Arc1 Start: Buisness as Un-usual (Edited)

*RING-RING. RING-RING. RI-THUNK*

A black leather boot came crashing down onto the desk and the phone was bounced off it's receiver, launching into the air. It gained enough hang-time for a hand to snatch it from it's rapid spinning and bring it into position beside the owners head.

"Yes?" The owner questioned, waiting for the caller to answer. However, not a single word came back and all he could hear was the light static crackling into his ear. He was about to hang up when a voice with a terrible and obviously fake middle-eastern accent started talking.

"Hello, my name is Hamad Al-Asad, and I am here to inform you about-" He ended the call abruptly with the flick of a switch and sighed with frustration He threw the phone back to the receiver and it landed perfectly on it's mountings with a *ting*, and causing it to rattle a little bit. Dante continued to lean back in his chair with his legs up on the desk and his head resting in his hands.

"Another fake caller?" A provocatively dressed young women walked slowly in from the back room, swaying her hips a little with her foot falls. The heeled boots she wore made a heavy clapping sound as they impacted the floor, getting his attention and making him turn his head slightly.

"Eeyup." He said tiredly. "I'm getting so bored. Why can't another ass-hat, like, open a portal to the demon world or something?" He threw his arms out behind him for a second to emphasise his point.

"I don't know. Maybe we've already killed all the ass-hats who keep opening up portals to the demon world, or something." She suggested.

"So you're suggesting that we've run out of demon worshipers? Nah, there are way to many idiots out there for that to happen. Who was that weird guy with the book who helped my brother, again?"

"You mean the girl's father that you and Virgil killed yourselves?" She dead-panned him deeply.

"Yeah, that guy. I could bet my shitty wages there are still hundreds of people like him wandering about, looking for ways to try and obtain my fathers power."

"Well, until they try something then we've just gotta wait for them to show themselves. And besides, that kid Nero has Yamato now, so not only do they have us to worry about. I'm sure Nero would be more than happy to put down a few more demons to protect his girlfriend, at least." Dante nodded slowly in understanding.

"And our 'shitty wages' aren't actually that low. It's just that you waste them by practically living on pizza, Strawberry Sundae's and beer, so the amount of money you spend on junk-food just makes our wages feel shitty." She turned a little sour all of a sudden and glared at him.

"Bite me." Dante put on a 'not giving a shit' face and pointed to his ass. This brightened the mood a little and Trish grinned widely.

"Don't tempt me." She winked and walked her way over to the front door. "Anyway, I've got some jobs on the side to do so I'll see you later." Dante looked up, turning serious.

"You never told me that you had things planned today!" He pointed at her angrily. "What have you got going on?" He asked with suspicion.

"That..." She opened the door to the half ruined city streets outside. "...is for me to know, and for you to find out. See ya'!" She twirled and shut the door behind her, leaving Dante in a silent room all to himself.

"Humph." He sat hunched in his chair for a moment, tapping the desk impatiently and hoping for something interesting to happen. Like for a demon-cult to come crashing through the front of his house/store with a load of hostages for him to heroically save. Or maybe for his brother Virgil to appear before him in a flash of light with some henchmen and start a battle that he would so easily win. But no. Nothing happened.

He tried to have a nap but the busy day-time city sounds kept him from even slightly dozing off. Today was going to be another boring day where nothing would happen and he would just sit and watch TV or listen to music or get drunk at a local bar. He turned his attention to the playboy calender hung on the wall next to him. Today was Tuesday, the second worst day of the week, next to Monday of course. Most of the previous days had boxes filled with crude crayon drawings of stickmen killing other stickmen, dicks, and dick jokes. Some even had useful one-liners that he used after defeating a foe in combat. So far, Dante had only ever lost a fight once. And that was to his brother when he was hyped up on demon power that Yamato had provided, and was able to literally block bullets by spinning Yamato ultra fast.

"I wonder were he is now?" The last time he had seen Virgil in human form was after he escaped the demon world and left him down there with Mundus, and the rest of the demon army.

This was a conflicted topic within Dante's head. Virgil had attempted to open a gate to the demon world and obtain the power of their father, Sparda. Dante had stopped his brother from possibly destroying a large portion of the world, but he later found out that he had been corrupted by the prince of darkness, Mundus, and turned into the demon called 'Nelo Angelo'. Had he known that Nelo Angelo was Virgil then maybe he could have saved him before he was killed. But the truth was that at the end of the day, Virgil was his brother. Dante was sad to see him go, even if he was evil.

While he sat his second co-worker, Mary, or 'Lady' as she liked to be known as now, walked in through the door and broke his chain of thought. Her footsteps where heavy due to the over-sized rocket launcher slung on her back. She stood in the doorway for a moment, watching his thousand-yard-stare break when she entered the room.

"Thinking, are we?" She questioned when she saw him staring blankly into space, fiddling with the necklace around his neck.

"Why are the women in my life always judging me?" He asked sarcastically. "First Trish has a go at me for wasting money and now you're trying to get into my head!" Mary flipped him off, making him laugh.

"It's not my fault you have an ego the size of Trish's tits. Have you even seen those things? They're not natural!" She walked over and leaned on the desk with a smile on her face.

"You've seen Trish's tits? I'm beginning to feel jealous." Mary paused for a second after Dante finished his joke and then face-palmed at her mistake.

"It's literally impossible to banter with you."

"Yeah? Well you're a pain in my ass."

"Then at least we're even." She gave him a gentle shove with one hand and walked upstairs. Once again Dante was left to his own devices, not that he had any, and to somehow think of a way to pass the time.

His sword, 'Rebellion', hung on it's rack next to the calender along with his two pistols, 'Ebony' and 'Ivory'. He sat and stared at them for a while, and before long he came to the logical conclusion that if trouble wouldn't come to him then he would go out and find it himself.

"NNRAAR!" Nero screamed, lunging forward at the approaching monster and swinging his new sword diagonally and slicing it clean in half from shoulder to waist. It exploded with a powerful energy and he turned to face a new group of 3 enemies. He readied his stance and inverted the swords position in his hand like he would hold a dagger.

As they got within striking range, he coiled back his arm like he was performing a backhand slash, but instead spun round and thrust forward. The monster, expecting a slash, was taken by surprise when the 4 foot blade shanked it in the stomach and tore upwards. Nero then flipped hand again to the traditional forehand and proceeded to quickly cut down the demon to his right.

The final construct swung and hacked viciously and Nero jumped backwards to avoid the flailing blades embedded in it's fleshy arms. The monster raised both arms and jumped forward to try and decapitate him there and then, but was tricked when Nero jumped to meet it, cutting low. The low swing sliced through the flesh like butter and completely separated it's legs from the torso. He stood there catching his breath for a second while the silence sunk back in after the sounds of death screams were drained away from the air. Holding his stance, he knew that they would not give up that easily.

The ground rumbled like a small earthquake and he looked around cautiously, waiting for something to come his way. The tense shaking continued to tremble for a moment until it suddenly stopped without warning. Nero smiled and started walking away from the arena where the dissolving bodies of demonic constructs lay lifelessly.

And although the ground practically exploded behind him, he was ready for it. The concrete was ruptured easily by the behemoth that rose up from the fracture, throwing Nero into the air. He used the momentum to wall run along the side of a building, leaping of it's surface towards the giant clawed legs of the insectoid beast. Brushing by them and missing by inches, he jammed the sword into it's hard armoured skin and used it as leverage to swing up and onto the creatures back.

The giant mantis-like demon realised that it had the dis-advantage so early in the fight, and used its powerful legs to jump unbelievably high into the air and began to twist and writhe in an attempt to shake Nero from it's carapace. Nero however, held firm. He kept his balance and when the demons front legs were raised above it's head, he ran up the leg that he swung off and jumped for the katana still wedged into it's skin. Grabbing the handle, he pulled with all his might and ripped it out of it's position and back-flipping into the air where he landed on the insects long head, stabbing the sword into it's snout to prevent himself from falling off.

The demon landed from it's great jump and kicked up a huge amount of dust in the process. It shook it's head violently to remove the tiny warrior, but when the dust cleared he was nowhere to be seen. It looked around frantically for the missing attacker.

"WHERE ARE YOU?" It's raspy voice boomed throughout the air. "SHOW YOURSELF!" As it searched around, confused as to why the half-demon human had disappeared all of a sudden. Nero was hanging onto a large bony spine sticking out from the back of the beast's head.

"Hey!" He shouted, getting it's attention immediately. The effect was perfect. Hearing the voice come from directly behind it's head, it looked up and strained it's eyes back, trying it's damned hardest to spot him in it's blind spot. He set off again, this time using his old sword making his plan easier. Sprinting up it's head, using spines as ledges to jump up. Eventually he reached the bridge of it's 'nose' where it had to go cross eyed to see him, and stood there, sword in hand.

He smiled and leaped into the air, diving back down on it's left eye using the sword as a spear to pierce the eyeball. Just before they collided he pulled down the lever on the swords handle and twisted it with a *CLICK*. It let out a harsh mechanical growl as flaming liquid was sprayed onto the blade and it lit up orange with an intense heat, sparking through the air and into the monster's eye. Nero sliced through the soft tissue, through the back of the eye-socket and finally, the brain. Carving a hole straight through the head, he eventually burst from the back of it's skull. Burning brain tissue and shards of bone were sent flying in a red gory cone that sprayed blood everywhere.

He found himself free falling 50 feet through the air and shouldered the over-sized sword in his back to allow him more space to prepare for a landing. He might be half demon but he wasn't invincible by any means. A long fall would still do damage if he didn't land right.

Finally hitting the ground with a loud *SLAM*, dust was thrown out in a big ring around him. His black and maroon coat flicked around with the resulting air disturbance and his arms were outstretched sideways to avoid crushing them in his crouched position. A second after landing all of the gore from the demon's head landed around him, creating a patch of red that circled him menacingly. Nero slowly rose to a stand and the quiet was broken by the insect beast collapsing onto the ground and crashing through several buildings behind him causing another dust cloud to be thrown into the air.

Nero stood in the cloud and waited for it to clear. When it did, his right arm, his demon arm, hummed with energy from the slaughter. A small crowd of on-lookers rose from their hiding places and gawped in amazement at the spectacle before them. However, all that dust caught up on Nero and he let out an embarrassing sneeze, breaking his bad-ass posture.

There was silence for a moment. The growing crowd not sure what to say, and Nero waiting for something to happen. After what felt like an eternity, a woman dressed lightly in black came running in through a gap in the crowd.

"Outta' the way!" She sprinted through the parting mass and gasped at the scene before her. Nero stood there smiling while the dead giant lay behind him. After that she changed from shocked the bemused.

"Nero." She deadpanned him. "That was going to be MY kill. MY job that I took up from one of MY clients!" She pointed at him in irritation.

"Yeah? Well I'm sorry I took your part." He walked toward her and stopped when face to face. "It's good to see you Trish." He held out his hand and Trish shook it half heartedly.

"Good to see you too, lover boy. Speaking of, where's..."

"Kyrie."

"Yes, Kyrie."

"She's back at our flat. She's probably worried sick, I should get going." He began to walk away but before he could go very far, gunfire was heard and Nero flinched at the bullet wizzing past his ear.

"Not so fast, Kid." The voice of Dante said mockingly. He stopped and turned around to face him.

"What's the matter?" He asked.

"I need to speak with both of you." He pointed the heavily modified black pistol to them both in succession. Nero shrugged and walked to Trish's side.

"Oh, here we go again." Trish face palmed and sighed.

"Right!" Dante holstered the pistol and rubbed his hands together while he approached them. "First, Trish, you knew there was going to be a HUGE demon attacking here and you kept it a secret because you didn't want someone to steal your job?"

"Yeah..." She shrugged innocently. "What's wrong with that?"

"What's wrong with that is that I was bored as fuck! You knew that I was looking for something to do and you didn't tell me just to annoy me!" Despite his apparent rage, Dante didn't seem to be being too aggressive. In fact, it sounded more like sarcastic anger than anything. "And Nero, I know you're knew to the demon hunting thing, but if there's one thing that really pisses of a bounty hunter, it's stealing their jobs... However!" He raised his finger with a smug smile. "Considering Trish was being such a bitch to me earlier, I think I'll let you off." Trish flipped him off and the guys started to laugh.

The sound of a motor-bike engine faded in as a large armoured bike drove through the gap in the crowd that Trish had made. It skidded to a halt beside them. The young woman in white stepped off the bike, her Sub Machine Guns and Rocket launcher rattling as she walked to the group.

"Phew..." She whistled in awe at the dead behemoth behind them. "Did you guys do that?" Dante and Trish pointed at Nero who was still smiling after his laughing fit. She made a 'Not bad' face and nodded in respect. "Nice kill."

"Meh, no problem. Anyway I should be getting off now, Kyrie will be waiting for me."

"She's waiting for you to get off, is she?" Dante questioned him with a shit eating grin and Nero threw a couple of coins at him.

"Shut your stupid smart ass mouth and use these to fill it with those pizza's you like so much." Nero gave his argument response.

"Wait. How do you know I like pizza?"

"You wouldn't shut up about it at the bar a few days ago."

"I don't remember going to the bar a few days ago!"

"You got completely smashed, so I'm not surprised you don't remember anything."

"Hey! I don't binge drink you lying bastard!"

"Oh really? Because I specifically remember you getting so pissed that you tried to kiss Trish in public. Needless to say, she wasn't very happy."

"Ahh, so that's where those bruises came from." Dante exclaimed with a sudden realisation, rubbing a small mark on his forehead.

"Right, can we all get going now?" Trish asked. However she didn't get time for a response as the ground began to shake again. All four of them widened their stances in preparation for a stand off. The shaking carried on for a second and the group turned to the big hole where the giant mantis had come from before. Weapons drawn, all took up defensive positions. Except Dante. Who just stood there tapping his foot on the floor impatiently.

"Why can't it just come up and fight straight away? I've been itchin' for a fight lately!"

"SHUT UP!" The other three shouted at him angrily. Dante huffed and drew his sword, waiting casually for the next attacker. The earthquake carried on until a huge object rose from the hole in the ground. The group reeled back in confusion as the only thing that happened was a big stone monument erecting itself in the middle of the street. Silence overcame them and Dante sighed.

"Well that was anti-climactic." He said with no expression, obviously a bit disappointed. They were about to sheath their weapons when the monument made a metallic *PING* that sounded out over the city, echoing for miles around. Then the stone on the tower collapsed, revealing a demon portal that had been activated with the sound. The portal sucked in the huge amounts of stone and gaining power, began tugging the demon hunters as-well.

"SHIIIIIIIIIIIII" Nero screamed as he and the demon hunters were pulled off of their own feet and sucked into the portal's opening. Once they and their screams disappeared, the vortex closed and the portal shut down, locking them on the other side.

Touching down

View Online

Equestria:

A land of un-paralleled beauty, colour and personality. Home to a vast array of wildlife and the base for stunning settlements, it is the pinnacle of peace-time-harmony. But on one day, at one fateful hour, in one destined second, it gained a new title. 'The worlds loudest scream.'

"-...IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-" *CRASH*

Nero hit the floor with so much force that he bounced off the ground and 5 foot into the air before finally coming to rest. He moaned in pain and shifted slowly on the soft ground as pieces of stone rained down around him. The grass tickled his fingers and the wind disturbance swirled around the area where he rested. He lay there for a moment, letting his aching bones cool down and the letting pain fade away.

Once his body was one again usable, he rolled over onto his hands and knees and took heavy breaths of the new and thick air around him. Finally he remembered that he had just been sucked through a portal to... somewhere, and he jumped up to a standing position, ready to take on whatever came his way. But the only thing that came his way was the calm and soothing sounds of nature, and at that point Nero almost had a stroke and died. Almost.

As far as he knew, this, wherever it was, was supposed to be the demon world. So unless Hell is actually a really nice place to be, then he didn't have a clue where this was. He twisted and looked around in confusion, but all he could see was trees and bright green grass. He turned another 90 degrees and was greeted by a captivating sight.

The ground gradually fell away into a soft slope, and in the distance he could see naught but a luscious green forest canopy and picturesque mountains that rose up into the clouds. The songs of birds hummed and tweeted in his ears as the wind rustled on by. He started forwards with caution, still not willing to accept that he was anywhere but the demon world. Every footfall was light, with Nero thinking that at any moment a platform would fall away or then millions of trees stretching out into the distance would transform into an army of demons. He reached the top of the hill and narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the tree-line. To him it looked like the perfect place for 'Scarecrow's to ambush him, so he decided he would stay well away from it.

While he stood there, he noticed a new sound. Distinctively the sound of feet impacting the ground, except he could tell this creature had four legs. It was quiet, like somebody was creeping up behind him. He remained his oblivious look and let the sound get close enough so that it would never get away when he turned to strike. After a while, the sound was coming from directly behind him. He counted from 1 to 3 before drawing Yamato and spinning around.

He was about to slice and cut the 'demon' in half when something stopped him. The creature withdrew quickly with a frightened cry and fell over. It scrawled backwards and started running. Now Nero was beginning to doubt his previous thoughts as to where he was, and decided it was now or never to find out early.He drew Blue Rose, his double-barreled revolver and fired at the creatures feet, making it jump sideways, away from where they landed.

"Stop!" He shouted. The creature stood still, shaking in fear and whimpering. From behind he could see that it was equine in resemblance, a pegasus with a butter yellow coat and a pink mane and tail. He judged that it was roughly 3 feet tall from head to hooves. "Come back..." The creature turned painfully slow but Nero noted it's large eyes and short snout in comparison to a standard horse. "...I need to know where I am. Can you tell me?" He holstered Blue Rose and sheathed Yamato. This seemed to ease the pegasus as it trudged slowly towards him with it's head held low.

He frowned at the equines stance but after some thought he concluded that if a creature with an extra 3 feet on him pointed a katana in his direction then he would be pretty reluctant to approach it as well. He kneeled down to get more on it's level as it closed in.

"You can stop there if you want." The pegasus halted it's movement, still looking down and trying to avoid eye contact with him. He thought that maybe he should try and be friendlier to it rather than interrogate it. He wasn't Dante, he did think about things before they happened instead of improvising on the spot.

"I'm sorry for scaring you there, I thought I was in danger and I that you were going to hurt me." The pegasus then look at him with un-easy eyes and managed a weak smile. "My name's Nero, glad to meet you..." He gestured with his non-demon arm for it to give it's own name.

"I-im F-Fluttershy"

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Nero cocked his head. "A shy one, eh?"

"Fluttershy."

"Fluttershy, was that?" It' nodded slowly "Fitting name for the personality." "Well Fluttershy, mind telling me where I am?"

"Y-you're in Equestris right now."

"Okay, so Equestria isn't full of demons then?"

"W-What? No, of course not!" She almost seemed offended, suddenly becoming more forward. "What made you think that?"

"Well me and some friends got sucked through what we believed to be a hell-gate, so I thought I was in some sort of hell for a bit."

"Oh that's terrible! Where are your friends?"

"Dunno'. Probably somewhere causing a commotion."

"Why would they be causing a commotion? Are they always troublesome?"

"Sometimes. Dante is the least reasonable among us, so I don't think It'll take him too long to get in some kind of trouble. I don't know much about Trish but from what I do know, she's supposed to be alright. And Lady is... well, I don't know Lady."

"Why don't you know Lady if she's your friend?"

"Well we're more acquaintances than friends, but we've met briefly once or twice and she seems friendly enough. She's a bit like Dante except with less tongue and cheek cockiness. Oh, and by the way, is there any way you can get me to somewhere where I can get myself patched up? I literally just fell from the sky and I feel kind of crappy."

When Dante started to regain consciousnesses he became aware of some strange sensations. The air was rushing over his back, the blistering cold penetrating his coat and making him shiver. He yawned and his eyes slowly fluttered open. And to his surprise the first thing he saw was a seamless blue sky and he frowned. Looking around he found himself falling through the air and the ground was nowhere in sight.

"Huh? What the fuck? Looks like Hell's interior designers finally worked out what the sky is!" He twisted so that he was falling face first in a streamlined position. He searched for Trish and Lady, finding them falling a little bit ahead of him, he drew Rebellion and pointed it downward to use it as a nose cone and increase his speed.

Accelerating towards the ground, Dante quickly started catching up with the two falling women ahead of him, coming neck and neck with them. He tilted to Lady and shoved her. She mumbled something inaudible and curled up a little bit more.

"LADY!" He got no response so he shouted again. "LADY, WAKE THE FUCK UP!" He had to shout through the rushing wind in order to be anywhere close to loud so that she could hear him. She started to stir and moaned loudly before swallowing and opening her eyes.

"Urgh, Da..." Her sentence was cut off short by the realisation of falling setting in for her. "AAAH, DANTE HELP, I'M FALLING!"

"YEAH, NO SHIT! LISTEN TO ME, YOU GOTTA' STAY CALM WHILE I WAKE TRISH!" Without waiting for an answer he tilted in the opposite direction and strafed through the air to Trish. He punched her shoulder and then all of a sudden, Dante found two knife sized razors being held to his throat as she 'awoke' in a blind panic and almost killed him.

His near death experience ended quickly as Trish finally worked out what was going on. She looked down for a moment and then back to Dante before nodding him away. Moving back to the flailing Lady, he tried to get close to her without being knocked out.

"LADY, LISTEN TO ME! I NEED YOU TO STOP PANICKING SO I CAN HELP YOU!"

"EASY FOR YOU TO SAY WHEN YOU'RE HALF DEMON!"

"LIKE I SAID BEFORE, BITE ME!" He tried to get into a position where he could pick her up but she wouldn't stop moving. He decided it would be easier if she wasn't awake for him to help her. "HEY LADY!"

"YEAH!?"

"SORRY IN ADVANCE!"

"WHA-" She was stopped by Dante's fist slamming into her head and knocking her out cold. He was finally able to pick her up and continue falling in peace.

"TRISH!"

"YEAH!?"

"HOW FAR UNTIL THE HARD STUFF!?"

"I DON'T KNOW!..." She looked down at the rapidly approaching ground."-We mustn't be too far off by now, so...-" "...I GUESS ABOUT 10000 FEET!"

"SO THAT'S ABOUT 40 SECONDS, RIGHT!?"

"I DUNNO! IT'S NOT OFTEN I END UP FALLING THIS DISTANCE!" She returned her attention to the forest that seemed to be getting too close for comfort. The trees were a very dark green, something close to a very dense forest sat waiting for them.

"-Great. If we do survive this, then there's probably some sort of nasty demon lurking in there to finish us off.-" She searched for other places to land. Over in the distance, a city lay at the base of a mountain and there appeared to be a castle of some sort built into the mountain itself. Averting her attention back to the forest, a section of the trees directly below them looked a little different to the rest. The pattern was off, like the ground beneath it was blue... "-A lake! There's a lake below those trees.-"

"Dante!"

"WHAT!" He cocked his head at her in confusion.

"Oh... DANTE!"

"YEAH!?"

"BELOW THAT AREA OF TRESS THERE'S A LAKE! WE CAN LAND THERE!" She pointed to the area where the lake resided under the canopy.

"BUT ISN'T FALLING INTO WATER AT HIGH SPEED SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE FALLING ONTO CONCRETE!?"

"YOU CAN USE YOUR SWORD TO BREAK THE SURFACE TENSION THEN!" Dante's expression dropped briefly and he muttered something along the lines of 'I knew that' under his breath.

"HERE, GRAB LADY! THIS BETTER BE A DEEP LAKE!" Trish took hold of the unconscious Lady and position herself behind Dante, trying to make herself as streamlined as possible while grabbing hold of Dante's waist. The large Clay-more style sword was removed from the the back of Dante's long red coat and was pointed forward. Their speed increased dramatically in a short period of time, and all of a sudden the ground didn't seem so far away. Trish braced herself as the canopy grew close. "BRACE YOURSELF!"

The sound of trees breaking apart lasted only a split second as they collided with the lake. The water's surface tension had been broken by the force of the huge sword hitting it first, but not to the extent that she had thought it would. When she hit it, it was like being smashed in the face by a wall. The massive hit made her vision distort and the murky waters that were already full of bubbles seem even darker. All of the nerves her body dulled and numbed, making movement ineffective and her limbs practically useless.

A red and white blur shifted in front of her, grabbing her arm and tugging her unresponsive body though the water. She couldn't tell if it were up or down as her senses were too shocked to work properly and her balance was thrown all over the place. But after a couple of seconds she began to recuperate a she could see the shimmer of the lake's surface approaching her. She helped by kicking her legs and adding extra propellant to hasten their ascent.

She burst through the surface of the water and took a gigantic gasp of air as her eyes re-adjusted to being out of water. She floated there for a moment, breathing heavily to oxygen to her body and regain her senses. Her moment of rest was interrupted by screaming from ashore.

"You fucking mad-man!" Lady wailed, punching Dante who just stood there, taking it with a smile. "Take this! *SMACK* and this! *SMACK*" Dante tried to say something, but every time he got the start of a word in, a punch would hit his chest and cause his lungs to jerk, stopping him mid word.

"You could have killed me!"

"It wasn't my idea, you can go punch Trish for that one." Dante shrugged with a shit eating grin.

"I don't care!" She went back to punching Dante in the chest and Dante just standing there and absorbing the blows. Punch after punch came in and he just smiled all the way through, waiting out Lady's adrenaline high. After a while her throws slowed, and eventually came to a stop. Lady fell onto her backside and breathed heavily.

"Got that outta' your system yet?" He asked the exhausted young woman.

"Yeah, I think so." She laughed a little bit and pulled herself to her feet.

"Alright then! I guess-*SMACK* Argh! What the hell was that for?"

"That was for knocking me out!" Dante said nothing, only shrugging and turning to Trish who had just got out of the water. Once she got settled, she got up at the lakeside and started ringing out her hair. Lady went to join her, checking her weapons for any damage.

"Like I was going to say, I guess i'll leave you ladies to it. I'll patrol the area for demons." He twisted melodramatically and walked away humming loudly.

"-This is insane...-" Nero thought as he listened to the little yellow pegasus talk about her friends and her home. "-...So there's an entire kingdom full of small, talking, mythological horses that is ruled by two big mythological horses who just happen to be immortal and have the power to control the sun and moon's daily orbit around their world. I take back my doubts, I AM in hell..-" He sighed as he came to a realisation that he no longer held any sanity whatsoever.

"Ok Fluttershy, so where's your cottage?" He asked her while not looking where he was going.

"It's just down this hill, not much further now." She said like he couldn't make a 200 meter walk. "-Although her shy and flattering personality is kind of irritating when it comes to conversation, the fact that she's completely selfless and genuinely caring for others is a refreshing change from the guys I had to deal with back in the Order. So glad they're are gone.-"

The little two floored cottage sat nicely near the edge of the forest and it was surrounded by fields and meadows. The local wildlife population seemed to have flocked to the area and Nero spotted deer, rabbits, squirrels, a multitude of colourful birds and several other types of small land mammals.

As they neared, some of the animals kept their distance from Nero, probably having never seen anything like him. They parted into a pathway for him to go through and he gladly obliged. However Fluttershy stopped to tell them something.

"Come on now, there's no need to avoid him. He's new here so you should all make an effort to be friendly." She finished her motivation and some of the creatures closed in hesitantly on Nero, causing him to stop walking and hold still. He rolled his eyes and and crouched down to meet the otter approaching him.

"Hiya' little guy." He held his hand out to it and it looked at him suspiciously for a second. But when he started scratching behind it's ears, it happily let him touch it and exposed the spot so that he could reach it more easily. He stopped after a couple of seconds and stood up, continuing on his walk. The otter squealed in delight at somebody else to pet him, and Nero only just got to the door of the cottage when the other animals started coming towards him from behind.

Nero noticed this and brought up his demon arm in a 'Stop' motion. They all held still and looked at the glowing blue arm with bronze armour. Fluttershy however, had a different opinion.

"Oh my! We have to get that checked out!" She rushed over to him, pulled the door open and somehow managed to throw him inside despite her small size. "Sit right there and don't move, Fluttershy's going to have you all better soon!" She shoved him onto the couch and started rummaging about in her cupboards.

"Er, Fluttershy?"

"Shhh, no need to strain yourself." She put a thermometer into his mouth and went back to her cupboards. Nero pulled the thermometer out of his mouth and set it down on the foot table at the couch's side.

"Fluttershy, i'm not sick. My arm... well it's not normal but it's not doing me any harm. In fact it sometimes helps me." She stopped looking in her cupboards and looked at him sheepishly.

"Oh...erm, sorry for...well... forcing you into my house." She shy'd away and started putting her things back in their respective places.

"It doesn't matter, to be honest if I saw someone with an arm like this without knowing what it was, I'd probably be worried about them too. You did right by being concerned."

"You really think so?" Her ears flicked and she brightened up. Nero just smiled and nodded. "Thank you."

"You're welcome Fluttershy." There was silence for a moment as they both thought of something to talk about.

"So... Why is your arm like that? That is, um... if you don't mind me asking."

"Not at all." He laid himself out on the couch so that he was lying down on his back. "But if I tell you, you have to promise that you won't go nuts, ok?" Fluttershy paused for a second to think and then nodded slowly.

"Well Fluttershy, my arm has looked like this ever since I became... half demon." There was silence and both of them said nothing for a brief period. "Like I said, this isn't normal. Although it does bug me, it and my demon heritage grant me abilities that are life saving in my line of work. Such as my body can take and deal a whole lot more punishment than a normal person. That's why my bones weren't turned to powder after that big fall.

"My physical strength is higher than normal, and if I siphon enough power from slain demons then I can activate my demon half and become practically unstoppable for a short period of time. A really cool ability is that I can use this arm to throw larger demons around like they were nothing by dolls. I can use it to effectively 'store' items as well which can be kinda' handy when i'm over burdened with things. Watch."

Nero got up and walked over to a more open space within Fluttershy's home. He grabbed Yamato in his demon hand and held it out, enveloping it in a blue light and causing it to disappear. Fluttershy watched very closely as he paused for a moment with a smile and opened out his hand again like he was holding the swords sheath. A blue light came from his palm and the sword materialised within his grasp.

"Wow! That's amazing!"

"I know, right? Downside is I can't store anything I wan't. Only objects with some sort of demonic power can be stored. And it only gets better! I can-"

*KNOCK* *KNOCK* *KNOCK* "Fluttershy? You in there?" A loud female voice shouted from behind the door.

"Oh, that must be Rainbow Dash."

"Am I okay if I stay here? You said she can be quite defensive about her friends."

"Well... yes. I'll tell her that your not harming anypony before I let her in." Nero flinched at that word. "-So they have their own ways of referring to people. That's gonna' get old pretty quickly.-"

She walked over to the door that was still being struck furiously by this 'Rainbow Dash' who was on the other side. Opening the door, a pegasus of a similar size with a cyan coat and a rainbow striped mane hovered in front of Fluttershy.

"Sup' shy'? Hows' your day been going so fa-" She stopped dead in her sentence when she saw Nero, and an awkward moment broke out between them. He hid his demon arm behind his coat and raised his other hand in a friendly 'Hello'.

"Hi?" He said nervously and the flying pegasus kept staring.

"Fluttershy, there's a monster in your house!" She lept in-between Nero and Fluttershy in a wide fighting stance.

"Umm, Rainbow, he's not a monster and he doesn't mean any harm."

"Then what's with the swords? And what's he hiding behind that coat?" She pointed her hoof to where his arm disappeared behind him. Nero decided he'd answer that one himself.

"I'm a demon hunter, I need my weapons to hunt demons. It's pretty simple really." Rainbow Dash looked at him skeptically and narrowed her eyes."-And this is was going so well until she showed up-"

"I don't believe that for one second! Show me your... what's it called on something with two legs? Oh yeah, Show me your arm!" Nero sighed and slowly showed her his demon arm. She looked at it for a moment and her face turned sour.

"Monster!" She came flying towards him at a fast pace, fore-leg reeled back ready for a punch. As she lunged forward Nero rolled sideways and her strike missed him, hitting naught but thin air. "Come back here!" She gave a powerful flap of her wings and span round in a karate styled flying kick, coming at him to fast to dodge. Nero put his left leg back in a short stance to better balance his weight and thrust his demon arm out to meet her kick.

As they collided, Nero locked his fingers around her hoof and used her weight to spin himself round. He pulled back the arm and used the gathered momentum from the spin to throw the offending pegasus back out of the door. She went spiraling out of control until she managed to regain level flight 100 meters or so away from the cottage. She hovered there, eyes spinning comically in a confused daze. He went to the door so that they could take their fight out-doors, where they couldn't damage Fluttershy's home. As he walked past the shocked animal lover he kneeled down to her.

"I won't hurt her unless she hurts me. Do you think you can help me convince her to stop?" She calmed her breathing and closed her eyes.

"I'll try." She nodded slowly, shaking a little.

"Good." Nero patted her on the head and headed out of the door to face his flying attacker with Fluttershy at his side. "I don't want to have to fight you. Can you just calm down, please?"

The rainbow maned mare glared at right at him, like she was staring into his soul. "And let you hurt Fluttershy? No chance buddy!" She came flying at him again, this time using her whole body like a super fast battering ram. Nero prepared himself to act and as she came close, he thrust up underneath her with his demon arm and got the timing just right to grab her on the chest. Then he tensed his arm to stop her from going fast to stationary instantaneously, a difference that looked to shake her up a little. And finally he flipped her upside down and slammed her into the floor. He held her there as she rubbed the back of her head and giving him a look that could kill.

"Look. Fluttershy here was only trying to help me find a spot to get some rest. I mean no harm, right Fluttershy?" He looked back to her for an answer. She nodded again and he turned back to Rainbow Dash. "See?" Rainbow glanced between the two, putting things together before resting her tensed muscles. "We cool?" He asked her, tilting his head off to the side.

*SIGH*, "We cool." She huffed and crossed her forelegs. "Can you let me go now?" Nero released his grip on her and she pulled herself to her hooves. "Don't think this changes anything though."

"Why?" He threw his arms up for emphasis. "What have I done? I fell from the fucking sky and Fluttershy helped me by taking me here to rest. That's all that happened! And then you come in all guns blazing and accuse me of being monster, then to top it off, you start throwing punches! What did I do wrong!?" The pegasus' head drooped a little bit and she let out a sigh.

"When you put it like that, I guess it does sound bad." She looked back up at him with her big adorable pony eyes. "I'm sorry, sometimes I act before I think and things like this happen."

"Don't get yourself down. I've let people off on worse." She cocked her head curiously.

"Like what?"

"Before we were friends, this guy called Dante started a sword-fight with me." Rainbow Dash's jaw dropped.

"A sword-fight? That's a bit extreme!"

"Well at the time I was trying to save my girlfriend who had been kidnapped by a group of warriors that I belonged to. Needless to say I wasn't very happy. Turns out this group I was with, called 'The Order of The Sword' wanted to use a powerful being like me as fuel for a giant demon made from stone, and my girlfriend Kyrie was the bait.

"Dante was and still is a demon hunter like me. He knew this was going to happen and he saw me all frustrated and using Yamato here..." He pointed at the katana sheathed around his waist. "... as a weapon of immense power to get Kyrie back. He explained to me that Yamato was his brother's sword, a long lost family piece, and if I wasn't going to use it properly then he wanted it back.

