//------------------------------//
// Old Friends 
// Story: Rarity and the Devil 
// by The_Last_Centurion 
//------------------------------//

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.



Old friends


Rarity’s scream hung in the air as Lucifer reacted, unleashing close to his full power in a short span of a few milliseconds. First, he froze time in the boutique, getting as close to Rarity as possible and between her and the attacker. In the span of frozen time, he managed to see who the attacker was and his eyes narrowed. The attacker’s eyes had gone completely maroon, as they did when a daemon was about to go into a frenzy. Lucifer could feel the shadows course over him as he glared at the attacker and let go of his hold over time.
Behind him, Rarity still screamed, but Lucifer put up a hoof to shield her from the attacker’s maw. The stallion sunk his teeth into Lucifer’s leg, but he paid no attention to it and flicked him across the room, letting him hit the back wall and fall down. 
“How…what…” Rarity spluttered, scared for her life. Lucifer had a cooler mind though and shoved her behind him as the stallion rose, licking his chops.
“You always did have a prideful taste on you, Lucifer.” The stallion said with an evil smile that showed rows and rows of predatory teeth.
“And you always oozed gluttony, Beelzebub.” Lucifer spat back, looking at his leg. There was a large chunk of it missing, but his dark magic was taking care of the wound, forming shadows about his leg and solidifying, like a living cast.
“How did you get out?” Lucifer asked, his eyes darkening.
“I just followed the rest. While you managed to snake your way out of the pit, the rest of us had to use some pretty serious magic…some magic that made me mighty hungry.” Beelzebub spoke, his eyes turning maroon and his body being flung at the crown prince of hell in an animalistic fury. 
Lucifer hit him in the stomach and again on one of his wings, making it crumple. However, Beelzebub acted back, biting and ripping a portion of Lucifer’s shoulder out and sending black daemon blood spurting out of the wound. Lucifer called upon his shadows and formed them into spikes which he drove into Beelzebub’s eyes. As Beelzebub screamed in pain and his own maroon magic worked on his wounds, Lucifer panted and felt himself start to heal. He looked around at the destruction they were causing in the Boutique and remembered that Rarity was right behind him. 
He cast a glance behind his wounded shoulder with a twinge of pain and saw the terror-stricken mare. Her face, mane, and coat were a mess of oily black-Lucifer’s daemon blood-and stains of maroon coated the floors as Beelzebub stumbled about in blind fury. Lucifer knew by the look on the mare’s face that she couldn’t take much more of this. She was frozen in fear as it was, and if this fight lasted any longer, it would just get even more frightening. So, Lucifer acted.
He let out a yell and ran at Beelzebub, tackling him and sending both of them to the ground in a withering mass. However, instead of hitting the floor of the Boutique, they fell into a portal created by Lucifer’s shadows. They fell for seemingly forever, but the sudden appearance of trees and forest landscape pulled the two apart. 
Beelzebub hissed at Lucifer as his eyes became maroon and started to wither around in his own skull. The prince of pestilence and gluttony was about to reveal his true form, that of the lord of the flies, a terrible creature of gluttony and living swarms of maggots and flies. Lucifer knew what this would mean, so he too started to release himself. However, he held back, limiting himself to only using half of his true power. It was tough to control his impulses to release his full form, especially since they were enhanced each time he used more of his dark powers, but he knew if he did not limit his powers, something terrible would happen: mainly, the end of the world. 
Despite releasing only half of his power, shadows and darkness erupted from him, tainting his coat and mane completely grey and leaving his eyes to be burning green coals in the ashen body he now had. His shadows raced around, coating everything around him, not killing them, but bringing out their darker sides. The plant life around him reacted, flowers growing wicked thorns, trees becoming withered and deadly, and their roots raced over the ground to hoard nutrients. 
Beelzebub didn’t look much better. His whole body had become a mass of living maggots, all which convulsed and wrapped around themselves in convoluted knots. His whole body gave of a gluttonous aura, starving the plants and life around him. Saliva dripped from his moving mouth along with a howl of starvation and hunger, despite the fact that he was incredibly fat. Beelzebub stood and the fight began.
