"So, repeat back to me what you can't do." ordered the archdevil again, looking at the three servants he had gathered in the kitchen.
"I can't eat them." Grunted Esper, frowning. He snarled and muttered something under his breath, but a glare from his master set him silent in an instant.
"I can't dissect, vivisect, or study in any non-consensual way their physiology." stated Pumpkinhead with boredom, evidently impatient to return in his dungeon, where he was likely working over something.
"And I can't drink their blood, even though there wasn't any danger in the first place." Concluded Sasha, adjusting a pair of glasses on her nose. The devil nodded, satisfied.
"Well, I'll count on you then. The girls are staying in their room, after a little bit of arguing about that, but I don't think they'll leave until I go to take them out. But now, I have a meeting. Again. So, you have to keep an eye on them."
"Meeting…? Master, but if I understood correctly, it was Mephisto's fault that all this mess happened, right?" asked the scarecrow, scratching his head. "Aren't you afraid of some sort of revenge? You stopped him, if I remember right."
"He will not risk exposing the fact he travaled to a forbidden dimension to Satan. He'll stay silent. And the same for me… for now…" grunted the devil, slapping his tail on the ground. "I'll have to expose what he did to the boss. But not at a group meeting."
"As you prefer master." Muttered the scarecrow.
"Esper, I need you to go in the guest room and get rid of a boogeyman hidden in the closet." Stated the archdevil, while turning and heading towards the door. The werewolf huffed, but said nothing. The vampire smiled, snickering towards Esper.
"And Sasha, I need you to find Ches and the Slenderman, and tell them not to hurt the ponies. I'm sure that they both usually don't hurt nonhuman creatures, but better safe than sorry." Added the devil. Sasha saluted, before morphing in a big, hairy black bat with a puff of smoke, flapping away. The devil nodded, and disappeared in a swirl of shadows. Pumpkinhead and Esper stayed still for a couple of seconds.
"Well… have fun, wolfy." finally mocked the scarecrow, before darting away, dodging the swing of the other man's clawed hand. Esper growled something, before opening the other door and beginning to walk through the corridors of the castle, fuming a little. When he arrived at the black wooden door of the guest room, he burst it open with a kick, grumbling, startling Fluttershy.
The yellow pegasus, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash were all gathered around a board game on the ground, while Twilight was curled up on the bed, reading the first of a pile of books she had taken from the library. In front of the enormous covered window Applejack was trying to pull aside the curtins, without any result, as Rarity examined the fabric.
"Oh… hello Esper… sir…" muttered Fluttershy. The man ignored her and moved towards the wooden frame of the furniture, sniffing it a little.
"You know, it's nice answer to someone that just said hello to you." Stated Pinkie, glaring a little at the man.
"I'm just trying to ignore you, so I'm not going to be tempted to rip off one of your legs." Muttered the man, tapping a dirty nail on the wood. "Why am I even talking to you anyway? Got to get rid of this boogeyman." Applejack turned, watching as the man continued to tap against the wood of the furnishing.
"Ya mean that thing that scared the living hay out of us last night?"
"I wasn't scared!" exclaimed Rainbow, looking grumpily at the orange mare.
"Of course you were scared. That's what boogeymen do, scare creatures and eat their fears." Muttered the man, scratching his ears. "Usually they haunt childrens' rooms, but they are like parasites here in Hell, since there are all the fears of the tortured souls to eat. And apparently one of them decided to choose this as his home." He muttered. "They are not a great deal, just don't get in the way." The ponies nodded, and returned to their occupation, still keeping an eye on the man as he opened the cabinet's door and began to wrestle with a long string of black hair.
"So… Esper... what's this place like...?" asked Rarity after a couple of minutes, just to try and break the unsettling silence that had filled the room. Esper sighed, while slashing a couple of hairs with his nails.
"What kind of question is that? Since you know the master, I assume you know a little about around here." He muttered, without responding to the excited comment of the pink pony of how strange it was to hear someone calling 'Noxy' master.
"He didn't say much, though. He just said it was a bunch of cruel and dungerous stuff. But since he said the same things about himself, we never take him really seriously." stated Rarity nonchalantly, still studying the curtain's fabric. "Is this silk?"
"Spider's silk, yeah." Stated calmly Esper. Rarity retracted her hoof immediately, slightly disgusted. "What do you mean, you never took him seriously?"
"He never did anything really evil." Stated simply Applejack. Esper blinked at that, but said nothing, as a clawed black hand emerged from the closet, trying to drag him inside. It was quite surprising to hear that… he was surely going to talk about that with the others. Another three hands emerged and continued to drag him inside. Now the mares were all looking worriedly at the man. Esper sighed, and closed his eyes, as a soft, white fur began to grow on his skin.
