• Published 23rd Feb 2013
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A Young Lady's Guide to the Demon Slaying Arts - Protocol



[Humanized Universe]: Monsters and demons live alongside the citizens of Equestria, blending in and committing murders. They're powerful enough to repel magic and shatter swords. And it's up to one young girl to stop them.

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Little Girls and Troubled Students

Little Girls and Troubled Students

The small, wooden cottage in the middle of the mountainside was lacking in grandeur but not in spirit. Its three, cheery inhabitants lived together in simple but happy lives, joyously expecting the arrival of a fourth member.

"Mom, dad, can I see her, can I see her?" the excited little boy chirped, and his parents smiled back down at him.

"Slow down there, kiddo. Here's your new little sister, born just this morning." The father's gentle gaze fell on a bundle of cloth that the mother held in her loving arms, which sifted ever so slightly to reveal the face of a newborn baby girl.

"Aww, she's so cute!" The boy said, fawning over his recently discovered sibling. "What's her name?" he asked.

The mother spoke to the boy, showing affection to both her children but never taking her eyes off her baby. "Lizbeth, our little baby girl."

The princess of the sun opened her eyes in cold sweat. Her head spun from sitting up too quickly, but that dream was quite peculiar. The name 'Lizbeth' both warmed her heart and sent a chill down her spine at the same time, as if there were sinister secrets hidden behind the face of that innocent child. "What was that all about…" she mumbled, before falling back into slumber on soft, linen sheets.


Celestia had just finished raising the sun, and headed off to her kitchen to brew up a cup of coffee. Last night's strange events had left her a little perturbed. Upon seeing that a blue haired woman had beaten her to the caffeine, she decided to tell her about it. "Luna?" she called out. "There's something I want to ask you." She told her sister about the strange dream.

"Lizbeth? Hmm, I cannot say that the name sounds familiar to me, sister," said Luna, after giving it a brief thought. "Why, was she important?"

Celestia hesitated. "…No, it was just a silly dream, that's all."

"What kind of… hah, silly dream?" a voice called out from the doorway. The feytian sisters turned to face a man in elegant yet tattered garments, and mismatched shoes, horns and wings. He was using the frame of the door to prop himself up, panting heavily.

"Discord!" Celestia exclaimed, as she helped him set down on a chair. "You don't look so good, are you okay?"

"Just… hah, a little… tired, that's all," replied Discord. "Keeping a constant stream of magic flowing to hold together a dimensional rift tends to take its toll on you, immortal or not."

"Hmph. It was thine own fault that the gate has a tear in it in the first place. And should you not tuck in your animal parts? I am quite afraid that you are going to knock something over," Luna chided. Discord responded by flicking his tail towards her hands, snatching the mug of steaming dark liquid she was holding. "How dare thee!" Luna shouted, as Discord took the cup into his own hands.

"Oh, lighten up, wittle Woona, it's so much more comfortable just letting them hang loose," Discord chuckled, tossing the contents of the cup to the back of his throat and taking a gulp. "Ahh, that's much better. Coffee, what a wonderful thing people have invented within the past thousand years. The solution and the cause of so many of life's little dilemmas. Now, what was this about a dream?"

"Right," said Celestia, caught off guard. "Last night, I dreamt of a family and a little girl who I'd never seen before in my life. Someone called Lizbeth. Do you know what's going on?" she asked.

"Indeed I do," yawned Discord. "In fact, I've had the same dream a couple of times in the past, too."

"Really?" Celestia's ears perked up. "What does that mean?"

Discord grinned. "Oh, my sweet little Celestia. Haven't you learned by now? Some things don't mean anything. They just happen. Little coincidences, that's all."

"But both my sister and thou have shared the same dream, and thou hast seen it multiple times. Surely that can't be coincidence," Luna objected.

