All That Shimmers

by Justice3442

Chapter 14: The Best Laid Plans of Unicorns and Teenagers

For a while we simply stare out into the vast expanse of barren nothingness. Far away tortured screams sound out from all around us along with many sounds that probably aren’t coming from humans… I’m suddenly not so certain the resounding silence that accompanies this place in my dreams is so bad…

Rarity shakes her head. “We can’t… we’re not actually… You know… down there… Are we?”

“Sure looks that way,” I answer simply. I’m not exactly sure what hopeful things would be appropriate here. Things just went from mind-numbingly horrible to hopeless…

Fluttershy simply lets out a soft whimper as she wraps her arms around herself and begins shaking. Looks like she was faking composure for our sakes and she’s run out of her ability to do so. Can’t say I blame her, I’ve been repressing the urge to burst into tears this entire time…

Rarity walks over to Fluttershy and gently leads her to a swivel chair. “Well what do we do now?” she asks as she looks up at me.

I sigh heavily as I slump against the wall next to the exit. “How the hell—”

Rarity coughs and narrows her eyes slightly.

“… Heck should I know?”

“Well… I just thought… you know…”

I narrow my eyes. “Thought what?” I growl out.

“Well… Out of all of us, you might sort of have the most experience… here… in place like this…”

What hurts the most is that she’s not wrong.

Still, she doesn’t know that and I can feel my face turn hot once again at what sounds like an accusation. “HEY! I didn’t ask to be turned into a demon, alright?!”

Rarity’s face hardens. “No, but you certainly where the one who brought it about!”

“I didn’t know Princess Twilight’s stupid big crown thingy was going to turn me into a demon! I thought it’d make me like her, okay?!”

Rarity releases a short derisive “Ha!” before she gives me a smug look. “You’re nothing like Princess Twilight, and more power certainly isn’t going to turn you into the kind and gentle person that defeated you so easily.”

I’m back on my feet again and storm right up to Rarity leveling an angry index finger. “Listen you fashion obsessed loser. You have no idea what my life was like before I came here. The parts of my life that weren’t spent alone and miserable were spent studying and preparing to be someone who could rule an entire land of subjects which just so happened to be full of monsters and threats this pathetic little world could barely imagine! I spent years focused on that goal and dedicating myself to being the best student I could possibly be! And what did it get me?! Banishment from the only home I ever knew!” I feel like crying, but I feel like yelling even more at the moment. “Cast aside by the pony I loved the most!”

“Hmmm, yes… I can’t imagine why,” Rarity says in casual sarcastic tone that brings my blood to the boiling point.

I pull back my fist, but out of the corner of my eye I catch something yellow and pink before it’s in front of me.

“GIRLS!” Fluttershy cries as she holds Rarity and I away from each other. “Fighting each other is not going to help right now!”

Rarity and I take a few calming breaths and I find a seat far enough away from her that we can converse and but no so close that Fluttershy couldn’t get in-between before either of us gets up to take a swing at the other.

That was close. I don’t know what’ll happen to anyone if I completely lose my temper. Besides, if anyone has a reason to be mad at me, it’s Rarity.

“I’m sorry…” I say. “I just… I just want to put this all behind me and for things to be normal for me at least for a while!” I let out a heavy sigh. “And yet here we are…”

“I know you’re trying, Darling,” Rarity says, “and I’m sorry for antagonizing you… We just need to do something…”

I chuckle. “Maybe you two can secretly follow the demons around to collect something I can embarrass them all with.”

My joke is met with glares from both Rarity and Fluttershy. Guess that one was a bit too soon, even given the current situation.

Ugh… Someone just kill me.

We all jump as we hear a metal door slam open from back in the library.

…Am I just not allowed to even think anything to myself at this point?!

Fluttershy seems to lock up like she just tried to divide by zero in her head. Rarity’s closer to a bookcase large enough to hide behind so I point to it as I run up to Fluttershy. Thankfully, Rarity complies and hides. I haul Fluttershy to hear feet just as we hear heavy footsteps approach accompanied by an inhuman sounding hiss.

