//------------------------------// // Part Eighteen // Story: The Rariad // by Tundara //------------------------------// The Rariad By Tundara 18: Ioka The moment Trixie touched the filmy portal to Ioka, her head was filled with the tolling of a bell as a red hot spike drove itself into her brain tearing her psyche in half.  The pain was searing white. Blinding in its intensity. Maddening. Worse than anything she could remember. Threaded strands entwined between her two selves, intermeshed and snapping like rotten cotton pulled in opposite directions. Hooves split, and then her legs. Her withers bulged, twisted, and then erupted into midnight wings. Tension built in her jaw as something forced itself up her throat. Terror unlike anything Trixie had ever experienced clenched her heart, and then it too was ripped in twain. A muzzle emerged from her straining lips, and then, with a sickening refrain, her jaw shattered and her throat burst like a ripe pustule.  Her mind was wild with panic, and only one thought remained. She was being sloughed off like a butterfly does a chrysalis.  Somepony began to laugh. Somepony other than Trixie.  Bloody sinnews glistened in the eternal twilight, and with a pop, the final bonds were broken and who—whatever—was inside her spilled from her fully formed.  Trixie gasped.  All the pain was gone. She blinked a couple times as her vision returned, and a new fear rippled up her spine.  Rain pattered on her hide from gloomy skies. In the distance came the retort of thunder echoing through alleys. Before her stood Lethe’s manor, dour exterior frowning at her. The old, soot encrusted windows held no lights, except for one. A window in the top left. Shadows fell over the curtains, a pony moving before the window and the blind drawn back just enough for a single, red eye to peer out. “Come, Trixie Lulumoon. Come,” beckoned a voice on the wind. A large part of Trixie wanted to turn and gallop away as fast as she could manage. This was wrong every instinct screamed. She had escaped Tartarus. There was no way she was back in that dreadful city.           Magic sputtering, Trixie very slowly reached for the door.  Maybe it had all been a dream. Everything that had happened from the moment she first set hoof in Tartarus. Or before that. Perhaps she was still dying in those castle ruins in a forgotten corner of Equestria, her mind racing faster than the pegasus flies, imagining torments to come. Afterall, nopony truly knew what lay in store beyond the grey mists separating life and death. Priestesses talked of Tartarus and Elysium, those mirror opposite realms where the unfaithful and bad or true and good ponies were taken, respectively. They gave assurances that both existed, but never any proof.  Had it all been in her head this entire time?  With a groan the door swung open on unoiled hinges. Swelling shadows waited, gloom leaking through the open doorway in thick tendrils that beckoned Trixie. And they whispered to her.  “You fool, why’d you do that?” pleaded a desperate voice. “Don’t you leave me too!” Trixie took an instinctual step back, knickering in fear. Her ears twisted around to catch the voice, to place it. It was familiar, but it had been so long since she’d heard it.  “You’re a champion,” the youthful voice continued, desperation pulling at her throat. A heavy sob turned into anger, “You’re the Great and Powerful Trixie, slayer of the doshaa.” A name danced on the tip of Trixie’s tongue, but when she tried to grasp it, it fled from her, fluttering away like a crow on an old fence. It was so close! The speaker was important to her. A pony she’d thought about many times over the years since she’d died. Many times at first. But less and less until…  Why couldn’t she remember the filly’s name? From the depths of memory came a flash of a black maned filly prancing along beside her wagon. Her silvery coat shimmered in the sunlight, and she laughed as she darted off to chase a pair of butterflies. They were together for such a short time. Barely a couple months. But they’d been months filled with such joy, happiness, and true contentment. Until they’d been attacked outside Diamond’s Downs.  Strange. She could remember the name of the town, but not the filly. The name was yanked away from her grasp, something denying her with a hot flash of hatred.  Trembling more, Trixie edged closer to the shadows within the doorway. Need pulled at her. A need to remember. To understand. Slowly she reached out a hoof.  The shadows seemed to recoil, and then they lashed out at her, wrapping ethereal tendrils around her leg. Trixie tried to pull back, but was held fast as the tendrils wriggled up her leg, neck, and around her head until they began to squirm into her eyes and mouth.  “You can’t die! Not now!” begged the filly, and like a bolt of lightning on a clear day, the events leading to those final moments of her life rushed back with total clarity.  