This is a bad end, leading on from the previous chapter.

Courage felt sure in her cause; she had the backing of the Lord of the Pit. Part of her realized she always did. "How do we do this?" Behind her, Tartarus trembled and shook, the Circle itself protesting its lord having violated its tenets.

"I will take Treachery," Alphias looked to Corignis, "you take Fraud," then his head turned to Courage, "and you take Violence. I heard you had quite a rapport with the wyrm." He grinned and flexed the magic in his horn. "With our lord's blessing, we need not step from Circle to Circle, the Pit is open to us."

"What do you mean? How do we travel to one Circle in particular?" Corignis was confused about the matter, and a glance to Courage revealed to her she was not the only one.

"Rip your portal open, but direct your will towards the emotion of the Circle to which you wish to travel. I will return us here, wait for me." Calling his magic, Alphias started to cast the spell that would pull him between Circles, and focused on the feeling of betrayal when Courage had turned on him and Corignis.

"Look! A pony!" The hissing voice came from Alphias' right, but he could see there were the lamia all around him.

"Not just a pony." Stomping his hoof, sending the impact through the stone and outwards, Alphias roared in fury. "I am a messenger from the Lord of the Pit." The pronouncement drew gasps from the snake-ponies. "He has found the way out, the way free. Come, call your master so that the Host can assemble!"

"I think we just take this pony and use them as a puppet." A lamia darted forward, net in its forehooves already being flung. "GET IT!"

"No." Alphias lit his horn, casting his magic around him and tearing huge spears of crystal from the ground. One found the net, the next speared the lamia itself, hoisting it into the air as the merciless, faceted crystals didn't just grow through the belly of the snake-pony, but jutted out perpendicular to the shaft, growing into the lamia. "I will not be trifled with." A brief pang of sorrow hit Alphias, remembering his son and their shared love of crystalline magic.

An uneasy standoff began, with Alphias turning slowly, glaring at the lamia, while the snake-ponies looked for any sign of weakness.

"Learned Scholar, First Lieutenant to the Lord of the Pit. Disgraced… last I heard." A huge snake-pony slithered its way towards the ring of lamia around Alphias. "Why are you here, and why did you tell my minions that the Host was assembling?"

"It is. The Lord of the Pit sent me to rally the Host. They will pay for what they did to my son, Siljet." Alphias ignored the hard look in the King of Treachery's eyes. "Come, we will maim and kill until we are both sated."

"I despair ever having given you that part of my name, Learned." Siljet readied himself to attack the sorcerous unicorn. "What are his chances… this time?"

Alphias started working a much grander magic, one that he could only cast with the blessing of the Lord of the Pit. "Considering who he has coerced to help, pretty good." He tore a hole between Circles, opening a gap between Treachery in the Ninth Circle and Tartarus, the First Circle. "This lasts as long as it needs to. Bring your army, Siljet."

Laughing at the fury that showed on the King of Treachery's face, Alphias opened another personal portal, pulling him to Fraud.

Corignis landed in the center of the city: Fraud. She turned in a circle, ruffling her wings a little to encourage the other demons to keep away from her. There were ponies here, most were not happy or in any way sane.

"Oh, a succubus from the higher circles," a sneering voice said from behind Corignis. "Think they're all perfect and proper, just because they are—"

"I am a succubus, and I have come from Tartarus itself." Corignis turned to face her accuser and ran an appraising eye over the demon who spoke. "The Lord of the Pit bade me come back down here and call on the debt every demon owes him."

The incubus rolled his eyes at Corignis. "The Lord of the Pit sent you? A common—" He didn't get another word out as white balefire splashed over him. He screamed and wailed as his body was eaten away by the hungry fire. The other denizens of Fraud watched the succubus turn her rear to him.

"Does anyone here have a more civil tongue?" The old ways of Fraud came back to Corignis quickly. Might makes right, and better to use might before someone else did. "Where is the Councilman?"

Faces blanched around her, and Corignis started to sweep her balefire-covered wings back to douse more targets, when a demoness rushed forward. "Wh-Who sent you?"

Corignis' attention turned to the mare. She studied her, noting the lack of wings, but the presence of two twisting horns. She had "cambion" written in every line; she was a half-cast demon. "The Lord of the Pit sent me, and by his words I demand to see the ruler of Fraud!"

Gasps and whimpers came from the crowd around Corignis, and though the cambion showed signs of shock, she dipped her head to Corignis. "This way, the Councilman will see you immediately."

Calling back her flames, Corignis left the crowd and followed the half-cast. "What is your name?" It was worth a try; if she was stupid enough to give their name to another demon, it was a sign they wouldn't live long in the Pit.

Leading the succubus quickly to the council chambers, the cambion turned her head to Corignis. "I am known as Bejal, the secretary." Bejal trotted along, not wanting anything to do with the balefire the demoness following her wielded. "My father is in the next room, please wait—"

"No waiting, sorry Bejal." Corignis could have slapped herself for the apology, but ignored Bejal's further protests as she walked forward and spread her wings to fan her flames onto the big door.

Staring in shock, Bejal's mouth worked as she watched the succubus set fire to the council chambers' main doors. In places, the white balefire started to burn through, and soon enough large chunks of the door were missing. She stared in shock as the succubus just walked into the flames, and gasped as the fire licked over her, and seemed to withdraw to her body.

