Azazel rapidly flew down the streets of Canterlot, puffing as he weighed his options. Taking to the skies was not an option, as the pegasus guards were faster than he was. He’d only managed to evade them so far by clever use of alleyways and road hazards, but he couldn’t keep this up forever. He certainly couldn’t attack them – they weren’t evil. They were just scared. Of him. A choked sob rose to Azazel’s throat – he’d always known this would happen. Of the Basement Children, he was the only one that could be recognized from a distance, owing to his dark coloration and demonic features. It was too easy for others to ostracize him, to treat him as something less than human. He might have represented Isaac’s kindness, but nobody could possibly guess that from his appearance – a fact the fallen angel knew all too well from his brief stint in the palace. He hadn’t said anything, but he knew the meanings of the looks the nobles and even Luna had been giving him. They wanted him gone, and if he hadn’t been needed, Azazel would have heeded their unspoken advice the moment he received it. “Please, stop!” Azazel called over his shoulder as he flew away, but the pegasi chasing him paid no heed. They had one mission, and one mission only: Chasing a demon out of Canterlot. They’d spotted him when he’d gone over to examine a stone on the ground, conveniently just out of sight of the others, and had immediately given chase. Azazel had been tempted to fly back to Luna and the other Children for protection, but his inner voice chose this moment to viciously remind him that they probably wouldn’t even defend him anyway. For who could love a demon?
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit…” Eve mumbled, frantically looking around and even overturning stones. Cain was glaring around, squinting as he tried to search for the demon child, and Lazarus was even making an effort by peering into the hedges. Princess Luna, meanwhile, was nearly panicking as she started casting spells to locate her child. Finally, she obtained a result – Azazel’s magical signature was extremely faint, but had last been picked up on the outskirts of Canterlot. But what in Equestria was he doing all the way out there? Luna grimaced – she would likely have to discipline Azazel for this, something she dreaded doing. He was simply too innocent to deserve the tongue-lashing she was likely to give. But now was not the time for such thoughts – right now, she needed to find her child.
“This way!” Luna commanded, and as one the Children followed.
They found Azazel at the back end of an alleyway, cowering in fear as two pegasi guards advanced on him with spears. “N-no… please! I didn’t do anything!” Azazel cried.
“It doesn’t matter, your kind’s not welcome here,” the guard nearest to him answered, spear levitated over his head.
Just as he was about to toss it down and end Azazel’s life, the spear was hit by a bolt of blue magic and promptly detonated, the two royal guards and Azazel stumbling back in shock.
“Royal Guards, STAND DOWN!” Luna shouted, the very ground quaking with the power of her Canterlot Voice.
The two guards immediately saluted, the first attempting to shoulder his weapon before realizing that it was only so many atoms floating in the breeze. “Princess Luna, ma’am! Just disposing of this pest!” the second guard nervously exclaimed, standing stock still.
Hackles bared, Princess Luna advanced on him. “That. ‘Pest’. Is. My. Son,” she viciously exclaimed. “Were you not informed of this fact? Briefed time and time again, Swift Spear, that this child was under no circumstances to be harmed?” she spat, bearing down on him with enough ferocity to make even Cain step back in alarm.
“You – you were serious about that, ma’am? I thought – I thought that was some kind of joke, when you started showing us those foal’s drawings…” the guard trailed off at Luna’s expression, which could have easily liquefied steel at this point.
“Perhaps you’ll think it is less of a joke at your quarters. DISMISSED!” she shouted, and the two guards promptly fled the scene.
That done, Princess Luna approached Azazel, who cowered before her. “D-don’t…” Azazel mumbled, quivering. He emitted a startled squeak when Luna swept him into a hug, her wings wrapping around him protectively.
“We are so sorry we lost thee… did they hurt you?” Luna whispered.
“N-no… are you mad at me?” Azazel sniffled.
Luna shook her head vigorously. “We could never be mad at you, never ever. Please believe us – we love you, Azazel.”
This was the final straw: Azazel collapsed into her withers, crying his eyes out, and even the Children around them started to tear up.
“That was… oh, man, that was downright moving,” Cain sniffled.
Isaac was outright crying, but he was smiling, and politely directing his tears at the ground. Maggy, for whatever reason, had a smug smile on her face as she stared at Eve, who simply blew a strand of hair away from her face, grimaced, and looked away.
By the time they got back to the picnic, the sandwiches had already been waylaid by crows, and Luna shooed them off.
Eve, looking oddly surly at this, turned to Azazel. “Hey… do you feel that?” she asked, and Azazel paused.
“Feels like a… aw, dammit,” he muttered under his breath.
“What?” Luna asked, feeling left out.
“There’s a Sin somewhere around here,” Azazel answered, and Luna paled.
“Which one?” she asked, going through the list of Sins they had not yet encountered.
Azazel sniffed the air, narrowing his eyes. “Gluttony, I think.”
