Bringing Balance

by Shumiry

Prologue

The gates of Tartarus loomed before the two demigods. Their presence meant that nothing else was nearby as they held the tiny blue orb, using it to scry on the creature that had visited. The being, they had gathered from a handful of witnesses, had been very weak. It could never have generated the void blast that had destroyed Uldrazzi.
Now they watched as it battled the sentience that had taken up residence in their most powerful creation. Their followers had only just constructed the thing when the trio struck. Mephistopheles snarled as it remembered the two alicorns and their draconequus friend. How they'd been able to separate the two, and banish Carryion. How they'd then tracked him down, despite all the snares and false trails, and trapped him behind this infernal gate!
With a flick of his arm his claws smacked against the black metal, causing a flare of white and midnight blue fire to stick to him like tar. It burned for a little while, consuming some of his black, stone-like skin, before running out of energy and dying. In moments, the damage had healed.
Carryion had looked up when he'd struck the gate, but said nothing, returning his gaze to the scrying orb. His characteristic calm. Even in the battle with the trio, he'd never lost his cool. It was what made them such a great pair. Mephistopheles could deceive anyone, anything, and could goad Carryion into action when the Lord would normally have sat and waited. While Carryion's levelheadedness and imperturbable nature often tempered Mephistopheles' outlandish imagination.
Together, they were nigh unstoppable, and they were easily the most powerful force in Tartarus, excepting, of course, those rare occasions the Ur-dragon came through. Mephistopheles shuddered at the memory of the last such visitation. He hated the feeling of helplessness that stole over him whenever he gazed upon the massive beast. Much the same way he felt whenever he stood before the black gate.
Carryion gasped.
The sound was so uncharacteristic Mephistopheles merely sat and stared for a few seconds, before rushing to the demigod's side. The man was pointing at the space between himself and the Necrogolem, gathering an incredible amount of power into a tiny pinprick area. The sun alicorn was building a shield around the two of them, designed to shape some kind of unfathomable force. His wit as sharp as ever, despite the long years of his imprisonment, Mephistopheles realized what the man meant to do.
“He's creating a black hole, and Celestia is going to bend the event horizon so it doesn't consume the entire planet.” Carryion nodded. “But when he does, his soul will be destroyed!” Carryion had looked up from the sphere now, a smile on his face. It was one of the most unsettling things Mephistopheles had ever seen. He didn't expect he'd ever get used to that smile. The black hole appeared, and their scrying died, the sliver of soul no longer having a corresponding part in the outerworld.
They waited, and soon, the orb underwent a nearly imperceptible change. A lesser being wouldn't have noticed a thing. To the two Lords, it was like an acorn turning into a rhino. Carryion thrust the orb against the gate. There was a brilliant flash, and in that instant both tied their beings to the soul fragment. Then it was gone. Carryion waited, not willing to be the first to see if their spell had succeeded, until Mephistopheles strolled up to, and then through, the gate, emerging unscathed.
With his second smile of that millennium, Carryion too passed over to the other side. Cerberus turned and saw them, recognizing who they were. Before they could stop the massive, three-headed hound, it reared back and howled, all its heads resonating with each other, creating a noise that would easily have deafened any mortal, and would likely have caused the unfortunate creature's brain to melt.
To the demigods, it was merely annoying. With a wave of his claws, Mephistopheles silenced the overgrown mutt, causing it to fall into a deep sleep, filled with nightmares of the beasts of Tartarus escaping and torturing it. When Celestia came to see why it had howled, she'd be hard pressed to figure out who, if anyone, had really escaped, and which had only been dreams.
As they left Tartarus behind, their forms shifted. Mephistopheles became a brown coated, white maned unicorn with pumpkin orange eyes, while Carryion transformed into a silver-eyed, black maned earth pony with a dark pink coat. Both ponies sported a black crown with five elongated spires as their cutie marks, signifying them as Lords to anypony who still remembered.
Mephistopheles shook his head at his now female companion. He could never grasp why the other Lord took such delight in performing his duties in a body of the opposite gender. Some mysteries were beyond even his considerable intellect.
“Well then Celestia,” Mephistopheles mused as they journeyed, “let's see how you cope with the return of Death and Deceit.” His laughter echoed off the rocks, causing any creature that heard it to slink away. To hide from the malice in the sound.
Something terrible was coming to Equestria, to bring a little balance to all this peace and harmony.