Lex could only stare in horror as the monster began to move.
“dID yOu…REalLy tHInK…yoU CoUlD…sLaY mE?” the thing’s maw croaked, its voice even more twisted than normal. More black sludge oozed from its fang-filled orifice as it spoke, slowly picking itself up. “Did you actually believe,” coughed the left head, its ability to speak apparently less impaired than its other end, “that you could take this opportunity away from me?”
Lex was barely listening, struggling to come up with some sort of plan of action. He tried to cast a spell, any spell, but his chest felt like it was in a vice, making every breath he drew into a painful struggle. In such a state, it was all he could do to gasp a word or two, making the complicated chanting that his spells required – with their exacting syntax and stringent intonation – completely impossible. His dark magic didn’t require verbal components to invoke, but he’d expended it all. He might have been able to gasp the few words necessary to unleash the spells he’d stored in gemstones, but even if the stored spells hadn’t been completely unsuitable for combat, they’d all been inside his haversack, and that was gone now.
As the creature lying mere feet from him picked itself off the ground, surviving what should have been a decisive blow for the second time since their fight had begun, Lex realized that he was completely helpless.
But the creature didn’t look to be in much better shape. Its slug-like body had become emaciated, its skin hanging loosely where it had once been stretched tight around the thing’s bloated form. Its breathing was now audible, with ragged panting coming from the mouths of its equine heads. Most notably, its movement was halting, as though it was struggling to keep moving after the damage it had taken. But for all the damage it had clearly taken, it was still managing to rise, and that was more than Lex was capable of at the moment.
The thing knew it too, and it didn’t rush as the left head extended its tongue – now slick with blood and liquefied organs – to grab him again, coiling around his neck and lifting him into the air. “I’ve waited millennia for a chance like this!” screeched the middle head, its androgynous voice clouded with anger. “To find a world that had completely slipped beneath everyone’s notice! Whose people were so backward, so ignorant of strife or sin, that they were practically crying out to be corrupted! And you think that you, one little mage-ling, have the power to deny me this?!” The creature's rage seemed to give it strength, its movements becoming more sure as it ranted.
The tongue wrapped around his neck whipped downward suddenly, slamming Lex into the ground, driving what little breath he had from his lungs. “I am Xiriel!” roared the creature’s right head angrily. “A belier devil of Stygia, the Fifth Hell! I have manipulated the wisest of mortal archmages and turned pious saints toward heresy, all with nothing more than words and misdirection! I have overthrown kingdoms and subverted nations far greater than anything this pathetic little world has ever known! And you, a nothing that calls itself Lex Legis, dare to injure me?! To wound me?!”
It lifted Lex into the air again, and this time the middle and right tongues snaked out, the two organs curling around his horn. In his current state, Lex could do nothing more than grimace and twitch as he felt one of them wrap around the base of it, preventing him from moving his head as the second tongue grabbed it just a bit higher and began to pull it to the side. “bUt THaT’s tHE bEsT yOu COulD dO, ANd i BaREly eVEn BrOuGHt aNY oF mY eQUiPmeNt wItH mE wHEn i cAMe hErE,” screeched Xiriel’s leech-like craw, apparently having gotten its breath back. “aFTeR aLl, THiS wAs OrIGiNalLY A nOThInG aSSiGnmEnT. fInDinG oNE mISsiNg eRinYEs DeVIl AnD hER EnTOuRaGe oN tHE pLAnE oF fIRe; wHaT A wAStE oF mY tImE!”
Lex felt the devil’s grip around his neck ease then, letting him manage to draw enough breath to remain conscious, even as it pulled harder on his horn. “Imagine my surprise when I found out that they’d been caught in a spontaneous planar rift,” mused the feminine voice of Xiriel’s left head. “Fortunately I had arrived early enough that I was able to follow the lingering traces of it to this world.”
The pain in his horn was getting worse, the thing slowly applying more and more pressure until Lex felt the underlying bone reach its limit. He couldn’t help but struggle then, reaching up with his one unbroken fore-hoof to bat at the tongues grabbing him, but the belier didn’t even seem to notice. “Of course, the other devils were all killed shortly thereafter,” sneered Xiriel, speaking through its middle head now. “I found out later that one of your princesses and her friends dispatched them…but it took everything they had to do it. That was when I knew that this world was ripe,” it suddenly twisted his horn harder, and Lex’s vision swam as agony exploded through him, only distantly hearing the snap of his horn breaking clean off, “for the plucking!”
Somehow, impossibly, he managed to stay conscious, but that was all he could do, hanging limply in the devil’s grasp. Seeing that, the belier brought him closer, until he was hanging right in front of its trio of equine heads. “Can you still hear me, Lex Legis?” taunted Xiriel’s right head. “I truly hope you haven’t lost consciousness yet. We haven’t even gotten to the best part.”
It was all Lex could do just to keep his eyes open, and although he tried to mouth a curse at the thing, even that much proved to be more than he could accomplish in his current state. That was enough to make Xiriel laugh, its four voices snickering in chorus. “You see, Vanhoover has just been a trial run. I wanted to see how your people would react to a crisis, how your leaders would respond to disaster and disinformation, and I must say I’ve never been so pleased. You ponies are weak and cowardly, your leaders foolish and complacent, and that means that your society is just waiting for me to tear it down and rebuild it however I want.”
