The thrum of the portal was a soothing counterpoint to the archdemon’s easing sobs. It ebbed and throbbed as if the room had become the heart of some massive creature, it's beating pulse shaking the stones beneath Cadance’s hooves as she calmed herself to miserable little sniffles.

All other sources of light were gone, the oil lamp spent of its meager fuel and the candles burned to dead stubs of running wax now. The cool light of the portal and the muted green glow of the runes now the only illumination.

The portal itself was a shimmering film of reflective silver liquid surrounded by the chaotic dance of dimensional distortion. The stone beneath it bent and rippled, seeming unable to decide what shape or dimensions it should be, stretching and contracting in time with the pulse of the silvered surface which rippled to the same beat. Surrounding the distorted space on all sides, floor, walls, and ceiling, were the blazing runes. Etched in demonic green fire now as they contained the wounded dimensional fabric with it’s gaping rent within.

Mastering her grief, Cadance turned bloodshot eyes upon her creation. The pulses were getting faster, approaching the point where this end would connect with the identical rune structure carved into the throne room of her citadel. The stronghold of the Archfiend of Lust, from which she managed her infernal duties to her conquered realm. Now that management would be left in the hooves of her lieutenants and courtiers. Carefully chosen and trained for this moment, when their mistress would depart for the mortal realm, and leave her realm in their care for a time.

She had hoof picked each one for intelligence and loyalty, and they would skillfully maintain her realm in her absence.

The silver portal flashed and flexed and with a burst of light it deposited a huddled form upon the open space where less than an hour before Green Leaves had stood. Cadance hurried across the intervening distance even as the black cloaked figure struggled to rise, the finely detailed cape identifying its wearer just as much as the spiky rainbow mane that currently hung passed the deep hood about a gasping fang filled muzzle sucking wind as if she’d been bucked in the stomach.

Embossed across the shoulders of the cloak were a pair of pegasus wings, flared as if in a stiff breeze. Radiating from the extended primaries were bolts of jagged lightning that scattered to the hem in forked tongues. The black woolen fabric masterfully buffed and worked to make the embossed patterns stand out in even the dim light of the portal. Between the wings, high on the back, was a familiar rainbolt cutie mark entwined within an equally recognizable six pointed starburst.

“Dash! Easy…” Cadance dropped to her haunches beside the hunched figure, her forelegs wrapped about the cloaked mare and pulled her close. She brushed back the hood and beheld the glazed, vacant expression, the slack, gasping mouth. Cupping a blue cheek with her fetlock she coupled her mouth to the mare’s. Pulling her into a deeply intimate lip lock. Drawing energy up from the supply she had spent hours with Green Leaves to build, she allowed a trickle of the precious store to flow into her drained companion.

She knew immediately how effective it was as as sky blue forelegs clutched at her tightly, like a drowning pony, still trembling with a desperate needy hunger as tongues twined and wrestled within the clasp of their muzzles. Cadance fought back, controlling the sudden pull of the other’s hunger. Rationing her draw until she had consumed what the Archdemon could spare her and no more.

As their muzzles parted, Cadance felt the mute rebelliousness of the other mare and smirked as she gazed down into her panting, still hunger-pained face. Those slitted magenta eyes so hungry still, giving her an almost puppyish look of sorrowful pleading. “There will be more, so.. so much more to be had. When we’re all through and have a plan.” She whispered, caressing a blue-furred cheek soothingly. More of her carefully hoarded lust she couldn’t give her, but hugs were free, and she clutched the pegasus tightly to her chest. The deep squeezy embrace of her own pegasus heritage seeking to reassure her friend.

“Wh-where… are we?” The pegasus husked softly. Returning the tight squeeze for a moment before slowly trying to gain her feet. Rolling her shoulders, her wings stretched from under her voluminous cloak. As the garment parted the shiny black of felhide leather armor peeped from between the halves. Her slim athletic form crisscrossed in straps and buckles to hold the snug suit together. Above and beyond the protection of her cloak, Dash was, as always, ready for action.

Cadance helped her gain her shaky footing, knowing the feeding was scanty considering the utter draining the portal had exacted to get her across. “I think we’re under the Canterlot School. I haven’t broken the seal on the room, its wards seem strong enough to have masked the summoning.”

