With a twist and a grunt, Dante cracks his back as he walks down the halls of Castle Canterlot. There’s a certain spring to his step as he rounds a corridor. His now dark brown hair, still longer from his previous aging, whips to the side as he continues down the next hall. He’s practically skipping down the hall, twirling a staff in his hand as he proceeds to the throne room.

As he arrives at the double doors, he looks between the two stoic guards before he kicks open the doors, startling the room’s occupants. “Well, well. The gang’s all here.”

Inside were the three princesses, Twilight and her friends, Iatril, Raven sitting atop Fluttershy’s back, and one tired looking Shade Strider. Celestia just glares at him as he begins walking up to the throne, while Luna stares at him, almost scared. The others just watch as he approaches, except for Iatril, who’s turned away from him.

“…not much of a greeting, eh?” He says, nearing the throne. “Where’s Flurry?”

“He and Spike are in a different room in the castle” Iatril says. She doesn’t even make eye contact when she speaks.

He looks over at Iatril. “Why’s that?” He asks.

“The princesses…found out something about you.” Iatril says, still looking away.

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense.” He says, looking over at the princesses. “What major discovery have you made?”

Luna looks away from him, muttering to herself.

“What, no one’s going to say anything?” Dante asks.

Shade looks around lazily before speaking up. “Uh, I’m not really sure what’s going on here.” He rubs his side a bit with his hoof. “I don’t remember much about these last few days. I just woke up this morning with several broken ribs before Iatril here healed me.”

“You were under the influence of Aselith and stabbed me in the stomach with a magic knife.” Dante says, shrugging. “It happens.”

“Uh…huh.” Shade says, slowly nodding.

“So, is anyone else going to say anything?” Dante looks over at Luna. “I get the sneaky sensation that you’re the one that uncovered this truth.” The mare in question looks up at him. “Care to share?”

Luna speaks so quietly, Dante almost misses it. “How could you?”

“Do what?” He asks.

“How could you kill them all?” She asks a little louder.

“You’re gonna have to be a little more specific. Do you have any idea how many people I’ve killed?”

Luna cringes. “A whole village; all humans; all of your own kind. You killed them all without any remorse.” She says quietly.

Dante brings his hand up to his chin, scratching his goatee. “A whole human village? Hmmm. Ah!” He exclaims, pointing his finger in the air. “That’s right! That was…ah hell, what was the name of that village? Westhaven? Eh, who cares. Too long ago to matter.”

“Who care?!” Celestia shouts at him. “You murdered innocent humans for your own pleasure and you say who cares?!”

“Well, I wouldn’t really say it was for my own pleasure, but yeah.” He says, shrugging. “Anyway, I’ve also made a pretty neat discovery. You see—”

“This isn’t something you’re just going to shrug off!” Celestia says, approaching Dante. “I demand an answer for this!”

Dante just groans and looks up at the ceiling. “Are we fighting again?”

Iatril looks over at Celestia and Dante, but she doesn’t say a word.

“You wouldn’t win again if we did.” Celestia stops a few feet from Dante. “I won’t fall for your tricks again.”

“Hah! I can actually sustain my demonic form now. You can’t even touch me. Besides, if you’d listen to what I have to say, then you’d know you can no longer beat me. But, if you really want to fight…” He takes a few steps back opens his arms at Celestia. “…then I’ll show you what I’ve obtained.”

Celestia lowers her horn at him. “You will tell me why.”

“Princess!” Twilight and Iatril practically say at the same time. Iatril continues speaking. “Please, knowing why won’t change what happened. It doesn’t change—”

“No.” Dante says, not even looking at her. “If she wants this to happen, let it.” He grins at the alicorn.

Celestia charges her horn with magic, preparing to strike. The moment she readies herself, three beasts appear out of thin air and surround her. The one in front of her stands about two feet taller than her and looks like a cross between a snake and a human, having a long tail in place of a pair of legs and six arms, all holding swords. A pair of swords cross each other, holding Celestia’s neck in them like a pair of scissors. The other four are aimed at various vital organs.

