“I-I’m… a de-de-deee—”

Gaaabooo does that whole head roll thing to signify he’s annoyed. “Demon! D-E-M-O-N. Tell me what’s hard to understand about this?”

“But… but…” I look at my hands as if they’re going to change to claws at a moment’s notice. “None of the crazy nightmares or demon stuff happened to me before I put on the crown.”

Gaaabooo cocks an eye… muscle… he doesn’t exactly have eyebrows. “Crown, eh? Is that how you transformed yourself?”

“It wasn’t supposed to do that!” I insist. “I expected it to turn into an alicorn!”

Gaaabooo scrunches up his forehead. “… What’s an alicorn?”

I briefly consider asking if Gaaabooo knows what a ‘unicorn’ and ‘pegasus’ are, but power on just in case he does and gets mad for me even asking. “An alicorn is a magical combination of a unicorn, pegasus, and earth pony.”

“Oh…” Gaaabooo says simply. “Wait… you transformed into a fully powered demon and you’re disappointed it wasn’t some stupid… fairy horse thing?!”

I sense I’ll be doing a lot of scowling in my immediate future. “I may not look like it, but I’m actually a unicorn.”

Gaaabooo smirks. “Ah, transmogrification spell so you can fit in with these humans and get away from some lame enchanted meadow?”

I shake my head. “No, I changed forms when I came to this dimension from my original.”

“Dimensional weirdness. Got it.”

You know, even though there’s a decent chance I’m going to maimed talking to this guy, it’s kind of refreshing to just talk about my magical circumstances and just have them taken at face value.

Gaaabooo continues, “Still, I can’t imagine why you’d be disappointed with the outcome.”

I really should just tape my eyebrows together at this point. “Maybe because the experience was like reliving the worst moments of my life while I watch a stranger enslave my school and prepares to march on my home world to take it over!”

“Well, the hostile takeover sounds like a big plus,” Gaaabooo gives me a confused look. “But what’s with this stranger business?”

I sigh and hang my head. “As soon as I put on the crown—”

“Oh yeah, that… What’s up with this crown, exactly?” Gaaabooo puts on a devilish grin as if it was tailor made for his face. “And do you have it with you still?”

“It was magical source of power from my home world and ‘no’, respectively.”

“Hmmmm, pity.”

“Anyhow, as soon as I put it on it felt like I was being ripped out of the driver’s seat of my body and then—” I sigh, I’m not sure if I’m ready to accept this part yet –“my demon self took over.” I feel my forehead tighten. Something about this does not make a lot of sense. “How can I be a demon and not know it until now? I mean… How the heck did I end up a unicorn in Equestria if that was the case?”

“… Equestria… is that some sort of frou-frou horse land you came from?”

I ponder Gaaabooo’s words for a moment. “That’s exactly what I meant.”

Gaaabooo nods. “Right, well, I may have exaggerated a little bit. It’s more you’re part demon or a distant descendan of one.”

I feel my left eye twitch involuntarily. “And you didn’t think it was important to make that distinction?”

“Nope!” Gaaabooo says with a smile.

I’d say, ‘it’s going to be one of those days’, but I don’t think I’ve ever had one quite like this… and given the last few, that’s really saying something.

Still… this is quite the revelation. It really… it explains everything that’s happened in my life to this point! “It… it all makes sense now! The lusts for control… for power. The reason I have trouble forming bonds with people! The reason I’ve been a total bitch to nearly everyone I’ve met for all these years!”

Gaaabooo shrugged. “Or maybe you’re just an unpleasant person looking for a reason to or your cruddy behavior on so you don’t have to take any personal responsibility for it.”

I narrow my eyes at Gaaabooo. Ouch… I mean… He’s not exactly wrong, but ‘ouch’ though.

“What?” Gaaabooo protests. “What does it matter if it’s your blood or not? It’s still part of you, it’s not like you can just exercise your blood out of you!” Gaaabooo’s slasher smile returns. “Now we can certainly exsanguinate the blood out of you.”