Cain glared with his one eye off into the distance. “That fat peanut bastard…” the Wanderer grumbled.
Luna’s eyes widened – Gluttony had shown up? The children had been quite ravenous when they were eating, but they’d each only had one or two sandwiches. Who, then, had summoned this Sin?
“Should we go after him?” Isaac wondered.
Eve rolled her eyes. “Gee, no, we should stay here and continue the picnic. Come on, everyone, we got a Sin to wreck.”
There were various murmurs of affirmation, and the group headed straight back towards the castle, Azazel in the lead. There was a furious determination in his eyes, and the fallen angel flew with a speed that every other Child found hard to keep up with.
Finally, they reached the castle doors, and Azazel pushed against the doors to find them locked. “What in Tartarus-?” Luna wondered out loud, but Azazel interrupted.
“Get these open, please,” he ordered, and upon seeing the look on the demon child’s face, Luna immediately complied, fairly blasting the doors apart with her spell. “Thank you,” Azazel quickly added before flying in through the doors. Ever so cautiously, Luna followed.
And stared.
This was not what she had expected.
The first thing she saw was her own sister, Princess Celestia. In just the short stretch of time they had been gone, she’d managed to gorge herself to nearly twice Luna’s own size. Furthermore, she wasn’t stopping there, as evidenced by the parade of kitchen staff nervously serving up more dishes to her enlarging form.
“More!” Celestia groaned, a trickle of blood dripping out of her mouth as she tossed an entire cake into her mouth.
One of the servants rushed up to Luna, a terrified look on his face. “Oh, Princess, thank the heavens you’re here, please save us!” Celestia, having noticed this, leaned over and glared at the unlucky servant.
“Did we say you could speak?” Celestia demanded, the crown on her head slipping dangerously.
Without warning, she stopped and held her breath, looking as though she were about to vomit. Instead, as she opened her mouth, a blood-red laser came out, smelling of rotten milk and moldy peanuts. The servant was blasted away by the force of the beam, hitting the far wall with a wet smack. Luna’s nose fairly imploded at the stench of the attack, but she was distracted by the look on Azazel’s face. He was looking at the fallen stallion, and his expression shifted from shock and horror… to rage. Azazel glared back at the Gluttony/Celestia hybrid, who had already gone back to eating.
“GLUTTONY!” he roared, voice surprisingly deep for a child of his size. “I’M GOING TO FUCKING DESTROY YOU!”
Azazel sprang forward, stepping over the heads of the still-parading kitchen staff, and knocked the nearest dish out of Celestia’s reach. “Wha- hey! I was eating that!” the demon complained, shifting a magenta eye to glare at the tiny demon perched on their oversized snout.
“So was she!” Azazel replied. That said, he grabbed ahold of Celestia’s pudgy fur and pulled with all his might. Dark red energy glowed around the hand that was pulling, and a second later there was a ripping noise and a bright light. Celestia, back to her normal self, fell to the floor, followed a second later by an earsplitting crash as an intensely obese, humanoid creature with a bloodied gash in its stomach followed. Luna stared openmouthed in shock – she had thought Samson was the strong one.
Without even wasting a second, Azazel flew up and gripped Gluttony by the neck, lifting him off the floor despite being less than an eighth his size. “Don’t. Touch. My. Family,” Azazel declared, and inhaled deeply. He emitted a blood-red laser of his own, and for a moment all everyone could see was red. When Azazel finally stopped, there was nothing where he had been holding – just a few charred breadcrumbs. Panting heavily, Azazel turned to Eve.
“Was that… confident enough…?” he asked, voice back to its normal shy self.
Eve nodded, as did the rest of the Basement Children – though most of them had terrified looks on their faces.
Cain, however, was grinning. “Damn, son. Even I forgot that you were this strong.” Azazel hid his grin behind his leathery wings, blushing slightly.
“Hey, aren’t you forgetting something?” Lazarus asked, and Azazel stiffened.
“Oh. Um, right,” he answered, flying over to the opposite wall and gently peeling off the pony embedded within. “Oh my… he’s dead. Like, really dead,” Azazel announced, to the shocked gasps of everypony present. “But it’s okay!” the demon child quickly announced, holding up both hands in a quelling manner. “I can still fix this, just give me a second…” He laid the body out on the floor, and placed both palms on it, kneeling to the ground. “Obscurum, dare puerum istum novitiate vitae ambulemus!” Azazel chanted, his hands glowing red with energy.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the stallion simply sat up and looked around. “Oh. Is she… is she gone?” he whispered to Azazel, who nodded and gestured to the unconscious body of Celestia. The stallion breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. When I dodged that weird laser thing, I think I fainted for a few minutes…” he added. Nobody responded. “What?” the kitchen pony demanded.
