//------------------------------//
// Demonology 101 
// Story: A Battleground of Kindness 
// by StormDancer 
//------------------------------//

It happened so gently that I didn't even realize it for a few seconds, like a gentle breeze or the dull thud of your head hitting the ground after a cooking accident in the powder magazine of a pirate ship. Just.... pop and done.

It was such a gentle transition that what finally caught my attention was the glint of light from a set of small, pink, marbles nearby.

Marbles that I didn't own and hadn't stolen.

I blinked a few times and looked up from where I'd been sitting by my fireplace and saw two figures looking expectantly at me.

One, a tall, thin, undead lady with leather straps bolted to her head and the flickering yellow of magic where her eyes should be. The other, a twisted lilac abomination against all things horselike, sporting a pair of wings and a head mounted laser spear.

Stitchface and The Master.

And I was between them with a set of tiny, pink, glowing, marbles at my feet.

The hells is going on?

So, since nothing was exploding and no one was screaming death at anyone, I glanced around.

Floor: scorch marks, molten slag, broken wood and a number of unidentifiable lumps of 'stuff' scattered all over.
Walls: scorch marks, molten slag, broken decorations and a number of holes (mostly behind Stitchface), and the gaping new hallway that the Maser had made to view the village and that one burning apple tree.
Ceiling: scorch marks, pitted arches and missing sections that explained the lumps of stuff on the floor.

And a set of glowing, pink, marbles at my feet.

Oh, and Spike was watching us all from the top of a set of giant, crystal, steps that led to other parts of the castle.

The whole place was pretty quiet actually. The fires outside were mostly just background noise and the peons had apparently already fled, or, I guess maybe some of those lumps on the ground might be what was left of the pile? Those didn't really look like cooked meat, but you never can tell when an undead is the one 'cooking.' No sense of taste.

But no, wedged up near the open front gate, there was still a pile of softly shifting pony-meat shields doing meat shield-y things. So, not even dead.

Figures. Can't trust peons to get anything right. That's what demons are for.

And about that time, Stitchface gave a little cough and gestured towards The Master with a flick of her wrist.

What?

Oh.

OH.

Oh, I don't think so. Not a chance.

Stitchface, you are one fun little whackjob but I am NOT stupid enough to go after the Master after what I saw her do to that titan prick.

So, I did what any self-respecting imp would do in such a situation. I shrieked my displeasure, stomped up to her, and kicked her robes for good measure.

Which.... did absolutely nothing except draw a confused look from Stitchface since imps are not known for their immense physical prowess. Or long legs.

Pretty much just made one of the ratty edges of her robe flick for a second.

And then I found myself being picked up by the cold, sharpened, bone of Stitchface's fingers, dangling before her face as her look of confusion turned to one of anger.

And then she threw me at the Master.

Where I promptly bounced off a pinkish magical shield, and landed on the ground.

... right next to the remains of the little coat the Rarity had made for me a week or so before.

... right next to a charred scorch mark with two little golden bracers.

... bracers, identical to the pair I wore.

I heard a surprised "Sorry!" from the Master as the magic shield flickered out and her shadow fell over me before I felt myself being crushed in a grapple that would make adamantine feel soft. Little patches of my skin sizzled as rain started falling from somewhere, boiling away as it hit me.

I glanced up to see the Master was crying. Crying? Warlocks don't cry! It's in the manual!

But then I saw something that was much more familiar... the comfortable sight of anger overtaking, well, anything, as the Master's enormous eyes glanced over to Stitchface and a glare that was almost physical slapped her.

And, after a breath, a series of six little popping sounds, the smell of rotten eggs, and the maddened cackling of a half dozen high pitched voices filled the room.

I blinked.

Huh... wild imps. Guess the Master is a demonology warlock. Coulda sworn she was more destruction. Stitchface suddenly seemed very much less confident as she stared from across the room.

From one of the marbles, a tiny voice squeaked out, "Send me back!"

Smart marble. Wonder if it knows the voidwal....oh. Heh. I take it back, that's a GENIUS voidwalker.

-~oOo~-



See, the thing is that warlocks come in a few different flavors.

There's your everyday 'destruction' warlock: known for wonton violence, fire, snaking paths of destruction, fire, and immense firey orbs of destruction that leave smoldering paths of destruction through things that are on fire. They're the steamrollers of the magical community, deranged and unstable, but capable enough to dominate any single opponent with overwhelming force.

Then there's your 'affliction' warlocks: gaunt, vindictive, maddeningly efficient engines of suffering and torture. The bane of all things living and the gleeful purveyors of agony, sickness, and plague. They're well known for being decidedly durable and capable of handling large numbers of enemies at once, slowly bleeding the lot down while maintaining an almost comical level of spite.

And then there's the 'demonology' warlock. Don't get me wrong, there is no 'friendly' kind of warlock, only varying degrees of less-likely-to-stab-me-in-the-next-five-minutes, but when it comes to dangerous, demonology warlocks are the worst. They plan ahead — days, weeks, months, sometimes years in advance. They work out strategies and tactics, defenses and counters for everything from a centuries-long war to how to select the ripest fruit at a market. They're mental... and not just because they're sick in the head (which, admittedly, they probably are). Oh no, it's because they've decided to study demons and become good enough to out-think millenias old immortal sociopaths with murderous desires and the magic to follow through with those desires.

So... yheah. Your average demonology warlock isn't exactly well liked by the local populace, but they ~are~ respected for their power.

And once you get a sufficiently powerful demonology warlock, they almost invariably attract the attention of younger, unbonded, imps.