The fight at the pond. Almost drowning. Driving away the doshaa and being nursed back to health by a herd of passing halla. Making friends with them, with the priestess tending her and the giant mountain of muscle that was the priestesses guardian. The ensuing attack as the demon enthralled the nearby town. Running with Shyara to the castle ruins, chased, hounded, corralled. Being attacked by the doshaa as it possessed the giant guardian. Killing him and banishing the demon back to the pits. Dying in the process.   “Not when you really are a hero,” Shyara sobbed, and Trixie could feel the ghostly pressure of the alicorn filly’s hooves clutching her tightly. The shadows released Trixie, and dissipated in oily motes. She staggered a couple steps as the doorway cleared. Shaking her head she stepped through.   Instead of the dreery interior of the manor that Trixie found herself standing in, with it’s damaged portraits and thick layers of dust, cobwebs hanging from the candelabras, she was greeted by the warmth and space of a tower interior.  The cream toned walls and pristine banners displaying Celestia’s cutie mark brought back waves of memories both pleasant and tiring. A blue-green crystalline column with branching platforms made her skin tingle with recognition. There was the little library and table with Sylph’s tea. Trixie could almost see Sombra in his favourite chair, conversing nonchalantly with the halla doe during one of the breaks in Trixie’s lessons. The heavy tromp of his hooves on the stairs echoed up from her memories. Incense tickled her nose, wafting around the spell chamber as she pushed through brutal lessons to attain the magic to heal Rarity. Her hooves carried her up the central stairs quicker and quicker. Hardly slowing she pushed her way into the spell chamber.  Darkness wrapped around Trixie, the only light cut off with a sharp bang as the door slammed shut behind her. She backed up a step, dread gripping her throat with cold fingers.  A candle flickered to life on a table, and then another, casting long shadows across a small room. Between the candles, laid out with precise care, were knives, pliers, and scraping tools like those used by a woodworker to strip bark, only they were flecked with bits of gore and flesh.     In the distance there was a shrill scream of soul searing agony followed by a heavy clang and metal scraping across metal. Chains rattled. Hurriedly Trixie began to back up, her flanks bumping into the door. Her magic sputtered as she fumbled with the handle. Locks magical and mundane clicked as they refused to budge.  Gentle humming brushed against Trixie’s ears, soft, whimsical, but discordant, hinting at underlying madness. A low groan but the humming to a stop.  “Welcome back, Trixie,” whispered a cruel voice. Ghastly torches flared along the walls. The shadows bent and twisted as a long table appeared in the center of the room.  Feathers dark as moonless midnight brushed past Trixie’s cheek, and a flash of white teeth grew into a wide grin. Slowly the shadows coalesced into a tall pegasus, utterly black except for her red eyes that glowed like rubies in the limited light. “Mmm, you taste of… yellow.”  “W-Who are you?” Trixie demanded, but a scream in the depths of repressed memories told her the mare was familiar. As familiar as Sombra, Sylph, Shyara, or Rarity.  A name threatened to enter her head, and she instinctively thrust it away. The pegasus ignored her, focusing instead entirely an a table in the center of the chamber. Trixie heart beat harder and she tried to pry open the door behind her again. Around her the shadows lurched, and then she was on the table, straps about her legs and throat, metal claws holding her eyes open, and a bit in her mouth so she couldn’t shut her jaw or speak more than a mumble.  “How are you this morning?” The pegasus spoke conversationally as she inspected the implements on the other tables.   Dread rippled up Trixie’s spine, tightening in her jaw. Her tongue felt huge in her mouth, heavy like it was made of lead. “Truly? Ha-ha! You should have said so sooner. So… bleakly grey.” The mare sneered, and slapped Trixie across the face. With incredible dexterity she picked up a long knife and pair of pliers with her wings. “Shall we begin? Lord Asmodeus is becoming impatient for results, and we did make him such ruby promises.”   Trixie tried to fight back a scream as the knife slid beneath the skin of her belly and slowly peeled open her spectral flesh. The agony was anything beyond what she had before experienced. She writhed and thrashed against the iron bands holding her as shrieks tore apart her throat. From her open belly the pegasus pulled out Trixie’s inert, rotting organs that pulsed with un-life. Ropes of intestines covered in putrid mucus. Her stomach. Spleen and liver. And other organs. These the pegasus removed as Trixie was kept alive through unnatural means.  “Stop!” Trixie tried to plead through the gag in her mouth, but all that emerged was a mangled gurgle. Tilting her head, the pegasus’ grin grew wider. “You are very pink today. Don’t be yellow, we are so very close to completion.”  