This story is a fan-fiction of MLP:FiM. I don't own any of it. It belongs to Hasbro, etc, etc.
Don't sue. Seriously. That would be so uncouth.
One good deed
“From a tiny spark may burst a great flame.”-Dante degli Alighieri
Spring in Ponyville is always a sunny season, or usually is. However, this particular day was blessed with grey skies and a gentle downpour. It wasn’t a bad sight and it was also great for the flowers, but Rarity looked out at the wet streets with a frown from behind the windows at the Carousel Boutique. She did enjoy the product of the showers, the freshly blooming flowers, radiant with their abundant colors that inspired her with new dress colors and styles. But, where there was rain, there tended to be mud, and that just would not stand. Dirt of any sort-except for the spa’s mud baths-was not acceptable. Yet, Rarity found herself putting on her rubber rain boots, sliding into her warm Burberry coat, and grabbing an umbrella.
“Well darling,” Rarity said to herself, getting prepared to go outside. “A little rain and…mud,” she said shuddering at the mention of the foul mixture of earth and water, “won’t stop you. Fluttershy is waiting for us at the Spa, so hurry on your way dearie.” In one quick movement, she opened her door, put up her umbrella, closed the door, and marched out into the rain covered streets.
Ponyville appeared to be covered in thin lines of black ink as the rain fell from the sky and hit the cobblestones of the streets, whisking a cold whisper of wind into the air, making Rarity shiver in just the slightest. She hurried along the streets, wanting to be out of this wet and cold and in the warmth of the herbal baths and plush robes all the faster.
As she passed by the candy colored houses of Ponyville, she saw something completely new to her: a strange pony, sitting in the street near one of Ponyville’s back alleys. Rarity had never seen this pony before, for he looked forlorn and beaten down, sitting in the rain, shivering slightly. He was an earth pony with a silver mane and a dark gold coat with flecks of red in it. Rarity wanted all in the world to hurry by him and head off to the spa, but something held her back. Maybe it was the look on his face. Maybe it was the way that his body silently quaked in the cold. Maybe it was his wet mane drooping into his eyes. Nevertheless, Rarity stopped, and that was all that mattered.
The pony looked up as he felt the rain stop hitting him. He looked up to see that he was covered by an umbrella that stood floating above him. He looked at the magic aura and saw a large overcoat float into his view, surrounded by the same aura.
“Put these on darling.” Said an elegant female voice from next to him. He looked up to a unicorn mare with a pristine platinum coat and lovely purple tresses that seemed to swim down her coat. However, both were getting wet and becoming less and less beautiful by the second as the water drenched them.
“Your coat is just too exquisite to be put through such a downpour.” She said as she put the coat around his shoulders and hung the umbrella over his head, hooking it onto a gutter. Rarity waved and left as the seemingly mute stallion followed her as she went away. To her, his deep emerald eyes seemed to glow with happiness and that look is exactly what allowed Rarity to do such a thing.
“Hmmm…” the pony thought to himself as he watched her walk away in her red rubber boots. “It seems I need to repay her…I just get out and now this…oh well.”
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“…And he was just sitting out there, the poor thing. I mean, I’ve seen destitute ponies before in Canterlot and Manehatten, but in Ponyville? What is Equestria coming to?” Rarity said as she took off the fluffy white robe and got up from her massage table. “Thank you again Aloe. You are such a godsend.”
“Wow, Rarity.” Fluttershy said meekly as she too got up. “You’re always doing things like this…I’m so glad to have you as a friend.” She said, hugging Rarity tightly. Rarity blushed and hugged her sister-like friend back.
“Thank you Flutters. But now it looks like I need to be getting back home.” She said, walking to the reception counter of the spa and looking at the clock at the same time. It was just 8:00 o’clock, but the sky was dark. These early spring days were still cold at night and night seemed to come just as fast as it did in winter. Only now, she had even more concern to get home quickly, for rumors of an obnoxious band of ponies from Fillydelphia had been causing some ruckus after dark in Ponyville. Apparently, nopony had been able to catch them yet, but their horrid vandalism and noise could be heard and seen all over town. Fluttershy was safe from all this, her house being at the edge of Ponyville, but Rarity wanted to get to the boutique as fast as possible, for one could never predict the actions of a simpleton.