"My patience was short due to my anger and I threatened him, he responded by drawing his sword and challenging me to a fight. A fight which he won, by the way. Once he won and I had been put at his mercy, he let me gt because I had 'cooled off' and was ready to go on. So yeah, I have an interesting life." Both pegasi looked at him astounded. Their jaws hanging open and staring at him with shocked expressions.

"What?" He shrugged.

"I-is Kyrie o-okay?" Fluttershy stuttered with concern.

"Oh yeah! She fine. However that's more than I can say for me when I get back to her. She's gonna' slap me half to death for disappearing on her like this. Anyway, lets go back inside. My bones are still aching from my fall and I need to rest, besides, I'm sure you came her for something other than fighting people, eh 'Skittles'?"

"My name is not Skittles!" Skittles said defensively.

"I know, I'm just trying to lighten up the situation, that's all."

They all headed on back into the cottage and Fluttershy closed the door behind them. Rainbow lounged out on the couch, taking Nero's spot, so Nero hat to sit on the space next to her. Fluttershy sat down on a soft looking chair opposite them and they rested while Rainbow Dash explained what she was going to explain before she started attacking Nero. And by the sounds of things, the land of Equestria was apparently in a state of reparation after a recent attack from a demon they called 'Tirek'.

According to a joint explanation between the two pegasi, Tirek came from 'Tartarus', a place that served as the pony hell, to steal Equestria's magic so that he could become the most powerful being that ever lived. And after he had sucked most of the ambient and unicorn magic out of Equestria and it's inhabitants, the princesses which he now knew to be called Celestia and Luna, gave their powers to a third princess called Twilight Sparkle that Tirek didn't know of in hopes that she could use the element of surprise to defeat him.

However a chaotic being by the name of Discord had been working with Tirek in order to gain control that he gave up in exchange for not being turned to stone for he third time in a row. Discord told Tirek about the third princess, but then Tirek betrayed Discord so that he could control all of Equestria for himself and went looking for Twilight Sparkle to finally gain all of the power he could ever want.

Apparently what he didn't count on though was Twilight's abilities with magic. They told Nero that she is one of the most, if not the most talented magic user in history, and was able to use that magic to defeat Tirek and banish him back to Tartarus before saving the regal sisters which he had locked in Tartarus prior to looking for Twilight.

After that, Celestia and Luna were understandably furious at Discord, but when some investigating was done, it turns out that Discord had planned the whole thing from the start. He had released Tirek, helped him suck up Equestria's magic, helped Tirek banish the royal sisters to hell, and purposefully allowed Tirek to betray him. Just so that the newly crowned Twilight Sparkle could learn a life lesson about friendship that may or may not prove useful in the future. Harmony was restored, peace was reinstated, 'yardy, yardy, yar', all of that good stuff. And then there was now.

"So, why are you here again?" Nero had to stifle a yawn and remind the Rainbow pegasus after her story-telling.

"Oh yeah, Celestia wants a meeting between all the important ponies including the Elements' in Canterlot tomorrow at 12am. I'm supposed to give you you this." She handed a scroll to Fluttershy.

"Do you think I can come along? If these princesses are as powerful as they're supposed to be, then maybe they can find a way for me and my friends to get home."

"Meh, maybe. Come along, but don't expect to get her attention until after she's finished with us. Wait, are your friends here? Like, in Equestria?"

"I think so. We all got pulled through a portal together so I'd guess they're her somewhere." Rainbow shrugged.

"Whatever. Anyway Fluttershy, I gotta' go." Rainbow walked up to the door and opened it up. "See ya'!" With that, the door slammed shut and silence followed suit. Leaving Nero to think to himself...

"-What the fuck is going on in my life?-"

Demon Hunter-Hunters

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*SLAM*

Rainbow Dash took off into the air immediately and set off toward Ponyville "Oh my gosh! The girls have to hear about this!" She flew through the air at lightning fast speed and in no time at all, the town started to come into view. She was going to get her friends and come back for this 'Nero'. A large smile grew on her face at the thought of payback against the demon hunter. She was at cruising speed and making good time on Ponyville when she was stopped by the sound of an explosion in the distance.

*BOOM*

Although it was faint, it didn't sound that far away. She stopped flying and instead opted to hover so that she could turn in the direction that the sound came from. She gulped as she saw a expanse of dark forestry erupt with a flock of birds. Hundreds upon hundreds of black birds squawked and took off into the sky, creating a big black shadow that moved over the woodland with an eerie gliding motion.

*BOOM*, *BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG*

The next explosion was followed by a series of smaller and higher pitch sounds. They weren't quite explosions, but whatever they were, it wasn't good. She set off back on her original course to Twilight's library, she had a gut feeling that something big was about to go down, and setting her track record straight with Nero was going to have to wait.

The demon hunters stood back to back, preparing themselves for an attack. The forest they were situated in was thick and contained little distinguishable features to use as landmarks. After barely 5 minutes of walking, they were already being surrounded by a group of the local demons.

"So there's, what... a pack of 10 big wooden wolves?" Lady loaded a rocket into the launcher and rested it on her shoulder, ready to fire.

"We can take em'." Dante span Rebellion in his hands until it reached ready position, spearing ahead and pointing at his part of the pack. "Let's show these dogs who's boss!" He waved the sword at the dogs like he was taunting them.

"Don't start celebrating too early, Dante" Trish warned him. "You never know when one of your enemies has a card up their sleeve."

"Yeah? Well then I guess I'll just have to start cutting off their sleeves to expose those cards! RRAARRR!" He ran forward, directly at the closest wolf, sword raised. The wolf leaped at him, teeth bared and claws raised, ready to maul him into a meal fit for any demon. But Dante dropped down, sliding on his side so that the wolf passed him over-head. He took the opportunity and swung at a hind leg, slicing it clean off. When it staggered back he struck at it's neck and decapitated it with one clean swing.

Meanwhile Lady fired off her rocket at a section of the pack and blasted the two wolves closest into splinters as two from behind ran in to take their place. Covering the pure-blood human while she Reloaded the launcher, Trish engaged them swiftly.

The wolf slashed at her but she dodged around the side and rammed a razor into it's shoulder and dragging downwards, slicing a large gash in it's leg. It howled and retreated away in hopes of escape from it's attacker. However Trish was quick on the case and kart-wheeled onto the top of it's body.

Lady finished reloading and fired off another rocket at the wolf paws, blasting in into the air. But not before Trish could leap away from the explosion and shoot the beast in mid-air. She performed a back-flip for style and landed perfectly on top of the last wolf's head. Her landing stunned it and while it was dazed, she rammed Luce and Ombra into it's eyes and fired.

The two bullets, charged with demonic power, met in the middle of it's skull causing an explosion big enough for Trish to use as a catapult to fling herself into the air and land next to Lady.

While the other two fought, Dante was left to contend with another three of the wolves. The first charged him head on and Dante flinged Rebellion into it's face, the sheer force of the blow caused the front of it's body to bend backwards. The second tried to jump over it's fallen comrade to take Dante by surprise, but Dante ran up and kicked the handle of his sword.

The blade span viciously and flew into the air, cutting the jumping wolf in half. Dante leaped after the blade and caught it mid-spin, landing on the ground behind his victims with immense grace. The final wolf stood before him, looking unsure about how to deal with such a powerful foe.

"So you're a thoughtful one, eh?" He asked the wolf, but he didn't get much of a reply and so he let out a 'Humph' and rested Rebellion on his shoulder. Dante stood, sword in hand, waiting for the dog to make a move.

It began to strafe and started making a circle around him. He watched it's movements closely, they were methodical and thought out from the beginning. While it circled, it slowly moved closer and closer. Dante didn't even turn around to face it as it got behind him and into his blind spot.

When it was right behind him, it lunged with great ferocity. Dante had judged the beast's move and spun round, his kick connected with the side of it's head and it plunged into the ground next to him. It groaned with it's new headache as he walked up next to it casually. Dante kneeled down next to it's dented skull and pressed Ebony into the wound, making it wince in pain.

"Attacking an opponent from behind doesn't make a difference if your opponent knows." He smiled as it looked up at him in fear. "The only thing you accomplish in that, is being taken by surprise when your enemy whips round' and spits in your face." The wolf let out a low growl and started to rise up. but Dante quickly pulled the trigger and blasted a hole in it's head.

He span Ebony in his hand and holstered it in his belt. He stood up and span around with an exaggerated twirl, flicking his coat out so that it rustled about as he came to a stop. He opened his arms out, gesturing to the final two that were in combat stance, side by side.

"Righty' then!" He sheathed Rebellion and walked slowly towards them, staying as casual as possible. "You've seen what we did to your buddies back there. So i'm givin' you two options: One, you can stay here and die, or two. You can turn your ugly asses around, walk back into the forest and forget this ever happened. Your choice, guys!" He turned his back to them and let them make their choice. Somehow he knew what the answer was going to be. "-Speaking of having tricks up your sleeve...-" He prepared a pair of old friends for combat. When he knew their conversing had gone on for too long, he started a countdown.

One... "-For the money...-"

Two... "-For the sin...-"

Three... "-Three for the- aw fuck it.-"

Agni and Rudra appeared in his hands and he back-flipped over the two leaping attackers and landed in a martial arts style long stance, both blades inverted and ready for a fight.

"We taste blood once again!" Rudra introduced as Dante landed professionally.

"Wait! Would opponents made from wood even have blood?" Agni over-analysed with his question.

Dante sighed and leaped forward spinning wildly at a tremendous speed. The wolves had no chance of avoiding the attack and yelped in pain as their bark skin was sliced to pieces and their wooden insides were both set alight by the fires produced by Agni. Their situation was then made worse as the intense air vortex made by Rudra flung them about and split their weakened hides, tearing part of their bodies away.

Dante landed with a safety roll and rose to his feet. He turned around to observe his handy-work, with the twisted and mangled burning bodies strewn about the clearing like dolls. Satisfied with the result, he turned his attention back to the two 'Devil arms' in his hands.

"It turns out wooden wolves do have blood, brother!" Agni exclaimed to his counter-part.

"Yes. In the form of tree sap, disgusting substance." Rudra commented. Dante knocked their heads together and glared at them angrily.

"I though I told you two to shut up!?" The swords remained silent and Dante smiled at their compliance. "Thank you." He told them and they were absorbed into Dante with an amber glow.

He put his hands to his hips and looked over the massive devastation that he had caused. Bodies strewn about everywhere, ripped apart, burned and splintered. He sighed with content and rubbed his hands together, dusting them of after a honest days work. The two ladies walked up to him and gave him a curious look.

"Who were those two?" Lady asked. "Friends of yours?"

"Just two more guys that got their asses kicked back at the Timen-ni-gru." He leaned back with his arms outstretched and several satisfying pops and cracks gave Dante a nice and renewed feeling.

"Back to the matter at hand, we've got a wild Nero to find. The longer we take the more likely that kid is to mess something up." Trish suggested while sheathing the two razors and stylishly flicking her hair.

"Well then. What are we waiting for?" Dante started walking back in the direction they were going before the wolves jumped them.

"So snarky..." Lady said under her breath and Trish rolled her eyes. Something told that this was going to be a long day.

Rainbow Dash arrived in Ponyville to find that a half the town had already assembled in the streets and the mayor was stood at a microphone with Twilight Sparkle. She zoomed in and landed heavily amongst the crowd, kicking up some dust as she did. A few of the ponies gave her annoyed looks but she ignored them and focused on the meeting. She noticed that the mayor and Twilight were staring at her intently and gave a 'Whatever' shrug.

"Okay, as we were saying, this months town meeting is going to have to be re-scheduled to a later date. Any questions?" Twilight looked around until a hoof was raised by a brownish stallion. "Yes?"

"When will this meeting be held again?"

"I'm not sure. However I will be gathering the Elements of Harmony to investigate these anomalies tomorrow. However I will have to gather them earlier it seems, as these strange occurrences are apparently happening as we speak, so you can expect it to be held again within the next few days at best." She answered his question and went silent again to wait for anymore questions. "No more questions? No? Very well, you can all return to your homes now." She finished the meeting and ponies began to slowly scatter.

They talked about things such as the inconvenience of the re-schedule and what the strange occurrences might be. They eventually dispersed to let Rainbow alone with Twilight, Pinkie, Apple Jack and Rarity.

"So you heard the noises too?" Rainbow asked her with a cocked head.

"Not just us, Dash. They heard it all the way in Canterlot! Princess Celestia sent me a letter in the middle of the town meeting saying we should check it out as it might be something to do with the issues she addressed to us earlier today. Did you deliver the message to Fluttershy?"

"Yeah. But there was this weird monster thing with her! It was tall and it had a bunch of swords and stuff." Twilight gasped at this and leaned in closer.

"Oh my... Is she okay?" Rarity blurted out immediately.

"Yeah, she's fine. Apparently him and his friends got pulled through a portal or something, and now they're here. But there's something I don't like about him, Twi'. First he says he's a demon hunter, but he's part demon himself!" Twilight thought hard about what she said and connected a few dots with Celestia's magical anomaly report and Rainbow's story.

"Seems rather dangerous ta' leave her alone with an alien, don't'cha think Rainbow?" Apple Jack questioned.

"Well she said that she found him near the hills to the west and that he fell from the sky, so naturally, she decided to help him."

"And he survived that?" Twilight doubted that anything could just fall from the sky and live. "Falling from the sky, I mean."

"Well he's a half demon alien, dummy! He could just be really tough!" Pinkie bounced up and down for a few seconds so that she didn't explode from standing still for too long.

"He didn't look tough. But I found out later that he has this weird arm that glows and stuff. I thought he was dangerous, and I attacked him. He used his so called 'demon arm' to throw me back out of the door and stop me flying with one hand!"

"That sounds so cool!" Pinkie exclaimed, deep in her seemingly endless sugar rush. Twilight however, had heard enough.

"Girls? We need to go. Now!" A flash of light enveloped the alicorn and her saddle-bags appeared on her sides, full tot the brim with equipment.

"Where are we go-" Rarity was cut off by another flash of light almost blinding her. She closed her eyes to block it out, and when she re-opened them they were standing outside Fluttershy's cottage. *Sigh* "Darling, you must tell us before you do things as such." Twilight was already walking up to the door and starting to knock.

A few seconds passed until the door was opened, and Twilight began taking a step forward. She stopped when she saw something she wasn't expecting. A tall dark figure stood before her and she had to look up to see it's face. It's smile looked to be calm and relexed, and hitching a ride on his shoulders was a sleeping Fluttershy. Twilight frowned at him but it's smile only grew into a grin when she did.

"Come on in." It whispered and put a finger to it's mouth in a shushing motion.

"-Interesting...-" Thought Twilight. "-Its a good thing I brought my notebook.-" The five ponies quietly walked into the house before the door was shut gently behind them.

"Come on! It came from over here!" Rainbow Dash flew ahead of the group, directing them to where the explosions had come from.

"Would be mighty' helpful if y'd slow down Rainbow! Not all of us are athletes y'know!" Applejack looked back to Rarity, Twilight and Fluttershy, who were lagging behind. Rainbow Dash ignored the problems at the back and continued flying ahead.

"We can't be far now!" She called from beyond the tress.

"Rainbow! Don't go too far ahead, the Everfree can be a dangerous place for a lone pony!" Twilight called. However when no response came, she started became worried. "Rainbow!" She shouted for her again but still, the cyan pegasus remained quiet. The sound of metal sliding on metal was heard beside her as a sword was drawn. She looked to Nero who was now running with his giant sword, the Red Queen, in his hand. After a few short moments they burst into a clearing and saw Rainbow Dash standing silently and staring ahead.

"Rainbow! are you o-" She started up but was silenced by the sight before her. A pack of Timberwolves slaughtered and thrown around. All six ponies stared at the corpses that hosted varied injuries. Burns, gashes, missing limbs, some only remained as small chunks of bark and pieces of the foliage that once covered their bodies.

Nero walked cautiously with his sword in hand to the site of utter devastation, his eyes fixed on a particular group of the dead animals. The three dead wolves had very large wounds that looked to have been created by a large blade, one had even been cut clean in half.

"O-oh my..." Fluttershy stuttered in the first part of her sentence, but her speech seemed to break down after that. Pinkie's mane seemed to deflate a bit as-well and her usual happy expression dropped completely.

"What sort of meanie would do something like this?" She looked around to her friends, hoping that on would have an answer. All eyes eventually fixed on Nero as he strolled up to the first set of corpses.

"This over here looks like Dante's work. Large blade and clean slices that either go very deep or all the way through. Although I'm not sure I've ever seen him do something like this, though." He gestured to two of the wolves that had been both burned and chopped up by something.

"I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like this at all." Dash slowly walked in, looking between the groups of massacred wolves.

"What are these, anyway?" Nero asked and crouched down to get a better look at the creatures. They were canine for sure but their bark skin and wooden flesh forbade him to immediately interpret so. "Some sort of Golem?"

"They're... they were Timberwolves, the name pretty much says it all. These friends of yours must be quite the warriors." Twilight said from behind.

"You wouldn't want to meet them in a dark alleyway, that's for sure. However they wouldn't attack unless un-provoked, or unless they were protecting anyone who was un-armed. So these timberwolves must have surrounded them, judging by the way they were organised." Nero got back up and visited the area with pieces of the timberwolves scattered left and right. "I'm pretty sure Lady and Trish were over here. Explosions caused by Lady's weaponry and these wounds seem to be made by knives, much like what Trish carries."

"Hey! Look at these prints!" Rainbow hovered over a set of marks in the dirt and the group walked over. Nero placed his foot down next to one of the marks and then lifted it of, revealing a print that was almost identical to the one that was left. There was no doubt that these particular prints were left by Dante himself.

"These are Dante's boot prints. If we follow them, we may be able to catch up with them." He explained.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Rainbow flew ahead again and beckoned the others her way. A collective sigh was let out and they began moving again.

The woods only deepened as the group followed the tracks. The prints led them further and further into the Everfree and worry was starting to arise among them. Sometimes as they passed particularly dark areas, they could feel the eyes of many dangerous creatures watching their travels. Some of them were starting to feel paranoid and were always checking behind themselves every 10 seconds to see if there was something there.

"Look girls, maybe it would be a bad idea following these tracks any farther. What if we get lost?" twilight asked nervously.

"Then we keep following the tracks. Just imagine we're following a pathway, which we are really." The group stayed silent after Nero's comment and they carried on walking.

"Hey! How'about some jokes?" Rainbow Dash turned around joyfully, flying backwards and not looking were she was going.

"Maybe. But if ya' don't look where yer' going, ya' gonna' to hit somethin' eventually." Apple Jack nodded to an approaching tree. And right on queue, Rainbow backed herself into it and she fell to the floor with a soft *THUD*. They all started laughing and the cyan pony grumbled something in-audible under her breath.

"I'd imagine flying without looking is similar to walking down a bumpy hill while watching the sky." Nero suggested with a wide smile.

"Ooh, that sound like a fun challenge! We should try that out sometime, eh Nero?" Pinkie hopped up and down next to him, her mane now less deflated and her bubbly attitude returning.

"I'm not sure if that's the safest idea ever, but it sounds like something to do when your really, really bored." Nero slumped his shoulders for emphasis.

"Great! Next time I'm free from my schedule we'll try it out! Woohoo!" She jumped and did a random 360 in mid air, landing perfectly on her hooves and beginning to hop again.

"You are one of the strangest people I've ever met, you know that Pinkie?" Nero asked her lightheartedly, followed by Pinkie nodding with a 'Mmhmm'.

As they walked, the wind picked up all of a sudden and blew through the trees with an eerie whistling noise. The group stopped and looked around at each other anxiously. Nero's coat blew in the disturbance and he thought he sensed something in the moving breeze that un-nerved him. As he narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the direction of the winds origin, a blue glow started to bloom around him. He raised his demon arm to see it was giving off a brilliant blue light.

"Nero, darling? W-what does that mean?" Rarity stammered through her growing fear. But he stayed quiet and his glowing hand drifted down toward Yamato. When Twilight saw this, her horn began to glow with magic and her stance lowered significantly. Rainbow Dash hovered in place with her fore-hooves up and Apple Jack readied her powerful hinds. Pinkie Pie pulled a cannon from her mane and slammed it onto the ground in front of her with a determined look on her face. Rarity and Fluttershy hid behind their more combat-able friends as they lacked the strength or magical knowledge to fight. The wind swirled around their heels and the air began to get cold without proper reason.

"Rainbow Dash, whats going on with the wind?" Twilight asked sternly.

"I don't know! The Everfree does theses things by itself, remember?" She got no answer but didn't press for one either. "But I do know that there's somethin' weird going on here." All of a sudden the wind dropped away like it was never there, and a moment of silence where nothing happened.

Twilight opened her mouth to say something, but was stopped when glass shards were sent flying at her and something came from seemingly nowhere to face her. She looked up to see a creature in the shape of Nero but it was almost skeletal and it wore a deep purple cloak over it's body. The eyes glowed bright red and it wielded a large scythe in its hands. Letting out a petrifying scream and raised the curved blade to skewer her.

She started to scream when a flash of white sliced the demon in half and it fell to the floor in two pieces. She looked to the demon hunter who had the Yamato blade drawn and held high up in the air like he had just finished a strike.

"How did you do that?" She asked him with a mixture of curiosity and pure terror. "And what was that thing?" He was going to answer when the sound of more glass smashes pierced the air and the group were greeted by more of the demons breaking through invisible panes of glass in the air. Nero whirled the blade around and locked out his arm, pointing down at the ground.

"I'd love to explain to you, princess. But it seems that'll have to wait." He jammed the tip of the sword into the ground and forced power through his arm and into Yamato. It started to hum with energy and emit a small amount of light until he was ready to slash.

He tore Yamato through the dirt and sliced through the air to send a burst of razor sharp energy through the air, letting the hum resonate and vibrate the air. The curved wave hit the closest Scarecrow and cut in half, while the one behind was thrown backwards and into a tree. The thick trunk split and fell, crushing the stunned demon under it's tremendous weight.

The rest of the demons realised the power of their foe and turned their attention to Nero, advancing on him menacingly. This allowed the purple alicorn to release a hailstorm of magical energy and pulverise some of the advancing monsters into red mist. Nero leaped forth and raised the katana above his head, hacking down with the blade cutting straight through a scarecrow like a knife through warm butter.

He threw Yamato high into the air and pulled Blue Rose from it's holster. The pair of minor demons stood no chance of dodging two shots fired with one pull of the trigger, bullets travelling through on and hitting another. The scarecrows were staggering back under the immense volume of fire Nero was throwing out.

Rainbow Dash flew in fast and kicked their stunned bodies in the spine, breaking them and sending their limp but still live bodies on a course back to Nero. He pulled out Red Queen and activated the exceed function. He spun with the flaming sword and sliced through both of them with a single swing.

He looked over to Apple Jack and saw she was having trouble with a group of demons, unable to kill them due to their resistance to physical attacks of a mortal callibre, which was all she could deal.

He positioned Red Queen like a javelin and launched it at them at incredible speed, spearing right into them and lodging itself into a tree with their bodies still hanging from it. She nodded his way with appreciation and he repeated the action back to her.

Three more scarecrows smashed reality at his front and slowly lurked forward with their scythes at the ready. Nero thrust his hand into the air and Yamato came back down to land perfectly within his grasp. He span the blade in circles and filled it with demonic power, each rotation clipped the floor to create sparks which grew in intensity until Yamato glowed orange with heat.

Once it gained enough energy, he stopped spinning it and swung down, slamming it into the ground. The power surged through the ground at the demons and exploded underneath their feet, tossing them about like rag-dolls.

One landed near to Pinkie and when it attempted to get up, a burst of confetti shot out from the cannon and sent it flying into another. It's scythe span out of control and cut down the last two that were barreling through the air un-uncontrollably.

And that was that. The battle ended with multicoloured confetti raining down from the sky and the bodies of 13 dead demons and a fallen tree littering the area. Heavy breaths filled the air as some of the mortals had begun to tire. However Rainbow Dash and Apple Jack looked like they look have gone for a bit longer. As the brightly coloured rain settled on the ground to create a big circle around the arena, Nero strode over to the tree and tugged his sword from the trunk, the bodies falling to the floor and disintegrating.

"So Nero, what were those things?" Twilight repeated her question and Nero turned to answer.

"Those were Scarecrows. Minor demons, not the strongest and painfully slow. Although they can pack quite the punch with those scythes." He responded. "And as for your other question, this is no normal sword..." Twilight raised an eyebrow.

"Obviously not." She said like it was apparent from the start.

"...This sword is called Yamato. It is a demonic artifact and packs enough power to be able to down just about any foe. And in the hands of a demon like me, it's power can be manipulated to attack with more than just the blade. But what concerns me most is how the scarecrows got here. They came from the demon realm, and this is definitely not the demon realm" He looked over to Twilight, who was rapidly taking notes down with a piece of paper and a quill. "That enough for your research?" He asked with a smile and sheathed both swords simultaneously.

"Yes, that'll do just fine." She blushed sheepishly but her paper and quill remained within her magical grasp. "If I may, I want to ask you a few questions, though."

"Go ahead."

"If you're a demon, what makes you different to the scarecrows?" Nero smiled at the question, as it was to be expected.

"Well I'm not a full demon like these guys were, but even as a half demon I had to have inherited my demon half from somewhere. One of my parents may have been at least half demon themselves. However there are only two humans to have ever lived that have demon blood in them, and they are my friend Dante, and his brother Virgil. Dante has white hair as well, which makes me suspicious." He ended by lowering his pitch and narrowing his eyes for a mysterious tone.

"Ooh!" Pinkie jumped up in the air, her big cannon now nowhere to be seen. "Maybe we can go look for your long lost family!"

*BOOM*

An explosion filled the air and all heads turned to the source.

"That's the same explosion I heard from earlier! Except it's closer now." Rainbow pointed out.

"Well I guess I can fill out my family tree later. Let's go find ourselves some demon hunters!" Nero took off running with the tracks again with the ponies following close behind. The day was far from over.

Berial Part 1: Hell-Fire

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"Wow..."

The three stood in the clearing. The floor was paved with mossy stone that looked to have been placed there many a century ago. The head-wind blew softly into their faces and the smell of pollen whisped into their noses. A slate path lead all the way through the clearing and stone block pillars rose up 10 feet or so into the air at either side at 20 meter intervals, ending in intricately carved gargoyles that looked down upon the midnight path. Their red painted eyes observing their own section with an un-dying loyalty, never watching anything else other than their plot.

"... Just, wow." Dante gaped in awe at the monolith that towered above them, looming over the tree-edged clearing with menacing presence. At it's base there was a hole, a key slot that glowed a fiery orange to show that it had been recently activated. And a pedestal stood not far away, empty of it's prize. Golden symbols ran up the entire length, swirling in a majestic twirl that elegantly traveled to the top. "No matter where I go, there always seems to be hell gates just lying around and waiting to be stumbled across. Not that I'm complaining, but it is kinda strange."

"You do seem to be a magnet for them." Lady removed her red tinted sun glasses and gestured to the large black structure. "As well as several other things. Such as debts, to name only one example. And the fact that we've found a hell-gate implies a few things about where we are."

"But this isn't Earth." Dante rested his chin on a hand in thought. "So are we must be in another world or some shit like that." Trish nodded at the idea.

"It's entirely likely. Considering some of the crap you've seen Dante, would it really be that surprising?" She asked.

"At least I don't have to pay off all those debts I owe you two." Dante did a small victory fist pump.

"And why would that be?" Lady asked him, intrigued to hear his reasoning

"Because it's unlikely that there are any sentient creatures from what we've already. And even if there is then they probably don't use dollars, so anything I could pay you in would be obsolete."

"I don't care what the local sentient life-forms use as currency, you're paying us back one way or another." Lady pointed at him accusingly.

"Well maybe if you stopped sending me your over-priced bills then I could start paying you back." He defended, not once taking his eyes from the hell gate.

"You are paying me back at least..." Trish patted him on his shoulder. "... With the hilarity of your flustered anger. I've never seen a guy who is as cute as you when they're angry."

"Agreed." Lady held up her hand for a high five and Trish met it with her own.

"I swear you buy the most expensive clothes you can just to spite me. Before you two came along, I had no idea that there was clothes that were anywhere near close to being that expensive." He looked over to Lady who was cleaning the glasses on her jacket.

"So which demon d'ya think is gonna' come through this thing?" She finished the wiping and flipped them back onto her head.

"I have a hunch. And if it's correct then we've gotta' be prepared. Not that he's incredibly powerful or anything, but I wouldn't want him to catch me with my guard down." He reached behind his shoulder to get at an itch. "Anyway the guy's massive, getting surprised by him is almost impossible."

"So he's a big guy then? This'll be payment for Nero stealing my job." Trish started walking towards the pedestal and the other two followed suit.

"Not sure that he'll be too happy to see me, I kicked his ass the last time we met." Dante explained with a smile. "If I poke some fun at him it would be pretty funny."

"You would play the jester anyway." Lady chuckled behind her sentence. Dante just shrugged and returned his gaze to the approaching pedestal. It was roughly 4 feet tall and fire crackled behind the outermost layers of it's structure, casting a warm aura around the area. As it neared, he could feel it's link with the gate in the ground, streaming under his feet and through the ground. Every foot fall got him closer to the powerful signal. The feeling excited Dante. It was something similar to seeing an old friend again after years of being apart, he couldn't wait to get back to fighting to bigger and more challenging opponents.

They stopped in front of it and the fire responded to the presence of demonic energy by burning brighter than before. The bowl on the top began to glow softly with a faint red light.

"Welp, let's release a devil." Dante took one of Trish's knives and held it to the back of an un-gloved hand above the bowl. He ran the blade across the skin and sliced it open, clenching it shut to encourage blood to leak out. And leak out it did. Crimson red liquid dripped quickly from the wound and into the sacrificial bowl. The layer of blood got higher with every second, and continued to raise until the flow of blood was stopped and the wound started to heal back up. So are the pro's of being half demon.

He retracted his hand and let it fall to his side. The glowing hot bowl started to boil the liquid and bubbles escaped to the surface. The flames underneath the bowl began to rage, growing higher and greater and forcing the three to take a step back. After a few moments the entire pedestal was consumed in flames and the ground began to rumble.

The pedestal crumbled under the intense heat, leaving a pile of black ruble to simmer away in the bonfire. The swirling gold symbols on the gate began to glow brighter and brighter. Cracks started emerging from them and spread toward the center of the structure, causing pieces to fall away, revealing the flames of hell burning through a portal and flickering through into their realm.

Once all of the cracks met in the center, the entire thing shook and began to crumble revealing a black ebony frame hidden inside. The flames turned into an out-right inferno, almost exploding from the depths of hell itself. The fire was suddenly thrown outwards in a blaze of expanding heat, and inside could be seen the shape of the demon in question. Dirt and dust erupted from the ground as the demon landed with grace that was strange for a being of it's size. The fire that roared over it's head retreated back into the portal, letting the eyes of the demon hunters see who had emerged from it's prison.

The demon had a dark coloured rock for flesh and skin, with the magma lying inside releasing flames from the spaces in-between the plates of stone armour. At the base of each leg was a set of huge claws that burned with an intense flame, and atop the legs was the body of the demon. At the front, it rose into it's mighty chest and further back it was shaped like a wolf that ended in a long tail, similar to that of a centaur. Wings of fire extend from the shoulders and rose well above the head, 40 feet into the air. And at the top of it's chest sat it's skeletal head and two massive arms, with a large sword being held in it's left hand. Fire burned underneath the eyes and was let out at the end of two horns that protruded from the back of the skull.

There it stood, breathing the thick and crisp air heavily through it's nostrils. It started an excited laugh and spun around to look at it's location, each paw-fall creating a heavy smashing sound against the floor. Looking at the forest that he was about to burn down, he thrust his mighty sword into the air.

"BERIAL LIVES AGAIN!"

Berial chuckled to himself.

"It's been too long since I've had a good killing spree..."

Nero and the ponies where still following the tracks, the tension growing as the prints got fresher and fresher. But as they walked they were stopped by an almighty roar. The ponies just looked at Nero and he drew Red Queen, running forward to the source of a gentle orange glow.

Berial looked out over the forest with a satisfied smile. Finally a world to burn and no humans to hinder him, he would play havoc on these woods and destroy anything that lay in his path.

"That the guy?" Lady looked over to Dante who was smiling devilishly.

"Eeyup. That's the guy." He started walking towards the giant, anxious to get started. "HEY!" He shouted with his hands cupped around his mouth. Berial heard him and started to slowly swivel on the spot. "HEY, I'M TALKING TO YOU!" When Berial finally turned to face him head on, he grunted and groaned at the sight of the one who nearly killed him last.

"Dante, the last remaining son of Sparda." He took a few steps towards the small red clad figure. "It seems that fate has brought us together for another battle."

"I've been waiting for another go at you. Last time you ran away like a pussy before I could finish you off!"

"Say what you will about my retreat. But when it comes to the re-match, I could say the same as you. I learned from my mistakes and this time there will be only death for you, Dante."

"Oh really? Well this time I brought some friends to the party." He gestured to the women behind him. "I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all. I'll be sure to give our extra 'guests' a nice and warm welcome. Besides, it's not every day I have the joy of fighting three at once."

"Considering how badly I kicked yer' ass last time, one versus three seems a little un-fair. I'm actually considering telling them to stand back."

"Hmm, but that would just be rude. Or would you be willing to give up your advantage in numbers just for a challenge?"

"Well if that's the way you feel about it..." Lady and Trish walked up to his side and drew their weapons, creating the sound of metal being drawn that added to the crackling of flames. Rebellion was pulled from Dante's back and was held with the tip pointing up to Berial's face. "...Then I guess it's high time you step up your game. Cause' you're about to get your balls planted 6 feet under." Berial smiled and his own sword was risen to a combat stance.

Dante started running at Berial and reeled back his arm, ready for a strike. Berial swung his sword into the ground with earth shattering force, and a large crack expanded away from the contact and towards Dante, magma erupting from the depths below. Dante quickly rolled to the side and launched Rebellion through the air and into one of Berial's ankle joints.

The demon flared his fiery wings and used them to throw him self into a barrel roll, using his sword to create a fire-storm as he span round and round. Dante dodged and weaved around the streams of flame, jumping up underneath Berial and grabbing onto his sword.

He pushed the blade as far as it could go into the ankle and tore it out sideways to create a massive wound that bled magma profusely. Leaping from Berials torn open ankle, he landed underneath his rolling body again. Berials lashed his flaming tail at him in an attempt to strike him off guard, but Dante back-flipped out of the way.

When Berial landed and came to rest, he was faced with a new enemy and a painful ankle. Lady stood in-front of him, toting a rocket launcher that she was pointing at his face. It fired with a blast of smoke and Berial covered his face with his free arm, exploding on impact and creating a smokescreen. He wafted the smoke away in time to see a large grapple blade being launched into the tip of his nose, locking on a not budging a bit.

Trish was already long gone from the front of the demon and had joined up with Dante, who was running back into the fray. Berial tossed and turned in an attempt to dislodge the grapple attatched to him. But Lady held on tight to her launcher, and when she got into the right position she dis-connected the grapple and fell until she landed on his back.

Trish and Dante took up their pistols and fired a wall of lead into Berial, chipping away at the side of his head and neck. He whipped around to face them and Lunged forward with his sword ready to perform a back-hand swipe at the two. As the sword was about to collide with them, they both leaped up into the air to dodge the attack.