-oOo-
"So, here we are again, for another amazing morning of fun!" chirped Satan, examining the paperwork in front of him. Noxfero, Daelus and Lilith groaned, in the expectation of another boring couple of hours. Mephisto sighed and tapped a nail on the obsidian table. Noxfero glared for a second at him. In the same moment their eyes had met, they silently agreed to act as usual. There was no need let Satan know that they had both disobeyed him.
"Now, before our normal schedule, I've got an announcement to make: I'm taking some days off. You know, taking my daughter for a little trip on Venus… so, I'll be gone for a week or so."
Mephistopheles' eyes blazed for an instant with scarlet light, as Noxfero paled for a second: that meant that the Archdevil of wrath would have free field for his… whatever he was going to do. The archdevil's ears flapped nervously, as he glared at the scarlet devil.
"Now, having said that…" began the master of the Hell, starting four hours of senseless and boring babbling, which put Daelus to sleep. At the end of the encounter, Noxfero was sprawled over the table, scratching the surface with his claw, while at his sides, Daelus was snoring loudly and Lilith was examining her hair. Taking the hints, Satan stopped trying to confer with them and sent them away in a burst of flames and materialized pain.
"Such an interesting reunion. Especially at the end." stated Daelus, while patting an enormous hand on the little flames burning the fur over his shoulder. Noxfero grinned and nodded, his head still on fire. Daelus looked at him for a couple of seconds, curious. "You seem to be strangely happy Nox. More than usual anyway. Did something happen?" asked the enormous devil. Noxfero opened his mouth, just to notice the amber eyes of Mephisto gazing on them.
"I'll tell you another time…" he muttered, before disappearing in a swirl of shadows. He still had to make a plan to help the girls. He needed help, of course: Mephisto was one of the eldest archdevils, after all. The devil's ears flapped as he relaxed a little, while the shadows retracted, showing the comforting protection of his castle. He yawned, took a couple of steps, and stopped: Jaco was rolling happily over the floor, his body wrapped in a piece of cloth, letting him clean the ground while rolling.
"Hey Nox, you are back early!" he chirped, still rolling on the ground. The bigger devil nodded and proceeded to walk over his minion's face while heading towards the mares' room. "Noxy, if you are searching for the girls, they ran away from their room in fear a couple of hours ago. I think they're actually hiding under your bed."
"Under my bed?"
"Yup, I think they were scared by something."
"Did they see your laundry?"
"Nope, I don't think so."
"Did they see my stuff?"
"Nope."
"Did they see outside?"
"I don't think so."
"So what?" growled Noxfero, grabbing his minion with his tail and raising him into the air.
"They were screaming something about a big wolf. I assume Esper is involved." Choked out the little devil. Noxfero sighed, letting him go.
"Why the hell did they have to follow measked the devil to himself, before hurrying to his room. As Jaco had said, when he entered he saw the six trembling tails of the mares poking out from under his bed. The devil sighed, before crouching and facing the scared mares. "I assume you saw Esper change?" he asked calmly. The whimpers he received in response was enough.
"He didn't attack you, right?" he asked, standing up again and taking off his raincoat. "Usually werewolves can't control their transformations. He can, you don't have to be scared of him. Only if's chasing you, then you have to worry." The mares crawled out of the bed, still trembling. "He just transformed to get rid of the bogeyman in your closet quickly. I'm sure that whatever he did wasn't so scary "
-oOo-
"What the actual fuck Esper!" stated the devil with his mouth slightly open, as he examining the guest room: part of the floor had been torn apart by claw marks, the bed lay ripped in half, part of the wall was cracked and splatters of blue blood were all over the place. Esper grumbled something, while he dragged the rest of the closet out of the room.
"It was a big bogeyman." He stated grumpily, before disappearing down the stairs. Noxfero sighed. That would mean another night with the girls. Well, at least he had all afternoon to calm them down.
"Dad." Stated Junior's voice from behind him: the little devil was standing in the corridor, happily ignoring the mess in the room.
"…Yes? Junior, I'm going to be occupied, so whatever it is, be quick about it." Noxfero grunted, glaring at his son, who didn't react in any way to his father's words.
"You have to do your trip to your level this afternoon. Too much time has passed since your last inspection." Junior stated coldly. Noxfero's ears flapped, as he opened his mouth, trying to find an excuse. "You can't avoid it. Not again." