Sun Never Sets

by CrownofDissonance

24- The Recreation of Destruction

Author's Note:

Changelog for this chapter at this link! If you started reading after 11/6/2020, don't worry about it!

Twilight fell.

Through the rainfall, she surveyed the area behind the castle, finding a long, open yard behind the main tower and deciding it a suitable landing spot. With a tap of her metal, mechanized boots, she attempted to summon her hoverboard to catch herself. The boots lit up, a neon blue energy emanating from them for only a moment before suddenly fizzling out into sparks. They'd certainly been roughed up, but were they broken? Twilight panicked, hastily engaging her boots again and nearly flipping headfirst when her board finally materialized.

Placing her boots against the board's magnetic locks, she bent her knees and guided her board along a shallow curve, still falling, but coming down at a softer angle. Raindrops seemed to fall up into her face as she fell, she was accelerating into them, and she could barely see as they got on her glasses. Though her vision was scarce, the board's repulsors finally press against the ground and she then leaned forward, speeding up momentarily as her board dipped further down. With her coat sleeve she wiped her glasses clean to find herself almost level with the paved earth, and she straightened her board out as best she could.

Where was she even going? It didn't matter, she needed to get away from everything. This courtyard was longer, and had a stone path that led under several arches and through a passage in one of the interior castle walls. Twilight kept her eyes focused on that path and rode along, not daring to look behind her, or even up in the sky where Celestia and Luna now held their battle. She needed to escape, to recover, to see if there was anything she could possibly do after the worst had come to pass. One hand held her sheathed katana, but she'd taken up something else from the throne room as well from her battle with Nightmare Moon.

A strange sword hilt with a broken blade was held tightly in her other hand, a piece of the great two handed warsword wielded by Nightmare Moon. It wasn't a functional weapon in its current form, but a hint of a long term plan involved recovering the other pieces of it, putting it back together, and somehow using its power to... she didn't quite know. She didn't quite know what she would do. She secured it on her belt for now though, figuring it out would have to wait. Right now she needed to get away. The path, just follow the path.

Her board made a concerning sizzling sound, and then the lights on it suddenly went out.

Again, Twilight fell, but this time she was much closer to the ground and had far less control. She let out a pained grunt as she fell face first, sliding and rolling and scraping herself up as she violently came to a stop. Twilight's skin was ripped and restored and ripped again, her blood mixing in with the rain, but she eventually caught herself on her feet. She looked around for her board, the built in failsafe intended to return it to her digital storage hadn't engaged. Her boots were probably broken, she realised. She hoped they weren't beyond repair.

There it was, it skidded about and crashed into a bush near one of the castle's interior walls. No time to retrieve it, though, there was a sudden voice and hostile movement sounding against the rainstorm behind her.

"Well, well... If it isn't Twilight Sparkle."

A dark shape shot up from the ground at a close angle right at Twilight's back, she only barely had enough time to turn and react. As she braced against the attack with her sheathed weapon, she found the piercing red eyes of a shadowy unicorn demon right up against her, front hooves barred with Twilight's sheathe and head reared back, ready to slice downward with the razor sharp horn on his forehead. It was Selene's demon, Sombra. It wasn't he that spoke though, the voice seemed to come from her side...

"Making a courageous escape after resurrecting the Sister of Darkness, eh?" The voice taunted her with sarcasm, but she still couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from. She tried to ignore it.

The sound of something big shuffling around alerted her to another attacker coming in from the opposite side. She shoved Sombra away just as he brought his head down, deflecting his horn off of her sheathe while also drawing her katana towards the new threat.

She pivoted on a foot, bringing her blade around just in time to slice away a length of a long, stretching, pitch-black fist shooting right for her. It was another demon she was all too familiar with: the Tantibus, taking the towering titan-like form it showed during the final battle with Nightmare Moon. With faint sparkles shining within its otherwise void body, it pulled it's fist back, recovering the mass Twilight just chopped off. The sentient nightmare was now at full power, Twilight presumed, something to do with Selene having captured it.