The tongue holding him by the neck turned, rotating Lex until he was facing away from the creature, looking back toward the camp. “Very soon now, the ghouls are going to come and devour your precious little camp.” The voices were now dripping with equal parts viciousness and smugness. “After that, they’re going to scatter in every direction, spreading their plague to all of Equestria. And when they do, that’s when my job really begins. I’ll be there, wearing the bodies of different ponies, making sure that the people of this world turn on each other in response. Your princesses can offer all the friendship lessons they like; in the face of the dead rising up to devour the living they won’t matter in the slightest. Fear of disease, food shortages, and communication breakdowns will make every village, town, and city embrace self-imposed isolation. And once that happens, it’ll be easy to maneuver each fearful community into adopting a new order: one where the group functions at the expense of its individuals.”
Xiriel turned him back around then, Lex’s body swaying as the belier glanced at the barbed wire wrapped around his broken left forehoof. “You worship a deity, so perhaps you know that the faithful go to their god’s side when they die. But did you know that holds true for secular mortals as well?” When Lex gave no visible response, Xiriel reached out with its right tongue, grasping Lex’s broken leg and twisting it sharply, causing him to spasm. “Do try to keep up,” tsked the devil. “I’m going out of my way to enlighten you as to what’s going to happen to your world once I’m done with it. You see, the souls of dead mortals flow toward the Outer Planes, specifically whichever plane best matches the ethos they held at the time of their death. And when I make your simpering little ponies adopt structured, hierarchical depravity, their souls will all flow straight to Hell.”
The devil brought Lex closer again, this time until he was within inches of Xiriel’s central head, able to smell the creature’s fetid breath. “When that happens, when the souls from an entirely new world are added to Hell’s ranks, I’ll receive what I want most,” murmured the androgynous voice. “Not only will I be rewarded for what I’ve done, I’ll be promoted.”
Xiriel flung Lex downward again, but he only barely felt the impact, his entire body numb. Heedless, the devil continued to gloat. “When that happens, I won’t just be a belier anymore. I’ll ascend even further and become a deimavigga, or an advodaza. Maybe even a pit fiend!” The creature's unoccupied tongues spread widely, as though reaching out to encompass all of Equestria. “This world will take me to the very brink of the infernal nobility itself! And you actually thought that you could interfere with such a thing! You pathet-, hm? What’s this?”
Lex didn’t understand what had happened to cut the creature off, not able to so much as lift his head to look around, but a moment later he understood as he felt one of the belier’s tongues run along his now-restored horn. “Interesting,” murmured Xiriel, speaking through its left head again. “Your horn regenerated. But none of your other wounds have. I wonder why?” It seemed to consider the matter for a moment, before deciding it was of no consequence. “Ah well, it’s not like you have any power left anyway. I’d tear it off again, but in your current state any further trauma might kill you, and I can’t have that just yet. You need to suffer more for everything you’ve done to me.”
“Of course, death won’t release you from your torment,” noted the middle head idly. As it spoke, Xiriel’s right head withdrew its tongue back into its mouth, and then began to bob its head strangely, as though trying to dislodge something that was stuck in its throat. “I would have stopped there before,” continued the central head’s epicene voice, “but now you’ve earned a special level of anguish. Ah, there it is.” As it spoke, Xiriel’s right head stuck out its tongue again, but this time it was holding something.
Dimly, Lex recognized that it was a scroll case. He’d seen wizards on Everglow use them as protective cases for the pre-cast spells that they’d scribed. Apparently devils used them as well. “i oNLy HAvE oNe mORe uNdEAd-CReAtIOn sPeLl lEfT,” continued Xiriel, “bUt i’Ve DeCIdeD tHaT yOu’Ve EArnEd iT. yOu’Re GoINg tO bECoMe eQuEsTrIa’S nEWeSt gHoUL, tO pREy oN tHe pOnIEs yOu cHEriSh sO mUcH.” The belier’s faces were too gaunt to give them much in the way of facial expressions, and its other end had nothing like that at all, but Lex could still hear the smile even in the ear-splitting voice of its maw. “i tHiNK i’LL hAvE yOu dEVouR yOuR pREciOuS sOnATa fIRst.”
That got a reaction of out Lex, and he struggled weakly in the thing’s grasp, anger and fear sweeping over him. Black crystals began to sprout from the ground, and Xiriel’s heads swiveled as it surveyed what was happening. “Fascinating,” admitted the right head. “You’re completely out of power – you must be, or you would have tried something by now – and yet you’re still somehow radiating this ‘dark magic’ of yours. But where’s the energy coming from?” It seemed to ponder the question for a moment speaking again. “An academic question, I suppose. For now, we need to continue your punishment.”
The thing glanced pointedly in one direction, and after a long moment Lex managed to do the same…and his eyes widened as he saw Nosey lying a short distance away from them, eyes closed and breathing shallowly. “It’s a shame,” murmured Xiriel’s left head. “I was quite fond of my Nosey-suit. But I’ll just have to find another pony to wear.”
The devil look back at Lex, savoring the words it spoke next. “When I killed those other ponies of yours, I made sure there were no witnesses. This time, I’m going to do it right in front of you.”