Trish landed on his sword arm and Dante used Rebellion as a DIY ledge, flinging it into his chest and landing with one foot on what blade was not embedded in the demon, and the other on the handle.

Berial was now unsure of what to do as he had one foe directly below his chin, one currently running up his arm, and another hanging on for life on his back. He figured that the one on his back was the weakest and posed less of a threat to him that the one on his arm posed the biggest threat. He used his right hand to crush the attacker, but it simply jumped from one arm to the other.

In an attempt to make the fight less difficult for him, Berial breathed a giant cloud of fire and jumped through it, twisting and flailing as he soared through the air. Lady's grip failed and she was flung from Berial's back, barely managing to avoid breaking her legs as she did her best safety roll.

Trish too had to bail on her attack and instead opted to back out before she was crushed between two parts of the demon's body. Dante however jumped from his sword-ledge and grabbed hold of Berial's bottom jaw. He clambered up onto to end of his snout, stumbling around as Berial landed.

The two looked into each-others eyes for a few seconds, trying to judge the others next move.

Berial Part 2: Bon-Fire

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"Rainbow, Nero, wait up!" Twilight called ahead once again for the two to stop and let them catch up. Another reason for them to stop was that whatever produced the roar was now producing several crashes and smashes like it was throwing itself around. Who knew what was happening beyond what they could see from where they were.

Before long the end of the forest came into view and light shone through the shadows, illuminating the darkness. She saw the silhouettes of Nero and Rainbow stop at the edge, and when the rest of them caught up they soon understood why. Before her was a large open space that's main feature was the giant creature that stood almost dead center. Her jaw fell agape as she saw the sheer size of the beast.

She made a quick mental calculation and judged it's height at somewhere around 40-50 feet height at the tips of the fiery wings. Whatever it was, it was standing perfectly still, tilting it's head up slightly like it was looking at the sky. On the and of it's snout stood a figure that was almost entirely covered in a long red coat. They appeared to be staring right through each other in some sort of a stand-off. Suddenly they heard Rainbow Dash mutter something along the lines of 'Now that's awesome'.

"Nero. What in Tartarus IS that?" Apple Jack pointed her hoof at the monster that stood in the middle of the clearing.

"That's a demon, Apple Jack. This one is called Berial."

"And you hunt these things?" Twilight sounded surprised.

"Not these ones specifically. I've got into hunting the smaller ones as a part time thing, but Dante up there does stuff like this for a living." Nero pointed to the figure atop the demons snout.

"What now, Dante?" A deep and powerful voice filled the area. "Are we just going to sit here and wait for one-another to make a move?"

"I don't think we should be here. It doesn't seem safe, and I don't want to be at the center of any more harm." Fluttershy stated shakily. The other mares nodded in agreement but Rainbow Dash shook her head.

"If this Dante is as cool as you say he is, then I wanna' stay and watch!" She stopped flying and landed gracefully next to Nero.

"Not a good idea, Dash." Nero said as he flexed his arm and rotated Red Queen around in a circle. "Wouldn't want you to get burned alive under the wrath of Berial. You're only mortal and no matter how awesome you claim to be, there's no way you can stand up to a castle sized 1000 ton sword wielding demon unless you can take being hit by a sword that's nearly a quarter of that weight, AND on fire."

"Sounds like a good enough reason for me. Let's be on our way then." Rarity turned and started to walk back into the forest, and all of the mares followed suit... except Rainbow Dash, who stood stubbornly against the warning.

"Dash..." Nero started firmly but the pegasus folded her forelegs and smiled a challenge to him. "...Dash, I'm warning you! Go with your friends!" He pointed the giant sword at her, the blade shining with a silver sheen.

"Fine!" She gave in and threw her forelegs in frustration and took off toward the other retreating mares. Nero kept his eyes on her until she disappeared from view, and when and only when he was sure that she was gone did he look back.

And right on queue the bodies of Trish and Lady fell to the floor ahead of him. Trish hit the floor heavily but managed to stay on her feet. Unlike Lady who bounced off the floor and rolled towards him, his legs ceasing her movement. She groaned and rolled over onto her back, where she opened her eyes and saw Nero looming over her.

"Nero?" She rubbed her eyes as he grabbed her arms and pulled her to her feet. "Where were you when we needed you?"

"Drinking tea with the locals."

"Seriously?" She cocked an eyebrow at him. Nero just shrugged and rested Red Queen on his shoulder.

"Don't ask. It's hard to explain unless you see it yourself."

"Whatever." She vigorously dusted herself down and leaned on one leg. She looked a little aggravated, like she was close to exploding.

"What's got you so worked up? Struggling against our big fiery friend here?"

"Easy for you to say when you can just punch him in the face and walk away! It's not like everybody has a right arm like you do." Nero just smiled and nodded along with her irritation. They all returned their attention to Berial and Dante.

"What now, Dante?" Boomed the powerful voice of Berial as Dante scratched his stubble and smiled. "-Oh, so many things I could do now. Just you wait, Berial.-" "Are we just going to sit here and wait for one-another to make a move?" Dante covered his ears in mock deafening.

"Dude, jeez'. You gotta' calm down with the voice, you're going to kill my ears." Berial let out a low growl and his neck contorted, twisting in preparation to throw him away. Dante leaped forward and over his head, free falling through the air. He turned upside-down to see his target and drew Ebony and Ivory and began to fire at his spine, blasting away the armour down his neck with each gun crossed over in style.

Dante landed on Berial's back just in time to see the demon's hands flying towards him in an attempt to swipe him away. He jumped backwards to avoid them, landing further down the spine. Dante stood up and held his arms in position to hold a guitar, followed by an amber flash. Nevan appeared within his hands and he grew a devilish smile, slamming the strings on the demonic instrument to release a large bolt of lightning that flew from the head of the guitar and struck the new weakness on Berials neck.

Berial roared in pain and lurched forward, forcing Dante to widen his stance in order to avoid being thrown off. Dante's right arm began whirling around in a circle, striking the strings of the guitar at a steady tempo. Each rip releasing another arc of lightning that landed on different points along the spine of Berial, every 10 feet or so. Once he was satisfied he span round and threw his arms out, the parts of the guitar unlocked and extended into a menacing scythe.

He struck hard at the first point and Nevan's blade was jammed from tip to base into the hard armour of Berial's back. By this time, Berial had recovered from his pain and gave a powerful flap of his fiery wings to launch him into the air with more grace than one would expect from something about his size. Dante realised it was time to go, and he turned tail and ran all the way down his spine while dragging Nevan with him to tear apart Berial's armour.

Once he reached the base of the tail he tore the curved blade from the thick blade rock and went into a slide while using Nevan as a grater to peel away the skin of Berial's tail as he slide down it's long length. The flaming tail whipped around at the end, allowing the devil hunter to use it as a ramp and gain huge air from the jump. While he was free falling he slashed the air with the scythe and sent a multiple bolts of lightning at the weakened points of armour.

The pieces of armour shattered with the sound of thunder echoing throughout the valley, sending chunks of rock and lava speeding through the air behind the falling Dante. He landed trailing his arms behind him, and Nevan disappeared from the air with another amber blow only to be replaced by Cerberus. The icy triple nun-chucks span quickly in his right hand, ready to be used at the best moment.

Berial stopped in the air clutching his newly exposed areas of molten flesh awkwardly and in pain. He turned around to face Dante, magma falling from his body and onto the floor. The ground melted around Dante, trapping him a fiery circle of death. In response Dante twirled around with Cerberus to let out an ice cold ring of power that doused the flames and cooled the magma enough for him to be able to dash across it without setting himself on fire and travel into a more un-affected area.

The single combatant was given some backup by the arrival of three more demon hunters. A red and black blur whizzed by as Nero slashed at the air with Yamato to send a wave of razor sharp energy Berial's way. The demon blocked with his sword but growled in anger when he saw that the attack had sliced his sword into two pieces, and the end had already started falling to the floor.

Dante turned to ask him where he had been all that time but was stopped by a hand being raised to him.

"Don't ask. I'll explain later. Besides, I have a few things I'd like to ask you later on anyways." The black clad man never once took his gaze from Berial's furious expression.

"Well... Okay." Dante shook his head and sighed. Nero looked over to Dante's back and saw the lack of metal with a confused expression.

"Where's your sword?"

"Up there." Dante nodded to the hovering and half torn apart Berial in the sky. "Lodged in that guy's chest."

"Ain't' you gonna' get it back?" Dante looked at him skeptically.

"You wanna' try and make that jump?" This caused Nero to huff and nod slowly in agreement.

"I wouldn't have believed it before, but my luck must be coming down. Both of you showing up at the same time? This was never supposed to happen! She never said you two would be here!"
Berial let out his rage and threw what was left of his sword at the group. "RAAAAARR"

The chunk of fiery rock barreled toward them with tremendous force, enough to crush the four of them out of existence. When it got close, Nero grabbed it with Devil Bringer and caught it mid flight before throwing it back at Berial. Berial simply threw a punch at it and smashed it into millions of tiny little pieces.

The demon hunters sheltered themselves from the storm of stone by raising their arms to block any incoming projectiles. Once the hail had stopped they looked up to see him flying backwards, into the forest. The trailing magma fell onto the trees, setting them alight and starting a forest-fire.

"I will come back for you!" Berial stated as his flight path carried him further into the forest. "I will come back and you will burn for this!" The forest was now heavily alight and the flames burned fiercely around the clearing. Through the haze they could just see Berial turn around and make his way toward his next destination, wherever that was.

"Well that was anti-climactic." Trish rolled her eyes as she holstered her pistols. "Now we're gonna' have to chase him down, aren't we?"

"I just want my sword back." Dante flipped off the shrinking figure of Berial in the distance. "But first we gotta' get through all this fire." The 3 half-demons started walking towards the burning tree-line, leaving the human behind wondering how she was going to get through the inferno.

"H-hey you guys! Wait up!..."

"...and I believe that the overall revenue generated from our produce is going to un-deserving causes." The noble on the red carpet finished his 'evaluation' of the current Equestrian deficit. Celestia of course had to sit and pay attention through it all for the fifth time in 3 hours, lest the nobles think she didn't care. Which she did. Although the direction that the typical noble-pony's attitude was going seemed to give her a continuing decreasing cause for care.

At first she thought that the nobles genuinely cared about the state of the country's monetary debts, but then she realised that the only reason she was being nagged about it was that while Equestria owed money, the general tax rate was raised for the richer ponies more that it was raised for the poorer ones. And that to them was an un-fathomable concept.

'The poor and dirty paying less then the rich and honorable? Preposterous!' Was the common thought process among Equestria's social elite. And it was something the sun monarch hoped would die out eventually, for it was an anomalous blemish on the values that the ponies prided themselves upon.

"Sir Gray Mane, might I assure you that all income is going to the right places and for the best causes. National debts can't just be paid off immediately and there are several places where money must go before I can pay off the deficit. Now if you'll excuse me, there are ponies with more interesting matters that may require my attention." The noble gave a half-hearted bow and walked away, Celestia kept her gaze on him until he had left the palace before turning to the next pony in queue.

"Now what is your name, my little pony?" She asked with a warm smile. The tan earth pony with a brown mane stepped fourth and bowed before giving her name.

"My name is Fair Barter, your majesty." The pony smiled with un-ease, like it was the first time she had ever stepped before her. "I am an auctioneer from Ponyville." Fair Barter introduced herself with a nervous hoof to the chest.

"And what issues do you wish to press?"

"Well over the past few weeks I have noticed that-" *SLAM* A pony slammed open the unopened double door to avoid crashing through the long queue that extended all the way to the porch outside, making everypony inside jump. He was breathing heavily and there was an element of panic in his posture as two of the guards blocked his path to her, spears raised and ready to move. Celestia noticed that it was the same noble from before.

"Confound you, Gray Mane! Can you not see I am trying to speak with one of my subjects? What is the meaning of this!?" She spoke with more irritation than she had used in a long while.

"Sorry you highness, but the Everfree is burning!" He spoke with enough urgency for it to seem legitimate. Everypony in the queue looked around and murmured to each-other as the princess rose from her throne and began walking to the door.

"I swear to my ancestors that if you're telling me lies..." Celestia walked past the frightened noble and straight out of the door onto the porch beyond. And to her surprise, she was greeting by ponies running up the stairs in a blind panic. This caught her attention and she hurried to the edge of the porch, her head leaning over the banister to peer in the direction of the Everfree forest.

Celestia's jaw almost un-hinged and dropped to the floor. The once dark and mysterious forest was now partially ablaze with so much fire that the smoke trails were rising higher than the mountains themselves and through the entirety of the cloud layer. Flames burned fiercely and consumed the trees with an almost sun-like blaze. She instantly saw the danger and turned around to order some guards over to the porch. Three guards approached and bowed before her, ready to hear the orders she was to give.

"Assemble all your best mages and fire fighters in the courtyard, they are needed immediately!" The guards saluted and ran away in different directions to gather their magic users. With the guards gone, she turned back to the banister and again started to watch the forest fire burn out of control. After a few second it hit her...

"-The tree.-" She gasped heavily and ordered one of the door guards over to her. He bowed and listened closely to her words.
"Fetch my sister and tell her I requested her presence immediately!" The guard saluted and ran way into the castle to find Luna.

"This is bad..." She murmured to herself and turned back to the fire in the distance. Even more of the forest was alight now, and it was spreading quickly. I was a good thing that it had started at the far end of the forest, that meant more time until the flames reached the Tree of Harmony, or until it consumed the forest completely. "...What could start such a fire?"

The trotting of hooves could be heard as metal clanged around as three groups of unicorn guards and pegasus fire-fighters assembled in the court-yard ahead and below the stairs. All 30 or so of them lined up and quickly readied themselves to listen to the princess. Just at that moment, the air was thrown in all directions as the dark blue figure of her sister Luna landed beside her on the porch.

"Sister, we have a problem-"

"Yes, we know. I saw the flames from above as thine presence was requested." Luna cut off her big sister and turned to the assembling of guards in the court-yard. "Is this all we have?"

"I'm afraid so, the guard count has decreased significantly with the past couple of decades." Celestia stood at her side and gestured to the guards as she spoke. She nodded to the sergeant at the head of the group.

"At attention!! The princess is about to issue our orders, so listen closely!"

"Thank you!" Celestia dismissed the sergeant and he joined the rest of them. This was going to be a long day.

Berial Final Part (3): Fire-Storm (Updated For Awesome 'Lucifer' Show-off)

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Around the group the fire burned, consuming the forestry like a forest fire would. Every member of the crew struggled to see past the intense blur that the rising heat created. Their only defense against the flames was the icy nunchuks possessed by the red clad devil hunter up front.

"... So you're saying that our supposed portal to hell hasn't just taken us to a new world, but taken us to one filled with magical horses?" Lady glanced skeptically at Nero walking beside her.

"Ponies, actually." He corrected her.

"Whatever. That just makes it sound even worse."

"I just want my sword back. Hyah!" Dante said as he swiped with the nun-chucks to put out some more of the fire and extinguished enough of the fire for them to move onward.

"Yeah, we know that." Lady dismissed his addition to the conversation.

"And you say you met some of them, Nero?" Trish continued on seriously.

"Yeah. They're alright, but there's one of them that seem to be almost completely insane. Pinkie Pie, if I remember rightly." There was a smirk and all looked to Dante who was laughing to himself.

"Pinkie Pie... 'kind of a name is that? Let me guess, it's pink?" He turned to them to add yet another comment.

"Shut up, Dante. If you ain't got anything productive to say then don't say it. Get back to putting out those fires!" Lady attacked him with a restless and tired voice. "Damn, it's getting hot here." Lady fanned herself with a hand and Dante huffed, turning back ahead to give another swipe of Cerberus and douse more of the flames.

"How many did you meet?" Trish asked.

"Just six, all of them female." Nero answered.

"Damn, Nero! Never heard of a six-timer before!" Dante called back from putting out the fire.

"SHUT UP!" All three of them shouted at him with all their frustration vented into their voices. Dante flinched back and got back to work.

"So yeah, I met six of them and they seemed okay. If a bit defensive."

"And you're saying that the whole planet is full of them?" Lady questioned.

"Well i'm not sure about that, but from what I know there's a settlement somewhere near the outside of this forest. And where there's one, there's another." They paused to hear Dante cursing at the flames, as they singed the bottom of his coat trails. He furiously slashed away with the nun-chucks and sent several waves of icy energy at the fire, dousing every flame within 20 meters or so.

"Go on, Dante! You show those flames who's boss!" Lady shouted ahead to the heavily breathing devil hunter.

"Oh, I am!" He shouted back. Lady and Trish let out a light hearted-laugh and then turned back to Nero. Trish spoke out first.

"Did they come with you here? Like, when you came looking for us, you mean?"

"They came with me all the way but I sent them back les' they get in the way and end up being killed. Strange, we found and killed a group of Scare-crows on the way here. Where do you think they're coming from?" Nero asked.

"Scare-crows, you say?" Trish inquired. Nero simply nodded his answer. "Hmm. Not only are the big guys coming through, but it seems they've brought a few lesser demons with them."

"A distraction, maybe?" Lady suggested.

"Nah, we've seen the way that they do things three times before. They're more into the head on approach than the intelligent one. Even the Order of the Sword weren't that sneaky." Trish gestured to Nero. "We have a witness to that here." Nero nodded along.

"Speaking of demons, Berial is probably out wreaking havoc by now." Nero finished up. They all turned to Dante who was looking slightly fatigued by all the constant nun-chuck movements.

"Come on, Dante! Berial will be killing the magical, colourful ponies and we've gotta' stop him!" Lady screamed onward. Dante looked back with a bemused and blank expression, directing it straight at her.

"You wanna' come and do this?" He asked aggressively.

"Maybe I will." She jogged on ahead and took control of the ice cold weapons herself before taking up a stance. "Let me show you how a lady puts out fires! Hiyah!"

Celestia gaped at the sight before her as she made her way towards the forest with her compatriots. 30 guards, some pegasus and some unicorns, were making good progress towards the inferno that was raging away ahead of them. The intense mixture of yellow, orange and a blinding white was getting ever closer the further they went.

She was dressed in full golden battle armour, carrying her signature halberd with her. A long battle weapon forged from the best quality steel and gold there was available, ending in a bladed crescent sun that encased an amber crystal used for harnessing the magical power from the grip and turning it into a ranged energy attack that she could use to fight with.

She had not needed to for... forever now, but she had a nagging feeling that she was going to need it now. Luna came up behind her, dressed in her own teal armour, and a long double edged scythe with a blue tinted blade and it's own saphire crystal in the centre of the guard that served the same purpose as the one in her halberd.

"Are you sure Blue Blood can run Equestria, sister? Even for a few hours?" Luna seemed like she was joking, but Celestia could hear no humour in her voice. But when it came to it, she wasn't actually sure whether he could or not. Besides, Blue Blood is last in line to the Equestrian throne, after Twilight Sparkle of course. He wasn't very pleased to hear that a mare in her 20's who had only just been coronated was to be put in front of him in the queue. So Celestia put him in charge for a small part of the day to keep him happy. The truth was that she didn't trust the stallion. Not. One. Bit. He couldn't be counted on for much, unless it involved his bank account getting bigger, and that generally meant his ego went up into the clouds with it.

"No. But if it will shut him up for a while, then why not? He can't do that much damage to Equestria in less than a day, surely." She said with some reassurance in her voice.

"We-I wouldn't be surprised if he completely empties the royal treasury before we get back." She slipped into her Old-Equestrian for a moment at the beginning of her sentence and blushed a little in frustration at herself as her big sister smiled lightly back at her.

"Getting better, Luna." Celestia teased her sister as the smaller blue mare returned her angry gaze to the burning forest while grumbling something inaudible under her breath.

The bigger sister shook her head and smiled. The humour was short lived as she saw the forest again. The trees were much closer by now, and there was maybe only half a kilometer left before they reached the Everfree's borders. Great smoke plumes rose high into the sky and far beyond, as the black pillars extended past the highest clouds and into the cold thin air, far above any habitable zone.

Celestia wondered if the pegasi living in Cloudsdale or the weather factory had noticed the smoke, and were on their way to lend a helping hoof in the matter. "-Of course they can see it...-" She thought to herself. "-... There's no they could miss it.-"

The forest was only a few minutes walk from there on, maybe less. But the way they were travelling, they may reach the Everfree in only 1 minute. She was sure that the scouts would be waiting for her to give a report on just how much damage the raging flames had dealt, and if they had reached the tree yet. While she was wondering, something in the smoke changed.

The smoke seemed to be quickly turning orange... like a fire-ball was going through it and was about to come out of the toxic black plumes. She nudged her sister and the armoured alicorn turned to face her.

"Hmm?" Luna acknowledged the nudge. Celestia pointed at the increasingly bright smoke with her hoof and the moon goddess cocked her head when she saw the odd colours. "What in the name..?" She questioned and looked to her older sibling for clues. Celestia just shrugged and turned back to it. By this time the guards had noticed as well and the sergeant trotted up to the princesses' side. He gave a quick bow before carrying on.

"We have noticed something strange about the smoke, your highness." He said in a deep, monotone and powerful voice.

"We have too, sergeant. Thank you for the concern." Celestia dismissed him and he walked back to his troop.

They were less than a minute away from the tree-line when something burst from the smoke, causing everypony to stop and look in it's direction. It didn't take long for the princesses to identify it as a living being. from there, they could see a huge rock creature with massive wings of fire and lava pouring from it's back.

"What is that thing?" Luna asked her sister in surprise. The creature turned to their direction and began to hover over. Metal sliding through metal was heard as Luna readied the large scythe with magic and rested the tip of the blade on the ground. Celestia glanced at the weapon and Luna caught wind of her look. "Just in case." She added. Celestia let out a sigh and readied the halberd with her own magic. More metal was heard as the guards followed suit. Here they overlooked the forest from a hill no more than 100 metres away from the tress as the beast made haste towards them.

"I CAN SEE YOU!" An angry shout sounded from the monster's direction. "GET OUT OF MY WAY, OR DIE!" It blasted out again. The forest beneath it caught fire as lava set the trees alight in a growing blaze. There was no doubt this had caused the fire. It's shape grew larger and larger, becoming increasingly defined. Now they could see it's burning eyes, glowing red with hatred for something.

Suddenly, six shapes burst from the trees moving quickly towards them. They were immediately recognised as the six bearers of the elements of harmony, and Celestia gestured for them to head over. Rainbow Dash was there within seconds, however it took a little longer for the other mares to catch up. All looked well out of breath. Their faces were red and they could barely get a word in.

"Celes-*Huff*-tia!" Twilight managed to construct a sentence. Just. "We need-*Huff*- your help." Celestia put a hoof on her shoulder. "Why are-*Huff*- you here in-*Huff*- armour?"

"We are here in force, just in case of a situation such as this." She pointed to the beast rapidly approaching them. Twilight turned and her expression dropped at the sight of a demon coming towards them. The rest of the mares gasped and Apple Jack came up to them.

"Twilight, you must tell me what you were doing out in the Everfree near this monster." Celestia inquired. Twilight staedied her breathing before answering.

"We were out looking for some dangerous individuals-*Huff*-that we were tipped off about. Our source was out with these... creatures trying to fight that thing. judging by how much of it's hide is missing, I'd say they did a number on him." Celestia frowned at some of her word choices. "However I fear that they... may not have fared too well."

Fluttershy gasped at the thought. "Oh no! If What if Nero is hurt?" She turned to the princesses. "We need to help them!"

"Creatures? And who is this 'Nero'?"

"Well Nero came about quite recently. Him and his friends are basically monster hunters who go out to slay demons. With his help and guidance, we went out looking for them, however we weren't expecting Berial to be there..." Twilight replied. Suddenly the crossbow guards were organised into a firing position on the approaching demon and the sergeant shouted.

"Ready!" He raised a hoof that he would drop as a signal to fire.

"... But the thing is that they're not ponies. They're some kind of tall primate we've never seen before. Said they got sucked into a portal of some kind and ended up here." She finished off her sentence.

"Ha! That is ludicrous to the point of insanity." Luna suggested but Celestia gave her a stern look.

"Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." Twilight swore her Pinkie oath as the pink earth pony jumped up in the air behind her at the sound of her personal oath phrase. "I'm not lying to you, Luna. I don't think they were either." Luna narrowed her eyes in suspicion.

Berial was close now. No more then 30 seconds and he would be upon them to wreak hell to the guards. Speaking off which, were looking incredibly nervous about going up against such a large opponent. Some of them glanced over to the princesses for some sort of reassurance or moral support.

"Twilight, I need you to go back to your castle and wait there with your friends and your guard. We will fight this foe for now and come back when it is safe. You may be your own princess now, but I can't risk you getting involved with something like this. We'll talk about this later on." Celestia ordered and Twilight obeyed. Joining her friends to run along back to Ponyville. Celestia watched them run away until she was provoked into looking back by the shouting of orders by the sergeant.

"Prepare to fire!" he told the crossbow users as they all leaned into their weapons a little and took up aim at Berial.

"Sergeant, don't fire yet. I need to see if I can talk with our friend here." Celestia said to the stallion and the sergeant replied.

"Retain steady aim, hold your fire!" He shouted, and Celestia gave him a nod. Berial was now past the trees and he looked down. Once he gathered himself, and then stopped flying. His cumbersome body dropped like a stone to the floor and sent out a shock wave that would be enough to give headaches after a while. He grunted and looked up at them. The unicorn's horns lit up and the remaining fire fighting pegasus took up combat stances.

Berial began to slowly trudge forward, each footfall making so much noise, Ponyville could probably here it even though it was nearly a mile away. He walked up and the princesses stayed stoic, looking at him sternly and without fear. He stopped a short distance away and looked down at them.

"Did you not hear me? Who are you to defy the conqueror of the fire hell?" He asked aggressively.

"I am princess Celestia and this is my sister, princess Luna. Who are you to step foot on my land and burn down my property?" She said defiantly. Berial growled and pointed at them with a digit.

"I do not care for your land for I am not in a good mood, back down and you will be spared." He offered an ultimatum and Luna laughed a little.

"This is our country, not yours. And we will defend it with our lives!" Luna readied herself into a combat stance, her scythe in position to attack. Celestia followed suit.

"Your arson stops today, Berial." Celestia ended the short talk as the crystal in her and her sister's weapon lit up with magical energy. Berial sprouted his wings and let out and almighty roar. The ground shook with the sound and Luna began to spin her scythe, pulling it back ready to unleash the fury of the night.

"Fire!" The sergeant dropped his foreleg and crossbows rained bolts down on Berial, peppering him with enchanted shots. However he stood against the barrage and shrugged off the assault. Luna launched her weapon forward, still spinning, and a wave of blue energy was sent forth towards the fire demon. Berial quickly thrust his wings side-ways and dodged the attack with ease. Luna huffed and prepared for another blast of magic when Celestia fired her own.

A golden beam fired at Berial and he tried to dodge again, but as he leaped over the laser it caught his previously damaged ankle and he lurched back onto the ground in pain.

"I'll get you for that!" He growled and dashed forward with a punch aiming at the two sisters. The guards retreated out of the way and the princesses leaped away from his fist just before it hit the floor. It landed with a crash and sent out plumes of dust upon impact.

Luna, who landed close to the fist, attacked the appendage ruthlessly. She hacked at the arm with all her might and sliced through the rock hard skin to cause several bits of lava blood to spurt out. The jumped out of the way to avoid being burned and Berial recoiled his arm. He roared and swiped at her.

The attack landed home and hit her away from himself as she skimmed across the ground until she finally came to a stop a short while away, her weapon landing beside her.Some guards steeled themselves and bravely ran to her defense. Celestia saw this and screamed out in fear for her sister.

"Luna!" She cried. A beam of energy again fired at Berial, this time with uncontrolled malice. Berial dodged and weaved this way and that. Narrowly avoiding the beam of burning energy that more than once skimmed his hard skin and singed it. Crumbling away onto the ground. He got close enough that it become impossible to avoid being hit any longer, and the laser hit him in the face.

He recoiled and shielded himself with a hand until a thought came to mind. He used the bright light of the laser to hide his form as he ignored the pain and lunged forward at the sun goddess with another mighty punch. Celestia stopped beaming and raised her halberd up horizontally, and when the punch hit, she was sent sliding backwards. Creating two long skid marks along the ground until she came to a halt.

She looked up at Berial with pure anger and she saw something embedded in his chest. Somehow, sometime, a sword had been rammed into his skin and it was still lodged in there. The sword was seamless and in perfect condition so it must have been recent. "-This 'Nero' and his friends must have been hunting Berial.-" She realised and came back from her thoughts to see him advancing on her. She had no time to react and braced herself from the blow.

She was surprised when it never came, but was happy to see that her sister was back on her hooves and had attacked him with magical energy to knock him away from her. She sliced the air with her scythe over and over, breaking away chunks of his skin around the raised arms, drawing more lava blood that spilled onto the ground.

"Fire!" The sergeant called again, and more crossbow bolts flew threw the air. When they landed, some hit weak spots on him that his fight with the princesses had opened up, causing him to roar in more pain. Luna ran up to her sister and and stood next to her, breathing heavily and appearing slightly in pain.

"Are you okay, Luna? Are you hurt?" She scoured her sisters body for injuries but could find nothing but bruises.

"Tis' but a scratch." She dismissed the concern with certainty, and continued to stare Berial down with hatred she had not used since her time as Nightmare Moon. Celestia nodded and returned to her own stare.

Berial looked at the guards re-loading their weapons and made a lunge for them, as he decided that it would be much easier with them around. Most of the guards were able to get away from his punch okay, but one young stallion tripped over his hooves and fell flat on his face as the punch made it's way towards him. Luna charged up a powerful spell as her sister took action.

Celestia teleported from next to her sister and to in-front of the young guard, holding her halberd in a strong magical grip. The rock fist hit the weapon with a loud clang and the force of him continually pushing down on the weapon made Celestia's hooves dig into the ground. She grunted as she fought to keep Berials attack from crushing her body into the floor. Sweat beat down her face and she turned to the guard with a stern expression.

"Run." She put it simply, and the guard hastily nodded and picked himself up, running for his life. She turned her attention back to Berial as he put more and more pressure against her magic. Suddenly her halberd began to creak and groan under the stress, and with a crack and a flash of light, it snapped and exploded. Sending Celestia flying backwards into the retreating guard, and Berial stumbling the other way. Berial recovered quickly and was about to ttack when Luna's magic burst blasted him over and he toppled onto his side.

Meanwhile, Celestia was regaining her bearings and she sat down on something un-even as her eyes rolled around in her head. She sat for a second until she heard a voice. "Umm- er, princess?" She looked behind her and realised that she was in fact sitting on the blushing young guards open pelvis, legs trapped open by her rump.

"Oh..." She replied with a blush of her own and stood up on her wobbly hooves. The guard jolted up onto his own hooves and hid away a little. Celestia looked down at the pieces of her halberd and sighed nervously. She picked them up and offered them to him.
"Keep it, as a souvenir." She said even more nervously and the guard took them, placing them carefully into his saddlebag.

"Th-thank you. P-princess." He said shakily as he continued to blush. He then turned and ran. Celestia exhaled as she mused. "-That's going to be all over the news this week.-" She turned back to Berial, whom was fighting Luna. "-Handsome young stallion, though... wait, did I just...-" Her thoughts were interrupted as Luna was tossed into the air by Berial and landed by her side, skipping back to get rid of some momentum.

"You finished day-dreaming about that colt yet?" She asked with a wicked grin.

"Y-you saw that?" Celestia stammered, embarrassed.

"Handsome one, eh?" Luna replied. Celestia realised that if her sister knew about it, then it could easily get leaked through her mischievous antics. "Maybe you should get together, I know I wouldn't mind being with a stallion like him." The dark blue alicorn teased. "Oh, I am definitely setting that up for you, sister." She laughed a little.

"You will tell no-pony about this. You hear hear me? No-pony!" Celestia reacted with some frustration, thrusting her hoof angrily at Luna. "Anyway we have a demon to fight, and I have no weapon. I can't purely rely on magic."

"Maybe you could use that sword in the beast's chest, if you can get up close." Luna suggested, now back to a serious manor.

"Good idea. You distract him while I go for the sword, yes?"

"Sounds like a sound plan to me. Hyah!" Luna took off into the air with her scythe trailing behind her, dashing away in a blue flash. Berial swung at her but she dodged. Weaving and twirling like a dancer in the air. Celestia gathered her energy and ran at the behemoth, getting closer and closer.

Once she got close enough, she gave one last thrust of her wings and catapulted herself into the air. The swords black handle presented itself to her as she got enough height, and she grabbed hold hold it with her magic. The blade was jammed into the skin nearly all the way to the guard, and Celestia had to pull incredibly hard to remove it, and when she did the sword un-jammed and Celestia flew quickly out of range of Berial's flailing arms.

She hovered a short while away and as Luna flew past, Berial turned to follow, leaving the left side of his head exposed. She took the chance and surged toward the weak spot with the strange sword. She used the sword like a lance and speared into his temple, causing him to stop chasing Luna and start thrashing around. Celestia grabbed onto the sword and held on as Berial swung this way and that to remove her.

Now it was Luna's turn, and she reeled back her scythe as she flew in at the other side of his head. Swinging with great strength, she hacked into Berial's right temple and he stopped moving to scream out in agony. He raised his hands to his head to try and crush the alicorns, but they saw it coming and moved out of the way, causing him to slam the weapons into his own skull.

Tonnes of lave shot out from the wounds and Berial fell to his knees, clutching his head as the the spurting lava caused enough pressure to launch the weapons back out of his skull and into the magical grasps of the sisters again. They took their final chance and covered themselves in heat proof magic shields, before diving in at the demon.

They collided with his skull and tunneled all the way through, somehow they managed to swap weapons while they were tearing through the hot brain and rip a huge hole inside his head before exiting on the other side. Exploding from each temple in a fiery blaze. Their weapons trailed magical energy, the sword with Luna and the scythe with Celestia.

Berial's screaming stopped immediately as they flew outwards and away from the towering figure, who started to fall forwards onto his front. The lifeless corpse crashing down onto the ground with a huge plume of dust kicking up around it. The two sisters looked down to behold their work and saw the dead body of what was once a demon.

They both landed beside each other and sat down on the grass next to the colossal corpse. They handed each weapon back to it's rightful owner. Except that Celestia didn't own the dark coloured sword that she held before her. Now she had time to rest, she thought more about those demon hunters that Twilight mentioned.

Who were they? And the thing that worried her most... what have they brought with them?

These thoughts were interrupted by a bright light emitting an immense magical report towards the sisters. They tried to look and see what was causing the light, but could only determine that it had originated from the carcass of the dead demon lying in the field. Celestia Picked herself off the ground, leaving her battered sister to rest and observe curiously.

"Be careful sister, we don't know what that is!" She called after he elder, who just carried on walking, putting up a tinted magical barrier to shield her eyes while she walked. As her horn flashed, the dark wall appeared and floated in-front of her face. As she got closer she realised that the object was also travelling at her as well, albeit slowly. As a result she came near in no time, coming to a stop next to the floating miniature star.