"Selene really had you fooled, didn't she?" The voice came from behind her this time, despite her certainty that she was being backed into a wall. "You really bought the little hero story she spun on you, but... surprise! She was the Sister of Darkness the whole time!"

There wasn't time to look behind her though, Sombra made another move on Twilight in the seconds she took to regain her footing. Tilting her wrist and stepping back, Twilight brought her sword in and cut close to herself as Sombra approached, covering his neck and withers with a solid purple crystal as he tried to drive his horn upward at her. Twilight's blade hit the crystals, but didn't interrupt the unicorn's attack, forcing Twilight to back up again to avoid being speared.

The crystals protruded further from his body as he held his head low, and then suddenly fired out of him in rapid succession. Twilight moved to cut through these bulky projectiles, but found that each one shattered into a shower of smaller pieces as her sword split them, and they still sprayed against her arms and face. As she recoiled the Tantibus dove in, winding up a huge punch that came in while Twilight was still deflecting Sombra's crystals.

Seeing the attack coming in too late, Twilight shifted her focus from deflecting projectiles to countering the Tantibus's charge. Her response was inadequate, a crystal grazed her cheek, tearing deeply into it as Twilight's sword struck directly against the incoming Tantibus fist, taking on all of its mass directly. Twilight was shoved back even further, putting both hands on her weapon and struggling to redirect the momentum. As strong as her weapon was, it's curved blade wasn't designed to absorb hits like this.

"And now..." The voice said. "The three of us are free to do as we please!"

Twilight risked a glance back, but just as she thought, there was only a wall. Where was this voice coming from? Sombra melted down into the shadows, and the Tantibus fashioned both of its arms into long blades with which it prepared to make rapid scissoring sweeps. Yet Twilight still felt something else here.

As the attacks came in, Twilight turned and dashed straight into the wall, diverting her inertia upward and launching herself off it. She got enough air to clear the Tantibus's strikes, landing on its head to jump a second time, repositioning herself behind it with a bit more room to breathe. The Tantibus turned to face her, but it didn't attack right away. Twilight sheathed her katana as she followed her form into a resting stance, but cautiously watched her surroundings as she stood the dreamstalker down. Sombra formed up in front of it, watching Twilight but not attacking either. Both of them were still until a third demon appeared, casually resting on the Tantibus's shoulder.

Right, Twilight remembered now, Selene had a third demon during the final battle. This one was long and serpent shaped, with the head of a horse but with antlers of a gazelle and deer, whose body was also just as bizarre, composed of a chaotic variety of creatures that never were intended to fit together. A smug smile was on his face as he eyed Twilight, making her quite uncomfortable.

"The human and demon realms can mingle once more!" He said, still smiling as he gestured up to the demonic opening in the sky above the castle. "And it's all thanks to you."

All thanks to her. Twilight quietly shuddered to herself. She didn't appreciate her failure being phrased in such a patronizing way.

Twilight addressed this demon with the same stony look she gave every other underworld dweller. "Another of Selene's demons, I presume?"

Rolling his eyes, the demon scoffed. "Selene's demon? Please, we were equal partners at best... but now, none of us are bound to her anymore."

"Who are you, then?" Twilight asked. "And more importantly, what are you doing here if you're free?"

"Ah, where are my manners?" he righted himself, hovering above the Tantibus and bowing proudly, a sly smile on his face as he came back up. "Discord, Lord of Chaos! You see, my colleagues and I decided it would be best to not leave any loose ends in this little scenario."

"Loose ends?" Twilight frowned impatiently. "I have no business with you. I was just leaving."

"No business?" Discord shook his head, slithering through the air until he was blocking Twilight's path. "I'm afraid we all have business with you, missy. For one of us, it's personal."

The draconequus waved a paw at the living nightmare behind Twilight. The Tantibus shifted its head, apprehensively starting at her as if attempting to communicate, but it made no sound.

