds.

The mirror-faced filly's sharp leg was dangerously nearing Silver Spoon's hoof. Rarity immediately knew that she was aiming for Silver Spoon's bracelet, so when said bracelet was cut, she was already jumping toward Silver Spoon and grabbing her by the tail before she would fall right through the cloud floor. Sweetie Belle screamed when Rarity lept in the room, then quickly ran to her side, not wanting to be anywhere far from her big sister at the moment.

This last action turned out to be a bad idea, as the mirror-faced pony turned toward the restroom's door and seemingly closed it telekinetically.

While Rarity placed Silver Spoon on her back to carry her more easily, Sweetie Belle tried to use her own telekinesis on the door to reopen it, but it didn’t budge.

The unicorn sisters and Silver Spoon turned their attention back to the figure that looked like Diamond Tiara. Said figure just stared at the trio with reflections of their own, terrified eyes, then launched herself at them with her knife-like limb.

As the two sisters ran in opposite directions from the figure, Rarity quickly found herself being cornered. In the moment, it was as if their aggressor was targeting her specifically, but Rarity then understood that the actual target was Silver Spoon, who was still on the older unicorn's back, her forelegs wrapped around her neck in order not to slide and fall through the floor.

But as the mirror-faced figure was raising her blade to attack any of the two, a shackle suddenly appeared from behind her and locked itself around her legs, preventing her from striking it at her cornered victims. It was at this moment that she craned her neck back toward the opposite end of the room, where Sweetie Belle had run to, and finally took a good look at the white-coated unicorn filly… and the silver key dangling from around her neck

“Silver Key…” the figure reminisced at the sight of the accessory, still in Diamond Tiara's voice. “Isn't this intriguing after all?” She snorted. “The old stallion found a pupil before his fall.”

“‘Pupil’?” Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow. “Wuh- what are you talking about?”

Silver Spoon didn’t feel comfortable at all in this instant, but she was eager enough to answer Sweetie's inquiry. “It's not unusual for exorcists to take apprentices under their wings. But my great-uncle didn’t have any from what I know,” she said, trying to keep her composure despite the situation.

“Right…” Sweetie Belle replied, now understanding what the demon was assuming. “But I've never even met Silver Key,” she added, matter-of-factly.

Rarity was dumbfounded, feeling left behind as if she had missed four entire chapters. “…whatever is going on!?” she finally shouted.

The demon turned her attention back to the mare and the filly on her back as she said: “Do you want answers, little baker's big sister? Too bad. The one thing you’ll receive is this splinter.”

“Sweetie Belle, don't let her–!”

Silver Spoon barely had the time to shout at the caped filly as the mirror-faced demon tapped her free front leg on the floor, shattering it to turn it into another, similar looking blade that immediately swung onto the shackles and broke them in one hit. Now free to move, the demon lashed at Rarity's direction. The mare dodged the attack with a panicked leap along the wall, then she made a dash to the door in her attempt to escape the mirror-faced figure.

Sweetie Belle tried to stop their attacker from following them by summoning more chains onto her, which were all avoided with relative ease before the demon jumped back inside one of the bathroom mirrors and… to everypony's shock, started attacking the reflections of Sweetie Belle, Rarity, and Silver Spoon on the other side of the mirror.

With an uncanny lack of difficulty, she killed them one by one: stabbing Sweetie Belle, slicing her big sister's throat, and letting Silver Spoon fall off through the cloudy floor. All of this under their real world counterparts’ eyes.

The trio could only watch in terror as the figure jumped into the mirror next to the one she had been in and did the same thing to three more innocent reflections. Again. And again. And again.

At this point, they were desperately trying to open the door, knocking it, turning its knob, picking the lock with telekinesis, slamming it with a shoulder, anything… but to no avail.

Soon after, the demon came back out of the mirrors and wasted no time dashing onto the three ponies to repeat her massacre one more time. She was suddenly stopped by Sweetie Belle, who had summoned a shackle to catch her left hindleg. She barely even slowed down to turn around as she used her sharp forelegs to cut the shackle off, then returned to her charge at the ponies.

“Come on, Sweetie! Multiple chains!” Silver Spoon snapped angrily as the two sisters once again dodged being sliced by the demon and ran to different corners of the room once more.

When she thought that she had taken enough distance to be safe, Sweetie Belle focused and summoned two shackles, this time on the demon's front legs.

But the demon only moved one leg to dodge the shackle aimed at it, then used said leg to cut the other shackle in the same momentum. She went back to her charge toward Sweetie Belle.

“Smooth move, Sweetie! You really overwhelmed her with those two chains!” Silver Spoon shouted sarcastically, taunting the other filly from the other side of the room, making her receive an angry glare from a still confused Rarity.

Sweetie Belle wanted to snap back at her, but it was not the time. She galloped to a water cabinet and locked herself inside to give herself enough time to breathe, even if it only lasted a few seconds as the demon sliced the door in half diagonally twice, breaking it. Thankfully, she only needed a few seconds.

Before the demon could kill the exorcist, who was non-arguably cornered with no escape route, she was targeted by three shackles coming from her left. She managed to avoid them with a jump backward, but was quickly caught by surprise by two more chains from the right, immobilizing her two right legs.

Sweetie Belle didn’t intend to lose any chance. She quickly shackled her foe's left foreleg before she could use it to cut the chains, then did the same to her last hindleg just to be safe.

“Very impressive,” the demon said, now unable to move any limb freely. “Seems the pony Silver trained was able to put Gh'i-Lþ to shame with only chains.”

“You're taking your own defeat… surprisingly well,” Silver Spoon remarked while her adrenaline was going down. She was relieved to see that the demon, whose name was apparently ‘Guilt’, was finally restrained.

“You raise a good point. It is true I don't fear Hell. For it won’t be long before I'm freed out of there.” Guilt turned her face toward Sweetie Belle, allowing her to see her own reflection within it. “Soon, the King may rise, and rule over your nightmares.”

As soon as Guilt finished monologuing, Sweetie opened a portal to Tartarus underneath her and pulled her inside with the chains.

Sweetie Belle then lifted her key with her magic and pivoted it sideways, locking the portal close with an audible *click*. She then sat down on the floor to breathe out, glad that this was over.

Rarity went next to Sweetie Belle to wrap her in a hug with one foreleg. They stayed like this, crying silently for a while.

Silver Spoon, who was still holding onto the elder sister's back, was the one to break the silence. “Now, I know you have many questions,” she said calmly, not wanting to impose too much. “But can we get out of this park… and never come back, please?”

Rarity nodded and smiled at Silver Spoon. “I will make sure to sue whoever thought that these bracelets were a good idea.”

◇◇◇

The baroness looked tired, both physically and mentally as she trudged along the streets. She walked over to the baker, who was about to close her boulangerie for the night. The two looked at each other awkwardly for a while, in silence.

“Hello,” the baroness said. “I can’t really say I had a good day.”

“You finally left that princess?” the baker asked, getting a nod in response. “What did she say?”

“I was kicked out,” the baroness told her. “It seems this life wasn’t for me.”