Dash nodded shortly, still struggling to catch her breath as she scanned the room, locating the heavily barred exterior door. “Alright. I’ll watch for signs that someone is busting in. Flutters should be next.” She grated out tiredly, ignoring her borderline exhaustion as she moved towards the door.

Cadance drew breath to respond just as the portal convulsed again, depositing another cloaked body upon the floor. Embossed bat wings at full spread, cupping over flocks of bats in flight, each tiny bat having two glittering red eyes, tiny rubies worked into the weave to peep out and reflect even the dimmest light.

The huddled mass was significantly larger than your average pony. Near in size to what Cadance had been like as a lesser alicorn. Slowly she brushed back one wing of the cape, exposing the butter yellow thestral that lay beneath it. Tartarus had aggravated Fluttershy’s muddled magical jumble of pony and Fruit bat heritage, and brought forth the more predatory beastial characteristics once more.

Helping the shaking batpony to sit, Cadance drew her into an all too brief kiss. There was no grabby desperation to the mare’s hunger. Fluttershy was many things, but rarely food aggressive. She melted against the Archdemon and tenderly accepted the necessary meal. Her broad, membraneous wings cradled Cadance softly. As big as the alicorn was, she still fit snugly within the overlapping cocoon of surprising warmth and felt it drawing the tension from her body as it always did.

She remained in that embrace even after the feeding had ended, tucking her muzzle up beneath the Thestral’s chin, hearing Fluttershy murmur soft reassurance for her keenly felt anguish. Such a strong, warm presence Fluttershy was, as she began to tenderly groom at Cadance’s forehead as they prolonged the loving embrace.

“It’s going to be alright.” Fluttershy whispered in her ear, slowly unfurling her wings and letting Cadance go. The thestral smiled serenely, a soft hoof stroking her shoulder gently before with a last fond nuzzle, Fluttershy slunk off to help Dash guard, long ears pricked for sounds the pegasus might miss.

Cadance smiled a little, feeling her spirits lifted after a moment with her dear Fluttershy, just what she needed after the pressure she’d been under.

Again the portal shook and belched forth a spray of cold, silver light. Dropping an orange pony almost on top of her. Cadance gave a little giggle as she gathered up the groggy Applejack in her forelegs.

“Nnngh, durn thing’s got a bit offa kick to it.” She grumbled, her ever present hat pushed back to dangle behind her head by it’s thong. She smiled into Cadance’s kiss, wrapping her strong forelegs about the alicorn’s neck. The kiss was firm and feisty, more of a wrassle than a tender submission. And Cadance could see the drooping buds and leaves in the Earth Pony’s mane begin to perk up with the returning vigor. AJ had become a fel-dryad, and was almost more plant than pony these days.

Her cloak was modeled after a wayfinders cloak, broad collar but no hood in deference to her tattered stetson. The black fabric embossed proudly with many an apple entwined on all sides with blooming vines, some flowered, some thorny.

Slowly Applejack drew back, giving Cadance’s lower lip a fond nibble. Her buds were starting to bloom now, many tiny flowers springing open amidst the soft blonde of her mane and tail. The perfume of the opening buds was enticing, alluring and Cadance chuckled as she poked her hoof against AJ’s belly making the mare jump and chuckle. “Can’t blame a gal fer tryin, ah reckon.” She drawled with a saucy wink and a fiendish grin before she released the archdemon.

They were just finishing up as the portal rippled again and Cadance heard a ‘Whee!’ before another set of strong earth pony forelegs wrapped about her neck. The forward momentum propelled the alicorn to the side as her vision was swamped with pink. The landing on the stone floor drove a ‘whuff!’ from her lungs as she giggled into Pinkie's mane. Still unable to see in the fluffy bouncy mass, a pink muzzle found hers and the resulting kiss was enthusiastic and deep.

For all of her seeming pep, Pinkie took her allotted lust energy as swiftly as any of the others had. Unlike them, as she gigglingly helped Cadance back to her hooves, the alicorn found herself chewing a wad of strawberry bubblegum that hadn’t been there before. The Pink one watched as she blew a bubble from it, laughter dancing in her demonic eyes with just the lightest touch of crazy.

And Cadance felt even better.

The party pony pronked over to where her cloak had slipped free as she had completed her transdimensional-princess-pony-cheer-up-pounce and gathered it back up. The almost mad swirl of balloons and cakes that covered it were all contrary to the somber color and purpose of the heavy garment and yet, somehow, it was as much Pinkie as Pinkie Pie was herself regardless.