Fluttershy goes limp in my arms. The thud she makes as she hits the floor seems distant as the stomping sound of something large gets louder and louder. I dive behind a bookcase next to Rarity and…

…

… Did I just leave Fluttershy right out in the open?

I turn to my side and Rarity’s absolutely disgusted and rage filled glaring confirms that I am, in fact, scum of the earth. It also makes the feeling in my stomach worse. I decide to stare at my boots which are substantially less judgmental.

The sound of another hiss mere yards away from me barely registers as my mind reels over what I just did.

Fluttershy collapsed and my response was to save myself. If this was a test of my friendship under fire, I’m sure I just failed spectacularly.

I don’t think I deserve to have any friends…

… Maybe I really am a monster…

I flinch as I feel Rarity’s hand on my shoulder and turn. No doubt she’s realized I haven’t gotten nearly enough looks reminding my just how terrible I am and…

“Find a way to save us…” she whispers.

I look up in surprise and wipe away tears I didn’t know were there as Rarity gives me a hopeful smile. All this right before she stands up and marches right out from behind the bookcase.

“YOU PUT HER DOWN, RUFFIAN!” Rarity screams as if what she wasn’t drawing enough attention to herself.

I’m in awe. I didn’t think Rarity was brave enough to just yell at something that looks straight out of a mediaeval painting of what lives in Hell but there you go.

Curiosity gets the better of me again and I risk poking my head out slightly to see the outcome of Rarity’s action.

Rarity has marched up to and is trying to lecture something that looks like skin tightly wrapped around muscles and spines in a humanoid shape. The demon has Fluttershy draped over its shoulder. Maybe it’s from her experience dealing with demons already, or maybe concern for her friends is completely over overwriting Rarity’s fear but she just looks angry like she’s about to scold a boy who's gotten a little too ‘friendly’ with Fluttershy. Her bravado fails slightly as the beast grabs her. Rarity shrieks in terror, but to her credit, she does try kicking and punching it a few times. Despite Rarity’s blows, the demons strength is far too much for her to handle and she’s quickly dragged back towards the stairs.

Rarity continues to frantically scream. A scream that grows slightly quieter as I hear thumping footsteps grow further and further away.

I turn and grip me knees tightly as I keep my freak out nice and quiet.

This… this can’t be happening, right? I mean… Okay, weird stuff has been happening lately which is kind of sort of my fault, but that doesn’t mean demons and other mythological beings are just going to crawl out of the woodwork, right?

This is… this is just some sort of bad dream or weird thing the demon inside me is doing to my head, right? … Of course if it is the only way to end it would be to somehow die and hope I wake up.

… Yeah, I don’t think I’m that confident with everything else that’s happened recently.

So… Seems all my new friends have just been captured by demons. Demons that already decorated the windows of a massive board room red using the insides of people for paint. I look down at my handbag. The information to deal with this threat is there, but I don’t have any supplies on hand to actually make the artifacts to the specification the books describe. I don’t think there’s anything I can do for everyone…

I thought things couldn’t  get any worse than crawling out of a carter after attempting to march the student body populace of Canterlot High across dimensions for an epic magic pony war, but most my friends being captured and brutally murdered by demons certainly takes the cake.

No keep it together… Everyone is counting on you. Think…. Think… There’s got to be something I can try.

Suddenly a plan hits me. A plan that’s every bit as bad as anything else I’ve come up with today. I dismiss it almost immediately.

I guess… I guess I’ll have to figure a way out of here and carry on with just Snips and Snails… Assuming I can get out of here or ever get over today and the tragic loss of the only other people to have shown me any real warmth and kindness… People who I was probably the last living person they were seen with … But hey, I’m sure the students and staff of CHS won’t leap to conclusions and assume I had anything to do with their simultaneous mysterious disappearances. You know… Even if I did transform into a demon just last Friday…

…

… Buck my life.