The second is to her left and looks vaguely like giant human. It has a dog-like face and four arms; one pair sticks out of its chest and has claws at the ends, while the other pair is where they should be and has a set of pincers. It stands at least thrice as tall as Celestia and has one of its pincers around Celestia’s midsection.

The third is to her right and resembles a mix of an ape and a fat boar. It stands on its hind legs about as tall as the four armed one and has a set of tusks coming from its jaw. Two relatively small, black, feathered wings come out of its back. Its teeth are barred and its fists curled as it stands tall over Celestia, waiting to pounce.

Celestia remains completely still, eyeing the monsters around her.

“What are they?” She whispers out in a mix of terror and hatred.

“DANTE!” Iatril yells at the top of her lungs.

“Don’t worry, they’re with me.” Dante says, walking around the encircled alicorn. “A Marilith, a Glabrezu, and a Nalfeshnee; these are some of the most powerful Tanar’ri demons of the Abyss. Their general duties, respectfully, are commanding demonic armies, tempting mortals with power, and punishing doomed souls. They’re very good at what they do, and very loyal to those who wield much greater power than themselves.” Dante waves his hand at them and they release Celestia. “Especially since they know full well the price for betrayal. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, Lord Dante.” They all respond, kneeling towards him.

Celestia backs away from them, back towards everyone else, before speaking. “You brought these monsters out from Tartarus?!”

“Yep.” Dante states. “Speaking of that place…” Dante tosses the staff to Iatril, who grabs it out of the air. “I retrieved that when I went hunting. It’s out of charges though.”

“I can’t believe you would bring demons here!” Iatril yells as she approaches him.

The demons stand and come closer to Dante, who casually waves them back. “Whatever. You’re missing the bigger picture.”

“Oh?” Iatril stands right in front of Dante, looking up at him. “And what would that be.”

Dante grins again. “These demons claim they came right from the Abyss.”

“So what?”

“That means Tartarus and the Abyss are the same thing. We can potentially get home.” Dante looks over at Celestia, who has been glowering at him. “Aren’t you happy?” He asks the scowling princess.

“Go home?” Iatril asks. “I thought we were staying.”

“We are. Well, maybe.” Dante turns around, pacing the throne room. “On one hand, Luna helped me regain my power.” The alicorn in question cringes at the mention of her name. “On the other hand, Celestia tried to stop me. On a different hand, I told Razorwind I’d train him in magic, and I doubt he’d want to leave Equestria. On one more hand, Luna didn’t fully restore my power.” He stops pacing and faces away from everyone. He pulls out something from behind his belt and wraps it in his fist. “Now, that all doesn’t matter, since I’m not leaving it up to me.” He turns around and thrusts his fist towards the group of ponies. “I’m leaving it up to this!” He opens his hand and holds up the contents between his fingers, showing a shining—

“Oh, gods.” Iatril sighs, walking back over to Fluttershy and her friends.

“A coin?” Applejack says, eyeing the object.

“You can’t be serious.” Rainbow Dash deadpans at Dante.

“But of course!” Dante says, adjusting the coin so it sat on top of his fist, over his thumb. “Here and now, we shall see if I stay or go. There are two sides: red and blue. If it’s red, I’ll stay and fight ‘till the end. If blue, we pack up and leave” He looks right at Iatril as he says the last part. “Sound reasonable? Sound fair? It’s fifty-fifty.” He looks over at Luna, but she doesn’t return the look.

“You’re insane!” Celestia shouts at him.

“True, but that doesn’t mean I’m unreliable. So, are we ready?” Dante asks.

“We can’t leave!” Iatril yells at him.

“Uh, yeah we can.” He responds. “Look, traversing the Abyss won’t be pleasant, but I’m sure I can…convince some of the inhabitants to assist us.”

“That’s not the point!” She sweeps her arm towards everyone in the room. “If you’re going to ignore the plight of this kingdom, I can’t say I’m surprised! But are you really just going to abandon our chase? What about the years we spent fighting Aselith? What about our revenge? What about Garret?!”