"Personal? Because I summoned you, right?" Its eyes weren't fully engaged, so Twilight met them as she spoke to the creature. There was hesitation in her voice as she finished her thought. "And tried to kill you? That's what started all of this."

"Ooh, be careful! It's that guilt that it craves, you know..." Discord said, sarcastically patting Twilight's shoulder. After a moment of Twilight rolling her eyes, he continued. "You're so self-important, aren't you? You honestly believe you incited this beautiful mess?"

Twilight shook her head, disregarding the strange chaos being's attempt to degrade her. "I'm responsible enough for the things that happened here."

Discord's expression shifted, giving her only a smug nod. "Maybe so. Regardless, we very much have reasons to want you... out of the picture."

"And those would be?" Twilight shot him a wary glare, raising her guard a bit as her expression shifted. The threat in his tone immediately engaged her survival instinct. All of her mistakes played to these demons' benefit, right down to the reunification of Luna setting them free. "Didn't I end up doing you three a favor?"

"Well, since you're from the Order of Light it's only natural Sombra wouldn't like you, and as one of Celestia's students I'm not inclined to like you either, but given the circumstances those reasons are rather petty."

"Get on with it, then."

"It's actually the Tantibus who brought it to my attention," Discord explained, making another quick circle around Twilight before rejoining his fellow demons.

"Normally, it would've merged back into Luna, but it insisted that you not be allowed to escape, because..." He drew the word out, a claw waggling in her direction. "You have a piece of the Dark Sister's weapon, and we just can't let that float around now, can we?"

Twilight looked down at the weapon's hilt hanging from her belt. "So what, you expect me to just hand it over?"

"Well, that sure would be nice of you..." He summoned a long, rugged missile into a claw and pulled it tight against his bowstring, and as he did the other two demons spread out around Twilight in a hostile manner. "But we guessed you'd want to do this the hard way."

Raising her katana sheath in preparation to draw her weapon, she looked up at the trio of demons with her head lowered. They were here to kick her while she was down, but she still had some fight left in her.

"Good guess."

-----

Starlight ran through the destroyed door leading out of the castle's main tower. The rain was letting up, but in the sky above her she could see bright blue and gold flashes in the sky as the Two Sisters continued to clash against each other. Twilight was around the back half of the castle, she'd fled in the direction opposite, meaning Starlight would have to circle around the central tower. No issue, there was a portion of the inner wall that had a gap in it, where the bricks forming a guardrail for those walking atop were crumbled and falling, and with her Tether Hand she was able to latch on to it and pull herself up to the top. Now she could just follow it around the wall around the perimeter of the castle, easy enough.

Blocking her way a little further down was one of the castle's turrets, one of many towers spaced around the outside wall that served as a point of vantage to protect the structure. A ladder led up to it from the walkway Starlight ran across, when she got to the top she might be able to see where Twilight was headed, if she wasn't already gone.

The ladder creaked and clanked as she pulled herself up on it, the metal it was made of somehow still supporting her heavy cyborg frame as she ascended. This castle had to be at least centuries old, Starlight expected the ladder to give out at any minute, but it held even as she stood atop the roof of the turret and looked down into the castle's backyard. The cyborg's eyes scanned the distance, and through the rain, she found her target. There, just faintly, Starlight could make out the signature flashes of Twilight's weapon near the furthest visible wall even if she herself was barely a blurry smudge against the darkness. She was holding off a trio of demons, but clearly was struggling to handle their numbers. Twilight only fought for a few moments before turning and fleeing, forcing the demons to chase her through a tunnel running through the castle's outer wall.

Starlight had to keep pace if she was going to catch her. Rushing across the flat of the castle turret, she prepared to jump down the top of the next section of wall, but a mechanical shifting from behind her made her think twice.

A robust red and gold blur flew in from behind her, and with an evasive flip back she watched the attacker crash to the ground in front of her. It was a large, angular wolf mech wielding a spear-like on its tail, the same assault-class CANIS mech that fought her and Spike before. Still fast and aggressive as ever, he again dove straight for Starlight, curling his body up mid-flight and whipping his tail into a powerful slam as he met the ground again.