I stand up and start looking around. I need something heavy…

My lungs are burning as I clutch the heavy book in my arms against my chest, but I continue to take step after step up the empty stairwell. I did a very quick search for the heaviest thing I could reasonably carry. In this case, I happened to find a rather old, leather bond, gilded edged Bible someone had left on a table. No doubt abandoned when everyone collectively decided to flee from the library.

This book is pretty I’ll give it that. Certainly a lot more care was put into making it then the “red letter” editions at the books store. But carrying this thing upstairs? Not fun. Still, it’s critical to my plan.

What’s even worse is it’s so heavy that I have to keep both arms occupied holding it and watch my footing as there are now bloody foot prints that look like they were left by some claw-toed sasquatch going up and down the stairs. Falling down the stairs still doesn’t seem that appealing to me.

I guess I could have found something slightly lighter for my needs, but part of me finds the particular book appropriate. Plus I didn’t feel I had a ton of time to track down something else.

I finally make it all the way to the top floor and push my body weight against the large vertical ‘handle on the door that opens back to the stairwell the other girls and I fled down not too long ago. As I open it, I’m greeted by the site of more bloody footprints, many smeared buy what I’m guessing where boots dragged across the carpet.

At least I haven’t seen any of the girl’s bodies or something that looks like an exploded person.

I quietly make me way down the hall, much to surprise I hear the muffled voices Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash arguing with someone… Well… things can’t be too bad if the two are just mad and not in hysterics.  I make my way up to the firehose. Looks like luck has thrown me a bone, albeit one devoid of any scraps of meat on it whatsoever, and the glass has already been broken. One of the girls must have kicked it while they were dragged down the hall.

I set the Bible down and unfurl the coiled hose onto the floor I then gather up the nozzle in my left arm and turn on the water with my free hand. The house goes plump and I tighten my arm around the end as I can practically feel it fight me.

This is a bad idea.

But it’s the only one I’ve got.

Straining to keep the hose from getting out of my grip, I bend down and take the heavy Bible in my right arm. My arms are burning with the strain of the two items in them, but all I need to do is walk a little further. Hose in one arm, Bible in the other, I continue making my way to the boardroom.

I walk up to the still bloody windows and carefully set the firehose down at my feet then step on it. I then take the Bible in both hands. I’ve done lots of stupid things that seemed smart at the time, but I’m really hoping this is a smart thing that only seems stupid at the moment. I rise the Bible high over my head and throw it at the window. It shatters as the glass proves not to have the stopping power for the heavy book.

With the blood splattered glass finally out of the way, I can see inside. The girls, who are tied to swivle chairs lined up against the opposite window, are staring at me with a mixture of surprise and hope (except for Fluttershy who looks quite unconscious). A small group of very large demons that look like they’re made of muscle, spikes, skin and teeth all growl and hiss at me from the corners of the room. From across the boardroom table, something with a squat, round body held up by dozens of spider legs, and heads of a frog, cat, and human looks at me less like I just broke in and more like I just came in without knocking. Speaking of the table, Twilight… This world’s Twilight is asleep or unconscious and tied to the boardroom table much like one would depict a Mayan sacrifice from a movie or something. The room and the windowed walls around it are just covered in chunky globs of blood and blood soaked wads of clothes like a bunch of people were exploded and it just smells horrible.

The whole scene would seem like a very confusing rock video to me if I wasn’t living it.

I bend down and pick up the firehose.

Time to clean up.

All the conscious girls actually cheer me on as I widen my stance and brace myself for the high-pressure jet of water. I turn the handle on the nozzle and a jet of water shoots out. This nearly pulls the hose from my hands, but I hold on tight.

Demons hiss and hold up their hands as water slams into them.

The girls stop cheering and avert their faces as water goes everywhere.

Spider-frog-cat-thing looks at me in irritation, makes eye contact with a few of his large underlings, and simply nods at me. Before you can say ‘fire safety’, a demon dives through the window and runs a claw through the hose which sprays me with a heavy stream of water that knocks me to the ground. Soon I’m being demon handled by a couple of these tall spiky things which drag me into the bloody and very wet board room. Getting a slightly closer look at these things, it strikes me that while ‘spikes and muscles’ seems to be a main theme, their proportions are all over the place. One that’s holding me looks a bit like a giant shaved monkey, with the aforementioned spikes, and the other more like a giant bipedal pig.