The baker quietly nodded in understanding. “I suppose you no longer own this barony.”

Silence again.

“So…” the baker said. “How do you wish to be called, now?”

She hesitated before replying. “Silver Bell…”

The baker smiled at Silver Bell. “It's a beautiful name, one I think fits you well.”

The two hugged each other, happy that all of this was over.

The curtains closed, indicating the end of the play

Author's Note

The way I wrote Silver Spoon makes her feel like a jerk at times... which she is so I guess that's a win for my writing career :twilightsmile:

I think the document I made for this story was so big it glitched out, so I'll have to reorganize into even more docs. Great.

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 6

It was the evening. Carousel Boutique was still in a rather deplorable state, Rarity not having had the time to clean everything yet beside the knocked-over dummies and the ruined fabric that had once been scattered on the floor. The place was mostly shrouded in darkness, except for the kitchen, which was illuminated by its ceiling light.

Sweetie Belle, Silver Spoon, and Rarity were sitting around the circular dinner table, having mushroom risotto. Though the plates remained mostly untouched as the three stared blankly into empty space. The atmosphere was so tense, it could've been cut with a knife, but the thought of knives would've made them shudder.

Eventually, Rarity spoke up. “What was it?” she queried. “The mirror thing, I mean.”

Silver Spoon stopped aimlessly poking her rice with her spoon and turned to Rarity. “She was a demon,” she answered, instinctively adjusting her spare glasses on her muzzle.

Rarity quietly nodded. “And why was she trying to hurt you?”

“Heh. How would I know?” Silver Spoon deadpanned. “Exorcists have been studying them for literally over a thousand years. If there were any logic in their heads I would've known.”

“I see… That brings me to my next question,” Rarity continued. “What are ‘exorcists’ exactly? I don't believe I've ever heard anything about them before today.”

Silver Spoon was about to answer, but Sweetie Belle swallowed her food and cut her off. “Exorcists are like demon hunters. We capture and lock up demons back in Tartarus.”

Silver Spoon and Rarity both looked at her for a moment before the latter asked: “‘We’?”

“Y- yes,” Sweetie Belle sputtered. “Silver Spoon introduced me to exorcism recently and…” She lifted her cape, revealing the key drawn on her flank. “I am one of them.”

Rarity smiled and was about to beam for an instant, but then coughed and calmed her excitement down, the overall moment being rather somber. “I am so glad you finally received your cutie mark, Sweetie.”

“I'm not,” Sweetie Belle lamented. “I got it when I was without my friends, alone with a crazy cat that almost killed me.”

Rarity's smile vanished. She had a hunch about who the cat in question was. Not wanting to press more on the subject, she turned back to Silver Spoon and asked: “You say that they have existed for over a thousand years, but why have I never heard of them before?”

“Two reasons,” Silver Spoon explained. “For one, they have been keeping their existence secret for almost as long as they were even a thing.”

“But why though?” Rarity asked, confused. “Why go through all the trouble of hiding for such a long time?”

“It's a rather long story. The short of it though is that demons, simply by existing, make this world unfair for ponies. If ponies were aware of how unfair this world is, most of them would suffer from depression and, as a result, not only would society fall apart, but the demons would feed from it and become even more dangerous. No sane pony in history has ever tried to risk that by making it public knowledge.” Silver Spoon took a spoonful of mushroom, leaving time for Rarity to process the information as she chewed, before continuing. “Now, the other reason why you never heard of them.

“About a decade ago, exorcists were… exterminated, for lack of a better word. Nopony knows why, but demons suddenly became too overwhelming to handle.” Silver Spoon paused to take another bite of risotto. “Mm. Those who weren’t killed went into hiding,” she finished while swallowing.

“And now Sweetie Belle is… part of them too?” Rarity fretted. “Please tell me you didn't put her in too much danger.” She scowled at the silver earth pony.

Silver Spoon dropped her cutlery on the table. “I had a very good reason,” she blurted. “Diamond Tiara was possessed by a demon and could've been killed if we did nothing. Then, the demon would've just moved on to another target, again and again, until everyone in Ponyville was dead!” She slammed her forehooves on the table. “You don't really think I would've put this burden on anypony if I had another choice, right?”

Rarity wanted to snap back for a second, but realized that she didn't know how to retort.

Seeing how tense her sister and friend were, Sweetie Belle raised a hoof timidly. “In Silver Spoon's defense,” she muttered, “I think I'm a very talented exorcist so far.”

Rarity raised an eyebrow at her, calming down a bit.

“I– I mean, I locked up three demons somewhat easily so far, and one of them apparently, um, was responsible for Silver Key's death.”

Rarity turned her raised eyebrow to Silver Spoon.

“Silver Key was my great-uncle and one of the greatest exorcists of his time. Also one of the lasts,” she explained.

“My point is,” Sweetie Belle continued. “I will be fine, Rarity. I mean, the demons would have tried to harm us anyway at some point. So, like, Silver Spoon making me an exorcist actually saved us in the long term.”

Rarity took a moment to consider. “I… see.”

“In any case, she got her cutie mark for it,” Silver Spoon pointed out. “It's her destiny now, and we can't change it.”

Rarity didn’t have anything to argue there. Cutie marks were important for ponies, and trying to pull someone away from their destiny had been historically proven as futile if not plain unhealthy. Sweetie Belle's mark had appeared already, meaning that her path had been paved, and that no matter how dangerous it was, she had to walk through it.

Rarity tried to reassure herself with the fact that other paths would have technically been just as dangerous if not more. She simply went back to staring at her plate pensively for a few minutes. She was about to take a spoonful of rice when a thought that had been bugging her since the middle of the conversation came back to her.

“Can I see Opalescence?” she suddenly asked the two fillies.

****

Once they had finished dinner, the three stood in the shop area of Carousel Boutique in a circle around the middle of the room. Sweetie Belle was rereading her book one more time before snapping it shut.

“Yes. I can cast the spell,” she reassured her big sister. “It's just the same portal I already opened like, what? Three times?”

“Only this time we're going to go through it,” Silver Spoon added. “If we just stick together and lock the doors behind us when we come back here, then we should be fine.”

“I don't know,” Rarity doubted nervously. “I'm still unsure about how safe it is.”

“Hey, you're the one who wanted to see your cat,” Silver deadpanned, unamused.

Rarity didn’t bother to adress the young earth pony's lack of tact as Sweetie Belle's horn ignited in its green glow. The portal to Tartarus opened on the floor between the three ponies. Rarity was reluctant to enter until her little sister stepped inside, then she practically jumped in after her. Silver Spoon walked in the portal last, sighing at the older mare's indecisiveness.

《Through me one goes and stays confined.
Through me one goes, loses their mind,
And abandons all hope behind…》

The other side of the portal was about as eerie as Rarity had imagined. A long, narrow hallway that seemed to expand infinitely both in front of and behind them. Along the red walls of smooth volcanic rock were dark, wooden doors that all had visible metal locks under their knobs. They also had absurdly large numbers written over them and symbols that looked like cutie marks drawn above the numbers.

