Chapter 5
Cinch looked down into her drink as she sat at the bar in her home, her husband out getting hammered at the local bar. Not that she blamed him, their son and two of his friends were in jail for going in to the police station and admitting to being part of a plot to murder a student. And if that wasn’t the best part of her week already, they claimed Cinch’s daughter was behind the whole thing while confessing to their crimes. They claimed Cinch’s youngest child was behind the entire thing and no matter how the girl denied it, Cinch believed it. Cinch knew when her daughter wasn’t telling the truth, and she could tell she wasn’t during questioning. Right now her son was in jail while her daughter was upstairs grounded and she had no idea what to do about it.
Her life was crumbling down around her, her family falling apart, and Cinch knew exactly who was to blame for everything. She knew who was responsible for pushing her daughter to become this monster who pusher her own brother into bullying and finally into attempted murder. She knew who was behind her daughter becoming this person and Cinch hated the woman so much for turning the girl into this. Cinch hated herself for doing this to her baby girl, and worse yet an entire school.
She didn’t care much for her husband either, the man was a cold and shallow piece of work. While Cinch did push her children and her students to be the best at all times, she did it because she wanted them to be the best. Her husband just didn’t care, nothing would ever be good enough for him and she had almost let him time after time. Yet she was always seemed to fall for his crocodile tears and his promises of doing better, which he did for two or three days max.
If only she had listened to Cadence and Celestia every time they tried to tell her creating such a competitive atmosphere to the extreme that she had done in the school wasn’t a good thing. She had promised Cadence this evening that things would change, begged the woman to help fix the school before another student tried the same thing. Cinch hated that she was pretty much responsible for what her children tried to do to Twilight Sparkle as she never wanted somebody to actually get hurt or killed. She didn’t want blood on her hands so she knew things had to change.
Getting up she picked her glass up and walked to the sink to pour out its mostly untouched contents before going in to sit on the couch. She needed to clean up her home life, then the school. She just wasn’t sure how and trying to figure it out kept her from noticing a shadow behind her glowing a few moments before the woman fell into a deep sleep.
💔💔💔
Shadow Reaper silently floated up the steps of the home after casting a sleep spell on the woman on the couch. The woman was in a lot of pain which earned Shadow’s sympathy, but she wasn’t full of evil or a darkness Shadow could help with. When it came to humans, she had several options while with most monsters she had one which was killing them. When a demon’s physical body was destroyed on earth they would return to Hell and have to wait for their powers to regrow enough to create a new earthly body to return. For most it took years while a very few could do it in days.
Humans were a different and more delicate matter. For most, the bad choices they made often filled their souls with darkness and evil. Shadow could devour that evil leaving the human a guilt ridden mess that would recover within a few days to weeks even if they would still likely need counseling after. Then there were the few humans that for some reason were fully aware of what they were doing and relished in doing evil. These humans were so far gone that no amount of devouring their evil would release them from it. They knew what they were doing and they thrived on it, actually generated evil infecting others around them. They were evil incarnate and some of the most notorious individuals in history that was thought of as monsters was this type.
And finally, there were the humans who became prey for imps. They were typically good humans at heart who goes through a rough time and begins to give into rage, depression or other such negative emotions. An imp was one of the lower class beastial demons that made up a lot of the rouge demons as expending a little power to cast an influence on a person to increase their negative emotions until they exploded at which time the imp could absorb up to ten times the amount of power expended creating a quick path to evolving into a higher up beastial. They were the most looked down upon demons for this reason, the few who actually served as they were meant to getting a bad reputation because of it. The ironic thing is if they would just do as they were supposed to, they could actually become even more powerful and have a small chance at becoming something other than a beastial.
The question was, which was this girl? Her older brother and his two friends were salvageable. This girl was exuding such evil vibes that Shadow had doubts of this being as easy as the night before. Reaching her destination, the feeling of hate and anger on the other side of the bedroom door Shadow stopped at made her queasy. Taking a deep breath Shadow threw the door open scaring the girl who was texting on her bed to jump up and send a hate filled look her way.