My attention shifts as the demons haul my in front of creature mish mash. It… or he judging by the gaunt male face on the human, places a spider leg under my chin. I cringe as I feel the prickly hairs against my skin before the appendage lifts my face up so the demon can look me eye to eye. “Are you under the impression that demons are water soluble?” he asks in a rather gravely, but easily understood voice.

This would have gone a lot better if I had salt and firehoses shot distilled water... Also assuming Hell has wi-fi and I could have memorized the ritual to make holy water and somehow perform it while holding a firehose…  

“I was hoping…” I say simply. I’ve already turned into a demon once this week. I apparently can't step foot into churches, and I have made several possibly mental and one very really journey to Hell. It’s getting harder to surprise me at this point.

I risk a glance at the girls. They’ve managed to cobble together disappointment and reassurance into looks that say, ‘Well, at least you tried.’ Spider-legs suddenly force me to look forward again.

The demon’s lips curl upward. “Still, thanks for showing up. I thought I was going to have to lure you out or track you down.”

Rarity sighs. “Nice work telling the demons about Sunset, Rainbow Dash.”

 “Hey!” Dash protests. “Sunset showed up here on her own!”

“Now Rarity,” Applejack says, “Dash was just tryin’ to keep our spirits up by reminding everyone Sunset was still out there”

Pinkie winces. “Was that a pun? Because even I think that was way too soon, A.J.”

These girls… Get them together and suddenly they’re too preoccupied simultaneously being mad at each other while being best friends to care about anything else going on around them. Even if ‘anything else’ is demons and this crazy animal/human chimera thing in front of me.

Wait… I know this demon. “Ba… ba…”

“What the matter? Cat got your tongue?”  The cat head hisses as the human head laughs, this sounds a bit like something trying to gargle gravel. “Oh… I kill me…” He turns and looks at Twilight with all three heads then motions to her. “But first, I’ll kill her,” he says with a slasher smile on his human face.

“Ba’al…”

Ba’al turns back to me his eyes going wide. He raises a spider leg to his forehead dramatically. “Oh no! You know my name! I have no choice but to do whatever you want!”

“Really?!” Pinkie asks hopefully.

I sigh. “Pinkie… that was sarcasm. Barely concealed sarcasm at that.”

Ba’al chuckles at me. “Of course it was. It’s practically the language of our people.” Ba’al punctuates his sentence with a wink directed at me.

My blood runs cold. What? Why not say ‘my people’. I mean… he could have meant him and the other demons, but they aren’t talking much. Plus he seemed to be paying an awful lot of attention to me when he said it… Uhg… I need to top overthinking this and figure a way out of this mess.

“Seriously!” Rainbow Dash cries. “What is this even about?!”

Applejack sighs. “Rainbow Dash, if he didn’t tell you the last twenty times you asked, what makes you think—”

“Well,” Ba’al interrupts, “I guess I can tell you now that you’re all here.”

“… Oh…”Applejack says simply.

Ba’al continues. “Sleeping beauty here is a spring of magical energy! Well, all of you are, but she’s by far has the most energy. Energy that can very useful if harvested.”

Rarity gasped. “Are you going to hurt her?”

“That depends… I forget how many hearts do humans have? Just the one? Oh… Well… yes… Unless the rest of her organs can figure out how to make up for the loss of her heart pretty quickly after I carve it out of her chest, I dare say I’m going to hurt her.”

“You leave her alone!” Applejack exclaims.

“If it makes you feel better, I’m probably going to do the same to you five.”

Five? As in… the girls minus me?

“Hey!” Pinkie exclaims. “What about the other people who were here?!”

Ba’al manages to move enough spider legs to do a great impression of a shrug. “They were here when we arrived and I didn’t like the decor, so I did some quick D.I.Y.”