“The numbers represent the order in which they were imprisoned,” Silver Spoon answered to the unasked question. “These doors are the demons’ cells.”

“And… how can we know which door is the one we are looking for?” Rarity asked, tapping her chin.

“For one, it should be one with Sweetie Belle's cutie mark on it,” Silver Spoon explained while examining the doors around her. She seemed captivated by them, as if she were admiring paintings in a museum. “Two.” She shook her head, turned back her focus to the unicorns behind her, then continued. “Since she is one of the last exorcists of recent history, there shouldn't be many recently captured demons past the ones Sweetie Belle has caught. So if we go all the way down the hallway, we should be able to spot the door easily.”

The two unicorn sisters looked down the hallway, toward the direction in which the numbers on the doors increased. They were unable to see the end of it.

“Talk about a long trot,” Sweetie Belle commented.

“That brings me to the third thing,” Silver Spoon continued. “Sweetie Belle is an exorcist, so she should be able to scroll through the doors with her magic.”

Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow at this. “How?”

The earth pony shrugged indifferently. “I don't know. I'm not a unicorn.”

Sweetie rolled her eyes, then closed them. She thought for a moment before trying something similar to a simple telekinesis spell and—

Rarity yelped as the cell doors began sliding at an unbelievably high speed along the walls of Tartarus. Silver Spoon herself was taken by surprise by that, but she managed to keep enough of her composure.

After a minute, the doors stopped sliding, and the three realized that they now stood at the dead end of the hallway. In front of them was a red wall made of the same rock as the rest of the place. An old, run down, wooden sign was nailed to the wall, stating: ‘IN NIGH ETERNAL EXPANSION - BRING MORE PRISONERS’. Around them were three doors sporting the silver key that was Sweetie Belle's cutie mark.

“Um… I guess we're here.” Sweetie Belle's glance drifted to the second door, which was number 666,666,666,666,666,667th. “It's this one. Uh, I think,” she said, pointing at it.

Silver Spoon trotted over and looked through the door's lock. “Yep. Looks like your cat to me.” She stepped back and motioned Sweetie Belle to come next to her. “You'll have to use your key for this one.”

Rarity bit her lower lip. “The demon… She isn't going to—”

“Attack us?” Silver asked, then waved a hoof dismissively while Sweetie Belle unlocked the door. “Don't worry about that. She's tangled and tied up like Miss Pinkie Pie's mane in there.”

Rarity's left eye twitched. She wasn’t taking the sudden, impolite name-drop of her friend well, but it wasn’t the time to bicker. She quietly followed her sister through the now open door… and immediately stopped in her tracks, staring at the inside of the cell, gaping.

Oppression was there, in the middle of the large room. Each one of her limbs, alongside her neck, were shackled and tangled around her body, which was probably thousands of meters long at that point. Each chain that had her shackled was attached to a different corner of the room and seemed to be pulled to its full extent in a way that would make it impossible for her to move. She looked somewhat similar to a ball of yarn.

Upon noticing the ponies who had stepped in her cell, the demon showed her thousands of teeth with a facial expression that might've been a smile as well as a scowl. It was hard to tell.

Sweetie Belle squealed and hid behind Rarity's tail.

“I would be laughing at your cowardice,” the demon began, staring at the unicorn filly, “but you're the one who locked me in here a few days back. So I'll have to settle for a new emotion entirely.”

Rarity gulped, took a deep breath, then asked: “So you are Opalescence?”

“That is one of my names, yes,” the demon answered, rolling her eyes. “But if we're talking real names, then it's Øpre-S'ion.”

“‘Oppression’?”

The demon let out a sound that was interpreted by the ponies as a sigh. “Whatever you can pronounce.”

Rarity looked down at her hooves. “And… you claim to be the cat who had been living with me all those years?”

“I don't claim it. I. AM.”

Rarity didn’t look up. She stood there for a while, not saying anything, which made Silver Spoon roll her eyes and step forward.

“If you're already done, I have a few questions I'd like to ask myself,” the earth pony filly said.

Rarity nodded quietly.

“Good.” Silver clapped her forehooves together and looked straight at Oppression. “I won't beat around the garden's trimmed bushes at DT's house. Who is this ‘King’ that Guilt mentioned?”

“So she told you about him?” Oppression's next noises sounded close enough to chuckles to be called that. “Sure, I can tell you. It's not like the ultimate outcome will change much for you mortals.” She tried to lean her head forward to look intimidating, but the chains prevented her from moving more than one centimeter. Still, it was enough to make Sweetie Belle shudder. “So, about the Demon King…

“He is the purest form of despair a mortal can comprehend and beyond. He is the last thing ponies will be terrified of before their miserable, pointless lives come to an abrupt end. He is the one that not even Celestia can save you from. Soon, he will arrive, end you, AND. EVERYTHING. THAT. YOU. CHERISH.”

“And how soon exactly?” Silver Spoon asked, unphased.

“As if I would tell you that.”

Silver Spoon turned to the terrified unicorns. “We have time.”

Sweetie Belle sniffed, and peeked out from behind her big sister. “Time for what?”

Silver Spoon face-hoofed and groaned. “To prepare for the Demon King's arrival! You know, the one that Guilt talked about!” she snapped. “Geez! Am I the only one here who's followed what they've been telling us?”

Sweetie winced and hugged Rarity, who was shooting daggers at Silver Spoon with her eyes.

“Sorry,” Silver apologized quickly. She paused and waited for Rarity to breathe out before continuing. “I guess we can go back home now. Unless any of you two have any other business here?”

“A– actually.” Sweetie Belle trotted in front of her sister. “I have one more thing I'd like to know about.” She took her courage in both hooves and looked the demon straight in the eyes, asking: “You say that you… ‘took care of Silver Key’ yourself, right?”

Oppression didn’t respond directly, instead just shifting her giant mouth to something closer to a grin.

Sweetie felt a chill down her spine, but still tried to keep on a brave face as she asked her next question.

“Where is his body now?”

****

As the three ponies made their exit from Tartarus, Silver Spoon didn’t forget to ask Sweetie Belle to lock the door behind them with the key. Besides that however, the young earth pony of the Silver family remained silent for the rest of the night. She didn’t even say ‘goodbye’ or ‘goodnight’ as she left Carousel Boutique to go back home.

The butler found Silver Spoon about to enter her room and stopped her, asking why she came back so late and if she was okay.

Silver Spoon, who was lost in her thoughts until that moment, turned to him and smiled. “Don't worry. I'm fine,” she answered calmly. “I just know where my great-uncle used to live now. That's all.”

Author's Note

Hey! Would you look at that! A new chapter in less than a month! Who knew? (Don't expect it to be consistant.)

1 like = 1 veggie nugget for the butler
Donate now :unsuresweetie:

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 7

A Cute-ceñarea is an important event in the life of a pony. It is a party that celebrates the obtention of their cutie mark, the very representation of their special talent. In a way, it represents their growth, both in age and as a pony. Under usual circumstances, such an event should be partaken with the pony's many friends and close ones.

