Help from the depths of hell

by Igris

Old tales

Monster, God, Spirit, Emperor, Destroyer. So many titles attributed to this one entity, but only one was the closest description from what he truly is.

Demon

For ponykind, these entities were powerful subspecies of spirits, said to be equivalent to Alicorns for the spirits, Royalty.

Yet they all vanished for some unknown reason, the place that will be known as Tartarus once was their home, yet the dimension was vacant upon the arrival of brave ponies who tried to explore the most feared place known to anything.

The place was empty, devoid of any life or any deaths. No bodies, nothing, an empty place that seemed to reach forever into the horizon. A perfect place to send criminals thought the rulers of ponies at the time.

But they were wrong, one Demon remained in the world of ponies.

The Ink Demon

Not much was known about that specific demon, information about Demons in general was rare in the first place and so it would be even harder to identify this specific Demon.

The first and last place it was known to reside by ponykind, or any species for that matter, was the Cursed Forest, later known as the Everfree Forest.

Many attempted to explore the forest, all of them returned safe and unharmed. At least somewhat unharmed. Upon interrogation, the ponies that returned from the forest explained that the forest was to be left unexplored and be prohibited from access. The reason? “You wouldn’t want to know…. but you should know that an abomination will kill all those who enter the forest.”

Of course, no one believed the ponies' words since afterall, they all came back alive. But they assured every single ponies or even beings that questioned them, that if they were alive, it was because The Beast didn’t feel like killing at the time.

The Beast, another title that Bendy acquired during his years of popularity. Of course, he didn’t kill them because he “didn’t feel like killing”, it was because he actually didn’t care about the ponies in the first place, he was simply having his daily stroll around the forest.

Indeed, the Demon named Bendy was misunderstood as an abomination of terror from every single living being. None dared to approach him aside from the greenery of the forest he lived in.

Yes, there was one demon who did not live in Tartarus, a single Demon that escaped the Fall of Hell, as the event regarding the disappearance of Demons was known as. This Demon being totally clueless about the event in particular and who simply lived in peace in the forest he called Home.

Bendy didn’t do much in the forest besides walking around and enjoying the greenery, or at least what remained of the greenery. His overwhelming aura and power took a physical body in the form of an inky aura always surrounding him and slithering his surroundings like shadows. Luckily, the ink would evaporate if he went too far away from his initial position and the forest wasn’t too affected by the daily bath in inky aura. Though it did give the forest the cause behind its unholy name, a thick layer of darkness constantly covered the forest, making outsiders blind to the insides of the forest, so is the reason behind the Cursed Forest’s name.

That was the uneventful but peaceful life of the Ink Demon. Until two little fillies ran towards the forest...

---

Darkness, that was all she could see. She could hear a small beeping sound, repeating itself every 5 seconds she observed.

Then, she felt something moving next to her. Trying to touch the thing that moved, she moved her forelegs but all she could feel were the soft sheets of a bed.

She tried to open her eyes, it was hard but she could open them… somewhat. She could barely see anything in front of her, but she immediately understood that she was at a hospital.

Twilight was on a hospital bed, when she moved her head to look at what moved next to her bed, which was painful to do, she immediately wanted to gasp and jump out of the bed.

There, next to her was the tired head of her mentor, Princess Celestia. Even with her blurry sight, Twilight could still see the details on her mentor’s face, and if she has to be honest, the Princess of the Sun looked horrible. Bags could be seen under her closed eyes, black stains could be seen all along her once beautiful and even divine white fur. Even her once majestic flowing mane wasn’t moving, it was barely even moving like it used to. In short, her mentor looked tired, extremely tired and if the dried tears down her cheeks were any indications, worried too.

Twilight didn’t know what to feel, she felt extremely bad but also extremely angry at whoever made her mentor turn into such a pitiful mare. But she didn’t have the energy to express any of these feelings, all she could do for now was look around the room.

She wasn’t physically injured but she felt a strain from her magical abilities, it must’ve been mana exhaustion from using all that power to block Nightmare Moon’s-

‘NIghtmare Moon! That’s right! What happened to her?! And what happened to-’ “Don’t worry, the moon made way to the sun and I’m personally fine and a little bored.” A voice suddenly cut her train of thoughts, an unnerving voice that sent chills down Twilight’s spine.

“Y-” She tried to speak but found out that her voice was quite broken. All she did was look at the door of her hospital room, there leaning on the doorframes was the Ink Demon himself with his eyes closed and his ever so uncomfortable yet comforting smile on his face.

“Don’t speak, lie down and rest and please don’t wake the little princess.” The Demon said to her while doing a little side glance when he opened his eyes before closing it back.

‘I should be the one telling you that…’ Twilight thought as she slightly glared at the Demon who was clearly the only one speaking loud in this room. Then she glanced at her mentor’s quite pitiful state.

“She’s been waiting here for nearly two weeks already, you sure do love your sleep little star.” The Demon said while grinning at her, but she didn’t care at the moment.

‘Two weeks?!! I’ve been here for that long?!’ Twilight panicked in her mind.

“Don’t worry too much, both the moon and the sun are fine and as for the other stars, hm, it’s quite interesting what the eclipse did to them…” The Demon said in a cryptic way as he looked in front of him in contemplation, which made him look like an idiot since it looked like he was glaring at the door frame in front of him.

“Well, for now rest but I do have a question for you.” The Demon said before looking straight at Twilight.

‘W-what?’ Twilight thought, a little uncomfortable by the sudden stare the demon gave her.

“Why did you do that?” He asked.

‘W-what?’ Twilight thought, confused by the question.