Starlight sidestepped the overly telegraphed strike and immediately shot out her Tether Hand, grabbing the assault mech while was still picking himself up and going straight into a scooping uppercut with her chainsaber. Mid-jump, she caught the mech in her grab again and tossed him over her back, launching him down into the top of the wall that made a path forward.

"Back for more?" Starlight looked down on the mech with a hint of a challenge in her eye. This one had an AI advanced enough to speak, if she remembered correctly, but it was also advanced enough to be a total hothead, and therefore provoked.

"Where's your little scout drone friend, huh?" The assault mech replied, in a tone just as challenging. "Did he get scared and run home?"

Starlight's eyes flattened. She immediately brought her revolver up to fire, forcing the mech to dodge from side to side across the relatively limited width of the wall. Behind her, up on the turret tower, another mech jumped up to join her, the bulky bruiser variant, with brown plated armor and a spiked ball attached to his tail. The bruiser mech swung his tail around too, but horizontally this time, and Starlight had to jump over the blunt weapon several times as the mech continued it's spin.

She tried to tether to the bruiser, but found that she was pulled towards him instead, he was too heavy for her to immediately reel in. This still worked in her favor though, as she bypassed another swing of his tail and landed several sword strikes on his head with her chainsaw blade fully revved. The bruiser swung his front claws around as Starlight closed the distance, but she let herself bounce off him, landing behind him and out of his attacking range.

These two were the ones they'd fought previously, but she didn't expect a third CANIS mech to jump from the same outer edge and begin launching fireballs from his mouth. The heated projectiles splashed around Starlight, their shooter a dark grey wolf mech with a much slimmer profile than the other two, even more so than Spike. That being said, this mech had the same angled armor as the assault mech and looked just as threatening. Its tail was shorter with a standard blade but it had some kind of pack mounted on it's back. As a steady stream of flames suddenly burst out from the back of it and sent this new mech barreling at Starlight with both claws bared, she recognized what it was: some kind of rocket thruster. Wonderful, this hound could fly.

Starlight ducked, and it slid to a stop near the bruiser, backing behind it as her revolver came out. After that, the red and gold assault mech jumped back up to their level, taking point in front of the bruiser.

"Three of you?" Starlight said, keeping her gun held forward. "I really don't have time for this."

"Yeah?" The assault mech chuckled cockily, his long spear tail held high above his head. "Me neither. Adagio wants all of you losers mopped up quick as possible! We're not holding back this time."

"Heh.." Starlight focused, charging up three energy cells worth of power into her fist, causing it to glow a bright teal color. She took her chainsaber in her mechanical hand as electricity crackled about it, and her power began to course through her weapon as well. She held her revolver in her left hand, and for good measure, she summoned up her Tether Hand into a fist behind her. Three out of her eight power cells were currently overcharging her body. She didn't dare try this kind of play while fighting Sunset, as the slightest mistake could break her out of this state and leave her drained, but she was confident she could take these three CANIS mechs on her own.

"Quick as possible, eh?" Starlight shook her head, smiling as her eyes glimmered their familiar teal color.

"It'll be over before you know it."

-----

Another veil of darkness blocked the path to the next floor of the castle. Sunset sighed. Of course it did. She wouldn't have been surprised if there were enough floors to this tower for her to have a bout with each of her friends' demons. If their magic was within the castle now, there was no reason they shouldn't all be waiting for her.

But in this moment all Sunset had was herself, her weapons, and the sound of boots on cold stone steps as she put one in front of the other.

"Alright..." Sunset spoke to herself as she approached the dark barrier.

"Who are we visiting next?"

Crossing through, Sunset felt heat on her body, like she was outside in the sun- she was, she now stood on the roof of a building overlooking the streets of Canterlot City. Though the sky and horizon were composed of the same empty void, Sunset saw an approximation of the sun above her, casting light on the landscape. The picture it showed was grim and hopeless- a giant, three story tall monster stomped through the streets, haphazardly swinging a long, scaled tail into buildings, stomping on the SWAT cars attempting to give resistance, and taking swings as armed helicopters with its claws.

