Dark Rites

by Sporkbacon

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Shortly after ascending the stairs, we went to the kitchen, where our friends were still planning our defense. Upon us walking in, everypony had a hopeful gleam in their eyes. I also noticed all of them were fully equipped. They all had armor on, bandoliers with throwing knives in them, belts with various gadgets attached to them, and of course, bracelets similar to mine, their Demon Hunter weapons. Without either Joel or I saying a word, we both went to the kitchen table, selected an empty chair, and sat, exhausted. "So...? How'd she do?" asked Sophie with a glimmer of hope in her voice. Still a little winded from throwing apples and rubbing at a fresh bruise from one he had been to slow to dodge, Joel said, "Well. It turns out that she had previous experience makin' shield spells." He paused to take a breath, then added, "Howeva' she may be a lil' to smart for her own good." he said, winking at me as he said the last part. I felt my cheeks flush with embarrassment and pride. Sophie handed me a bandolier of throwing knives and a leather vest specifically made for my size. I suspected that she had made both of the pieces in the time that me and Joel had been training. I put them on and looked to my friends for the battle plan.

"Good." said Salem. "We need everypony at top skill for this battle." he added, then paused for a second, deep in thought. "Speaking of "everypony", we need to go get your wife back from the Nether-Plane." Joel stiffened a bit, then sighed. "We don't even know where she is, Salem. How do ya expect us to find her?" Joel countered. "Actually," Salem said, "We have a Spellflash." he said, turning his vision to me. I jumped at the mention of my name, then gulped with anticipation. "Spellflash can track her if we go to the Nether-Plane. If she can bring us all to the demon's stronghold, we can take the fight to them, then bottleneck them in front of our turrets and barricades!" Salem almost shouted. "Plus, I'm sure she can do it." he explained, eying my cutie mark. I felt myself blush again. I guess if you're in the business for so long, you recognize a demonic circle.

I nodded, confident I could pull the whole squad with me into the realm of the demons. "I don't suppose you got any more of that Plane-Transfer paper, Joel?" I asked. As a response, Joel trotted to a bookcase, pulled out a book, and ripped a page out. Then, walked toward me and handed me the piece of runed paper, identical to the one I had used before. "Okay, I guess that answers that question." I said softly to myself. "So are we doing this now?" I asked the group. "Because I could use another nap after that training session."

Joel put a hoof on my shoulder. "Sorry, Spell. We gotta do this now. We're runnin' out of daylight as is." he said sorrowfully. With that, everypony walked up to me expectantly. Sighing, I focused on the last bit of magical power I had and sent it through the piece of paper while simultaneously focusing on all of us. Everything went black for a few seconds then I fell a few feet and hit a hard surface. I rubbed at my head, trying to get rid of the now extremely forceful headache I now had. Great. I opened my eyes and surveyed my surroundings.

It was quite a bit different than where I got teleported before. First off, I was in a building of some sort. Second, the room I was in had demons in it. Lots of demons. It's like they were having some sort of meeting. Upon continued observation, I saw I was on top of a table and none of my friends were here. All of the demons had a look of anger and confusion. Though, some of the demons didn't really have a face, so I just kind of assumed. I sat up and said, "Hey?" unsure of what to say. The demons hesitated. I suppose they really didn't expect a filly unicorn to suddenly poof out of nowhere and land in the middle of their meeting table.

Luckily, before I spoke I saw what looked like a door. The demons started to call upon their magic as I quickly got up and sped for it. Feeling a mass of energy follow me, I carefully dodged out of the way and it blew a hole in the wall, sending obsidian shards in random directions. They just bounced off of me because I still had the armor spell on and the leather armor that Sophie gave me probably helped too. I dove through the new opening and fell about twenty feet out of the palace onto an extremely convenient sludge demon.

It wasn't exactly a door, it was a window. In hindsight, that probably wasn't my best idea. When I looked up towards the opening, I saw a lot of spells being charged and thrown at me. Quickly, I rolled out of the goo, dodged a few fireballs, and got up, then brushed the sludge off of me as I ran. When I had gotten most of it off, I switched to a full gallop and sprinted away from the castle, in a probably vain attempt to escape. Carefully, I scanned the environment for a place where I could hide and find my friends. There was a cave that was pretty far from the castle and I settled into it. I was pretty exhausted at this point, and without my friends here, I needed to find someplace safe.