Growing more used to the antics of the portal, Cadance heard the shift in its pulse and was in better position when a pale pony in the ubiquitous dark cloak staggered through. Giggling with her renewed good spirits Cadance caught Rarity before she could collapse, pulling the unicorn close.

“Oh… my... that was not entirely pleasant…” the white pony groaned in dismay. She sagged over Cadance’s supporting foreleg as she peered around, eyes narrowing at the crudity of their surroundings. “Oh this is dreadful! How gauche! No class at-hmmmph!”

Cadance rolled her eyes as she took no small glee in silencing the fashionista in the necessary way before she could work up to a full knicker attack at being in a dim cave in the Canterhorn bedrock.

Unlike the rest, it wasn’t simply slitted eyes and fangs that set Rarity apart from the pony she had once been. The pale spiral of her unicorn horn was just as it always was, but now was joined by two backswept curving horns of darkest jet black, rising through her elegant purple mane. The mark of a devil unicorn.

Rarity’s cloak was a masterpiece. Even with all the care and pains she took to match the themes of her friends, she couldn’t help but go a length further with her own garment. Black to match the shared theme of *shudder* utility and function. But hers glistened with onyx stones woven into the durable fabric. And whole flowing sections of her cloak were so diaphanously thin as to be sheer, giving the appearance of her white body cloaked in a stormcloud or wreathed in smoke. Her gem motif ensured it was a particularly fabulous cloud of smoke of course, and left the sinuous movement of her curvy body beneath it tantalizingly visible as she walked.

Her lips were the softest velvet against Cadance’s. Her tongue appropriately inappropriate with it’s darting teases. As the kiss finally broke, she was left giving a feather-soft gasp. “Oh my… well… I guess this will do… for now.” She tittered quietly, her soft forelegs squeezing around Cadance’s withers for a long moment before reluctantly releasing her.

Cadance took a long, deep breath. All of her friends were here, save one. She felt the others gathering about her, all save Dash and Fluttershy who kept watch. She had no attention to spare them now, her eyes sharply scrutinizing every line of the portal spell she had spent two mortal lives to empower. Bringing a demon or a devil through was one thing, bringing… something bigger… could become much more exciting.

The portal flexed, but did not disgorge its passenger as before. It flickered alarmingly before with a sudden jarring pulse the warped space around the silvery portal cracked, jagged lines of silver clawing out in all directions from the perimeter.

Oh buck…

“Oh my, I don’t think it’s supposed to do that!” Rarity gasped, eyes wide as the portal let out a metallic shriek as it began to breach the layers of magical containment.

Cadance bared her fangs as she marshalled her magic. Green fire flaring off of her horn to stab out into the runed array. Belches and sputters of green flames leapt up as the spell tracks strained to contain the fracturing of the now writhing portal. The widening cracks splintering as they were forced to turn aside, twisting back towards their source, widening the portal while forcing the weak flaws that were breaking down to spiral around its circumference until they could balance each other out. The portal howling hollowly as the air in the chamber was whipped into a chaotic maelstrom by its flailing rejection of the load placed upon it.

As Cadance fought to enlarge and stabilize the portal, she felt other magic pulse beside her. Rarity was wending her magical sense around Cadance’s, prudently not touching her spellwork directly, but analyzing the runes from just shy of doing so. “She’s got her shoulders wedged I think.” Cadance heard the fashionista mutter, tossing her elegant mane out of her eyes in the rising wind from the very unhappy portal.

The white pony braced herself as her horns flared, pale blue and deep purple twining together from her unicorn and devil horns as she cast a shimmering strand of it into the rippling portal and gave a yelp as she was nearly dragged off her hooves by the sudden traction upon her magical tether. Bracing as well as she could against the smooth stone of the floor she arched her graceful neck against the strain. Her hooves continued to scrabble for unsure purchase as she turned about. She took one shaky step, only to have her purchase fail and leave her to slide backwards.

A pair of pink forelegs wrapped around her waist, arresting her scraping slide towards the portal at the very edge of the flaring rune circles. Pinkie clutched the unicorn against her barrel, rear hooves spread wide and finding purchase like only an earth pony could. But she couldn’t haul against the relentless drag on the tether on two hooves.

