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
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