Celestia was quickly taken to the hospital, where it was discovered that dangerous amounts of sugar were coursing through her bloodstream. While she recuperated, Luna oversaw an emergency cleanup session of the throne room, and took a moment to escort the kids to their own room.
“Now, I would send a guardspony to take care of thee whilst I sort this out, but we have all hooves full during this time. Can we trust thee to take care of thyselves for a short while?”
Eve smirked. “Time to break out the booze and strippers!” she announced.
Luna sternly glared at her, and Maggy punched her in the shoulder. “I’ll watch over them,” Maggy promised Luna, and the latter smiled and thanked her before hurriedly exiting the room. That done, Maggy turned to face the rest. “Now, let’s just try not to get into any trouble. She’s stressed enough as it is,” Maggy declared, jerking a thumb at the door where Princess Luna had just been.
“Okay,” Lazarus obediently said, and climbed into bed, despite it only being afternoon.
“Has anyone seen Eden?” Isaac asked, looking around the room – the white-haired child had not been seen for some time.
There were various denials from around the room, and Isaac went back to his drawings, selecting a new sheet of paper and sharpening his pencil. Azazel merely sat at the foot of Isaac’s bed, a sad expression on his face.
“Why so down, Zazy?” Cain asked.
“I tried to remove all of Gluttony’s influence before I killed him… but Celestia is still in the hospital. Plus, I attacked the princess… Everyone’s gonna hate me for sure now!” Azazel burst out.
“No they’re not, stupid,” Eve rebutted. “You saved the princess from an evil demon. You’re a hero!”
Cain snickered, and Eve glared over at him. “Got something to say, punk?” she demanded.
“Nah, nah. It’s just… you saying ‘you’re a hero’ is funny,” Cain quickly backpedaled, a guilty smile still on his face. Eve grumbled, but made no further comment.
Azazel, meanwhile, was still looking down at the floor, a sorrowful expression on his face. “Plus… I used dark magic to revive that pony. Isn’t that… evil?” he asked the group uncertainly.
To everyone’s surprise, it was Isaac who answered. “No,” the Sacrifice asserted, and the Scapegoat stared at him.
“…Why not?” Azazel asked suspiciously.
“You weren’t using it for your own ends, or to do something to hurt someone else. You were using it for good, and that makes it good magic. And it makes you a good person,” Isaac finished, a small smile on his face.
Azazel stared at him for a moment, before returning the smile. “Thanks, Isaac,” the demon mumbled.
“Can we all just go to bed, though?” Isaac asked. “I think everyone could use a break, and these beds are super comfy.”
A skeptical expression on her face, Eve climbed into the nearest bed, only to look down at the sheets, wide-eyed. “Wow, these are really soft. Maggy, Zazy, try this,” Eve demanded.
“I already did!” Azazel retorted, giggling as he climbed into his own bed, Maggy following a second afterward.
“Well, might as well join the slumber party,” Cain grumbled, but he was hiding a grin of his own as he hopped into his rarely-used bed, turning off the lamp on his way and plunging the room into darkness.
There was a moment of silence, then… “Anyone feel like telling a spooky story?” Isaac asked in the darkness. Every single Child giggled.
Isaac woke up in what appeared to be the Dark Room. No doors were present, and to his shock, his demonic self was sitting straight across from him, a bored expression on the normally grinning face.
“So, you’ve figured it out. Some of it, at any rate,” his demonic self announced, looking up at the nonexistent ceiling.
“Figured out what?” Isaac asked, unsure if he should keep talking or run.
His demonic self sighed. “What were you just telling Azazel? It doesn’t matter if you look evil, do ‘evil’ things, or are supposed to be evil. If you’re using your powers to help others, that makes you good, right?” Isaac uncertainly nodded, unsure of where his dark twin was going with this. His demonic self sighed again, looking straight at him with those blazing red eyes. “Alright, I’ll make this simple. First off, call me… uh… call me Caasi,” his demonic self declared, smiling slightly. “Second, you’re probably wondering what part of you I am now. After all, you just declared that we can’t be evil so long as we’re helping others, and given that I am, in fact, all of you… Well, let’s just say I’m the part of you that’s accepted your dark nature, and leave it at that,” Caasi said, shrugging.
“But wait, if you’re the part of me that’s okay with my using dark magic, and you’re all of me, then why am I not okay with using it?” Isaac asked curiously.
To his surprise, Caasi adopted a nervous expression. “Ehehe… Well, okay, I’m only half of you. But the other half really isn’t that important!” Isaac gave Caasi a deadpan expression, and Caasi grew even more nervous, twitching slightly. “Okay, last thing, you now have dark powers, now wake up!” Caasi hurriedly finished, and the world around Isaac faded to white.
Isaac woke up feeling rather oddly warm. He reached to pull away one of his bedsheets, then stopped in fright. A dark claw had reached out from the place where his arm was supposed to be. Isaac looked down. It didn’t take him long to connect the dots.
He woke half the castle with his screaming.