I give Gaaabooo an unamused look. “Any part of me having demon blood means I’ll survive when all my blood is outside my body?”

Gaaabooo’s smile remains in place as he shakes his head. “Nope! Not at all!”

I roll my eyes. “I thought as much. How is it you know so much about all this?”

Gaaabooo grins devilishly once more. “Isn’t it obvious?”

I carefully examine Gaaabooo once more. Well, he certainly looks like a demon… then again… there’s something about him… not exactly ‘normal’. His strange appearance certainly means he’s not from around here. Still, maybe he wasn’t exactly forged out of the raging hellfires of punishment, or wherever it is demons are born from.

“You’re… you’re like me?” I venture. “Someone born with demon blood?”

Gaaabooo nods his head up and down. “Give the, presumably-pretty-by-human-standards, lady a prize!”

“Okay, so if you’re not a demon, then what are you?” I wrack my brain trying to figure out what Gaaabooo might be. He sort of resembles an eviler version of a gremlin from back home, but there’s no telling if that has anything in common with what he really is.

Gaaabooo shakes his head. “Frou-frou horse land in this place must be quite boring if you don’t have goblins to keep you all on your toes.”

Well… I did read about goblins from mythology, though Gaaabooo looks quite a bit nastier than the ‘mischievous little elves’ the books I read mentioned and more like the video game or RPG version of a goblin.

Gaaabooo continues in proud tone, “Yep! I was goblin born and raised! War Priest of a tribe that’s long gone at this point.”

“Erm… I’m… sorry?”

“Nawww, it’s fine. They were mostly jerks anyways. Flammable jerks.”

I don’t think I really want to know how Gaaabooo found that out. “Alright… So why look for me? And how did you know where to find me anyhow?”

Gaaabooo chuckles. “It just so happens that the same demon who decided to mate with something that wasn’t made out of fire and pointy bits is a mutual ancestor of ours.” He extends his hand. “Put it there, cousin.”

I hesitate for a moment, Gaaabooo’s nails are long, jagged, and sharp-looking… and his hand is grimy, grubby, and dirty-looking.

Gaaabooo clenches his jaw and starts speaking through clenched teeth, “Shake my hand or I’ll sever yours and get that handshake anyway.”

I reach out and shake Gaaabooo’s hand. I doubt he’s bluffing. Gaaabooo is nice enough to not squeeze my fingers painfully or anything. Though, that might be because he’s satisfied with the level of terror he’s already inflicted on me.

Gaaabooo retracts his hand. “Anyways, you haven’t been hard to find for those paying attention. Twice you’ve suddenly jumped in power!” Gaaabooo shakes his head. “And with what followed, this world might as well put up a sign that said ‘Hey, there’s a fresh magic here ready for the devouring. Come and get it!”

Well… Great… It just figures everything is my fault. Guess it wasn’t enough I screw up my own life, I have to screw up an entire world as well.

“Geez, don’t look so glum about it!” Gaaabooo says.

My expression must have telegraphed what was on my mind.

Gaaabooo gives me the… er… friendliest smile I’m sure he can manage. “Look on the bright side! Now you have me to help you out.”

Be still my beating heart. “So… what…? This is just your way of meeting family?” I give Gaaabooo a suspicious look. “How do you know we’re related anyways?”

“Hehe… Can’t you feel the bound of kinship between us?”

“… Not as such, no.”

Gaaabooo shrugs. “The important thing is I’m here now, and I can help you—”

Don’t say ‘take over the world’, don’t say ‘take over the world’…

Gaaabooo clenches a fist as his expression goes distant with eyes that seem to shimmer with raging fires underneath “—Wage war on this miserable world and everyone who stands in our way!”

… That was not better…

… Like…

… At all…

I decide to come clean with Gaaabooo. “But I don’t want to wage war on the world.” I figure either he agrees to help me, decides to leave me alone, or straight up just decides to murder me. I’m fine with any option at this point (yeah, yeah… It’s been a pretty miserable several days).

