Deal With the Devil?
Twilight had been through a long and stressful day today. Oh sure, she enjoyed a good pile of paperwork as much as she always did, but after a while it all sort of blurred together. But, ever the dutiful princess, she completed her tasks well, and in efficient time it must be said. So as far as she was concerned, she'd earned herself a nice bit of rest. And how would she spend that rest? Simple. She was in her favourite place in the Friendship Palace. It was the library, and no there weren't any prizes for guessing that one. Reclining into her favourite chair, which she'd eagerly displayed to King Thorax during one of his official visits, she let out a contented sigh as she lit up her horn. Using her magic she levitated one of her favourite books over, opening it up to the first page. Granted, she'd seen enough of the printed world already today, but this was one she actually wanted to be looking at. Reaching to the side she took hold of a freshly-brewed cup of tea, taking that first delectable sip, making her feel like all her cares were just washing away. Alas, she'd been in this situation enough times to know where it led, so a more cynical look came to her shortly afterwards. "Okay, when's the bit going to drop?"
And drop it did, for as soon as she'd uttered those words the ground in front of her burst apart, unleashing a torrent of flame and unimaginable heat. From that hellish inferno, a shape could be seen, and within moments the fire subsided, revealing the intruder that now stood before the Princess of Friendship. Standing upon two cloven hooves, this being was primarily red, with intimidating curved horns and a pair of enormous wings, not unlike that of a bat. From its posterior emerged a long and thin tail ending in an arrow-like point, and upon its grinning face was a sharp black beard. It was a demon, basically. Ask anypony off the street to draw you a picture of what they think a denizen of the realms below would look like and this right here was what you'd get. And to complete the aesthetic, it cackled maniacally. "Bwahahahaha! Princess Twilight Sparkle! I stand before you, a demon of Tartarus itself! And I come to you this day with an offer! Agree to my contract! Pledge your soul to me for eternity! And in return I shall grant you your heart's desire!"
Twilight watched as the demon offered his hand, which was soon engulfed in yet another quick burst of fire, much to her chagrin. When it faded, she saw that there was indeed a contract, traditional parchment and everything, in his palm. Looking to him with scepticism she ignited her horn again, levitating the paper to her and starting to read through it. As she did this, the demon tapped his fingertips against one another in that spindly way people only ever did when they wanted everyone to know that they were up to no good. The occasional snickering certainly didn't help his case either, as Twilight very much wanted to comment on it, though she kept her attention squarely on the paper for the time being. After several long minutes of pouring over everything written there, as well as looking over it a second time for good measure, the young princess moved it aside while it was still in mid-air, looked the demon right in the eye, and finally gave her response. "No."
"Um...pardon?" the demon replied with confusion.
"You heard me," Twilight confirmed. "I said no. I'm not agreeing to this."
The demon smirked. "So, the renowned Twilight Sparkle fears my offer, does she?"
Twilight shook her head. "Fear? No. I just think it's a ridiculous deal."
A slowly blink from the demon. "...Excuse me?"
Twilight raised the contract again, pointing to it. "This basically means that you do something for me in exchange for my soul, yes?"
"Yes," the demon answered immediately.
Twilight narrowed here eyes to him. "So that conclusively proves that I have a soul, correct? Because presumably you wouldn't be doing this if a soul were merely some hypothetical concept."
"Um...yes," the demon answered more hesitantly.
"And if I have a soul, that also must mean that there is an afterlife of some sort for that soul to go to? Am I right?" Twilight asked while pointing to her unwanted guest.
The demon scratched the back of his head. "Well, technically, yes."
Twilight again looked to the parchment. "So from that, it should be pretty easy to figure out that your offer is rather disadvantageous for me. After all, if your agreement results in my soul being in your possession, then by default that would be a worse outcome for my soul than what would happen to it if I declined your offer."
Here, the demon regained his confidence, smiling wickedly. "Ah! But do you know that for certain? After all, maybe the choices you make in your life would lead you into my purview anyway? Perhaps there is no better outcome for your soul!"
Again, Twilight shook her head. "Nope. Not buying it. Because if there was any chance my soul was going to wind up in your hands without this kind of interference, even if it was a small chance, you wouldn't even bother coming down here trying to tempt me into making this agreement. Why try and change things to get the same outcome, you know?"
