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

Courage was aware of the dream. She was lucid, but that didn't stop her being caught up in the emotions within, to feel the power that becoming the Mistress of Heresy brought. But it was just a dream—premonition.

"This seems like a nice one." The soft voice in Courage's head sounded familiar, but she couldn't place it. "Do you want to see more? We can promise that you save both your lovers."

"Then what is bad about it?" It took a moment for Courage to work out how to speak, but with an act of pure willpower she made the words manifest.

"You will see."

Jolting to consciousness again, Courage was in two minds—literally. The part of her that was awake and in the dream didn't know it was a dream, but there was an onlooker, a passenger in her body that knew this was another premonition, and that if she remembered everything that happened she could take this path.

Wrath was bleak. The three demons were standing on a small, swampy island that was surrounded by a river that went on forever. The river Styx. Surrounded by legends and myths all its own, it meant the end of any creature to touch its inky waters. Courage remembered when she had entered the water. The feeling of having her soul torn free of her body caused the demoness to shiver where she stood.

"Don't everyone offer to ring the bell at once." Corignis shattered the mood and stepped forwards. Reaching up with a wing, she grasped the rope attached to the bell's clapper firmly, and shook it three times. The sound of the ancient bell echoed over the misty river. Corignis turned and raised an eyebrow at Courage, then started to dance sensuously, chiming the bell in time to her rhythm.

Courage's eyes were glued to Corignis. She watched the other mare move and felt desire and hunger in equal quantities. So focused on her love was she, that even when the ferry nudged the shore she kept watching.

Finishing her dance, Corignis turned coyly to see Courage and Alphias staring at her. A look at the shore showed the ferrypony in his sackcloth robe, eyes fixed on her. "If I knew I was going to have such an audience, I would have worn something I could take off."

"Repeat customers are not so common here." The ferrypony looked from Corignis to Courage. "Particularly coming from the same side twice in a row. It begs the question, who are you that you could bypass the Styx?"

"Learned Scholar. Arch-demon. General of the Host. Right hoof of the Lord of the Pit." Corignis gestured to Alphias with a wing. "And the best stallion I have ever gotten on my back." She leaned to kiss Alphias firmly. "And here we have Courage." She pointed at her other lover with her free wing. "Former cambion. Former succubus. Mistress of Heresy—"

"No!" The ferrypony shook his head and cut in. "That can't be! The lords of the Circles are trapped, they can't leave!"

Alphias barked a laugh. "You are missing some information then, colt. The lords of the Circles are trapped, until the Lord of the Pit calls them. He has called, and we are here to escort Death himself to join the gathering host."

"You want Gramps." The ferrypony breathed a sigh. "Hop on, but I don't think he will want to see you. It has been nearly forever since he has seen another demon." Moving around on the ferry, he prepared his pole to push off from land again.

Courage, Corignis, and Alphias boarded the ferry, and Courage felt some little desire to repeat her last ride—all of her last ride. She strode up to the ferrypony. "Nice to see you again, Nothing. Will you require payment for this ride?"

"You remembered my name." Nothing pushed the pole into the Styx and back firmly. "Are you sure big, dark, and arch-demon there wouldn't be upset?" He tilted his head in Alphias' direction.

"He is my mate, not my master." Courage walked right up to Nothing and inhaled the scent of him. Demon, her mind told her, Powerful. The old hunger of a succubus roused in Courage, bringing heat to her nethers and making her a little more wanton. "Maybe not a full fare, but…" she dipped her head down and under the stallion and found him ready for her.

Nothing groaned a little as Courage took him in her mouth. Fighting his urges, Nothing didn't buck at the mare, letting her pay her way. They were making good time to his grandfather's home, so to make it last a little he circled around twice.

Courage squeezed and sucked at the stallion's shaft, encouraging his pleasure along with her tongue and lips. But something was different now, she wasn't feeding off his energy. Courage wasn't a succubus anymore, despite having some of the neediness of one. When the hot rush of the stallion's seed hit the back of her mouth, Courage guzzled and drank it down. Not one to disappoint, Courage suckled at Nothing's shaft until he was not only done, but clean.