With jewelers tools the pegasus began to inscribe runes into Trixie’s organs, across bones laid bare, and in the sinews of muscles. Runes of such complexity that even if Trixie hadn’t been mad from the pain she’d have been incapable of discerning their function.   “How go your efforts, my dear?” purred Asmodeus, his lips almost caressing the pegasus’ ear.  Trixie’s eyes widened, heart stopping as the King of Hell appeared in the heart of the torture chamber.  “Hmm, difficult to say, your majesty,” the pegasus responded without looking up from her grisly work. “The Elysian is a strong vessel. But, it rejects your seed. Your power corrupts, withers, decays what it touches. Strengthening the spirit has been unsuccessful. Unable to find a work around. Running out of options.” “That is disappointing. If there is no way to bring it to a Gateway, then all these games have already failed. That would make me rather frustrated.” Asmodeus slowly moved around the room to stand before the table.  “She already tied herself to a goddess. My goddess. Twilight’s power lingers within her, dormant, but possessive. Lavender, as always.” The pegasus shook her head and etched another rune.  Trixie screamed.  Dragging his tongue over his teeth, Asmodeus contemplated the two ponies. Delicately he reached out and traced the curves of Trixie’s chin as she continued to writhe in mindless agony.  “Then, perhaps, what is needed is a second vessel nestled within her. One capable of hiding my key.” Confused, the pegasus looked up, a question on her lips that ended in a premature gurgle as, with an impossibly swift motion, Asmodeus cleaved her head from her shoulders. There was a wet thunk as the pegasus’ head rolled across stone, and her body twitched with the last spasms of life. Picking up the severed head in his ruby aura, Asmodeus brought it to his lips, and kissed her on the brow. Grotesquely the eyes blinked as the mouth worked wordlessly. Tenderly he set the head aside, then reached down to the body. A series of cracks filled the room as he pried free the mare’s heart; cold, black, and metallic.  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” He said, turning the metal heart this way and that to catch the limited light in the chamber, showing it off to Trixie. “There is no metal as potent for an enchanter’s work than the heart of a fallen star. Swords of legend, armour of renown, and objects from myth; all made from this little lump.”  Pricking himself with his horns, he placed a single drop of oily blood onto the heart.   “Don’t worry, my dear,” Asmodeus comforted the head, brushing back her mane from her bulging glassy eyes. “A fallen star hidden inside a champion chosen by the Goddess of the Stars; such sweet poetry. You will be fine, when you reach your more powerful half. For that, however, you will have to stay a secret until just the right moment. Otherwise my beautiful wife and those pesky Gaeans will remove you before it is time.”  There was an odd noise, like the protests of a rusted gate being torn off its hinges in a windstorm, as he crushed the heart in his magic, squeezing it tight until it was a ball the size of a marble, and just as dark and lustrous.  Trixie struggled harder against her restraints knowing what was about to happen. The agony was almost unbearable as the glowing hot orb was slid into the slit of her belly and guided up into her chest until it rested beside her own heart.  “Two hearts, one hidden behind the other.” Asmodeus chuckled darkly, pacing slowly around Trixie, examining her up and down as a master artisan would a slab of raw marble, sizing up every hammer blow in advance so as to bring about the perfect creation.  The King of Lust needed no tools as he worked on Trixie. Organs were returned to their proper places with infinite attention, the runes begun by the pegasus completed as he worked. Rotten meat turned pink and healthy. With a lurching thud, Trixie’s cold, dead heart took a beat that was more than just memories of life. Spectral flesh became solid, whole once more. Her lungs screamed for air. Bit by bit, Asmodeus carved away death and replaced it with life.  “Ah, it will be a shame to have you leave. I’ve never done finer work. Alive but dead, belonging in no realm. No longer a mortal and Elysium stolen forever. A truly unique being. Worry not, I will welcome you into my realm when this body is no more. You are mine, afterall. My little pony. My little gift for Rarity, and all the alicorns.” Tenderly he lifted the insensate Trixie in his aura and glided from the torture chamber and carried her to Rarity’s bedroom.  “One step closer to correcting things,” his smile was wide as he placed Trixie on the bed.        The room, or memory, Trixie was unsure what it truly was, jerked, shifted, and then Trixie stood in the Big Tent of the circus outside Sparta. Around her sat the Spartans, watching with rapt attention, oblivious to what she was about to summon.  Relived memories of her torture as fresh as the horrors of that night in Sparta, Trixie trembled and shook. Her stomach heaved. Her legs gave out.  