“Who the hell is Garret?” He asks, eyeing Iatril.

Iatril just stands there, staring at Dante. She tries to say something, but no words come out of her mouth.

“Well?” He asks again.

A pained look comes across Iatril’s face before she turns away again. “He’s no one.”

Dante rolls his eyes, sighing. “Then why bring it up? Anyway, are there any real objections to this coin toss?” He pauses for a moment. Hearing none, he flips the coin high in the air. It spins for a few seconds before hitting the ground, spinning again. After another few seconds, the coin falls flat, showing red. Dante holds his arms out before letting them fall limp to his sides. “Well, that settles that then. First order of business—”

“Do you honestly expect us to accept your help now?!” Celestia yells again, grabbing his attention.

“Look, I can see you’re mad, but try to keep things in perspective. I’ve yet to kill any ponies, while Aselith has caused the death of…I don’t know how many. What’re a few beings of pure evil and chaos to that? Besides,” He pulls out his magic needle, drawing a large, horizontal circle above him. “I think a little shock and awe will change your mind.” After he draws the circle, he steps back as the portal opens. What falls out grabs everyone’s attention immediately.

“S-Shining?” Twilight mutters, walking towards the bloody corpse of her brother. Cadence follows right after her. Twilight’s surprise quickly turns to anger. “What are you doing with him?!”

“Something pretty neat.” Dante replies. A scroll pops out of the portal as it closes. Dante levitates it and brings it to him, unfurling it. “You’ve seen the shock, and here’s the awe.”

He reads the scroll and kneels over Shining Armor’s dead body, laying his hand on his side. In an instant, Shining Armor gasps for air as a few of his wounds close up. He then begins groaning from his remaining wounds.

“If you’d be so kind, Iatril?” Dante says, standing up from Shining Armor. She slowly walks over to Shining armor and casts a healing spell over him, mending all of his wounds. Shining Armor gasps again from the relief, sitting up and rubbing his head with his hoof.

“Wha-What happened?” He asks, not looking around. Before he can see where he is, both Cadence and Twilight run right to him, wrapping him up in their hooves.

“Shiny,” Cadence says in a muffled voice, “you’re back.”

“Back?” Shining asks, looking around. “Back from—SWEET CELESTIA!” He yells as he sees the demons in front of him.

The trio of demons chuckle darkly. Dante walks up to Shining Armor, leaning down.

“You missed the introductions.” He says, smiling a toothy smile. “How was death?”

“Death?” He questions. “What are…” He trails off.

“Think: what was the last thing you remember?”

Cadence and Twilight release Shining Armor as he rises to his hooves. “Well, I was near the barracks, there was an attack—” He jolts at the thought and pans around the room. “The attack! Are we—”

“We’re past that.” Dante says. “Keep remembering.”

Shining Armor looks up at Dante before continuing. “Um, a flaming stone smashed into the throne room.” He looks over at one of the walls to see it intact. Rather, there was a spot of solid stone as opposed to layers of bricks. “A group of changelings came flying at me. I shot a few of them down before…” His eyes widen when he realizes the truth. “I…died.”

“Congratulations.” Dante straightens himself. “You are likely the first pony to be brought back from the dead via divine magic. Be proud.” He just pats Shining on the head before walking over to Celestia, smiling. “See? I’m not all bad.”

“A good deed here and there doesn’t remove the evil you’ve committed.” She says, glaring at him.

“If it did, I’d have to spend a hundred lifetimes of good deeds to fix what I’ve done.” He stops right in front of Celestia, crossing his arms. “Now, about fighting Aselith.” He briefly looks around at the room’s occupants before continuing. “The only ones who stand a chance surviving a fight with him are you, me, Iatril, and Luna. Twilight and her friends do have the Elements of Harmony, but, well, should one of you die…” The element bearers look away, well aware of that fact. “Anyway, Aselith also has an army; a huge army, if I’m not mistaken, and it will only get larger as he populates it with undead. Therefore, I propose a bit of training for your troops, starting with the royal guard and any other troops here. I’ll teach them the proper way to kill undead and how not to be killed outright by them. I’ll teach them two nights from now. Sound like a plan?”