"If you are quite done?" Nothing looked back at Courage, and gave her flank a poke with his magic. Her head shot up with a smile on her lips. "We are there," He told her—as if they couldn't have been there earlier.

"I didn't get a drop from you…" Courage was musing a little on her altered state. "Magic… power… I'm not referring to your seed." Courage nuzzled Nothing's cheek. "I got plenty of that." She left Nothing staring at her as she swayed her hips seductively while making her way off the boat.

The island they landed on was larger than where they had started, but the center of it was dominated by a house. "Gramps!" Nothing, finally getting his wits back, strode towards the house. "Hey, Gramps! You have a visitor!"

"A visitor? What's that m'boy?" The door of the house opened to reveal what looked at first like an ambulatory skeleton. Wearing no clothing at all, the skeleton nonetheless produced a pair of old glasses from somewhere and lifted them up to his eyes. "As I live and breathe. Alphias?" A sickly green glow left the skeletal eye sockets and passed through the glasses.

Alphias froze. He had not given his name to many, but Death was one creature from which no name was hidden. "Death." He bowed a little. "The only demon that knows all names, and is not bound by his own. It is time, Death."

"Crime? What crime?" Death took some steps forward onto his front veranda. With some more of the dim light that hung around the Styx illuminating him, his actual body was visible. Swirling around Death's skeleton in place of the flesh of a pony, the dark waters of the Styx were part of the ancient demon. "C'mere, boy."

Alphias looked to Nothing, and got a look back that clearly said, "He means you." Striding forwards, Alphias fought terror for the first time in his life. A touch from Death really was your end, and it was obvious why. "Yes?"

"You are the General? Arch-demon and second in command to Lapsis?" The last word sizzled in the air between them, but it went no further.

"His name…" Alphias took a deep breath. "I am that. I have come to summon Death to the final battlefield." Back on his game, Alphias puffed his chest forward. "Are you ready?"

"Nope." Death reached a hoof up and rubbed his head, sloshing the water of his flesh around. "I can barely walk down to the waters anymore. How am I meant to fight?" He waved a hoof in the air, narrowly missing Alphias. "Nope. Go back and tell Lapsis I ain't comin'."

"Gramps, what's going on? You told me you were waiting for this day!" Nothing stomped up beside Alphias. "I remember all the stories you would tell when I was a foal—"

"When you were a foal!" Death shook his head. "Lad, I may not be as sharp as a scythe anymore, but I know you done got some growin' since then." Waving a hoof at the river, Death coughed up some phlegm. Spitting the mess of river weeds out, he looked squarely at Nothing. "If'n you like the idea so much, why don't you go?"

"Because I'm not you, Gramps!" Jabbing a hoof towards his grandfather, Nothing almost spat the words. "Come on! You are the last of the original four! You have to ride when Equestria is doomed!"

"Aristable." The rictus grin Death gave his grandson said more than any words could. "Nothing no more. Death." He lifted a hoof up and pressed it to his own kin's chest.

Nothing opened his mouth to scream, but as he did, his flesh started to melt. Sloughing from him in huge slabs, dripping from his bones in red runnels, Nothing's body was eaten away by the power of Death.

"Truth is," Aristable, the older Death, pulled his hoof back, "I have needed to rest my bones for a long time now. My boy here had a good life so far, but now it is time for him to take the mantle." He aimed his bony hoof towards the waters of the Styx. "Go on, lad. You know this is your destiny."

Courage wasn't sure what had happened, but she watched Nothing's body melt away more by the second. She opened her mouth to yell to him, but despite having no muscles left on his legs, Nothing ran.

He was dying, of that Nothing was sure, but his grandfather was right about one thing: it was time to take his duty seriously. Tossing his head, he felt chunks of the gray matter fall from his skull. His last eye barely beheld Courage in his mad dash for release, and his last thoughts as the river lapped around his hooves was how good she had been to him.

