Once we and all the supplies and workers are through, half of my soldiers head back through the portal and to the barracks.

The moment the portal closes, Twilight grabs Pinkie's hand and drags her off to the pile of materials we have and starts rummaging through it while telling Pinkie to levitate what she selects.

I leave them to their project and turn to Mel. "Let's get you set up shall we?" I tell her, getting a smile and nod from her.

So for the next thirty or so minutes, we built a basic looking bar counter with mugs and cups of various sizes, and many, many barrels of different drinks behind the counter. There's also a tarp over the top in case of bad weather.

"Hmmm, not the most welcoming bar, but it'll serve its purpose for now. Who knows? Once the town is built, you could open your bar here? This planet is remarkably close to resembling earth. I recognise some plants and animals that live here," I tell my Sister, who is thinking over what I just said.

"I guess so, the air is fresher and the temperature is cooler here," she replies and looks over her bar and supplies.

"True, a lot less of a brimstone and sulphur scent, but you get used to it. Well then, I'll leave you to your own devices, just don't charge them anything for the drinks and only one mug per demon, We'll get more drinks sent over later," I tell her and start walking away.

Over the next couple of hours, I observe and help if needed as the foundations for the main office for town affairs, the supply warehouse for materials, and the town's Barracks are just about finished.

Mel is having fun running the refreshment counter, and it seems the demons are taking a shine to her and talking with her while they have their drinks.

Twilight is frowning as she concentrates on her project where Pinkie is holding parts in place for a portal frame made of demonite and hell-iron for braces and reinforcement.

Everything is going along smoothly until I hear a commotion above us as a Harpy flies down and gets my attention.

"My Lord, a small demonic bird is heading this way," she tells me.

"Bird?" I say confused and frown as I focus and just feel it coming this way, the thing is, it has my demonic signature...

I fly up over the trees and the Harpy follows me. Once above, she points towards the bird and I frown as I can see dark-fire surrounding the animal. As it gets closer, I notice it's black and about the size of...

"Wait a minute... Noctis!?" I mumble to myself in surprise.

The bird finally reaches us and without hesitation, lands itself on my left shoulder. Now that he's right against me, he looks taller, more aerodynamic and regal, and has a longer, sharper beak and talons. Darkfire gently comes off the top of his head, primary feathers, and tail feathers which are longer. His eyes are red and his talons dark grey.

"Master, I... been... looking for... you..." he says in a primitive way but with a surprisingly deep voice.

"Is that you, Noctis? How did you end up like this?" I ask him as I slowly descend back to the ground.

Over the next thirty minutes, he tells me of how he lost us after eating that dragon carcass I threw down the mountain that was infused with my demonic energy due to the dark fire I killed it with. The energy turned him into a demon and he passed out due to the transformation. Once he woke up, we were gone and he couldn't find us so he stayed by the corpse and kept eating from it until he had to move on. He tried finding us but gave up and returned to the cave and nested there.

Over time he discovered his increased intelligence and dark-fire abilities. He practiced and honed them, and grew in power over the months, hunting the local wildlife until getting the locals attention. A group of hunters, two gryphons, a unicorn, and a pegasus came from the nearby town and they confronted Noctis.

While Noctis was able to kill a gryphon with his dark-fire and talons, the other three managed to hit him with four arrows and three magical blasts, and as Noctis hit the ground, he burst into flames and was nothing but ash.

He doesn't know how long he was like that, but he remembers gasping for air, emerging from his ashes and being whole again. That was two weeks ago and he just noticed my power from the mountains and rushed here.

That means he's now a form of demonic phoenix? And from the energy I sense from him, he's a high level Deamon, almost a low level Archdemon.

"Is the cave with all the wealth in it as we left it?" I ask him as a few demons passing by give Noctis a few glances before getting back to work.

"Yes... all is... as... it was... when you... left, Master," he replies slowly.

I hum in thought and grin, now would be a good time to collect it all and store it as funding for this town to trade with other towns or cities.

"PINKIE!" I suddenly yell out, making a few demons close by yelp at the sudden shout.

I hear a rubber stretching sound coming from my left and I turn to see Pinkie's head flying towards me as her neck stretches from her body.