Raising his wings, Beelzebub shot two lashes made of maggots at Lucifer, trying to tangle him and devour him completely. In hell, both Lucifer and Beelzebub knew the Lucifer would have won. Yet, Beelzebub also knew of Lucifer’s dilemma. Thus, he attacked vehemently, trying to cover the prince of darkness in maggots and devour him completely. As Lucifer’s leg was caught in one of Beelzebub’s attack, the gluttonous daemon lunged at him, his mouth wide open and ready to devour Lucifer completely. 
But this was not where Lucifer would fall. He felt his fellow prince bite into his right foreleg and tear it from his body, making him elicit a yell of anger. However, in this close-range, Lucifer had a direct shot at Beelzebub. His shadows shot up behind the fat monstrosity, trapping him, while Lucifer assaulted him with his own hooves and with his shadows. Maggot-flesh was ripped and torn, sending maroon blood spurting everywhere. Lucifer attacked and attacked, growing more and more tired as he knew this was quickly becoming a stalemate. Beelzebub, even in hell, had always been a worthy opponent. In the ranking of hell, he had always been number three and could always stand his ground against Lucifer.
Now, Lucifer was at half power and while his attacks certainly harmed Beelzebub, yet not enough. As Lucifer staggered back, gasping in exhaustion, Beelzebub was reforming himself, laughing in disdain.
“I don’t know why,” he said with a malicious buzz to his voice, “but I know you are holding back. You know, you will die because of this. Is it because of the female? After you die, she’ll be my first meal…”
Lucifer couldn’t answer verbally, but was able to answer with his shadows. Two shot up from the ground, pierced through the daemon’s body and came out of his eyes. Beelzebub screamed while Lucifer started to laugh. Slowly, his power began to leak out of him, his self-control losing to his own submersion in dark power and something else: anger. He was angry that this lowly fool would dare threaten something of his, something the Prince of Darkness held dear! His laughter grew and grew as shadows started to pour out of his body, his eyes starting to glow greener and greener, until slowly fading. As Lucifer readied to unleash his full power, something rocketed out of the sky, landing between he and Beelzebub and blasting them both back with a flash of light and power. Lucifer had never forgotten that power, so he knew who it was, but not how he had gotten here. 
Through bleary and dazed eyes, Lucifer gazed at one of his oldest rivals: the Archangel Uriel.

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He had felt it while flying over the Everfree, only miles away from Ponyville. Something like that of the shadow creatures was stirring and he could feel it. However, this power was tenfold that of the creatures, making his cutie mark start to glow as soon as he felt it. He started to fly towards the dark energy and quickly, before it could get away. He flew faster and faster, going at speeds he didn’t even know he was capable of, blazing through the daylight and towards the infernal darkness. Suddenly, his wings blazed with white flames. While he should have been scared and worried, he was not. For some reason, this all felt natural. 
Within seconds he was above the source, no sources, of darkness. He spotted them fighting and dove in towards the one emitting the most darkness, a sickening creature that seemed to be made of maggots. He landed between it and another creature, this one looking very much like the creatures that attacked him earlier, only without wings and of a lighter shade. He glared at it for a minute, before turning back to the maggot-monster and being hit in the face by one of the creature’s strange limbs. 
Uriel staggered back, but the limb started to smoke and boil as it hit him, making the monstrous creature scream in pain and wither. Uriel stepped towards the creature, his body wings covered in white flames. He struck the creature quickly, and it fell back. Where he had inflected wounds on its body, ice started to sprout, quickly covering the wounds and growing out, covering the creature’s body slowly. The daemon quickly reacted, attacking Uriel back and cutting through Uriel’s body in many places. Yet, Uriel paid no heed and struck again and again, quickly coating Beelzebub with ice. A final scream was caught in the ice as Beelzebub stopped moving. Uriel raised a wing to shatter the beast, but a voice called “Wait!” from behind him. He turned and saw that the other creature was rising. His eyes narrowed and he started towards it…but then fell to the forest floor. 