This huge demon destroyed the city to her heart's content, a wide grin split across her elongated, reptilian face, slitted blue eyes fully dilated as everything in her path was brought to nothing. Her dark grey scales shivered in delight as she closed her powerful jaws around a helicopter, her disturbingly human teeth utterly demolishing the metal contraption she swung her head about in the same manner would a dog with a chew toy. It was flung into the ground in a burning heap, the unfortunate souls within screaming out as they met their demise for this demon's entertainment.

It tickled her, the way they struggled, the way they so uselessly resisted, the way they so wished to avoid perishing. They way they failed. And so her smile grew, wider and wider, until eventually her lips parted, and a sharp sound began to stutter and echo and reverberate from her mouth.

She chuckled heartily.

She crushed a building as tall as she was with her entire body.

She laughed a full, high pitched laugh from deep within her.

She opened her jaws fully, and from it fired a laser beam that decimated a row of tanks these silly mortals were attempting to stop her with. Tanks. Hilarious.

She laughed, she roared, it was all just so pointless. Pointless and hysterical. And soon enough she was standing alone in the center of town, a pile of destroyed metal, crushed buildings, and pastry scented ashes, waiting for more to come. More would come, they always would.

But all that came was another voice, one that would challenge her violence-induced giggle fit.

"Hey, what are you laughing at?" The demon turned her head back, finding the voice coming from a small figure out in the street a block away. "I don't see any comedians here. You killed everyone, Pinkie."

"Eh?" Pinkie's demon turned around fully, her huge form gently shaking the asphalt as she calmly reoriented herself to face this newcomer. Her keen eyes narrowed, and confusion crossed her face as she looked over a yellow coated, red haired woman with a sword across her back approached. She knew this demon hunter. "Sunset?"

"Let me guess, you ate a clown somewhere along the way?" Sunset asked, arms crossed and smiling slightly, looking up as she neared the building sized demon. "Did he taste funny?"

Pinkie's demon twisted her face into a sneer, her eyelids dropping as she processed Sunset's pun.

"Boooooo!"

Sunset's expression fell a little, the demon was not amused with her, but it suddenly came back to alertness as Pinkie's demon tossed half a car at her. Not worried in the slightest, Sunset drew her blade and simply sliced the vehicle in two, parting the metal harmlessly as it scattered apart behind her.

"Pfft. Tough crowd." Sunset brought her weapon back, eyeing down the demon as she prepared for a fight. "I'm going to need you to stand down, Pinkie. I can't have you just running around killing people, now, can I?"

"Oh, don't be such a silly-willy!" The demon rolled her eyes, waving one of her claws dismissively. "None of this is even real, I'm just having fun!"

"Well I need to get through, maybe we could have more fun somewhere else instead?" Sunset offered, but only got a tail whipping around at her in response. As the demon swung her back end around, she felt the spiny appendage slamming into a cluster of short buildings to her side, but when she went back to look Sunset was gone. But to her other side, she heard the demon hunter's voice.

"Seriously, there's gotta be something better to do than demolishing the town! There's a movie theatre on Kilgore Boulevard, maybe we can catch a kaiju film?"

With another unamused glare, Pinkie's demon swung a claw in the direction she heard Sunset's voice coming from. She smashed up the roof of a particularly tall shop, seeing Sunset landing beside her digits and giving her that same cocky smile.

"You think you're funny, don't you?" The demon asked, twisting her body around and giving her other claw a swipe at Sunset.

"I think I'm hilarious!" Widening her stance, Sunset became surrounded in a soft glow, then met the demon's giant claw with a palm thrust, projecting some magic that created a transparent, domed barrier in the direction her arm was traveling. The demon didn't fully understand what happened, but her swing was somehow completely blocked, and Sunset hadn't even drawn her weapon. As the demon recoiled, Sunset still stood defiantly, but her boots dug a few inches into the roof below.

