The smooth slither of chalk on stone roused Nebulae Gaze as it tapped and stroked beside his head. He felt stiff and exceedingly uncomfortable, and also sore in strange and embarrassing ways. He tried to turn his head and groan. The former he was unable to do, and the latter came out as a much-muted grunt around the thick, slick mass wedged between his teeth. He couldn’t see and struggled ineffectually against the tendrils which pinned him uncomfortably to the wall of his own summoning chamber.

And it all came rushing back. His summoning had failed in the worse way possible. The demon had been released, unbound! And even worse, it was the corrupted remains of a pony who he knew, and had known him! Cadance, the self-styled ‘Princess of Love’. Now the sultry archdemon of Lust it would seem. He winced at the pounding of his poor head, nnngh, the bitch had clocked him a good one.

Still, to have ensnared an Archdemon! To have been a breath away from binding it to his will! Imagining the possibilities made his aches almost trivial in the warmth that surged through him. The things he’d have done with a… properly tamed and servile Cadance. She’d always been a ridiculous ponce when she’d played at being a foalsitter. Toadying up to any family who wanted to boast about being served by ‘the alicorn of looooove’. He’d known the game, even as a colt, and had resolved not to play along with such stupidity. She’d learn her place, they’d all learn their place sooner or later. And every indignity they forced him to suffer would be repaid in kind.

He almost giggled at the thought of that, of how he’d have made her crazed demonic husk crawl, made it pretend it was still her and beg once it had been his to do with as he pleased. He was so wrapped up in those borderline delirious musings, that he almost failed to notice that he could see.

And what a sight It was. The demon was playing with its food again. The soft mewling cries from the stupid mud pony as she was toyed with were almost nauseating to listen to. Why didn’t it just devour her and be done with it? Once it finished, no doubt it would be satisfied enough to figure out a bargain. He had contacts and information it would need if it were to escape detection. Resources that it couldn’t ignore. It was just a matter of figuring out the right offer to make and the right demands. Get free of it’s infernal magical nullification and he could sound the alarm. His chamber was shielded it was true, but all he needed to do was open the door and the alarms would be foalsplay to set off over half of the high district.

Set the alarms off, maybe trigger an overcharge of the fel-suppression runes that were all over his summoning chamber for distraction, a quick blink spell into the double blind in his private chambers and the guards would descend upon that thing before it could even formulate an escape. Yes, that plan had the dash, the elegance that would see him through this. The fallen husk of a pony wouldn’t even know what hit it.

All he had to do was bide his time, wait for the critical moment, and he’d recover from all this just fine. In the meantime, he enjoyed the show he was getting as much as his uncomfortably upright position allowed.

He had fallen asleep at some point, lulled by the soft sounds of sex, fantasizing about having both of them at his mercy. The heat of those thoughts had been enough to erase his discomfort for a time. That ended when the tendrils that bound him slackened ever so slightly, and blood that had pooled in his extremities with the tight bindings began to circulate again, bring with it the sudden buzzing tinnitus of oxygen starved tissues. He writhed in agony, struggling against his bonds as life was forced back into half starved flesh.

“Nnnngh! Urgh y-you fucking bitch!” He tried to scream, and found his aching jaw was also free to permit it. Clenching his teeth as he growled through the slowly ebbing discomfort.

“Oh good. You’re awake.” The thing that had been Cadance responded in an emotionless deadpan that sent a shiver of ice down his spine. The caressing sensuousness of it’s voice was nearly absent. Extremely odd given the type of demon it was.

Slowly he managed to get his body to stop its noisome complaints enough to focus on something else. And there, again, was that fucking mud pony. Still alive! It was inconceivable. She was the payment rendered for the summoning in the first place. How could she still be breathing, laying so calmly beside the demon? She should have been burned in hellfire the instant the demon was released! Or failing that why hadn’t she been devoured afterwards? Impossible!

“So… have you finally decided to stop playing with your toy so we can conduct business?” He hissed with something approaching a sneer. “Regardless of that skin you’re wearing, demon, you have to be aware there’s no safety for you here without an appropriate sponsor.”

He must have surprised the creature, for it was silent for a long time. Heh, had he out guessed it so easily? Finding the silence unnerving, he essayed another thrust. “I have the information you need to get clear of the city. Or if you prefer to stay, I’m sure we can come to an agreement about the price of my sponsorship. You’ll find I have many friends and colleagues who would be most impressed with your… particular flavor.”

Still the intransigent demon just stared at him stone-faced. He felt an unwelcome trickle of sweat down the side of his neck. “If the offered sacrifice was unacceptable, and I can certainly understand why that might be, we can most assuredly discuss a better vessel for your-”

“Just stop.” The demon bit out, a hiss that somehow expressed the pressing need for violence backing up its words.

“Awww, I was wondering if he could actually dig that pit for himself all the way to Tartarus.” The mud pony bitch offered, malice glinting in her eyes in the dim light of the few remaining nearly spent candles. He glared daggers at her, yet found her state startling on closer examination. No outward signs of possession or demonic control, she hadn’t the eyes of an enthralled pony. Yet she also gave no outward signs of terror of her circumstances, was neither bound nor fettered. Even as he watched she casually leaned into the demon’s shoulder and was rewarded with the draping of a wing about her, as easy and natural as could be.

“I can understand if you would rather not discuss matters of importance in front of your toy.” He responded a touch more brittlely than he intended. The nerve!

“Shut up, Nebby.” The demon growled out the response.

“Don’t call me that!” He snarled back, straining against his bindings in his outrage. That hateful diminutive! “My NAME is Nebulae Gaze! Master of Demonology at the Canterlot School for Unicorns. And I will not be-”

The mask regrew around his face in an instant, turning the rest of his angry rejoinder into an incomprehensible mumble. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the horrid thing, to no avail. Soon reduced to just glaring his hate across the intervening distance.

“So, I’d guess we’re in the sub-basement of Celestia’s school then. Or whatever they’ve turned it into.” The demon commented conversationally. “That’s useful to know at least.”

“Doesn’t much care for nicknames, does he?”

“Oh, he was a spoiled, entitled, perfectly ridiculous little foal when I had the misfortune to be his foalsitter. Never an ounce of sympathy for anypony but himself and as narcissistic as they came. How Guiding Light produced such an insufferable brat I’ll never know.”

“Him? A member of House Light?” The shocked incredulity from the mud pony only sparked the long disdainful rolling of his eyes he always responded with to that sort of skepticism.

They continued speaking about him instead of to him as he struggled frantically against his bonds, grunting and offering muffled protests to the best of his ability. He was NOT ignored! And yet, slowly his struggles began to die off as something slowly occurred to him about this surreal situation. The demon was talking about things it shouldn’t be. It was offering insipid anecdotes about his foalhood as if it had been there! As… as if… it were the real… Cadance.

No… No! That was absolutely impossible! It was a demon. It was whatever demonic thing had been fortunate enough to devour the mincyhoofed twat. It had clear demonic heritage. It was an archfiend! One didn’t just walk into hell and apply for the position of overlord!

But… what if? No! It wasn’t possible. But… what if?

His eyes must have showed some part of his growing disquiet, because the mud pony giggled. “Oh, I think he might finally be figuring it out.”

“It does seem that way.” The demon mused thoughtfully. Her orange eyes glowing in the dim light as she regarded him. “Yes, it really is me. And there’s something I really need you to understand, Nebby.” He stiffened at her intentional use of that damned nickname, before the mask clamped down around his jaws and forced his wandering gaze to her. “This wasn’t an accident, you poor little foal. You didn’t snare me by chance. We’ve been waiting for decades for some foolish pony to try to snag themselves a succubus.”

His eyes began to widen as he took in the implications of her words. The cold feeling in his stomach quickly turning into a buzzing mass of panic at the back of his skull. “We paid the ‘toll’ from our side, to ensure I came through unfettered, and didn’t need your sacrifice.” Her words continued, hard, cold and implacable. “I am not some half panicked demon, dragged through to the mortal plane without any sort of plan. I do not need your contacts, nor your ‘sponsorship’.” She sneered distastefully, reaching a languid hoof to the floor from where she lay. As it touched the stone floor, lines of intricate chalk caught fire with a hellish green glow.

And Nebulae Gaze screamed into his mask as the intricate summoning circle lit up all around him, the nearest edges of the rune tracks to him repeating over and over his new position in life as his ideas of supposed leverage shattered all around him like glass.

Sacrifice.

He continued to scream and struggle with fevered energy as the tendrils again encased him. The last thing his frantic eyes saw was the cold emotionless gaze of Cadance, and the malicious glee on the Mud Pony’s face before he was once again wrapped in utter darkness.

Green Leaves rested while she could. It was nearly time after all. She watched with a quiet detachment as Cadance slowly finished the necessary preparations of the circle, now glowing dimly. It would be much brighter when they began and she finished the one broken line at the center herself. At that point, according to Cadance’s explanation, it would really be ‘her’ circle. There’d be no chance of her untutored hooves smearing the circle either. Cadance was transmuting the chalk into something else, a powder that ate hungrily into the stone before being scoured away by the archdemon’s magic. The result was a beautiful shallow etching which spiraled out from the clear center of the circle as if a master stonemason had carved it inch by inch. All that remained unfinished in this fashion was a small two inches of chalk line carefully erased at the center. A single imperfection that waited for her to correct it when the time came.

Green Leaves the powerful summoner, bringing on the end of the world she had known. She gave a snort at the unexpected touch of tired whimsy. She’d been finding the oddest things amusing lately. Likely more shock and emotional trauma than anything else. She and Cadance had continued to… enjoy each other... off and on over the hours when the archdemon tired of her spell work and took a break. There was a certain urgency in the alicorn now, a subtle, gentle presence of mind to make the most of their remaining time together.

The Earth Pony didn’t mind, far from it. Whatever happened to her after the coming ritual, she found many things to treasure in the sympathetic embrace of the alicorn of love and lust.

Her hoof groped in the dim light and found the cool hard object she searched for. The silver dagger of her captor, carefully cleaned of the demonic gore that had encrusted it. Cadance had showed her the slowly healing scar in her shadowy mass, the wound that silver had inflicted upon her. She gently brushed her hoof along the edge of the blade, razor sharp, the fineness of the edge tangible to even her inexperienced touch. Would that she could have put such an edge on the tavern kitchen cutlery!

She shifted her grip and dug the point against her frog, giving a hiss of pain as it gouged the tender surface. She saw from the corner of her eye Cadance flinch and slew her head around to look at her. Dark red welled from the scratch. The frog was soft and blood rich, she’d likely be tender there for a while. Wordlessly she extended the wounded hoof over the etched circle, guiding the first few drops of crimson fluid into the shallow channel. The glow increased a little as the offering was accepted. She watched the sluggish trickle continue to drip, holding it there until the wound had clotted and stemmed the flow.

And then Cadance gently grasped the wounded hoof, examining the gouge with the loving concern of a true caregiver. The depth in those piercingly slitted eyes belied her fearsome appearance as she bent her graceful neck to lick gently over the injury, making Green Leaves shiver at the warm tingle that coursed up her leg from the caressing touch.

She was no unicorn, she had no direct control of magical power, Cadance had patiently explained. That didn’t mean demonic ritual was beyond her, but it meant she had to resort to less… elegant solutions. Blood, the fluid of all life, was an acceptable medium for summoning rituals as well. And by giving her blood to the circle freely, it increased the potential power of the summoning by an indefinable magnitude. The Monster hadn’t bothered to offer her blood to the ritual he was using, because he intended to offer her everything for it anyway. He had offered his energy through magic, but had scrupulously offered nothing of his own body into his ritual. Such would have left him potentially vulnerable, though making his ritual all the more powerful for the risk.

Green Leaves needed no such caution, as she would be offering herself anyway, that was part of the intention after all. As was her taking the Monster with her. She thanked Cadance with a loving glance as the Archdemon released her hoof, only the faintest ache remaining. Slowly she stood and approached the bound and still form of the Monster, moving with a three legged gait as her other foreleg clutched the glittering blade, she couldn’t bring herself to put the hideous thing in her mouth… she didn’t want to know what it tasted like.

Wrapped tightly once more in shadow, masked and gagged and restrained, he had given up struggling only when he had fully exhausted himself. His muffled sobbing had fallen on deaf ears until he had lapsed into benumbed silence, as he had remained until now. Asleep, or catatonic she didn’t know, or even care. She eyed him distastefully… she could do anything she wanted. Cadance had been very clear on that, so long as she didn’t kill him, she could acquire his blood however she liked.

She looked down at the gleaming blade held in a shaking forehoof. Why was she shaking? She stared at the offending appendage for what seemed like hours. Eventually she gritted her teeth and forced the tremble to still. She’d start small. Small and familiar. She poked at the shadow mass, getting it to extend one limp foreleg, tightening around the limb firmly once it was fully out. Blood was needed, for what was to come, the actual amount didn’t matter all that much. It was there only to bind him inescapably to the ritual.