"Is he… is he dead?" Corignis stared at the place where Nothing had dove into the water. The moment all his hooves were in it was like someone cut the cords on the marionette. "What the actual buck just happened?!"

"Show some respect!" Aristable glared at Corignis. He could feel the water around his bones letting go of his form. The river was taking back its power from him and was giving it to his grandson. "Dig me a hole, Alphias. Six feet deep, wide enough that I can stretch out…"

Alphias didn't even think to argue. The venerable demon needed a grave, and he intended to supply it. Power poured through him, and thick black tentacles began to rip at the ground, digging down and forming a mound of muddy dirt beside it.

"Will either of you tell us what just happened to Nothing? Why are you digging? What are you…" Courage trailed off. "A grave."

"This was the lad's job, but he is a little busy dyin'." Aristable inspected the hole, even as he felt his own time ebbing away from him as the waters dripped and flowed. "Deep enough, boy." His tenuous grip on respect for Alphias wavered and failed as his end neared. "Fill it in… let one of the pretty fillies throw the first few clods." Green lights flickered in his eyes, and the old demon smiled up at Courage and Corignis. "M' boy told me about you both. Be kind to him, he is new at—"

Aristable, the old Death, collapsed into a pile of bones within the grave.

"Do what he said, start filling him over." Alphias shook his head, but turned to where Nothing had run. "I hope this works, I would hate to be the one to tell… Him… that Death rides no more." Swinging his head back, he saw his mates pushing dirt down into the hole. Judging it enough of a tribute, Alphias began to shift back the huge stack of dirt he had extracted.

The hole filled up more and more, but there was no neat mound to mark Aristable, only a slight depression in the muddy soil was his marker. "Should we say a few words?" Courage felt compelled to speak. She was staring at the ground where Aristable had been just moments ago.

"I think that is my job." The deep voice from behind them caused all three demons to jump, spin around, and gape. Nothing was gone; only Death remained. Aristable had been old, weak, his bones eaten by what diseases could keep hold on them over the millennia of his life. Nothing was Death the way someone would write it in all capitals, bold, and underline. He was DEATH. "Gramps, Aristable, you guided many to their last, and you wove the river Styx for longer than most demons can conceive of. I promise I will take the last soul for you." His horn lit a sickly green to match his glowing eyes, and Death hefted a last piece of clod onto the grave.

The four demons stood in silence, looking down on Death's grave. A cool breeze swept over the Styx, stirring Courage, Corignis, and Alphias' mane around. Death looked up at the house. "It's time." He marched forward, still feeling strangely heavy with his liquid flesh around him. Marching into the house, he saw it hanging on the wall where it always was. "End." The huge scythe's name was as simple as his own now. Death's horn lit, and he lifted the weapon from the rack. It was impossible to lift. Impossible to swing. But for Death, the scythe weighed almost nothing. The blade was a deathly blue in color, and sharp enough to sever a soul from its body.

Courage watched Death stalk from the house, his iconic tool held at his side. Something inside wanted to scream in terror and run. Fear, pure and simple, coursed through her, but when she managed to meet Death's gaze, she saw a familiar twinkle. Her mouth worked, and she spoke a single word. "Nothing."

"Aim me, General." Death marched forward on hooves that would bring death with a touch. He reached down with his magic and pulled his sackcloth cloak from the sticky, rotten flesh that had been his own. Dragging it around his shoulders and cowling his head, he looked at Alphias.

"Right this way, Lord Death." Alphias bowed deeply. It wasn't every day he got to see Death die, and Death be born. He ripped a portal open and gestured towards it. "We are skipping my domain, we ride for Gluttony."

"And Death traveled with them…" Courage lifted a hoof up and, very carefully, hugged Death around the shoulder. "We have a plan, you see. This is going to be awesome!"

The other part of Courage whimpered a little in horror at what had happened, and what it meant for Death to join the army of the Pit against Equestria.

Author's Notes:

Not the end, not even an end... yet. Next week Pt5 will arrive, and the terror within Courage will grow further. Can she survive her own worst nightmare?

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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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