Original Link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/189h1oJP9QQvkd1KTyFJUy4y8wOHGR-5fXnyrDnhTYwU/edit?usp=sharing

To everyone’s great displeasure, Twilight announced the next morning that the entire settlement had to be abandoned and everything they had built so far needed to be deconstructed again. Some of the survivors had grown fond of the idea of having their new base hidden deep inside of an ancient forest, living like heroic wildlings under the protection of this maze. But the arguments against this idea were simply too dominant. Lack of food, lack of defense and the fact that they were being looked for made it rather clear that they couldn’t stay. So began another period of aimless wandering, something pretty much everyone in the rebellion had grown very tired of, including Twilight. Being stuck in this Post-Red-Day-State frustrated her. She and the other members of the circle wanted to finally move on. But first, they would have to go somewhere where the Underworld League could not reach them. The very thought seemed impossible to achieve. Where in the world would they still be safe from the demons? From the cult? From Blueblood? It would have to be a place that is extremely well hidden, but finding such places and turning them into strongholds was a specialty of the demons. It would have to be a place that is so well fortified, they would be able to withstand a large-scale onslaught. Yet that, too, had always been a major focus of the demons for centuries. But there still had to be a place left somewhere. A place the demons didn’t think of or couldn’t reach, yet. It just had to be somewhere out there: Their new home.

The days passed by. Each night, the rebels would set up a temporary camp, only to take it down again the next day and move on. Twilight tried her very best to keep them all motivated, but this seemingly eternal peregrination was sickening. This brought a few positive aspects, though. Constantly being on the move to new ground made the rebellion stumble across the occasional food, water and herbal medicine supply. The cannibal mare… Maud Pie… hadn’t been showing any signs of activity ever since they started walking, suggesting that she had lost track of them and thus giving a sensation of relief and security to the rebels. Caramel and Applejack had become very close again and seemed to support each other even more than usual. But somewhat surprisingly, it was Derpy who did the most in order to keep the spirits of the rebels high.

Something must have changed for her to the better, since the gray reaper mare was now more casual and relaxed than she had been in months. It probably was surviving the Red Day, most members of the leadership circle assumed. During the whole preparation for that day, she had been very tense and even though it ended in such a catastrophe, she and many others made it through alive. She clearly showed her relief, really letting down her mane now and being silly again, to the point of being amusing. Additionally, she started turning into a bit of a prankster, using her extensive knowledge of rune magic to trick her allies. While this may sound like not much, her carefree spirit truly helped lighten the mood. For the first time in ages, Twilight could see the rebels smile again.

But not everypony was smiling. Celestia’s state did not change at all. Her eyes lacked shine as they constantly focused the ground. She always seemed to be lost in thought and became very introversive. She barely spoke a word or participated in any activities. Twilight was worried. In this state, she would not be able to retake the throne of Equestria and rule the land again. Even though the mere chance to do so was still far away on the horizon, they needed to be prepared to jump at the opportunity as soon as it presented itself to them. It was clear Celestia needed help. All she had witnessed was just too much for her and Twilight knew she was feeling guilty for every single death that ever happened since the war began, more than a thousand years ago. But as wise as Twilight may be now, as powerful as she may have become, she did not know how to help. Celestia just wouldn’t get out of her state no matter how many times Twilight tried to talk to her. Perhaps only time could tell if she would ever recover.

Another day ended. Another night began. Shelters were set up and the rebels gathered around for a little entertainment from Derpy. The interest in her tricks using runes increased gradually over time, now having reached the point where she was openly demonstrating how to draw and use runes, performing several tricks in front of a growing audience. For her next trick, Derpy wanted to create something without much purpose other than looking impressive. She drew another rune on the ground and carefully placed small rocks in the air above it. As the rune began to emit a soft glow, Derpy let go of the rocks, letting them float in place as if they had been affixed into the air. She then started asking for increasingly larger objects, letting them all float motionlessly above the rune. An Equestrian Bit, a leaf, a stick, even an entire armor. But suddenly, something flew into the rune from behind Derpy. Being tossed in like that, the rune could not grab onto it and instead the object landed on the lines, blurring them. This caused the rune to malfunction and the objects scattered around.

“Hey! Who was that? I was in the middle of something!” The gray mare protested.