Raising the dagger, she angled the tip against his frog and gave the same gentle press as she had moments before experienced herself. The sharp tip pricked the soft tissue, a bead of red forming at the tip. And he jerked, the tendrils preventing him from withdrawing as his muffled wail echoed around her. A second later she heard the soft patter of fluid to the stones beneath him and almost dropped the dagger in numb shock.

He… he’d pissed himself. Over a single ouchy stick, barely enough to draw blood to begin with, and he’d pissed himself over it! She watched the sluggish trail of crimson fluid reach the edge of his shaking hoof, gathering there a moment, before finally falling. A tiny double drop of red blood spattering to the carved circle, letting off the gentlest of seething hisses as it was accepted. Like steam escaping from a kettle.

Swallowing against the keen feeling of nausea, the mare fought back the urge to fling the knife away. She felt sullied and gross, in sudden need of a really hot shower. All her fantasies of sweet violent revenge cast into a starkly different light because at the merest touch of a blade, the monster had shown himself to be a pony. A horrible dangerously insane excuse for a pony, but a pony nonetheless.

She found herself sickened by the sight of him, a perverse anger flaring in her chest alongside a bitter defeated regret. Passions she was unused to and didn’t know how to handle.

Why?! Why couldn’t you just be a monster, a vicious, howling beast?! I could have revenged myself, I could have paid you back for everything you’ve done to me! Fuck you, you goddess damned bast-

“-ard! Fuck you!” She didn’t realize she was yelling until the echoes rebounded, throwing her final curse back at her from the darkness. And then the tears came, hot and hard, her voice lost in ragged snuffling gasps as the dagger clattered to the stone at her hoofs. All at once strong forelegs lifted her bodily from the ground and she clutched like a foal against Cadance’s chest. Sobbing and weeping incoherently as the alicorn simply held her.

It was time.

Cadance drew in a slow breath to calm herself. It had taken less time than she had feared to help Green Leaves regain her composure and the mare had surprised her once again. Now as the Earth Pony stepped into the shallow carved circle, clutching the silver dagger in one fetlock and the last stick of chalk in her mouth, the archdemon could barely keep herself from fidgeting in her mixed dread and excitement.

A gasp from their… host… made her tense. He’d finally woken from his panicked torpor and realized he was once again unmasked. She remained still and forced herself to relax. Green Leaves needed to go about this her way… for all she had done and was about to do, Cadance couldn’t in good conscience deny her that.

“S-stop.” The stallion gasped. Watching terrified as the mare paced towards him. His breaths came ragged, his pelt soaked with fearful musky sweat. For a moment a glint of hope lit in his eyes as she paused to gaze up at him… And then she ducked her head and with a single flick of the chalk in her lips, she completed the broken line of the massive summoning construct. The terrible thing flared to life as demonic energy hummed all around them.

“No! You can’t do this!” He strained against his bonds, but they held him quite fast. He tried to push power through his horn, only to have the tendril bleed it off. His breathing growing more panicked by the second. “You aren’t enthralled. I c-can tell. You don’t have to do this, you can just stop!”

Calmly, Green Leaves leaned her head to the side and spat the nub of chalk passed the circle and out of the summoning. It’s job, at least, was complete. “ And why should I?” She asked in a calm, emotionless voice. Slowly brushing the chalk dust from her lips against the back of her hoof.

Cadance saw the incredulous horror in Nebulae Gaze’s eyes as they darted between the mare confronting him and the demon seated so passively to the side. “Don’t you get it?” He sputtered, squirming once more against her grip on him. “She’s using you! She’s telling you whatever you want to hear so that you’ll do this for her! Whatever she’s got you summoning, it’ll destroy Equestria!”

“Equestria? No.. no I doubt that. Canterlot? Oh, I hope so.”

The unicorn flinched at the grim finality of that statement. “So she’s fed you thoughts of revenge then? On how you’ll bring down the big mean unicorns and make the country full of rainbows and sunshine again?” He sneered. “You have no clue what you’re doing. You’ve no idea the hell you’re about to unleash. And for what?”

Cadance sighed very quietly, saddened to no end that a unicorn she knew as a colt, that she had tried to help would come to an end such as this. Somewhere deep under the demon’s iron resolve a much younger more innocent foalsitter was sobbing as her boundless optimism was again trampled by the sadism of reality. She could still see the colt she had known in there, but she could also hear the screams of a stallion as he burned. And so Cadance-the-Foalsitter would have to weep.