With a sigh, Discord stretched his limbs as they made several cracking noises. "It can be, and it is," he replied. "The gate to Tartarus brought demons and monsters into Equestria, but that's not all it brought. There was also a slight residue of energy, with enough of my chaos still in it to reach anywhere in the world. That energy wave was dispersed across the land, and the more powerful, magical beings caught wind of it in the form of a dream. It's just an old memory, from who knows where. It may not even be from Equestria, for all we know. But nonetheless, it's just a coincidence. Nothing more, nothing less. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll get back to my chambers and rest up."

"Here, let me help you," offered Celestia, putting Discord's fatigued arm around her shoulders and aiding his steps.

"Oh, get thyselves a room," teased Luna as she sipped her brew, much to the now glaring solar princess' dismay.

"Hmm? What makes you think we haven't done so already?" Discord threw back, causing Luna to spit out a good amount of coffee and have a violent coughing fit afterwards, with the silent Celestia blushing profusely besides him as she hurried to leave the room without a word.


Some days were just perfect, Spike thought. On those special, once in a while, little gifts of life, everything would just fall right into place. The sun would shine brightly without a cloud in the sky. Twilight would be studying or be out on a trip by herself, and Spike would have the whole day to himself, lazing around on the bed until noon and eating an entire tub of ice cream. Yes, indeed, some days were just absolutely gorgeous.

Today was not one of those days.

Ever since the young embrey woke up to hear the news of their upcoming training, Spike knew that the start of their training would not be a favourable day. After travelling back to Ponyville with Twilight and Scarlet, he'd spent the entire night and the past four hours in Twilight's library, listening to Scarlet lecture him and Twilight (Mostly him, because Twilight had read books on a lot of the stuff.) about the flora and fauna of Tartarus, and all the monsters known to Equestria. She then spent another two hours demonstrating the appropriate countermeasures and battle tactics against the more commonly seen creatures, and most of it flew past Spike's head.

To be honest, the session wasn't boring. Not at all. New creatures and fascinating beasts? That sort of stuff sounded exactly like Spike's kind of thing. However, what had made the day particularly miserable was Scarlet's harsh reprimands to the incorrect answers to her questions from Spike, whose young mind could only learn so fast. Today, Spike learned, whether they were made of metal or soft, non-lethal rubber, bullets fired out of a scythe-gun still hurt like hell. Within the short span of less than a day, Spike's body was riddled with small, blue bruises from head to toe. Projectile training, Scarlet called it. Hah, a likely story, thought Spike, a memory of her mischievous chuckles as she watched Spike squirm. She was one sadistic witch, through and through.

Twilight, on the other hand, was doing exceptionally well. Even faced with a topic that she wasn't very familiar with, she caught on quickly and learned heaps of information, from the colours of different hellhounds down to the musculoskeletal structures of baels and goblins. On the rare occasion that Scarlet's bullets flew from a slip of tongue, she would quickly teleport herself away from the pellets.

"And when you are encountered with a group of gargoyles, what is the first thing you should do?" Scarlet asked, catching Spike off guard from his daydreaming.

"Uh… go for the head?" Spike guessed, holding his arms in front of him to block the incoming bullet.

Instead, Scarlet calmly responded, "Huh, full frontal assault. Nice style, plenty of bravery."

"Phew," Spike sighed in relief, lowering his relaxed arms.

In the blink of an eye, Scarlet whipped her weapon out, grinning. "But that's not a fighting strategy for someone as tiny as you, squirt. The correct answer is, clip one of their wings. They're much less agile on the ground, and with one wing disabled, they'll spiral out of control the moment they take off." She pulled the trigger three times in rapid succession, sending painful rubber projectiles towards the young embrey.

"Ahh!" Spike yelled, reacting in the only way he could think of within the fraction of a second. He spewed a green stream of flame, which swallowed up the bullets. "Hah! I did it! No more bruises for me today," he gloated.

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure," replied Scarlet, stepping to the side. "Was that normal, heated fire, or your transport flames to Celestia?"

The question took a moment to click in Spike's mind. "Uh oh." Those were the last two words he said before he belched out a letter and a blur of three small anomalies, which ricocheted on the wall where Scarlet had stepped away from, hitting Spike's noggin three times. "Ow…" he said, rubbing his head. Three rubber bullets fell to the floor beside him.