“Thank you again for meeting up, dear.” She said to Fluttershy as she paid Aloe and Lotus in the right amount of bits, putting the receipt into her purse with magic. “Same time next week, dearie.” She said, heading out the door after she stepped into her boots. “Ta ta!”
Rarity hurried down the cooling streets, the damp chill settling on her spine, making her shiver and walk just a little bit faster. As she walked, the streetlights started to come on, illuminating her path, until she came to a section of the road that had all their streetlights out. She stopped at the edge of the illuminated circle cast by one of the streetlights. She didn’t like the look of the darkened street and was about to go down a different street, but a quick gust of wind perturbed her from doing such a thing. She fought back her common sense and trudged into the darkness, wanting to get home as fast as her booted legs would carry her.
She instantly disliked her decision. As she walked, she started to get that eerie feeling that sompony was looking at her, following her with their gaze. She pulled her purse closer to her side and started to walk faster, seeing the next streetlamp not too far away. Her spirit picked up. Like a little filly, she believed that if she reached the light, any monsters that terrorized her would vanish. Little did she expect that they would in fact come from the light, while her savior would come from the deepest of darknesses.
She was about to reach the light, when she heard a pony whistling a familiar tune. She stopped dead in her tracks as she saw a pony walk out from behind the streetlamp and towards her, whistling the tune. She started to back up as he pulled a wicked looking knife out of his coat and tossed it into the air, catching it in his mouth. Rarity screamed and turned to run in the opposite direction, but she was caught in a strong bear hug. She screamed again, only to have a hoof clamped over her mouth. Her horn glowed as she tried to use her magic to free herself, but a dark red glow appeared from the darkness and she felt her magic suppressed. A small, brick colored unicorn stepped out of the shadows as the earth pony with the knife came closer.
“Hoof ovah yah bits.” The earth pony said maliciously. Rarity tried to move, but the muscular pegasi holding her ripped her purse off of her arm with one of his wings. He tossed it over to his buddy.
“Hey Blocky, I need some light ovah here.” He said as he opened the purse. The small unicorn obliged and a small orb of magician’s light floated over Rarity’s head. The boss was engrossed with the cash in the purse at first, but then he noticed Rarity.
A wicked smile spread across his lips. “Hey, hey, hey. Lookit what we got us here? A pretty dame.” He said stepping closer to Rarity, stroking her face with a hoof. Rarity just scowled at him.
“Hey Gust, let the pretty lady speak.” He said and the pegasi removed his hoof from her mouth.
“So what’s yer name, toots?” he asked.
Rarity spat in his face and the earth pony became enraged. He smacked her with his open hoof and Rarity let out a loud “Oh!”
“Bitch!” the gangpony said. “I’ll teach you how to talk tah me!” he said, his sinister smile coming back. He nodded his head over to an alleyway covered in the darkness. “Why don’t we show her a good time?” The pegasi and unicorn both started to laugh sinisterly and Rarity paled. She had seen one too many police shows to not know what was going to happen next. She tried to fight against the pegasi’s grasp as he carried her closer and closer to her impending doom, but it proved fruitless. As tears of frustration and fear came streaming out of her eyes, she noticed where she was. As the trio carried her closer to the alley where they would do evil things to her, she noticed that this was the alley that the destitute pony had been in earlier…
“Now, I would let you carry on with this in any other occasion,” said the destitute pony as he walked out of the alley they were heading into. “But,” he said with a condescending smirk, “I owe that fair lady a favor.” He said, pointing to Rarity. Rarity’s heart, to her own surprise, did a little flutter as she saw he was still wearing her coat. Surprisingly, he also looked much better than he did before. His silver mane was slicked back and it looked like his gold coat was flickering, the red splotches blazing in the magician’s light. His sudden appearance surprised the trio, but soon the earth pony was laughing.
“You shald move, yah bum. Unless yah wanna get cut.” He said pulling out his knife. Rarity gasped at the threat, but the strange stallion just seemed amused by it.