The vicious spike of pain in Trixie’s head throbbed harder.  “Yes! Freedom!” Hissed the pegasus in Trixie’s ear.  She blinked, and in the open space between her and where the King and princess of Sparta sat there stood the pegasus.  Looking about, the pegasus pressed her lips into a thin line. “Mm, the second time you called on my power. On the connection to Twilight and the vestiges she left behind, a scar on your soul. What a golden night!” In the flickering light cast by the lit braziers the pegasus’ eyes shifted between dark pools of hate, and golden orbs amused by Trixie’s suffering. It was just a moment, like a third eyelid blinking, and uncertainty wracked her head as to whether it was just terror, her imagination, or something else.  “W-What do you want?” Trixie demanded, trying to square her shoulders, but shaking from hooves to tip of her tail. “Why are you doing this?” “This?” The pegasus spun about with obsidian wings spread wide. “Because you asked and I answered. Need I have more of an incentive to send mortals to Tartarus? Besides, what else could you do? What would you have achieved without me? Without me you never would have been able to summon the stars! You would never have saved the prophetess! You never would have reached the Gate! You owe me everything!” Backing up, Trixie shook her head violently, trying to cast out the doubts and fears that wormed through her. “Trixie didn’t want to kill anypony!” “Yet you did!” Taunted the pegasus. “Your deadliest performance ever. Which is saying much, as you were always heartless. Cruel to those who came to watch your traveling magic show. Tormenting the crowd, belittling ponies, humiliating them in front of friends, peers, and family. It made you feel strong, didn’t it? Powerful. Important. Something other than a failure cast out from her family.”  “N-No! Trixie never—” “But you did! You did! You hate ponies. Black-red in your heart of hearts. Look how you tried to keep yourself apart from the Benevolencians. A chasm between you and them that could never be bridged, and they knew it too. They kept you a length away, just as you did them, even as they heaped bitter grey praise on your so-called exploits.”  Shuddering, Trixie collapsed to her knees. Violent tremors wracked her body. She felt so weary, useless, and blackened. Her thoughts fractured further. This way and that, tugged into numerous pasts; guilt, joy, terror, contentment, shame, anger hammering against her psyche in a roiling war.    “Don’t listen to him!” Rarity’s voice, so pure in quality as if it were the tones of a crystalline bell, pierced the mounting horror in Trixie’s chest. Turning about, Trixie saw to her delight Rarity framed in the entrance to the big tent. Shining as brilliant as the sun after the darkest night of winter, blindingly luminous as she cast away the long shadows.  “This is a nightmare, Trixie. He’s trapped you in your mind.” Swiftly Rarity crossed the empty tent, kneeling down next to Trixie.  A wing stretched out over Trixie to still her trembling, like a blanket thrown over her to ward off a winter chill. Comforting warmth flowed through the touch, and Trixie’s heart began to calm, her thoughts slotting into order.  Yes, this was all in her head. A dreamscape of her own creation, forged by her own emotions, and then twisted by the demon. She had nothing to fear. She was the one in control. Gritting her teeth, Trixie forced herself back up and faced her tormentor.  The pegasus’ form flickered again, Asmodeus peaking through the illionary skin he wore, and then sloughed away.  “I was beginning to worry you had abandoned her, dear wife,” Amsodeus purred, lips pulled into a victorious grin. Trixie’s breath hitched in her throat.  “Ignore him,” Rarity said as she began to swing her head around. “Alright, darling, so where is your puzzle?” “Puzzle?” Trixie asked, confused for a moment before it clicked. “Trixie isn’t broken like Rarity and needs fixing.” Asmodeus chuckled. “You shouldn’t correct a god, Trixie. You are a damaged soul that has done exactly as intended. You brought me to Rarity.” Slowly, Rarity faced the demon king, her eyes narrowing into threatening slits that crackled with sapphire energy. “She did nothing of the sort. You are just a figment of her imagination.” “Incorrect,” he tutted. “On both accounts. I am not some imaginary monster, and she has always been nothing but a vessel. Here, let me prove it to you.”  Around them the tent was ripped away, replaced by a room Trixie had never seen before. A hall grander and more opulent than any other surrounded them. On the walls were inscribed ten thousand runes in a weave so complex it was impossible to tell where it began or ended. Like vines the enchantments entwined across the gold ceiling. If Trixie squinted, patterns would emerge, only to be quickly lost again as her eyes shifted and an entirely new pattern emerged.  Faint light glowed within the runes in a steady, uniform pulse that began at the center of the room, flowed up the walls, and terminated at the very peak of the domed ceiling. The only break in the runes was a plain green door set into a single wall.  