“Why did you block the spell? Knowing full well it was pointless of you to do that.” The Demon said to her.

The princess of friendship contemplated on that. Why did she do it? She knew that the being in front of her could take the spell so why did she do it? After careful consideration, she answered.

‘Because you are the last hope Equestria has, someone even Princess Celestia didn’t even want to get help from. And… and I didn’t want to see you die…’ She thought before looking down.

“Why? I am a Demon, something that everything fears and wants dead so why? Even the little princess didn’t want to see me again for who knows how long.” The Demon said, confused and clearly not understanding her actions. That surprised her since she thought the being in front of her knew everything in advance and was always composed. But now, he looked lost, almost like a child…

‘But… You aren’t evil…’ Twilight thought, looking back up at the Demon who looked at her even more confused.

“What makes you think so?” He asked.

‘I saw you looking at the injured ponies back when we walked around Canterlot… You were carefully looking if anypony was very injured… And… I don’t think it was only because of the…’ “Contract?” ‘...yes.’

“I see… Well, I’ll be going now.” The demon said and Twilight wanted to say where he was going, but she couldn’t as the Demon was already gone into the shadows, going who knows where.

Then, she felt movement on the other side of the bed. It was Celestia and she was waking up. Twilight stared at her mentor and she would’ve gasped if she could. Celestia’s eyes were bloodshot, her pupils were so small they could barely be seen.

“Twilight!” Celestia exclaimed as she jumped at her, nearly crushing her already broken body.

“Celethia….” She struggled to say.

“Ah! I’m so sorry!” Celestia said before backing off, looking down on the hospital bed as she regretted her actions.

Twilight was quite shocked, since the start of this crisis she was seeing completely new parts of her mentor. She hasn’t seen her look so… weak and helpless. Since she couldn’t really speak, she did what she could do, she gently hugged her mentor who immediately cried.

“I was so worried when… he brought you back with so many wounds…” Celestia said through her sobs.

“Wh-*cough*... what happened…” She asked, coughing as her throat was dry. It took time for Celestia to calm down, but when she did, she started to explain what was happening.

Nightmare Moon was defeated and the reconstruction of Ponyville and Canterlot soon started, apparently the two evil sisters didn’t attack any of the other cities. For what reasons? They didn’t know, but it allowed the other cities to send some helping hooves for the reconstruction as well as helping the injured ponies. Next was the Ink Demon, whose existence spread across the entire land being labelled as the mysterious savior and the secret weapon of the Royal Family. Many of the nobles saw this as leverage against the Princesses for hiding such a valuable and dangerous entity from them. The Demon himself didn’t seem to mind all of that and simply brought her back to the hospital where Celestia apparently threw a fit and accused the Demon of harming her precious student which resulted in her being covered in ink, no major injuries though.

“He also healed you on the way so all you really needed is rest to recover from the magical strain.” Celestia finished.

“Celestia *cough*, who is he?” Twilight asked and Celestia immediately understood what she wanted to know. She really didn’t want to say anything but her friend and former student needed to know.

“A long time ago…”

---

Flashback over two thousand years ago

“WhaT iS thIs?” She heard as she and her little sister ran inside the Cursed forest. She stopped with her little sister, both petrified by the distorted voice.

They were still little fillies, scared and tired of being used by the hateful ponies. Their alternate self already in the process of manifesting in the world.

“Who’s here?!” Yelled Celestia in a semblance of courage, obviously still in a state of fear. Their horns lit up, ready to fire at the slightest movement in the surrounding.

“oH? hOw cUtE” The distorted voice said once again, scaring them both as they stared into the darkness, and the darkness stared back at them. From the shadows of a forest they could see movement. Luna fired a beam as soon as she saw it.

“Oh mY, whAt vIolenCe!” The voice said, mocking the poor attempt at harming its source, further infuriating the moon princess as she fired another beam.

“Shut up!” The small princess yelled as she fired beams after beams. She didn’t even know what she was supposed to hit, but she fired anyway in a state of fury, Nightmare Moon slowly manifesting through her body. Celestia, seeing this, tried to calm her sister but failed.

“oH? IntEresting… A fEllOw bEinG oF shAdowS…” The voice said and the two little Alicorns stopped moving, petrified by what they were feeling. They looked in the darkness, and the shadows seemed to expand… on the ground, on the trees and maybe even the sky! Everywhere in front of them seemed to be devoured by slithering shadows, and as the shadows came closer and closer to their petrified bodies, the sound of a heartbeat made its way into their ears, followed by an unstable sound of breathing.

Then, the very darkness they stared at for the past ten minutes manifested itself, its embodiment taking the form of a monstrous entity that seemed to constantly melt, and on what looked like its head was plastered the most terrifying smile they’ve ever seen in their lives.

“WelL thEn, wHy Don’t YoU tWo iNtroDucE yOurSeLvEs?”

Author's Note:

Yes, it's me.

Now I know it's been over a year since then but I got a good excuse! Well actually I don't, I just burnt out at the time, and during that I kinda... forgot my account password. Well I could bring out any type of excuses but the fact that I kinda fled this story all together doesn't change.

SO yeah, here's the new chapter and also if the writting seems different, well it's normal it's been over a year since I last wrote something so don't get too surprised if the story becomes dull. And as for the schedule? There's none and I gotta focus on school too, so the releases may range from a week to practically another month/year. So yeah, don't get your hopes up just yet.

With this, I hope you liked this chapter.

Comments

[Igris]

Ye, I woke up from hibernation

[Kain26831]

Liked and followed this is a really entertaining story wordsmith I'm looking forward to more