“That’s sick!” Rainbow Dash says.

“You should have seen the place before!” Ba’al replies.

We are being held by something that just used people’s insides to do interior decorating. This does not bode well. Maybe I can keep him talking long enough to think of something… anything.

“Well, what are you going to use the magic for?” I ask.

Ba’al turns back to me and caresses my cheek with a prickly spider leg. It is every bit as unpleasant as it sounds.

“I was going to kill the girls to harvest and harvest their natural magical energies to try and find you.”

Me?! What’s so special about me?! You know… aside from the fact that I’m technically a talking, magic unicorn from another dimension. Wait… Could it be that Ba’al and fiends actually know this?!

“But here you are!” Ba’al continues. “I guess I won’t have to kill all these girls to find you after all! I can just kill and consumer their power for the enjoyment of it!”

I know I shouldn’t expect much from a demon, but this one is seriously sick and twisted.

My expression seems to do all the talking I need to.

“Hmph, and I thought you’d have a sense of humor,” Ba’al says as he turns to Twilight and rears up on hind legs so he’s looming above her.

The girls start yelling, arguing, pleading, begging for Ba’al to reconsider. Somehow despite the noise and despite the fact that we’re surrounded by hellish creatures, I can’t help but stare at Twilight Sparkle. Her hair is a tangled mess placed in an uneven bun… She’s still wearing her school uniform which I guess isn’t that much of a shocker, but it doesn’t look nearly as well kept as the uniforms on the other students we saw, even considering the smears of blood on it. This combined with her hair it gives the impression she doesn’t care too much about her personal appearance… She also decided to come here instead of using her school’s own library and presumably came alone.

Maybe she’s not the popular girl I had her pegged for. I mean… I haven’t talked to her or anything, but she doesn’t seem like she’s just like the Twilight Sparkle that came to this world and united all my… uh… her… our…? friends against me.

My attention snaps back to the matter of hand as a purple glowing black… tear in reality forms in front of the head demon and a sword with a wavy blade floats out hilt first.

Right… Dwell on how popular Twilight is later. If she lives… If I live… If any of us live.

The frog head turns and the sides of its massive yellow lips lift up into a grim smile. “Are you really just going to sit and watch this happen?” it asks in the demons gravelly voice.

One of the girls is chanting “I don’t want to die… I don’t want to die… I don’t want to die…”

… No… Not just one of the girls… Me… I’m chanting that… Despite the horrible mess my life is in, I really don’t want to die… There’s still so much I haven’t done… so much to correct… This can’t be how it ends for me.

I’ve spent years mastering magic and learning what it would take to be a good ruler, and then years figuring out what it would take to get the power I need to be taken seriously by my teacher.

Years of diligence and suffering to be something more than I am.

It can’t end this way.

I won’t let it.

I’m not going to die this way.

I’M NOT!

I try struggling in the grip of my inhuman captors again and it amazes me at how effortlessly I pull my arms free. The simian like spiked covered demon reaches out to restrain me, but I reach out my hand… no… a claw to its face and slice into it as if I just attacked a cooked turkey with a hand made out of razor sharp carving knifes.

I try to scream as I realize what’s happening, but maniacal laughter escapes my mouth instead. Scenes from my past begin to overlay in front of my vision… I’m walking down a hall of Canterlot High school holding photos as claws tear into the pig-like demons chest. It collapses to the ground as I present the photos to a terrified male student wearing thick glasses.

I leap at Ba’al himself and watch razor sharp claws plunge through the soft flesh of the demon, past its necks and into its furry center surrounded by spider legs. The legs thrash and the frog and cat head seem to wail in pain as I feel a thick black ickor ooze out from the wound.

All of this plays out as I’m also staring at a scene of me blackmailing a girl with long purple hair with big, gold rimmed glasses to stay out of some dance or other.  She’s bawling as I flaunt my knowledge of some embarrassing childhood event from her past. I can’t even begin to describe how incredibly petty it feels given the current situation.