She frowned heavily and cocked her head while Luna watched nervously, biting her lip. Celestia felt the sudden urge to touch the object, and so she reached her hoof out toward it. It levitated onto her gold clad hoof and as it made contact she felt something she had not felt in a long time: A magical connection. The last time she had been subject to a direct magical connection was when her soul was bound with the magic and power of the sun. And when this object's magic fused with her's and the connection was made, she felt another soul's power added to her's. Before she knew it, a flash had erupted from her and the object was gone. Instead she could feel new objects adorning her form. She disabled the magical visor and turned her head to see.

Connected to her wings were two demonic-quiver-looking-things. Their ornate beauty was added to the brutal lines and scary designs that covered their surface. And out of the holes protruded red claws, handles peeking out from darkness and into the world, just waiting to be used. A slightly worrying sadistic grin spread across her face and in a sudden moment of energy, she decided to test out her new toys. Besides, she felt the need to exercise her inner youth and cheeky quirk.

She darted as fast as lightning to the corpse of Berial, covering the distance in an insanely fast time and came close enough to prepare her attack. Just before the two bodies came into contact, Celestia's hooves glowed gold with infused magic and she pounded up at one side of the dead demon, flicking it into a lean. She threw herself onto her forelegs and bucked upwards with great strength, kicking Berial up into the air, giving him a good 30 feet of height before she leaped after him in a hazy multicoloured blur. The insane hang-time gathered by the two seemed to defy gravity itself as Celestia slowly came to common altitude with the massive body of dead rock.

"First, I take control!.." She began. Wings spread, hovering and grinning wickedly, she used her magic to clutch one of the red claws attached to the quivers and whipped it through the air to make contact with Berial and crackle with demonic energy, making it pause in the air for a short time.

"And then I hold in place!.." She continued in epic fashion as she thrust her wings and began to make an arc over her once opponent's corpse, flinging consecutive spines into her once opponent's body. A space was left in-between two smaller arches for her next trick. "Until..." She took out a cluster of deadly thorns and aimed them carefully, judging the power of her move. "... I slam down!" She crossed them before turning away and throwing them over her head, the wind disturbance making her ethereal mane trail behind her majestically. The blades hit their mark exactly on target.

"And then with great speed..." Using a rocket spell she propelled herself in-between Berial and the ground, rapidly throwing blade after blade as she went to create the start of her penultimate move. Her twirling body trailed colour and whisps of spinning air as red blurs shot up at the corpse until she came close to the ground, ready to begin moving back up the other side of Berial's carcass. "I thrust through!" She began throwing the spines in doubles as she ascended again. "Over..." She finished her cluster attacks and completed the main shape she was looking to make. "... and over!" She threw a quadruplet of spikes into the centre of the shape before letting herself fall to the ground with a small puff of dust.

"Until we finish!" She jumped forward to gain momentum...

"And in the end..." She began to tumble forward over herself...

"We're all satisfied." Her wings opened and her body's momentum was broken. Her mane and tail however kept going to create a magnificent trail of magically charged rainbow blowing on the currents of air behind her.

"You are set free." She completed her work of art by flinging a rose at the centre blades and having it hit it's target with professional accuracy. They exploded in a shatter of crimson glass and metal, before the shape followed: A love heart. From the notch at the top the explosions followed the blades around to leave a thin cloud of smoke behind where the heart once was. Sfter the show had finished, Berial's heavy body came clattering back down to earth with a huge crash. The quivers disappeared from Celestia's back in a flash of light and she smiled.

"I think I'll keep those, just in case." She turned to see the awe-struck Luna. Jaw collecting dew on the grass.

Coming Back To Civilisation

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"Woah..."

Dante and the gang looked onward at the scene before them. In front of them there laid a large and flat field, almost completely covered with grass as some patches had been burnt away by fires. And in the middle of it all rested the corpse of a creature barely recognisable to the four demon hunters. The large and torn apart body of Berial lay peacefully in the center of the field, completely juxtaposed to the usual state of fiery rage that he had.

His arms were sliced into pieces with parts of his hard skin being tossed around all over the place. And most intriguingly, there was barely anything left of his head as it had been blasted apart. There was a rather large hole in either side which sourced a river of dried magma, forming black obsidian puddles at the exit wounds.

"Hang on there, baby! I'm coming for you!" Dante ran up to the body in excitement, each step bringing him closer to the dead beast. He got closer... and closer... He could almost taste the polished blade and smell the residue of the countless souls it had taken. He was so close to getting back his beloved sword back from Berial's chest, a sword that...

...Wasn't there.

"W-what?" He stammered. Anger started to well up in the corners of his mind as he started to pace from left to right. "How could this happen?" He raised his palms to the sky for dramatic effect. "Why!?" He cried out. "...Why have you forsaken me!?"

Nero, Lady and Trish looked at each other, neither of them having a clue about what was un-folding before them.

"Now I have to go into ponyland to get my lovely little sword back!" Dante started to up the ferocity of his pacing. He stayed like this for a few moments and all three of the remaining demon hunters just looked on in a mixture of bewilderment, amazement and sheer confusion at what the famously un-breakable devil hunter was doing. "This is total crap! I can't believe I'm in this situation, roaming a world filled with pastel coloured ponies so that I can get my sword back!" Any serious concerns that the trio had developed for Dante in the last minute or so dropped quickly.

"Dante..." Nero started in a curious tone.

"Yeah?" The red clad man answered angrily.

"You're nearly 30 years old, you've fought to the death with your own brother and nearly died, you've been to hell and back in every meaning of the phrase and you're scared of a few colourful miniature horses?" Dante's pouting stopped dead. Going from angry and apprehensive to seriously cocky. He jumped straight from his knees to his feet and turned around to face Nero, coat trails floating to the side as they tried to catch up with his movements.

"Me?" He pointed to himself. "I'm not afraid of this 'Equestria' place!" He walked towards Nero, arms outstretched and laughing. "I'm just afraid for my sanity, that's all. Demons I can deal with but this stuff is so damn ridiculous that It;s almost absurd, even in comparison to the demons!"

"Well you're just going to have to bare with it." Nero said with a smile. "Because we can't have the colourful ponies thinking you're a total pussy now, can we?"

"Fine, lets just get all this over and done with so we can go home. Now where's this settlement you were speaking of?" Trish and Lady face-palmed at Dante's pessimistic attitude.

Nero looked around at the scenery. Mountains visible in the distance and green rolling hills stretching around ahead and to both sides. Behind him was the forest, left over smoke stacks still dissipating as they had not yet cleared. Ahead of him was the hill he landed on before Fluttershy picked him up. So if his memory served him correctly... "...The place I talked about is not far over the hill there. In fact, you can see a big orchard once you get to the top." Dante then turned around and started walking in the proposed direction. Nero and Trish ran after him, leaving Lady behind.

"H-hey, wait up!" Lady shouted after him and walked on to catch up. "Why is it always me?"

The large golden doors to the throne room in Canterlot stood closed, as the regal sisters approached them with thier tired and beaten guard force following behind them. The sisters could hear them complaining to each other about the mission, and if more of 'Those things' would ever show up again any time soon.

Celestia was still wondering about the sword that currently resided in a make shift sheath at her side. The black handle with a spiky gothic pommel sticking out just enough for her to be able to see it. She had come to the conclusion that it was probably the property of one of the demon hunters that Twilight had mentioned. These 'primates' needed to be located if they had any knowledge on the demon they had slain, and if they could help defend Equestria from any more of them, if there was any more.

As for the fire, it had left nearly a quarter of the Everfree burnt down, and the more talented biologists among the group of guards predicted higher Timber-wolf and Manticore density in the remaining areas. As well as increased competition over the habit between the two main predators of that zone. They also suggested shifting trading routes a little further away from the Everfree as these creature may get more desperate for food and begin preying on caravans more often. As a result, Celestia planned on re-setting trading routes between Equestria and the country of Great Griffon, who's only trading port with Equestria was a shipping dock on the other side of the forest.

"It seems that our guard have also decreased in vitality as well as numbers, too." Luna whispered to her elder sister. "These stallions look like they've just finished a skirmish."

"We have not had real large scale conflict in a millennium, Lu'. It's no surprise the fitness quality has dropped over the years." Celestia replied simply. "However if things such as this are going to start happening again, then we may have to give the royal guard a bit of a nudge to get the message across."

"What about the Changeling invasion, then. Was that not a sufficient 'wake up call', so to speak?" Luna queried to the larger mare. Celestia just sighed and drooped her head a little.

"It was a significant breach to our land's security and it still slightly worries me now. However I believe that if another invasion of the sort was ever launched again, we would be able to rat out Chrysalis' plans before she could hatch them." Celestia watched the sergeant move in front of them and open the door with his magic. As the great doors parted, Celestia finished the thought. "Still, I wonder what could have prompted her to take such an action against us?"

"Maybe we will find out some time in the future..." Luna replied as she glanced at Celestia and back to the increasing amount of throne room appearing behind the opening doors. "...However, these matters will have to wait."

Eventually they were able to see the entire of the chamber as the doors were completely open, revealing everything inside. The red and gold carpet lead from the doors to the throne, and was lined by stallions at arms on either side. Their spears leaning to meet in the center at an acute angle. The white marble was a clean change from the hills on the edge of the Everfree.

Speaking of which, the fire that had started due to Berial's 'leakage' had soon dispersed after his death. What had happened to extinguish the fires was unknown, though they speculated that the flames ferocity may have been directly linked with the demon's life force. However, scout reports indicate that some of the earlier flames had died down too quickly and presented an anomaly to the rule. Maybe it was the work of the demon hunters?

They did not know. However what they did know, was that they desperately need to check the treasury and Blue Blood's quarters for any missing gold or valuable items. Currently, Blue Blood was sat on the Equestrian throne awaiting the arrival of the two rightful rulers. He was slouched over lazily, almost appearing asleep as he gave a large yawn. Celestia frowned.

"Blue Blood!" She yelled at him from across the room. The white stallion immediately jumped to his hooves looking a little shocked. He put on a sheepish smile and chuckled.

"Aunt Celestia, aunt Luna, so glad you got back safely." He shouted back happily. Luna grimaced at the mention of being called an aunt.

"You are not my family, Blue Blood. Keep calling me your 'aunt' and I'll make sure to it that you never have any family either." Luna said angrily.

"That's enough, Luna." Celestia raised a hoof to stop her commenting further. "I trust you kept our kingdom in good order while we were gone?" She and her sister started walking forwards, leaving their spent guard behind to be debriefed.

"Oh yes, actually I'd say I did pretty well." He boasted, leaning back into the throne a little.

"How well you did is not yours to comment on, your subjects are the ones to judge. Besides, you were in power for a grand total of 4 and a half hours. I doubt you could that badly within the time given." Luna explained to him.

"I knew that." He said sheepishly as his gaze wandered over to the sword attached to her armour. "Anyways Princess Celestia, your new sword is..." He saw the strangely shaped skull with it's burning red eyes and the incredible notched blade. "... Interesting."

"It's not mine." Celestia stated.

"Then who's is it?" The solar deity sighed in frustration.

"Do I have to explain everything about my affairs to you?" She asked wearily. Blue Blood didn't answer, only sticking up his snout with a 'Hmph'. "Anyway, move!" She wafted her hoof as a gesture to get him to shift away from her throne, which he did quickly, so she could return to her gold and silver chair. Blue Blood then walked away from the throne room, heading outside.

"I'm going to check on my constituent." She said as he left the room, and Luna whispered;

"You do that."

Celestia walked up the steps, armour clinking and clanking as she went. All six of the steps coated by the wide red carpet with gold trim that was there both as a decoration and to stop the hooves of countless subjects making indents in the ancient and expensive floors. The carpet extended all the way from her throne to the door, and as she got to the top of the stairs she smiled at the site of her throne. Shiny and comfy, she had been sitting on that particular throne almost every day of her life for nearly a thousand years.

She stepped up onto the throne and turned around to face the exit before sitting down and releasing a content and relaxed sigh. She really needed to exercise more, all of her royal duties had left her little time to work out and she was feeling the strain. However it was different to being old, at least in the context physical state. Because when it came to age, there literally was no older being in existence. Not one that she knew of, anyway.

Luna turned to the side, facing one of the large double doors that was installed into the throne room to lead onto the west wing of the palace. She looked back at her sister with a smile.

"I'm going to get out of this armour, sister. I shall return shortly as we have matters to discuss." She stated. Celestia looked back and giggled.

"I won't be too far behind you." She joked. "It's been a long time since I have had to wear armour, and I hope it will be along time until I have to again." Luna nodded in agreement. Celestia had never been the one for planning wars and discussing tactics, she preferred the diplomatic Route. However if worst came to the worst, Luna would always step in and take the reigns, as she was far more versed in the ways of a warrior.

As she watched her little sister leave the room to get changed, she remembered the last time she had worn the armour:

The battle of Antlerin where she had led her forces of royal guard against the retreating caribou who were tartarus bent on annihilating every single last one of them, defending their leader at all costs. She thought back to the barren war torn streets, coated grey in the dust of powderised stone and mortar. The buildings had all been pulverised by large scale magical bombardment and artillery fire, most were decrepit and falling apart. A large part of ponies homes had been leveled, leaving large areas filled with nothing but dull rubble and the broken memories of those who lived there.

She had to admire the caribou soldiers, who defended their capital city with their lives. Once they reached the borders of the city they dug in and refused to fall back. It took masses of cannon fire to soften the resistance enough for an assault, and when they did advance the battered and broken soldiers fought with great strength and passion. They truly believed in their leader and were prepared to die over giving in and surrendering. Too many lives were cut too short in those brutal years, and Celestia hoped to never repeat it, and make sure leaders like him never came about again.

This had always troubled Celestia. She never coped very well with the 'great war', the sheer scale of the loss of life involved terrified her, that good bucks were willing to give up their families and even their lives to fight for a pointless cause even when all hope seemed lost scared her deep down to her very core. And what perplexed her more was the way her sister handled it. Luna was never really too greatly affected by the atrocities of war, handling it as just another one of her duties. Though Celestia could see it in her eyes, Luna had never been able to completely shrug off the things she had seen, and she was pretty sure her little sister kept count of how many she killed. Not because of sadism or competition, but because she wanted to remember just what she was doing, to never forget the blood shed by her and her decisions.

As she was lost in her saddening memories, her eyes slowly wandered down until they arrived at the hilt of the strange sword attached to her armour. She stared at the handle for a second before grabbing it with her magic, trapping the grip in an amber glow as she pulled it free from the DIY sheath, being careful not to jab herself with the spiky pommel mounted at the back of the grip. The hand guards came into view, with it's morbid skull screaming a silent cry to the world. A set of ribs had been crafted under the skull and two bones came from the shoulders to form a protective guard.

As it slid totally from the sheath, the full blade came into view. It was very wide near the base and it got slowly thinner until it reached the middle, where it got progressively wider again before reaching the tip which had a notch on both sides that lead to a sharp point that looked like it could be effectively used for jabbing. The sword was at least 40 inches long and was heavy enough to do some real damage when swung with enough force. A fact that she had proved when fighting Berial. The blade's metal glistened a bright silver that stood loud and proud against the black metal that made up the rest of the swords features, apart from the eyes which burned a bloody crimson. The sword was truly a terrifying work of art.

For some reason she couldn't shake the feelings of a strange power being released by the blade, as if it had a soul of it's own. She held the sword up to the light shining through the large stained glass windows that adorned the walls and rotated it 180 degrees. The sword was identical on the other side, like most swords were, but as she moved her eyes further up the weapon she spotted an inscription on the base of the sword. Carved into the the metal of the blade was the word;

"Rebellion..." Celestia read aloud ghostilly, like not all of her voice was there. Then there was a more powerful voice that sounded out against the quiet.

"Tis' a magnificent object, eh sister?" Luna's voice asked from a while away. Celestia was broken from her mesmerizing trance and she lowered the sword to see her sister smiling at her, now free of her cumbersome battle armour. Celestia took a glance at Rebellion and then back at her sister.

"Yes, I guess it is." She said glumly, memories of horrible battles still present in her mind. Luna raised and eyebrow at her sisters sudden dark tone.

"Is something troubling you, Celestia?" She asked in a worried tone. Celestia sighed and then continued to admire Rebellion.

"Just running over some old memories, that's all." She said as she reverted her gaze to the mare before her. "Memories of the war."

"Art thou' still so bothered by that? After all these years?" Luna walked up the steps and came around to her big sister's side, draping a wing over her alabaster shoulders. "Why can't thou' just forget the whole ordeal and move on? Forgive the past, embrace the present." She smiled and nuzzled her elder sibling. Celestia pulled Luna in for a hug and embraced her for a moment. When they broke the hug, Luna leaned over to the sword and inspected it closely, just like Celestia did.

"Tis' an interesting design. We- I think it would mainly be used for hacking all the way through an opponent, using the wider tip to inflict a large amount of damage. Though the notches seem to suggest it would rather be used for slashing, with the notches being used to tear the wound and make it impossible for it to heal properly. However the only curve on this blade is concave, and would not be suited for that. It does look quite the work of art, though." She then looked at the the guard and narrowed her eyes. "I've never seen a weapon like this before. And for some reason it feels... alive." She said as she ran her hoof along the smooth metal of the blade.

"I have the same feeling, I think we should hoof this over to our mages. Have them work out what that is, and give them something to do for a while." She chuckled at the thought. "The students of the arcane rarely get anything interesting to work on nowadays."

"I'm surprised they're even still around. Magic is becoming a rare subject for today's youth, your so called developing technology is starting to come about now." Luna said.

"So it seems." Celestia said before pausing. "However do you agree?" Celestia looked at her little sister who was still running a hoof over the metal and inspecting the gothic designs.

Hm? Oh, yes. Like you said." Luna blurted out abruptly and turned back to her sister with a sheepish smile. Celestia smiled warmly back and slid the sword back under her armour, rising to her hooves. Her large size gave her a large prescence in the room, as most ponies found it impossible to miss her due to her being so tall. But now there wasn't very many ponies around, so she went mostly unnoticed.

"Anyway, I need to get myself out of this plating and relax for a bit. I'm sure a lot of ponies in high places will want to know whats going on and what will be changing." She started walking away into another wing of the castle and her sister followed happily. As they walked, Celestia felt her sister position herself up close and put her mouth near her ear.

"I haven't forgotten about that guard." She whispered simply and Celestia whipped her head around with a glare that could make a pony drop dead. Luna grew a large grin and started to trot ahead. "And I'm sure the nobles would just love to hear about it!" She raised her voice loud enough for all the ponies nearby to hear, drawing a few heads. Celestia kept her glare and sped up into a trot to catch up with her sister.

"Tell anypony about that and I'll tell the nobles about your fetishes! And I mean all of them!" She shouted back angrily. And the last anypony heard of Luna that day, was her loud, mischievous laughter ringing out through the castle.

Shameless Filler Chapter to Keep Everyone From Believing That I Have Forgotten About This Fic When The Actual Truth is That I Have Other Things on my Mind Right Now (Edit)

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"... aaaand it should be just over here." Nero said as the group of demon hunters reached the peak of the hill. From the top they could see for ages in pretty much any direction. Dante saw that directly in front of him lay a homely looking cottage about 200 feet away at the bottom of the other side of the hill and further past that he could see what looked like an orchard about a mile away. And to his left the edge of a town could be seen poking out of the side of a mountain.

The whole place was strangely serene, probably too serene. For some reason it made him uncomfortable, having a beautifully lush and green environment like this, such a perfect place. He felt that places like this should never exist. It would be far too easy for something evil to come and mess everything up, because anyone living there would never had known anything other than perfection. So when their lives are turned upside down they wouldn't know how to react, they wouldn't be able to defend themselves. There would need to be a massive source of power but only a few people would have the courage to use it.

On Earth, humans may be weak but they're stubborn and wouldn't back down even if it cost their lives. Most mavericks like the band of 'friends' he was a part of would fight to the death against the demons if it ever came to that. But so far him, Nero, Trish and Lady had been careful enough to prevent their own deaths as well as taking care of business. The world had capable demon hunters in it's possession, and they were doing a great job of it thus far. But this one probably didn't have something like that...

"So I'm guessing this place has never seen an invasion in it's whole life, then." Dante said.

"What makes you think that?" Nero replied curiously.

"Well it's just so perfect. It looks like something out of a kids book." He reasoned.

"Well I've been told that it's been invaded by giant insects, screwed over by a chaos god... twice, sapped dry of energy and had prominant figures manipulated by a spirit comprised of everything negative about a person. Hate, jealousy, greed, hunger for power, that sorta' stuff. " Nero said while gesturing to the landscape. "And the six ponies I've seen seemed to be the ones stopping it every single time. They represent 'The Elements of Harmony' which are basically the pillars on which magic stands in this place."

"And that is?" Lady said while rolling a hand to tell him to carry on.

"Friendship."

"Oh no, it's even worse than I thought." Dante let his head fall into his hands. Trish just sighed with frustration.

"Well if it bothers that much then maybe you can stay on this hill and let us do all the work." She pouted as she placed her hands on her hips.

"No!" Dante burst out. "That's not what I meant!"

"Then could you actually tell us what you mean instead of beating around the bush?"

"I meant that because this place is so perfect, all the ponies are going to take offense at even the slightest of jokes, whether it was meant to be offensive or not." The others just looked at him like he was some sort of idiot. "I mean you'll barely be able to have a joke without upsetting someone, at which point they'll go crying to their mommies, or something."

"Then I guess the solution to that problem is not to insult or joke against the ponies. There, obvious!" Lady answered him simply.

"Dante not using jokes and gags? Impossible." Nero stated, and caused the group to burst into a small fit of laughter. "He just wouldn't be the same without it!"

"I'm known for my quick wits." Dante gave a small mock bow and chuckled. After the group laugh, Dante calmed himself with a sigh and squared his body with the cottage at the bottom of the gradual slope. He put his hands behind his head and tensed to stretch his arms out. The group lined up at either side of him and waited for him to say something. He glanced to both his sides and frowned.

"What are you all doing?" He asked.

"Waiting for you. You do seem to have been calling the shots as of late." Trish said in a matter of fact tone. Dante did his best to shrug with his hands locked behind him.

"He has not!" Lady pointed to Dante accusingly.

"I don't know, Nero seems to have been bossing most of us about most of the time." He gestured to the black clad Nero standing to his left. Nero let his head fall into his palms and shook his head in them as he noticed the start of an argument coming along. He honestly had no clue how Dante and the girls managed to start arguments about the most stupid things. It was a confusion he would likely take to his grave, those three were possibly the most argumentative bunch he'd ever seen.

"Look, can we just get our asses to the cottage? If we're gonna' find Dante's sword then the Element's should be a good place to start considering they're friends of the regals, yes?" He said slightly frustrated. The group went silent and looked at him blankly for a second. "... answer please? Today would be nice." Trish chuckled as she put her arm over his shoulder.

"Well, you know more about this place than any of us do, Nero. So I guess I'm in agreement." Trish answered with a shrug with Lady and Dante both nodding along.

"Fine..." Dante exclaimed breathily. Then he brightened as he came up with something to ignite a flame and raise an argument capable of keeping him entertained for the journey. "... let's go find Nero's girlfirends." Nero glared at Dante before beginning to walk in his direction, hand moving over to the handle of Red Queen behind his back.

"Dante, If you don't stop this, I am going to kill you." Nero threatened, trying his best to intimidate his more experienced counterpart.

"Ok, Ok, fine. I'll stop... for now."

Geryon Is Afraid

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Celestia strolled through the corridors with an ironic sense of calmness considering she was hauling around a huge demonic sword. The base of the large blade rested on her shoulder and the length of metal stretched out until it's notched tip marked the weapons end. A small squadron of guard accompanied her through the halls as she walked, their job to make sure nopony jumped her and took the weapon. However they weren't really needed, they were more a hindrance than anything. Having to wait for them to re-organise themselves after thinning their formation to go through a door seemed somewhat pointless. But what can you do?

They were on their way to the archmage Geryon's quarters in the palace. Their they could find the unicorn and see what he could do about inspecting the blade and it's strange magical properties. Celestia was adept in the use and understanding of magic, however she wasn't widely involved with it outside of raising/lowering the sun, levitating scrolls and tea-cups. She also knew a few basic combat spells and some speed enhancing spells which were used in her battle with Berial, however that was about as much as she knew.

Their were only three other ponies in Equestria capable of magical knowledge and use to a larger extent than she. Her sister Luna, who was currently relaxing in her quarters knew a little more of combat magic than Celestia but wasn't massively knowledgeable in magic as a whole. Leaving Geryon and Twilight Sparkle as the only two who could possibly decipher the magical mysteries of Equestria.

Geryon was a strange case indeed. Luna knew him far better then Celestia, and apparently before he was even located on their realm. Geryon had literally come into existence in Equestria from another plane, another universe. He was usually working his flanks off and spent a lot of time looking into expanding the uses of known magic as well as exploring the possibilities of more types of magic. Like Luna he possessed the ability to 'Dream-Walk', but was unable to manipulate dreams like she could. He claimed to have inherited it. But his most interesting ability is that he can warp his perception of time, slowing it down while retaining his normal thought speed. To anypony not in the know, he appears to just have insanely quick reaction times. He was also immortal, which was nice. Having another timeless being around helped when she wanted to speak to someone wise after losing a few IQ's speaking with Canterlot nobles.

As for his involvement in his original realm, Celesia knew only that he learned a lot of lessons from spending two thousand years bound to a movement restricting carriage and locked in some form of Colosseum. He spent so long in a state of sleep, dreaming to pass the time, that he occasionally met Luna as she traversed the space between dreams and reality during her time in banishment on the moon. That was apparently how they came to know each other, and Geryon appeared to find comfort in conversing with others when he felt like doing so. His likeness with Luna gave the two a solid friendship and they mostly talked in their dreams.

Coming to his door one of the guards on duty outside tapped the door heavily with his spear. It was a short while waiting before the door finally crept open and and electric blue head peaked slowly through the gap. His fur was just as so-blue like lightning, and his eyes and mane were a much darker blue, almost purple. His mane also had a white highlight running through it and lined up well with the horn intruding from it. He was taller than your average pony due to his age, and anypony could literally feel the trembles in the magic plane when he cast a spell. He had a rather intimidating presence. A little like she had on ponies talking to her while in day-court. Something seemed out of place though, his eyes darted around before finally setting on her to get a good look at her frowning expression.

"Whats that?" He snapped quickly, glancing at the partially hidden sword on Celestia's back. She couldn't help but notice some paranoia and fear in his eyes.

"Oh, this?" She pulled the sword away so he could see it in all his glory. And when she did she saw something in Geryon snap. His ears fell flat against his head and he gulped hard. He opened the door so that Celestia could enter and gestured for her to hurry.

"Come in, quickly!" He sounded stressed and Celestia decided to figure out what was wrong with him. She left her guard squadron outside as they all took positions and prepared to guard the door for anypony who might disturb her. Walking into the daylight lit room, she noticed it wasn't as light as it should be for a room at that time of day. The door thudded closed behind her as she took note of the desks which sat next to book-shelves and enchanting tables. They were covered with scraps of paper and random scribblings and what looked to be him connecting events together in a big 'conspiracy web' on one of the walls.

"Geryon, what's all this?" She said narrowing her eyes as she turned to face him. But halfway through her turn he rushed past her and headed over to where the web of pictures and news articles was plastered onto the wallpaper. Completely ignoring her question he continued to babble nonsense about 'it all making sense'. His magic picked up an inkwell as he hastily dunked a thin roll of paper into it, before drawing more lines to a rough drawing of the sword Rebellion at the end. Listed underneath were strange names, a few were being written in bold like they were more important. 'Sparda', 'Dante' and 'Mundus' were the larger ones, with 'Vergil' and 'Arkham' written slightly smaller underneath. There were also the drawings of two other blades as well as what looked to be a set of identical amulets with arrows drawn between them. Celestia had seen enough, his drawing were almost maniacal to behold and made absolutely no sense to her.

"Geryon." She said loudly and sternly, putting a hoof on his shoulder. He swirled around and his eyes locked on the shining blade of Rebellion.

"Where did you find that blade?" He asked in all seriousness, like it was a matter of life and death.

"I found it attached to a beast I encountered when I investigated the forest-fire, why?"

"That blade..." He started, pointing to it like it was some kind of monster. "... is Rebellion. The sword wielded by the demon, Dante."

"Dante?" Celestia glanced at the name an the connections on the wall. She looked more closely: The three blades were aligned in a horizontal line. Rebellion was furthest on the left, in the middle was a slightly shorter dual edged sword with a more triangular shape. It was labelled 'Force Edge'. And on the right was a blade obtaining a thinner stature, it sported a curve and a very small handle guard. It was labelled 'Yamato'. All of these blades were connected to the name Sparda, but Rebellion was also connected with Dante and Yamato was lined up with Vergil.

"Dante is the last remaining son of the demon who locked me away in that infernal tower for all those years. He wields Rebellion because his father passed it down to him before his death. Vergil is the now deceased elder son of Sparda's bloodline. He wielded Yamato, for the same reason." Geryon explained.

"But what does it mean, Geryon? You're talking nonse-"

"Dante is the demon who ended my life at the tower, brought me here." Celestia didn't bother reminding him not to interrupt her, she was silent as some links were made in her head. "Princess, I'm going to skip the details to get the point across. If there are demons from the demonic realm here in Equestria, then we're in trouble. What was the monster you fought at the Everfree?" Celestia was slightly taken aback by Geryon's little speech, and as she started to speak she stuttered a little.

"A-a demon- I think. Called Berial."

"Berial..." He growled. "Big Centaur-like creature with wings of flame and a booming voice?" He questioned. And as Celestia nodded he let his head droop and he sighed heavily. "Then it is worse than I feared." He began to make his way over to one of the desks, one coated in nothing but sheets of papyrus with alien symbols scripted into a six pointed star. Each sheet had different combinations of symbols but all were given a large question mark at the end.

"Here are a few theories to how this may have happened. But if there are full sized demons entering our world at will then I guess I'll have to figure another out with all the new variables." Celestia followed him to where he was staring intently and worriedly at the papyrus.

"How bad is it Geryon? What should we do?" She asked to stallion who closed his eyes, silent in thought for a moment while he thought of the next best thing to do.

"The demons will be entering through Hell-gates, portals to the demon realm. They must be found and destroyed at all costs, or I fear Equestria may not survive. We'll need all the help we can get, even if it means siding with the demon, Dante."

"If Dante is so dangerous then why should we even think of working with him?" Celestia asked, slightly confused.

"He's not against us, he has his reasons to hate beasts like Berial. He killed me because he had to stop his brother from doing to his home what is happening to us now. I was in the way, I had to be, I was bound to my duty by Sparda..." His teeth ground together viciously at the mention of the name. "... but that's a story for another day. The point is, Dante has experience demon hunting and retains knowledge that is vital to our survival." There was a brief moment of silence as Celestia waited for his decision.

"We must call the war council. A summit is in order."

"Ever had that feeling..."

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*Knock-knock-Knock*

Nero gave the door to the cottage a short burst of 'knocks' in order to try and get whoever may be inside to let him. The rest of the gang stood behind him in absolute silence with nervous expressions on their faces. They felt on for two main reasons, each one being relatively reasonable in their own right.

The first reason was that they may all be about to make second contact with possibly the universes most weird sounding race. Anyone being one of the first people to travel across universes would be fairly excited about it, even if it was to meet with a bunch of colourful mini-horses with magic.

The second reason was that the situation was currently very tense. A slightly beat up Dante stood at the back of the group with a rather distasteful expression. It's not everyday he get's into fights with other half demons, less often ones that actually hurt him. Even worse for him though, was that Nero had effortlessly 'cheated' with his buster arm, grabbing him and smashing him into the ground. So as they stood waiting at the door all was understandably quite tense.

Speaking of standing at the door, anypony observing would likely freak out completely seeing four huge bipedal creatures with huge swords and ballistic weapons idly hanging around some random cottage. It didn't help the demon hunters situation that there didn't seem to be anyone in, so they were just sort of sat there awkwardly.

Nero knocked a few more times in succession on the door to let loose another outbreak of silence. Lady sighed behind him and let rubbed her temples with her hands, which was again followed by a short period of quiet that was quickly broken when Trish spoke up to suggest another idea.

"Why don't we just look to find another way in?" Nero glanced over his shoulder without saying a word. "*Sigh* Look, maybe there's another way in round the back or something." After Trish had made the mistake of saying an innuendo, Dante took the chance to lighten the mood.

"Oh, I bet Nero likes-"

"Zip it!" Nero snapped at him. "You're still not forgiven."

"Seriously?" Dante shrugged. "You crushed me into the ground! That surely makes us even, right?" There was a moment where nothing happened and Nero grumbled something inaudible underneath his breath. Dante didn't bother asking what he'd said, Nero was already pretty pissed off at him. And angering a guy who can crush 50 feet of stone with his right hand might not be the best idea. Nero just stared at the front door for a moment, bringing the buster arm to his chin as to allow his head to rest while he thought.

"If they're not in, they're not in. We shouldn't go breaking and entering unless we have a good reason to do so." Nero explained.

"Whatever you say, kid." Trish agreed walking up to his side. "So what should we do now?"

"Didn't you say there was a town somewhere near here? Maybe we'll find who you're looking for there." Lady said, leaning her body onto one hip and adjusting Kalina Ann on her back.

"Yeah. That's probably our best bet. Come on, lets get going." Nero side stepped past the girls and began to walk down the path, stopping as he reached Dante. He leaned into the devil hunter's ear and in a hushed voice he said, "If you don't pick up you're act by the time we get to town, I'm gonna smash you into pieces." Dante leaned away from the temper tested and angry young man, slightly taken aback by his sadistic comment. After processing the thoughts of being repeatedly smashed into objects by a furious devil triggered Nero, Dante let out a nervous chuckle.

"Hey, I can be serious when I need to be." He defended with a shrug.

"'When he wants to be.'" Lady corrected. "Even after stopping me from falling to my death at the Temen-Ni-Gru he still couldn't help but flirting with me. All of this while I was dangling over the edge of a two hundred foot drop."

"Hey! You were super moody back then, you shot me in the face when I called you pretty!"

*Click, BANG* A pistol was raised and fired by the white dressed young lady, the bullet landing on Dante's forehead and sending him reeling back a bit.

"What the Hell!?" He yelled, covering the wound with his hand while Trish and Nero slowly grew satisfied grins.

"I believe you're exact words were, 'Let you go? But it would be a shame if you ended up as just a pretty stain.'" Lady imitated Dante a little poorly, but it was enough for Trish to start a chuckle.

"Oooh..." Trish emphasised the bad choice of words through her laugh. "Seems you just can't get it quite right, can you Dante?" She finished.

"No.. I can't." Dante said in low harsh voice, almost a grumble. Nero responded by giving him a hard pat on the back and walking past him.

"Don't worry, we'll find you a date someday old man."

"I'm not even gonna' try and defend against that." Dante sighed, admitting defeat. He spun around taking one foot off the ground to push himself into a pivot on the spot. He let the foot fall back to the ground with a loud thud. "Let's just get going and find Nero's friends."

"Thank you." Nero said dully as Dante and the girls began to walk after the young demon. Forming into a group, their usual walking formation slowly coalesced as they went. Nero was usually at the front as he tried to get everything done as quickly as possible in the most efficient way possible. In a way he reminded him of his brother... cold, calculating and strong willed. If a bit stubborn as well.