I had enough magic to call upon a light spell. Peering into the cave, my horn illuminated the entrance in a pale light. Seeing no threats, I went inside. It was a fairly small cave. From the entrance, I only saw one room. If I didn't have any light sources while inside, I could safely stay hidden while waiting for some of my magic to replenish itself. Deciding that I wouldn't put up a fight in this state anyways, I passed out from exhaustion.

I woke up what seemed like several hours later, somewhat energized. I supposed that the obsidian-colored material that the Nether-Plane was composed of had some kind of magic emanating off of it. My body must have absorbed some of it while I was sleeping. Now that I had some kind of power to use, I set to work finding somepony to help me. I focused again on the image of Sophie in my mind, while I chanted the power words required for the telepathy spell. The familiar blackness consumed my vision with a flickering light at the far end of my vision. I figured it was flickering because I didn't have a direct link to the pony in question. I focused harder at her image and said the words louder, putting a bit of magic into my voice to quicken the spell.

Suddenly, my point of view settled in the room from before, where Sophie and I had first "met". She was exactly as I had seen her before we teleported into this hellish place, though, she was missing some of her throwing knives and laying on the ground. Also, there was a curved, obsidian colored blade impaled through her chest. My heart sank. What do I do now? Slowly, I went up to her and noticed she was still breathing, if a bit raggedly, but that was a given. Quickly, I mentally flipped through the magic spells I knew how to use, searching for one to help me here.

"Spellflash," my mom's voice said. "Don't worry, honey. It will be okay." she said in a upbeat voice. Crying, I shouted in anger, confusion, and pain, "'It will be okay.'?!? Are you serious? Sophie's going to die!" The familiar demonic book appeared in my mind and flipped to a page I hadn't seen before. On this page was a spell called "Summoning". "Ah," I thought, wiping tears from my eyes and trying to focus. I broke the mental link with Sophie and concentrated on learning the new word on the page. I drew a circle in my mind, inlaying the words "Eu'teno", "Uaoo'yp", and Sophie Redmane, in the demon language, of course. "Hopefully," I thought. "This will teleport Sophie to me." When I finished writing the last word, set the circle a few feet in front of me, then released the spell. The spell had clearly been designed with having your magic power at full capacity. The spell slowly drained me. Slightly panicked, I drew a new circle on the ground with the words "Eu'teno", "Iduy'td"", and "Ejip'pon"" and released that one as well.

Using myself as kind of a magic funnel, I channeled the magical residue from the strange obsidian material that covered this plane, into myself, then into the summoning circle. Feeling supercharged with magical energy, I shoved all of the magic I was siphoning from the rocks into the circle. This action created noise, blinding light, and probably made it really obvious that somepony was doing intense magical things in the cave. I was in a magic trance though, and couldn't tell what was going on. I fell a few feet to the ground. I suddenly realized that I had been floating. Suddenly, I learned that my magical power reserves were fully supplied.

With an audible popping noise and a puff of smoke, my summoning circle had been replaced by Sophie! She was still impaled by the sword. I probably shouldn't have moved her, but I had to get her some help. "Okay, now what?" I thought at my mother's voice. A new book I hadn't seen before was revealed in my mind. This time, it was a green tome that had a large red cross on it. It flipped open to a page with "How to heal an impaled pony" as a header. "Well, that's helpfully specific." I said to myself. Sophie moaned. "Better get to work," I said, closing my eyes to look over the page.

First, the book said to remove said impaling instrument, gently, without causing increased harm. I focused on the sword and levitated it out of her body, and tossing it to the side, causing a metallic thudding noise against the floor of the cave. Next, said the book, repair organs. I sent some healing magic through her impaled organs. Even though I had never used restoration magic, a stream of mint green magic energy flowed from out of my horn, and into the damaged parts of Sophie. I felt a warm feeling wash across me. I had a feeling my mother had a part in this. Slowly, I watched the magic that wasn't my own, stitch, repair, and mend the wounds that had spread across Sophie's body.