****

Sweetie Belle was sitting alone in her bedroom, fidgeting with her silver key to pass time. A couple balloons were floating along on the ceiling, and on a white banner above her bed, ‘Sweetie's Cute-ceñarea’ was written in one shade of purple. A vinyl recorder was playing lofi tunes on the bedside table. Despite the few party supplies, the room felt very empty.

Eventually, somepony knocked at the door. Sweetie jumped a little at the sound, still remembering her bad experience with a certain cat, but after taking a short second to breathe she went over to let her two guests in.

“Hey.” Silver Spoon waved as she came in with a box on her back. “I brought chocolate pie,” she said, motioning at the box.

“Are you sure you don't want to invite your other friends, dear?” Rarity asked her little sister worryingly while closing the door behind her. She carefully placed the gift boxes that she had brought on the floor. “This really is a once in a life-time event, you know?”

Sweetie Belle shifted uncomfortably on her hooves for a bit before answering. “I don't want to bother them with… all of this. Not even the Crusaders.”

Rarity nodded, though she was still concerned. “I only hope you won't shut yourself in because of it…”

The party went on in a mostly awkward silence, only sometimes interrupted by the occasional moments when Sweetie Belle tried to sing to the quiet background music. Her singing voice was still beautiful, but with an audience of exactly two ponies, she didn’t feel like going past the first few lyrics. Eventually, she just stopped trying to sing and simply sat silently next to the small buffet, drinking some punch.

It was apparent that a party with so few guests wasn't really fun. It almost didn’t even feel like a celebration.

Silver Spoon shifted her glance from Sweetie Belle to Rarity, who looked just as if not more concerned as she did. “Miss Rarity?” she called.

Rarity didn't look away from her little sister as she replied to the earth pony. “I didn't know that my cat…” she paused. “I'm sorry for your great-uncle.”

Silver Spoon shook her head. “Don't be sorry. I never knew him personally, and it was Oppression who killed him.” She stepped to Rarity and laid a hoof on her shoulder to try and reassure her. “You weren’t responsible for any of it.”

“I still took care of this… demon, as if she were my own child.” Rarity closed her eyes in regret.

Silver Spoon didn't want to make her feel even more guilty by talking about this, even though she wasn’t guilty of anything. They had already discussed that they will be visiting Silver Key's old home in the following days, and all those talks about demons during Sweetie Belle's party would only bring down the already low mood. But still, she felt the need to address something.

“Miss Rarity,” Silver said. “I know that you lost multiple finished products and equipment because of… these events.” She thought back to the state of Carousel Boutique. “I wouldn't mind giving you the funds you need for you to get back on your hooves and reopen your boutique.”

Rarity's eyes opened. She raised an eyebrow, blinked, then smiled and shook her head. “Oh, no worries. This won't be necessary,” she reassured the filly. “I already have a friend who should be willing to help me with this.”

****

That evening, in Canterlot, the charity gala at the garden of Fancy Pants's mansion was very lively. Many rich and well dressed ponies were gathered in small groups, discussing this and that. Some were talking about their businesses around the buffet, others were talking about their families over in the corner, some about how their children recently received their cutie marks. The largest crowd however was gathered around Fancy Pants himself.

This white unicorn with the blue mustache and the chic suit wasn't Canterlot's most popular pony for no reason. His sense of humor made everyone laugh, his gentle and pleasant attitude made him a pure source of joy and good vibes to hang around with, and, as one would have guessed from the many charities he created, Fancy Pants was one incredibly generous pony.

Rarity was very happy to be friends with him.

“Fancy Pants!” she called out from the back of the crowd.

The stallion turned his attention to the source of this voice that he recognized, and sure enough he saw Rarity in her gala dress waving at him.

“Ah, Rarity!” He waved back, all while readjusting his monocle with his magic. “It's so good to see you. How have you been doing lately, dear?”

Rarity looked away for a bit before replying. “Could we talk inprivate, please?” she asked sheepishly.

Fancy Pants glanced at his wife Fleur De Lis, the lean, pink-maned unicorn who was next to him. There weren’t any words exchanged, but Fleur nodded, which caused Fancy to smile and turn back to Rarity.

“Alright then,” he said, smiling.

Fancy excused himself from the crowd of ponies he had been talking with as he followed Rarity to someplace more quiet away from the party, next to a fountain.

“Sorry about that. I had to make sure that Fleur doesn't think I'm cheating on her,” he explained, chuckling.

If her frown was anything to go by, Rarity wasn’t amused in the least.

“I'm jesting, of course,” Fancy Pants reassured her. “Now, tell me what you wanted to talk about.”

Rarity sighed, letting that joke of poor taste slide. “I really hate asking for favors. But I am really in need of some help, right now.”

Fancy Pants nodded in comprehension. “But of course, dear. Ask away. What are friends for if not for helping each other out when in need?”

Rarity now felt more confident to ask her request. “Thank you, Fancy.” She smiled at him. “A few days ago, something happened in Carousel Boutique that was… rather destructive.” Her smile fell at the thought of that event.

“I see,” Fancy mused. “So you need monetary help, right?”

Rarity nodded.

“Alright then. That shouldn't be a problem.” He leaned forward. “Just tell me how much do you need?”

“You aren’t going to ask me for more details?” she asked, surprised.

“Now now. I already said we are friends, dear,” he reminded her. “I trust that whatever help you want from me is help you need.”

“If you say so…” Rarity replied.

“Although, now that you mention it,” Fancy Pants interrupted. “I am rather curious as to what happened in your boutique that would require you to need me of all ponies.”

“I… I don't think I am comfortable with sharing this information anyway,” she explained. “But I suppose I can tell you that this was rather tragic.”

Fancy raised an eyebrow at that, which made Rarity realize how odd her wording was. Saying ‘I can’ in this context made it seem like she wasn’t allowed to explain everything that happened. Which was true, in a sense, because the demons were meant to be kept secret from the average pony by the exorcists.

Whatever confusion Fancy seemed to have had in the moment however rapidly vanished as he started chuckling. “Well, whatever happened, I only hope that nopony was hurt.”

“Yes. No pony was seriously hurt,” Rarity muttered, with more venom than intended.

That was when Fancy Pants stopped chuckling. He seemed to have caught the stress on the word ‘pony’.

“Very well,” he said, having suddenly lost the jolly tone in his voice. “How much is it, then?”

“From my calculations, I think I would need a little under 2000 bits…”

“I will give you 4000,” he said flatly. “You won't need to pay anything back.”

Rarity gaped, having not expected that. “Are you sure? I mean, I could—”

Fancy raised a hoof to her mouth. “I insist.”

Rarity didn't feel easy with the tone of his voice. Still, she wasn’t going to refuse such a generous offer.

“Say,” Fancy said. “You live with your little sister, right? Sweetie Belle, I believe.”

Rarity nodded, not sure of where he was going with this.

“Well, I thought about inviting you and your family to a dinner party, one of these days. Would you be okay with that?”

“I don't know,” Rarity answered, slightly taken aback by how sudden the proposition was. “Someday, perhaps…?”