Rarity snarled, shoulders bunched to launch herself at Trixie, only for her to stop, frozen on the spot.  With a gesture Asmodeus pulled Rarity to him. There was a squeak of surprise as she was dragged across the room. Her shoes shrieked in her efforts to resist, sparks crackling where metal met stone. Reaching up, Asmodeus cupped the Jewels of Helen nestled against Rarity’s throat.  “It is always so satisfying when such a convoluted plot falls so nicely together. You both had me so worried. So many things nearly went wrong. Trixie almost died, again. Those insufferable Gaeans kept interfering. That artisan’s stubborn refusal to make a new gate. The attack. Yet, here we are; together again.” “There is no way you could have planned this!” Rarity recoiled, but was held by some unbreakable force.  “Yes, and no,” Asmodeus lifted Rarity, holding her above the center of the chamber. “I simply cast enough seeds that one would grow using simple deductive reasoning. You would try to find a way back to Ioka. You tried to return to Ioka from Tartarus, so you would again, and naturally, you’d eventually succeed. You were too stubborn to give up and make a new life on whatever world you went to after leaving Amaymon. Furthermore, none of the alicorns ruling over intangible domains would allow you to traverse through their fragmentary realms. They are so secretive and possessive of those pathways, and rightfully so. A gate would be required, therefore. And you would either find one or have one built, carrying the Jewels of Helen with you.”  Releasing the necklace, Asmodeus turned his gaze to Trixie.  “And the Elysian. Well, former Elysian. In the event you left behind the jewels, you would take her with you. You never could abandon a friend, and a tenuous link back to your home at that.” Slowly Asmodeus circled Rarity.  “If there was a miscalculation, it was that you abandoned our daughter. I was so certain you would take her with you as well, but no. You cut away those parts of your mind, as any true alicorn would have done. Put it in a box and sequestered it in the deepest part of your psyche. It would have been a fait accompli. Still, two when only one was necessary is acceptable.” Trixie reeled more than Rarity, whose eyes glassed over for an instant before she sighed, “Yes, you are so much smarter than everypony else. Truly the greatest of demons.” “Sarcasm is pointless.” Asmodeus finished circling the room, and the pulse running through it began to quicken. “Now is the time for me to finally tread upon in the mortal realms again. The King of Lust, Master of Desire, Undisputed lord of the fell hosts will be free, at long last.”        Energy rippled through the room at the name, distorting, twisting, and pulling at the seams of reality. An almighty ‘thoom’ shook Trixie, knocking her to the ground as it quaked beneath her.  Still held by Asmodeus, Rarity fought with all her strength.  Cracks began to form in the walls, and through them poured a black light, dark and luminous at the same time.  With a growl Rarity snapped out a wing and hoof, and threw them towards Trixie.  “Go!” She commanded. “Warn the others!” Trixie was hit by an unseen force and hurled away towards the simple door. Legs flailing Trixie couldn’t stop her flight. The door was smashed open, and into a sunlit wall Trixie was thrown, cast out of the prison of torturous nightmares.  She gasped, fresh, chilly air entering her lungs. Sol was warm on her body, while her face lay in shadows cast by worried onlookers. Around were gathered friends, former rivals, and the leaders of Equestria. Princess Hypocemia next to Chryseis near her head, while Princess Cadence was on her left, and to her right were members of the Elements of Harmony, Applejack and Pinkie Pie.  “Princess, she’s done it! She woke her up!” Applejack’s rural twang prickled Trixie’s ears.  “Rarity, Trixie is awake,” an unfamiliar voice of somepony out of view said with urgency. “Rarity?” Reaching for the nearest pony, Trixie grabbed them by the leg and tried to shout, “Asmodeus! He tricked us and has Rarity!” Her voice came out in a  raspy croak as if she’d been gargling sand. Princess Cadence shifted closer and placed a warm cloth across Trixie’s brow as she said, “It’s okay, it’s okay. Just lay still. Aunt Celestia, what about Rarity?” With greater urgency, Trixie clung to the light pink leg of the princess and tried to warn them, but all she managed was another croak. One that turned into a gagging cough as something moved in the depths of her throat. There was a sharp pain in her chest like she was being pinched in the back of her lungs, and she coughed again. A metallic taste entered her mouth, familiar enough to know without checking that it was blood. Rolling to her side she coughed harder, drawing concerned exclamations from the gathered ponies. Her stomach heaved, her lungs burned, and the mixture of bile and blood in her mouth grew in intensity as she was overcome by full-body, shaking coughs that left her light headed. After what felt like minutes, something hard and round entered her mouth, and began to burn her tongue. Instinctually she spat it out, and it landed with a heavy thud on the ground.  