Celestia looks at Dante for a moment before turning to Luna. The younger sister doesn’t move her gaze from the floor. Celestia looks back to Dante.

“How exactly are you going to instruct the guards?” She asks skeptically.

“I was thinking through example. You know, learn by doing.” He says with a shrug.

“Absolutely not!” Celestia slams her hoof into the floor. The demons look at her with mild irritation, but otherwise they don’t react. “I will not have you defiling the fallen of this kingdom!”

“Of course not.” Dante holds up his hands. “Perish the thought.” He barely holds back a chuckle from his poor pun. “There are plenty of griffon and changeling corpses I can use.”

“I won’t have you making any mockeries of life in this kingdom!”

“Mockeries of…” Dante looks over at Iatril, who is back near Fluttershy, staring at the nearby wall. Dante raises an eyebrow and simply shakes his head. “Fine, fine.” He says, holding up his arms and turning back to Celestia. “I’ll just make some notes about them and explain those to the troops. Is that tame enough for you?”

“That will do fine.” Celestia looks over at the Tanar’ri, still fuming. “And what about them?”

“They’re staying, and I’m having no argument about that.” Dante crosses his arms again. “Consider them my retinue. I also recommend Twilight and her friends stay close by during all of this. I would also recommend leaving Canterlot, but I suppose this is the most defensible position, given the lack of keeps and castles in these lands. I’ll give my input about other fortifications to make, general tactics of Aselith, etc. Anyway, I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve got notes to make, chores to do, dragons to enlist, and any number of magic baubles to start crafting. So…” Dante teleports from the room. The three demons follow suit soon after.

“That insufferable human.” Celestia murmurs in contempt, starring at his previous spot in the throne room. She looks over at her student and then to her friends, noting the worried looks on their faces. Collecting herself, she speaks again. “But, I suppose he is correct.” She faces the group of element bearers. “All of you would be much safer in Canterlot. I know some of you have other obligations and I won’t force you to stay, but—“

“Princess.” Rarity says, stepping in front of the group. “You don’t need to tell us about the danger.”

“We know they’ll be comin’ for us.” Applejack says next. “Ah don’t think anypony will argue about stayin’ here.”

Pinkie bounces forward. “Sure, I’ll miss everypony in Ponyville, but this is super important.” She has an almost serious tone in her voice.

“Besides,” Rainbow flaps her wings, hovering in the air. “Somepony has to keep an eye on Dante.”

Celestia smiles at hearing their willingness to stay. “Thank you all. That’s such a relief.” She looks over at Shining Armor, who is again being held by his wife and his sister. “Shining Armor?” She says, gaining his attention. “It’s good to have you back.” He stands on all fours and solutes her, smiling.

Luna looks up at Celestia. “I can’t decide if Dante staying will be a good thing or not.” She says.

“I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.” Celestia responds to her sister, looking over at her. “If nothing else, at least we can still count on—”

“Iatril?” Fluttershy says to the elf, who has already made it half way to the doors. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t really know.” She says, devoid of any emotion.

Everyone in the room watches her slowly make her way out of the throne room.

After she leaves, Fluttershy turns to bird on her back. “Raven, what’s going on?”

He looks at the door, now closed from Iatril’s exit. “Garret was their friend, the one Aselith killed.”

Rainbow Dash eyes the bird. “I don’t get it. Why did Dante act like he didn’t know him?”

Raven glances at Rainbow Dash. “Probably because he doesn’t remember anymore.”

“I don’t get it.” Twilight says, moving closer to the group. “How could he not remember someone he was so willing to kill for? Didn’t he say revenge was his reason for fighting Aselith?”

“Look,” Raven says, “I’m not the right one to be asking these questions to. The one you want to ask, the only one who knows why, is the person who looked like she just lost everything in an instant. Good luck getting that out of her though. Even Flurry doesn’t know why, and he’s been following Iatril for years.”