The demon opened his mouth, only to be hit with the realisation of what his potential mark had said. "Ah...good point." Then, he looked to her with yet another attempt to make his case. "But think of it! Your heart's greatest desire! Whatever you wish can be yours!"
Twilight rolled her eyes. "And what do you think is my greatest desire, exactly?" For the first time today, she actually looked rather amused. "Please, tell me. I'd love to hear this."
The demon suddenly felt like he was on the back hoof again. "Well...untold riches?" He watched Twilight remain silent after that, and after a while she slowly arched her eyebrow before gesturing to the area around them. When it at last dawned on him that they were standing in a literal palace, he backtracked a little. "Well...erm...how about complete adoration by all around you?"
Twilight folded her forehooves. "Not that I enjoy tooting my own horn, my friends and I have saved Equestria several times over. I'd say we're pretty well-liked by this point."
The demon was starting to panic slightly now, but did his best to hide it as he continued to come up with suggestions. "How about some romance? I could make it so you'd be the most desirable bachelorette in the land!"
Twilight scoffed. "Thanks for the offer. But, and call me crazy if you like, I wouldn't exactly be comfortable with a partner who was only with me because they were magically manipulated into..." She trailed off, her eyes widening shortly afterwards. "Hey! Wait a minute!"
The demon stepped back. "Er...yes?"
Twilight pointed to him again. "If you have the power to make others do whatever you like through this nebulous magic of yours, why are you even trying to get me to go with this contract willingly? Why not just magically manipulate me into just agreeing to it?"
Silence fell, and as the demon tried his best to come up with a justification for this obvious flaw in his plan that the princess had pointed out to him, he was fast becoming aware, to his eternal embarrassment, that there was none. After a while, all he could really do was giving a slow shrug of his shoulders. "Um...because?"
Twilight gave herself a well-earned facehoof to that, groaning with a deep sense of irritation and exasperation. "You are, without question, the worst evildoer I've had the displeasure of having to deal with. And given the line-up I've had experience with, that is saying something." She again looked to the paper. "And that's before we get into all the problems like the frequent spelling errors and grammatical flaws in the paper itself. I mean seriously! Did you not get this proofread before you came up here?!"
The demon nervously poked the ends of his index fingers together. "Er...no, I did not."
Rolling up the contract, Twilight offered it to him, trying to keep her voice as calm as possible. "Go back, get this rewritten, think through your plans more than you seem to do, and for the love of Celestia, can you at least try to not look like an obvious villain when trying to get others to agree to something?"
The demon looked down to his body, then to the side to one of his outstretched bat-like wings, before looking back to the princess. "That last one might be a bit of a hard sell."
Twilight looked past him, then narrowed her eyes. "Then can you at least clean up your messes? That hole is going to take a while to fix, and I don't know if you realise this, but castle maintenance isn't exactly cheap."
Looking over his shoulder to the still-smouldering hole he came out of, the demon sighed. "My mother was right. I should have gone into botany."
Just a random story idea I had pop into my head one day 
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This guy is no Azzie Elbub. Azzie would've be delighted to play this game with Sparkle.
I was expecting a bit more jokes about dense legalese, "...party of the first party... ...on behalf of the fourth clause shall... ...pursuant to the fullfilment of said obligations...," etc., with Twilight causing the demon to rewrite the contract under her guidance. Everything is reasonable in the moment - "...if you reword this to that,, then that closes a loophole...," just... when he reads the contract again after, he realizes the new wording doesn't give him Twilight's soul, she gets his if he fails to provide her with her heart's desire.
Well now...he's not IFCC(Inter-Fiend Cooperation Commission). Mind, not many can be as handsome or as dark and evil as those dashing fiends...I may or may not owe someone something. That said, I've had worse client-side interactions, so don't let it get you too down, my good daemon. You can always try again, this town is full of gullible idiots, you just happened to pick the wrong one...that said you did so because of the price her Soul would fetch, we all know it. But aim a bit lower, and get a few more, and you'll make it up in volume.
Next time he comes he's just going to mind control Twilight into signing over her soul.
I'm fairly certain twilght already owes her soul to the god of books...for she is the book horse, and shall be forever
10851500
pretty sure twilight pointing that out showed that he actually had no power to control others making his offer null and void.
