Courage turned to look behind her, which was a mistake. White was right there, just behind her plot, but her real undoing was not seeing the rock that tripped her. Stumbling and falling, Courage tried to roll, tried to use her magic, or her wings. The weight that settled atop her back denied her all attempts at freedom.

"Where are you running, Red?" White pinned Courage under his bulk, licking and nuzzling at her neck with unwanted affection; wherever his tongue or cheek touched, pure red fur remained. "Just calm down, relax. There is no need to run, here. Nopony ever gets away from my unity."

"What is this place?" Courage whined, trying desperately to get out from under the stallion. Squirming and shifting, she felt a cool sensation spreading from her neck, from where White was nuzzling her. It didn't numb sensation, it numbed her very soul. "Where am I?"

"Heresy. White is the antithesis of what ponies hold dear."

"You are in paradise." White hadn't heard the demon in Courage's head, answering her words superfluously. "Nopony ever gets sick, no pony ever dies, nopony ever even gets sad." He nuzzled up under the mare's mane.

"None of them are alive, none of them feel… anything." Courage felt that ice, White's ice, spreading through her being. It calmed her, it soothed her, it stole her hope. She was slack now, laying there, letting White rub and nuzzle her soul clean. A flash of memory came, just the slightest bit. As her features faded into relaxed and calm facade, she felt the corners of her mouth getting tight, of her eyes wanting to close. The memory jolted her, gave Courage a slight hint of pain that was the only real feeling she had left in the void of her soul.

Her voice no longer worked, all Courage could do was mouth the syllables. "Corignis el Threpin," she felt a stirring in her body, low, male, "ark Turas del Fife." Fire erupted inside Courage, but it felt almost too late. Her eyes closed, her mouth too.

Corignis looked around for the hot stallion-mare she remembered. "I swear, if this is just a booty-call… well booty-calls are okay, but... Huh, what are you doing to that pony?" She looked at the white stallion, watched him lap away at the red earth pony. "Hey, that looks pretty neat, do you get many," she reached out with her senses, "up here?"

White tilted his head up, looking from his prize to the succubus. "You are the second creature to come up to my domain recently. This morsel was so special. She was both stallion and mare, had great wings, an amazing cutie mark, and a horn flashing with a mix of pony and demon magic." White licked his lips and sighed. "Clever too, gave me a false name. But now she is mine."

Looking down at the once powerful pony, Corignis tilted her head. "You did this to my cute stallion?" The words were honest, open, inviting White to hang himself. "Please undo it."

Laughing, White stood up from the newly trapped mare. "She is mine, or would you like to join her? I admit, I have never tried to catch a demoness." Burning with renewed energy from "Red," White squared off with the demoness. "Hrmm… I am thinking… Teal."

Corignis blinked. "What do you mean, T—" She stumbled as demonic power poured off the white stallion, flowing toward her. Normally male-sourced power would just feed a succubus, but something felt very wrong about the "sticky" magic. She tried to shy away from it, but like cobwebs it clung and wrapped her, chilling the fire that always burned within.

"Don't fight, Teal. Don't struggle." White smiled and walked up to the demoness wrapped in his magic. "You can calm down, I have control of your destiny now. Everything you might have been, the great demon you may eventually have become, it will all make me more powerful."

Reaching a hoof down to Courage, Corignis trembled as her demonic power was slowly chilled and silenced in White's magic. She didn't have much left, and it ran against almost everything she believed, but putting a predator in a corner can always have interesting results. She pushed. She shoved. She jolted all her remaining magic out, down, and into Courage. "Kill him, for m—" Her lips sealed over, her eyes closed.

"Not as satisfying as I had hoped, but still a lovely meal. Stand up Teal, Red." White walked to the two earth ponies, reaching a hoof up to stroke their manes.

Courage's eyes twitched, fighting the form imposed on her face. She ripped her lips apart, tasting copper in her throat. Under her breath, with a curling smile, she murmured the words again. "Corignis el Threpin ark Turas del Fife." She barely had breath to make them, certainly not enough to make them heard. She repeated them again, felt fire flare in her soul, burning some of what she already was, but the pain from that added to her inferno. Courage's eyes ripped open, flaring wide so she could see again.

"Corignis el Threpin ark Turas del Fife!" Courage practically sang the name at the top of her lungs. "Corignis el Threpin ark Turas del Fife!" Each syllable sang in her throat, the pain of breathing, of her torn flesh, strengthened her conviction. "Have back what you gave." She shoved White back, thrusting some burning fire of demonic energy back into the teal pony.

Her life had ended. Teal was accepting of that. She had been a powerful demoness, but now she was Teal, she was a little pony, she no longer cared about anything. Then the fire came. It was a spark in dry tinder, Teal's insides felt like they were doused with accelerant. Corignis turned her head toward where the fire had come, her insides burned hot, searing her and filling her wing need. Ripping her mouth and eyes open, Corignis looked into Courage's face.

"What are you doing, stop that!" White reached toward both mares, flinging his magic over and around them. "Come on Teal, Red; both of you just relax and let me take care of everything." He stepped up between the two mares, admired both of them. "Just relax back into nothingness."

The fire of one of the mares wasn't hot enough, but together, embracing the pain and searing heat inside, Courage and Corignis exploded through the surrounding webs, burning up White's magic, using it to stoke the flames.