The two stared at each other in silence for about half a minute. Rarity started shifting on her hooves when Fancy interrupted the awkward pause.

“Why, would you look at the time!” he exclaimed, taking out a pocket watch. “We've been talking for a while now. My wife is going to kill me for sure.” He chuckled. “I will send you the bits tomorrow,” he said before excusing himself back to the party.

Rarity stood there without a word as Fancy Pants left. She looked at her reflection in the fountain's water and sat there like that for the rest of the evening.

‘It must have been my imagination,’ she eventually thought. ‘What was it with his face, though…?

Author's Note

You know Rarity is my favorite pony when I make her attend two parties in a single day :raritywink:

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 8

The train trip to Bardingville was a few hours long. Though it went by quickly enough with a game of I spy, which Silver Spoon and Rarity had a lot of fun playing. Sweetie Belle didn’t want to participate at first, wanting to read her book instead, but it turned out that she had already almost finished it, and being done reading the book half-way through, she ended up partaking in the game to pass the time.

As the group disembarked the train, they immediately split up and started inquiring about a house that used to belong to a unicorn named Silver Key, or any member of the Silver family.

“Silver Key? Never heard of that name, sorry,” a young pegasus said to Rarity.

“I don't recall hearing about him. Is he a locksmith?” a middle-aged unicorn replied to Silver Spoon.

“Hey!” an earth pony colt called, running up to Sweetie Belle. “I heard you're looking for someone named ‘Silver’, huh?”

****

The three trotted on the path in the woods at the outskirts of town. Apparently, there was a house in the middle of a clearing around here. That is, according to the information given by that one colt.

“Do you think he was lying?” Silver Spoon asked.

“Why would he?” Rarity asked in return.

“We're never sure with colts his age.”

“I think we looked about the same age as him, though,” Sweetie Belle recalled.

“I said colts.”

The two unicorn sisters rolled their eyes at Silver Spoon's statement.

“What?” Silver Spoon raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t say anything offensive, did I?” There was a short moment of silence. “Really, though. I think I genuinely forgot the difference between actual science and DT's bigoted comments, at this point.”

Before Rarity could start to explain in detail how Silver Spoon's comment was rude and biased, they arrived at the clearing in the woods where the house they were looking for stood.

It wasn’t a mansion, but it wasn’t a cottage—maybe 3-4 ponies could live here. The walls were old and clearly used to be painted gray. It had been peeling off for decades, but, otherwise, they seemed well intact. In the front garden, there was a carrot orchard, and next to it was a tree stump where a pony hacked logs of wood. He put down his ax and turned his attention toward the trio.

He was an old pegasus stallion with a light gray coat and a slightly darker mane and tail. His build was more muscular than the average pony, and he had a craggy, handsome face that made Rarity blush ever so slightly. His cutie mark was of a canine's paw print.

“Can I help you ladies?” he inquired the trio that had just arrived.

“Is this Silver Key's old house?” Silver Spoon asked, pointing at the building in question.

The stallion looked back at it, nodded, then closed his eyes in reminiscence. “I haven’t heard that name in a very long time.” He turned back to the filly who had asked the question. “And who would you happen to be?”

“I am Silver Spoon, heir of the Silver family.” She pointed to her companions. “And they are Sweetie Belle and Rarity.”

Sweetie Belle was fiddling with one tip of her cape while Rarity waved shyly, clearly charmed by the pegasus's beauty.

He nodded. “And I am Silver Fox.” He held out a hoof to the silver filly. “Nice to meet you, my great-niece-in-law.”

Silver Spoon didn’t shake Silver Fox's hoof. Instead, she looked in empty space for a bit before blinking in realization. “So…” She looked back at him. “You're Silver Key's widower?”

Silver Fox nodded.

“That's gay,” Silver Spoon commented.

“Silver Spoon!” Rarity scolded.

“Am I wrong, though?”

Rarity shook her head in disbelief. “Didn’t your parents teach you there is a place and time for—”

Silver Fox held up his hoof and Rarity quieted. “It's alright. It's been over a decade. And she's just a kid too. I was much worse at her age.”

Silver Spoon stared back and forth between the two grown-ups in confusion. “Can somepony tell me already which part of what I said was wrong?”

****

Inside the house, one could tell from the smell and furniture that the place was antiquated. Some decorative, silver-trimmed plates were most likely over half a century old. There were monochrome photos and painted portraits of both Silver Key and Silver Fox, along with some depicting other members of the family. While Sweetie Belle's attention was captured by an old book that stood alone on one of the shelves, Silver Fox treated his guests with some tea and biscuits.

“So.” He sat back in his chair. “What would be the reason for your visit?”

Silver Spoon bit and swallowed a bit of biscuit. “The main reason was to pay respect to Silver Key.” She glanced over at Sweetie Belle, who sat next to her on the couch. “And somepony here has something to ask you.”

Silver Fox looked over at the cloaked unicorn filly, who was making sure to look away from anyone else in the room. “Does she now?” he asked. “She hasn't said a word since we met.”

“She hasn't said a word to anyone recently,” Rarity said before taking a sip of tea. “Only Silver Spoon and I seem to be able to make her open up.”

Silver Fox nodded. “And what would be the reason, my little pony?” he asked Sweetie Belle, who finally looked in his direction.

“I became an exorcist,” she explained, taking the key from under her cape and presenting it. “This key was Silver Key's, and it saved my life more than once.”

The old pegasus gaped at the sight of the key, and had to put down his cup of tea on the table. “And I thought I would never see it again,” he mused, chuckling. “But where did you find it?”

“Silver Spoon gave it to me,” Sweetie Belle said, bringing the attention back to the earth pony.

“My butler saved it,” Silver Spoon explained. “He's been trying to save our family's history from my parents. I guess he must have found the key at some point and kept it.”

“I see,” Silver Fox said. “And so what was it you had to ask me?”

Sweetie Belle stared down at her tea. “Some demons I fought talked about ‘their king coming soon’ or something like that.” She then held her key to eye level and stared at it instead. “And… I know that I'm one of the last exorcists, if not the only one left, and I can’t just stand by and do nothing about it.” She looked back at Silver Fox. “But what can I do?”

“Well, for starters, you'd need at least a few dozen well-trained exorcists to even scratch the guy, if demons are to be believed.” Silver Fox snickered. “But, thankfully, demons aren’t to be believed.” He assumed a serious face. “Most of the time, that is.

“But I doubt they would lie about the Demon King arriving. No, they're giving us a chance to prepare.” He frowned. “They think we don't stand a chance to beat him.”

The fillies looked downcast hearing that.

“But you knew Silver Key. You must also have known other exorcists, right?” Rarity asked, hopeful.

“Heh, I'd love to assemble a team of these guys to come save Equestria, if that's what you're thinking about.” Silver Fox shook his head. “Sadly, anypony who would've had the guts to face the Demon King lost said guts, either literally or by going into hiding. What with Silver Key, the best of us, having kicked the bucket.”

“‘Us’?” Silver Spoon noticed.