"Ah! What was that?" The demon shook her claw loosely, rubbing it with her other claw in pain.

Sunset let out a quick exhale, then brought in another breath as she prepared her protective maneuver again. Another magic based form taught by Celestia, the Sentinel technique took the same energy Sunset used to propel herself in the air and turned it on its head. With this application, she could push away any kind of attack with just her magic so long as she got the timing just right. She'd use more of her magic up if her form was poor, and it had a much less forgiving window than using her blade to parry, but it could potentially stop massive attacks that her sword just couldn't handle.

"C'mon! Let's see those hands!" Sunset stood still, goading the demon with a taunt. "High five!"

"I'd rather play punchies!" Raising her arms back over her head, Pinkie's demon balled her claw up into a fist, then threw it down as hard as she could towards Sunset. Despite her size she moved incredibly fast, but Sunset didn't even try to get out the way.

"Okie-dokie-lokie!" Still smiling, Sunset mirrored Pinkie's demon, crouching down and winding up a fist as she planted her feet, but her other and shot out in line with the demon's punch, palm forward, and perfectly blocking her with another Sentinel barrier. The impact was immense, the whole building creaked and shook at Sunset's feet, but for a fraction of a second, her guard braced against the sheer amount of kinetic force in its entirety. A fraction of a second longer and it would've shattered, but Sunset instead shifted her footing, diverting all of her magic away from the hand guarding and into her wound up fist.

Advanced mastery of the Sentinel form allowed one to not only protect from attacks, but redirect them back at their attacker. And right now, Sunset held the full force of the demon's mighty, building leveling strength in the palm of her right hand.

Her entire body springing up into a stand, Sunset threw this amplified mega counterpunch right into the demon's fist, striking her dead on, knuckle to knuckle. There was a bright flash of red magic, and in the next second Pinkie's demon was frantically stumbling backwards, her balance tilting all the way back until she crashed into a cluster of buildings across the street.

"Woowooooah!" Her wide, heavy body smashed the shorter structures flat as she fell into them, she even slid a short distance before sliding into a crawling stance on all fours, spinning herself back into a run towards Sunset, who still stood atop that one tall building among a field of short ones. With all of her limbs, Pinkie's demon dove for the building, aiming to take Sunset down with it, but the agile demon hunter was one step ahead, jumping from the building and landing back down on the street as Pinkie's demon again barreled headfirst into brick, wood, and concrete.

"Heh heh..." Sunset chuckled, finding genuine amusement in watching a demon so big and menacing slip around. "You gonna stop bashing your head against the wall, or do you want to fight me?"

"You! Quit ruining my party!" The demon retorted, snapping back to a full standing position and cracking her neck back and forth. A pink magic swirled around her for a moment, and a broad strip of metal materialized over her shoulders, and mounted over her back on her left side was a huge, long barrelled cannon. It only gave a moment's flash before a huge shell blasted forth from it, but Sunset was already dodging out of the way. Behind her, an explosion of dust and confetti forcefully erupted, leaving the faint echo of laughter in the aftermath. Sunset knew exactly what that was; The Party Cannon. Two more shots fired off, and Sunset made her way across the street, closing in on Pinkie's demon.

"You call this a party?" Sunset weaved around several more cannon shells, not daring to attempt to deflect them until she was closer. Standing still, she snapped into her Sentinel form pose, going between it and a relaxed pose several times as she tauntingly feigned her guard technique. "I'll show you a party- a block party!"

"Geez-Louise, would you quit your yammering? You're starting to get annoying!" Pinkie's demon lifted a foot, and brought it down right as she forced Sunset to dodge with a shot from her shoulder cannon. To her surprise, she actually hit Sunset dead on, stomping her down into the pavement. When she lifted her foot, Sunset was indeed there, crushed down into the road in a demon-hunter shaped divot. She expected some pained response from her, but instead she was met with a quiet surprise.