Several ponies hissed, Princess Cadence reeling away from Trixie, her efforts at comfort and easing the coughing fit abandoned. “Celestia!” She almost shrieked in dire warning.  The cry was unnecessary. From the moment the black orb left Trixie’s mouth everypony for a mile radius could sense the evil radiating from it. A wicked taint that made the horns of unicorns throb, pegasus wings aches as if crushed beneath a wagon wheel, and the earth ponies tremble in phantom pains as if they’d had hot brands shoved into the frogs of their hooves.  At the same time the marble sized lump hit the ground, the Jewels of Helen still clasped about Rarity’s neck shattered, and a deep, brassy laugh echoed across town.  Quick movement followed as first Princess Celestia, then Princess Cadence and another alicorn Trixie had never seen, but thought looked startlingly similar to the famous socialite Fluer de Lis, rushed from the tent. “‘Course, we just get Rarity back, ain’t even had time to process that, and a big bad decides to rear his head. All while Twilight off in Tartarus with her stallion-friend,” Applejack said with a resigned sigh and shake of her head. “Come on girls, we better go deal with this.”  “But, Rarity is still all sleepy from trying to help Trixie.” Pinkie bounced from hoof to hoof, underlip clasped between her teeth. Next to her Fluttershy tended to Rarity, who lay in a deep sleep on a plush, velveteen couch. To Trixie's shock, Fluttershy was also an alicorn.  If her head had been spinning so hard from her nightmarish encounter, followed by the threat that Asmodeus was coming and had planned this all from the beginning, Trixie would have been rather irritated. At least Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie were normal. “Come on Rarity, this ain’t no time to be sleeping,” Applejack barked. Getting to her hooves, Trixie managed to gasp, “She is—” Rarity’s sudden intake of breath and shooting up off her couch cut off Trixie.  “Away!” Rarity shouted with a force that shook the tent and left everypony else momentarily deafened. Her eyes darted around the tent, and quickly settled on Trixie, who Rarity wrapped in a crushing hug. “It worked. It actually worked. I was utterly terrified that I was sending you to who-knew-where.” “What happened to you? What did he want?” Rarity’s nose crinkled, and her blue eyes darkened momentarily with pure hate. “To gloat,” she deflected as she got to her hooves. It was only a moment before she gasped and touched the empty spot where the Jewels of Helen had hung. Body tensing with unconcealed rage, Rarity stomped her way out of the tent, Trixie and her friends close behind.  Stepping out into the brilliant sunlight, Trixie was overwhelmed with a sudden surge of raw emotions, directionless as they swelled in her chest. In the east there loomed the Canterhorn, Canterlot’s massive artificial plateaus jutting from the mountainside like conks from a tree. Ahead of her were the colourful homes of Ponyville, the distinct roofs of Sugarcube Corner and Carousel Boutique among the simple country cottages, and further in new row houses of pink brick and slate roofs. Nestled in a nook between the Everfree forest and town, the deep, glimmering black walls of a massive new building were in the process of being raised, scaffolding and cranes surrounding the work site.  It finally, truly struck Trixie that she was home.  Her sense of joy mingled with immense relief was short-lived. All around her were the wounded survivors of Athens. There were more injured than tents, and beds had been placed in the open field or blankets simply placed on the ground for those who were the least in danger. Among them moved the limited staff of Ponyville’s provincial hospital, as well as additional doctors and nurses brought in from Canterlot and other surrounding towns. Even then there were far more wounded than there were healers available.  The Athenians were a stoic race, withholding their agony to low moans where there should have been screams or the constant wailing. Well accustomed to the brutal wounds of warfare, the Athenians directed the residents of Ponyville on how to bind wounds made by bronze spears, dig out the heads of arrows, or put salve on magic burns. These later wounds were the worst; frost, fire, and electric burns mixed in with the acrid stench of acid bubbled skin. The worst were those left by spells of wounding, the blood flow unable to be staunched by non-magical means. Trixie took this in at a glance, her stomach tightening in worry for her friends among the Athenians, and as quickly focused on the princesses. They were a short distance away, standing before the gate connected to Gaea. It was now inert, a ring of aurichalcum placed on the edge of Ponyville, oddly out of place with its surroundings.  “We need to evacuate the town,” Fluer de Lis said as she swung her head around, her trepidation evident in her soft eyes.  “There isn’t time, darlings,” Rarity interjected as she quickly trotted up to the group.                 As Rarity took a place next to Celestia, lavender flames engulfed the interior of the gate’s ring, scintillatingly brilliant in hue and brighter than Sol’s rays. Shielding her face, Trixie had to look away or be blinded. The flames lasted only a few moments before they condensed, darkening until they seemed to devour light rather than shed it.   With a shriek that drove everypony other than the alicorns to their knees, the flames turned into an eye, black at the core, and then split as it took on a ruby hue. There was a tremendous ripping noise, red fingers emerged, wriggled like excited snakes, and then pried open a gate through which He stepped.  Asmodeus, in all his infernal glory. His alicorn-like guise discarded, it was in his true form that he stepped onto Ioka.  In place of a hoof, he had a clawed chicken’s foot on his right leg, and it was this that first touched Ioka’s untainted soil. From where it pressed into the ground a strangling rot spread. Plants withered away and fell into decay, while the ponies who’d been rushing around tending to the wounded or aiding the refugees laid down and closed their eyes, unable to muster any strength or desire to continue even breathing. Atop the broad chest of a human sat three monstrous heads. On the left was that of a bull, a golden ring through its nose and eyes of fiery hue. Chains dangled from wide swept horns. The rightmost head was that of a shaggy ram.  While in the middle was the ugly, alien face of a human, smiling wide as flames issued from his nostrils and between his teeth. A long serpentine tail flowed behind the King of Lust, and wrapped like a cloak around his loathsome body were a pair of great wings. In one hand was clutched a ruby headed scepter.  Behind him was raised a mighty banner, and at his back beyond the gate he’d torn through reality waited two and seventy legions of the foulest fiends in all creation.  In sharp juxtaposition of this most horrible of monstrosities, a slender young mare stood at his side.  Coat a sparkling white with just the slightest hint of pink like the blush of a lover after her first kiss, she was gorgeous. Short, twin horns, like those of her Asmodeus in his pony form, were framed in a dark purple mane, a single red streak running down its length, and were the only hint of her infernal heritage other than the reptilian slits of her sapphire blue eyes.   Knickering with anger, Rarity took a half step back, caught herself and set her chin in a sharp tilt. She wasn’t alone. All along the godly host of Ioka’s alicorns there flared the lights of weapons being summoned and spells prepared. There was Coronal Edge, Celestia’s ancient sword; Aegis and Pallas, the shield and spear of Athena, whose appearance brought heart back to the Athenians, their strength returned by the sight of the holy armaments; Rarity clutched her staff, which had been named Perseverance; while a tall bow strung by golden light floated beside Fluttershy. Behind these figures were the Muses, who stood with equal defiance.  And then there was Trixie. A mere mortal caught in what would be a battle waged between gods and demons. If it were anything like what she’d seen transpire between Ares and Rarity, then Ponyville would be nothing but a crater in a few minutes, and the valley a wasteland for miles.  Terror so thick her mind went blank struck her with the force of a mountain collapsing. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t do anything but listen and wish she were anywhere else.  As Trixie stood utterly petrified, Asmodeus reached out to stroke the mane of the mare at his side, and said, “Lilith, greet your mother.” “What sick game is this?” Rarity demanded, and Trixie had never heard a pony so angry, each word thundered with years of loathing.  The young mare, Lilith, hesitated, and then looked up at her father. “She has no more interest in me than the sparrow does for the creatures at the bottom of the ocean. I told you this was pointless, my King. She can’t even look at me.” Trixie realised that Lilith was right. Rarity didn’t so much as glance in the young mare’s direction, her gaze firmly fixated on Asmodeus. It was as if she was blind to Lilith. “Indeed,” Asmodeus chuckled, a puff of flames issuing between his teeth. “Her stubbornness is rather amazing.” “Enough of your games,” Celestia interjected, her anger as great as Rarity’s own, “Why are you here?”  “Why?” He repeated as if the answer was the most obvious thing in the world. “To join the festivities of course! Rarity has returned home, and what would I be if I didn’t do all within my nigh-limitless power to ensure that I would be there to support her, to laugh with her, to share anecdotes of her time in my demesne. She did spend the most time within my care, after all. Besides, I made a promise to visit you on sweet Ioka.” Trixie’s stomach heaved with disgust at the enormous monstrosity belied by his words and actions, and that she knew he was speaking the truth. That the sole purpose behind everything he’d done, all the torture, mind games, and corruptions great and small, had simply to be present at a festival. This was no grand scheme to destroy the world.  