“Oh?” Gaaabooo asks in a surprised tone. “Then what do you want?”

“Just to figure things out so I can live a somewhat normal life before I messed everything up?!”

Gaaabooo shakes his head. “Lady, not sure how much attention you’ve been paying, but you’re part demon whether you like it or not! I think ‘normal’ is pretty out of the question.” Gaaabooo looks up. “Besides, why would you want to live a boring, regular life when you can have crazy, demon powered adventures?”

“Ugh… I’ve kind of had my fill of those already!”

Gaaabooo shrugs. “Tough—” Gaaabooo looks away as if he’s searching for a word “—those-things-you-have-on-your-chest.”

Classy.

Gaaabooo gives me a serious look. “You’ve got demon blood running through you. Powerful arch-demon blood. You best get used to that idea, lady.

I slouch my shoulders. “So what…? I’m just going to live my life with screwed up dreams every night and pass out if I get too close to a church?!”

Gaaabooo’s brow tightens and he stares at me for an extended beat. “… Wow… What did you do to yourself?!”

“I told you! I put on the crown and it changed me into a raging-she demon! Now every night the demon kills me off in a ‘dream’ and I can’t so much as walk by a church without my head starting to throb.”

“Huh… I guess that’s what you get for rushing things.” Gaaabooo shakes his head. “I think most of us ease into being part demon. Those that even find out about our heritage, at least” He smiles and shakes his head. “Jumping into it like that must have screwed you up bad.”

“I noticed, thanks.” I raise an eyebrow. “There’s more like us?”

“Hehe… Our great, great, great, whatever-granddad really got around,” – Gaaabooo elbows me with a rather goofy look on his face— “ifyouknowwhatImean.”

“Yes, I understood that, thanks.”

“Anyhow, I doubt any of them would be much help to you. They’re too busy with their own agendas.” Gaaabooo’s eyes widened. “In fact, this is the longest conversation I’ve had with any of my… relatives.”

Riveting. Well, as informative as this has all been. I really need to figure this out, and I doubt Gaaabooo is going to help out of the ‘goodness’ of his heart.

“Well Gaaabooo, thanks for stopping by, but I really need to try fixing my life, so…”

“I can help.”

“… What?” He can’t be serious.

“I said, ‘I can help’.” Gaaabooo’s smile returns. “Don’t get the wrong idea, the fact that you’re family or pathetically desperate doesn’t matter to me.”

Ugh… This is not going to be fun…

“But, you did manage to do something quite strange regarding your demon heritage and I can’t help but think that learning more would be useful information to have.”

“… Don’t tell me you want to try the process on yourself?!”

“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Gaaabooo says darkly. “At the least I’d like to learn more.” Gaaabooo motions to my mess of a desk which is essentially the leftovers of a botched arts and craft project. “And you definitely can use the help.”

I’d say I hope I don’t regret this, but I’m long past that point now. “Alright… You can help. But I want control over my demon side or whatever. Not to embrace it and make things worse!”

Gaaabooo gives me a dismissive wave. “Don’t be so paranoid! Hopefully we can get you to the point where you’re not all ‘split personality about this’.” He gives me a devilish smile that emerged straight out of the inferno of Hell itself. “Besides, if I decide to betray you, there’s not a lot you can do about it.”

That is not comforting… at all.

“So!” Gaaabooo says, as evilly cheerful as ever. “Do you want to tell your two minions we’ll be working together?”

… Wait, how’d he know about Snips and Snails…? Don’t tell me he knows that much about me. “What are you talking about?”

“Those two lazy, soft looking girls you make sleep outside!”

… What?!

“Hehe… For a second there I thought I might have to kill them if they interrupted if they were your inept discount body guards or something, but—”

I barely hear Gaaabooo as I march across the apartment and open up the blinds to my small apartment patio. The dingy light of sunrise is just starting to vanquish the horrible night, but I’d have to be blind to miss the brightly colored sleeping bags or the mops of pink and rainbow colored hair sticking out of them.