“Who the hell are you?” The girl demanded as she threw her phone down on the bed and stomped over to Shadow.
“I think you already have an idea of who I am.” Shadow said as she extended her powers over the room casting the entire area in shadows making it much darker than it could naturally be. Do to her magic each of the two could easily make each other out, every single detail.
“So you are real? I didn’t believe it when that idiot was blabbing about some winged freak saving that pathetic loser.” The girl snorted, “So what are you going to do, make me beg for forgiveness. Well, too bad, you don’t scare me. You are just another worthless freak who thinks they are better than me.”
“Only thing I think is that you are an idiot.” Shadow said as she flexed her wings and spread them out in an attempt to intimidate this idiot girl.
“Please, like you are going to do anything.” The girl scoffed, “I have friends that will crush you with just a word.”
“Honey, I think you need a reality check.” Shadow grinned, trying to get a hold of the evil in the girl to devour it. She was feeling a little hungry after all and this girl would fill her up for a week. To her surprise she couldn’t even touch the evil meaning this girl was a source of pure evil that would never change her ways on her own if at all.
“If you are done trying to scare me, tell mom it failed and get the hell out of my room you freak.” The girl growled, her eyes going wide as Shadow wrapped a clawed hand around her throat and lifted her off the ground gasping for air.
“Look into my eyes.” Shadow commanding, the girl feeling compelled to do so did so. The girl was clawing at Shadow’s hand trying to get away from the grip as Shadow’s eyes changed from blue to red as if a fire was in them. The girl’s eyes quickly matched them as Shadow showed the girl hell and all the tortures she would endure. She should the girl all of the pain she has caused people from her own family to every single victim she was responsible for. She started screaming as Shadow dropped the girl and retreated out the window. It wouldn’t be long until the girl would fall into a coma and keep seeing and feeling everything over and over again until she chose to give up her grip on her evil heart.
It wasn’t something Shadow wanted to do, she hoped to never have to do this and she hoped when she was gone Sunset would never have to either. It was part of the job though and while Shadow looked forward to helping the other two types of humans, she hated this kind because it made her feel like a failure. She at least managed to Save Twilight Sparkle and she did look forward to seeing the girl which she planned to do now. Landing just on the outskirts of the neighborhood where there was no prying eyes, Shadow pulled her wings into her back so she looked like a normal human. She hated it as she walked towards Twilight’s house it felt as if her wings wanted nothing more to rip back out. It was almost a struggle to keep them in. She would have rather kept them folded around her like a cloak if she wasn’t going to see at least another member of Twilight’s family.
Nervously she walked up to the door and rang the bell, hoping it would be Twilight who answered. It was an older woman that finally answered and she looked to be in a bit of a bad mood as she sent an angry look at Shadow.
“Is Twilight here?” Shadow asked earning an even harsher look from the woman.
“I told the last one of you we aren’t answering any more questions!” the woman snapped.
“All I wanted to do was see Twilight, I’m not here to ask questions.” Shadow grumbled as she crossed her arms, inadvertedly pressing her breasts more together creating even more visible cleavage through the keyhole of her dress. She really needed to change outfits, thankfully her magic kept her and her clothes clean with each change.
“You aren’t a reporter, are you?” The woman asked, shaking her head.
“Who is it, Velvet, another reporter?” A second woman asked, one that was familiar to Sunset’s memories.
“My name is Shadow, I was just coming by to see Twilight.” Shadow grumbled, turning to leave. “Forget it, I’m leaving.”
“Wait!” The second woman gasped grabbing Shadow’s shoulder. “Are you the one Twily was talking about? You saved her?”
“All I did was chase off some punks.” Shadow grumbled, mentally adding, ‘After I drained their sorry asses.’
“Thank you so much!” The familiar woman gasped, pulling Shadow into a surprise hug. “My name is Cadence, I’m Twilight’s sister-in-law and this is Twilight’s mother Twilight Velvet.”
“Please come in.” Velvet said wiping at her eyes, “I’m really sorry for how I treated you. We’ve had reporters hounding us all day after it got out that there was a conspiracy to-“
“Honey, don’t worry about it, Twilight’s safe. I guess we have you to thank for that?” A man said, offering his hand while Cadence shut the door as Shadow allowed herself to be guided farther into the house. “My name is Night Light.”
“Hey, name’s Shining Armor.” Shining said coming out to give Cadence a side hug while giving Shadow a strained smile.
“My name is Shadow Reaper, it’s nice to meet all of you.” Shadow said with a bit of a nervous smile. She didn’t like being around so many people who were being friendly to her. She wasn’t exactly too sure how to act despite having Sunset’s memories to fall back on.
“I don’t know what you did to scare those kids straight, I just have to thank you for it. If not for you, I don’t want to think about what happened.” Night Light said, something in his expression having a more knowing look than what his words said which was putting Shadow a little on edge. Humans shouldn’t know about what Shadow was, much less other things that she was created to deal with. Unless he was one of those families that descended from what began as the Council of Watchers that evolved into the Hunters Guild that eventually disbanded. Which was more useless knowledge thanks to her so called father.
“It was nothing, I’m just sorry it happened.” Shadow said.
“You have a beautiful dress, coming from some kind of function?” Cadence asked.
“Yeah, my father does a lot of…charity work.” Shadow explained, taking a moment to come up with something that wasn’t a lie yet didn’t exactly say what he did. While she couldn’t lie most of the time, or didn’t like to was more accurate, she could tell small lies when needed to protect someone or her host’s identity. While she was an infernal, she followed celestial rules for the most part. Not that infernal rules were much different,
“Mom, who’s at the door?” A new voice asked as footsteps could be heard coming down the steps. The new voice sounded much more hollow than the one Shadow remembered from the night before.
“Your friend is here to see you honey.” Velvet called, the footsteps pausing a moment before rushing down and into view as Twilight came into view and tackled Shadow knocking both girls to the floor.
“Thank you!” Twilight cried over and over again as Shadow wrapped an arm around the girl despite the compromising position and rubbed her back.
“Hey, its okay Sparks, nothing happened and you are okay.” Shadow cooed.
“They were really trying to kill me this time!” Twilight sobbed loudly.
“Hey, it’s okay, relax. It will all be okay.” Shadow said softly, knowing it will take time for Twilight to recover from this and everything was going to be far from okay for the girl. A small foolish part had hoped that Twilight wouldn’t find out what they had planned, but sending them to the police to confess was pretty much ensuring the knowledge would get back to the now crying girl.
Shadow wasn’t sure how long she was there and while she was trying to calm the girl down, but at some point the others helped them up and after a few suggestions Shadow and Velvet helped Twilight upstairs to her room where the mother left the two teens to watch Disney movies that where playing in the TV that seemed to be a new addition as it looked like it was out of place on the dresser where it sat.
“Can you stay the night?” Twilight asked hopefully sometime into the movie which Shadow sadly had to decline.
“I’m sorry, but for the moment I have a curfew, but I will stay until you go to sleep.” Shadow said, as Twilight seemed to settle down into the bed more.
“Thanks.” Twilight said, Shadow leaning over to kiss the girl’s head sending a pulse of magic into her sending the girl into a deep, calming sleep while making sure her dreams would be of an alicorn flying high under the moonlight.
Making her way back down the stairs she passed what she suspected was Night Light’s study. The door was open as he was sitting at a desk where he motioned her in after their eyes met.
“Please close the door.” He said, which Shadow did. She looked around the room noticing several ancient artifacts that had long lost the power they once held while a couple still held a great deal. There were also books that she noticed was on demonology, monsters, celestial beings and mythology. The thing was, most mythology had a hint of truth as most pantheons were real. The thing was they weren’t gods, they were celestial or infernal beings masquerading as Gods which didn’t last for long even if their legacy did.