“Come then coward,” he said, beckoning the earth pony to attack him. “I can smell the fear on you…no, wait. That’s just your mother’s cheap perfume.” With this, the earth pony started screaming swears and rushed at the destitute stallion with the knife swinging wildly. All the destitute pony did was dodge the slashes, making Rarity’s heart leap with worry. But then the earth pony got just a little too close and the destitute pony kicked him under the jaw, sending the knife flying into the air. The destitute pony laughed and kicked the earth pony again, sending his face skywards just as the knife fell down. The knife sunk deeply into the earth pony’s eye which elicited loud wails of pain from him. But this fight wasn’t over, not by a long shot.
Rarity was thrown to the cobblestone as the unicorn and pegasi went off to help their friend. Their friend staggered around screaming swears and crying in pain while the destitute pony just laughed at the oncoming attackers. He quickly punched the pegasi in the nose as the pegasi swung to hit him, then dodged a magical blast from the unicorn. The earth pony came back to attack the stallion, but the stallion grabbed the knife, tearing it out of the earth pony’s head, and whipped it into the unicorn’s throat. Blood covered the pavement as the unicorn stepped back, and fell to the cobblestones chocking and spluttering on his own blood until he made noise no more. At this, the pegasi and earth pony screamed in anger, attacking the stallion with even more ferocity.
The fight lasted eons to Rarity, who from her spot on the ground, saw every kick, buck, bite, dodge, and drop of blood hit the ground. Even as Rarity was shocked, appalled, and disgusted at the reckless fighting and the dead pony on the ground not ten feet from her, some part of her admired the stallion. It was amazing how easily he fought, not being hit or hindered by any of his movements. However, at one part of the fight, the pegasi managed to rip Rarity’s coat.
This signaled the beginning of the end. Rarity suddenly became aware that the stallion’s emerald green eyes were aglow with what seemed like the worst rage and most hate she had ever seen, even worse than when Spike went through his greed-growths. The stallion looked at the tear in the coat and the pegasi and earth pony were pushed away from him by some unknown force. A sudden gust of wind, both drier than the desert and colder than the arctic air, blew through the street making everypony but the stallion become visibly uncomfortable. Suddenly, the stallion, or the coat on the stallion, started to glow, making Rarity suspect he was a unicorn for a moment, but he had no horn, so how could…
The coat ripped apart as flames sprouted from his body, his eyes twin points of fury as Rarity started to feel something…wrong. It felt like the very essence of her soul was being torn apart, like she was being dragged across a salted road of nails and glass. She looked over to the two aggressors and found them both aflame, their mouths wide open in silent screams as the ground shook underneath them. Soon, a jagged maw opened from the earth, sucking the two ponies and their dead friend into the flaming pit, from which Rarity heard the sound of complete silence: a sound that would turn any normal pony insane. But, she felt a power was holding it at bay. She looked over to the stallion and found his glowing green eyes stuck on her.
“Who are you?” Rarity asked, seeing his cutie mark for the first time, a heart, split into two halves and crossed with chains. The pony showed Rarity a grin full of jagged teeth and a serpentine tongue.
“Who am I?” he asked rhetorically. “Why I, my generous lady, am none other than Lucifer, the master of Tartarus.”
“What?” Rarity asked, her mind clogged by the sudden darkness surrounding her. She wanted to ask more, but the darkness fell in on her, leaving nothing but a mental image of Lucifer’s grin in her mind as she faded away.
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Rarity woke up warm and comfortable in her bed, the sun shining down onto her face from a gap in the curtains. She sighed pleasantly as she rolled over, laying in her bed. Her mind urged her to go back to sleep and as she eased back into pleasant sleep, she thought about the spa yesterday and how nice her life is. Oh and meeting that handsome stallion wasn’t something to look over either. He really did look good and he had such a nice smile…
Rarity shot up out of bed, disturbing Opalescence’s sleep near the end of the bed. Suddenly, all the memories of last night rushed her and she found herself wondering how she got into her bed. She got up, a little shaken, and threw on a robe, nervously petting Opalescence as she mewed in disturbance. She didn’t want to think of the dead ponies and their terrible screams, nor of the pit that opened up in the ground leading into Tartarus. As Rarity left her room and went down her stairs, she came to only one logical conclusion: it was all a dream. She must have been so tired when she got home, that she went to sleep in a daze, dreaming the whole thing up. As she entered her kitchen, she grabbed a mug with magic and poured herself a cup of coffee, massaging her temples as she did.