"Yes, Damien?" she asks as an Incupony grumbles due to having to duck under her neck to get past.

"I need you to follow me and then open a portal back to here once we get there. We're going to collect a lot of hidden wealth for the town," I tell her.

She gasps as a rubber band pinging noise comes from behind her and her body starts flopping through the air towards us before slamming into her head and she's back to normal in front of me. "Like a treasure hunt!?" she asks excitedly.

"HEY!" Twilight complains as her project partner left her.

I turn to Twilight and shout out to her. "She'll be back by the end of the day, I need her help getting something!" I tell her and turn back to the pink enigma. "Let me get a few Harpies to come with us and we'll go," I tell her, getting a smile from her.

After about ten minutes gathering supplies and ten harpies with armed imp or goblin passengers and letting the others know where we're going, we set off towards the mountains of Frost Wind Peak.

---

---

After a long flight and a few lunch stops, while ignoring the time Pinkie decided to make a biplane to fly part way (which I need to see if Olivia can make a design of one for my air forces), we reach the cave entrance atop the mountain. I see black feathers in the pillow and blanket nest that Gilda had made which Noctis seems to have claimed as his bed.

"Okay, Pinkie, open a portal back to the Camp. The rest of you guard the entrance, knowing our luck someone will stumble upon us during the transfer..." I say to everyone here.

Pinkie opens her portal and in comes some bourus and other heavy lifting demons who I guide to the piles of wealth in the back. After warning them of the silver, they begin hauling it all back through the portal and surprisingly for once, no one bothered or attacked us.

I've had the silver collected and safely stored to be sent back to Fel Haven and half of it to carefully be turned into silver bullets. These will be kept under lock and key and only deployed to kill invading Demonlords, the rest will be stored for when needed and some for Twilight to continue her research.

The warehouse and town office have been completed while the barracks are half way built. I order my demons to store all the gold, jewellery, gems, and coins in the newly built office vault which will be used for funding the town's needs, which Twilight has already taken a good two-thousand worth in bits to take to Canterlot tomorrow to buy several crystals and gems to use as batteries and enchantments for the portal gate.

The furniture, clothing, and artwork are stored in the Warehouse where we'll decide what to do with them later.

While we were gone, it seems most of the forest's resident wildlife had decided to declare war on us. Every hour a pack of around fifty wooden wolves Twilight informed me are called Timberwolves have been attacking the camp, and each time they try different tactics. If I didn't know any better, I'd say something is commanding them and is either trying to just kill us all, or get us to leave.

So naturally, I will answer this call for war and get a team to hunt for the source sending the wolves.

Now with the camp properly defended and the Timberwolves no longer a threat, we return to Fel Haven where Twilight takes Pinkie to Olivia's lab and recruits my daughter for the project, Olivia being the scientist she is agreed to join the project and so while I'm in my office with Desire and Slitherana doing paperwork, they're all in the lab tinkering with enchantments.

As for Noctis, I've commissioned a small but comfortable nest built within my castle for him and he's picked the rafters in the Throne room. Desire was happy to see he was okay as well when she got to see him again.

---

---

My paperwork is settled for a few days so I can focus my attention on the town and get the right demons needed to keep it running. Speaking of the town, a couple houses have been built along with Mel's new bar with housing on the second floor for her and the finished barracks next to the office, next will be more housing and a market area.

As for the portal, the trio have finished the enchantment gems and built the frames. All that's left is to try and attach Pinkie's rifts to them and link them.

Also, Mel has become really popular with the workers and she's enjoying her time as the barkeep here. The others have visited when they could but Tidus is spending his time with Applejack when he's over here.

I'm currently overlooking construction of a house with Noctis on my left shoulder while I wait for the scouts reports about the Timberwolves.

"Damien!" I hear the voice of Luna or Selene call out to me. I turn around from the construction I'm looking at and see it's Selene.

"Yes?" I reply with a raised brow.

She stares at Noctis for a few seconds before asking. "What is that?"

"His name is Noctis, and he's a Dark-fire Phoenix," I reply and give Noctis a light scratch under his beak.

Her eyes go wide in surprise. "Noctis!? The raven thou had when we first met!?" she asks in disbelief.

"Good to... see you... again," Noctis replies to her with a light nod.

