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.
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[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!