And in truth why should He care about one insignificant world? What was Ioka compared to Gaea, where the alicorns he truly hated resided? Of any world, wouldn’t that be the target of his plots? No, he genuinely, actually, liked Rarity and her company, and so he wished to spend more time with her. And to do that he needed to be able to go to Ioka at will…  That he had tortured Trixie, Rarity, and who knew how many other ponies was immaterial. As were those he’d outright killed through Trixie. He couldn’t even comprehend that it had been wrong to make others suffer.  And all for something so… small. The equivalent of going to a garden party.  His deadly red eye flitted to Trixie, and his grin grew wider. “Ah, I see the former mortal is still here. Rather astounding, as I thought she’d be burnt away by my seed when it flourished. I was wise in choosing her. She’s been such a good little vessel. A shame she’s done with adventuring and will likely retire to some countryside estate. It would have been enjoyable watching her fight more monsters, match wits with queens, and sneak into hostile cities. Now she is just boring.” He raised a hand, fingers ready to snap, and Trixie tensed further. With a thought he could utterly destroy her before even the alicorns could react. Such was the difference in powers, and malice, between him and her. The dreadful fear that clutched her in steely talons receded.  Running was pointless. Hiding was impossible. And trying to fight; utterly futile.  She closed her eyes, and waited with her head raised to Sol’s warm light. Yet the harsh snap never came. Cautiously Trixie opened her eyes, and saw that Asmodeus had moved on, playfully talking to Rarity and Celestia while he gently stroked Lilith’s mane. She was too insignificant for him to even bother destroying. She was nothing but a discarded tool. Now useless and forgotten.  “Why do you always have to be so confrontational?” Asmodeus cocked his head with a click of his tongues. “I expected better of you. Especially since you Equestrians espouse the tenets of friendship and forgiveness. Is it not your goal to convert enemies into friends. Yet my daughter and I are greeted with nothing but hostility and hatred. Answer me; what is your problem?” “No.” Rarity stated flatly. “No?” Asmodeus still smiled, but the air around him began to distort as if it were being compressed by an enormous pressure. Electric ripples coursed across the ruby head of his scepter. Both sides were perched on the precipice of action. Alicorns and demons, the host behind Asmodeus ready to surge through the gate.  With the fear of true death gone, Trixie knew what she had to do. Quickly she strode forward and placed herself between the King of Lust and the alicorns.  Turning to Asmodeus, Trixie drew upon her time in Athens and said, “Oh great Asmodeus, King of Kings, chief among all demonkind, stop this strife before it can escalate any further. If it was to join in a celebration, how does antagonising the alicorns further your goal?” The pressure around Asmodeus began to lift. “Ah, and a silvered tongue as well.” Next Trixie turned to Rarity. “And you, my dear friend, you need to see what is standing right in front of you. We have both been running away from our time in Amaymon.” Rarity blinked slowly, and looked from Trixie to Asmodeus, and then to Lilith. Slowly she pressed her eyes tight, and released a shuddering breath. “The green door. You were behind it, in the nursery. I sang to you… But your eyes… I-I… I’m sorry.” A snort came from Lilith. “I don’t care if you are sorry or not. You made your choice. Your apologies are meaningless to me.” Slowly she shifted her gaze to behind Rarity, where the Muses stood in a tight cluster. “Enjoy your new family while you can.” With this Lilith spun about and marched through the gate to Amaymon where the legions bowed at her passing, for she was their princess. Asmodeus watched her leave, and then laughed. Turning to leave, he said over his shoulder.  “Oh, this will be most enjoyable to watch! I wonder how my Sapphire will handle my little Emerald’s wrath.” One foot left Ioka and was placed back in Hell. “We’ll be in touch, as thanks to you, we are free.”                  And then the King of Amaymon left, the gate slid shut, and a great weight was lifted from all present.  There were no celebrations that eve. Not among the Athenians, who mourned their many dead. Not among the Equestrians, who keenly felt the Athenians sorrows, and diligently worked through the night to provide comfort and solace. And most certainly not among the princesses, who worried for what tomorrow would bring, Asmodeus’ parting words ringing in their ears.               The triumph of returning home was sour in Rarity and Trixie’s mouths.