As the life seems to exit Ba’al, the head of a man smiles at me, even as its eyes grow dim and a trickle of black viscous ooze dribbles from his mouth.

As the purple-haired girl begs me to keep quiet and promises she’ll drop out of the event, I can’t help but think back on some of the things Ba’al said to me and wonder if this is what it wanted all along.

The other demons shriek and howl almost as if I, or demon me, had stabbed them instead. Instead of attacking they double over and seem to implode into a sort of smoky nothingness. The girls all collapse to the ground. Still seemingly pretty shaken up from what has happened, but alive, at least…

Unfortunately the demons I killed, including Ba’al burst into flames.

I can’t control my currently demonic, body, I’m watching myself have a magnificent fight with Flash where I say some absolutely terrible things about him, and now the room is on fire.

This sucks.

I casually stroll over to Rainbow Dash and gently clasp her chin in my claws. I’ve never wanted to scream so much in my life. If those things can tear through a demon’s face without effort, I doubt Dash’s chin and cheekbones will put up much resistance.

“Sunset…?” Rainbow Dash utters in a terrified, yet somewhat hopeful tone.

“Hello, Rainbow Dash,” Demon me greets. “So nice to see you again”— I can feel my lips pull open into a big toothy grin –“and to make you pay for last time, of course…”

Rainbow Dash looks up at me with a look of terror I wouldn’t think the girl capable of as I feel my claws tense ever so slightly.

“HEY! LEAVE HER ALONE.”

I turn as I also yell at Snips and Snails with enough force they actually look scared of me. I catch a glimpse of Pinkie wielding the Bible I threw through the window and everything suddenly goes dark as she swings it at my face.

“She’s coming to!”

Wha… what?

I open my eyes and I’m suddenly staring up at Fluttershy from her lap as Applejack leans her head over me.

“Ow!” I hear Rainbow Dash cry out.

“Stop moving!” Rarity demands. “Do you want scars all over your face?!”

“Maybe…” Rainbow Dash huffs out. “Might be cool…”

“Rainbow Dash!” I cry. Fluttershy and Applejack barely lean back in time as I sit up.

Rainbow Dash is sporting several vertical aligned cuts around her chin that are bleeding, but Rarity seems to be on the job with a first aid kit. She and Rarity are also soaking wet still. In fact, so am I… Everyone’s clothes are pretty much drenched.

Rainbow Dash smiles at me like I’m somehow not responsible for the cuts that were almost me slicing clean through her face. “Hey Sunny, glad you can join the land of the still living.”

Fluttershy helps me up. We seem to be hanging out in the parking lot of the library next to Rarity and Pinkie’s cars. I glance over at the library. There’s now firetrucks in front of it and smoke pouring out of the board room on the top floor. A crowd of people are now gathered around and watching as firefighters do that thing right in their name. I think some of the people here where even in the library before they ran out of it.

“Now take it easy, Sunset,” Fluttershy says. “You’ve been out ever since the” –Fluttershy shutters— “the boardroom incident.”

Applejack nods. “Fluttershy came too shortly after we all got out of there. We managed to get everyone out before the fire department and police showed up.”

I look at Rarity. “Wait… so we just popped back here?”

Rarity just shrugs. “I’m not about to question our good fortune. I guess the library came back when… you, erm… skewered that ghastly head demon.”

I take another quick look around. “Pinkie?” I ask.

The girls grins sheepishly at me.

Fluttershy speaks up, “Pinkie’s er… Talking to the police for us…”

Applejack nods. “Hopefully a little bit of Pinkie goes a long way and they won’t want t’ talk to anyone else after that.”

I glance towards flashing police lights to see Pinkie in front of a sunglass wearing officer with a beard. Her hair looks a bit waterlogged and droopy compared to its usually perkiness. She appears to be explaining… something… Actually, whatever it is, Pinkie doesn’t seem to be talking about what happened in the library at all… She’s um…

I watch as Pinkie mimes riding a bicycle… No wait… mines riding a unicycle.

