Twilight had been through a long and stressful day today. Oh sure, she enjoyed a good pile of paperwork as much as she always did, but after a while it all sort of blurred together. But, ever the dutiful princess, she completed her tasks well, and in efficient time it must be said. So as far as she was concerned, she'd earned herself a nice bit of rest. And how would she spend that rest? Simple. She was in her favourite place in the Friendship Palace. It was the library, and no there weren't any prizes for guessing that one. Reclining into her favourite chair, which she'd eagerly displayed to King Thorax during one of his official visits, she let out a contented sigh as she lit up her horn. Using her magic she levitated one of her favourite books over, opening it up to the first page. Granted, she'd seen enough of the printed world already today, but this was one she actually wanted to be looking at. Reaching to the side she took hold of a freshly-brewed cup of tea, taking that first delectable sip, making her feel like all her cares were just washing away. Alas, she'd been in this situation enough times to know where it led, so a more cynical look came to her shortly afterwards. "Okay, when's the bit going to drop?"
And drop it did, for as soon as she'd uttered those words the ground in front of her burst apart, unleashing a torrent of flame and unimaginable heat. From that hellish inferno, a shape could be seen, and within moments the fire subsided, revealing the intruder that now stood before the Princess of Friendship. Standing upon two cloven hooves, this being was primarily red, with intimidating curved horns and a pair of enormous wings, not unlike that of a bat. From its posterior emerged a long and thin tail ending in an arrow-like point, and upon its grinning face was a sharp black beard. It was a demon, basically. Ask anypony off the street to draw you a picture of what they think a denizen of the realms below would look like and this right here was what you'd get. And to complete the aesthetic, it cackled maniacally. "Bwahahahaha! Princess Twilight Sparkle! I stand before you, a demon of Tartarus itself! And I come to you this day with an offer! Agree to my contract! Pledge your soul to me for eternity! And in return I shall grant you your heart's desire!"
Twilight watched as the demon offered his hand, which was soon engulfed in yet another quick burst of fire, much to her chagrin. When it faded, she saw that there was indeed a contract, traditional parchment and everything, in his palm. Looking to him with scepticism she ignited her horn again, levitating the paper to her and starting to read through it. As she did this, the demon tapped his fingertips against one another in that spindly way people only ever did when they wanted everyone to know that they were up to no good. The occasional snickering certainly didn't help his case either, as Twilight very much wanted to comment on it, though she kept her attention squarely on the paper for the time being. After several long minutes of pouring over everything written there, as well as looking over it a second time for good measure, the young princess moved it aside while it was still in mid-air, looked the demon right in the eye, and finally gave her response. "No."
"Um...pardon?" the demon replied with confusion.
"You heard me," Twilight confirmed. "I said no. I'm not agreeing to this."
The demon smirked. "So, the renowned Twilight Sparkle fears my offer, does she?"
Twilight shook her head. "Fear? No. I just think it's a ridiculous deal."
A slowly blink from the demon. "...Excuse me?"
Twilight raised the contract again, pointing to it. "This basically means that you do something for me in exchange for my soul, yes?"
"Yes," the demon answered immediately.
Twilight narrowed here eyes to him. "So that conclusively proves that I have a soul, correct? Because presumably you wouldn't be doing this if a soul were merely some hypothetical concept."
"Um...yes," the demon answered more hesitantly.
"And if I have a soul, that also must mean that there is an afterlife of some sort for that soul to go to? Am I right?" Twilight asked while pointing to her unwanted guest.
The demon scratched the back of his head. "Well, technically, yes."
Twilight again looked to the parchment. "So from that, it should be pretty easy to figure out that your offer is rather disadvantageous for me. After all, if your agreement results in my soul being in your possession, then by default that would be a worse outcome for my soul than what would happen to it if I declined your offer."
Here, the demon regained his confidence, smiling wickedly. "Ah! But do you know that for certain? After all, maybe the choices you make in your life would lead you into my purview anyway? Perhaps there is no better outcome for your soul!"
Again, Twilight shook her head. "Nope. Not buying it. Because if there was any chance my soul was going to wind up in your hands without this kind of interference, even if it was a small chance, you wouldn't even bother coming down here trying to tempt me into making this agreement. Why try and change things to get the same outcome, you know?"
The demon opened his mouth, only to be hit with the realisation of what his potential mark had said. "Ah...good point." Then, he looked to her with yet another attempt to make his case. "But think of it! Your heart's greatest desire! Whatever you wish can be yours!"
Twilight rolled her eyes. "And what do you think is my greatest desire, exactly?" For the first time today, she actually looked rather amused. "Please, tell me. I'd love to hear this."
The demon suddenly felt like he was on the back hoof again. "Well...untold riches?" He watched Twilight remain silent after that, and after a while she slowly arched her eyebrow before gesturing to the area around them. When it at last dawned on him that they were standing in a literal palace, he backtracked a little. "Well...erm...how about complete adoration by all around you?"
Twilight folded her forehooves. "Not that I enjoy tooting my own horn, my friends and I have saved Equestria several times over. I'd say we're pretty well-liked by this point."
The demon was starting to panic slightly now, but did his best to hide it as he continued to come up with suggestions. "How about some romance? I could make it so you'd be the most desirable bachelorette in the land!"
Twilight scoffed. "Thanks for the offer. But, and call me crazy if you like, I wouldn't exactly be comfortable with a partner who was only with me because they were magically manipulated into..." She trailed off, her eyes widening shortly afterwards. "Hey! Wait a minute!"
The demon stepped back. "Er...yes?"
Twilight pointed to him again. "If you have the power to make others do whatever you like through this nebulous magic of yours, why are you even trying to get me to go with this contract willingly? Why not just magically manipulate me into just agreeing to it?"
Silence fell, and as the demon tried his best to come up with a justification for this obvious flaw in his plan that the princess had pointed out to him, he was fast becoming aware, to his eternal embarrassment, that there was none. After a while, all he could really do was giving a slow shrug of his shoulders. "Um...because?"
Twilight gave herself a well-earned facehoof to that, groaning with a deep sense of irritation and exasperation. "You are, without question, the worst evildoer I've had the displeasure of having to deal with. And given the line-up I've had experience with, that is saying something." She again looked to the paper. "And that's before we get into all the problems like the frequent spelling errors and grammatical flaws in the paper itself. I mean seriously! Did you not get this proofread before you came up here?!"
The demon nervously poked the ends of his index fingers together. "Er...no, I did not."
Rolling up the contract, Twilight offered it to him, trying to keep her voice as calm as possible. "Go back, get this rewritten, think through your plans more than you seem to do, and for the love of Celestia, can you at least try to not look like an obvious villain when trying to get others to agree to something?"
The demon looked down to his body, then to the side to one of his outstretched bat-like wings, before looking back to the princess. "That last one might be a bit of a hard sell."
Twilight looked past him, then narrowed her eyes. "Then can you at least clean up your messes? That hole is going to take a while to fix, and I don't know if you realise this, but castle maintenance isn't exactly cheap."
Looking over his shoulder to the still-smouldering hole he came out of, the demon sighed. "My mother was right. I should have gone into botany."