She just stares and then shakes her head. "At this point we shouldn't be surprised... We art here to warn thee, we received word that the Gryphon King, Julius Ironfeather is trying to ally with the Minotaurs and the Zebras after learning of both mine and our sisters demonic states to possibly attack and kill us thinking we're now under your control," she tells me with a frown.

I stare at her for a good few seconds before face palming. "Great, just what we need. Noooo, no time for a break, no time to just relax and get something peaceful done... but another asshole wants a piece of me," I reply and shake my head and pull my hand down my face.

"Hmmmm, hold on. What if we went to the Minotaur and Zebras first? Try to convince them we're not hostile or evil and form peace treaties with them? Then the gryphons might think twice about attacking us if we have other nations allied with us," I tell her with a raised brow.

She hums for a second and looks down with her left hand on her chin. "It could work, our reports tell us that he's currently in Zebrica, so we could go to the Minotaurs first before he gets the chance," she replies and looks back at me.

"Then we're going to need transportation. I still have a few sloop airships in working order, I wonder if we can supply Pinkie with enough energy to open a portal to allow one through?" I say with a grin.

"It should be possible," she replies as Noctis flies over and lands on her shoulder.

Selene smiles and strokes his head as I turn to Pinkie. "Pinkie! We need you for a second!" I call out, getting the Draconequus' attention.

I raise a brow as she appears to melt into liquid, falls to the ground, slithers her way over, and reforms in front of me.

"Yes?" she asks with a smile.

I roll my eyes and gesture to Selene. "We were wondering if you could open a portal big enough to let one of my small airships through quickly? We can supply the magic if needed," I ask her.

She frowns and narrows her eyes and rubs her chin in thought. I see calculations and math scrolling on her eyes and she suddenly gasps with a lightbulb appearing above her head.

"I can but only for a minute by myself, if you and Selene help I think I can open it for at most ten minutes," she replies.

"More than enough time. Open a portal and let's head to the dock and get a ship ready," I tell her and Selene.

They both agree and we head back to Fel Haven.

---

---

With a sloop armed and fully stocked, Pinkie grunts and struggles to open a large portal but Selene and I place our hands on her shoulders, transferring our energy to her, she sighs and the portal stabilises.

"Quickly head through!" I call out to Ironhoof, who will be taking this as his test to be captain of an airship.

"Aye, Sir!" he replies and the ship raises up and forward.

He's been practicing piloting an airship for the last three weeks and he's surprisingly good at it. He also immediately volunteered to pilot once he found out we were heading to Minos for peace talks. Both he and his brother want to get their mother and sister and see if they'd like to come to Tartarus or to the new town we’re building. Scarlet is also tagging along as an anti-boarder guard, she's very deadly with her new demonite cutlass.

We slowly pass through the portal and I notice Pinkie holding her breath and going cross-eyed. She starts shivering and once the ship's through, she exhales and starts deflating like a balloon, flatulent noise and all. The portal collapses and she re-inflates and smiles.

"Am I done?" she asks, I reply with a nod. "Okay! I'mma head back to Twilight and Olivia then, call me if you need me!" she says and flies off back down to the town.

"So, Selene. Shall we head to Canterlot and get an envoy for the Ponies as well?" I ask her as the ship rises higher into the air.

"Yes, it would be a good idea to bring an un-demonized Pony with us just to prove we're not all turned," she replies.

I frown as she makes it sound like a zombie outbreak scenario...

So for ten minutes as the ship flies, we discuss ways to convince the Minotaur Chief to not ally with the Gryphons against us. She believes if we can just prove we're friendly we can convince him to not attack us. Ironhoof though suggests he show's the Chief his new power and abilities in the arena and that I offer to give the Chief the same power, like a bribe and he'd be one of my demons in the process.

We'll go with Selene's idea first and if that doesn't work, then we'll go with Ironhoof's plan.

The castle of Canterlot comes into view where I see Pegasi start to come out and over to us.

I leave Selene to deal with them as I order Ironhoof to take us to the large Garden behind the castle and land there. Selene returns and the Pegasi escort us as we land.

Once tied down, we head into the Castle to discuss our plan with the other Alicorns.

Next Chapter: Chapter 59: Airship trip Estimated time remaining: 38 Minutes