Under her breath, Sunset began to laugh. She opened her eyes, and brought herself to a sitting position.

"Heh, heh... Ah, I stepped into that one!" Despite just having been crushed, Sunset still managed to somehow wear a carefree smile on her face. "Or, it might be more accurate to say that you stepped into it..."

"I..." The demon paused, taken aback by Sunset's insistence on being nonchalant. Stepping back a few paces, the demon reached out and grabbed one of the still standing streetlights by its post, ripping it from the ground and preparing to swing it like a club as she did during her battle with Twilight.

"Hey!" Sunset still had an amused look on her face as she got back to her feet. "Careful! You know how many idiots it takes to change one of those things?"

"What?" Again, Pinkie's demon paused, sensing something strange within her at such an inane joke. She looked like she was going to swing, but instead her head turned to the streetlight she was carrying, and it was almost like a switch went off in her mind. "I- ...How many?"

"I dunno, ask an idiot!"

"Oh, you little-" She didn't even finish her sentence, she immediately swung her long, metal pole in Sunset's direction. Resistance was met, in the form of Sunset barring her sword against the pole, but something else happened. Pinkie's demon made a very strange face for a moment, her snout and cheeks wobbling and her eyes shifting between a handful of emotions over a few moments. As Sunset held the guard, she casually gave commentary on this as well.

"Hey now, why such a... y'know. Long face?" Sunset made a hand motion to draw the image of a snout around her mouth, in reference to the demon's own.

"Ah!" Pinkie's demon brought her weapon back over her head and prepared to swing it again. "I've had enough of your play on words!"

"Oh?" Sunset easily rolled aside from the demon's next attack, more focusing on her response than anything else. She was breathing through hushed laughs as she responded. "I suppose you don't want to go see the Vocabulary Theatre later, then?"

"Wait..." The demon's mind took but a moment to process the joke. Play-on-words. Theatre, plays, vocabulary, words—and once it clicked there was no time to suppress her response. A stuttered breath escaped the demon's mouth, like she was trying to put the brakes on a hurtling truckload of chuckles, letting out a loud snort of amusement, followed up by the greatest trying-not-to-laugh face she could muster. "You... Y-You're an idiot!"

"Ah, you got me!" Sunset said, quite readily, backing away as Pinkie's demon failed to strike through her urge to laugh. "Would you like to know how many of us it takes to change a light bulb, then?"

The muffled laughter died down, but Sunset could clearly see the demon was cracking. She was practically biting her tongue, her long, forking lizard tongue, sucking her cheeks in and giving Sunset the most serious glare she could.

"About four or five of us, we all have to stack on each other's shoulders!"

Pinkie's demon attempted to pass her laughing off as annoyed scoffs. "Why don't you just use a ladder?"

"Well," Sunset grinned, tilting her head up as she crossed her arms. She was really proud of this one, she too was trying not to laugh before she delivered her punchline. "Cause we're idiots!"

The demon's tongue rolled out of her mouth, her cheeks puffed out, and her lips pulled inward as she refused to let herself succumb to Sunset's nonsense. "You're not- Kpfffft- Stoooop!"

The pole came in again, but Sunset ran back, moving along the street and forcing the demon to follow after her. More cannon shots came in, but Sunset didn't seem focused on fighting back. Instead, she stopped at another streetlight, running up a wall adjacent and flipping herself to the top, meeting the demon eye to eye once more.

"Say," Sunset playfully put a hand to her chin. "Why did the giant lizard demon cross the road?"

"I'm not-" The demon again stopped in her tracks, realizing that she walked right into the joke. Her scowl intensified, but Sunset saw right through it.

"Y'know, it doesn't matter, but since you're here..." Sunset held out the object she'd taken up off the ground on her way over, a large, round, glassy object, somehow still intact amidst the destruction.

"You think you could help me change out this lightbulb?"