No one could be seen. Two griffons decided to investigate. After all, it could be an enemy. But while they were going, Derpy’s focus went to the object that had been thrown into her show so rudely. Almost instantly, her eyes shot wide open.

“Stop! Don’t go!” Derpy shouted.

The griffons were confused, but quickly came back. Without any explanation, Derpy grabbed the object and flew over to Twilight, who had been observing the whole scenario. The gray mare held another rock cut in diamond pattern, a single word carved into it: ‘Run’. Twilight did not waste any time and got up right away.

“Everyone! We have been found! Grab anything you can and run!” she shouted.

Chaos broke loose. Very hastily, the rebels picked up only the most essential things, leaving behind their shelters and luxuries they had created over the past few weeks. Twilight made sure no one was left behind before she started running herself.

The rebellion dashed through the woods, creating a passage through the branches whenever they needed to. They were running, but heard nothing. So far, nothing seemed to be nearby. But even though the one this warning came from was questionable, Twilight had no reason to believe Maud was just tricking them. Judging by how skilled she was, she must have spotted the aggressors from some good distance away, giving them plenty of time to escape.

That assumption quickly turned out to be false, though. Out of nowhere, demons jumped at them. The rebels instantly grouped together, defending themselves while the reapers were going for the offense. The first wave was quickly disabled and consume, but more kept coming. Twilight didn’t want to take any chances and created another arcane force field, separating them all from the demons.

“Keep going!” she shouted, starting to run again with the magic shield following her movement.

Some of the backmost rebels found themselves being scooped up by the magic, but quickly jumped back on their legs and continued running. There was no chance to put effort into minding the forest around them, so the force field just broke through every tree in the way, creating a wide and clearly visible passage through the woods. From a strategic point of view, it would not matter anyway. They would not be able to lose the demons in the forest and it only hindered their visibility. Twilight needed to force her way out into the open. After guiding the group over a hill, she could see a large opening in the forest nearby. This would have to do for now, she figured. It would give them a chance to orient themselves and find a possible opportunity to get away from the attackers.

Trying to get there as quickly as possible, Twilight shot an arcane bolt ahead, clearing the path to prevent the group from getting slowed down. As soon as they arrived, the scale of the attack finally became clear. Nearly a hundred demons were following them out of the twisty woods, aiming to surround the sphere and attack it from all directions, just like during the Red Day. This brought back far too many traumatic memories for the surviving rebels. Some started screaming, some crying, others just collapsed in place or became paralyzed in fear.

The leadership circle, though, kept a clear head. They all looked around hastily, scanning the area for a way to escape. Fluttershy lifted into the air as high as the sphere allowed it. From up here, she spotted something in the ground nearby.

“There is a ravine over there!” she announced.

Twilight immediately started running again, causing a large amount of rebels to be pressed against the shield. At this point, she just wanted to get them out of danger by any means necessary. Though the demons took her disregard for the rebels’ immobility with humor, pressing their faces, tongues, teeth and claws against the force field wherever an eye was on the inside. Before Twilight could reach the ravine, the demons figured out what she was aiming to do. About half of them rushed ahead, jumping down the chasm just moments before group arrived at the cliff. The purple mare was forced to pull a full break, her four legs sliding across the grass for a few inches. But before she could come to a stop, the momentum tossed the rebels against her. She needed to use her magic to prevent herself from falling down, dragging everyone along with her.

Again, the rebels found themselves presented with a terrifying sight. Sitting or laying on something that felt like nothing more than a thin layer of purple glass, they could see the demons grin at them from below, snarling at them and reaching up in anticipation. Fortunately, they were only forced to hang like this for a moment, as Twilight lifted everyone back on top of the cliff, despite the demons behind them trying to push them down. The rebellion now found all its escape routes cut off, surrounded by a line of demons on one side and an abyss filled with demons on the other.

“We’re trapped!” Applejack shouted.

“We handled larger numbers than that! We just need… to…” Twilight started, but suddenly found her mind getting clouded.

Along with her, the behavior of almost all rebels and reapers changed. They suddenly became still, their eyes wide and their ears perking up. A melody was filling the air, given from a voice of otherworldly beauty. They turned towards the source, discovering that the demon Succubus was on the other side of the Ravine, singing to them and beckoning them over. Like before, Fluttershy was the only one unaffected by the demon’s seductive capabilities. Everyone else, Twilight included, dropped their guards and started walking back towards the ravine.