“You do need to lay off the late night spa visits, love.” She told herself. “They always leave you feeling so weird.” She continued before taking a sip of her coffee. As she drank, she suddenly spewed the coffee out of her mouth, very unladylike and very uncharacteristically.
First off, the coffee was hot; incredibly so. Secondly, she didn’t ever remember making the coffee, whether it was this morning or yesterday. She looked at the coffee like it had all the answers to what was going on this morning. She raised the mug to her lips, but instead of drinking, she thought better of it, placing it on her table. She didn’t need any caffeine this morning; all the adrenaline and unanswered questions inside of her had jolted her awake plenty.
She walked into her living room, a small room just on the other side of the shop where she showed off all of her dresses. The living room was cozy and had a bookcase on one side of it, a couch on the other that was next to a fireplace, a large coffee table in the center of the room, and a large ovular window with pillows in its sill, so Rarity could lay there in comfort when reading a book or thinking up new dress designs. However, as she entered the room, she screamed and jumped back. Sitting in the windowsill, was Lucifer, quietly sipping on a mug of coffee and wearing a slick black robe with a red border. He saw her and gave her a small wave of his hoof as he took an amused sip of coffee.
“Y…Y…You!!!” Rarity cried, pointing at him dramatically. “I thought you were just a dream!”
“Oh, I am the dream stallion, but I am no figment of your imagination, dear Rarity.” He said as he got up and the mug of coffee disappeared.
“How did you…Why are you in…Where did you…?”
“Shhhhss.” Lucifer said, putting a hoof on Rarity’s lips after he strode across the room. “After you fainted last night, I took you to your home. Yes, I am in one of your robes, so I’ll just have to repay you for this and for your generosity from before. Also, when you’re lord of Tartarus, it’s not too hard to get a good, hot cup of joe in the morning.”
“But you saved me last night!” Rarity spluttered out. “I think that would be ample repayment for my generosity!” she said, remembering how she gave him a warm coat and umbrella while he had saved her life.
“Ah, maybe, but I’ll let you in on a little secret.” He said, pulling Rarity into a seductive whisper that made her cheeks go red until he actually started to talk. “I have just recently escaped from my prison in Tartarus, and I would like to stay this way. Obviously, since you were the first one to help me, I must repay this generosity of my own. So, until I have a way to repay you, I will be living here.”
“What?” Rarity said in an angry deadpan. “You can’t be serious.” He wasn’t looking to repay any debts; he was looking for a free place to stay!
“Oh, but I am.” He said with a threatening flare of his eyes. Rarity gulped and remembered what happened last night. She had no choice. He may be a bully and a jerk, but he was a bully and a jerk with the powers to rival the princesses, or so it seemed. So for now, Lucifer would get his way until Rarity could think up a way to make him leave. Who knows? Maybe he could even be helpful? But as Rarity looked at his condescending face, she doubted it. She scowled at him and he made a mocking face like he was hurt by her glare.
“You’re a devil, you know that?” Rarity spat at him, leaving the room.
“Speak of me and I will appear…” Lucifer said, trailing it off with nothing but laughter, making Rarity slam the door to her living room shut with her magic to cut off the infuriating stallion-demon-whatever he was. His laughter rang through the house as Rarity stormed off.
Downstairs, Lucifer sat back into the pillowed windowsill and stared out at the Equestiran day. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and innocent ponies galloped and frolicked all throughout the town. Lucifer summoned his coffee and mug back with his powers, it appearing out of thin air with a gout of flame and a sound of a tortured scream. As he sipped on his lava-esque coffee, he sighed. What a beautiful way to start a beautiful day of freedom. And as Lucifer’s eyes started at the ponies outside, an evil smile formed on his lips. Yes, freedom…freedom would be fun…