"What is the meaning of this?!" The Councilman's demand was intense, but not as much as Corignis would have expected.

"Who are you? I am here to see the Councilman." Corignis looked around, ignoring the pony in the middle of the chambers. "Bejal! Tell me where the ruler of Fraud is, or I will burn this city to the ground!"

"He is the Councilman!" Bejal would not meet her father's eyes. "The ruler of Fraud is a pony… my father." She dropped to her belly beside Corignis. "Please! Please don't hurt him! Fraud is run perfectly, there are no struggles for dominance, and it is safe for…" She trailed off as her mothers entered the chambers.

"We are the council, but this stallion leads us. I am Eleris, and we ask that you not destroy what we have built." Eleris, first wife of the Councilman, bowed to Corignis.

"Fraud all the way down, isn't it?" Corignis was smiling, but she didn't feel happy. "Well, the Lord of the Pit sent me. The Host gathers, and you will come." She turned her attention to the mature stallion who walked towards her. "Councilman, I don't care what you are, I can feel the power of Fraud within you. Make ready to march to Equus."

"Corignis?" Alphias recognized his lover's work in the destroyed door, now that he had seen the fire she carried. Marching in, the arch-demon saw her addressing a unicorn stallion. "Corignis, I need to open a portal to send this Circle's tithe through. Who is in charge here?"

"I am." The unicorn looked from Corignis to Alphias. "Star Swirl the Bearded, at your service." Star dipped his head a fraction. "I will call for the demons, give me a moment."

Alphias looked from the stallion back to Corignis, and when she shrugged, back to Star. He was about to say something when a pulse of power poured out of Star, shoving into the Circle of Fraud and calling the demons. "Good. Your portal will be here." Again Alphias ripped the fabric of the Pit open, creating a portal to Tartarus.

"Come, Corignis, we must go to Violence next." Alphias stepped up beside Corignis with a last glare at Star Swirl. "I loved your work in bright magic, mage, but have you ever worked the darkness?"

Star Swirl cocked an eyebrow at his apparent fan, then stepped silently through the portal to Tartarus.

Courage felt the pull the moment her hooves hit the dirt. Before her was a partially rebuilt colosseum, and she could clearly hear the roar of the crowd as well as the clash of creatures within. She knew what lay just under the sand of the stadium; she remembered the rage of the beast as Corignis had flown her out the first time. "Violence!"

A rumble shook the stadium, shaking the structure and destroying some of the newly repaired sections.

"VIOLENCE!" Courage screamed the word, and used her magic to amplify it even louder. Temptation surged within Courage, and she wanted to kill the great wyrm so badly her blood boiled in her veins. Fangs grew in her mouth, sharp and ready to shred flesh. Claws poked from the ends of Courage's hooves as the energies of the arch-demon of Violence reached towards her with its power.

"The Lord of the Pit sent me." The rumbling stopped as Courage said the words. Though they weren't loud, the sentence was easily heard by the wyrm. "The way to Equestria… Equus… will soon be open. The Lord of the Pit needs your army, your terrible, hungry-to-kill army!"

The shaking was back, but this time the ground split and cracked, then started to thrust upwards. Beasts and monsters rushed from the stadium; running for their lives. Just like last time, a huge, faceless head pushed up, tearing the colosseum apart and reaching towards the sky. But unlike last time, it didn't stop. Two huge wings spread, and the Wyrm of Violence freed itself from the ground and gravity both.

Power surged like waves through the onlookers. Their slight mutations—gifts for winning in the stadium—seemed tiny compared to what was wrought now. Canine-like hell hounds became bigger and bigger, until their size would rival the oldest of dragons back on Equus. As the beast flying above circled around the gathered, its power surged through them again, and each became larger, turning into an engine of pure destruction.

"You were waiting for this?" Courage looked up at the sightless arch-demon circling above. "You were planning and training them, filtering out the weak from the strong." Looking at all the beasts surrounding her, Courage had a further revelation. "I was to be one of these, wasn't I?"

"Courage!" Alphias and Corignis appeared not far away from Courage, with monsters all around them. Corignis immediately summoned her flames, and Alphias his magic—sensibly, into a shield to cover them.

"STOP!" Courage felt a surge of desire suddenly rush through her, but it wasn't for sex. She ached to join her sister and lover, to turn on Violence's minions and destroy them. She stopped and breathed deeply, but the adrenaline-choked air had no room for calmness. Turning her blood-lust to motion, Courage rushed towards Corignis and Alphias.

"Courage, what is the situation here? Is Violence ready to march?" Alphias didn't take his eyes off the crowd of hellish monsters. Carefully making a hole in the heaviest shield he had ever put up, Alphias felt an ache of rage flood through, of the need to fight and kill.

Wrapping her lovers in her own shield, Courage looked to Alphias and Corignis. "You need to get them to Tartarus quickly, and we need to leave."

With a barrier between him and the madness of Violence, Alphias nodded and put up as big a portal as he could. Behind him, Corignis was already working magic that would pull them from Violence to Heresy.

Author's Notes:

Not the end, not even an end... yet. Next week Pt3 will arrive, and we will see what the unified forces of the Pit, led by its lord, can do.

~~~~~+++++~~~~~

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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