"What does the letter say?" asked Twilight.

Spike unfurled the small piece of parchment in front of him. "It says, 'Ow'. -From the desk of Princess Celestia-."


The next morning, Twilight and Spike found themselves marching into the depths of the Everfree. "So, why are we here again?" Spike asked. The three of them had been journeying inwards of the forest at least a good half hour. "It's starting to get creepy in here."

"Hold on, we're almost there," Scarlet grunted, leading the group. She was twirling her scythe to clear some of the more stubborn branches and vines. "Voila, we're here!" she gestured grandly as she broke through the thicket, arriving at a large field clearing in the forest.

"You still haven't told us why we're here," Twilight noted. "What exactly are we going to do today?" she asked.

"Well, Twilight, I'm glad you asked that," Scarlet responded. "You remember the last thing I said before we left Canterlot?"

"If I recall correctly, you said that Spike and I would begin training in two days." Twilight said. "Aaaand then you started as soon as we got back, and proceeded to shoot us with rubber bullets while teaching us about monsters until now.

Scarlet grinned. "Actually, Twilight, that was just a crash course on Tartarus, and also a little test for me to see where your skill levels were at. Prerequisites, if you will. If you've noticed, it's been two days since our departure from Canterlot. And here we are, folks, in the middle of nowhere, but still pretty close to the gate of Tartarus. Today, you guys are gonna be hunting monsters in the vicinity of this clearing. Training has officially begun."







Spike looked around nervously. "Um, shouldn't we start with some smaller, weaker things to fight first? Not, you know, go somewhere further away from the gates?"

Scarlet sighed. "Kid, we came here because we needed to start small. See, the rift in Tartarus and Equestria's shared gate doesn't work like a normal doorway. It's not really supposed to be open or used as a passageway, so things are a little different," she said. "Weren't you paying attention yesterday?"

"Uhh… wanna run that by me one more time?" Spike smiled meekly.

Scarlet looked to Twilight. "Do you remember what I told you guys, Twi?"

Twilight furrowed her brow, trying to remember Scarlet's words the previous day. "Trying to enter through that crack in the universe is like hurling yourself against a locked door with all your might," she began, and Scarlet nodded in approval. "You'll make it to the other side if you manage to break down the door through force, but you end up exceeding the door frame depending on how much extra power you put into it. If you're strong enough to barely knock down the wooden boards, you'll make it to the other side, on the other side of the door. But, if you have a considerable amount of strength, you'll rip through the door like it was made of paper. The excess momentum will carry you past the doorway, and end up maybe a few meters ahead."

"So basically, the stronger they are, the farther they land from this gate when they break through," Scarlet summarized. "We're going to start off with something small today. I've gotten sightings of gargoyles around this forest. They're fast, but small, pretty much harmless little things, so it's good practice."

Scarlet fired a loud shot into the sky, and there was rustling sound in the forest. "All right, now that I've given our location to the locals, you'll have your first lesson today: Gargoyles. Weak and annoying little things, but they can hunt in groups, so be careful."

As she finished her sentence, a number of fast, gray blurs came darting out of the woods. Scarlet's arms stole forwards rapidly in a fluid motion, and she now held a small, winged, stony gargoyle clawing at the air. "The little things are fast, and only about half my height, but you should be able to catch them. I'll make sure they don't get away if you lose one of them." She tossed it back into the sky, keeping an eye on Twilight and the other on Spike.

A trio of gargoyles zipped around Spike furiously, leaving small scratch marks where they swiped their claws. "Ouch! Hey, that hurt!" Spike shouted as he tried to defend himself for a good minute.

He looked over to Twilight and Scarlet. Scarlet was just calmly circling the two of them, casually batting the annoying little creatures with the back of her scythe to himself and Twilight as some of them tried to escape. Twilight had been slightly awkward in fighting the monsters at the beginning, but she'd quickly caught on. She had already taken two of them out with a few pinpoint shots from her magically summoned bow and arrows, and was on her third and fourth monsters.