As Twilight’s eyes returned from white to purple and the force field disappeared, the demons instantly started attacking from behind. At the same time, the frontmost rebels just stepped into the void, falling down into the ravine and right into the maws and claws of demons. Fluttershy was forced to defend herself for a moment. But as soon as she could, she fled from the attack and flew over to Twilight, covering her eyes and ears. The purple mare instantly snapped out of the trance, her eyes clenching shut under her friend’s front leg and her teeth pressed together while she reformed the barrier around them. Just this time, she additionally cast a spell to make the force field soundproof.

Twilight really felt like cussing herself for not seeing this coming. Again, lives were lost because for just mere moments, she lost control. She turned her head away from the red and black demoness, but nearly everyone else was still staring at Succubus, enabling her to keep luring the rebels, making them push the sphere towards the gorge.

“Agh… Stop! Don’t look at her!” Twilight shouted in attempt to make them snap out of it.

Her words remained unheard. Looking at the demoness directly seemed to strengthen her hold on them even more than just listening to her voice. Now that she wasn’t focusing on the Insatiable Lust anymore, Twilight realized that the Guillotine of Hope, Despair, and the Faceless Horror, Slendermane, were present as well. Despair was down in the ravine, pulling on the sphere while the pale demon’s countless black arms pushed from behind. It was hard for Twilight to focus on all this, trying to keep the force field soundproof, stable and immobile. But still, she could come to an analysis.

“It’s only those three! Malice and Toxica aren’t here!” she shouted out.

“Then we have a chance to fight back! Open up the force field, I’m going out!” Fluttershy requested.

“You alone? Against this many demons? Even with The Stare, that is suicide!” Twilight stated, focusing her magic to create a pair of earplugs, but needing several seconds to summon them due to most of her concentration going into the sphere. “Take Ditzy with you! Focus on Slendermane, he is giving me the most trouble! If the two of you can just distract him for long enough, I can bring the rest of us out of here!”

The yellow reaper mare quickly nodded and grabbed the plugs, flying over to Derpy. Her glass eye had rolled into her head at this point, but her still good eye was locked down on Succubus. Fluttershy stepped right in between the line of sight, causing Derpy to come back to her senses, shaking her head wildly. Without saying a word, Fluttershy presented the earplugs to her. Derpy understood without any need for words and gained a serious expression while she quickly put them in.

Both reapers summoned their weapons and lifted into the air. Twilight timed an opening in the top at just the right time for both of them to pass through. Deliberately facing away from the ravine and Succubus, both looked down to the demons. Derpy realized that Fluttershy wasted no second, as the demons instantly froze into place. Only Slendermane saw this coming and had his head turned away from them, launching black hands towards the yellow mare.

Despair realized what was going on and changed her plan. She was now climbing up the walls in order to assist her other member of the Underworld League. But Twilight decided she would not let her. With the demons now no longer attacking the shield, she could bring up the focus to block off Despair’s path up. Although that only ended up in another power struggle. The demoness kept on changing her form and even turned liquid in attempt to squeeze through the gaps in Twilight’s defence while using a large arsenal of spells to break the shield.

Succubus, though, realized that her singing had little point at this moment anymore. All she needed to do was standing there, keeping the focus of the rebels on her. She chuckled a little as she watched in delight as the entranced rebels tried to get to her.

A vast amount of black arms erupted from Slendermane’s back. Once again, it seemed like this ancient demon was simply too powerful to be defeated. He could block off all attacks both reapers dished out on him with ease, all while still pushing on the sphere. Both Fluttershy and Derpy knew that just one bad movement would be enough for him to capture and kill them, so they both were playing it safe, trying to keep their distance.

Derpy realized that this was going nowhere. It took dozens of reapers to even stand a remote chance against Slendermane. So what were just the two of them supposed to accomplish? Suddenly, a thought rushed through her head. She didn’t even give it a second thought and just immediately changed her direction midflight. She flew away from the battle, leaving Fluttershy alone with this powerful demon. Both the yellow mare and Slendermane seemed to be surprised about this. Even Twilight saw her, disbelief written on her face. Was she seriously abandoning them now?

