Celestia strolled through the corridors with an ironic sense of calmness considering she was hauling around a huge demonic sword. The base of the large blade rested on her shoulder and the length of metal stretched out until it's notched tip marked the weapons end. A small squadron of guard accompanied her through the halls as she walked, their job to make sure nopony jumped her and took the weapon. However they weren't really needed, they were more a hindrance than anything. Having to wait for them to re-organise themselves after thinning their formation to go through a door seemed somewhat pointless. But what can you do?
They were on their way to the archmage Geryon's quarters in the palace. Their they could find the unicorn and see what he could do about inspecting the blade and it's strange magical properties. Celestia was adept in the use and understanding of magic, however she wasn't widely involved with it outside of raising/lowering the sun, levitating scrolls and tea-cups. She also knew a few basic combat spells and some speed enhancing spells which were used in her battle with Berial, however that was about as much as she knew.
Their were only three other ponies in Equestria capable of magical knowledge and use to a larger extent than she. Her sister Luna, who was currently relaxing in her quarters knew a little more of combat magic than Celestia but wasn't massively knowledgeable in magic as a whole. Leaving Geryon and Twilight Sparkle as the only two who could possibly decipher the magical mysteries of Equestria.
Geryon was a strange case indeed. Luna knew him far better then Celestia, and apparently before he was even located on their realm. Geryon had literally come into existence in Equestria from another plane, another universe. He was usually working his flanks off and spent a lot of time looking into expanding the uses of known magic as well as exploring the possibilities of more types of magic. Like Luna he possessed the ability to 'Dream-Walk', but was unable to manipulate dreams like she could. He claimed to have inherited it. But his most interesting ability is that he can warp his perception of time, slowing it down while retaining his normal thought speed. To anypony not in the know, he appears to just have insanely quick reaction times. He was also immortal, which was nice. Having another timeless being around helped when she wanted to speak to someone wise after losing a few IQ's speaking with Canterlot nobles.
As for his involvement in his original realm, Celesia knew only that he learned a lot of lessons from spending two thousand years bound to a movement restricting carriage and locked in some form of Colosseum. He spent so long in a state of sleep, dreaming to pass the time, that he occasionally met Luna as she traversed the space between dreams and reality during her time in banishment on the moon. That was apparently how they came to know each other, and Geryon appeared to find comfort in conversing with others when he felt like doing so. His likeness with Luna gave the two a solid friendship and they mostly talked in their dreams.
Coming to his door one of the guards on duty outside tapped the door heavily with his spear. It was a short while waiting before the door finally crept open and and electric blue head peaked slowly through the gap. His fur was just as so-blue like lightning, and his eyes and mane were a much darker blue, almost purple. His mane also had a white highlight running through it and lined up well with the horn intruding from it. He was taller than your average pony due to his age, and anypony could literally feel the trembles in the magic plane when he cast a spell. He had a rather intimidating presence. A little like she had on ponies talking to her while in day-court. Something seemed out of place though, his eyes darted around before finally setting on her to get a good look at her frowning expression.
"Whats that?" He snapped quickly, glancing at the partially hidden sword on Celestia's back. She couldn't help but notice some paranoia and fear in his eyes.
"Oh, this?" She pulled the sword away so he could see it in all his glory. And when she did she saw something in Geryon snap. His ears fell flat against his head and he gulped hard. He opened the door so that Celestia could enter and gestured for her to hurry.
"Come in, quickly!" He sounded stressed and Celestia decided to figure out what was wrong with him. She left her guard squadron outside as they all took positions and prepared to guard the door for anypony who might disturb her. Walking into the daylight lit room, she noticed it wasn't as light as it should be for a room at that time of day. The door thudded closed behind her as she took note of the desks which sat next to book-shelves and enchanting tables. They were covered with scraps of paper and random scribblings and what looked to be him connecting events together in a big 'conspiracy web' on one of the walls.