“Ah’m gonna hafta anchor ‘em!” The farm pony glared all about the chamber, looking here and there across the seemingly featureless walls. “Can’t sense anything beyond all the durn wards.” Applejack shouted to Cadance over the rising scream of the portal. “Floor or ceilin’?”

Was she seriously suggesting… of course she was. What choice had they? Cadance spared a quick glance about the chamber before leaning even harder into her spellwork, green fire lashing here and there, wherever the glow of the runes was faltering. She made her gamble. “Floor!”

She heard the crack and splinter of stone beneath earth pony hooves and felt a anxiety inducing broadening of the range of her senses. But only in the direction of the new fissure in the floor that Applejack was busily widening. Her rear hooves now dispersed into many strong thick roots digging and gouging their way through the bedrock like oak tree roots splitting a boulder, yet compressed into mere seconds instead of centuries.

It took moments for the dryad to find a secure anchorage, her lower body quite literally planted in the stone floor, her barrel held upright as if she was frozen mid-rear. She stretched out a forehoof towards the valiantly struggling Pinkie Pie and the orange fur rippled alarmingly, turning swiftly brown and green as it stretched out in ways no pony’s leg should, bifurcating again and again into rapidly lengthening vines.

Her vines wrapped firmly about Rarity’s middle before circling around Pinkie as well. Pinkie needed all four hooves on the ground, so the vines quickly pulled Rarity from her forelegs and tied the squirming unicorn to her back. Pinkie dropped to all fours, her forehooves cracking the floor as Earth pony met earth, gouging a hoof hold against the relentlessly increasing drag of Rarity’s tether.

“Alright sugarcube, one step at a time!” AJ hollered from her secure anchorage, gritting her teeth against the pain as her vines stretched. Fibrous plant matter stretched and stressed, a series of pops and crackles speaking of fibers being overtaxed. For the fel-dryad it was like pulling a muscle, only in agonizing slow motion.

Her vines twined around and around the two mares, wrapping down to Pinkie’s hoof as she lifted it to slowly take a step. As her hoof touched the stone, thousands of hair-like roots sought to glue that hoof to the floor, binding into every miniscule fissure and imperfection they could find.

Pinkie took a second to get her bearings, clenched her fanged teeth and pulled! Earth pony muscle bulged against the usual softness of her curves, answered by hissed groans from a white unicorn as her tether resisted the movement, and from the orange earth pony as the pressure on her vines likewise intensified.

Pinkie was now the core of a hellish contraption that accomplished two simultaneous effects. Each step dragged the finite length of Rarity’s tether further into the space and out of the portal, and also tortured both the unicorn and the dryad with increasing discomfort as the pressure ebbed and then intensified again.

AJ felt her other foreleg shaking as she pointed it forward and added more vines to the task, trying to find some manner of either speeding their endeavour or easing the strain by any degree. She tried to convince herself that sharing the rending ache between both forelegs was an improvement of some sort.

Pinkie took another slow, dragging step forward and waited for the vines to root her hoof in place. As soon as it became immobile she again heaved, dragging a pained yelp from Rarity, who clutched at Pinkie’s neck with trembling strength as the tether tried to convince her head to take the path of least resistance and come free of her shoulders. The unicorn tucked her chin and strained against the crushing pressure.

And the tether moved another length.

Grimly, through sweat and tears, the trio hauled and strained. Cadance was just as embattled, leaning into her magical effort as the portal grew more and more convoluted and the task of containing it became more and more complex. It didn’t take a pony with Twilight’s impressive list of doctorates to know they were fast approaching the point where a figurative wheel would come off. And bad would go to worse.

Pinkie was maybe six steps from running into AJ when the tether slammed to a stop hard, not budging an inch more. The portal shuddered and flexed and a hoof rippled out of the chaotic storm tossed mirror. A lavender hoof trailing blood from several deep gouges. As the hoof touched the floor, purple fire leapt up from around it, the edges glowing hot from contact with the stone.

Cadance let out an inarticulate scream that brought all eyes to the horrifying sight. AJ snarled a curse as she leaned towards Pinkie, her vines wrapping around the two mares even more tightly as she then arched herself backwards, taking up the slack and adding her own strength to Pinkie as the corrupted Earth Pony matched her heave for heave.