Courage turned her head to look at Corignis. "Corignis el Threpin ark Turas del Fife…" she let the words trail off, gripping the demon's name like a leash. Leaning up, she pressed her snout to Corginis' ear and whispered, "Courage Fire." Her name was whispered back by Corignis, it burned in her own ear and bound her, she didn't care. "Corignis…"

"Courage." Corignis smiled and leaned forward into a kiss, her lips needy as they touched the former pony's. She pushed her tongue past Courage's lips, forced her teeth aside and tasted the blood of the other mare, still lingering from where she had ripped her mouth open.

The kiss was invasive, delving, wicked. Courage's eyes danced as she stared into Corignis' bright red ones. Yanking back from the kiss, she turned to White, who was desperately trying to cast more magic onto them. "Get away from us!" She threw fire, her horn flaring red-black to try to ignite White.

Corignis laughed at how White dodged back, fleeing her friend's flames. But then White chittered in annoyance. A thick white abdomen pushed back from their pony body, swelling out huge and bloated. His back legs lengthened, growing along with four new limbs that sprouted from the twisted remains of his pony-body. "Starting to make sense now."

"Ew, a spider? I can't believe I bucked him." Courage leaned back and dodged to the side as a big leg lashed out toward her, trying to crush her underneath it. She leaped up and spread her returned wings. Launching into the air, Courage laughed in delight.

"You actually bucked him? Err, is it even a 'him'?" Corignis threw burning flames up when a leg tried to smash her. The demonic arachnid screamed as the limb became blackened, racing forward, mouth open, fangs exposed. "Little help!" She threw more flames at the spider's face.

Courage looked down, saw that Corignis now sported a unicorn horn. "Looking good, Cor!" She lowered her head and sent a blast of burning fire down, but while it hit White, it also jumped to Corignis.

With flames boiling over her body, Corignis laughed with delight. "Courage, you are magnificent!" Spreading her own wings, she reared up, only to crash forward with both her forehooves. Not wanting to give the spider demon a chance to recover, she continued moving, spinning around to lash out with a double-buck.

Watching Corignis lashing out again and again, Courage dove and landed on White's back. As her hooves settled, she felt every blow Corignis was dishing out to the monster. "I really wish I could feel sorry for you." She arched her back, reared up, then came back down with her forelegs tucked in tight, her head and horn aimed downwards.

White screamed in pain, the burning hooves of the demoness in front of him seemed like nothing, now, as a sharp stab on his back precluded all that burning fire pouring into him, filling him with flame. He tried to shift, to shove the fires out with his webs, but the magic he wove was eaten up, consumed in the inferno within. A rushing sound had him freeze, the burning sensation reaching a point midway down his body, then it poured up his windpipe. As he tried to scream, a huge gout of red-black fire tore free of his face, staining his white muzzle black. Then, at last, the flames reached his brain.

Corignis looked up at Courage, her eyes wide. "I… I think you can pull your horn out now." She looked back to the stump where White's head had been. "I think you got him… why didn't you tell me you could use balefire?"

" 'Balefire'? What the buck is balefire?" She jerked up and free, spreading her wings and flapping hard, just as the huge body began to fall apart, still burning from the inside out.

"Balefire, literally the most dangerous magic ever. Fire that devours everything, especially magic." Corignis watched as her friend landed before her, resplendent. Wait, friend? "What did you do to me?"

"What do you mean?" Courage looked back at the demon, watched its corpse start to fail further. "I tried to save you from White, and then you were… are… both of us…" She ran out of words examining herself.

"I have a soul!" Corignis felt so dirty, the horrible thing seeming to taint her very existence. "A soul, why Cour—" A hoof pressed to her snout.

"Best way to not be bucked with, is to make sure others know what they have to buck, right?" Courage's hoof waggled up and down as Corignis nodded. "And letting anypony know my full name is a bad idea, right?" Another nod. "Perfect, so call me Balefire." She drew her hoof back, grinning a little at the little kiss Corignis gave it.

"What is going on… I can't call you that. Courage is a nice name. I certainly felt courageous with your fire on me." Corignis watched as the last of the huge spider demon started to burn and smolder away. "Are you fine to head up? I can see a whole Circle of ponies that look… delicious."

Courage blinked at that. "Wait, the next level? What are you going to do to them? They… they don't have anything left!" She pointed at the town of sightless, mouthless ponies, gazing around blindly for the demon that took care of them.

"Exactly, and it is all your fault." Corignis pointed a hoof at Courage. "When I first got here, all that I thought about when I saw the blind ponies, was toys." She gave a sigh that spoke volumes for how terrible her life was now. "Now… now I care about them."

"You," Courage giggled, "have gone soft, Corignis." She pranced a few steps. "Corignis the succubus queen, feels sorry for ponies, hugs them. Wait, is there a newspaper in the Pit?"

"When I have it all under control… or at least have them all in the care of succubi and incubi, I will follow you up. Don't call my name, unless you really need me." Leaning in close, Corignis kissed Courage's cheek. "And do something about this soul, together we could kill any demon in here except the old boss, but I don't think I like killing unless I… This is maddening! GO!"

Author's Notes:

So I do this "Ask x" thing, x can be any pony within the story. You can ask them anything and I they will definitely hopefully reply. Keep the questions appropriate to the age-rating of the stories and of course, I they will answer the best question(s) in the author notes of the next chapter. The more votes a comment has the more likely I will get it to the right pony to answer, try and keep it to one answer per post! I They will pick one question per chapter. (note, the commissioner will answer questions in the comments, since this is their OC)

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