“For what?” Green Leaves growled in response. “You seriously don’t get it, do you? You murdered my only family you bastard! I have no home to go back to. I know the life that an unattached, unprotected mare with no resources would have in that cesspit you call a capitol! And there are hundreds of mares like me there. Or, instead of becoming another unmarked, unmissed statistic, I have a chance to make a difference! So why shouldn’t I take the risk of slaying the insane dragon of Canterlot?”

“You stupid mewling mud pony bitch! You don’t have the ri-glrk!” Nebulae Gaze suddenly choked as a tendril tightened fiercely about his throat, he squirmed and struggled. His face darkening and eyes bulging as he struggled to draw a breath that would not come. As his vision darkened, narrowing into a lengthening tunnel centered on the mare in front of him, he saw her turn to speak to the demon who was strangling him. His pulse pounding in his ears as his vision greyed, and bright sparkles danced before his eyes, before velvety blackness drove the world from him entirely.

Cadance relaxed her grip as the stallion lost consciousness, and ignored his limp body as she turned her full attention to Green Leaves. “It’s time.” She whispered softly. “He’ll be out for maybe a few minutes. He’ll feel nothing, just like you wanted.”

The mare nodded, looking simultaneously relieved and sickened. “Promise me… swear to me that you’ll make th-this stop?” She whispered through clenched teeth, tears trailing down her cheeks as she approached the now still body. “Swear that whatever caused this will be ended. Swear that the world will be made better by what I’m about t-to do!”

“I promise.” Cadance hissed through clenched fangs.

She promises.

I promise.

I promise, Darling

I swear!

Cross my heart and hope to fly...

We promise!

We all promise!

The faint whispered voices rising out of the now flaming circle caused Green Leaves to freeze in shock. The words continued to echo, winding around and around the circle, a soft murmuring litany of support and acceptance. Cadance bit her lip hard, feeling her eyes pricking at the reassurance offered from across the boundaries of the mortal plane to the brave mare whom held all of their hopes in her hooves.

Green Leaves remained still for a few breathes as the voices twined about her, her eyes closing as she steeled herself. Suddenly she grit her teeth with a whimpered sob and raised the glittering blade in her forehoof. Her stroke was shaky, but she followed Cadance’s simple advice on technique.

Press up at the hilt, pull to the side quickly. The blade is sharp, you don’t need finesse or fancy technique. It will feel like… slicing a cheese. Don’t look, don’t think, and once you start the pull, don’t stop. Keep your eyes closed, breathe through your mouth, turn and face me and toss the knife across the room out of the circle.

She managed to make the turn away, breathing raggedly before the feel of sticky warmth against her shaking foreleg made her pause. She knew what it was and kept her eyes shut tightly. She didn’t want to see it, she kept gasping for breath through her mouth. She didn’t want to smell it either. Blindly she flung the dagger away and heard it clatter against the far wall with a sense of relief.

She felt dizzy and a second later found herself sitting untidily on the floor as the circle roared around her like a bonfire. Slowly she opened her eyes, ignoring the circle, ignoring the green flames that washed around it, seeking the archdemon who stood beyond them.

Cadance stood as near to the circle as she could without disrupting it, the emerald flames washing and lapping around her hooves and against her half spread wings. The green fire making the tears streaming down her cheeks shimmer with their flickering light. And Green Leaves could see the mixed triumph and agony in her expression in that moment.

She felt the spell take hold about her. A strange sensation, prickly and buzzing like being caught in a swarm of bees. She felt herself lifted in the pulse and flow of the magic she herself had unleashed, her eyes never leaving the Alicorn as the warm currents swirled about her. She felt heavy and slow, as if drunk on ale, drunk and about to keel over from it. Her mind was fuzzy and indistinct, but she managed to force her lips to whisper one last thing.

And as the mare dissolved bodily into glowing golden sparks, the dead stallion having already melted away into blue glowing dust that swirled heavily into the forming portal, her final words whispered out to the archdemon who countenanced her sacrifice, bringing a hitch to her breath and a dagger-like stab to her heart.

“Thank you.”

And Cadance, looking and feeling more like the demon poor Nebby had thought her to be, howled her grief into the tumultuous thrum of the coalescing portal as the golden sparks spiraled into its strengthening substance.