Rarity's anguished wail at the sight of Twilight’s bloodied hoof was just as piercing and the unicorn redoubled her own efforts, her horns' glow brightening as she poured her power into mirroring AJ’s actions, taking up the slack, shortening the tether on each heave.

The combined efforts of the trio slowly dragged a blood-soaked mass of pony wrapped in the ragged smoldering frays of a once pristine cloak through the silver aperture. Her hooves clattered to the stone floor, which hissed and crackled as purple flames danced about them, but the swaying figure refused to fall.

As soon as the pressure on the tether went slack Rarity canceled the spell, unintentionally freeing Pinkie who staggered forward into AJ driving an ‘oof’ from the fel-dryad. The partly orange partly green earth pony clutched at the lathered pink mare weakly, her vines quivering with exhaustion as they rapidly went slack, falling away from the other two.

Rarity was in motion almost before she was free of her bonds, scrambling off of the top of the exhausted pony pile to weave her own wobbly course towards the slumping form. “T-twilight!” She gasped, before with a weary stumble she found herself on the ground gasping raggedly for breath.

Cadance still fought with the portal, the surges from the overload lessening, but the imbalance still requiring all of her effort to handle.

The cloaked pony tottered, struggling to remain standing, a fanged muzzle gritted in pain from within the deep hood. Attempting to take a step, trailing blood from her many wounds, her hoof again met the floor and a fresh burst of pale purple fire washed over it as her leg buckled, pitching her headfirst towards the unyielding stone that inexplicably sought to burn her.

She was met by a blur of blue, Dash getting under her before she could fall, bracing to take her weight. “Get her hooves off the floor!” She growled, struggling to find a position where she could hold the larger alicorn up fully.

Feebly twitching vines slithered sinuously across the floor, struggling to rise from it, and failing. AJ growled again as she shifted tactics and began weaving them together, over and under each other, back and forth and side to side until a thick wicker like matting of them worked its way under the smoking hooves. The vines scorched, but were wet enough not to catch fire themselves as Rainbow Dash half carried, half flung the injured mare atop the makeshift barrier.

To their great relief the flames died away and did not return to assault her prone form once it was no longer in contact with the stone.

“What in tarnation? It weren’t tryin’ ta fry us when we came through. Why’n tha heck was Twilight imitatin’ a bonfire just settin’ hoof in here?” AJ ground out, voice worn and dry as winter twigs rubbing against each other as she tiredly began tugging herself free of the rocky gouge she’d made in the floor.

Cadance grunted and gave her head a shake. Her eyes narrowed from the glare from her horn and the still flickering and writhing portal. “Figure it out later! Is she conscious?! I have a very unhappy portal trying to explode and I need to know what to do with it!” She yelled a touch more loudly than she meant, but exploding tended to make her nervous, she wasn’t a fan of exploding truth be told.

“D-drain it away.” A cool, pain filled voice gasped, barely audible over the thrum of the circles. “Earth th-the power. We’ll need the portal, b-but we can recharge it if we have to.” It hissed at her.

Earth the power… right, drain it away into the ground. She already had a breach in the wards, that could work. But… “Twi, if I push this much power into the bedrock…” She yelled over her shoulder.

AJ gave a whistle, “That’s gonna shake things up somethin fierce, ain’t it?”

“No choice.” Dash was helping Twilight sit up, supporting her shoulder against the curve of her body, heedless of the crimson smearing her blue fur. “I bet this little powder keg going pop would inconvenience us a lot more than a tremor will.”

“We’re deep enough,” Twilight hissed, “it will probably seem natural. Do it!”

With a grunt, Cadance dragged her horn away from the portal, pulling on the increasingly unruly green fire like taffy. AJ helped Pinkie up and away from the cracked hole in the floor as the Archdemon began to literally pour the blazing power down into the stone, feeling it permeate and soak away into the unwarded mass below. In her mind's eye she could see the verdant glow blooming out into the dense bedrock around them, and she quickly turned her attention to the wildly erratic portal. This was risky, but if she timed it just right…

She felt the ground beneath her hooves begin to squirm even as she focused her senses to the quickly draining energy of the portal. Almost… allllmost… now! She cut the siphon she had created the instant the portal output reduced to normal levels, swiftly adjusting the runes and shutting it down, the still billowing silver film of the aperture winking out. Leaving them in utter darkness a breath before the quake hit.