The joke wasn't even that funny, but something about the way Sunset kept dragging it through the ground just cracked the demon up in a very particular way. The way she smiled, holding the bulb so earnestly, it was stupid, but... Pinkie's demon couldn't help but laugh. It was a raspy hissing at first, a surprised gasp, but then there was a shout of genuine tickledness that melted into a collection of chortles and giggling. It came so rapidly, the demon threw her head back and straight up screamed into the sky as she fell onto her back again, dropping her weapon and rolling helplessly in the rubble and wreckage she'd made.

Seeing that her plan to amuse the demon into submission with tomfoolery was successful, Sunset laughed with her, hopping down from her perch on the streetlight pole and landing on the demon's belly, finding wobbly footing there as she was currently wracked with laughter. At some point, Sunset threw the light bulb off behind her, and in doing so drew both of their fun to a pause, but the smashing glass that followed was enough to strike it right back up again. This went on for several minutes, the two of them just stuck in a continuous uproar spurred on by the other's laughter, until either of them were unsure what they were even laughing about, or had been fighting about previously. Did it even matter?

As Pinkie's demon eventually calmed herself, she resigned to just laying in the road, taking up all of it and then some, catching her breath with the widest smile on her face, a smile even more vibrant than when she had been blowing up tanks and smashing buildings before. Sunset too had fallen over, and was laying on her scaled chest, looking down with a similar bright smile.

"So?" Sunset asked. "Feeling less smashy?"

"Yeah!" The demon let out a happy sigh. The loose, stringy strands of pink hair falling around her face had fluffed up at some point in all of that, becoming all poofy and standing up on her head. "Definitely! This is waayyy better than what the orange haired lady promised!"

"Wait, wait, orange haired lady, what about her?" Sunset was still catching her breath, but tilted her head at the mention of Adagio.

"The lady that kidnapped my human body promised me a world of infinite destruction! It sounded like fun but..." The demon paused, still glowing from the laughter-onset happiness. "Maybe we could catch that movie later? That seems like it'd be a different kind of fun."

Sunset smiled, finding the look of friendliness in a demon so large and intimidating slightly offputting, but easily overlooking it. "Yeah, but first... Gotta deal with this demon gate thing. You know how it is."

"Oh right! Yeah..." Pinkie's demon nodded. "I guess I have to leave this place then? Go back to Pinkie's body? Or, do you want my magic?"

"Nah, go back to Pinkie. Keep her safe, okay?"

The demon smiled back, and returned with her own enthusiastic nod. "Mhmm! Okay!"

Sunset suddenly felt an incredible crushing force around her entire body, not painfully crushing, but still overwhelming nonetheless. Her eyes slammed shut, and she felt a cool dampness as a mass of scales were suddenly pressed against her. As her eyes came open, she smiled again. It was just a hug.

Touched by the normal yet totally unexpected gesture, she reached her arms out and tried to hug the great demon back, only managing to for a few seconds before she and everything around them began to fade into nothingness. Pinkie's demon dissolved into a beam of soft pink light, shooting up into the ceiling as reality returned to normal, the endless cityscape changing back to an open stone floor within the castle's main tower.

After the light faded, the room was cast in mostly darkness, leaving Sunset alone to find the staircase leading up and follow it to the next floor.

Comments

[zachary12]

nice work.

[Edguy0009]

This chapter had parts that amused me.

[JMP]

Everyone's got their own challenges ahead. I thought the part in DMC5 where Dante had to fight V's demons was pretty cool since they all functioned pretty much they same as when the player was using them. And new techniques! Sunset learned Royal Guard, and Starlight's starting to use Charge Shot. Well...charge everything here, more like.

[Pinklestia]

Discord: You know, I don't really care about the stupid sword, that alone would never be enough. You just don't get it, do you?

Twilight: What?

Discord: As a truck robot once said, United we stand, divided we fall. I think it was something about fighting a giant Unicorn? Anyway, sorry but I think I am quitting, going after Sunset. She at least finally understands. You my dear? Heck you are being so hard headed I thought your name was Applejack, ta daa!

*After saying that Discord was just... gone, leaving everyone else confused about what in the Demon Realms had he been talking about.