“That's right! I'm technically an exorcist too now.” Silver Fox stood up and trotted over to a drawer, from which he took out a key on a necklace with an intricate design and a white gem stone in the middle.

“I thought only unicorns could become exorcists,” Sweetie Belle said.

“That used to be true, yes. But technology is ever evolving.” Silver Fox put on the necklace. “I suppose you already know how exorcism keys work, huh?”

Sweetie Belle nodded.

“Well this key I'm wearing now is a special one that I made myself. It took me half of my life-time, but I did it.” He took the key in his mouth and the gem on it glowed. A white portal appeared in the middle of the room, leaving the three guests impressed.

“You made a tool to simulate unicorn magic,” Rarity observed in amazement.

“Yep!” Silver Fox used the key to close the portal, making sure to lock it. “It only has the ‘portal to Tartarus’ spell, though.”

Sweetie Belle stood up on the couch. “Do you think you could train me?” she asked him.

He looked at her questioningly.

“Um, I want to become a better exorcist myself, and you're the only pony I know that not only knew but also used to live with one. He was the best one too,” the unicorn filly explained. “So that logically makes you the best pony who could possibly train me. Right?”

Silver Fox took the time to sip his tea before answering. “I mean… I guess?” He shrugged. “That kind of training usually takes a while, though.”

“Sweetie's already got this,” Silver Spoon affirmed, stirring her namesake in her cup of tea. “She's already cast advanced spells and locked up three demons. That training might not take that long.”

“Really now?” Silver Fox had to raise an eyebrow at that. “Okay then. I'll see what I can do. I don't have anything planned for a month, anyway.”

“A month?” Rarity asked.

Silver Fox scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah… Exorcism training normally takes full years, but I think you have other things to do with your childhood than to spend it at some boring old geezer's house. So we'll have to shorten it to a month. Then we'll see how to continue from there on.”

Rarity was about to protest, but was cut off by her little sister.

“It's okay, Rarity. I made my choice,” Sweetie Belle said determinedly.

Rarity knew better than to argue against the stubborn little filly, so she simply nodded. “There is one thing I want you to promise me, however.”

“Hm?” Sweetie Belle cocked her head, while Rarity placed a hoof on her shoulder and looked her in the eyes with concern.

“Promise me that once this is done, the first thing you will do is to go find your friends, tell them how much you care about them, and play with them again. Alright?”

Sweetie Belle took her time to respond. “I will remember,” she finally promised, smiling.

Rarity then threw herself into a hug with Sweetie Belle that lasted for over a long, quiet minute.

Author's Note

Being famous in a competently secret society is a good way to stay unremembered by History.

Follow for more bad life hacks.

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 9

“And so those were all your three encounters with demons?” Silver Fox asked.

“Yes,” Sweetie Belle confirmed.

“You were lucky,” he replied, standing up from his garden chair and trotting toward the woods. “Very lucky.”

Sweetie Belle looked at Silver Fox walk away for a bit before realizing that she was expected to follow him. The two passed between a few treelines before arriving into another clearing not too far, larger than the one Silver Fox's house was in.

The clearing was mostly empty, save for a small creek on the other side of it. Silver Fox made sure to fly up and clear the clouds in the sky above the place before landing back down next to Sweetie.

“While learning advanced exorcism spells on a whim was an extremely impressive feat for a foal your age,” he explained. “It still was a feat of luck. And you can't rely on luck infinitely in this line of work. Also…” He raised an eyebrow. “You're really telling me you went this far without requiring the basic spells even once?”

Sweetie Belle cocked her head to the side. “The… basic spells?”

“Yeah! The basic spells! Y'know, the ones you're usually meant to learn before the chains thingy? Those that are actually necessary against most demons? That's what I'm talking about!”

“Oh…” Sweetie Belle looked rather sheepish. “I thought that the chains worked well up until now.”

“As I was saying, you were lucky.” Silver Fox took out a canteen of water and drank from it before continuing. “First off, you only faced one demon that seemed partial to soul possession. The one that was in Diamond Tiara was it?”

Sweetie Belle nodded.

“Well normally, the majority of them rely on soul possession to defend themselves. It's kind of their way to use innocent ponies as meat shields, see? That's what the depossession spell is for.

“Secondly, some demons like to block unicorns’ magic. I'm actually shocked you haven’t gotten a shamrock cutie mark from all that, ‘cuz I'm telling you, these guys aren’t that uncommon either.” Silver Fox finished his water before he concluded his explanation. “That's the reason why exorcists invented holy water.”

“You mean, so that they could still defend themselves without their magic?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“You got it. Holy water's like their secondary weapon.” Silver Fox grinned. “So that's what you'll have to learn: depossession and water holifying.” He scratched the side of his head in thought. “Although, we can't really practice the former outside of theory, ‘cuz we would need to make a demon possess somepony to test it out, and as far as I'm aware, that'd be crazy dangerous.”

Sweetie Belle internally agreed with that statement, shivering at the thought.

“Are you ready to start, Sweetie Belle?” Silver Fox asked the young unicorn.

“Yes,” she answered, her voice full of determination. “I am.”

****

The first week of training wasn’t so great. Since Sweetie Belle couldn’t test out the depossession, she had to learn the entire theory behind it instead, which took up her mornings. It really wasn’t easy for her to focus, and she quickly discovered that she had a below-average attention span. Still, she persisted and continued reading the books, whatever “the link between a body, a brain, a spirit, a soul, the Holy daughters, the Holy mother, and the Holy spirit” was meant to be.

The water holifying on the other hoof, which she trained to do in the afternoons, didn't seem so difficult, because all one had to do to test if a water was holy was to taste it. Holy water was supposed to taste like the abstract concept of “alicorn goodness”, which despite being an uncommon thing to feel on one's tastebuds was actually easy to recognize. Sadly, Sweetie Belle still didn’t manage to cast the holifying spell. And Silver Fox, not being a unicorn himself, wasn’t of great help when it came to teaching spellcasting.

****

The second week was almost a disaster. Sweetie Belle had been unable to understand the subtle difference between a soul and a spirit, so she just moved on to the next page. That was an immense mistake. At first, she thought she understood things that were presented to her without having to learn that one notion… until she didn't understand anything anymore and was stuck in a web of contradictions and footnotes. That led to her losing her focus and wasting hours wondering how depossession was supposed to be a “basic spell”. That side tangent helped her comprehend how difficulty curves could work differently for each pony, but not the difference between soul and spirit.

As for the water, Sweetie Belle had managed to make it boil and give it unusual tastes and textures, which seemed like a step in the right direction at first, but it wasn’t. It was a torture for Silver Fox's tongue, however. The elder pegasus was shocked at how Sweetie Belle sometimes managed to cast spells that were so unrelated to the task at hoof that the clearing they had reserved for her training ended up looking like the aftermath of a magical warzone. He silently thanked his past self for having chosen to train just far enough from the house to avoid destroying it.

****

Silver Fox didn't look forward to the third week. Before he had consented to do the training, he knew that exorcist training was a long and tedious process, and he knew that only a month might be too short to actually learn something meaningful. The past two weeks had proved him right so far.