Cadance was sent sprawling as the earth roared and rumbled its displeasure all around them. Her horn flared brightly, sending a thin green film washing over the walls of their pocket. A blue/purple film flowing out as well, blending and melding with hers, and a second later a weak violet glow from the drained alicorn of Magic joined them in reinforcing their cavern as it jumped and bucked and tried to shake their teeth from their sockets.

It was a timeless moment of exquisite terror for seven mares as the mountain they were under threatened to crush them in its mighty throes as rock shifted and broke, the mass of energy it had been suddenly charged with causing expansions and contractions, forcing it to find a new equilibrium that could bleed the unwanted energy away and attenuate it into the crust of the continental shelf.

Cadance never was quite certain how the quake stopped, whether abruptly or petering off over seconds to minutes. All she ever remembered was opening her eyes to a cavern dimly lit in the multicolored glow of three sets of horns and trying to decide if the world was still shaking or if it was only her.

Numbly she clambered to her hooves, grimly daring the floor beneath her to start moving again as she crept at a shuffling gait over to the once again prone form of Twilight. Her horns still faintly shining, casting a dim glow over the pegasus who lay draped protectively over her, shielding her body with cape and wings as if she would have held up the ceiling had it fallen upon them.

Knowing Dash as she did, Cadance didn’t doubt for a moment that the pegasus would have tried.

The archdemon knelt onto the mat of slowly drying creeper vines beside the unmoving lavender alicorn, her keen nose scenting fresh blood from her wounds. She carefully drew a wingtip along Dash’s cheek, feeling the pegasus stir and slowly withdraw now that the acute danger had passed. Giving the demonic alicorn the space needed to assess Twilight’s condition.

Sizewise there was no longer any disparity between the two corrupted alicorns. Their hellish trials had erased any differences in their rate of development. Twilight was nearly as large as Celestia had been many long years ago. Though perhaps not as willowy and graceful in form. She was deep-chested and leanly muscled in a way the Solar Alicorn had never been.

Her horn had lengthened, as should be expected from her natural ageless maturation, yet the two backswept almost draconic horns that curved from her crown giving her the devilish triad of a fel-unicorn were decidedly not the handiwork of alicorn biology.

Her mane was no longer the prim, mathematically precise nerd-cut she had always worn, though the ethereal mass filled with stars and galaxies tried to assume the old look as much as its gentle wavering body could be coaxed to, ebbing and flowing around her trio of horns like a living thing. Though it now flowed long and thick between her shoulders, curling down over either side heavily, much longer and fuller than her mane used to be. Cadance had often teased her for ‘letting her mane down’ this much.

Below the base of her lush mane, more changes became apparent, her darkly lavender fur giving way to soft folded plates of deep purple draconic scales, a widening swath of ‘different’ that broadened to subsume both wing bases, and everything attached to them. Her currently limp wings were draconic in form and function, the pale purple membrane pulled between predacious spars of bone and sinew. They were a size and a half as large as their feathered predecessors had been, scaled up similar to Fluttershy’s to accommodate a radically different form of flight.

The scales narrowed down her spine and over the top of her rump, petering out only after they had claimed their last conquest, her equine tail replaced with a long, thin whip of muscle and scales, a plume of ethereal stars at the tip the only concession to her alicorn heritage.

Crisscrossing her body were puckered burns and gouges. Each leaking her dark red blood from whatever tortures the portal had visited upon her. The damage was extensive, and it brought a keening mewl of distress from the archdemon’s throat to see it. Her horn’s glow brightening as she went to work, tenderly soothing and beginning the slow process of knitting ravaged flesh back together.

So intent was she upon her healing, that she almost didn’t react to a purple foreleg wrapping about her neck, dragging her down. She caught the briefest glimpse of smiling fangs before they caught her up in a hungry kiss. Glowing slitted eyes of deep violet gazed into hers as the kiss deepened swiftly and she gave a mumbled half-hearted protest as her magic fizzled out.

Cut up, burned, drained to the lees of her power, Twilight still had the physical strength to dominate the Archdemon of Lust, rolling her onto her back, clutched between strong forelegs as a long tapered tongue enjoyed her suddenly submissive mouth. Injured as she was, Twilight was still utterly beautiful to Cadance even so. The Archdevil of Power, domineering and seductive, taking no little portion of her stored energy, but leaving her feeling paradoxically stronger for the loss.