It was then that Uriel became aware of how much blood he had lost to the hands of Beelzebub. He tried to rise, but to no avail, and fell back down, panting. He could feel the wounds healing, but he also heard the other daemon walk towards him. He grit his teeth as something inside of him reared its head at his approach. 
Lucifer pulled himself up from the trunk of the tree he rested upon and staggered over past his rival and to his once friend, Bebrial, or Beelzebub now. He put a hoof on the ice and felt it start to cover his own hoof too. For a second Uriel thought that this daemon would free the other one, but all Lucifer did was sigh sadly.
“This is great!” Lucifer remembered about the daemon. At the time, he was surrounded by his fellows and was teary-eyed. “I just want to always be surrounded by my friends!” Oh, how far he had fallen. How far they had all fallen. Lucifer removed his hoof from the incarcerated daemon and melted the ice from his hoof. Then he stood back. He knew what he must do.
Uriel’s eyes went wide as he saw the daemon melt the ice that had spread onto his own limb. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a little alarm went off. It told him that this was the one and the only one. Only he had enough power to fight the ice and the holy light. It was none other than Lucifer, the Prince of Hell and the leader of the daemons such as this one. As he stepped back from the ice and rose to stand on two hooves, raising his other two in the air, Uriel wondered if he would free his compatriot. He grit his teeth and started willing his body to move, despite the intense pain. If he had escaped with this one, than how many more had too? He needed to stop these two, at least. Then he would capture the rest. He would not fail his task.
Lucifer rose to an upright position and raised his hooves to the sky, summoning the greatest of his dark powers. The earth began to shake and soon, rifts began appearing in the ground near him. He could see Uriel trying to move towards him from the corner of his eye, but he paid no heed. His battle was not with Uriel. That was not who he was anymore. 
The rifts became bigger and bigger, converging at a point near the iced over form of Beelzebub and the ground opened, releasing a pillar of smoke, screams, and tangible pain. It was a gateway to hell, opened once more. As the ground around it started to crumble in, Beelzebub started to slide downwards towards the open pit and Lucifer gave him one last look of sadness. This was farewell, but would it be the final one? After Beelzebub fell, Lucifer closed the pit and suppressed all of his power, except for the healing shadows he needed to move.
Uriel had stopped moving. He was shocked by this behavior. He didn’t know why exactly he was shocked, as he had never seen this pony before, but still he did not expect this. In fact, the look on the pony’s face was even more shocking. It wasn’t just grim, but sad-incredibly so. The pony looked like he had just lost a best friend. Which he had.
Lucifer turned around and staggered towards the prone form of Uriel. He had seen Uriel in many forms and many times throughout his immortal life, but never did he look so surprised. Lucifer managed to give a small chuckle as he approached looking at the pony and realizing with an even greater shock that this pony wasn’t Uriel. Rather, he was Uriel, but not entirely so: he was mostly mortal. Lucifer sat down next to him and started to talk.
“Are you Uriel?” he asked.
“Yes.” The pegasi answered softly. Lucifer snorted. He never thought he would use “quietly” to describe Uriel. 
“Is that really you Uriel?” Lucifer asked with suspicion.
“I am Uriel, Lucifer.” He answered.
“But why are you not…you know…immortal?” 
“Because I’m not one of the princesses.”
Lucifer started laughing. “So let me get this straight: You ARE Uriel, but you are obviously NOT the Uriel I know. However, you have his powers. So you are Uriel, but not completely. Strange. ” 
“Ummm…” Uriel replied, scratching his head. He didn’t know what Lucifer was talking about, but he knew something was holding him back from springing on him at the moment and sending him the way of his friend.
Lucifer rolled his eyes as the pegasi showed confusion, but then he saw his cutie mark. It hurt his eyes as he saw it, but then he knew what was going on.