After he woke up and prepared his own breakfast, he directly flew to the clearing where Sweetie Belle spent her time training, because the filly had in fact developed a habit of waking up early to go there.

Silver Fox was surprised not to find her on site. He went back to his house's guest room, finding there that she was still sleeping.

Sweetie Belle woke up later in the day, explaining that she had been overworking herself too much to no avail, so she had decided to start taking things easy to see if it helped.

And it actually helped her greatly. It only took her 3 days to learn the theory on depossession by heart, and only one more day and a half to holify a glass of water.

****

To celebrate Sweetie Belle's success, Silver Fox had ordered pizzas from a place in town. He was glad to see that Sweetie Belle, the same shy filly who could barely say a word when she had first arrived, was then smiling widely and humming happy tunes as she ate pizza slices across the dinner table.

“You can be happy,” he said, swallowing his own slice of the cheesy treat. “You might really have talent to back up your luck.”

The both of them chuckled.

“Seriously, though.” Silver Fox assumed a sincere smile. “You achieved a trimester's work in only three weeks. You are gifted with a level of skills that could potentially rival Silver Key, one day.” He paused, reminiscing about his late husband. “I know he would be proud of you, if he knew you.”

Sweetie Belle smiled bashfully, appreciating the compliment. “Thanks.”

“Say, I've seen you glancing at this book a lot since you arrived.” Silver Fox pointed at the old book that stood alone on one shelf. “You're curious about what it is?”

“Um, yes,” she confirmed. “But I don't want to read it if you don't want me to.”

“Nonsense! I'm sure Silver Key would've appreciated if you read his diary.”

Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow at that.

“Don't worry. I knew him the best, and I can tell you that his diary was indeed written to be read by other ponies,” Silver Fox reassured her. “It's unusual, I know. But it's true.”

“…Okay. I'll try reading it, then.”

Later that evening, after dinner, Sweetie Belle took the diary from its shelf and into the guest bedroom. She sat down in bed and started to flip through its pages.

Author's Note

Alicorns are like healthy food after too many greezy pizzas. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about.

...I sometimes forget that the original premise was meant to be a joke.

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 10

“One pony's mistake is at least two others’ lesson.”

I don't remember where I got that saying from, or if I made it up myself. But this is the reason I am writing today: for future generations to learn from my experiences, my mistakes… my remorse…

I don't want the recent events to unfold again.

My name is Silver Key. I am renowned as the “greatest exorcist of my generation” (not my words, everypony else's). So, of course, when the demons suddenly become harder to deal with, I'm the first draft pick to fight them.

“But why are demons suddenly so strong?” you may ask. Well, first, some context.

Demons are known among exorcists for their ability to feel a way wider range of emotions than ponies. These additional emotions make them wicked, sadistic, despicable, and unpredictable monsters who only exist to make ponies feel miserable before killing them. No explanation has been found as to how additional emotions can do that to a being.

But thankfully, these unnecessary feelings also give them a weakness that is usually easy to exploit, namely demons aren’t smart.

They focus too much on tormenting ponies, so they are quick to lower their guard. Any exorcist with a single year of training should theoretically be able to deal with them.

That was mostly the case until recently.

I received a report from fellow exorcists which told about rumors that civilian ponies are now making deals with demons.

I was shocked, and puzzled too. Demons are no stranger to manipulating ponies in vulnerable mental states, reading their pasts and traumas for potential weaknesses. And they usually just kill the ponies afterward, too. So ponies willingly making deals with them? I had to read the report further.

Apparently, the “deals” work like this: the demon promises to grant the pony's greatest dream (eg: love, power, immortality, etc) in exchange for their servitude during an extended period of time. The pony then becomes a thrall to the demon, and when the deal comes to its deadline, they are rewarded with what they have been promised.

Those thralls, who have dubbed themselves the “cultists”, usually still live their lives normally, but they must obey their demons’ orders and share their intelligence with them. Basically, demons use those ponies like disconnected second brains that make the smart decisions in their stead.

And the last thing we want for demons is for them to think more logically when they are fighting us.

These deals are something that they used to do a few centuries ago. They had stopped doing them until recently, and those cults had been mostly forgotten since. Even I, one of the most knowledgeable exorcists, didn't know about such things before reading the report.

That same report told me that some of those cultists were spotted near the very town I live next to: Bardingville. Of course, I had to investigate. I also asked my mother, Silver Medal II, to help me in my research.

It turned out that we didn't need to search for long: the cultists had all carved runes on their front doors. The runes were small and hardly visible from afar, but they were there, unmistakably. Mother had a hunch that these were made to allow the demons to pass through those doors, like some sort of magical invite[1]. Later research on the markings proved her correct.
_
[1] Most demons simply can't pass through closed doors, whether locked or not. It makes for some silly situations.

The next part is something I am ashamed of, but not regretful of. Mother and I broke into one of the cultists’ houses, one who wasn't home, and started digging through their private property to look for clues. For what exactly? I wasn't sure, but it felt reasonable.

Now, the house we had broken into wasn't a random one ; we had chosen precisely the one which belonged to who we thought would be most suitable as a cult leader. This pony was Bloodied Robes.

It proved to be a good decision, for we didn't take long to find in his closet a bunch of alarmingly blood-stained cloaks alongside a couple of check-lists. The cloaks bore markings similar to the ones on the doors, which Mother guessed were to allow the demons to see past hoods[1]. The check-lists, meanwhile, contained the names of ponies in the neighborhood.
_
[1] Many demons are unable to see past the simplest of disguises. Donning a cape and large hood would usually render one invisible to them. Which raises the question: why would the cultists even have such cloaks?

The first list was half-way filled. By comparing the checked names on it with the names of the neighbors who had runes on their doors, it seemed to be about the ponies they had managed to indoctrinate in their cult.

The second list, which contained the other half of town, only had 2 names checked, but it left Mother in a state of shock I wasn't used to seeing on her. She understood what it meant.

“Brownbrick and Soup Supper have both been out of town for days,” she told me, looking back at the bloody clothes. “I think this is a victims list.”

****

Sweetie Belle had to pause and put down the diary. It should have been too much. She should have stopped reading right there…

…Actually, she had already witnessed scarier things, so it didn't make her feel as uneasy as she would have thought. And while it did make her shiver, she wasn't as scared as she was curious about what had happened next. She needed to take notes and learn from the better exorcist, to learn how to do even better than him in the future.

Yes. She had to continue reading.

****

We sent a report to every exorcist in Bardingville and the neighboring towns. We formed a team of 7 exorcists, which included me, Mother, Imagerie, Havengate, Rookia, Salty Drink, and Hexagramme, then we immediately went after the ponies that had been indoctrinated according to the list.

That was when we realized that none of them were home nor anywhere to be seen in town. We queried the neighbors, and a few of them told us that they had seen some of the ponies we were looking for going into the woods early this morning, before dawn, one of them dragging a pony-sized sack that might actually have contained a live pony.