Eventually the passionate liplock became more celebration than feeding, and still they both lingered in the enjoyment. Indulging themselves after the complicated but real success of their escape from the infernal regions.

Finally they parted with a mutual gasp, though Twilight refused to release her. Cadance giggled with heady, almost delirious giddiness. It took her a moment to relearn how to form words.

“I-I think some of our… calculations were… off.” She managed to gasp out between pants for breath.

There was utter silence for a brief moment before Twilight began to chortle, hugging her all the tighter. Other slightly stressed voices joining in with the laughter as tensions began to dissolve. Cadance felt more warm bodies piling about her as the now long worn and comfortable cuddle pile coalesced about the two archfiends, pressing about them with giggles and peals of laughter. One small pocket of the mortal plane ringing once more with joyous voices not heard there in over a decade.

Starlight Twist didn’t immediately react when the quake started, initially chalking up the quiver to her tummy rumbling its complaints to her endless engrossment with her studies. It was only when one of her absurdly tall stacks of books and scrolls, precariously stabilized as it was, suddenly spilled to the floor with the increasing tremor did the startled pegasus tear her eyes from her parchment. Quill clutched between her lips as she realized her room was shaking, not her.

Blue eyes widening in shock as another monument to her current research project slid apart into a cascade of books onto the floor, the pegasus spat her quill in the general vicinity of the inkwell, rearing up to steady a third stack between her forehooves, wings flaring to catch more delicate scrolls before they could join the growing mess around her desk. The stack between her hooves shifted, drawing a meep of displeasure from her as the base parted company with the surface supporting it and she ended up hugging the top three books to her chest as the rest treacherously made a break for the floor. The shaking lasted for barely a minute before as quickly as it came, it ceased.

The navy blue pegasus gave a disgusted snort as she carefully set her few successful rescues upon the desk. Her eyes took in the now colossal mishmash of books on the floor and she groaned in dismay. Then her eyes spied the traitorous quill, which hadn’t quite made it to the inkwell, and instead had spattered ink spots over her parchment, queering the runes she had been painstakingly scrawling without the benefit of unicorn telekinesis. Her groan returned, double strength, as her ears flopped limply to each side. A flat mournful posture that made her look like she’d just been bonked on the head with a mallet.

Three hours work, ruined! She’d have to start from scratch again. Once she picked up her source materials… once she sorted which from which. Once she got another large sized, casting grade parchment. Her chin came to rest on the desk, staring mournfully down her muzzle at the loss of her afternoons efforts.

Canterlot had been having tremors for the past two years, but the quake ward project was supposed to have put a stop to it all. A year of planning and six months of concentrated work to ward the bedrock under Canterlot's foundations. How had an aftershock like that slipped through?

She wished she was at the class laboratories today. She’d have had a new parchment almost at once, and quite likely Professor Scrolls could have assessed her work post-tremor and have let her use a pre-scribed rune parchment after the mishap trashed her original effort.

But today was Swift’s late shift on patrol, and on nights her older sister worked late she had to make do with study at home. She might be considered an unexpected prodigy in magical theory and alternate application to the researchers in the school laboratories, which had secured her an anomalous posting as an assistant. But outside those hallowed halls she was ‘just’ a pegasus. And ever since the unpleasantness in Baltimare, being a pegasus was enough to some unicorns who had lost family there, and wings weren’t always enough to outrun an angry stallion looking for payback.

As she began to clear up the mess, she hoped her sister was having a better afternoon than she was.

“Is everypony alright?” Swift Light bellowed in her parade ground volume voice. “Anypony hurt? Speak up if you’re injured!” She barked, horn flaring as she snatched another pair of falling roof tiles out of the air before they could crash to the cobbles of the narrow street and further panic the disorganized mass of ponies all around her. She settled them on the growing stack at her hooves with a muffled clank, eyes busy watching for any more that slithered loose after that shake.

Murmurs, some still sounding panicked, some more sane erupted from all around her, but no yells, pained or otherwise responded to her call.