“I understand now,” he said, covering his eyes and pointing to Uriel’s cutie mark, “it’s your cutie mark.”
Uriel turned around and looked at it, his head tilted. Lucifer looked at him and pulled at his face in tiredness. “You don’t know what it means, do you?”
Uriel shook his head. He had been taught in many areas, all to be the best Fleet Admiral Equestria ever had, but dealings with full-blooded daemons (other than keeping them on the right side of the Stygian Gates) were foreign to him. He had never know what his cutie mark was, other than some sort of lettering, and never really sought to find out. Sure, it was weird and ponies stared, but he had better things to do.
“It’s your name.” Lucifer said with a flash to his emerald eyes. “It’s from an old alphabet that not even known by your Princesses. It comes from the beginning times of man. It is your name in the tongue of the sons of Abraham.”
Uriel didn’t understand, but looked at his cutie mark. Suddenly, it started to glow and Uriel convulsed on the ground, holding his head in pain. Flashes of light and glimpses of memories blazed behind Uriel’s eyelids as parts of his angelic past raced to and fro in his mind. He started to go into what Lucifer thought was a seizure, so Lucifer sighed, held his head, and kept his mouth open so he wouldn’t bite off his tongue. 
“Every time.” Lucifer said with a sigh.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Uriel woke up with a fuzzy feeling in his mouth. He tried to rise from where he laid, but his head screamed at him. He laid back down, feeling a cold wooden floor beneath him and hearing rain hit a window pane nearby. He wondered what had happened, but then he saw Lucifer sitting in a chair in the darkened room, out of the window. From what Uriel could see on the ground, a measly sheet covering him, was that they must have been in an apartment. This guess was because outside of the window, a wet, dark city could be seen.
“We’re in Seaddle.” Lucifer said slowly, his gaze never leaving the city. “I don’t want to fight you Uriel. I know you don’t know who you are right now, but try to believe me. I’m not your enemy anymore.”
Lucifer rose and went up to a wall of the Spartan room. “Look…I’m going back to Ponyville. Come after me if you want to, but I…I know my other ‘friends’ are here and in other corners of Equestria. I won’t do anything, so go send them back first. I know it’s hard to believe, especially from me, but I’m not lying. I just…” he said his voice trailing off.
He coughed. “Belphegor is here. I know Asmodeus is somewhere near Fillydelphia while Mammon and Leviathan are together in Manehattan. I don’t know where Satan is. Deal with them first. If you must, then come after me, but know, I’m not going back. I’m done with hell.” He said, his shadows circling around on the wall, pulsing with dark energy. 
As he started to step into the portal he was making, he cast a glance back at his long-time rival. “You should get some rest. Your body can’t handle fighting a prince of hell and then also remembering angelic memories. I think you can also become a full immortal now, if you really want to…but…well, I’ll see you maybe. Goodbye.” He said, stepping into the portal and disappearing out of the room. 
Uriel was left alone with nothing but the sound of rain hitting glass to comfort him. He remembered fighting the other daemon almost instinctively, then talking to Lucifer, and then…Pain rapped the inside of Uriel’s skull as he tried to remember his angelic past. He stopped though, once the pain became unbearable. How could he have a second memory? He remembered his past, his childhood, his parents, his home, his time in the Lunar Battalion, all the hard work he put into the Equestrian Navy, late night talks with the Princesses, celebrations with his sailors… It seemed impossible, yet he knew he had other memories. Ones that didn’t actually happen to him as a mortal. Ones that were as old as Lucifer himself. How did he know this? 
Because he knew each and every daemon Lucifer had told him about. And he remembered them. 
He remembered them from before the Great War.
However, he couldn’t chase after them now, his body beaten and tired. All he could do was rest his eyes, and know that the keys to his future laid in his memories. He drifted off to a sleep filled with memory-dreams that may have made him restless to an observer, but strengthened him to anyone that could see him truly. This was good, for he would need all the strength he could muster in the coming days.