Chapter 10 – Panic
*This chapter is dark, but this should be the most extreme it gets.*
"Wow. We really dropped the ball on noticing when Twilight disappeared. She was there when we exited the cave then suddenly... not. No clue on how she disappeared like that, and the time it took for us to notice was ridiculous. Damn entrancing topaz.
"I've said it before, I'll say it again. Alarms are almost always a bad sign. Especially this kind. At least the program works, though. That's good news. It's still scary watching that graph shoot up, knowing that someone powerful – the neuro-receptor doesn't work on weaker beings for some reason as I've learned – is in danger."
"Where is she‽ She was here a minute ago," Spike yelped in panic.
As the Scavenger Watch continued blaring, the remaining three scrambled to find some trace of Twilight's whereabouts.
"Okay, think," Fred stopped himself from acting fearful and tried to take control of the situation. "We exited the cave," he traced the route with his fingers, "then we became enthralled by the glowing topaz. That's when Twilight disappeared."
Rarity closely examined the path the four took. "Hoofprints lead astray from us..." She looked into the trees. "She went this way!"
"Let's go!" The three sprinted in the direction of the indentations, Spike riding on the unicorn's back. Fred ran slightly ahead due to his longer legs.
A pinkish-red glow lowered Twilight into a freshly dug pit. The scholar, no matter how hard she tried, could no longer use magic and her legs were bound, leaving her helpless at her captor's mercy. She twisted her head in attempt to take a look at who or what foalnapped her.
What took Twilight was certainly the correct question to ask. She recognised the body as that of an azure coated unicorn mare with silver-blue hair, yet everything else was... eerily off. The thing's eyes glowed a powerful demonic red colour. Whoever that body belonged to is long gone.
"SO, THIS IS HOW THE PROTEGE FALLS." A screeching voice emanated from the creature.
"Wh- What do you want?” she asked, full of fear relating to her current predicament.
"I HAVE WAITED HUNDREDS OF YEARS TO DESTROY THIS COUNTRY. YOU WILL BE ITS FIRST VICTIM," it continued to say.
The thing telekinetically picked up a shovel, when a repeated pattern of two rapid beeps, then a pause, gained in volume. It whirled to face the noise.
Fred Walsh halted nearby the glowing pony. “What are you?” he demanded to know. 'And you look familiar...'
"AH, THE DESTROYER RETURNS. YOU WILL NOT DEFEAT ME THIS TIME."
The human realised who it was. “Oh, stercore...”
The possessed pony charged its horn and cast something toward Fred, who dodged just in time behind a tree. The spell missed, instead blasting some nearby Earth.
Rarity and Spike charged in, and what the human knew to be another demon began to focus its attention on them instead. Fred ducked out from the tree in attempt to reach the pit Twilight was in. He reached about halfway before the demon noticed him. It charged another blast, this one managing to hit the ground near his feet, which sent him flying into the ditch.
As the battle continued on the surface, with spells being thrown from either party, Fred landed on Twilight, nearly two metres below the ground. “Ow!” she screamed.
“Sorry,” he mentioned as he tried to find some less-damaging footing. “Okay, by now you would've tried to get out of here with your magic,” he began to think out loud, “and obviously that failed.” Another explosion formed above. “I didn't spot an emerald on that thing so...” He quickly looked for anything out of the ordinary on the unicorn. He found two things: Rope and a sapphire horn ring, neither of which were present last time they spoke.
“Harmonic Sapphire. It has to be.” Fred yanked the ring off of Twilight's horn. The moment he did so, a burst of colurful magic sent him flying out of the grave, through the air a bit, and landed him right beside the demon pony.
Close up, the human was able to take a good look at the azure unicorn. Along with the colours and demonic eyes, its cutie mark depicted a crescent moon overlaid with a magic wand. 'I don't even know what gender to assign this.'
Before it could manage, Fred rolled around, dodging more precise attacks. With a pause in the blasts, he swiftly arose and hid against another tree. 'That's a mare's body, but I seem to have neglected to check for genitalia on the last demon I fought.'
Rarity and Spike were a few metres nearby, also hiding from further attacks. A short, bright flash teleported Twilight into the fight, between the three others, and she looked mad. With no pause, the scholar erected a purple shield surrounding the newly reunited group, which bounced an incoming blast back toward a tree. It hit and collapsed the foliage, which separated the two factions when it hit the ground.
On the offensive now, Rarity, untrained in combat for obvious reasons, sent some telekinetic blasts toward the attacker, while Spike blew fire.
Plan foiled, the possessed pony gave up and fleed the area. The others failed to give chase. The scavenger watch ceased its beeping as Twilight calmed down.
“Who was that?” Rarity asked.
“It looked like Trixie from years back, but... Not,” Twilight answered to the best of her ability.
“That might've been her body, though I know who's controlling it. We've met before.” Fred stared ahead of him.
“She-It called you The Destroyer,” the student mentioned.
“Yeah, the demon's just butthurt. It's Potens Daemonium. The same demon I fought last time.”
“And how did you dodge all of those spells?” Spike questioned.
He shrugged. “Touhou.”
A/N: I wanted to use Zalgo Text on the demon's lines, but Fimfiction doesn't render it properly.