It's not uncommon to see a demonology warlock in combat with 3 or even 4 imps alongside their tethered demon, gleefully hurling bolts of fire and cackling madly, careening all over the place while sewing chaos and misery. They're drawn to it, the power and control, they crave it like a fire craves fuel, like babies crave stairwells and sharp objects.

And the Master just had half a dozen pop into existence next to her.

I started laughing.

How could I not? The look on Stitchface's face was priceless. A mix somewhere between "Oh Fuck" and "well shit on me" and just a weeeee touch of angst.

Then again, she is undead so maybe the angst is just a general setting... but whatever the case, It. Was. GLORIOUS.

Until I realized, with a terrible sinking feeling, that I had reappeared between Stitchface and the Master... and Stitchface had ordered me to attack.

The squealing cackles of the wild imps suddenly turned to pure joy as they all gleefully held flickering gobs of fire between their knife-like fingers.

And I shrieked as I started to dodge dozens of fire bolts while the Master looked on in stunned silence.

Stitchface just shook her her and started up a spell, completely missing as the Assassin and the Wreck peeked in the open wall behind her.

-~oOo~-



Dodging firebolts isn't too hard, really. All you have to do is not be where they are when they get close. With all of time and space to choose from, the short duration and very small overall size makes them trivially easy to avoid. Don't believe me? When was the last time you got hit with a firebolt?

That's right... never.

So, conveniently, it remains deliciously easy to avoid them.

Of course, all the statistics in the universe are meaningless when imps are throwing firebolts at you. See, imps are magical, evil, and just a little bit small, so we tend to overcompensate for that weakness. No, I'm not going to call it a 'shortcoming'... like we've ~NEVER~ heard that joke before.

See, imps don't miss throwing firebolts.

Ever.

We cheat. We're demons. It's what we do.

See, when someone normally casts a spell, they think it out, pour some magic in, aim, top off the spell, and throw that sucker out at whatever they were aiming at. Simple enough.

Only problem is that things don't often like being blown up, so they use this thing called MOVEMENT and just avoid getting hit if they can.

I'm sure that if flowerpots and wooden crates could think, they'd be screaming about the injustice of being left as targets by so many things that just moved out of the way of incoming spells.

But not imps.

We don't like to miss because if we miss, we're not useful... well, not as useful as an imp that doesn't miss, at least.

So we don't.

We cheat.

We set up the spell, dump some magic in, grab a little chunk of our target from the near future, and stick the spell on it. Then we just let the whole thing go and snap back into place.

Simple as that. Let the spell go here and now and let it pull itself back together there and then... that being wherever the target ends up and in a few moments.

So, we don't miss.

Which meant that I was running all over the place, screaming like a banshee, and phasing like a champ to avoid being hurt by several dozen firebolts while the Master acted as if surprised that a bunch of imps sprung into existence and started attacking me.

I don't know what she's doing, but she's possibly the best actor I have ever seen in all my years because I'm being serious when I say I have no freaking clue what her plan is.

-~oOo~-


Dodging firebolts is not a fun thing, especially when they're fired by imps,
Dodging firebolts hurled by wild imps summoned by The Master is an even less fun thing, primarily due to the sheer number.
And, as previously noted, 'dodging' firebolts hurled by imps, wild or otherwise, is a rather poor term for it.

Primarily because you can't dodge them.
They hit.
Every.
Single.
One.

But, I'm an imp! So, phasing.

Mitigates it a bit.

Anyway, there I was, bounding all over The Master's front hallway, leaping from door frames to banisters to potted plants in giant, fancy, crystal urns (because warlocks would NEVER own a 'vaaaaaaaze'). Phasing like mad and doing my best to shriek out my displeasure because imps do NOT squeal in panic.

And The Master was just watching with her mouth agape.

Well, she was until Stitchface managed to summon up a Chaos Bolt at her. Chaos Bolts are kind of a specialty of Destruction warlocks. Bright green and roiling black flames, the size of a large child, sent boiling through the air with a draconic face superimposed upon the front. Those things are like napalm and a battering ram had a bastard child... they hit like an avalanche and burn like... well... burning.

I don't have a baby joke for everything, alright?

But more importantly, they cause other spells to hit harder, faster, and more viciously.

So while The Master suddenly found herself sluffing off a rather nasty blob of magic on her shield, I finally got a break when her wild imps all turned towards Stitchface and screamed bloody murder.

Before promptly launching themselves at her and imploding.

Funny thing about wild imps. They're unstable... both mentally and physically, and they have a tendency to blow up.

Which, The Master either didn't know, or did a very good job of acting surprised about.

On the other hand, when Stitchface suddenly whipped off a spell that engulfed The Master in a cloud of embers, hurled two dark masses and a snaking trail of fire, and followed it up with an explosion of ash and death, The Master apparently had gotten over her shock.

Because another 6 imps popped into existence and stared hurling fire at Stitchface.

And then, then The Master apparently got angry when I dropped to the ground again when Stitchface sacrificed me.

Again.

I know this because the number of wild imps that suddenly started popping into existence is something I don't think I've ever seen. Pop - cackle. Pop - shriek. Pop - scream. Pop - hissing. One after another after another after another.

Time and time again.

And I got a corpse bound view as dozens of the little buggars swarmed, then leapt and started punching, kicking, biting, and lighting Stitchface on fire.

Before detonating in the most imp-dense implosion I have ever seen.

And when the bassy-thump of air being removed from existence had faded, a slew of other little demons had all materialized around The Master... who was floating... with glowing white eyes, and glaring down at a very haggard looking Stitchface.

"And now," The Master intoned, "You WILL stop!"

... Her voice was loud enough that the little pink marbles rolled halfway across the room.

I might have whimpered if I wasn't dead.