"Wha...Huh...?" Sophie managed to say after all of her wounds were closed. "Don't speak, your wounds aren't fully healed yet." I told her with an authoritative tone. Calmly, she closed her eyes and breathed slowly. "Thank Celestia! You're alive!" I shouted, suddenly aware that my own personality, magic, and voice tone were back. Suddenly, I felt like I was going to explode. My eyes rolled back into my head and I felt overwhelmed with magic power. My hooves left the ground and slowly I felt a aura of pure magic energy form around me in waves. I guess I forgot to switch off the magic funnel spell that I had used to power the summon. All I felt at that moment was power.

Suddenly, a trio of scouting demons appeared at the cave entrance. "All too easy," I thought, arrogantly. I drew a circle in front of me, facing them vertically. With an almost lazy ease, I wrote the words "Eu'teno", "Doio", and "Eippyp". When I finished the words, I unleashed the spell. A thundering roar of energy shot outwards from the circle, directly at the unfortunate demons. I didn't get a good look at it with my regular vision, but with a kind of weird second sight, I saw a huge cylinder of sparking magic energy about three ponies wide and three ponies tall, shoot out of my circle and decimate the demons. They didn't even have time to react. The spell may have been a little overkill, but I had a lot of magic energy to burn up. Plus, they were trying to kill us, so why not?

Slowly, I stopped feeding the spell and the cylinder slowly shrunk until the beam dissipated entirely. I fell to the ground, panting. Glancing up, a perfect circle in the shape of my magical blast had increased the cave's entrance. Cursing myself, I hoped I didn't just alert a whole bunch of other demons to our location. Regaining my breath, I walked over to Sophie and checked if she was okay. Her eyes were wide with fear, astonishment, and surprise. She was healed up enough to move around. She got up, dusted herself off with her wings, and just started at me, mouth agape. Easily sensing how impressed she was, I gestured at the faint outline of magic residue where I had drawn the magic absorption spell. Nodding, she trotted over to me.

"Well, now that every demon in this Celestia-forsaken place knows were here, how about we get out of here?" Sophie said, with a bit of worry in her voice. "Yes, I'm all for that, but what about Joel and the Flamebreaks?" I asked. "Well, you teleported me here, just do it again with them." Sophie suggested. I shrugged, "That would work if I had some of their hair or something, but I don't really know them that well and we aren't related, so it won't be as easy as what I did with you." Sophie put a hoof to her mouth in thought.

"I don't suppose you can just sense where they are with your Energy Sense ability?" I blinked. "What do you mean?" I asked quizzically. "Oh, that thing that all Demon Hunters get where they are able to sense magic. Didn't Joel tell you about it?" This made a lot of things make sense. It explained how I dodged that magic blast up in the meeting room, Joel being able to dodge all, well most of the apples I threw back at him, and how I could see my magic, even though my regular vision was unusable. Seeing that I had figured something out, Sophie looked at me and said, "Now you get it. Use your Second Sight to find Salem and Sabrina. I'll fly around and look for Joel. When I find him, I'll take him back to this cave. When you find Salem and Sabrina, tell me and I'll guide them over to us. Let me take some of your mane so they can just teleport to you."

I flinched as she grabbed at my mane. "I don't suppose they saw the "beacon" that I sent out?" I suggested, putting air-quotes around beacon. "Oh, you're right. They probably sensed *your* magi-" Sophie said before being cut off by a popping noise, a puff of smoke, and black and green light with two silhouettes of unicorns with fiery manes. "Never mind, I'll just go look for Joel," she continued. "Ya mean me?" Joel said, as he stepped out from behind the Flamebreak twins. "Well then." Sophie sighed. "I guess we can go back home now, I'm tired of this dreadful place."

"Ummm." Said a voice I hadn't heard in a very long time. It was aunt Sally! They had found her. "Hi Spellflash, how's it going?" she asked me, a little bit raggedly. She trotted from out behind Joel. She was wearing a nice blue and green plaid sundress, just like what I remembered she usually wore, but this one was dark with dried blood. Savage scrapes were all across the fronts of her hooves. Her once beautiful sundress was almost in half because she had been whipped to the point of it almost tearing at the seams. Bruises peppered her body, her face getting the brunt of it. Her mane, usually a bright blue, was matted to her head, sections colored a sickening purple. Her yellow coat had splashes of red all across it. One of her cutie marks had been mutilated, the other was still visible, but stained with blood, a single rose, her special talent being earth magic. Sally had been tortured. I couldn't guess at how brave and courageous she was to have even survived the brutal beatings that she had endured. The big bow in her mane was torn, askew, and red with blood. She was hard to look at.

"Sally!" I shouted. "I have to heal you, you're a mess." I said, minty restoration magic already flowing out of my horn and into her wounds. "Spell, you were always so generous." she said weakly, through labored breaths. I pumped more magic into the restoration spell to heal her faster. There was too much damage to heal now, especially with my dwindling magic reserves. I was forced to stop healing her to prepare the spell we needed to take us back home. I got most of the surface damage, repairing her face, cutie mark, and the fronts of her hooves, so she could at least walk painlessly. She finally passed out from blood loss.

"Gangs all 'ere. Spell, take us out, she can heal up back at tha house." Joel commanded. Nodding, I brought out the piece of paper and focused on it, then stopped. "Wait," I said. "I have an idea," I drew a circle in the ground and set the runed sheet of paper on top of it. It floated over the circle, accepted. A small vertical shape appeared, then grew to the size of a pony. I had made a portal that crossed the planes. "This might be easier than all of us ending up separated and somepony sticking out of a wall." I said helpfully.

Everypony nodded and stepped through excluding Sally, who was being carried by Joel. I leaped through the portal and it closed behind me, leaving the rune paper behind us where the demons could easily track, right according to plan. I set up the portal to pop us out right in front of the turrets and the barricades. Upon seeing us, the turrets whirred slightly, pointed at us, then fell back into standby mode. "Thank Celestia we ain't demons, or we'd be fulla' holes." Joel commented. We walked back to the house, awaiting the demon attack.

"Great Celestia, did you see that?!?" Sophie shouted as we settled back into the farmhouse. "There was a huge beam of red energy coming from Spellflash. She literally incinerated three A class demons, on the spot." She continued. "A class?" I questioned, confused. "A class demons are a Prime Demon's personal guard. You liquified them, Spell." Sophie explained, then continued, "That's amazing. I don't know any pony, besides your late father that could've done that." I sat back on my haunches, then explained, "Well, I had been absorbing a lot of power, and decided to use it on the demons that had found us in the front of the cave." While this conversation was going on, Joel had left to put Sally onto a bed so she could sleep off her wounds, in peace.

"Still an amazing feat of magical strength, Spell." Salem commented. "Now that the time has almost come for the demons to attack, in full, we must prepare. I suppose that the turrets will take care of some of them, but there is no way it will handle all of them." Salem paused, then continued, "Spell, you've done enough for today. Go to sleep, you've earned it. We can handle it from here. Celestia's Grace, I almost forgot that you're still a filly." He said with a proud laugh. "But, I'm not even tir-" I started to say, then blacked out into the sweet embrace of the Sandstallion.

Comments

[Fluttersquee]

First: WOOOHOOOOO More chapters.
Second: Great job once again, it's getting pretty intense. I look forward to more fighting and such.
I only found 1 error, "I stopped feeding the spell and the cylinder slowly shrunk until the the beam dissipated entirely", the is just repeated here.
I can't tell you how much I enjoy this story, I'm so glad you told me about it.
*claps

[Sporkbacon]

703515

Fixed the error. Thank you so much for following my story so intently.

[Fluttersquee]

703532 Thanks for writing such an interesting story.

[Sporkbacon]

703538

Holy *squee* it's 12:00! I gotta get to bed. Talk to you later.

[Fluttersquee]

703568 Night bro