The thoughts took him all the way back to their battles in the Temen-Ni-Gru. Their meeting at the top of the tower, their confrontation in the hall of judgement, and their final fight at the gates of Hell. Truth was he'd do anything to see his brother alive and well again. Such a shame he was corrupted by Mundus, all of that cold character lost to time. However Dante would rather see his brother dead than in the manipulative hands of the demon prince of darkness himself.

The feelings of nostalgia were strangely interrupted as a dry coolness swept over him, like he was passing through a shadow. The sensation drove a small amount of deja-vu into his mind and he stopped dead, something about the Temen-Ni-Gru had seeped into his being. Glancing to his sides and behind him he could see no shadow present, not even one. It took a second for it to hit him but for a moment he didn't realise that his own shadow was missing. The fact hit him with confusion as he cocked his head to where his shadow should have been. Instead of his shape being painted onto the floor with a dark silhouette there was lighted ground instead.

"Dante?" Lady called his name from behind him. He turned to look at the human huntress to see the group looking at him strangely. At least Lady and Trish were, Nero just looked a little tested and short fused. He glanced back to the ground to see his shadow had now re-appeared, like it should normally be.

"Huh." He harrumphed loudly and turned back to face the group. He quickly began to catch back up again as four pairs of eyes followed him closely, making his way back to him.

"What's wrong?" Trish asked, curious to see what had stopped her friend.

"Nothing." Dante dismissed her worry with a single word. "Just thought I saw something, that's all."

And with that they began their walk to Ponyville. However unknown to them, a pair of burning red orbs observed them from the darkest shadows. The trees providing the blackest cover as a predator stalked his prey. He had been reborn for a purpose, and that purpose... was revenge.

"I say we find these demon hunter guys and get them on our side! Then if any demons come around again we can kick their flanks back to Tartarus!" Rainbow Dash Brought her hoof smashing down on the large crystal table with a loud *Thunk*. Everypony looked her way with the sudden noise and action. "What's everypony else say?"

"I don't know Rainbow Dash, we're still waiting on a response from Princess Celestia on that. I'd rather we get in some knowledge from an experienced source before we do anything brash." Twilight explained from her seat. "Besides, we don't know who the rest of these demon hunters are, and if Nero was anything to go on they might be difficult to work with. Not to mention gruesome."

"Those poor, poor Timberwolves..." Fluttershy lamented, looking sadly down into her hooves that were resting gently on the table.

"Hey, 'Shy. When we meet this 'Dante' then maybe you can tell him off for being so... inconsiderate." Rainbow Dash said in as soft a tone as she could to try and comfort her friend. Fluttershy smiled weakly and gave a light nod.

"An' anyways, about tha'..." Apple Jack started. "If we're gonna' be workin' with those demon hunters then were gonna' hafta be careful o' them. We've seen wha' they can do, lookin' at Nero." There were nods and agreements all around.

"I just can't wait to design them a party!" Pinkie exclaimed, her voice echoing off' the walls. Rarity was next to give her input.

"On the topic of greeting them, we do need to make sure they know we're their allies. Wouldn't want them thinking we're a group of uncultured animals, now. Would we?"

"Party!" Pinkie jumped up into the air, confetti and streamers somehow bursting up from behind her.

"I'm thinking more of a meeting between us, darling." Rarity said, providing a more sensible route to take.

"Aww..."

"We could have an after-party though."

"Yay!"

*BLURGH* *Thunk* A door at the back of the room swung open and a small green and purple blur shot through, green smoke bellowing out of it. Spike hit the floor as soon as he was airborne, the impact winding him and he opened his mouth to gasp for air. His inhalation was denied however by a belch of green fire sprouting from his maw. The swirling flames burst forwards until a scroll materialised itself within the fire. The flames crackled away, dispersing into sparks and embers which died away quickly. The scroll fell onto Spike open palm as he gasped for air.

"Letter... from Princess... Celestia." He breathed heavily through his speech.

"Thank you Spike." Twilight took the scroll in her magic and levitated it over to where she was sitting. While she undid the seal her number one assistant pulled himself to his paws and scuttled his way over to where she was sitting, in her throne. Twilight placed the seal to one side and and unraveled the scroll to read it.

"Ahem." She cleared her throat.

"Dearest Twilight,

I am terribly sorry if this letter was slow to write, I am tired from fighting the gargantuan beast we now know to have been called Berial. Do not worry about me and my sister, we are perfectly fine. It appears we have both been pondering the same questions over the time we have both arrived back home. The archmage, Geryon, has provided sufficient enlightenment for us to understand our current situation.

It seems that something is letting demons from the realms of Tartarus and some demonic realm named 'Hell' loose in Equestria. The disturbing thing is that some of these demons are supposed to have already been slain. Which means there is an entity in existence powerful enough to resurrect demons in their power. Geryon has informed me of multiple demons, by name, that Equestria may be exposed to in the future. And the list is frighteningly long. I'm afraid if all of these were to roam free in our kingdom, we may not survive.

Therefor I think it is important we hold Equestria's first war summit for over one thousand years. We must discuss our next move, and the involvement of the demon hunters who you say are in our kingdom. Do not bother coming to Canterlot, for I have arranged this meeting to be held in your castle, if that is okay with you. I fell it would do well for the members of the war council to get used to a new setting, besides, you have working map of Equestria within your home. This would prove useful in planning, yes?

Please get back to me soon.

Celestia."

"Jeez." Rainbow leaned back into her seat. "This is bad."

"It might just be the worst we've ever seen an event like this. Tirek was bad and all, but wow. This sounds awful." Spike added.

"Spike?" Twilight leaned down to her assistant.

"Yeah?"

"Send another letter, accept Celestia's offer to hold the summit here."

"You got it!" Spike answered, pulling out his quill and parchment before getting to work, writing down everything Twilight told him to. All eyes were set on other places, and because of this they all failed to notice the creeping shadows, moving slowly, towards the rainbow pegasus sat in her chair. The shadow moved into the shade created by the pony's body blocking the sunlight through the windows. Once the blackness connected with Rainbow's shadow, they merged, the creeping darkness becoming one Dash's shadow.

Rainbow felt a tug on her very being and stopped everything she was doing and sat up, her irises shrinking to pin-pricks against the white of her eyes. For a brief second she went freezing cold and a shiver passed over her, a rather violent one at that, catching the attention of Rarity across the room.

"Rainbow Dash? Are you feeling okay?" She asked her brightly coloured friend from across the table. Fluttershy also glanced over at her blank looking friend, immediately noticing something was wrong.

"Rainbow? You look awful, is something wrong?"

Rainbow Dash, hearing the soothing sound of an old friend snapped out of her blank moment and shiver dissipated into nothingness. All of a sudden she felt warm again, like the ice cold feeling that just passed over her was nothing at all. She took a deep breath and composed herself, looking to her friends who were all staring at her very worriedly. Even Twilight and Spike had stopped writing their response to see what had happened.

"I'm fine. Just a passing shiver, that's all." She waved a hoof to dismiss the matter. Fluttershy however wanted to dig further, she knew shivers that intense rarely come about just randomly.

"Are you sure, Dash? You haven't had any fevers lately have you?" Fluttershy's calm but timid voice asked.

"Fluttershy I'm definitely sure."

"Definitely?"

"Definitely."

"Okay, but if you begin to feel sick or like you have a temperature, please say so. Shivers like that aren't normal."

"She's right, Dash." Twilight said as she and Spike finished their letter. Spike rose it into the air and breathed a small column of green fire onto the scroll, burning it and carrying it away to the princess.

"It's okay girls, I'm totally fine!" Rainbow said, laughing of the issue light heartedly. "Look, if I feel ill I'll tell you. Just like Flutters' said, that way we're safe okay?"

"If you say so." Twilight said cautiously, narrowing her eyes at the stubborn pegasus who was blushing slightly, under everypony's gaze.

A shadow behind said pegasus shifted in anticipation of what was to come. Oh, how he was going to enjoy the sweet sensations of revenge. All he needed, was a strong, capable form. A form his new mare was going to provide.

A Dark Ritual

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Meanwhile, in the depths of Hell...

"A soul, wandering halls of stone and mortar,
an echo, bouncing from walls like ripples of water.
A pebble, thrown by demons for fodder..." A dark figure walked slowly and menacingly across a dark room, the stone walls returning each and every word said in a shivering echo. It's body could not be seen for the shadow adorning it's shape, and an ethereal mane fluttered on a non-existent wind. With every hoofstep it came closer to the destination, a pool of serene water shining blue from the light held within. The sapphire light illuminated the otherwise blank and bare room in a pale aura that barely managed to reach the corners. This one had faded, merely a fraction of it's full strength remained.

"I have spent many a month working towards this... towards you." A low zombie-like voice droned on, emanating from the figure. "And at long last, with her help, I can finally complete what I have started." As he finished he came up to the pool. The waters sat within a stone ring as green eyes gazed down upon them. A purple smoke drifted from red irises, disappearing into the darkness surrounding them making the eyes feel like the only life in the room. But there was another.

"Each of these is a testomony to who you were, young one. Youthful, but oh so powerful." A small grey box was levitated from an unseen location and was rested upon the perimeter of the ring. With a quiet creak the hinges of the lid worked to open the box, allowing the figure access to the contents inside. There were only four small pieces, each of invaluable worth to the figure, inside of the box.

The first, a small cutting of waxed cotton, a solid sky blue of one side and amber on the other. By the looks of it's condition it had been torn away from it's original place.
The second, a clutch of white hairs from a mane, their reflective surfaces colouring themselves in silver light.
The third, a tiny vial of red liquid. The blood of a body long gone contained within a small glass container.
And finally the last and most important piece of all, a wisp of blue energy. The essence of something powerful condensed into a little ball of perpetually shifting life force.

One by one, each of the objects floated their way over the pool, not even by the use of magic. The objects were returning to were they belonged, collecting to reunite with a form once lost. The vial's cap pulled away to let the blood fall into the pool, painting the waters a sickly crimson, before the hairs were added. They fell into the pool and seemingly dissolved, adding to the mixture. Third was the cotton. The piece floated down to join it's old home, fading away, evaporating. And last of all, the most important ingredient. The life of the soul was brought above the pool in a sphere of red magic before being dropped into the pool in a ghostly silence.

As the light began to grow and the soul within the pool gathered the strength it needed, the figure took a few slow steps back. His curved red horn and grey coat beginning to show in the increasing brightness. On it's face was a satisfied grin stretching to an unsettling width to show teeth and a pair of vicious fangs.

"Finally..." It breathed heavily, the weight of relief hanging heavily upon the sense of fulfillment it had achieved. "... You are reborn. Welcome back...

"Vergil."

Demonic Introductions (Filler)

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"So this is it, hmm? Your oh so useful plan to resurrect a power beyond compare!?" Sombra stood his ground as his master swirled around in anger, a blue veil of of stars trailing behind her movements as she spun, floating in it's own magical aura. She stormed away back to her throne in the Dark Palace, stomping up the stair-way until she reached the ornate stone and azure seat of power. Reeling a foreleg back she growled loudly as she slammed her right hoof against the backing of the chair, causing a small crack to appear from the blow.

"What is your game, Sombra?" She rested her hoof back on the ground as her heavy, furious breaths began to slow back down to a normal rate. "I gave all the time in the world, all the resources you needed. And you bring me an ape?" She gestured to the blue clad figure standing silently just outside of the door, looking out over the eternal night that blanketed the region of Hell in which they currently resided. Sombra's face remained stoic as he turned his head to see the fruits of his labour.

"An ape, yes. However that being holds a power that may just be able to help us-"

"I do not care what it may do, only what it can do! You brought me a weakened power, not a full one!" His master cut him off. "You fool! Do you have any idea what all that energy could have been used for if not for your 'little plan'?" Sombra stood silently, awaiting his master's continuation as she stared him down with her evil glowing eyes. "I could have manifested all of us in Equestria before the end of this month given all that power. We could have had our revenge!"

His master turned her attention to the construct of her underling's work. A monkey, just like the ones that had entered Equestria shortly beforehand. She could not see any of it's features other than a sliver of brown boots just below the extremely long three trailed coat and the swept back silver mane on it's head. She had planned to use the introduction of the 'demon hunters' as a distraction to Celestia and her sister, however her spies reported that they planned to have them assist Equestria against her.

"-Perfect.-" She thought to herself. "The one time that bitch decides to be clever... right on my plans. Just perfect.-" She turned her attention to the monkey. Maybe she could have some use of it.

"You! Ape! Come here!" She barked her order. The figure's head turned slowly until the side of it's face was visible, one of it's blue eyes moving to intercept her intense stare. It said nothing, only offering her a cold hard gaze and a blank expression to add to the already tense mood. "Before me, now!" The creature let out a quiet sigh and rotated slowly on it's heels until it was facing directly her way. She kept her stare focused on it as it walked calmly through the doors and across the large, empty room. Apparently completely unfazed by her debilitating demeanor.

She followed it until it came to a stop next to Sombra, were it stood quietly without a single word. The long blue coat had an amber underlining and it had a serpent-like pattern trailing down from halfway up the left breast, around the collar and all the way down to the waist on the right hand side. It hung loosely but was very well fitted, allowing it to be worn without any bagginess whatsoever. It wore a black vest and incredibly dark blue cotton trousers which ended in large brown boots. She looked it up and down. It didn't look very strong, and she could feel that a large portion of it's capacity for power was empty, like it had been drained somehow. Taking that into consideration, she estimated that at full demonic power, it would be very powerful indeed. However the energy it would take to power up the monkey was nowhere near worth the effort. Sombra has wasted enough on it already.

"What is your name, ape?"

"Vergil." It relied in an almost emotionless tone, somewhere between confused, sorrowful and bored. She found it difficult to judge exactly what it was meant to be feeling. She would find out, if she was to make an impact on it. She had let it come into existence, so she would use it.

"What are you?" She asked in patronising voice.

"What does it matter to you?" It replied. She narrowed her eyes at the creature as it blankly stared at her. "Judging by how much you'd rather not have let me be reborn, I'd guess you don't really care." It was correct. She couldn't care less, though she wanted to gather as much from it as she could as it may help her with her demon hunter problem.

"True. However I have asked you a question, and seeing as you have been listening so intently you should know I am not in the mood to be vague right now. So answer my question, ape."

"I have given you my name so you can call me it. I shall not simply be referred to as 'ape'." Vergil said sternly. For a moment, the dark mistress felt a smile creeping up on her face. This 'Vergil' character was going to be quite the deal, something told her. The smile faded just as soon as it appeared when her temper began to rise at the thought of dealing with such a difficult underling.

"Fine then, Vergil. Now answer my question. What are you?"

"I am a demon."

"You think?" The shadow mistress asked sarcastically, her anger beginning to well up again, ready for use once more. "There's more to it than that. Speak up, or do I have to torture it from you?"

"I do not fear pain, nor do I care about death. My plans, my future, have all been taken from me, and I want them back. I am not some puppet to be ordered around by a greater force. You may have resurrected me, but my path is my own." Vergil explained, not an ounce of fear in his voice. "I will plan for myself, and I will do whatever is necessary to succeed for myself."

Her anger was starting to flare up, not just with the demon before her but once more with Sombra as-well. For bringing her such an incompetent being for a tool. Sombra glanced uneasily at his master and back at Vergil.

"Please, Vergil. This is not the time for selfishness, you can at least be respectful to your new master." He explained. Vergil's dead stare turned to Sombra and he looked down into his eyes. Vergil then harrumphed and turned to glance around at the artwork and tapestries around the room. Nearly all depicted his 'master' in some glorious or powerful state and form. "-Humph, Hippocrates.-"

"huh. Master..." He repeated to himself, almost mockingly. "I do not simply work for anyone. Unless there is something in the deal for me." he left his sentence open ended, leaving the implication for the azure being standing in-front of it's damaged throne to fill it in. There was silence for a moment as the master's face contorted into one of walled off rage.

"You- do not- demand pay- from me..." She hissed through clenched teeth. She began to descend the stairs and approach the still Vergil, as Sombra backed away, slowly backpedaling with his head held low. The being stomped down the stairs menacingly, the loud thuds echoing through the room. "No riches- no power- no fame shall be offered for you, you wretch." She got to the bottom of the stairs and flared out her wings, her visage suddenly becoming many times more sinister in her anger. She raised her face to Vergil's and stared into his eyes with an ice cold will. Vergil did not move. He didn't even flinch. In fact after a few seconds of staring each-other down, a smile began to make it's way onto his face.

At this point she wanted absolutely nothing more than to kill Vergil and punish Sombra for his inconvenience. So as Vergil tunred and began to walk away, she could no longer hold her fury. Vergil got no more than ten paces before she exploded into a mass of magical azure blades and midnight black tentacles that extended out from her body, her once glowing blue eyes now completely shaded over white with magic. The tentacles lunged at Vergil, but she jumped back a little in shock as he disappeared in a blue blur, making her attack miss.

She retracted her extended limbs and spun around, her head whipping in every direction. She checked behind her, to her left and right in rapid succession, only to find nothing but shadows and walls. Getting a sudden feeling of verticallity, she looked up to see Vergil descending on her at lightning speed, his legs curled up like a tightly coiled spring ready to deliver a powerful kick. He was wearing some kind of light emitting gauntlets and greaves which were propelling him even faster. She used a teleportation spell of her own to magically cease to exist for a split second as Vergil came crashing down on the spot where she once existed. His Beowulf devil arm caused his attack to smash into the ground and create an small impact crater as a blast-wave of shrapnel was sent flying in all directions. He sprung up once he realised his opponent was no longer where he expected it to be.

In a flash of light, she appeared a few metres away from him to his front charging her horn and reeling back her head, ready to lunge and cast a powerful ranged spell. But Vergil was prepared. Much to his attacker's surprise, a pair of crystaline blue swords appeared at either side of his body and fired forward at a lethal velocity, ready to hit her before she could fully charge her spell. Instead of finishing her offensive approach, she took on a defensive one and cancelled her spell into a shield. The two swords shattered on impact with the shield, shards splintering off in multiple directions.

She gave Vergil a loud smirk and a toothy grin. He only stood perfectly still as her smug expression was wiped clean from her face as a ring of the blue floating swords appeared around her. She glance around in a three-sixty before noticing the small distance they pull back before being thrown. She noted this as she leaped up into the air to avoid the attacks. Back-flipping and landing on the ground as the swords flew underneath her and smashed against the walls of her throne room. She looked back to Vergil to see him preparing more of the ranged sword flinging attacks as they were summoned up at his sides.

She jumped and thrust her mighty wings to gain air-speed as the swords flew by, one after another, missing her by mere inches. The attacks from the blue-coated demon chained up after each-other, making it very difficult for her to stop dodging, less she be hit and injured. Something she could not afford to be when in the late stages of her plans. After a good ten seconds of dodging, she managed to get a good look at Vergil casually strolling in her direction, fists clenched in the gauntlets. His walk sped up slowly until he was in a full sprint, charging her with all his might.

She lowered her head and grinned, getting an idea to down the weakened warrior. He begun the preparations for a Rising Sun, as she coiled herself up in her hinds. Vergil kept coming until he was tantalisingly close to her. As he kicked up, a punch following, she flipped backwards to avoid it altogether. Vergil soared into the air, totally out of reach of the dark mistress. As he finished his attack, he saw his mistake all too late. In his weakened state, he was not able to recover from his attack fast enough to avoid a counter attack. All he could do was watch as a charged bolt of magic was catapulted through the air, sizzling with energy before making contact with his chest.

Vergil was flung backwards in a long arc, falling to the ground quickly and sliding along the floor for a moment. As he came to a stop his body fell back down to the floor with a heavy crash. He then shook himself and began to pick himself up before a magic blade was pressed up close to his throat and he was forced to stop.

"Very impressive, Vergil. Maybe you are just a little more than an ape. But it appears you may have taken quite a trouncing before your rebirth, had you not?" She smirked at him in light amusement.

"Damn you!" He spittingly replied. They remained there, staring each-other down for a brief period of time before they were interrupted by a rasping voice from the doorway to the throne-room.

"Your majesty, The Shadow has successfully made it's move and is awaiting further orders." Vergil looked to the door to see a satyr-like demon cloaked in darkness with burning red eyes standing, awaiting a response. The mistress' amused but hard expression wore away into a satisfied smile.

"Ah. Maybe my plans have not been rendered useless yet." She looked back to Vergil and grinned, showing her fangs and giving herself a scarily mad looking manor. "You have proved yourself capable of self defense even at your weakened state, tough your stubbornness has gotten you defeated. Maybe you are worth investing into. Sombra, I take it back. Your project might not have been so useless." She kept smiling, expecting a response from the king of crystal. But when none came she glanced up to see he had fled the room to escape the fight.

*Sigh*"I'm going to punch that gutless stallion someday."

The Black Gargoyle

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Vergil stood dead centre in the decrepit colosseum, the ground in a one hundred metre wide circle around him was a dull grey/tan, not livening his dampened mood any more than it was already. The grey-scale colours probably weren't helped by the fact that in his current level of Hell, or 'Tartarus' as his new and forced boss had informed him it was called, was stuck in a permanent night-time state. And as much as Vergil did like the night-time, he thought it to be a pretty big inconvenience to not have any proper daylight at all. In-fact, he almost dreaded the day he got to set foot in whatever realm was Earth's counterpart in this universe. Maybe it would have been a good idea to borrow some sun-glasses from his brother at some point in the past.

"Okay, Vergil. I see some potential in you and I want to see what you can do before I start feeding you any large amount of power." The disembodied voice of his boss echoed around the abandoned battle-site. The stone stands encircling him looked like they could hold thousands of occupants, which made him glad his boss didn't plan any surprise community events for him. "If you prove to be useful in your current state, I might be able to arrange a 'family reunion'. Then you can get your blade back. After all, it was handed down to you by your father, was it not?" Vergil didn't answer immediately. He grasped around his neck, half expecting to be able to pull up the charm that once hung there. Dante also had his half of the Perfect Amulet, and once he was once again in possession of Yamato, he could retrieve that as well.

"Very well." He stated loud and clear. "Let the trials begin." Upon the sound of his words, demonic sigils lit up in a circle around him. Three scarecrows dropped down from the teleportation spells and turned their puppet-like heads in his direction, their slow but seemingly random body movements giving them a look of disturbed balance. "Hmph." Vergil harrumphed at the weaklings presented to him. And in response the mildly amused chuckle of his boss rang out through the air.

"Well if that's the way you feel about it..." The dual-tone voice left it's sentence unfinished as a black mist enveloped the scarecrows. A sizzle emitted from each one as the acidic mist devoured their bodies. Their screams evaporated into the night incredibly fast, and were replaced by a brief period of silence. This was quickly filled by a burst of light entrapping Vergil, as he raised a hand to cover his eyes. This lasted but a few seconds, and after it stopped, he lowered his arm so he could see what awaited him.

In place of the scarecrows hovered a Fallen, an angel cast down from Heaven. Vergil tilted his head down and observed his foe in depth. A light lance for a weapon, with large shield-like wings that looked to be very tough to break. It turned to him and through a small gap in it's partially closed wings he could see a strange structure, like a face.

"A weak point." He said quietly to himself. The fallen angel gave a thrust of it's wings and flew upwards to a large range so that he could not hit it while it prepared to attack. "A Light-Opponent, too. Yamato would have made this much easier." He lamented on the loss of his blade. The Dark blade or Force Edge would have been able to rip the angel to pieces, but all he had was the Light-type gauntlets and greaves of Beowulf along with his Summoned Swords.

Before he could think any further, the angel extended it's lance outwards and lunged at him. Vergil summoned Beowulf and timed his moved perfectly. He jumped at the angel and bounced of' it's lance, catapulting himself into the air behind it. The angel hit the ground and pivoted while sliding backwards, coming to a stop a few metres from it's landing point. Vergil had already planned for this outcome and had created two columns of summoned swords beside him.

While still falling, he dispatched the blades using a blistering swords technique and sent them cutting through the air at his target. The angel raised it's wings in defense and caused each one to scrape a few metallic feathers away before shattering into splinters around it. When the swords stopped coming and Vergil landed on the floor in a controlled bounce, the angel lowered it's battered wings and readied it's light-lance once more. The white being charged at the demi-demon who was staring intently in a neutral position at the fast moving attacker.

As the angel came close, Vergil extended his left gauntlet out and let the lance land perfectly into his palm. The connection of Light on Light caused sparks of whisp-like power to escape as the force of it pushed both combatants all the way to the barrier at the edge of the colosseum. As they traveled a large dust-cloud extended behind them, billowing out into a dull balloon of obscuring sediment and only beginning to calm as the two came to a stop.

The angel looked surprised at Vergil's sheer physical strength and attempted to push further through him and pin him to the wall. The angel's strength wasn't enough however as he wouldn't budge. Vergil used his position and let go of the angel, it's own force letting it plough through the walls and into the grand-stand as he stepped aside to watch. Not wasting any time he summoned a spiral of swords around the stunned angel and quickly thrust them into it's weakened body. It attempted to use it's wings to shield itself once more but the barrage of razor sharp projectiles chipping away at them was too much.

With a loud *Smash*, the angel's wings snapped and shattered, sending pieces of it's feathers in all directions. Realising it could no longer defend itself conventionally and could not fly away out of range anymore, the angel raised it's lance to face the calmly approaching Vergil. It prepared to thrust it's lance at him and smash him away, thus allowing some time for the regrowth of it's wings. However it was surprised for the second time when he disappeared in a blue blur and for a split second, was confused as it held it's guard from a foe in an unknown direction.

*Crunch* The angel was smashed into the ground as Vergil reappeared above and behind his opponent, before performing a Starfall to crush it into the ground. The angelic victim's body was mashed into the floor and it's legs and arms spasmed in pain. It didn't take too long for the shocked angel to recover. In a desperate bid to escape, jumped up dizzily, stumbling in circles as it slowly trudged a small amount of distance between it and Vergil. It's efforts were all in vein however as Vergil fully charged a Kick13 and let loose into the back of the angel's weak abdomen, smashing it's skeleton to pieces and launching it across the colosseum.

The angel was still for a moment before it began to crawl away from it's attacker, blatantly outmatched. It was stopped in it's tracks as it's outstretched hand came into contact with something leather. It let it's weak arm fall so it could support itself as it looked up to follow the long blue and amber coat upwards, past the grey vest and to the silver haired head atop the figures shoulders. Vergil stood calmly and resolutely in-front of the angel, with a readied blistering swords technique active by his sides. A short moment of silence followed before the crystalline blue blades plunged into the angel, one after another.

A quiet fell across the battle stadium and Vergil stood victorious. A cool wind howled over the building as a vortex formed beneath the shattered fallen angel. It's body disappeared from existence, leaving the eldest son of Sparda all to himself. Beowulf de-summoned from his arms and legs and he relaxed in his stance, closing his eyes to gather some quick meditation time and cool his nerves after the battle.

For a moment, nothing happened. Only the cold wind flowing through the colosseum and the occasional thin cloud of dust clipping his back at intervals due to stronger gusts. After a few more seconds the clopping of hooves could be heard approaching him from behind. He opened his eyes to find himself in an almost sleepy-like state after the extended use of his powers. How much had his battles with Dante and Mundus really drained him?

"You fight well." His boss commented as Vergil pivoted around to face it. "Since you've introduced yourself already and have proven yourself more than capable in general combat, I'll introduce myself now."

"That's it?" Vergil placed his comment inbetween his bosses sentences before it could continue.

"Excuse me?" The boss asked, confused as to the context of his interruption. "Could you elaborate."

"Your trial, was that it?"

"Trial? Ha! Like I perform real trials. I was going to use those scarecrows as a warm up for you, and throw in the angel afterwards. Then call that a warm up to prevent any questions about giving you a singular opponent arising, but since you're so stubborn I just gave you the angel anyway. In reality I just wanted the angel gone. They have no place in my realm, rebelling from Heaven or not." The boss then began to continue with it's introduction.

"I am the Nightmare, ruler of this layer of Hell, mare of the night, bringer of fear and the embodiment of night-terrors." She exclaimed rather melodramatically.

"Nightmare, huh? That's definitely true. In more ways than one." He said, rolling his eyes. Nightmare just laughed and swiped gently with her hoof.

"Maybe I was wrong to think of you as some sort of statue, you do have a sense of humour after-all. However small it is." She smirked. Vergil cocked his head.

"I do have a sense of humour, I just know when it's the right time to use it, unlike my brother. Speaking of him, the way you're acting currently represents him almost identically."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"Yes."

"Humph. Well, I just thought that since we both have a lot in common then maybe I could try to be a little more light hearted with you." Vergil was intrigued by this comment. She knew something, he could tell. What was she hiding?

"What do you know about me?" He questioned. Nightmare just pulled up a predatory smile, flashing her teeth before she explained.

"The demon world, Hell, Tartarus, whatever you wish to call it, was sealed off from interaction with any other world by your father two-thousand years ago. Even the most powerful of demons under Mundus such as myself and the lord of Chaos Discord, were not able to manifest out of here conventionally. Even though Discord somehow found a way, but that's beside the point. Like you I spent a long time hungering for power but could not find it, I have no family I associate with, and I would rather I complete my goals by myself, even though I need other's to help me. The only difference is you don't want to associate with you family, and I can't, because I have none." Nightmare finished with a neutral expression on her face, like her good mood had just been wiped away. She gave a short sigh before continuing. "We're not so different, you and I."

"Family is a strange thing." Vergil commented, feeling at his neck again to once more notice the absence of his mother's amulet. "You treasure it so much, yet loosing it is inevitable. Losing my mother was so painful, and for a long time I didn't want to admit it but... her death still haunts me. My brother, after he defeated me I realised the irony of our fighting. It was always bound to end in tragedy, one way or the other. In my want for strength he was just like another obstacle to me. Even now that lust remains..." He left a pause as he collected himself. Nightmare's perked up ears remained attentive to listening. Vergil held his hand out in-front of him and stared over it at Nightmare's big blue reptile-like eyes. He curled up his fingers and clenched them shut like he was crushing something in his palm

"... I need more power!"

Meanwhile...

"So..." Rainbow Dash started, speaking after the purple alicorn walking ahead of her. After her sudden shake-fest everypony collectively decided Rainbow Dash was in need of some down time. It was true, she had been working herself flat for the past few weeks, getting her fitness into new heights. She was practically on par with a semi-professional athlete now, and could likely compete in the Running of the Leaves and win relatively comfortably, even over AJ.

But as a consequence she hadn't been getting much sleep, even if what she did get was deep, giving her a well rested feeling when she awoke. So Twilight decided that instead of letting Rainbow go and do her own thing, probably working herself silly in the process, they would go down town and spend some time out. At least until Celestia was due to arrive in Ponyville with all the members of the Royal War committee.

"... can you just say that one more time? Slowly." Rainbow reminded the lavender princess.

"Ugh, fine, once more. We're going to head down to the market, and buy some lunch. Then we're going down to the spa for a quick touch up before making our way to Sugar Cube Corner where..." Rainbow sighed as Twilight began to slip back into her quick speech. "... we'll find Pinkie, there we can test out some of her new muffins. Got it?" Twilight finished, looking to her friend with a naive smile.

"Why don't we just go to Pinkie's place for lunch and then head off the the spa? Hit two coconuts with one stone?" Dash suggested, dreading the boring couple of hours Twilight had planned for her.

"Because we need to get through as much time as we can. Can't have you sneaking off to wear yourself down, can we?" The princess said with a smug expression. Rainbow Dash grunted hard under her breath, holding her head low. She would abide to her friend's plan for now.

"What I want to do in my spare time is my choice, if I want to do extra training then I should be able to do that, right?"

"Right." Twilight confirmed. "However it wouldn't be proper for me- as a friend, to ignore the damage you are doing to yourself. That violent shiver could have been a muscle spasm after damaging your muscles one too many times in a week. How could I just let you take it too far?"

"How far is too far?" Rainbow inquired, much to the lavender alicorn's amusement. Twilight gave a small giggle at Dash's inquest.

"Just the fact that you don't know how far is too far is worrying in itself." She commented, beginning to slip into her lecture mode. "If you've actually damaged something and it's causing spasms then there is something irritating the muscles in your body. Not sure what could do that to your entire muscular system though."

"Then maybe it was just a one off thing that didn't mean anything." Rainbow Dash argued her point, glancing to her long time friend as she did so. While she was conversing, she failed to notice an earth pony and a unicorn rounding the corner of an alleyway, who were also looking different ways. "Besides, I've done intensive training over longish periods before and-"

"Rainbow look out!" Twilight called as she looked up to see the outer pony of the pair heading straight for Rainbow. Rainbow along with both the unsuspecting ponies glanced up at Twilight for a moment, before turning to notice each other heading towards each other as they were inches from colliding. Of course this was far too late to react as both were still walking forward. Their muzzles smacked into each other and both recoiled away, trying not to fall onto one another.

Rainbow stumbled back while the earth pony collapsed back onto her rump in a panic. Rainbow lifted her head with a light scowl to see that her partner in accident was doing the same. She was about to get in the earth pony's face and start yelling before she was beat to it by the mare.

"What the hay was that?" She shouted, taking Rainbow back a little. But all of a sudden she found her emotions changing rapidly to one of anger. Usually when she got angry over something she would just become very offensive as opposed to being defensive, but her expression strangely turned very dark and primitive. Like something out of a horror story.

"Oh I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that little miss Stressy was incapable of looking where she was going!" Rainbow retorted immediately with an extra aggressive tone. Both unicorns among the 'debate' gave each other a worried glance and exchanged a shrug before turning their attention to their respective friends.

"Rainbow, come on." Twilight pulled her cyan friend away from the argument. The expression on the pegasus' face was rather foul, with a clenched jaw and partially narrowed eyes.

"What!?"

"There's no need to argue over a small accident like that. Plus you weren't looking in front of you either, so your argument is kinda' obsolete." Rainbow turned back to the earth pony mare who was now engaged in a heated discussion with her own friend.

"None of you were looking where you were going." The white unicorn stated in a 'matter of fact' tone. Rainbow realised she recognised both mares she had just encountered. It was the one and only Vinyl Scratch and her marefriend cello player Octavia.

"That's not the point, Vinyl. Did you hear what she called me? 'Little Miss Stressy!?" Octavia exclaimed in what sounded like a mixture of confusion and outrage.

"-Her bitch of a marefriend...-" She thought, her expletive sounded oddly under-toned with the anger flowing in her system. Dash saw something strange on the floor- a shadow, her own shadow. The pony in the shade was not a smooth coated pegasus with the spiky yet stylish mane, it was... different. She could see the wings ending behind her body even though they were folded. Because the 'feathers' were long enough to extend just past her hinds, she saw the tail while looking. The tail looked like it was made of curved spines and the mane too looked more like a collection of the lethal structures. And the subtle curves her toned body contained seemed to no longer exist. The body lines weren't smooth like her's were, this... monster's body was sharp and streamlined, made for agility. She stared at her shadow in shock, not noticing she had stopped dead in the middle of the street, with her friend as well as Vinyl and her argumentative partner looking at her curiously.

"Rainbow?"

"Twilight..." After seeing that Twi was watching, she wondered if she saw Rainbow's 'shadow' too. However when she tried to explain what she had just witnessed she found herself lost for words. Instead she decided to use her shadow as an explanation. Looking back to the shade on the floor, she saw that her shadow was perfectly normal. She stared once more at her shadow, gawking in disbelief. How could it have just changed?