I sigh and shake my head. “Gaaabooo, can you give me a minute?”

“Are you going to give them a thrashing for their incompetence?” Gaaabooo’s grin widens. “Can I watch?”

“Gaaabooo, I realize there’s not a lot I can do to stop you, so I’m going to ask politely. Please stay inside and don’t make too much noise. I have almost no friends and I’m not likely to get many more after the whole demon transformation which was weird enough. It’d be great if I didn’t have to explain your presence on top of everything.”

“Fine, fine,” Gaaabooo replies dismissively. “But if they’re not going to help, then get rid of ‘em.” Gaaabooo eyes one of the books on the floor, picks it up, and starts scanning it. “We’ve got work to do.”

I wordlessly exit and quickly close the patio behind me. Pinkie and Rainbow Dash are snoring away as if they’re both snug in their own beds. They slept through the conversation with Gaaabooo and his attack on my shin. I really hope the other girls didn’t send them as part of an early warning system.

“Hey! Wake up!” I nudge each girl with my feet.

Pinkie murmurs and rolls up onto her back as it looks like a leg extends up inside it and she puts her arm straight up in front of her. Other than that, she continues snoring. How the heck can she sleep like that?!

Rainbow just mutters as she rolls onto her side, “Just 30 more minutes…”

I smack a palm against my forehead. I don’t have time for this.

Leaning down, I shake Rainbow’s shoulders. “Hey! Wake up! I need answers.”

Rainbow Dash rolls onto her back and looks up at me. I feel a pang of regret as I notice the bandages on her face where my claws gave her a set of vertical lines.

“Oh, Sunset Shimmer…” she says sleepily. She yawns and slowly sits up. “You’re not a demon, that’s awesome.”

“Relatively speaking to everything that’s happened to me, yes, ‘that’s awesome’.” I nudge Pinkie with my foot and she makes a noise like a dog’s squeeze toy and continues snoring. “Now, how do we wake her up?”

“Pinkie?” Rainbow asks as she crawls out of her sleeping bag wearing pajamas. “That’s easy!”

I look Rainbow Dash up and down quizzically. “You girls leave to get sleepover gear?”

“Naw,” Rainbow answers as she bends down in front of Pinkie. “Pinkie always brings several extra sets of pjs and sleeping bags for all of us with her.”

“… Why?”

Rainbow Dash shrugs. “In case of sleepover emergencies, as she puts it.” She reaches over and pinches Pinkie’s nose and covers her mouth. Unable to breath, Pinkie’s eyes shoot open and she flails at Rainbow Dash’s arms.

“Snort… Ghk!” She swats away Rainbow’s hands and bolts upright. “Oh! Good morning, Dashie!” she says in a tone most definitely not of someone who was just being suffocated.

“Hey, Pinkie.” Rainbow replies as she stands up.

“SUNNY!” Pinkie says excitedly as she wraps her arms around me and squeezes tightly.

“Hrgk… Hey… Pinkie… Good morning…”

Pinkie loosens her grip. “You’re not a demon!”

I feel an annoyed look make its way onto my features.

“Yeah, we’ve been over that,” Rainbow says with a slight grin.

I look back and forth between the two girls. “What the heck are you two even doing out here?”

“You really don’t remember?” Rainbow Dash asks in disbelief.

“I was a demon again last night, Rainbow,” I say in an irritated tone. “And when I got home I spent the night frantically going through books while I went all arts and crafts on my chest!” I unbutton my jacket a little just so Rainbow Dash can see the smear of silver and glue still on it.

Rainbow Dash raises her arms in front of her defensively. “Alright, take a chill pill! It was a tough night for all of us.”

“I…” I wisely come to my senses and shut my trap. Considering the girl in front of me is sporting bandages from cuts I inflicted, it’s probably not a good time to play ‘who had the worse night’.