But then, Derpy’s course changed again. She flew a large circle around the ravine, covering her eyes while flying straight up to Succubus from behind. She saw her coming and for the first time, the red and black demoness showed shock in her expression. She could not dodge fast enough before Derpy crushed right into her, exploding into a black cloud.

“No! Not now! This is too early! I can’t just fade like that! No! NO!” Succubus screamed as the black fog engulfed her more and more, unable to fight back.

For having such an impressive power, it turned out that Succubus is actually completely incapable of defending herself. Her greatest strength was alluring creatures to fight for her. But she didn’t have any at her disposal this time. She got careless. After just a few moments of struggle, Succubus was gone.

Instantly, all rebels came back to their senses. At the same time, all demons, including Despair, seemed to be extremely shocked. The tables had turned for this battle. Twilight let the barrier disappear and several reapers charged at Slendermane, while Fluttershy kept the rest of the demons paralyzed and easy prey for the more inexperienced reapers staying back. It only took a couple of minutes more before the demons in the ravine and the other two remaining members of the Underworld League realized that they had lost the fight and started to retreat.

While it is true that Slendermane is by far the oldest and most experienced demon, capable of keeping dozens of reapers in check, just one accidental glimpse at Fluttershy’s Stare would immobilize him. That would be his defeat, a risk he could not take. He did not survive more than one thousand years by being very careful with every step he took to be taken down in a quick assault like that for getting sloppy, especially when another member of the Underworld League had just been defeated. So, Slendermane just instantly disappeared into the shadow beneath him.

As the last regular demon still present was devoured, the rebels started cheering in victory. They actually did it! After all the terrible things that had happened and all the failures, they managed to defeat a large onslaught of demons!

Twilight’s eyes kept darting around, looking for any more enemies. Off in the distance, she saw Despair staring back. Her expression was furious, her eyes burning with hate and giving away that she would love to kill her and all of her friends right now. Though she decided to not follow that notion, just teleporting away. Finally, Twilight allowed herself to take a deep breath in relief.

“Good job, everyone,” she commented.

Fluttershy was still hovering in the air, scanning the area for threats. She realized that Derpy was still lying on the ground, not moving since she devoured Succubus. The yellow mare decided to fly over and check on her. But before she could even put a hoof on Derpy, the gray mare started moving on her own, quickly getting up again. It seemed like she only needed a moment to handle this.

“Oh man… That was a big one… Never had to take in that much demonic energy before…” Derpy commented, now realizing Fluttershy had her eyes wide open. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Fluttershy did not respond. She simply grabbed the gray mare and flew back with her to the others. As they got to see Derpy, most rebels stopped cheering and gasped. Even Twilight had her mouth wide open.

“W-what is it? Did something happen to me?” Derpy asked in worry.

Quickly, Twilight’s expression changed to a smile as she created a magical mirror.

“Ditzy. You are not an apprentice anymore!” she announced while showing Derpy her own reflection.

Now even she had to gasp in shock, but it was much heavier than anyone else did. Her glass eye still looked fine, of course. Just wandering around aimlessly as usual. But her good eye was no longer yellow.

“It’s… it’s black! My eye is black! Oh my gosh! Finally!” Derpy started shouting and celebrating.

“She must have been made out of a whole lot of demonic energy. Congratulations,” Fluttershy commented.

“Aw man! I have been waiting for ages!” Derpy cheered, then suddenly stopped. “Oh shoot! I need a new glass eye now!”

“Let me take care of that, darling,” Rarity offered happily.

Hearing her friend’s voice made Twilight go wide-eyed and her expression filled with worry. She realized she hadn’t checked on everyone yet. Her eyes darted around, spotting one friend after the other. She sighed again as she realized that everyone was still alive and well, then turned back to her reaper friend.

“Well, you deserve it, Ditzy. That was a great move! You saved all of us!” the purple mare spoke.

Another short celebration followed with the rebels picking up the gray mare and tossing her into the air repeatedly like the hero she was. She clearly relished this, laughing and smiling widely as she was flung into the air and came back down. It was a much needed celebration, a much needed victory to keep the rebellion motivated. Not only did they survive, they also delivered a heavy blow to the Underworld League, stripping them of one of their most useful members. At last, things were looking up again.