"Rainbow Dash are you really okay? Is something bothering you?"

"My shadow it... it changed!"

"Your shadow 'changed'?" Twilight asked curiously. The two marefriends beside them glanced nervously at each other before the still aggravated earth pony began to walk away.

"Okay, I'm off. Lets go, Vinyl." Octavia stormed away, grabbing her embarrassed DJ marefriend's hoof and leading her away with her.

"Tavi' slow down." The unicorn tried to reason, but the earth pony showed no intention of stopping. "I'm so sorry." She turned and said quickly to Twilight.

"It's fine." Twilight responded. She watched the two walk away, conferring quickly between each other before tuning back to her pegasus friend looking slightly confused. "Come on now Dash, you're probably just really tired. Let's forget about this and go get lunch." Rainbow sighed deeply, letting her wings go limp and touch the floor.

"Fine."

"And here we are!" Twilight exclaimed as she brought Rainbow Dash over to the cafe. Rainbow looked up skeptically and inspected the cafe bit by bit. The walls were tattered and the dull cream paint was falling off in places, in short, the walls needed a serious repair. The only two things that weren't grimy and horrible were the windows and the the name board.

"Old Crunchy's Munchies?" Rainbow read the name of the cafe. Twilight wrapped a hoof around Rainbow's neck and pulled her close.

"Yeah, this is one of the places I discovered by accident while walking through Ponyville when I first got here. Brilliant place, is it not?"

"Yeah..." Rainbow droned sarcastically. "... Brill'."

"Oh have faith. The place isn't nearly as bad as it looks, it's actually pretty nice inside and the service is real good too." Twilight explained as she trotted slowly towards the door. "Come on in!"

"For the last time Nero, I have no clue who your father is!" Dante threw his hands up in the air as Nero quickly made his way from walking behind the devil hunter and stopped in-front of him, causing Dante to stop as well.

"Then how do you explain it, hmm? Inherited power from Sparda himself, the ability to use Yamato in Sparda's style, and white hair, was all just some random coincidence!?" Nero exaggerated his point by shrugging his shoulders, thus highlighting his confusion in the matter.

"Look, I'm not saying we aren't related. I'm saying that I don't know for certain who your father is. It definitely isn't me and my brother died a long time before he was interested in having a family. So your father is probably Sparda. If that's any consolidation for you."

"So we're step brothers, is that it?"

"Well, probably- yeah! Pops did spend a long time out in the field at times, I wouldn't be surprised if you were the result of a one night stand." Dante finished his point and side-stepped around his probable younger step-brother and continued on. "Look, that weird colourful lookin' town looks to be about half a K' away. We're not far now. We can discuss this when we're not searching for my sword."

"Enough about your sword!" Nero spun around as his temper flared. "Can you not take anything seriously? Ever!?"

"Hmm. Though come to think of it you might be my brother's son. You certainly have his attitude." Dante joked, holding back his laughter through a cocky smile. Trish took the opportunity to interrupt stopping an apocalyptic event before it happened.

"Can you two stop arguing?" She walked in-between them both. "Dante: Shut the heck up before me and Lady make you. Stop mentioning your sword too, we're sick of listening to you garble on about it. Nero: Chill out a bit. Once we find Dante's sword, then you have our permission to punch him again. We need to get it back if we're to progress any further."

"You mean we need it back to shut Dante up, right?" Nero replied angrily.

"Same thing." Trish shrugged it off.

"Wha- hey!" Dante looked a little hurt. He put on the best sad puppy impression he could, but to no avail. The girls laughed while Nero finally managed to put a smile on his face.

Trish turned away to rejoin Lady who was leaning against a tree along the path, waiting for Dante and Nero to stop bickering.

"You know you never told me how you and Dante met. Like, what circumstances?" Trish stated to the human as she leaned to her right hip. Lady let out a small chuckle before starting.

"It was all the way back at the Temen-Ni-Gru incident, he'd just slain the first gatekeeper, Cerberus."

"Cerberus... you mean the big three-headed-ice-dog-thing, correct?"

"That's pretty much it. I've... we've all seen the Devil Arm of Cerberus, those three-handled Nunchuks we used to put out the forest fire. But I never saw the demon in person. In-fact, come to think of it, I've never seen any of the demon's Dante got Devil-Arms from." Lady left her statement open and Trish was about to fill the space when Lady continued in her place. "Except his brother, I guess." Trish raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

"You know I never saw Vergil out of his Nelo-Angelo form. What was he like?"

"Well... where do I start? He was... not a very pleasant person, that's for sure. The first time I saw him was when he had his second battle with Dante. In the portal activation room, 'Lair of Judgement' I think it was called. Da- Arkham told me Vergil had controlled him before faking his death. Of course this was a lie, and he was just using Vergil's lust for his father's power to make obtaining it for himself easier. As for Vergil's personality, he was very collected and calculated, never showing much emotion other than... sadness and anger."

"Wow, sounds like he was a fun person." Trish said sarcastically.

"Part of me want's to feel sorry for him. He saw his mother die in-front of him and blamed himself, namely his human side for not having the strength to protect her."

"And that's why he wanted his dad's power, correct?"

"Yeah. He wanted, needed the power so badly he would kill his own brother to get it. To him, Dante was just another hurdle on the track. And when they defeated Arkham and Vergil finally got Force Edge, Dante defeated him anyway."

"So two years of searching and hunting for a single goal only to have it yanked away from him at the final moment? Damn, poor guy. How'd Dante defeat him? He was stronger than Dante, was he not?"

"Yeah he was significantly more powerful than Dante, but he wasn't as adept with that style of blade as Dante was. He got the sheer power of Force Edge and thought he could kill Dante using it, but he didn't have the skill. Had he used Yamato as his primary weapon... we might not be here to tell the tale, that's for sure." Lady finished as their male counterparts finally managed to walk the couple dozen steps in their direction without swinging sharp pointy objects at each other, or Devil Triggering and punching the other twenty metres away into a tree.

"Oh, you guys kissed and made up?" Lady asked, but got no answer. Nero pointed his lethal death gaze at her while Dante just smiled mischievously. "Please don't try to kill each other, I don't think this world would survive a fight between you two."

"Yeah? Well it's not my fault Nero's such a whiny bi-" *SMACK*

"... I'm serious, Twi!" Rainbow raised her voice in exclamation to further underline her point. Twi looked around rather embarrassed at her friend's loud demeanor.

"Rainbow, quieten down." She said after swallowing a mouthful of hay-fries. Though the big mouthed pegasus didn't seem to be taking her advice very seriously. And as a result, they were both getting strange looks and glances from different groups of ponies around the main room.

"It just... changed!"

"Rainbow! Calm down!" Twilight almost yelled at her, replicating her tone perfectly. Dash visibly flinched at the princesses loud tone and shrank back into her seat a little, exchanging nervous glances with a few of the dining room's other occupants.

"Twilight, don't you think that's a little loud?" She asked, rubbing her hooves together. "We're getting weird looks." Twilight face-hoofed hard with a frustrated grunt backing the motion, making the cyan pegasus cock her head in confusion.

"Right..." Twilight started, dropping her hooves on the table with a quiet 'thud' that vibrated their trays of food and nearly made some of both their fries fall from their containers. Rainbow glanced at her's to ensure none had fallen on the floor. "So you claim that you're shadow 'changed'? How so?"

"How? Why would I know how?" Rainbow shrugged along with her question. Twilight sighed, closing her eyes for a second, to open them with a new idea.

"Ok, do you know what it changed into?"

"It was kinda' like me, I guess. But with aggressive edges, really big pointy wings and, like, the mane was all sharp like spines or horns or something like that. Yeah, It was just like me but more scary." She explained rather vividly, like she could remember every detail but wasn't sure what it was she was remembering. "I'm not sure about details, It was just a shadow after all, I couldn't see colour or texture or anything."

"Like you're scary in the first place." Twilight joked. Rainbow narrowed her eyes at the princess, trying to get her to take it seriously. "Fine jeez!" Twilight gave in and was about to go back to her questioning when something stuck her. She gained a smile for a brief second. "Rainbow, I'm going to perform a spell on you, is that ok?" Rainbow looked a little puzzled for a moment, but after a few seconds she shrugged dismissively.

"Eh, why not."

Twilight lit up her horn and focused on the mare in front of her. Shifting her magic to Rainbow's body, she took in the biological state of the pegasus. Everything was perfectly fine from head to hoof, not a single muscle, nerve or tendon was out of place, she was sound in body, but what about in mind? Focusing her 'third eye' on Rainbow's psyche, she intensified her magic onto the pegasus' brain. There was a small rise in epinephrine being released by her brain, so she was genuinely affected by seeing a 'change' in her shadow, as it was stressing her out a little. But other than that, everything in her brain was working as it should've been. She detected nothing out of place.

Twilight was by this point doubtful, and a thought ran through her that the mare really was just stressing herself out and needed to relax for a couple of days. "-May as well check her magic. No point leaving a job half done.-"

Twilight took a deep breath before shifting her magic into Rainbow Dash's very being. This was a much more complex procedure than checking the mind and body. And unlike them, it actually required her to achieve quite a lot of concentration. Thinning out the background noise and movement, she closed her eyes as this part of the spell did not require sight of the target as magic cannot directly be seen, and sight is just a distraction.

As she shifted into Rainbow's magic, the product of her soul, something to her felt... off. It was like the feeling of walking into a dark room and suspecting something was hiding behind a corner. There were lines of magic, all close to each other to form ever constantly shifting 'waves' of energy that formed strings of colour-magic which connected all parts of her together.

There was the Harmony within her, purple, pink, red, orange, blue and green, representing the elements of harmony. These were the factors pf magic that personified in her personality. Having more of a certain one would make that particular trait stronger in their personality. In Rainbow Dash, red, or Loyalty, was notably high, while she had slightly above average pink and orange, laughter and honesty. The rest were roughly average.

Then there was the second side of her, the negative aspects of her personality. They represented the exact opposite if what the elements of harmony did, and the same colours represented each opposite trait, though slightly duller. These were present in their very small quantities on comparison to the harmonic elements that ran at their side. Like other parts of the pegasus, these seemed completely normal. "-Then why am I getting this weird paranoia?-" She thought. There must have been something there that...

When she saw what she was looking for, she stopped in her metaphorical tracks in confusion. She noticed something hiding behind the streams, both of them. It was like a distortion of the colours. She shifted around the streams of magic to see if she could get a better angle and see exactly what it was. But no matter what angle she looked at it from, the haze always seemed to be behind the streams... hiding... waiting. It flowed just like the harmony and chaos did, except it acted funny. She could compare it to an imitator trying to follow something else as closely as possible to look as close to identical as possible.

"-Now that's definitely not normal.-" She mentally commented. With that, she retreated from staring into Rainbow's soul and performed the counter-spell to pull out from her third eye. Opening her real eyes Twilight snapped back into the real world to see the pegasus in question chomping on a bunch of hay-fries, completely unaware of the gravity of her situation. Twilight mused on the possibilities.

"-If there's some sort of foreign magic in her that's causing odd things to happen to her, then what else could it do? It appeared mostly docile when I was trying to view it, and even in such a calm non-material state it can cause vivid visual hallucinations. If it were to materialise itself, it, whatever it is, might just be able cause physical changes. That's bad, that's very bad.-" She concluded. She was about to stop Rainbow's munching when it hit her. "-Demons...-" Her eyes dilated with the sheer amount of new possibilities a possession could bring. None of them good.

"Rainbow, we need to go. Now." She launched up onto her hooves nearly as fast as the pegasus could herself. Dash looked up in shock, taken by surprise with a bunch of fries still half chewed in her maw. She swallowed them whole and made a confused expression before she was hauled from her seat by the princess' magi, being peeled away from her lunch as she reached out to try and grab one last clutch of fries before she left. Though this was to no avail, and she was forced to leave without. She gave Twilight an dissatisfied look.

"What the hay, Twilight?" Rainbow asked, still in confusion as she was floated through the door, several heads in the diner following them out. "Make a big scene, why don't ya'?"

"I'm sorry, Dash but this is serious. I need to get you to my castle, if what I fear is correct then the sooner the better. I'm not prepared to take any risks." Twilight dismissed Rainbow's attempt to get her to calm down with a genuine look of concern for her friend. After all, a demon might be hiding in her soul, waiting to possess her at the best moment. And if it realised that it was in danger then it wouldn't be long before it could try something.

"Err, you can put me down now..."

"And here we are!" Lady said to the rest of the group as they showed up to the gates of the colourful little town. Dante looked super skeptical, leaning on a hip and scratching his chin. They all beheld the suddenly silent town as doors slammed shut and the miniature colourful horses all rushed into their houses, away from the demon hunters and their terrifying looking weapons.

"Asides from the scaredy-cat locals... Hmm... looks quite nice actually. A bit 'in your face' with the colour, but still pretty snazzy." He complimented, nodding his head as he did.

"I heard from them that there's a big crystal palace thing somewhere around." Nero stated. "Maybe we'll find them there?" Trish shrugged at the suggestion.

"We don't know, you're the one who's acquainted with them." She deduced the situation down to the fact that Nero must've known enough about them to be able to locate the ponies they needed. "You know there's a castle thing where their so called 'Princess of Friendship' lives. You can can take us there, can't you?"

"I know it's there, I don't where where in there it is." Nero corrected. Lady walked up to make a suggestion.

"Maybe we should ask one of the inhabitants for directions?" She said, looking between them both quizzically.

"That would be a good option if they hadn't just run away from us all on sight." Nero commented, steering the conversation away from the idea. "I guess, seeing as it's a landmark, it would be pretty recognisable. From what I heard it's supposed to be unmistakable. Big and shiny n' stuff."

"You mean that castle?" Nero was interrupted by Dante who was pointing over the rooftops to their left, where several blue/purple spires were peaking over the houses, reflecting enough light to be eye-catching to anyone looking in their general direction. The group followed his pointing and went silent as they realised they'd managed to miss a blatantly obvious landmark.

"Yeah... I guess." Nero answered, scratching the back of his head. "I guess we know where we're going now." Trish and Lady turned to each-other and nodded in unison and agreement.

"Lets get going then." Lady said, adjusting Kalina Ann with a bounce and walking a few paces ahead to signal the rest to catch up. " That fountain at the end of the street looks to be in a junction. We can turn off and make our way there from that point." All were in agreement for once, and they actually managed to get there with no problems. No arguments, no fights, nothing.

Mainly due to the fact that they were in a new enviornment, and Dante was mostly taking the time to look around what little of the town they could access through that street. Most of thee turn-off's lead to alleyways and dead end groups of houses that head nice areas of lawn which all interconnected to make one big grassy area at the front of them. Of course Lady and Trish thought the town was amazingly cute, and even though they had only been walking around that area for ten minutes or so, they were already growing quite an attachment in their positive opinion of the place.

Dante and Nero both had different opinions of the town. Dante thought that, though weirdly styled, the town was overall a nice looking place. While Nero appeared to be mostly indifferent about the settlement, he thought the same thing as supposed step-brother about the obnoxious colours of some of the houses. Most were painted in shades that were light on the eyes like white or faded yellow. But there were the odd houses that seemed to have been coloured pink in an attempt to get the job done after losing or running out of the other colours, is what they came to a conclusion on. Coming to the end of the street that they originally planned on heading down, still with all the inhabitants hiding in their houses, They heard the sound of talking and hoofsteps fading in, approaching the same fountain they were too coming up to.

"Ssh, hear that?" Dante stopped the group as they all silenced their sounds to listen.

"Yeah. Sounds like some of our rainbow ponies are on their way." Trish commented, getting a harrumph from Nero.

"That may have been more literal than you first thought it was going to be, Trish." The younger son of Sparda relied, earning a round of confused looks and reactions from the rest of the group. "From the sounds of the voices, that's Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle coming up to us. Rainbow's hair is pretty much just that. A Rainbow." The demon hunters nodded in acknowledgement. "Sounds a little panicked, though. Wonder what their in a rush about?"

"Well I'm not sure if you've noticed Nero, but there is a sizable demon problem here at the moment." Lady sarcastically commented with a roll of her eyes. Nero just shrugged. "Maybe they've discovered something dangerous and need to report it to someone?"

"Maybe." Nero admitted, as it was kind of obvious really. What else would they be so worried about in a demon pandemic?

"We may as well wait." Dante said, walking up to the fountain and sitting down on the structure, kicking his legs up and relaxing. "Might make things quicker if we can get some info' from some of Nero's cuddly friends."

"Alright." Lady nodded, taking up a place at Dante's side and relaxing in her own reclined position, trying her best not to get totally soaked in the process. "It's chill time."

Twilight cantered along as fast as she could possibly muster, with the in-pain and semi-conscious Pegasus held in her magical grasp. Not long after realising the possibility of Rainbow being possessed and leaving the diner, Rainbow collapsed in the street. This made Twilight very worried, since there may have a sentient and malicious being hiding in her magical flow ever since her 'shiver' back in the friendship castle. If it had detected it had been discovered, this could have been it acting and trying to take control.

She checked Rainbow's magic again when she fell unconscious, but this time whatever was in her magic wasn't hiding. It was attempting to merge with it. Becoming one with her soul! This was definitely bad, and she needed to get her to containment and contact Princess Celestia as soon as she could. However she wasn't sure she could reach the castle in time to get the proper spells and equipment to keep Rainbow contained if her body ever was taken by a demon. Ponies head's followed them as she ran past. She wished that one of them could help instead of just standing around and watching, being generally useless. But what could they do? Twilight was the Princess of Magic, for Celestia's sake, and if she couldn't fix it then nopony in Ponyville could. Maybe Discord, but he was away at that time, and she wouldn't trust him with Rainbow's life anyway.

She kept on running as Rainbow stopped talking, and her muffled attempts at words descended into painful groans and moans. Her small amount of anger at the uselessness of ponies turned quickly into confusion as she reached the end of a street near the town center, the fountain spewing out water in an ironically serene manor. Not only had ponies completely disappeared, but there four tall figures of different standing around, waiting for something. One of them she thought she recognised at first glance. Tall, very dark purple longcoat, huge ornate sword, white mane...

"-!!! That's Nero! And he has his friends! Maybe he can help!-" She realised as her panting tried body approached the fountain.

"Nero!" She shouted, her lungs barely containing enough air to say the name when running as fast as she was. The figures all turned to face her and Nero specifically began to walk forward to meet her. His arms outstretched and a smile on his face as he happily made his way in her direction.

"Hey, Twilight!" He shouted calmly. "Look, I was wondering if you guys could help? I mean, me and my friends are-" Twilight nearly barged through him as she failed to stop in time during such a panicked state. Nero dodged quickly out of the way as Twilight skidded to a stop a few metres past him.

"Woah girl, what's with the rush?" Dante laughed as he got up from his lazy-boy position. Twilight whipped her head around to look at the red coated demon hunter.

"The rush? My friend is possessed! That's what the rush is!" She yelled at him. Dante's expression turned immediately serious and he broke into a brisk walk in her direction, with the rest of the group leaping into action and making their way to the limp and shaking form of Rainbow Dash. By this point, a few brave ponies had the nerve to peer through open windows or doors they had knocked ajar to be able to see what the commotion was, and who was 'possessed'.

"What is she possessed by?" Nero asked as he kneeled by Rainbow Dash, Twilight laying her gently down on the floor. The rest of the group gathered around her. Twilight was at this point starting to shake to at the idea of losing her friend to a demon. She severely hoped that the demon hunters could help.

"Err, a demon I think. I-I'm not really s-sure what it is." She stuttered. Nero looked to her and placed a hand on her shoulder as Dante's flashed in an amber glow, a yellow orb shaped like the smug face of a human being appearing in it.

"Twilight... calm down. We've got this. Ok?" Twilight nodded along to Nero's soothing and paced back, falling to her rump and watching the demon hunter's work on one of her closest friends, totally unable to help. For once in her life she felt completely powerless. The felling of uselessness and guilt crept through her as tears began to form in her eyes. She watched Dante lower the orb to her friends body.

"W-what is that?" The stammered through her tears, trying to find some sort of information to calm her down. Dante never took his eyes from his work as the orb began to float over Rainbow's body.

"Soul orb, made with alchemy by ancient human tribes, not very many left around these days." The orb began to glow with a brightening light as most of the demon hunter's stepped back, Dante stayed to oversee the procedure. "They have the power to recall lost souls. If you're friend really is being possessed then this should , bring her soul back to control for long enough to get her to containment. But..." Twilight's head rose at the 'but', what was the catch?

"That's if the demon possessing her is relatively weak. If it's a major demon and not a minor demon, the probability of this overpowering the demon is pretty slim. Let's just hope we're not dealing with something stronger than the Seven Hells or a Scarecrow." Now even Dante picked himself up to backpedal with the rest of the demon hunters and Twilight.

Twilight had no idea what 'The Seven Hells' were, but she knew that the demon hunters probably did. And if even a weak demon was strong enough to possess a pony as strong willed as Rainbow then she didn't want to know what a strong demon was like. Of course she had seen the massive fire coated Berial that Nero had led them to, and she'd seen the Scarecrows first hoof, but those were the only demons she had ever saw. If demons were variable like most monsters were, then she could expect some to look utterly horrible.

The orb descended into Rainbow's body, and the light it was emitting enveloped the pegasus, causing all present to cover their eyes. The sound of slamming could once again be heard as those ponies who were watching retreated back into their homes, to where they thought they were safe. The light continued to shine for a short moment as all waited for the process to be complete. And as soon as it began to die down, Twilight looked to Dante.

"Is it done?" She asked in a hurry.

"It should be, but-" He was cut off short as Twilight rushed past him at incredibly high speeds to rest by her friend. "We don't know if it worked!" He got up and headed to peel Twilght away from the possible danger. Before he could get there though, 'Rainbow Dash' looked up at the crying, pleading Twilight, her once striking magenta eyes were now replaced with burning red orbs and her cocky smile turned slowly upwards into a toothy twisted grin.

Twilight reeled back in shock at her friend's new transformation, unable to react fast enough to an attack coming from said 'friend'. She yelped loudly as the possessed pegasus leaped up and kicked her in the chest, turning her into a living missile, and sending her flying past the demon hunters. Nero looked back to Twilight to see her picking herself up from the ground, dazed and hurt, but obviously okay. He turned back to the form of Rainbow Dash, who now stood grinning madly at them while the burning red eyes darted around them, sizing them up. The orb hadn't worked, and the pony that stood there was no longer Rainbow Dash. Instead it was the soul of a demon under a pony's skin.

"So..." It's quavering voice echoed off' the streets. "The legendary son of Sparda, Dante... we meet again." It forced through Dash's lips. All eyes were now upon Dante, who glanced at all the demon hunters with a shrug. Meanwhile, Twilight had picked herself up and she looked to the shell of Rainbow Dash in a mixture of fear and distraught sadness.

"Rainbow Dash! What happened to you!?" She yelled at the shell of the pegasus.

"Twilight, I don't think that's Rainbow Dash anymore." Nero corrected.

"You're gonna' have to run your name by me again, I don't seem to recognise you. Probably because you were low enough to possess mortal beings instead of working your power up yourself and earning strength like the rest of us, instead of usurping a catalyst." Dante countered. The demon in Dash's body's grin never faltered like it was permanently stuck that way.

"Maybe this would bring back a few memories..." The demon stated as it's possessed body emitted an explosion of black demonic sigils in a devil trigger blast. The shadow of the body extended out and broke away from it to become it's own entity. Then, like some sort of acidic ghost, another form rose up from the darkened ground where the shadow once was. It rose up to it's full height, not much larger than the original bod of Rainbow Dash, but much more demon-like.

It's fur was replaced with a dark blue leather like texture, and the joints at the 'hips' and 'shoulders' were much sharper and protruded from the body like miniature spines. The wings were twice as large, as the feathers had been replaced too, with long structures that had a central core of the leather material and ended in sharp metal edges. They ended just past the flanks even when folded. The shape of the body was very aggressive in places, having a sharper curve of the chest and in the limbs. The mane was coloured in the rainbow pattern like Dash's were, but they consisted of spines which fell over the face and burning red eyes in a brushed down fashion while falling behind to the centre of the back very similarly. The tail fell in the same way, and it looked like the mane and tail had been re-purposed to provide a shield from attacks. The face still had the same manic grin that Fake-Dash had, but the teeth were sharp and predatory, giving the grin a very freaky and disturbing vibe to it. And to top it off, a black mist floated off' the new form, being carried away on the wind.

Twilight recognised the form immediately as the one Dash had described her shadow had resembled back at the run-in with Vinyl Scratch and Octavia. And there was no doubt in her mind that it was the demon that had possessed Rainbow Dash's body that had caused the changing of her shadow.

"Oh my..." She gasped.

"What about now?" The new form spoke in unison with Fake-Dash's, creating a sinister chorus that resonated in the air with eerie vibrations.

"Okay, yeah I think I get you now." Dante admitted as he removed his hand from his chin. "Doppelganger, right?" Both figures broke into a twisted laughter before the shadow devil trigger form began to walk slowly forward to come side by side with the original body of Fake-Dash.

"Yes... I have come for my revenge. And this time I will be victorious as this form is more powerful than yours. Your counterparts will not be able to help you."

The demon hunter's drew their weapons, Trish summoning the sword of Sparda, Lady drawing Kalina Ann and Nero with the Red Queen. All blades and barrels were pointed at the demonic duo that faced them down, leaving Dante to give an amused laugh before his arms flashed amber to leave the curved forms of Agni and Rudra held within his grasp. Lowering himself into a stance with the rest of his friends, apart from Twilight who darted behind a wall and into an alleyway for cover.

"Well then..." Dante started as the blades burst into a torrent of flames and swirling wind.

"...Let's dance!"

Doppelganger

View Online

*Smash*

A blow of great strength collided with the combined force of the Demon Hunter's blades, counter-acting their strikes and forcing them all back to where they started. The strength of a demonically 'improved' Rainbow Dash plus a Devil Trigger form counterpart was incredible when put together. Nero, Dante, Trish and Lady were flung backwards, struggling to retain their balance as the force of their blow's backlash carried their momentum back. Lady, being human, was unable to keep her footing and collapsed onto the ground with a loud exhalation of air.

Doppelganger noticed the inferior strength of his opponent, and the devil form of Dash leaped forward to take advantage of the situation. It hanged in the air as it approached, claws outstretched with a vile grin plastering it's dark blue leathery skinned face. Lady looked up just in time to see the descending demon and raised Kalina-Ann over her body to provide a thick metal shield, the blade reaching outwards, waiting to skewer the demon.

The demon form realised it's mistake all too late, and was unable to roll out of the way before it's chest landed on the broad blade of the launcher's bayonet. Lady recoiled in disgust as the demon was impaled on the weapon, letting out a carnal howl of pain and spraying smoky black substance from it's shadow-like body. Lady was about to push the demon from the blade when it's head darted to stare at her with furious red eyes, and it's limbs flailed at her, claws mere inches from her delicate body. She reeled back as far away from the angry demon as she could to avoid it's strikes.

"Gah! Get the hell off' me!" She shouted in frustration. Her prayers were soon answered as the transformed Sickle-like blade of Sparda joined Kalina-Ann's bayonet as the second weapon to pierce the constructs body. The demon screamed in agony and clutched the steel penetrating it's chest as Lady looked to her left to see Trish smirking back at her. Joining forces they heaved with all their might, and the demon was flung from their weapons like a cheap toy. It soared through the air briefly before clattering down to the ground with a heavy roll and eventually coming to a stop beside the 'real' Rainbow Dash.

Being a demonic construct forged by Doppelganger's abilities, the demon form's vitality relied solely upon that of it's maker. Attacking it was futile as it's strength was near limitless as long as the demon infesting Dash's body remained unharmed. This proved a problem as they really needed to avoid killing Rainbow Dash's actual body, even though doing so would be the only way to destroy the demon for good.

"Damn it! When will this thing just give up!?" Lady exclaimed as she pulled herself to her feet. Dusting herself off, she continued;
"How the heck did you kill it single handedly last time, Dante?"

"Doppelganger possessed my body back at the Temen-Ni-Gru, but being a demon myself, it was unable to fully manifest." He said as the dual scimitars of Agni and Rudra were absorbed back into his soul. "At only half power, the demon form it created from me couldn't exist in bright light. Right now it's at full manifestation, I suppose it can survive without being in total darkness. But the demon form is still technically a shadow, so if we were to be able to create a very sudden and bright light at close range..." He paused as he summoned up his next choice of devil arm. A wide black suit-case with a demonic sigil on it's side which released veins of pulsing light appeared in his right hand. "... We could probably get rid of it's invulnerability for a short time." He rested the suitcase on his shoulder.

Nero twisted the gears on Red Queen a few times to charge it's exceed, the blade lighting up red hot as flames emanated from it's surface. "Any ideas?" He said, looking around. There was silence from the demon hunters as Doppelganger reared its-self and it's demonic construction for another attack. "Nothing?" He asked, slightly surprised that for once they couldn't think of anything to solve the problem at hand.

A roar escaped both forms of Rainbow Dash, their right hooves reeling back and charging with a red light, electricity dancing around the appendages, power itching to be released into it's victim. The hooves reached maximum charge, and they charged forward simultaneously. The group prepared their guards to defend from the combined blows, but were caught off-guard when the attacks fell short and landed directly in front of them. The ground pound released enough energy to cause an area of effect around it's epicenter, and the floor beneath the hunters exploded, tossing them into the air.

They fell back down in a confused heap a considerable distance from the fountain, where the battle started. They let out a collective groan, not from pain, but from frustration. Dante, being on the top of the heap, jumped off first and held his suit case in front of him, letting it be enveloped in a bright light. When the light stopped, a massive demonic launcher with several barrels appeared in it's wake. Nero rolled from the pile, and in the corner of is eye, spotted the curled up form of Twilight cowering in an alleyway with her front hooves covering her face while she shivered in apparent fear. She was uttering something inaudible over the explosions being let off from Pandora, the suit case weapon Dante was wielding. Nero gasped as an idea came to his head, the imaginary light bulb flickering to life beside his head. A smile came over his head as he rolled backwards onto his feet and stood up.

"I have an idea!" He shouted to the three hunters behind him. They looked to him briefly before turning their concentration back to Doppelganger.

"What is it?" Trish asked as she readied her stance with Sparda.

"I'll be back soon, just trust me!"

"Just do it!"

While the rest of the group aimlessly fought the demon they were faced with, Nero ran over to the alleyway in which the shaking alicorn resided. Sliding beside her caused her to jump in fright, but seeing that it was only Nero, her panic somewhat subsided.

"Nero..." She gasped, her shaky voice reaching out in fear. "I- I'm scared."

"Twilight listen to me..." Twilight looked up at Nero, his still glowing hot sword slung over his back and his just as brightly shining demon arm reaching out to rest it on her shoulder. Her face was filled with fear and worry, that her friend might become a demon and be lost forever. Or worse.

"Y- yeah?"

"Can you cast light spells?" He asked her, her ears peaked up and she looked at him in confusion. "As in, like a lantern. Light like the sun." He explained

"Yes, I- I can." She stammered. Nero smiled, his idea might be holding some promise.

"How bright i-" Nero was cut off by the demon form of Rainbow Dash crashing down near the exit of the alley, the black mist wafted off it's body and was whisped away by the currents of air carrying it. It was followed swiftly by Dante coming down on it with Alastor, smashing it into the ground so that it bounced back up into the air. The two disappeared from view as they continued to do battle. Nero sighed before restarting his sentence.

"The demonic version of her is kept alive by the original demon's strength, in Rainbow's body. We can't end this safely without killing her unless we can provide a sudden and large projection of light to rip the shadows from the demon construct. If we can damage the construct then we weaken the demon in her real body." He explained.

"And what then?" Twilight managed to get through without a hitch.

"There's a reliable method for that, but it's rather... brutal." Nero admitted through un-easy eyes. Twilight looked up, worried. "Don't worry it won't kill her if we do it right. We've done it quite a few times, there's no need to worry. So how bright is your spell?"

"It can fully i-illuminate a pitch black room twe-twenty metres in radius." She said. Nero nodded and smiled.

"Okay, we need you to come and help us. We'll pin it down and you cast your spell right up close. We'll take care of the rest after that, got it." He explained. Twilight took a deep breath and nodded in confirmation.

"Okay. Let's go!"

"Haha!" Dante laughed in satisfaction as he struck upwards on the demon, sending it flying into the air with a High Time move. Jumping up he took up a sideways stance, left arm out to balance his weight a little while his right arm reeled back Alastor into the ready stance for Stinger. Thrusting forward he pushed the blade through the demon's body and carried the momentum through to transfer the attack's force into it's body. The move pushed his enemy backwards as it was catapulted into the fountain, causing it to be smashed into dust, obscuring the devil hunter's view of his foe.

He landed back on the ground in solid footing, turning to make sure his opponent was stunned enough to not immediately get back up. The menace's return was not immediate, so he looked back to Nero to see him run the short distance to him from the alley, with the little purple pony standing nervously in the mouth of the alley. Nero stopped with a short slide, leaving a small amount of dust in his wake.

"Twilight can project high intensity light, enough for us to remove the demons shield... wait, where is it?" Dante and Nero both looked to the cloud of dust and water spray where the fountain used to be, It had dispersed largely enough to be able to see through it, allowing them to observe the demon form of Dash wobbling back to it's hooves after it's dizzying crash landing.

"So we lead into a trap, then?" Dante asked.

"Exactly! If we can get that thing close enough to Twilight so she can get it in the flash, we can rip off it's protection." Nero stated. Dante looked around to see the girls battling the possessed body of Rainbow Dash like some sort of play-fight with a small child, being hard enough for fun but being so gentle that they don't hurt it.

"Hey girls!" Dante yelled at the two hunters dodging and weaving from the demon's lethally powerful hoof blows. They seemed almost too quickly performed to be possible, and Lady was having a hard time seeing the window of opportunity for her dodges. It lunged in for an uppercut and Lady cartwheeled backwards with one hand while slinging the huge rocket launcher onto her shoulder with the other. The movement caused the bayonet to clip the hoof of Dash's possessed body, making it flinch and step back in caution.

"Yeah?" She shouted, protected briefly by Trish who used her free left hand unleash a bolt of lightning at Dash's hooves, causing the ground to erupt into a small cloud of sparks and making the demon jump back to evade it, thus giving Lady some space to converse. "You sorted out our problem yet?" Dante was quick to reply.

"We got a plan! The purple pegacorn thing-"

"She's called Twilight and she's an Alicorn!"

"Whatever! Twilight is gonna' blast light at the Demon Form to rip it's shield away, then when we deal damage to it the main body's power will be used up trying to maintain it!" Dante shouted. Lady nodded and turned to Trish.

"You hear that Trish? We gotta' hold out a little longer while the others destroy the demonic projection! That'll weaken the real demon!" She yelled out as Trish's electrified fish collided with Dash's possessed hoof. The energy released backfired at both parties, sending them staggering backwards. Trish managed to quickly reply.