She’s um…

A sudden thought occurs to me and I turn towards the other girls.

“Twilight…?”

“She’s fine, sugarcube,” Applejack says. “We got her out of there and handed her off to the paramedics.”

Rainbow Dash shakes her head. “She slept through the entire thing, if you can believe it.” Rainbow Dash finishes her statement with a laugh then flinches. “Ow… It hurts to laugh.”

“Would you hold still?!” Rarity cries as she attempts to apply more bandages to your face. “Sunset… erm… that demon put some nasty cuts on you. You’re lucky you don’t need stitches.”

I wince. “Ididn’tmeanto! Ididn’twantto! I’msososorry!”

“Whoa there,” Applejack says. “Calm down Sunset. You look more shook up than a herd of cattle that just heard a rattler.”

“Well she did turn into a demon again,” Rainbow Dash helpfully reminds everyone.

Applejack and Rarity shoot her a ‘not helping’ look.

“What?” Rainbow Dash says. “I’m just saying it makes sense that she’d freak out after what happened.”

My head is spinning. Everyone’s alright… relatively speaking that is. But the gravity of what just happened is too much. I can’t just pretend we weren’t ambushed by demons who seemed interested in me… Oh, it’s let’s not forget what happened after I went demon mode and got rid of them all…

I raise a hand up to my forehead. “I can’t believe I tried to ka… tried to kill—”

Pinkie walks back up to the group as she brushes her palms against each other. “Well, mission accomplished. The police don’t want to talk to any of us and have no idea what went on in there. Though, one does have a better idea of how to juggle livestock while riding a unicycle. Oh! Hi, Sunset Shimmer!”

How the hell can this girl look at me like I wasn’t intending to kill her just a few minutes ago?

Pinkie just smiles at me. “I’m really happy that you came back to help us! I’m also happy that you stopped being all demony when I hit you in the face with a Bible. Sorry about that, but you looked like you were going to hurt Rainbow Dash! And I know you’d never forgive yourself if you… er… Demon you hurt any of us, so—”

“Pinkie?” Fluttershy interrupts in a half grunt. “Maybe save it for later? I think Sunset just stopped supporting her own weight.”

Applejack quickly grabs one of my arms and places it over her shoulders as she and Fluttershy share the task of keeping me up.  

My mind is reeling. I just… I just can’t keep up with everything that happened and girls just talking about my transformation like it was just some little thing that happened on our library field trip.

“I can’t believe I turned into that thing again!” I say to… well to myself mostly. This is worse than bad dreams and needing to keep my temper in check. I’m still a threat… a threat to everyone close to me to say nothing of the planet at large.

“It’s alright! We can deal with that later.” Applejack assures. “The important thing is we all made it out alive.”

“Alright?” I turn staring at Applejack. I can feel hot tears stream down my face. I’m definitely relieved no one is dead, but I’m pretty flippin’ far from ‘alright’. “Alright?! I almost cut up Rainbow Dash! And I don’t think I would have stopped at that!”

“Could have, but didn’t!” Rainbow Dash said. “You saved us all!”

“So?” I counter. “The only reason I didn’t turn around and finish the job those other demons started is because Pinkie hit me in the face with that huge Bible!”

“Sunset, it’s alright!” Pinkie says as she places a hand on my shoulder. “You weren’t yourself! We know the real you wouldn—”

“NO! DON’T TOUCH ME!” I forcefully swat Pinkie’s arm off of me. “I’M A MO-MO-MOWHAA—” I burst into one of my patented freak out cries rather than finish the word.

It’s all too much… I just… I just can’t. I think Pinkie goes in to comfort me, because I feel warm and comforting arms around me and I even let them hold me for a while before I completely flip and struggle free.

I want the girls to get the hell away from me, make me feel better, feel hurt enough that they leave me outright, and not abandon me all at the same time.

At some point I break out of my hysterics long enough to demand someone take me home. I have to do something… I have to try to get this thing out of me before I transform again.