Pinkie speaks up, cheerful as ever. “We promised we’d look after you, silly!”

Rainbow Dash nodded. “Yeah! You were so happy you wouldn’t stop thanking us for like a minute.”

I sigh and rub the side of my head. “Sorry… Everything’s still a blur.”

Pinkie nods. “Well, you weren’t exactly making a lot of sense last night… I mean, when you were done thanking us you got mad that we were both stupid enough to get in a car with you, and demanded I pull over and throw you into the street.”

Rainbow Dash chuckles. “Yeah. It was nice of you to show so much concern, even if you were screaming at us the entire time.”

I raise both my hands up to my face and cover it. It’s a good thing for me the girls aren’t… well, me. I probably would have recorded the whole episode in case I ever needed to blackmail… myself. “Alright… but why are you out here? I mean… I don’t know if I would have let you in but, I’m a bit surprised you didn’t even ask.”

“Well, first we thought it’d be a good idea to follow you inside, but you ran to your apartment so fast and screamed to leave you alone or you’d shoot fireballs at us so then we thought maybe we’d give you some space and I then I was all like, ‘Hey! We can sleep outside! It’s be like a fun camping trip!’ And then Rainbow Dash was like, ‘Yeah, only except our friend might turn into a demon and kill us!’”

“Pinkie!” Rainbow Dash protested.

“But then I said, “Then it’ll just be like in the movies! Spoooooky!’ And then—”

Rainbow Dash interrupted. “And then I said, ‘Whatever! Just so long as we make sure she’s safe.”

I sigh and shake my head. “Okay, well I’m safe and not likely to transform soon. You two can go.”

Pinkie puffs out her lower lip. “But… but don’t you want our help?”

I raise an eyebrow. “You two know a lot about the supernatural in demons?”

Pinkie smiles. “I ate a ghost pepper once!” Her eyes glaze over “Awwww… it burnt sooooo good!”

My face tightens once again. “That’s not helpful…”

Rainbow Dash puts an arm on my shoulder. “Look, Sunset. You don’t have to do this alone!”

I consider blowing Rainbow Dash off, but think better of it. I gotta play this right. Hopefully I can do this in such a way to maintain the already bruised, if not engulfed in flames, friendship and keep Gaaabooo a secret. I place my hand on top of Rainbow’s. “I appreciate that, I really do. But I got myself into this mess… I think I need to get myself out. You know… like a spiritual journey of self-discovery… or something…” Oh my God, that sounds so lame the girls will never—

Pinkie gasps. “Oh my gosh, Sunset! Are you going to go wander through the wilderness to discover yourself?!”

Rainbow Dash nods in approval. “That does sound pretty bitchin’…”

“Uh, yeah! I’m going to go out into the woods and sit under a waterfall… Really look for the inner me, you know?”

Pinkie’s eyes light up. “That’s soooo cool.”

Rainbow Dash puts both arms on my shoulders. “Alright, I approve. Just remember we’re here for you, a’ight?”

I nod and put on what is hopefully not too fake a smile. “You got it! As soon as I’m done aligning my chakras, I’ll contact you girls.”

The girls give me big hugs before collecting their sleeping bags.

“Bye-byeeee!” Pinkie says with a wave. “Say hello to your spirit animal for me!”

I flinch but maintain my smile and wave. “I will! See you soon!” I sure hope Gaaabooo isn’t my spirit animal. Once the girls are out of sight I open the sliding door to my apartment and step in.

Gaaabooo has already created a sort of organized mess with the books I had out and is examining several pages of them.

“Took you long enough,” he says while examining an image of a man with bat wings and claws wearing only a crown hold a snake and ride a dragon. He looks up and gives me one more demonic smile. “Ready to face your destiny?”

I give Gaaabooo a determined look. “I’m ready.” I march over to my desk and grab my tablet. “Let’s get to work.”