"Got it!" Before widening her stance and raising her hands into a block so the attack of Dash could be more easily blocked. The powerful lunge the demon sent her way was aimed at her waist in order to tackle her to the ground so it could pummel her with as many strikes as it pleased. But Trish's block caught Dash's hooves in the motion as it's body was still suspended in the air. The back of it's body hit the ground, hind legs not moving fast enough to catch it's weight. With a smirk, Trish spun round to gain some momentum before throwing it into the air. It screamed as it was sent into an uncontrollable spin, arcing through the air spectacularly.
"Get ready girl, one possessed horse coming right up!" She warned to Lady as the rotating vermin came back down directly in line with an electrified round-house kick, catapulting it's helpless body at Lady who had Kalina-Ann reeled back in a baseball bat-like preparation. She swung with expert precision and struck the demon with the side of the launcher's blade so not to cut through Dash's body. The demon was batted along the ground, skipping off the dusty floor before hitting a large trash can with a metallic crunch as it crumpled in a dizzy heap. Lady imagined a collection of stars rotating around it's head as it's eyes rolled in it's sockets. The sound of the collision made Twilight cringe both inside and out.

By this point, The demonic projection was back on it's hooves and had already made a run for Dante and Nero. Being side by side, it attempted to grab their necks or their heads in it's paws, throw one into the ground and the other at Twilight. It extended it's huge spined wings mid sprint and gave a mighty flap to launch itself into the air and down on the duo at a sharp angle. The demon hunters rolled sideways to avoid it's attack as it's claws smashed into the ground, creating a huge shock-wave which the waiting Twilight had to shield her face from. It turned to Date first who threw himself into low stance, his arms flying out behind him like he was in preparation for a lunge.

"Royal Guard!" He shouted with endless enthusiasm in his playful voice. The demon ignored his antics and swung a paw at his face, but was surprised as it's attack was easily deflected by his enemies blocking stance. It grew angry as it's grin turned upside-down into a furious frown. It reeled back strike after strike, throwing punches like there was no tomorrow, becoming angrier and angrier as each one was deflected and ignored, casting off a red ring of absorbed energy in front of Dante's block. It pulled back it's right fore-leg and pooled energy into it in hopes that all of it's might would eventually penetrate the halfling's defense. Which it probably would have done had it been able to carry it out.

It found it'self completely stuck as it tried it's very hardest to throw the punch. It turned in confusion to see a projection of a demonic arm clutching the appendage in it's grasp. Noticing Nero with his devil bringer active and ready, it grimaced as it realised it was a sitting duck. Turning back to Dante, it then noticed that the red-clad figure was out of his stance and like it, had it's right arm extended behind it, ready to release all of the energy it had stored up from the demon's own attacks. It flinched before Dante struck it in the chest with an open handed strike, launching it off' it's paws and into Nero's control.

Nero carried the demon's momentum through and held his enemy in devil bringer to remain in control as it arced back down to the ground with a crunch. The demon was momentarily stunned before Nero carried it back the opposite way in another arc, smashing into the floor once more. He repeated the motion, backwards and forwards, crashing the demonic projection between a fist and a hard place over and over until it was on the edge of unconsciousness, barely able to move. Now was the time to act! But they had to do it quickly before Doppelganger's power regenerated the demon's energy.

"Twilight now!" Nero shouted for the Alicorn to make her contribution. She ran over before stopping to a stand still on her wobbly fearful hooves. With a deep and calming breath she straightened up and closed her eyes, her horn glowing from a dim light to a blinding one in a mere instant. Nero and Dante closed their eyes and shielded their faces as best they could until the light was over. The light was bright enough that it was almost like a second sun being created right beside them. They heard the demon scream in pain as it's shield was stripped away from it's body, and that was all the two needed to begin their assault on the hapless projection.

They opened their eyes to an inky black copy of Rainbow Dash's usual pony pegasus form, but with all features coated by the cloud of black mist that clung to it's body. Nero let rip three charges of exceed onto Red Queen and Dante charged an electrical strike onto Alastor as they raised the blades into the air. The stripped down beast raised it's hooves to protect it'self with an almost pleading cry to accompany it. But the hunters paid no attention to the ploy. The smashed down on the demon with tremendous force as lightning and fire combined into a furious combo of powerful attacks which ripped through it's body,

The effects on Doppelganger were immediate. Trish and Lady stopped their semi-defensive maneuvers as the possessed body of Rainbow Dash was cleansed of it's toothy grin, replacing it with a face full of agony and an expression filled with both despair and realisation. It collapsed to the ground in pain as the demonic projection mauled by the demon hunters dissipated into nothingness and all the wasted energy back-lashed onto Doppelganger. Again, the group had to move quickly. The demon possessing Dash's body had been weakened and with the correct amount of magical pressure they could force it out of the pegasus' body.

Trish and Lady tackled it to the floor and held it down, despite it's desperate attempts to move them from it's stolen body. All of it's flails and thumps were shrugged off with gritted teeth and pained grunts as Dante and Nero rushed over, followed by a hopeful Twilight, her hope renewed by seeing the demon hunter's weaken the demon who had taken her friend from her.

Nero lit up his arm in a bright light as he kneeled down and rested his demonic hand against Rainbow Dash's heart, the beat of the organ furiously smacking against her ribs to keep blood flowing through it's body. Dante and Twilight stood back as Nero channeled the magic by pressing his hand into her body. Twilight's eyes widened in shock at what she was seeing. Nero appeared to grab something before, with what looked to be a monumental effort, pulled with as much strength as he could muster.

Nero fell back from the body of Rainbow Dash which let out a deafening howl as it's demonic soul was forcefully torn from it's host body, a release of immense light engulfed everything in the area. They all had to shield themselves again to avoid going blind from a brief moment as both their hearing and their sight were maliciously pounded by screams and light.

As the scream suddenly cut out and the light dimmed down, all that filled the air was a deep exhalation of air from the lifeless body of Rainbow Dash, now containing no soul.

All was silent as everyone picked themselves up from the climactic scene, the demon hunters shakily pulled themselves to their feet, but their speeds were bested by that of Twilight Sparkle. The alicorn leaped to her hooves and bounded over to Rainbow Dash as fast as equinely possible, arriving at her cold limp body in an instant. Nero picked himself up, looking at his hand which now contained the dimly lit and weak power he had ripped from a mortal body. He crushed the solid form of power into shards of magical crystal. Doppelganger was dead.

"Dash..." Twilight said as she took the pegasus up in her fore-arms, hoping, praying that she would recieve an answer. Not a breath came from the pegasus in response and Twilight's head fell onto the pony's chest in a sob. The sobbing filled the atmosphere for a few moments as the demon hunters anticipated the return of the recently departed soul.

"When someone dies, their soul departs from this plain." Dante said, as Twilight continued to sob. Unknown to her, a red spiral of energy began to work it's way down from the heavens. "But that's not to say it's gone. A soul can remain in the area after it is lost for up to an hour sometimes." The energy's spiral became tighter as it came through the clouds and quickly descended closer and closer to the ground. Twilight's head perked up at the words Dante was speaking. "When a soul so young is lost, it is still at the height of it's power. Old age and weathering has not yet whittled it down." The energy had been recalled by the use of Dante's golden orb, but was unable to come down due to it's place on Earth being occupied. Now though, it could return to it's rightful place. Twilight looked up, her jaw almost unhinging at the spectacle before her. The power of the lost soul descended down to rooftop level, the spiral becoming tightly funneled into a concentrated beam of energy.

"This one is still too stubborn to leave just yet." Trish commented with a giggle. The beam entered Dash's body as Twilight gasped in amazement, shortening as the remainder of the energy came down from the sky and flowed directly back into the body that it once owned. Twilight didn't bother stepping back to allow the regenerating body of Rainbow Dash some space, she was too amazed by what she was seeing to care, she was witnessing the soul of her friend returning from purgatory.

As the last of the red energy was absorbed by by the body, Rainbow Dash'd chest heaved to inhales as much air as possible, Making Twilight jump, her wings flaring and her eyes widening even further in happiness. Her friend was still alive.

Rainbow Dash began coughing and spluttering as her magenta eyes opened up to examine her surroundings in blind panic. Her pupils darted around, glancing at random things before finally settling on the still crying form of Twilight, though this time she was crying of happiness. She stopped coughing as she calmed in the sight of her good friend, who was now gently stroking her mane to comfort her.

"Twi... am I dead?" She asked, wincing at the bright sunlight behind her friend's body. In her perspective, Twilight looked not too dis-similar to an angel. Twilight just laughed, allowing it to come down before she spoke.

"No, Dash, you're alive. We both are." Rainbow extended her fore-legs to grab Twilight by the neck, pulling her in for a hug, which she gladly accepted. While the two multicoloured miniature horses embraced, the demon hunters almost melted in diabeetus overload. Emitting a collection of 'D'awww's while reducing themselves to a relaxed state. This continued for a few seconds before someone finally spoke.

"Welp, job well done!" Dante held his hand out for Nero to high five him, but was met by a serious expression.

"I still haven't forgiven you totally yet, asshole." Nero replied, leaving Dante hanging and causing the to female hunter's to either plunge their faces into their palms or burst out into laughter. Their calm banter was misplaced however, as the calamity had one last trick up it's sleeve before the day could end.

"Oh well, look on the bright side, Dante! We've seen it all now, how much worse can it get?" Lady asked.

Meanwhile, Twilight recoiled sharply, sensing a problem with Rainbow Dash immediately as she tightened up, like her muscles were cramping. Twilight gasped as Dash rolled from her embrace, shaking in pain again. She looked stunned and helpless as the pegasus pushed her self to her hooves and began to stumble away from her friend.

"Rainbow, what's wrong?" She asked quickly, when she got no reply, she called to the experts. "Nero!" She shouted. All of the demon hunters turned to see Rainbow Dash's stumbling come to an abrupt halt several metres away from her over-affectionate friend. Nero began walking briskly towards Dash to see what was happening. But before he even got close he was stopped by an explosion of demonic sigils.

To everyone's surprise, the sigils along with a cry of pain had originated from Rainbow Dash... or what was there before what they saw there now. Rainbow Dash had transformed into a sinister form, the form of a demon... the form of a Devil Trigger. Her massive bladed wings outstretched, her clawed paws digging into the ground and her body littered with bright rainbow coloured spines where her mane and tail should normally be while her skin had become a sky blue leathery material.

The cry halted and sigils appeared again, this time retracting from thin air back into Dash's body as it reverted to normal. Rainbow Dash collapsed to the floor in a crumpled unconscious pile of half-demon flesh. Evidently, not all of Doppelganger's power had left her body.

"Err, was that supposed to happen?" Twilight asked as she rushed to check her friend to still alive, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw she was. The demon hunters all looked to each other in confusion, none of them quite knowing what to say. But in the back of their minds, all knew the day had in fact become worse. Significantly worse.

The Devil Inside

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Inside Rainbow Dash's subconscious...

"Rainbow Dash..." A stereotypical ghost-like 'spooky' voice sounded out with and un-natural number of echoes.

The world faded in from the inconceivable non-existence of un-consciousness as Rainbow woke up to the voice backed by the sound of creaking and squeaking, like the noise made by an old swinging chandelier. Her eyes being greeted by the veil of blackness provided by her eyelids. She shifted slowly, her body feeling mostly groggy. When she positioned herself to stand she expected pushing the rest of her body up to be painful in her current state of tiredness, but to her surprise, she still held an un-usually large amount of strength.

"... Oh, Rainbow Dash..." The voice bounced around the world like a particularly bouncy ball. Dash grunted as she pushed herself into her natural standing position on all fours. She opened her eyes to look around. What she expected to see was the walls of Ponyvill Hospital or Twilight's Friendship Castle, being coaxed awake by Pinkie Pie in a voice that sounds as if it came out of some really bad camp-fire ghost story. What she got instead was about as confusing as the meaning of the word can get.

As far as she could tell, she was on a piece of the dirt ground floating in an infinite space of blackness. She cocked her head immediately, as she tried to figure out what the heck was going on.

"... Rainbow Dash, this is your subconscious speaking..." The voice intervened. Dash was not helped by it in any way whatsoever. In fact, it only confused her even more.

"What?" She asked blankly, utterly bewildered by what she was experiencing. This was followed by an exaggerated sigh.

"Ok, evidently this tired trope isn't going anywhere." Discord stated as he threw his invisibility cloak from his body, finally gaining his first actual role in the whole story. The cloak spontaneously grew a pair of eyes and wings before flying away into the shadows.

"Discord..." Dash growled. "What are you up to now?" She stomped her hoof for a more powerful effect.

"I was about to explain, y'know?" He answered. "Better listen to what others have to say before you start making assumptions." He said while putting on a mildly offended expression. Rainbow Dash sighed, rolling her eyes. She knew from past experience that trying to argue with him was near impossible. So she sat down and waited for the insanity to start.

"Ahem! Now where was I? Oh yes! As you may or may not know, we are now in your subconscious. This is where all your dreams happen. I've hijacked it for the time being while I teach you a few things." He said, summoning a giant bottle half-filled with water. Inside of it was a pair of pirate ships with on being boarded by the other, the boarding party celebrating as they started to plunder gold from it. "Just like so." Discord said as he snapped his fingers, making the scene disappear in a flash of light.

"Why? What are you supposed to teach me?" She said, the impatience clear in her voice. She jumped, as all of a sudden Discord was somehow beside her with a paw on her shoulder.

"You do know what just happened to your body while you soul had been booted from it, right?" The draconequus said as he examined his claws.

"Huh?"

"Thought not. Lets put it in layman's terms, you were possessed by a demon who booted you from your body. Said demon is now dead and your soul has returned to your body again, but some of the demon's power was left over."

Rainbow Dash's mouth hung open, eyes wide as she digested the information. It certainly made sense considering how she had felt before losing consciousness at the fountain, and it explained how worried Twilight was for her and definitely justified magically dragging her around like a stubborn dog, but... wow...

"So... what now? What does that mean for me?"

"It means you're now technically a half demon." At this, Dash was overwhelmed by shock. She was silenced for a second, trying to formulate a proper response, but every time she started to think of something to say, the words just dropped away. Discord appeared mildly amused by her gormless expression. "If you think about it, it's not that bad. There's a load of perks to being a demon, besides, you get to keep your usual body so there's nothing but pro's in it for you." Rainbow Dash looked up slowly to meet eyes with Discord once more.

"What sort of 'perks'?"

"Oh, nothing much. Just heightened strength, agility, sense of awareness and the ability to release excess magical energy to temporarily advance these attributes even further as you take on a gloriously chaotic demonic form. That's all. I think you'll like it."

"That's all!?" Dash exclaimed in surprise. That didn't sound much like nothing. But then again, She thought, probably just Discord being Discord and playing around with his words. "What sort of stuff can I do now?" She asked. Discord gave a little chuckle as he snapped his fingers.

The infinite expanse of blackness exploded into colour as everything began to change. From the depths below her, more ground rose up to lock onto the small chunk of five or so metres she was standing on, and more and more chunks were raised up from seemingly endless amounts of nothing as the land grew for miles around her. Hills began to form in places where huge amounts of rocks and dirt fell from the now blue sky and behind her mountains rose up into rapidly forming clouds. She recognised the layout of geography... it was Ponyville! Or the area it was situated in anyway. Beside her the fountain popped up from the ground, but it had changed. It was now a sculpture of Discord in his trademark opera-like singing pose with his paw on his puffed out chest and his griffon arm extended out. Water poured from his open mouth into a basin below where it collected.

The town was next to appear from seemingly nowhere... or some version of it. It seemed to be some sort of chaotic and twisted image of the town, with some buildings hanging upside-down in mid air, some had palette swaps and some streets even moved around like they had minds of their own. The sight made the pegasus's eye's twitch in a moment of confusion. The last time she had seen anything so insane was when Discord last took over Ponyville.

"That, my dear little demon is what I want to teach you. Fate holds more for you yet, I know that much. I am simply here to get you started in preparation for the future." Discord said as he floated by in a relaxed laying down pose with his legs crossed. He tapped her reassuringly on the nose as he went, and she looked his was as he continued to float up to an area of space where he stopped. "Here I've prepared an aesthetically improved simulation of the real world..."

"-Improved? Pfft, more like mental.-" Dash thought to herself.

"...First we'll get you used to the increased strength and speed you have. I think we'll start with some target practice with kicking and punching." Discord finished, clicking his fingers together to create a set of targets, all painted with an identical image of him wearing a shirt with 'Kick me' written on it. Dash stared at the targets for a second before raising an eyebrow at the draconequus. Discord simply gave her a manical grin.

"Ok then." She said as she walked up to the targets. It didn't take her long to get into her usual bucking position with her fore-legs spread for balance. She reared up, contracting her front legs and waiting for her aim to be just perfect as her body naturally aligned itself with the target after years of practice. And when her aim was in sync, she bucked with all her might. The result wasn't quite what she had expected.

Instead of the target rocking around with the force of her kick, it shattered into splinters and shards. She gasped in disbelief as she looked back to observe. Everything felt normal, gravity and weight felt the same and she could actually feel in general, meaning it wasn't just some silly trick Discord had prepared. If this was true then she really did have a lot of power in her muscles with all that left over power from her possession.

She let her weight bring her rear back down and then turned to inspect the damage. Her buck had quite literally smashed the target into an extra two pieces, cracking it in half and that piece in half again. The bottom half of the target had been knocked over and had traveled ten feet or so down the chaotic street.

"Woah... That's how much strength I have in real life now?" She asked, looking up at Discord sitting in his floating deck chair with a pair of tinted shades while drinking a martini. The martini glass to be specific, the actual drink remained stuck in the air while he looked back down at her.

"Mmhm. And that's without momentum. There's three more targets to try, get used to the feel of your new power. Go to town, go wild." He paused for a second before growing a mischievous smile. "Or maybe you'd like something a little more... feisty, than a simple stationary target, yes?" Rainbow nodded. Then with a snap of his claws, the target turned into a group of confused looking Scarecrow demons. Rainbow recognised them from the fight she had in the forest. It was payback time.

Rainbow charged in with a powerful flap of her extra strong wings to gather a large amount of speed even in the short space provided. She pulled back a right hook, and before the demon could react, struck it right in the face. The scarecrow was catapulted back and sent soaring through the air into a spinning green house. The remaining demons looked on helplessly as Dash used her momentum to swing her body round into a flying kick, delivering the move into the second demon's chest. It went to join it's friend embedded in a wall, creating a sizable dust cloud.

The final scarecrow had finally realised it was 'do or die' at this point, and in a ditch effort to kill it's attacker, swung it's arm mounted executioner's blade in a heavy and powerful movement at Dash. She rolled to her right to evade to swing, and before the demon could react, smashed it in the chest with an uppercut. it rocketed into the air, flailing wildly and trying to regain it's balance. But Rainbow was airborne in no time and before the demon could collect itself, began an aerial rave with a flurry of kicks and punches before finishing by bucking it towards the ground. The dead scarecrow bounced off the ground a few times until it came to a halt. The small battle ended with it dissolving away.

As Dash steadied her breathing, the sound of clapping entered the mix as Discord giddily cheered her on while laughing at the entertainment. Dash just smiled, it felt good to feel strong again. After experiencing a fight with those demons before, she felt... weak. All the time she had prepared by growing up as an athletic tomcolt sort of foal, she was strong by a mare's standards but when a threat beyond her control had come up she felt... useless. But now though, now that feeling was gone. She could make a difference once more!

"Bravo! Bravo! I never dreamed things would go so smoothly!" Discord shouted with happiness, only to be met by Dash's intrigued look. "Sorry, just quoting someone... let's get to the obligatory platforming section, shall we?" Before Rainbow Dash could ask what he was talking about, he had teleported both of them to a completely new area. She did a few turns to figure out where she was.

She was stood on somepony's balcony with the rails removed so that she could leap from it like a landing/ takeoff platform. In front of her was a row of five houses, the first being a simple jumping distance away where she could land on it no problem. The second house was floating in mid-air about twenty feet above the first and the third was the same, except it had some extra horizontal distance for a longer jump. The fourth house was a drop back down to a little above the height of a normal rooftop as it floated slightly above ground level, it was spinning slowly. And the final house was stationary on the ground like any normal house should be. Discord appeared in a flash of light just in front of her.

"'Platforming section', huh? I could just fly over these and get it over with straight away." Rainbow pointed out. Discord cracked a smile.

"Oh, but where's the fun in that?" He shrugged, causing Dash to sigh. "Here you should practice jumping and a basic aerial technique known as the Air Hike."

"'Air Hike'?" Dash repeated in confusion. "What the hay is that." Discord snapped his talons together and a flash enveloped her body. Intrigued, she looked herself over to find she didn't feel or look any different.

"Now you have the capability to perform the Air Hike, free of charge! It's a maneuver that uses demonic magic to instantaneously change the direction of your acceleration. Like this!" Discord let himself start falling to the ground, with Rainbow looking on curiously. After he had gathered up a significant amount of speed he snapped his fingers together and a red sigil appeared behind him as he was propelled sideways away from it with the same momentum. Rainbow nodded making the 'not bad' face as Discord began to float again, ascending back to Rainbow's level. "That's an air hike for you, you can also do it while flying but we're sticking to simple jumps to get used to the feel of it. You'll need it to get extra height without the use of your wings for the second and third jumps."

"Wait! How do I do an air hike?" Rainbow asked. Discord nodded as he thought of an understandable explanation.

"A legitimate question." He started. "You'll need to meet a couple of requirements before pushing the magic in the opposite direction to where you want your momentum to go. Number one! You must be airborne, obviously. Two, you must lean your weight in the desired direction. And three, you must release the magic at the correct frequency."

"OK... I get all of that but the last bit. How do I know what 'frequency' is the correct one?" She asked.

"You should only have two available to you, a smaller less powerful on, and one that feels like it would consume your whole body when accessed. Concentrate on your inner being, as boring as that sounds. With practice you'll get it naturally."

Rainbow nodded and closed her eyes to calm herself and concentrate. She could feel a humming within her body whenever she tried to think about performing an air hike, like her chest was gently vibrating with magic. It was kind of similar to being picked up in Twilight's magic, or having her own magic accessed. In essence, she was feeling for her own magic. It was alien to her, being a pegasus and all, as she was used to having passive magic in the form of her natural heightened ability of flight. But something as tangible as this was... weird.

True to Discord's claims, she could indeed 'feel' for her magic in different quantities of use. There were two, a small one and another, all of her magic.

"Ok, I feel it." She said, opening her eyes to see the draconequus being orbited by mini planets that were spinning randomly with no sense of logic to their momentum. A few hoofballs with eyes sported comet trails, flying around at will. A small congregation of them looked to be worshipping their conjurer.

"Great! Now let's see what you can do." He said, attempting to achieve a more comfortable position in the air.

Dash leaped from the balcony and soared across the gap in-between the rooftops, and landed with ease on the first roof. Now for the second jump. She ran as close to the edge of the building as possible before contracting her muscles to spring away from the edge. The she jumped with all her strength. She gained a good amount of height but was still about five feet short of her goal, the floating building before her. So she concentrated on her magic again, feeling for that small quantity of magic responsible for her next move. Finding the air hike frequency, she leaned forward and while not really knowing what she was doing, mentally pushed her magic behind her.

The result was immediate. She felt her body being launched forward and up, gaining that little bit extra height she needed to achieve the jump. She retained her balance and came down to a graceful landing on the flat rooftop with a short skid. She looked back over the edge of the roof to marvel at the distance she just propelled herself, and witness a blue sigil fading away into nothingness. There was no way in Tartarus she could have jumped that far without her wings before being... 'possessed'. Her jumping distance had effectively been doubled. A flash of light filled the air and the spirit of chaos appeared once again, this time without his mini system of stellar objects.

"Nicely done, Rainbow Dash. Nicely done indeed. With some practice that will come like flying! Now this next one is a little further than the last, and no air hike is going to scale all of that distance alone. Here you'll have to air hike as high as you can and jump up off' the wall."

"Easy enough." Rainbow said with a shrug of her shoulders as she stepped back to get as much running distance as she could for her jump.

She began like she did her last run, sprinting as far as she could to gain enough speed to jump as high as she could with all her power. She repeated her last process and replicated her previous air hike, pushing the magic behind her at the apex of her jump and launching herself off' the sigil to gain extra height. As explained, even that wasn't quite enough to get her to the top of the jump as she oriented herself to kick up from the wall. She landed against the side of the building and before gravity could pull her back down, used her super-equine strength to jump up the final few feet to land on the edge of the rooftop. Wasting no time she darted to the edge of her current roof as she knew what came next. Discord popped out of a flash to watch.

The house below her was spinning very slowly, she would have to time her jump perfectly in order to not lose her balance and fall at the final hurdle. She waited for the building to be held in the air sideways, taking a deep breath to steady herself in the meantime. She leaned her weight forward off the edge and set her body into a free fall. As she was going down front first, she used her momentum to flip over herself and better prepare her for the landing. The spinning house had rotated around and was pretty much parallel to the floor as she landed.

The contact at such speed sent shock-waves through her body and she had to bend down into a crouch to sponge some of the force. What would have caused her immense pain and some serious injuries to her legs before becoming a half demon now only gave her some slight shock as her organs were jarred from the impact. She quickly moved back to standing again as the building began to spin over itself again and she ran to the end of the roof before leaping to her finishing point, crossing the final gap easily to come to rest on a stationary platform. Rainbow looked back at everything she had just scaled with a smile glued to her face with all the adrenaline running through her.

"That was amazing!" She exclaimed, admiring her toned limbs with a new sense of confidence.

"Quite." Discord replied, sipping tea from a cup. "You've acquired quite a bit of physical power. What you do with that is your responsibility, though it would be funny to see all that strength in the hooves of a drunk Rainbow 'Crash'. I've heard you can drink quite a lot when challenged."

"Hey! What happens at the party, stays at the party! You'd do well to remember that." She growled, half semi-seriously. Thinking back to how she was before gaining her new magic again, she remembered how not too long ago she was shocked to hear about what had happened to her. Now she was using her magic to leap through the air and do awesome tricks. Why was she so apprehensive? If she got to keep her body, but just with her added strength, agility and the ability to heal from even huge wounds, then what was there to be worried about? Then a thought hit her.

"-What if I get kicked out of the Academy? I'll never be a Wonderbolt if they find out!-" The thought ran through her mind.

"Oh don't worry about that..." Discord said.

"W-wait, you can hear my thoughts!?" Dash blurted out, causing the draconequus to chuckle.

"We're in your head, silly. I can hear all your thoughts. Even if they're mocking my sense of style." He explained, before mumbling something about her thinking his version of the world would be 'insane'. "... Anyways, you can't sit around and mope at the fact that some stubborn showponies won't let you in on their little group just because you aren't quite a 'pony' anymore. Besides, if you hadn't been brought back to life, you would have never had chance to do anything else! You're still so young, you have ponies left to meet, things left to say, chaos to ensue!"

"I- I suppose that's true..." Rainbow said with a sad tone in her voice.

"Oh come on! Liven up! You have speed and strength beyond their wildest dreams! If you can't join 'em, beat 'em!" Discord shouted confidently, causing Rainbow to raise her head in thought.

"Maybe... yeah, I see where you're coming from." She started before letting out a small chuckle.

"Ok, now we've got that depressing stuff out of the way we can move on!" Discord said with a happy smile, snapping his fingers and teleporting both of them to a new area. Dash was used to this by now and was not too surprised to find herself back at the fountain of Discord, where she started. Said spirit of chaos popped out of nowhere on top of the fountain's head.

"Next up is your final lesson to prepare you for the future." He said while dancing on the fountain, walking on the spot.

"Wait... what's going to happen in the future?" She said, half in confusion half in suspicion.

"Nothing you can't handle if you listen to my teachings, young child." He said in a wise sounding old voice, donning a worn brown cloak and a lightsaber. "Now I shall teach you the best bit of the lessons, then you can go and show off to your friends what I taught you. The Devil Trigger..." He said ominously waving his paw and claws in a melodramatic manner.

"Let me guess: It involves using the second frequency of magic?" Dash said, trying to forget her previous depressing thoughts.

"Exactly! This is what I mentioned earlier about turning up the ante on your powers, temporarily releasing your demon side."

"How long does it last" Dash asked, curious to know how long she can look totally awesome for. Or if it was just a bunch of horseapples and would make her look like a freak for eternity.

"Depending on how much energy you use. In combat, your devil trigger won't last as long as it would if you were resting, capische?"

"I think I get you. So, how do I activate it? And what am I testing it on?" She gestured to the empty space around them. "We gonna' summon up some more bad guys?"

"That's the plan, yes. And the way you activate it is just by pushing the devil trigger magic out of your body. That's it." He said while inspecting a small Discord figurine he had in his hand. He summoned a painting kit into the air and floated it in-front of him. The colours weren't even close to matching any of the tones on his actual body. He snapped his claws and right before Rainbow Dash's eyes, a group of strange enemies appeared. Dash could make out two different types. Eight of the first and only one of the second.

The first looked like ponies, but their fur had paled and was patchy, and the skin underneath was scarred and worn. They wore tattered dark purple robes that looked to have been ripped apart in places by centuries of torment and their eyes were a blood red. They carried large scythes and they shambled around slowly, jeering and growling with overconfident snarls. Then there was the outcast. It was similar, just like a real pony, but instead of robes it wore bloodied bandages around it's body which barely covered any of it's pale skin. Instead of a weapon, it appeared to be hauling around a giant coffin and it's eyes glowed a sickly yellow. Dash recoiled in disgust at the sight of the ponies, and she turned to Discord for an explanation.

"Say hello to the Hell Pride and a solitary member of the Hell Greed. These are the souls of ponies who have died and been sent to Hell for being a carrier of one of the seven deadly sins. Particularly Pride and Greed." He said casually, not sparing a moment to take his eyes from his randomly coloured figurine.

"Wait, so these are still ponies!?"

"No, not really. It's the souls of these ponies. You don't get sent to Hell for being just a little bit greedy or just a little prideful. These ponies spent their entire lives consumed by selfishness without sparing a moment to even consider their actions. I wouldn't feel too sorry for them." He said, answering her question.

"Ok then." Dash cracked her neck started to walk towards the battleground. She inspected her enemies as she walked. The Hell Prides looked to be somewhat slow at general movements, but by their toned muscles poking through their thin weathered skin, she guessed their attacks could pack quite the punch. And then there was the Hell Greed... What was the point of it having a humungus coffin for a weapon? Surely that couldn't be for attacks, could it? Maybe it was a crushing thing.

She got close enough for a hell pride to take a swing at her, proving her theory about it's swings correct. She ducked under the huge blade and uppercutted it in the jaw, sending it flying into the air. She followed it up and delivered a collection of super fast punches to it's gut before placing a flying kick into it's chest and pushing it down into another of it's bretherin, flattening it. Two down.

She bounced off the two crushed demons and rolled through the air at another with a move similar to a Lunar Phase, striking it multiple times and knocking it senseless. She ended it with a hook punch which she charged with her strength by twisting her body to allow for a stronger punch. Which she delivered with expert precision, smashing it clean in the forehead, the force slamming it's head into the ground. She turned to a scythe descending down on her, she had to go evasive this time.

She rolled to the left to avoid the first downward swing but it wasn't done there. The hell pride turned it's blade around and sliced upwards at the cyan pegasus. Rainbow dashed backwards to clear some distance while it was swinging, and then ran back at the demon before it could react. She punched it in the kidney making it roar in pain before she grabbed the handle of it's scythe in-between it's hooves and ripped the weapon from it's inferior grasp. It was rendered defenseless while Dash swung the scythe around in a three-sixty, catching another demon approaching from behind in the side of the head. Continuing with her swing, she skewered the dis-armed hell pride on it's own weapon and let go of the blade mid swing to let it fly into a building, crashing through a wall. Five down.

She turned around, ready to perform some more awesome stunts and moves when she was forced to jump over the swinging coffin of the hell greed, who had swung the giant hunk of metal low to trip her up. She landed and was immediately forced to leap back again as it raised the coffin up high before bringing it crashing down where Rainbow used to be.

"-A crushing thing, I knew it!-" She thought. She was about to begin her onslaught, but was stopped when a section of the top of the coffin slid upwards, releasing a glowing interior to the demonic construction. She stopped, curious of what was happening as the section continued to slide up, revealing more inner workings. She gasped when two ghost like entities floated out of the coffin and spiraled into the air gracefully. She watched them as they fell back down to the ground, the areas being enveloped in small clouds of dust before out of them, hell prides had spawned.

"Oh great. Well now I know what to kill to stop that happening again! Time to test out that new trick." She focused on her demonic energy, gathering all of the spare magic she had to weaponise and concentrated on releasing every last drop. Pushing it out of her body resulted in an explosion of energy, causing a bolt of lightning to surge through her and sigils extended out in a glyph filled sphere. She experienced momentary pain as her body changed forms to the terrifying visage of her devil trigger. Her blue leathery skin, bladed feathers and claws all adding to the demonic and intimidating stature worthy of such a deadly creature.

Dash opened her blazing red eyes and looked herself over, harrumphing with a sharp toothy smile growing on her face. She could literally feel the difference in her strength before and after the transformation. And she wasted no time exercising it.

With a great flap of her large powerful wings she ascended into the air until she was directly over the hell greed. Then she air hiked down on top of it, charging a hook punch as she fell. Delivering the punch smashed the coffin carrying demon's spine like a cheap glass vase, pinning to the ground because of it's in-ability to move. Before the still living but crippled demon could even catch it's breath, DevilDashie kicked it up onto it's hind legs and turned around to face it before delivering countless claw slashes, each with unbelievable strength in the blink of an eye. In a second, the shattered demon had received twenty strikes, causing it to backpedal with the sheer force. By this point it was dead, but just to be sure Dash picked up it's own coffin and threw it onto the demon, it's powderised skeleton simply crumpled under the weight.

She whipped around to the remaining six hell prides, who no longer looked prideful to say the least. They cowered before the demon form of Rainbow Dash. So when the devil lunged for them they could only stand petrified by fear as the unstoppable force came down upon them with a vengeance. A single punch lifted one poor demon off his hooves and caused him to fall directly into the line of a buck which sent him on a collision course with one of his friends who screamed out in shock. The two were impaled on each-other's scythes and slid along the floor.

One of the last demons had the nerve to break from his stupor and tried to attack his opponent with his blade, trying to bring it crashing down on Dash, but to no avail. Rainbow stepped aside and easily ripped the weapon from his hooves. Having acquired a weapon other than her claws, she repeated the attacker's action on one of his allies behind him to slice through it's body and tear away it's balance as it tried to remove the blade from it's body.

In her next trick, she widened her stance and put all her weight onto her hinds for better balance while she shifted her center of mass. Leaning back, she brought the pole of the scythe crashing down on the defenseless demon she had took it from, killing it. Then she swung the blade around to slice another approaching hell pride in half. She held mid pose while the three demons collapsed to the ground around her, evaporating away as their souls disintegrated to nothing.

The final demon could be hard whimpering at the sight of Dash slaughtering each and every one of it's allies, unable to do anything about it. When the crimson glowing eyes of Dash were pointed it's way, it raised it's scythe in one last ditch effort to defend it'self. Dash caught the pole of the weapon before it could get even close to harming her and she inched closer to the hell pride's face until they were almost touching noses. It whimpered again in absolute terror, closing it's eyes and flinching as it waited for the final blow to come. But only silence followed. Opening it's eyes to see what was happening, it saw that Devil Dash's face was still pressed up close to it's own, except this time adorning a wide grin, showing off all her razor sharp teeth.