~ _ ~ _ ~ _ ~ _ ~

Iatril walked right through the gate, paying no attention to any of the ponies around her. Before, she left the throne room almost lifelessly. Now there’s strength in her strides. With every step she moves faster and faster. Pretty soon, she’s at full sprint towards the main gate of Canterlot and then the mountain. She quickly claws her way up the steep slope until she’s halfway to the top. Reaching a small landing, she collapses on the surface with a sharp intake of air.

She gains back her breath and looks forward at the wall of the mountain. Gritting her teeth, she jumps to her feet and charges right at the wall, smashing her fist into it and leaving cracks in the surface. She brings her other fist up and smashes it into the wall as well. She pulls her fists back and punches the wall again; and again; and again. As she continues her pounding away of the mountain, she starts yelling as bloods starts dripping around her. She doesn’t even notice the blood and presses on relentlessly.

After well over three hundred strikes, she steps back from the wall and plops herself on the ground, looking at her work. She’d pushed at least ten feet into the mountain, clearing away the debris in her way as she had went further in.

She brings her blood drenched hands up to her face, rubbing her forehead.

“Get ahold of yourself.” She mutters. “You knew this could happen. Of course Dante would forget Garret. That’s just what he wants.”

“What who wants?” She hears a quiet voice say. Iatril whips her head around to see her friend sitting behind her.

“Fluttershy.” She mutters. “How-How long where you sitting there?”

“Um, I saw you punching the wall a lot. I came looking for you right after you left to make sure you were okay and I heard a lot of yelling coming from up here so…” Fluttershy starts murmuring after saying that.

Iatril just smiles at her. “Thank you.” She says, lying on the ground with her hands above her head.

“Y-Your hands!” Fluttershy gasps upon seeing the appendages.

“Don’t worry. I’m one spell away from fixing them. I just…needed to take my mind off of things for a while, that’s all.”

“Oh. Okay…” Fluttershy says, looking around the mountain from her spot on the ground. Things get quiet for a while until Iatril sighs.

“You can ask me whatever you need to ask me.” She says, not moving from her spot.

Fluttershy looks back over at her. “Well, um, who doesn’t want Dante to remember your friend?”

“The demon in him.” She says, closing her eyes. “It wants to make Dante…more like him; or, rather, more like them, I guess. Not knowing the reason for the hate, but being stuck with it anyway. But making Dante forget Garret…it makes sense why, but it’s so cruel. Garret is partly the reason Dante is…”

“Why he’s what?” Fluttershy asks.

Iatril tries making herself speak, but she resigns herself to her thoughts and says something different. “I’m sorry. I…just can’t say it.”

“That’s okay.” Fluttershy says. “You don’t have to tell me. But…I think you should tell Princess Luna.”

Iatril sits up and looks over at Fluttershy. “Why?” She asks.

“She’s been pretty upset after finding out about how Dante…um…” Fluttershy whispered the next part so quietly even Iatril couldn’t hear her, but she knew what Fluttershy was talking about. “I think Princess Luna should hear why Dante is, well, Dante.”

Iatril looks at the ground for a moment before rising to her feet. She casts a spell, heals her hands, and casts another to conjure water over her hands to wash them.

“You’re right.” She says, drying her hands on her pants. “If nothing else, Luna should know why she saw what she saw.” She walks over to Fluttershy and leans over, giving her a quick hug. “Thanks for that.”

Fluttershy wraps a hoof around Iatril. “That’s what friends are for.” She says.

The pair start their descent, Fluttershy gliding down as Iatril slides down the slope. They head straight to the throne room in search of Luna.

~ _ ~ _ ~ _ ~ _ ~

A day and a half passes as Luna raises her moon into the sky. Following that, she starts making her way to the barracks, where Dante will be explaining to the soldiers about fighting undead.

‘Dante.’ She thought as she walked through the castle. When Iatril explained why Dante’s done some of the things he’s done, well…it was certainly understandable. Aselith is an incredibly strong mage. If Dante was to have a chance at killing him, he had to bind demons to his soul and siphon their power for himself. That’s what she already assumed about Dante. What she didn’t know was Aselith was doing the same thing, but with beings called ‘Devils’. Eventually, he reached the point where he felt he didn’t need any more power and stopped. That’s when Dante’s struggle with finding enough energy to suppress the demons began.