Meanwhile, Spike hadn't even caught one gargoyle, and was practically being toyed with at this point. It had been a tiring few days, and he certainly wasn't about to let the girls think that he was useless. The gargoyles were fast, zipping about in blurs of gray, but they weren't as fast as rubber bullets.

Spike took a swipe to one of the little creatures, aiming his extended claws towards where the thing's trajectory was headed. With a metallic scratch and a thud of the now one-winged stone demon falling to the ground. Spike cracked a smile as he dealt the finishing blow to its head. "Projectile training. And here I thought it was just Scarlet playing around."

He took another lunge at the second gargoyle, missing the wings but striking the neck instead. To his surprise, the gargyole shattered into pieces from the impact with a squeaky yelp. For creatures made of stone, gargoyles were surprisingly fragile.

Seeing his comrades fall, the last gargoyle harassing Spike made one last ditch effort. He circled upwards, and dived straight down with claws pointed to the unsuspecting target, who caught the speeding demon out of the corner of his eye at the last second.

Time slowed down. There was the strangest feeling of déjà vu, like Spike had gone through the exact same scenario a dozen times before. Him standing defenceless, a painful, high-speed object shot towards him… It was just like Scarlet's little study sessions, except this could end with more than just a bruise. Scarlet and Twilight wouldn't let that happen, would they? But… they were preoccupied at the moment. Even if they had noticed the situation the embrey was in, they wouldn't be able to react fast enough to save him. He couldn't count on them this time.

In that moment, Spike did the only thing he could, out of fear, out of instinct and out of frustration from being bruised so many times. He reached down into his throat, letting the hottest fire he could muster up spew from his mouth. The red ball of flame struck the gargoyle diving towards him, creating a loud explosion in the air. The gargoyle didn't even have time to scream, as he blew up into a thousand flaming pieces.

"Nice shot!" Scarlet called out.

Spike felt exhilarated. That was the strongest fire he'd ever managed to make. This feeling of adrenaline pumping through his veins was new to him. New, and awesome.

"Good work, recruits. For a coupla newbies, you didn't do half bad," Scarlet complimented as both Twilight and Spike took down their last gargoyle, with an arrow to the head and a swipe to the torso.

As they were getting ready to head back, one last gargoyle reared its ugly head from a cluster of trees behind them, soaring towards the group with blinding speed. "Mine!" Spike called out, eager for the elation of combat.

Scarlet noticed something about this gargoyle that neither Twilight or Spike had. Something was wrong. While the others were tiny, gray creatures, this one came up to at least her neck, and was a dark purple in colour instead of gray. "Spike, step back!" she cried. "You don't know what you're dealing with!"

Spike ignored her warning, his mind clouded by the heat and passion of battle. "Don't worry, I got this! Just watch me!" His teeth started to glow, as the flames were building up in his throat. With a flick of the head, he spat a huge fireball at the purple gargoyle, dead on. "Hah!" He gloated. It felt good to do that.

But as he turned his back to strike a pose of bravado, he failed to notice that he hadn't finished off the beast. Far from it. The gargoyle roared as it neared the ball of flames, and sliced it in half with a furious swipe of its talons. The fireball faded into the air, and the monster was unscathed.

Scarlet and Twilight ran forward, but it was too late. The monster grabbed hold of Spike's shoulders with its feet, and lifted off into the air. "AAhh!" Spike yelled out, as he was carried off further into the forest.

Scarlet aimed her scythe at the beast, but Twilight intervened. "No! You'll hurt Spike!"

She was right. Even if she managed to not hit the boy with her bullets, the fall from those heights could permanently cripple him, if not more. "Tch," Scarlet scowled.

Twilight was frantic, not knowing what to do. She turned to Scarlet, looking for answers. "What now?" she cried out.

Scarlet put a hand on her shoulder with a determined expression. "We're going after them," she said flatly, pointing in the direction where the gargoyle and Spike had disappeared to.. "I'm not going to have one of my students drop out on their first day of training."