"Boo!" She said, making a jerking motion bringing her face swiftly closer to the demon's. The hell pride dropped to the floor, motionless. A couple of seconds passed before it began to evaporate away like the rest of it's fallen allies. Dash was left hanging onto the scythe as she watched it turn to naught but dust in the wind.

Her body tingled as a sphere of sigils collapsed onto her body and a surge of electricity sparked again coating her body in a small flash of lightning, her body returning to normal. A moment of quiet filled the air Dash taking a deep breath of the imaginary atmosphere followed by the clang of metal as she dropped the scythe to the ground.

"That... Was... Awesome!" She shouted giddily, clapping her hooves together like an excited little filly.

"I couldn't agree more, Rainbow Dash." Discord said as he reviewed his discolouration of himself, looking over the mini-figurine.

"I feel pretty tired though, I'm guessing that's just cause' of how much energy I used?" She guessed, judging the answer similarly to how the air hike worked.

"You are correct. Magical exercise is just like physical exercise, except more sophisticated, the more you work at it the less tired you'll be and the longer you'll be able to use it before getting tired."

"Nice." Dash commented. Discord began to stretch himself out, getting creaks and cracks from his bones.

"My work here is done. You're prepared for the days ahead of you. Remember this lesson well and it'll serve you well. Good-bye for now, Rainbow Dash." Discord said with a wave before snapping his claws.

"Err, see ya'." Dash said as Discord de-materialised in a flash of light.

"Jeez, what a weirdo."

(Short) Of Devils And Ponies

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Vergil stood in his place, silent at the huge round table in a large room lit only by candlelight as he listened in on the chatter of the demons around him. The table was lit brightly enough, but the area behind them faded quickly into pitch black shadows. The demons around him varied from small and agile elites of the hordes, to big powerful beasts who served as 'one devil army's to the Nightmare's force. Vergil thought that since they were able to bring him back from the dead, that they may have been able to salvage a few of the other major demons slain from his world too. However he was surprised to not recognise a single one, however he saw one that seemed to recognise him.

Ironically placed at the opposite location across the table from him, the giant grotesque toad-like demon narrowed it's eyes at him, noticing his form and silver hair. It wasn't long before Vergil turned to return the gesture with a cold hard stare, making the demon revert it's gaze back to the empty space at the front of the table where an ornate chair was placed. The sound of metal on stone began to echo as the Nightmare rounded the corner of the corridor and walked into the room. All turned silent as she entered, and they began to bow. But not Vergil, he bowed to no-one, he was working with the Nightmare not for her. A few demons looked nervously towards the still upright Vergil as he returned their stares.

"All rise." The Nightmare said, rolling her eyes at Vergil, who didn't react. The rest of the demons went back to standing and a brief period of silence followed, before Nightmare spoke again. "I have gathered you all here as you are the best I have in my army, and I have a few tasks to give out to a lucky selection of you. But first I feel I must state the situation at hoof and welcome a few additions to our group.

"We have obtained three new members recently and I would like you to welcome them all and get to know them, you may be working together very soon. First is Clockwork..." She pointed over to what seemed like a pony at first, but on close inspection was anything but. It was a machine, that was about as high as the nightmare, but no horn or wings adorned it's body. Dark metallic purple plates protected the insides of it's body, but the armour appeared in-complete. Sections of it's exterior were missing in places and it was possible to see glowing mechanical workings, wires and parts of it's metal skeleton. Lastly were the bright orange eyes. Something wasn't quite right about them. He could see quite clearly the thing was a machine, but the eyes almost radiated demonic energy. Vergil couldn't tell what it was about it that caught his attention about it, but somehow the machine felt almost... alive. "Clockwork came to us about completing a goal of his, and we've agreed on a deal which helps us both mutually.

"Next is Bael over there." She pointed to the giant demonic Ice-Toad. "Bael has joined us for revenge against the demon hunters whom he perished to." Bael's thick hide was a pale but pearly white, and sharp horns of ice formed on his head and back like a protective sheet of armour meant to injure anyone who might ambush him in his slow movements. His main form of attack looked to be his huge jaws, as they were lined with two rows of large teeth that could tear through any organic substance. But possibly the most interesting thing about him was the two feelers attached to his head. At first glance they just looked like normal feelers, but on further inspection Vergil noticed they seemed to breath and shift independently of the main body's jurisdiction.

"And lastly our final newcomer, Vergil." All eyes turned to him and he felt the weight of them digging into him, he wasn't used to being inspected so closely by so many at once. He kept his usual calm but stoic demeanor without much trouble. "Vergil was brought back from the dead by Sombra, we have him to thank for this contribution. At first I thought it to be a waste of time, but after he proved to be proficient in combat I had a change of heart. He's stronger than he looks."

"Ape is nothing! Calydoln squash ugly monkey like bug!" A nearby demon shouted, grinning wildly as Vergil turned his cold stare toward him. The beast was a gigantic brown furred boar-like creature, it was at least twelve feet tall with large tusks rising from his bottom jaw like absurdly large canines, and a set of demonic horns rose from the back of his head. Sparks emanated from the beast's nostrils as he snorted and flames on the bushy tip of his tail burned fiercely bright, giving some illumination around him. Vergil wasn't surprised at it's lack of linguistic skills as it seemed to be all about the muscle for him. Demons tended to be more about sheer strength and power than agility. True, having a large amount of power is always great, but useless if your opponent can dodge it. "Why does monkey not respond? Is monkey scared of Calydon?" He said with no small amount of pride.

"Afraid? Of a brute like you?" Vergil retorted, harrumphing and adjusting his scarf. "How repulsive." Obviously Calydoln was not pleased with this response and raised his massive forelegs, snorting with anger.

"Calydoln weaker than no other! Calydoln crush yo-"

"SILENCE!" Nightmare yelled to stop the fight before it happened. "Calydoln, I do not tolerate such disobedience among my underlings!" The boar retreated into a vulnerable looking state, knowing what was good for him. He was not about to anger his master. "Good. Maybe now we can progress, yes?" Calydoln nodded slowly, causing the Nightmare to smile in satisfaction. She loved knowing her sub-ordinates feared her, it gave her a sense of fulfillment. After all, she isn't called 'Nightmare' for nothing.

"We are in a bad situation, my previous plan to render the elements of harmony has failed. Doppelganger has been killed by the demon hunters." The demons began to chat, sharing shocked expressions until Nightmare rose her hoof into the air, signalling them to be quiet. "Worse still, my spies tell the element of harmony he possessed has retained a portion of his power, and has ascended to become a halfling. This pony by the name of 'Rainbow Dash' poses a threat to our operations, as she also happens to be the element of Loyalty." Another round of conversation followed by a quiet signal. "This pegasus will protect the other elements at all costs, we need to get rid of her. Any ideas?"

"We should kill her first!" A demon out of sight to Vergil said, probably behind one of the larger demons. A round of agreements sounded but Vergil knew better.

"Trying to kill her so soon would be unwise. It would attract attention to our spies and the interest of the princesses. I hear they are very powerful, enough to rival our strength from the records I have read." A few nodding heads confirmed his idea had been taken in by the demons at the table.

"Then what do you suggest we do, Vergil?" The Nightmare responded curiously.

"Lead her away from her friends. We can make her believe she is useless in defense of her home, and must join the demon hunters. This would leave the elements of harmony useless as they must all be used in unison." He said. The Nightmare smiled for a second before it was wiped away and she shook her head.

"I have tried that, she is too loyal to her friends." Vergil nodded at her comment while thinking.

"Then damage her security, make her angry. She will come looking for us." He finished. The Nightmare paused for a second in thought. Then she had an idea, making her grin in anticipation. If this worked out then it would also help with a second task she had in mind.

"I think I have a solution."

Super Fightin' Robot

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A tremor shook the practicing zone of the Colosseum, it's boundries rattled and vibrated with the force of strong resonations, like the impact of a small meteor. Atop it's walls stood the dark figure of the Nightmare, watching her subjects battle each other in the large area below. She was analyzing each and every blow they dealt to one another, partly because if they injured each other too badly they would be useless to her, but mostly because she wanted to know where they were strong and where they needed work. The fight currently going on was Calydoln trying his damn-right hardest to kill Vergil.

A powerful flaming right hook flew past the human as he casually stepped back to avoid it with minimal effort. The giant boar's next move was to bring is clawed fists crashing down where Vergil was. Vergil saw the slow move coming a mile away and teleported a few metres to his right, rendering Calydoln's destructive tactic completely useless against the nimble capabilities of the halfling. Calydoln furiously whirled around just in time to receive Beowulf to the face. He was surprised by the sheer strength the small being could throw out, and found himself momentarily stunned by the blow. Vergil used his chance to perform Rising Dragon, jumping into the air while throwing out a pair of charged kicks with the rotation of his body. The force threw Calydoln's front end over his back and he toppled over onto his back. Vergil landed on the ground again with a disappointed sigh while the collection of demons chilling out in the stands applauded and made their own comments.

"That was... boring..." He said as he dusted himself down. "After your foolishly confident display earlier, I thout you'd prove to be more of a challenge. Apparently I was wrong."

"Calydoln will smash you! I swear I'll get you back for this!" The gigantic animalistic demon said as he rolled over onto his belly and pushed himself up before limping away.

"Vergil three, everyone else... nill... we need to get our act together, people." A Satyr like demon, Silenus said as he gestured to the group of demons with his quill and parchment, some who had already been beaten and some who looked raring to get going and have their try at the ring-master. "No matter, he'll still have to beat 'Clocks to get the Ring-Champion crown!"

Nightmare watched as the boar crawled out of the ring, shortly being replaced with a Faust, it's giant red claws floating behind it as it flew gently over to the blue coated devil.

"He's good." A masculine and zombie-like voice said from behind her. She turned her head to see Sombra floating through the air on the very shadows themselves as he lowered himself onto the tops of the walls to take his place beside the azure queen.

"Indeed. Now he's begun to regain strength he looks a little more... threatening. He looks like he could take down nearly anything we put in-front of him." She suggested.

"Isn't that a good thing?" Sombra asked, raising an eyebrow. Nightmare's lips curled up a little at one side.

"Yes, I suppose. But remember what he said when you first brought him to me? He's not in this for the cause. He's after power, Sombra. The only reason he's working with us is because it looked to be the best option to start off his old quest for power once more. If he was to gain enough strength to rival me, or you..."

"Hmmm, I suppose." Sombra said as he watched the ape strip the Faust of it's protective gas shield with a fast barrage of summoned swords and smash the life out of it's cowardly body with a flurry of kicks and punches.

"We can't have him betraying us at the last moment, or he'll ruin everything. We will get back his blade as from what I understand it is an artifact of great magical power. But we must keep a close eye on him, less he stab us in the back when we least expect it." Nightmare said, not taking her eyes off the Faust currently being used to mop the dirt off the ground before the damage limit spell kicked in and the poor thing was teleported out of the combat zone.

"You can count on me to keep him under my watch, my queen. And about that blade of his, what exactly is it?"

"A blade crafted in the forges of Hell itself, imbued with so much dark magic that it cannot dull or even chipped by conventional means. And that same tremendous power gives it such sharpness that it can slice through the dimensions themselves." She explained. Sombra reeled back in surprise.

"Are you sure? That sounds an awful lot like... like-"

"Yamato?" Nightmare said, filling in the end of the dark stallion's sentence.

"Yes... Yamato. But wait, how would he have Yamato in the first place?" The question caused Nightmare to chuckle slightly as she stared in a mix of fascination and intrigue at the halfling of a devil.

"Think, Sombra. Look at him. Who does he remind you of?"

Sombra concentrated on the demo for a few moments, leaving the air to be permeated with the sound of Vergil ripping through another poor demon. It took all these moments for Sombra to finally realise where Nightmare was coming from.

"N-no... It can't possibly be..." He stammered. Memories of those past events all those years ago flooding his mind.

"It is true, Sombra. We may have revived a very dangerous demon. That is why I am worried. He will help us, but we absolutely must keep him under control, or he may kill us all if we are not careful."

"Hiyaah!" Vergil let out his burst of power on the hapless Frost he was pounding into the ground. He reeled his arm back as far as he could before letting loose and striking the demon clean in-between the eyes. The sheer force of the blow sent the Frost grinding along the ground and careering into the closest wall, sending a considerable amount of dust into the air to cover it as the damage limiting spell teleported it to safety.

"Well then..." Silenus said. "I guess no-one else wants to challenge the new guy before the main event. A round of silence followed. "Okay." He ticked something off on his parchment. "Time for the challenger to face the defending champion!" From behind the ground rose the odd robotic thing. Vergil clenched his jaw just at the sight of it. It was clearly a robot, but every time he looked at it, into it's amber eyes, he felt strangely uneasy. Like he was staring into something beyond human, demon, angel or even beast. He could tell, as it walked it's tall body down a small set of stairs and into the ring, that it was something entirely different. But he just couldn't put his finger on it.

It's metallic midnight purple plating shone in the night and it's eyes left a haze with movement whenever they were looked at. It tilted it's heavy head up, staring through him with it's burning eyes. Vergil harrumphed as they both stood a way from each other, a moment passing before the machine's synthetic face contorted into a grin, and it began to walk toward him once more, not once showing any sign of second thoughts. The machine was focused, the machine was confident, it had been watching Vergil fight and had been judging him. Vergil readied his stance, the halfling too putting up his fist without even so much as a flinch.

The crowd sat in a tense silence, somehow being able to sense that the impending battle might be just a little bit scary to watch.

The door to the crystal friendship castle's map room burst open, slamming against the walls with a massive force. Twilight cringed as Dante brought his leg down, and looked up to Nero who had the unconscious Rainbow Dash slung over his shoulder. The devil just shrugged, making a confused face.

"Good afternoon, fluff butts!" Dante yelled to a stunned group of ponies and a dragon who looked to have been playing a game of Hoof Twister before they were so blatantly interrupted. Now, a pink pony with a dishevelled hair style and a dragon were collapsed in a pile in the white spotted mat, their limbs entangled in all sorts of uncomfortable looking positions. And their audience, an orange pony, a yellow pegasus and a white unicorn sat on the sidelines, their jaws hanging off their faces like stalactites from a cave ceiling. A light thud sounded as a Stetson fell to the ground. Dante stood with his arms resting on his hips while the other demon hunters strolled in along with Twilight. The ponies inside remained silent.

"Where d'ya want her?" Nero said, his other arm coming up to support the pegasus as he prepared to set her down.

"Err, just on the ground right there." She turned to her friends who were still stunned. "Can somepony get me a pillow or something?" She said, followed by complete silence. "Hello!? Today would be nice! Dash might be hurt!" She looked to the humans waiting behind her. "Don't worry about them, they're here to help, without them Rainbow could have died." Rarity leaped to her hooves.

"Um, I'm on it!" She turned tale and ran through a door to a store-room where rummaging could be heard. Nero lay Rainbow Dash on the ground as gently as he could as Dante walked in, followed by the girls as Twilight's friends began to regain their composure.

"And err, who might these... people be?" Apple Jack gestured to the demon hunters, glancing at their giant weapons. "They uh... What were they saving her from, exactly?" The farmer picked up her hat and placed it snuggly back on her head as Fluttershy began to calm down, her hoof over her chest as she steadied her breathing in pants.

"Would you believe me if I said demons?" Twilight replied, putting her hoof over Rainbow's forehead to feel her temperature.

"To be honest... judging by their uhh, equipment, I wouldn't be surprised." Apple Jack still struggled to take her eyes off the two giant blades and a tube-like weapon with a bayonet that the demon hunters possessed. Dante suddenly felt left out.

"So... um... w-what happened?" Fluttershy asked meekly as she edged closer. Her head laid low as she cowered in-front of some of the most intimidating creatures she had ever seen. The two apparently female looking ones stepped forward.

"Your friend here got possessed by a rather powerful demon. A tricky one at that. We uh, took care of it. However..." Trish held the last part of her sentence off, not sure how the shy pegasus would take it.

"Your friend has inherited demon powers from the possession." Dante explained. "I think Doppelganger, the demon, invested enough power in her to literally ingrain it into her soul. So when the demon died, some of it's powers remained. Now she's half demon. Don't quote me on it though."

"H-half demon!?" Spike exclaimed as he picked himself up from the crumpled mat.

"Found something!" Rarity's voice exploded from the storage as she burst out holding two dusty blankets in her magical grasp. She rushed over and set them down next to the unconscious mare. Twilight grabbed the blankets and folded one up before lifting Rainbow's body up with her magic. She placed the folded one under where her head would be and slid the other one under her body. She let Rainbow down.

"That sounds... neat?" Pinkie half asked, not quite sure what it meant for the speedy pegasus. "What sort of powers did she get?"

"Wait, powers? What did I miss?" Rarity asked, her head glancing around at her friends. Twilight sighed.

"Rainbow got possessed. The creatures you see around me-"

"Humans." Lady interjected. Dante, Trish and Nero looked to her, causing her to shrug with a smile.

"-Humans, freed her. But the possession left demonic power in her and now she's part demon. Did I miss anything?"

"Nope. Dante clarified. Rarity stood dumbfounded, in mild shock from the news.

"Fluttershy." Twilight turned to her meek friend. "I examined her when she passed out and she seems fine, I just need you to give her a once over and make sure there's nothing I missed."

"O-okay." Fluttershy moved over to Rainbow. She checked her skeleton... no cracks or breaks she could feel. She appeared to have some minor bruises and red marks, but showed no signs of internal bleeding. If there was some, she'd probably be awake and screaming in agony. Fluttershy opened Rainbow's eyelids to see her eyes. They were a little bloodshot but there were no damage to either eye. She then began to check pulses, heart rates and test the joints in her limbs as well as inspect her delicate ears and teeth. All in all, Dash seemed fine. But there was one last thing she couldn't check with Dash in an unconscious state.

"Did she um, take any blows to the head?" She asked. Trish and Lady looked to each other.

"Don't think so." Lady answered. Fluttershy smiled and nodded.

"Then she'll be fine, if a little in shock. Sounds like a pretty bad ordeal. We'll have to wait until she wakes up to know if her brain is still undamaged, but if she didn't take any trauma to the head she should be okay. But, um... T-Twilight?" The alicorn's head rose.

"You er... should really have taken her the hospital."

"Even at a half demon's lowest power, she should recover from any small amount of damage within the minute." The ponies turned to Dante.

"Why's that?" Twilight asked curiously.

"Demons, even half demons, can recover from major injuries quickly. I mean, watch this!" Dante pulled a pistol from his coat and without even looking, shot Nero in the side of the head. The dark blue coated halfling stumbled sideways in shock. The ponies screamed at the sudden loud noise and the fact that he just shot, one of his own friends.

"Argh! What the hell, Dante!?" Nero yelled at the devil hunter. The ponies stared in awe, amazed that the halfling was totally fine after being shot in the temple.

"Good practical example?" Dante said with a shrug. Nero glared at him before pulling out the bullet and throwing it at Dante's head. It pinged off the devil hunter's face and landed on the ground. "Hehe..." Dante picked up the mushroomed lead ball and shoved it in his coat pocket before turning back to the ponies. "If Rainbow Dash is half demon now, which I think she is, she should be able to take some good punishment. A few bruises should clear up soon enough."

"And you're... just gonna' take that?" Pinkie said to Nero. The halfling grunted and rubbed the side of his head.

"It's err, an in-joke." He explained. Lady spoke up to finish off.

"A long time ago when me and Dante first met, I shot him in the face. Ever since then it's been fashionable to shoot Dante in the head when he least expects it. Nero was the last one of us to do it, so I guess Dante wanted to return the favour." Lady chuckled when she finished her explanation. "That was pretty funny, you know?" She gestured to the devil hunter.

"I tried to help you!" Dante said in his own defence. "And you just shot me... twice!"

"'Well, this is my kinda' rain!'. Yeah, that's a helpful thing to say to someone who's falling to their death."

Dante looked out over the city from the ledge. Through the opening in the tower's outer walls he could see for miles on end. He could sit and look at the sun set but unfortunately he had a party to catch. He didn't have time for sight seeing. He was about to turn around and progress when he suddenly had an odd feeling...

He turned back to the open drop and thrust his arm out quickly. Clamping his hand shut as fast as he can, a heavy weight was lodged in his grip and he wobbled to balance himself out. He looked at his catch. It was the young woman he met after defeating Cerberus, her rocket launcher, pistols and sub machine gun all still with her, the metal adding to her weight. She looked at him confused, before blinking in shock. He smiled at the lady.

"Well... this is my kinda rain!" He said, pulling his left arm out for effect and looking up to the clouds. "No wonder the sky looked so funny today..." The lady was not amused.

"Let me go!" She barked, pulling a pistol and machine gun from her holsters and pointing them at his face.

"Let you go? Hehe, but it would be a shame if you ended up as just a pretty stain."

With that, the lady fired her pistol at Dante's face and hit him dead centre of his forehead. Dante recoiled and let her go as he stumbled out of her view. As she began to fall she pulled her launcher from around her shoulder and jammed the bayonet into the stone of the humongous tower. The friction slowly grinded her fall to a halt, and she dangled for a moment as she recovered.

"What the hell was that for!?" An annoyed voice came from above her. She looked up in surprise to see the red coated man come back with his arms held out and a small red hole in his head. "Here I am tryin' to help you, and you show you thanks by shooting me?" He put his hand to his chest, his voice quavering in an almost heart-broken manner.

The lady pulled out her pistol again and fired another shot, this time a spark flew from his face as his head jolted back. She flipped herself up onto the frame of her launcher and squatted, pointing her pistol up at the man again. He leaned back out and glared at her before spitting out the bullet. He glared for another moment before sighing.

"Whatever, do as you please." He said in an irritated tone, gesturing with hand before turning around and walking away. She listened to the footsteps fade away into a corridor before lowering her weapon.

"So he's a demon too..."

As Dante walked away from the ledge, he pulled the lead from his skull and dropped it onto the ground.
"I'm beginning to think I've got rotten luck with women." He lamented, striding through the corridor and looking for a way to move up the tower.

"Okay..." Twilight said to herself. "Personal rivalries aside, Rainbow is okay. And that's what matters." She looked up to the two demon hunters who were still giving each other dis-approving looks.

"Hmm?" Dante looked down at her with an inquisitive look. "Oh, err, yeah. Your friend is fine. That's good." He motioned with a hand. "So err, I was wondering..." He put his hand behind his head. Twilight looked up to him along with her friends. "Since we helped you and your friend is okay now, do you think you could do us a favour?" Twilight cocked her head.

"Do you a favour, Dante." Nero added in a venomous tone.

"Yeah, whatever."

"What sort of favour? I mean, I'm in debt to you for helping us. But er, from what I've seen of your line of work... I'm afraid to ask." She said nervously.

"My sword went missing after Berial ran away. You think you can help me find it? It's kind of a special blade, in a personal way." He patted his chest.

Twilight thought. "-Berial?... Oh! The terrifying lava demon!-"

"Well, last I saw of him, he was confronted by the Princesses. And since I haven't heard of any reports concerning him, my guess is he was either slain or captured. Of the princesses though... Well I'm sure they're fine. They're tough stuff. Maybe one of them would know?"

*Belch* A blast of green flame erupted from the little purple scaled dragon's maw. The demon hunter's 'ooh'd at the sight of a scroll materialising and beginning to fall. It couldn't complete it's fall though, and it was enveloped in a light purple glow.

"Speaking of..." Twilight said with a smug grin. "I used to be Celestia's student. I'm in contact with her."

"Sweetness!" Dante replied as he watched Twilight unroll the scroll. "Guessing that's from her?" He pointed at the scroll.

"Yup." She responded, not taking her eyes from the parchment before her.

"Ugh, parchment... Papyrus is so old school... reminds me of history class." Dante put a finger on his chin, as he remembered the good old days. "One of the five subjects I passed at school..." Nero raised an eyebrow.

"You only passed five subjects?" He asked, almost smirking at the thought of Dante getting his result papers, and the disapproving glare of his mother.

"Yeah. A's in History and PE, B in English and a C's in Mathematics and the Sciences. Failed everything else." He chuckled at his own failures as a kid. "Oh, my mother was so angry at me... Why, you got a problem?"

"Nah, just find it funny the great and powerful Dante was a dumbass at school, that's all."

"Go ahead then, how many subjects did you pass then Mr. Knowitall?" Dante crossed his arms.

"Nine. A Plus in PE, A's in English and French, B's in Mathematics and Science, and C's in Geography, Religious Studies and History."

"...Screw you."

"Dante?" Twilight asked, still looking at her letter.

"Yeah?"

"Your sword wouldn't happen to be a large Claymore with a screaming skull on the guard, would it?" She moved the letter past her eyes, allowing herself to gauge Dante's reaction. She smiled when she saw his face light up.

Vergil teleported out of the way of a scythe blade came slamming down into the ground infront of him with tremendous force. He watched the ground split and a wave of purple sparks erupting from the fissure. He felt his magic being drawn to the fountain, like the electricity that it was powered by fed upon it.

"-Void magic...-" Vergil recognised it immediately. Void magic was a type of magic that was powered by the magical energy it absorbed. The wall of crackling sparks were powered by ambient magic in the air, and since he held a huge amount of demonic magic himself, if he were to accidentally walk over them they would burn even more ferociously. He turned his head back to the opponent.

Clockwork held onto it's weapon, the short handled scythe hung over it's face and the blade half covering it's eyes. The amber glare shone over the stained metal, and created a corona of radiating energy that the blade seemed to absorb until it glowed with magic. Then the machine swung the blade back and swiped horizontally with blistering speed, a purple arc hanging in the air for a moment until it formed into a demonic sigil.

Vergil didn't have time to read it before it shone yellow with the glowing eyes of the machine behind it and exploded in a purple haze of lightning and smoke. Vergil covered his eyes to protect them from the mist that the explosion left behind, and once he was able to see again, he noticed Clockwork was nowhere to be seen. He looked around, his guard up and ready to face anything from anywhere around him. However he didn't think to check beneath him.

A column of lightning blasted up from the ground beneath his feat, launching him up into the air and tossing him head over heels. He was disoriented for a moment as he regained his balance in the air. Once he was upright, he teleported back down to the ground in a kneeling position, cursing himself for not thinking of the exotic attack in time. He didn't have enough time to pull himself back to a stand though, as the ground under him lit up once more. He took a steady breath to calm himself before teleporting once more.

In a blue blur he reappeared no less than five metres away to see another column of purple tinted lightning blast into the air behind him, before fading away. Then for a third time, the ground at his feet lit up again. Vergil figured out the technique being used was to catch him off guard and force him to move until he ran out of energy or got impatient. He calmly kept teleporting again and again, the blasts getting faster and faster, until after about six blasts of void lightning they stopped.

A purple sphere of energy appeared around Vergil as he stood in place, and he recognised the strategy as being much like one he used himself. The sphere he was surrounded by was a shield, meant to either trap an enemy or protect the user as they charged a more powerful attack. They worked on the principle that the magic warped space inside of it, and anything inside of the barrier was technically in a pocket dimension completely impenetrable to most physical attacks. Any other demon would be trapped. But not to a teleporter. Vergil had to use more power to teleport through a barrier, and as the blur of blue magic came to rest outside the barrier he grunted in frustration. Clearly Clockwork was far more powerful than the rest of the demons he had practised against so far.

He looked back to the sphere just in time to see the sphere become filled with blinding flashes, arcs of energy slicing across the barrier in rapid succession from every angle. He recognised that, too. The Judgement Cuts Yamato was capable of performing were oddly similar. That meant one thing. The blade used by the machine was a dark blade, just like Yamato. A blade so sharp and saturated with demonic power that it slices through nearly anything.

To his knowledge, Yamato was the only dark blade in existence. If the demonic realm hadn't accidentally lost any of it's special weapons, then the only other way it could have been created was with the mortal sacrifices of magi. Many mortal sacrifices. That's the only way it could exist. Vergil stood up as the ball of dimensional magic evaporated, and it it's place stood the machine, it's eyes glowing brighter than ever. The halfling glanced curiously at the blade before looking it in the eye.

"-The more magic it has to use, the brighter it's eyes must shine...-" He deduced. "-No issue, now I know when it's struggling to fight me.-" Clockwork was fighting him at range, staying well away from Vergil's Beowulf attacks. Vergil decided to bring the fight to his opponent.

He teleported into the air and went immediately into a starfall, angling his kick down and bringing the force of his greaves down on the machine. It dodged backwards and charged it's short scythe by pulling it back as Vergil made a small crater in the floor. Clockwork slashed at Vergil but the halfling turned sideways to avoid the swipe. He then jabbed at Clockwork and sparks erupted from the machine's face as it stumbled back, catching itself very quickly to return a wide horizontal slash at the blue coated devil.

Vergil had no choice but to dodge, backstepping out of danger with ease. He returned fast by launching himself forward with a straight lunge. To his surprise though, Clockwork was on point, and he parried with a raise of it's mechanical hoof, causing sparks to escape and fly away from the contact. The parry sent Vergil reeling after the metalic clash resonated through the arena, and Clockwork was on the offensive once more. It swiped horizontally from top to bottom.

Vergil spun around summoning a spiral of swords around him, his change of orientation allowing the scythe to pass by safely. He followed with a teleport to escape danger. Clockwork was pelted with crystalline swords smashing his metal hide and shattering to launch shrapnel into his face and endanger it's vitals. Meaning it had to stop mid combo. It glanced over to where Vergil had materialised.

"-Mmph. Again, Yamato would make this so much easier.-" Clockwork leaped forward, spinning in three-sixties and swiping in wide arcs around it's body. Vergil rolled to the left and began charging a rising sun, which the machine was too busy recovering to defend from. Vergil smashed his opponent with an uppercut and launched both him and Clockwork into the air. The machine let out a mechanical growl as Vergil's spins collided consistently, creating tears in it's metal plating and imparting spin upon it.

Vergil noted he stopped rising at the apex of his climb, and began charging an aerial lunar phase. He begun his first spin and brought his heel down on Clockwork... only to be halted as the force from his attack was channelled into what felt like a unbreakable wall. Clockwork had caught his leg in his mouth. The machine flexed it's synthetic fibrous muscles and threw Vergil at the ground with all it's might. Vergil didn't have time to teleport, and found himself bouncing along the floor like a rag doll. After a few bounces, he came to rest. The devil shook his head to shake away the dizziness and pushed him self to his feet, ready to fight once more.

"-Okay... it reacts too fast for back-to-back charged attacks... noted.-"

The machine fell heavily to the floor, softening it's landing with a bend in it's legs. It then used the force of the fall and re-directed the force into a leap. It closed the distance between it and Vergil incredibly fast. Vergil teleported to the side of the machine's lunge and began an uncharged combo of fast attacks. He threw two punches, left-right combo and both punches connected solidly with Clockwork's head causing it to stumble around and try and escape the stun. As it recovered, Vergil gave a short charge to a viscous whirlwind kick. Clockwork raised a hoof to try and catch the kick but was still recovering from Vergil's punches, so the hoof was merely batted out of the way. However the obstructed reduced the speed of Vergil's spin, so his second kick was slow enough to react to.

Clockwork backstepped out of the combo to let the last spin kick finish, then darted back in again and deliver a downward vertical slash that Vergil was unprepared for. Now it was Vergil's turn to stumble as the slash caused a spike of pain in his chest. Clockwork needed no cue, and brought the blade of his scythe before his eyes once more, the intimidating view of half his glowing eyes cascading light over the metal imbuing it with magic until it glowed at the same brightness. Then he slashed through vergil in a horizontal swipe.

Vergil was prepared for pain... but it didn't come. Instead, the arc of void energy left in the blade's wake formed into another sigil directly in-front of Vergil's face. He tried to dodge what he thought was going to be a column of lightning from below, but instead the sigil blasted a giant beam of energy point-blank into him.

The blast sent him sliding along the ground, his body erupting into pain as he was grinding along to dirt. Eventually, he forced himself sideways into a roll and he broke his speed and stopped himself from receiving anymore damage. He lay on the ground for a split second as he cursed himself once more. After berating himself for allowing a robot of all things to deal him so much damage, he shakily pushed his body back into a stand.

""NRRRRRGH!" He growled in pain as he slowly stood up straight. The void magic had drained his energy and he was now beginning to feel very tired. "This is what I get for fighting opponents without father at my side..." He grumbled to himself, feeling severely underpowered without his blade.

Then a voice cracked out into the air, carried on a sudden wind.

"STOP THIS AT ONCE!" It was the voice of the queen of the realm, Nightmare Moon. Vergil looked up to see her and the shadow demon floating down on a platform of darkness. They gracefully touched down onto the ground to interfere. "As entertaining as it is watching two professionals battle, you need to save your strength. At this rate you'll kill each other. You two are two of my best agents, I need your prowess on the field."

Vergil harrumphed, anger swelling in his soul. As much as he hated being ordered around... she was right. Vergil gave the grinning machine one last stare before a light enveloped his limbs and his devil arm was returned back to his being. And he watched as Clockwork slotted the blade of it's short scythe into a holster mounted on it's side.

"This isn't the last of this." He hissed at his opponent. Clockwork let out a nightmarish laugh, ending it in an low pitched growl.

"And I can't wait for the re-match!" It replied, it's voice resonating through the air. "You're a worthy opponent, you're not at full power and I'm betting you'll be even better with your blade. Besides, that was just a warm up..." He smiled evilly. "Next time, it'll be just us. Nothing to hold us back. Then we can see what each other are really made of, hmm?" The resonating tone to it's voice filled the air dread for some reason. Vergil's lips turned upwards, he liked this machine. No messing around, just strength and skill to back it up. All it needed to have, nothing more, nothing less. Still. Didn't make it any less annoying that he was caught off guard several times. Though Clockwork said it itself, he wasn't at full power and was missing his primary weapon. Being able to attack more efficiently at range with Yamato would be a huge benefit. He would enjoy the fight when they are both at their prime.

"Keep your fight for after we've destroyed the threats facing us, I need you at your best, understand?" Nightmare Moon explained sternly. Both her underlings nodded in understanding. "Good. I need you all at my throne in three hours. We will coordinate our plans and decide when to strike." She turned away from them and began making her way over to the elite demons watching in the stands to explain the same thing to them.

As she went, the shadow king Sombra gave Vergil an uneasy glance out of the corner of his eye before continuing on his way, following his mistress. Clockwork gave Vergil a grin, showing off his sharp teeth before turning and following after the queen of the night.

Vergil stood by himself in thought. With Clockwork in the mix his plans had just got a whole lot more difficult.

Devil May Cry: A New Battlefield

by Lazy_

Arc1 Start: Buisness as Un-usual (Edited)

Touching down

Demon Hunter-Hunters

Berial Part 1: Hell-Fire

Berial Part 2: Bon-Fire

Berial Final Part (3): Fire-Storm (Updated For Awesome 'Lucifer' Show-off)

Coming Back To Civilisation

Shameless Filler Chapter to Keep Everyone From Believing That I Have Forgotten About This Fic When The Actual Truth is That I Have Other Things on my Mind Right Now (Edit)

Geryon Is Afraid

"Ever had that feeling..."

A Dark Ritual

Demonic Introductions (Filler)

The Black Gargoyle

Doppelganger

The Devil Inside

(Short) Of Devils And Ponies

Super Fightin' Robot