"Geryon, what's all this?" She said narrowing her eyes as she turned to face him. But halfway through her turn he rushed past her and headed over to where the web of pictures and news articles was plastered onto the wallpaper. Completely ignoring her question he continued to babble nonsense about 'it all making sense'. His magic picked up an inkwell as he hastily dunked a thin roll of paper into it, before drawing more lines to a rough drawing of the sword Rebellion at the end. Listed underneath were strange names, a few were being written in bold like they were more important. 'Sparda', 'Dante' and 'Mundus' were the larger ones, with 'Vergil' and 'Arkham' written slightly smaller underneath. There were also the drawings of two other blades as well as what looked to be a set of identical amulets with arrows drawn between them. Celestia had seen enough, his drawing were almost maniacal to behold and made absolutely no sense to her.
"Geryon." She said loudly and sternly, putting a hoof on his shoulder. He swirled around and his eyes locked on the shining blade of Rebellion.
"Where did you find that blade?" He asked in all seriousness, like it was a matter of life and death.
"I found it attached to a beast I encountered when I investigated the forest-fire, why?"
"That blade..." He started, pointing to it like it was some kind of monster. "... is Rebellion. The sword wielded by the demon, Dante."
"Dante?" Celestia glanced at the name an the connections on the wall. She looked more closely: The three blades were aligned in a horizontal line. Rebellion was furthest on the left, in the middle was a slightly shorter dual edged sword with a more triangular shape. It was labelled 'Force Edge'. And on the right was a blade obtaining a thinner stature, it sported a curve and a very small handle guard. It was labelled 'Yamato'. All of these blades were connected to the name Sparda, but Rebellion was also connected with Dante and Yamato was lined up with Vergil.
"Dante is the last remaining son of the demon who locked me away in that infernal tower for all those years. He wields Rebellion because his father passed it down to him before his death. Vergil is the now deceased elder son of Sparda's bloodline. He wielded Yamato, for the same reason." Geryon explained.
"But what does it mean, Geryon? You're talking nonse-"
"Dante is the demon who ended my life at the tower, brought me here." Celestia didn't bother reminding him not to interrupt her, she was silent as some links were made in her head. "Princess, I'm going to skip the details to get the point across. If there are demons from the demonic realm here in Equestria, then we're in trouble. What was the monster you fought at the Everfree?" Celestia was slightly taken aback by Geryon's little speech, and as she started to speak she stuttered a little.
"A-a demon- I think. Called Berial."
"Berial..." He growled. "Big Centaur-like creature with wings of flame and a booming voice?" He questioned. And as Celestia nodded he let his head droop and he sighed heavily. "Then it is worse than I feared." He began to make his way over to one of the desks, one coated in nothing but sheets of papyrus with alien symbols scripted into a six pointed star. Each sheet had different combinations of symbols but all were given a large question mark at the end.
"Here are a few theories to how this may have happened. But if there are full sized demons entering our world at will then I guess I'll have to figure another out with all the new variables." Celestia followed him to where he was staring intently and worriedly at the papyrus.
"How bad is it Geryon? What should we do?" She asked to stallion who closed his eyes, silent in thought for a moment while he thought of the next best thing to do.
"The demons will be entering through Hell-gates, portals to the demon realm. They must be found and destroyed at all costs, or I fear Equestria may not survive. We'll need all the help we can get, even if it means siding with the demon, Dante."
"If Dante is so dangerous then why should we even think of working with him?" Celestia asked, slightly confused.
"He's not against us, he has his reasons to hate beasts like Berial. He killed me because he had to stop his brother from doing to his home what is happening to us now. I was in the way, I had to be, I was bound to my duty by Sparda..." His teeth ground together viciously at the mention of the name. "... but that's a story for another day. The point is, Dante has experience demon hunting and retains knowledge that is vital to our survival." There was a brief moment of silence as Celestia waited for his decision.
"We must call the war council. A summit is in order."