“So what’s up?” Shadow asked.
“At first I was going to ask you to stay away from my daughter until I witnessed that display earlier.” Night sighed as he motioned to a set of beads with a cross hanging on a hook by the door. “Could you hand those to me?”
“Sure.” Shadow agreed with an exaggerated eyeroll. The string of beads was a special rosary which was a relic of times gone past. It made the person who held it tell only the truth while in contact with it no matter what they were. “So what did you want to ask me that you tried to trick me into holding this thing while talking?”
“So I take it you are something other than human. I doubt you are a vampire or were of any type.” Night said.
“I’m an infernal being, a type of vengeance demon to be exact. Not the murdery kind though, I devour the evil infecting human’s hearts laving them feeling the guilt and a choice to redeem themselves or facing an eternity paying for their sins. I also hunt creatures of evil such as rogue demons and vamps and shit.” Shadow explained.
“So you don’t have any ill intentions to my family?” Night asked, relieved that Shadow wasn’t going to get angry over his little stunt.
“I would never hurt Twilight, nor your family. From what I could see your family is full of very good hearted people who doesn’t deserve what happened last night.” Shadow replied, “And Twilight, you don’t have to worry about her tonight. I put her into a deep sleep that will only give her good dreams for tonight.”
“Thank you.” Night said as he held out his hand to accept the rosary Shadow placed in it. “I’m sorry I had to test you, but my family is one of the few lore keepers. I’m sure you know about the Hunters of old?”
“Yeah, I have their knowledge.” Shadow said.
“Well, I don’t believe what many of the people of old claimed. There is good and evil in ever species. I just didn’t know we had one of your kind here for long enough to merge completely with their host.” Night said as Shadow took a seat in the chair opposite Night at the desk.
“I’m a special case. Yeah, usually newly created champions are dumb as a rock. Something odd happened when I was created and I have an actual personality and short life.” Shadow said.
“Wait, you are what the books called the training wheel protocol?” Night asked, shocked to see one with an actual consciousness as they did tend to be dumb as a rock as the girl described. They were supposed to be a buffer so as not to overload the host’s brain with a full info dump. Little by little it would leak into the conscious mind until fully merged and the host would have control.
“Yeah, I’ll probably be gone in a few weeks and my host will be in full control.” Shadow said, hurt in her eyes.
“There are stories of artifacts that could help. I know I’ve seen stories where people who were critically injured took over the body of someone who was declared brain dead.” Night explained. “I could look into that for you if you like as a thank you for saving my daughter.”
“I would appreciate that, thank you.” Shadow said as she tried her best to control her hope as the possibility. A person whose body was in good condition that was brain dead was a person whose soul had already moved on. That meant that she could occupy the body and have her own body if they found a way and both Sunset and her father would sign off on it so to say.
“I didn’t want my family finding out about any of this. My wife always thought this was all crazy talk and my kids think its just myths and legends and stuff. I guess it’s too late to ask you not to reveal yourself to them?” Night asked.
“Sorry, Twily already knows pretty much what I am.” Shadow said.
“It’s okay, not your fault. I just hope she doesn’t do something crazy because of all of this.” Night sighed.
“Don’t worry, I can tell she’s a smart girl.” Shadow said.
💔💔💔
Once again Sunset woke to feel fully rested and since she had actually good meals the last few days she was feeling better than she had in a long time. An actual hot shower helped a lot too and having money for all the necessities was great. The thing she didn’t understand was why she was holding a card for Crystal Prep when she woke up with a Dean Cadence’s phone number on it. She wrote it off as something her other self was doing, still not sure what to think about the whole situation. Though the thought that the old man may just really care in some capacity and wanted to be called father made her smile. She was sure today was going to be a good day as it was Saturday and for the first time she actually had money to do something.