Im now suddenly getting this idea of twilight getting caught up in her ideas and is now suddenly ruling heaven and hell super efficiently.
To be fair if he had tempted her with something more along the lines Incredible amounts of long lost knowledge, books or an infinite library she may have considered the offer.
Twilight didn't bring her A-Game today.
Had she done so, she would have wound up owning that demon's soul. It would have gone in the jar with all the OTHER demonic souls she's ended up in possession of.
Kind of... bland? An idiot tried to '''trick''' Twilight and gets blapped. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have any special 'kick' that'd make it stand out from the similar fics.
My uncle was into botany, he got arrested for it.
10852261
Did he own a little shop of horrors?
A clever and humorous story all the way through! With that idea that popped into your mind, you definitely executed this super friggin' well! I hope ya don't mind, but I made a reading of this very devilish story of yours!
Audio Linkyloo!: https://youtu.be/hrBCVmpnX_k
(I don't mean to offend anyone with this comment in any way!)
The Animation Fan,
😂😂😂😂😂
Twilight is too bright, and doesn’t get enough credit. I could definitely see this happening in an actual episode if something of the like were to happen.
Definitely an A+ in my book! Well done!
10852204
To be fair, did she need her A game?
"Twilight Sparkle! I have in my possession, a book of finite dimensions, approximately 3 hoofs wide and 5 hoofs tall, by 0.5 hoofs thick, possessing an infinite volume, within containing all the knowledge there is and ever shall be."
"Oh you have another copy of the bloody big book. Look I read the thing from incomprehensible cover to incomprehensible cover before I was even 12."
"BUT how!"
"Look, your kind has been offering that book to ponies for centuries, eventually a few copies ended up in the Canterlot Archives, Celestia knows, some ponies even willingly sold their souls knowing they would leave the world a better place for their grandfoals."
"So um...you're still interested right?"
*Blam*
"They also make great bludgeoning tools against demons like your kind, what with the infinite density."
10853599
Much like those who come to offer it... Again.
This guy is even less competent than Screwtape. Like, the whole point of devil deals is that you don't REALIZE that that's what it is at the time.
The poor sod returns with a proper legalese contract, the party of the first part and the party of the second part...
Pinkie is stood beind him.
Whats this I read about someone trying to damage MY Parties?
10851262
Indeed. Any proper member of IFCC knows it´s better to make your sales pitch when the client is in distress, desperate and at his/her lowest point.
Also, a chorus of castrated damned singing in faux latin helps a lot to create atmosphere.
10854380
He should apprentice under someone. There's this Kuybey guy from the Department of Deceptively Cute Animals, who keeps getting little girls to sell their souls to him for things like cakes. Dude is a wizard at this...also a dick. Bunny Cat is a Dick.
10854408
Another possibility is the Department of Unscrupulous Music Producers. I heard Weez Weezel recently lost his job due to some contract gone wrong (no surprises here), and B.L. Zebub is looking for a replacement. Not a bad position, even if the old lizard has a temper.
This was a very good one-shot.
How about Eternal friendship?
Might makes for a sell!
Hm this story reminds me of THE BEST HELL EVER... perhaps he should throw a personalized hell on top
10854432
Still better than Grimmlet, he's still mad that a human witch girl tricked him...not that he didn't have it coming. Taking her contract for her soul before he asked what she wanted. Got to agree with Advocat though, that girl was ballsy. Wishing for a Great Daemon to 'embrace God'? Brilliant bit of simple wishing, without any real loopholes. She's the type of client you always want to have. Fun to bargain with, and if she wins, you just climb out of the Pit and try again with someone else.
10852616
No he was growing a specific kind of plant.
Pfft
A nice little story. Honestly I was expecting something more along the lines of her breaking down the contract parts itself like in Metalocalypse but this was still nice seeing her break apart the reasons for why the contract was a bad sell. Read kind of like a door to door salesman trying to sell you a vacuum cleaner while your in the middle of vacuuming with a better brand vacuum already. Good work.
10854380
Twilight would correct their Latin. If anything the IFCC would try to HIRE Twilight Sparkle. They know talent when they see it, and the irony of a cute pony running aspects of the lower planes would suit their fancy.