Once Mother was done shouting at these ponies for not having warned anypony about the suspicious activities they had witnessed, we headed directly into the woods and split up to search the area thoroughly. I made sure to verify my house's surroundings first, just in case some cultist had any funny ideas related to burning it down or the likes. Thankfully, my home was safe.

Hexagramme was the first to find something. She sent us the telepathic signal alongside her coordinates. We all rushed to her location, where we saw what she had discovered.

In the middle of a clearing, 13 cloaked figures stood in a circle around one bound earth pony. I recognized the poor stallion as Heavytons, the local blacksmith. Racking my brain, I remembered his name being unchecked on one of the lists: the victims list.

Mother elbowed me and brought my attention to the markings that were carved on the dirt ground underneath their hooves. Those were magic markings, obviously.

The cloaked ponies had been clumsily chanting something in what sounded like an attempt at imitating Demon Tongue[1] until one of them took off his hood, revealing his identity as Bloodied Robes, and brandished a dagger with his mouth.
_
[1] Demon Tongue is a language which can only be spoken by demons. Rather than communicating words, it works by directly sending concepts and ideas into the interlocutor's mind, sometimes even concepts that don't exist for ponies. The result is a universally comprehensible language which cannot be translated half of the time due to how abstract it is.

Bloodied Robes then made his way toward Heavytons, clearly with the attempt of killing him. But me and my comrades intervened in time.

Mother teleported in the middle of the circle, kicked Bloodied in the cheek to make him drop the dagger, then teleported away with Heavytons. The six of us who were left immediately had to tackle the cultists.

We fought. Each exorcist had to take care of 2 cultists, who had daggers, until Bloodied Robes stood, then I had to fight 3 of them.

Hoof-to-hoof combat with ponies is very different from exorcizing. For one, ponies tend to think differently, faster, and more practically. They also think more hastily and are more prone to mistakes in the rush of things.

This would've benefitted us weren’t it for the fact that we were ponies too, that our opponents outnumbered us by a lot, and that they had weapons, while we did not. It didn't take long for Hexagramme and Salty to end up too gravely injured from their opponents’ blades to continue fighting.

As one could guess, only 4 unicorns against 13 ponies of the 3 different tribes wasn't going to be a fair fight, or even a fight at all. This was beginning to turn out more like a massacre. I really felt stupid for not having recruited more exorcists at the time. I even knew how many cultists there would be from the list of indoctrinated townsfolk. It truly is fascinating how susceptible to such mistakes even the best of us can be.

Thankfully, as if Fate had taken a liking to us, Mother teleported back in and had the genius idea of shouting something that was distracting enough to stop everypony in their tracks[1], both the cultists and the exorcists. They were only distracted for a couple seconds, but it was just the time I needed to use the idea I came up with.
_
[1] I won't tell what Mother shouted, as it is related to a very embarrassing inside joke between us. Having to explain it to my colleagues afterward was a tough challenge that left a scar on my dignity.

I cast an advanced spell: the Chains of Tartarus. It requires significant focus, a level that most exorcists don't even get close to during most of their life-times. Not being like most exorcists, I was able to summon enough of the chains at once to shackle 11 cultists on at least 3 limbs each.

The numerical advantage was then ours, and Rookia tackled down one of the two I had missed[1], but the last one, who happened to be Bloodied Robes, had managed to escape. 2 of my colleagues, Imagerie and Havengate, galloped after him deeper into the woods, while Mother and Rookia watched over the cultists and attended to the injuries of Hexagramme and Salty.
_
[1] Rookia had barely finished her training and was very happy to have contributed. It's nice to see some greenhorns still finding so much enjoyment in the job.

Meanwhile, I had to stay focused on manifesting the many shackles around our prisoners, so I couldn't do much until all of them were disarmed and bound with more permanent ropes.

Some time later, once all of this was done, our two friends still hadn't returned with Bloodied Robes, so I decided to go after them myself.

I searched for what felt like an eternity in those woods, worrying more and more about my colleagues.

I found a truly gruesome sight.

Imagerie was crawling on the ground with her front legs, leaving a trail of her own blood behind. I hadn't noticed her crawling up to me until she shakily grabbed onto my leg.

Looking at the direction Imagerie had come from, I saw Havengate, unconscious, being held up by the talon of a bird-like demon who was threatening to eat his head.

Rapidly, I took out and opened a bottle of holy water, using my telekinesis to pour every drop of it all over the beast before me. The demon's skin burned as intended, making it lose its grasp on the fainted stallion.

With Havengate out of the way, I was free not to hold back. I summoned a holy blade[1] and rushed forward with it, all while opening a portal to Tartarus behind the devil.
_
[1] A holy blade looks like a sword made of pure magic. It is one of the few exorcism spells that could technically, theoretically, and actually kill a demon. But that would require cutting the demon in multiple thousands of minuscule bits before it can regenerate or run away, which would be too tedious and difficult for us to consider doing that over imprisoning them in Tartarus for all of eternity.

I jumped, swung the blade across its throat, then landed onto the demon with enough force to send it straight into the portal. All I had to do at this point was to lock it, and this little adventure would have ended right then.

I didn't close the portal immediately.

I saw the demon leaving the body it had been possessing.

Bloodied Robes had given the demon access to his own body all this time.

The throat I had slit was Bloodied Robes's, not the demon's directly.

I had killed Bloodied Robes.

I had murdered an actual pony.

I was paralyzed by the shock.

Before the demon could use this opportunity to jump out of Tartarus and attack me, Imagerie used some of the last of her energy to close the portal and lock it. The movement snapped me back to reality.

I had to carry two unconscious unicorns all the way back to Bardingville.

All of this wouldn't have been so disastrous if we had taken more time to prepare and gather more exorcists. But at the same time, if we had taken a few minutes longer, we might have missed the time of the sacrifice, and Heavytons would probably not be with us now.

And I do mean “might”. Because if we had gathered a bigger group, we would have covered more ground of the forest during our search, and it would have gone by faster. We would have found the cultists faster. The fight could have been more in our favor. Less of us would have been so injured.

No matter which way I look at it, I still think that it would have been better for us to prepare more.

One must be ready for every eventuality, because if something can go wrong, it will go wrong, unless you do something about it before it happens. Sometimes, if you don't act early enough, all you will be able to do is to minimise the damage.

I learned it the hard way for you to do better next time.

Author's Note

Happy Nightmare Night...! (I know I'm almost a month late, and I'm deeply sorry about that.)

The footnotes thingy was shamelessly borrowed from The Celestia Code (which I recommand reading). The idea was to use it to remind the reader of some pre-established things while also expanding slightly on the world-building and characters' personalities.

By the way, "Rookia" is a pun between "rookie" and "ruqia" ("exorcism" in Arab). I have too much fun naming characters that might only appear once. Could you tell?

Anyway, I think the first three chapters might have to be edited/rewritten, because they're very rough grammatically. I mean, I even found a straight up lie in the narration! (I said the kitchen was upstairs in chapter 2 even though it was downstairs in chapter 3.)

Also, sorry about the delay. I might not upload new chapters for this story for a while. But rest assured, it isn't canceled.

See y'all!