Soon a couple of the girls are forcing me into Pinkie’s car and the next I’m crying and begging forgiveness as one of them puts a seatbelt around me.

Everything’s a blur. I can’t make out what’s going on or even who I’m talking or screaming to through all the tears. My head hurts. My body aches. I need to get home. I have to fix this. I don’t want to live like this.

What is no doubt a rather harrowing car trip later, Pinkie has gotten me back to my complex.

She’s barely stopped the car before I rush out and sprint to my apartment. I slam the door behind me and lock it. I quickly close all the blinds as well.

“Not even going to say goodbye to your… ex-friends…?” A dark, echoing version of my own voice calls out in my head.

“Shut up! Shut up!” I shout back.

“You know they’ll want nothing to do with you after this, right? Sure they were happy enough that none of them died that they tolerated you for a little bit. But after your extended freak out session, you’re probably the last person they want to see.”

“JUST SHUT UP!” I shriek as I practically fall into my desk chair and pull my tablet from my handbag. I quickly bring up the book I was reading earlier; The Lesser Key of Starswirl the Bearded, it’s full of chants and seals all supposed to aid in summoning and controlling demons. Thankfully, I know just the one that should help me control this thing inside me.

I quickly swipe at my tablet until it’s displaying a five point star surrounded by a circle. Several symbols and letters have been writing between the lines of the star and circle around it.

“You can’t seriously think this is going to work, Do you?”

“GET OUT OF MY HEAD!” I cry as I take off my jacket. This is soon followed by my shirt and bra, all which get unceremoniously discarded on the floor.

“Oh no, Nudity! My only weakness.” Demon me says with fake terror.

“You’re going to find this a lot less funny when I finally get you out of me!”

I open one of my desk drawers and pull out a glue stick and uncap it. I then start running it over my chest as I stare at my tablet and try to copy the pentagram, symbols, and words displayed.

Demon me tut-tuts. “You still haven’t a clue do you…”

This is supposed to be on a silver medallion that I wear on my chest. However, since I don’t have a medallion or an engraver, hopefully gluing some real silver powder to my chest will be enough. Thankfully a trophy or plaque or something that warranted a ceremony was on the line for some arts project and I went very far with my supplies to help win it. I pull out a respectable bottle of silver powder and pour some onto my chest to better see what I’ve done so far.

“You’re seriously going to regret this if this silly little thing you’re trying even comes remotely close to working,” demon me says. She continues to laugh and mock me as I apply more glue.

Well, as far as low points in my life go, I’m not sure anything can top (or go under in this case) crawling out of a crater after being blasted by a literal rainbow of friendship (still number one since all my friends, or in all likelihood former friends, are still alive), but arguing with myself as I’m topless and taking a glue stick to my chest so I can apply silver powder has got to be pretty dang close.

Still, I keep at it, losing complete track of time, ignoring how tired and fatigued I feel from everything that’s happened. I have to get rid of thing. I just have to!

“Hey! Wake up!” an unfamiliar voice calls out. Male… but nasally and high-pitched.

“Wha…?”

Great, I must have passed out at some point and I’m cold and my back hurts on top of everything else. The hard feeling against my cheek is letting me know I passed out sitting at my desk.

“Seriously! I could have stayed in my own dimension and a paid a dwarf to drink until it blacked out if I wanted to watch some big, hairy, ugly thing drool all day.”

…Dimension…? Dwarf…? Big?! Hairy!? UGLY?!

My eyes shoot open to glare at whoever is disturbing my uncomfortable, and slightly damp, desk nap.

Make that a whatever. Its skin is blood red, its eyes are glowing red, it has long pointed ears, a pointed chin, and it’s giving me a look as if I’m very much wasting its time.

Its expression softens once it sees I’m awake. “Hello fire-haired… uh… lady?”

I feel my eyes widened.  Its lips curl up into a demonic looking smile showing off a mouth full of razor sharp teeth.

“I came all the way here just to meet you,” it says with a mad look in its eyes that when coupled with the smile pretty much screams ‘homicidal killer’.

Please…

Send help.