Not only that, but Dante had actually lost control several times. After each time, he lost many memories of his past. The people he knew, the philosophies he accepted, his general attitude on life, they all began dwindling away. Of course, the matter of Dante destroying that village came up in their conversation. Iatril found out about that decades after it happened, sometime before the fighting with Aselith began. She didn’t know why Dante did that, but she also doesn’t think he did it for no reason.

Luna joined her sister on the balcony over the barracks. She looked out at the troops below her and saw Dante sitting at the end of the yard on a stack of three crates. He saw her and gave a quick wave with a smile. Luna doesn't respond.

“What’s happened so far?” She asks her sister.

“The troops have been gathering here and Dante’s been sitting on those supply crates the whole time.” Celestia replies. “Other than that, nothing.”

As if on cue, Dante stands up on the crates and shoots a blast of magic straight up into the air, letting the light of the fire spread out as it ascends and trickle down around him harmlessly. He easily gets the attention of every solder in the yard.

“Good evening, everypony!” He calls loudly so all could hear. “As you are aware, I will be instructing you in how to fight undead monstrosities. However!” He holds his hand in front of him. “I believe a point or two needs to be addressed. First and foremost, I’m sure there are rumors going around about the three monsters I have working with me. Those are not undead. They are entities from Tartarus that I have enlisted into my service, so don’t worry about them. They obey my commands and will only attack the enemy. Now, onto a more relevant point: will Captain Armor please step forward?”

Shining Armor walks over to the crates from his position on the side. Dante jumps from the crates and lands in front of Shining Armor with a small crack in his legs. He straightens himself as he faces the troops.

“Now,” He begins again, “As most of you have heard, Shining Armor has returned from death to live again.” A few murmurs arise in the crowd as Dante continues. “He is NOT an undead. He is alive and well.” He takes a few steps around Shining Armor and moves behind the crates. “Now, you may be wondering what the difference is. Well…”

A moment later, a griffon is pushed out from behind the crates. Its feathers were greying and there were patches where it had no skin, exposing muscle and bone. Its eyes were unfocused and its beak hung open.

“This,” Dante says, walking back out from behind the crates, “is an undead.” He looks up at Celestia, who is fuming, before continuing. “It’s called a zombie. It holds no will of its own. Under the power of a master, it performs no actions other than what it is directed. It’s pretty slow and can’t do much besides swiping at you. It’s weakness?” Dante pulls out his sword and bisects the zombie, dropping it. “Weapons that cut.”

He looks over at the crate. “Come.” He says and another griffon comes out. This one, however, has no flesh on it at all. “This is a skeleton. Similar to the zombie, it has no will. It’s faster, but not as resilient. It’s weakness is bludgeoning weapons.” He twists his blade so the broad side is facing the skeleton as he brings it down on it. In one swipe, it breaks the spine of the skeleton and it falls over, inanimate.

Dante snaps his fingers with one hand and pulls out his magic needle with the other. Three incorporeal griffons come up from the ground behind him as he spreads his wings and flies up a few feet. He draws a circle in the air and opens a portal, letting five more solid griffons fall from the hole. Some of the corporeal ones have their flesh, some don’t. One is even about twice as large as normal griffons and appears to have something inside its chest. Another is completely covered in a sheet.

“Now, let me show you what powerful undead are like.”

END CHAPTER

Author's Note

Ta-da! Next chapter's out! Imagine Dante twirling a stiletto and smoking a cigarette while saying the title. That's what I did.

So yeah, Dante's hiring Demons and continuing doing whatever he wants. SSDD. At least there's a reason to it, or lack thereof as it were.

I'm thinking the next one will be out in 2-3 weeks, but don't quote me on that. Also, ignore the fact that it's typed right in the "Author's Notes" section in plain view.

Until then, arrivederci!