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I'd say keep on going with the story yourself. Maybe it isn't some stunning example of perfection, but the more you write, the more you will learn and improve. This story is one I find entertaining, and has me interested in seeing how things develop for your characters, which puts it way ahead of many I've looked at on this site.
Aw nuts. Johnny, some powerful being just stole your trademark power. Should I sue him?
Already using the Penance Stare eh? On a highschooler no less? Just what happened in that girls life that she would be that evil already?
9054824
Ok that last paragraph is a tad overkill...just a tad though
Otherwise I agree
9054394 Hopefully the lesson will stick this time and she will start listening instead of letting her pridefulness and stubbornness control her.
9054824 Thanks, I'm really happy that you are enjoying the story so far. I really loved that bit and may just end up doing something similar later on. I can really see Sunset getting pissed off and saying things like that to Bloom right now. Just hope Bloom doesn't decide to pull out the dragonfire...sorry, bad joke there and I just couldn't resist the temptation. I will be using it most likely and a few other suggestions that people have made that made me think a lot.
9055971 I hope it improves, anyways I am happy that you are finding things entertaining so far and hopefully they develope in a way you can continue to enjoy. Thank you so very much.
9055994 LOL, I originally developed Shadow Reaper as a kind of Ghost Rider like creature, but made her into something much more. Not that I hate Ghost Rider, but wanted to do something a bit different and borrow his powers. So they're technically on loan, he doesn't mind. Just...don't tell him yet.
9056086 Kind of like the Penance Stare, but she should survive. She was the kind of girl who hated the world and only hurt those who challenged what she saw as her rightful place. Such as planning to kill Twilight and roping her brother and his two friends into it. Unlike her brother though, there wasn't a part of her who felt any real remorse or anything and actually believed nobody could touch her. That she could be as evil and cruel as she wanted without any repercussions. She didn't want to give up the evil inside her and held onto it with an iron grip and would have turned into somebody that would cause a lot of pain and suffering for many people in the future if she wasn't stopped. She will likely come out of her coma before too long, though only when she's ready to change. Her family life did suck though which didn't help things, even if her mother did love her and her brother.
9056088 It could border on overkill, but I do kind of like it.
9056265
I wholeheartedly agree with it however the only reason I say it's a bit overkill is because when she mentions Applejack's intelligence she just starts badmouthing her. That won't serve any purpose but to remind her of how she ended up where she is, plus it's borderline bullying only because she isn't talking to Applejack
I like this story a lot, the latest chapters are awesome, and take it wasn't Sunny Flare was it who is Cinch's daughter?
also love what you did with Cinch, and hope she leaves her husband this time for good.
sure her son fully regrets what he almost did, now he facing time for it.
9056348 You make a very good point there, that would possibly make Sunset come off as a bully again which I kind of want to avoid, but I do want to make her aggressive to the student body and her ex-friends so that might be hard to do. Hopefully it works out good and I will try to avoid that as you did make a good point.
9056478 Thanks, and no Sunny Flare isn't related to CInch in my story. Though I do have to ask if they are related in canon as I have seen it recently in several stories I come across in the descriptions. Cinch will be leaving her husband for good, and she will become a better person and start running Crystal Prep with a lot more compassion. I may have a surprise for her later from the student body. Her son will likely get off easy since he turned himself in and confessed to what they were going to do so they will possibly look at it as not even going through with it or they may lock him up. I'm not all that sure just yet, that part I'm trying to figure out.
Next chapter
Shopping montage
I'm surprised that I found a story with a sympathetic Cinch.
9060089 Not exactly wrong lol, but there will be other stuff too. I might have to end up splitting the next chapter into 2 to 3 parts depending what all I decide to include in it and what I should save for a later chapter.
9060164 I can actually see Cinch as a good character in AU, with the right motivation or well meaning mistakes she could push her students into being like this. She had to be a good teacher/authoritative figure at one point to even get the job I imagine. I actually hope to see more stories like it where she actually isn't like she is in Friendship Games, even if evil Cinch is kind of fun too.