Standing at attention, the Guardspony was still an impressive sight, even if the white and gold of the royal armor had been traded out for the steel and blue of their more mundane existence as peacekeepers. The trick was to keep one's breathing controlled and relax slightly into the armor. Done properly, the full suit would remain perfectly motionless, and you would look like a statue of stone and steel. Immovable, impregnable, safe.

To have a motionless statue also catching falling tiles and policing them into neat stacks without seeming to even breathe was perhaps even more impressive to the layponies present.

It was the duty of the Guard to make ponies feel safe. And more than half of that job was done with showponyship.

“That’s the first strong shock we’ve had in months. Probably a misaligned section of warding left a gap that hasn’t been caught until now.” She swallowed a snort as she continued making up a plausible reason, going with whatever sounded good at the moment. “I’m sure the corps of engineers will be hard at work figuring it out.”

She lifted an armored forehoof and resumed her patrol, setting the neat stacks of tiles against the wall of the house that had been shedding them. The milling crowd gave way before her, making a respectful path for her as she departed the scene.

More than half was showponyship, she thought wryly, the rest was talking out of your plot but sounding like you knew what you were talking about.

Her patrol continued uneventfully as the hours bled away and soon the westering sun neared the horizon, the sky burned a deep orange as she rounded the last bend of her circuit and stamped into the tiny park that served as her rest point before she began the long plodding march back to the station.

Tiredly she unstrapped her helmet and tugged it off, feeling the tingle as the glamour enchantment on it dissolved. The steel grey of her coat fading into it’s natural snowy color, her grey eyes melting into amber as she gave an irritated shake of her chestnut mane. She really missed the old look, she’d never have had to use a full body enchantment to meet the requirements of the Royal Guard. And the new colors were so dull! Steel grey and blue grey and pewter.

Carefully she set her helmet down, glad to have the elaborate bucket off for a short time. Twisting her neck until it made a sound like celery stalks breaking she gave a grunt as some of the tension eased.

The park was barren now, used only by the guard as a waypoint now. The tiny fountain still bubbled dull grey water into the marble catchbasin, but the roses, the flowering shrubs and greenery had all been ripped out at the same time all the statuary of Celestia had been smashed and removed.

Once this had been a small, private little shrine to the sun goddess, maintained lovingly by the residents of the surrounding buildings. But with the coup, any form of devotional or worship of the sun had been outlawed. And all the little artistic nooks and niches of the city had been scoured clean of her imagery and icons.

Swift’s hoofs scuffed in the dry hard dust that had once bloomed with life, making her way passed the tiny morose little fountain to the outer wall, a soft breeze ruffled through her sweaty mane, bringing welcomed cooling as she looked out across the vast valley below, burnished copper in the setting sun.

And there, bathed in the waning light, her lips moved soundlessly with the first words of a prayer. A prayer she had uttered often since she had entered the academy.

It was called ‘The Guards’ Oath’ and was very old. The tradition said it had first come into being from the lips of Celestia herself, when the Royal Guard had first been formed. A litany of the traits she wanted her new Guard to stand for and been seen by the common ponies to exemplify.

It had passed from the first corps to their first conscripts and eventually to cadets of the academy that was founded to train new members. At some point it had become cadenced and ritualized.

Her class had been the last class to be taught it.

It was said to be upon the lips of any true Royal Guard at the moment of their death whether natural, accidental or from violence. A whispered affirmation of what they strove to be even as breath left their body for the last time.

It was… probably more romanticized than reality, but the concept held a powerful example of the strength of the ideals which they lived by. Definitely made an impression upon the young hopefuls at the academy.

And so she murmured the words, to the sun, to the sky, to herself. Turning away from the wall and approaching the small fountain. The water seemed so grey and lifeless, a burble of sound without the sparkle it had once held. Soot from the many factories had tarnished the marble of the bowl, leaving this dulled mirror. As grey as the reflection staring back up at her from the rippling surface. She wasn’t wearing her helmet, but nonetheless it was a drab, dull, greyed out mare that looked up, reciting the words of a dying ideal along with her.

Yet still she whispered the words. In acknowledgement of the many who had spoken them before her, and the one who had first spoken them long ago. The flame had become sparks, and now died to embers. Maybe when it was all over it would finally go out when those like her finally ended their vigil and acquitted their duties. Maybe then the last vestiges would go dark and cold. But she had a duty, if to do no more than blow upon those embers until she no longer had breath to.

Hoping always, for better days.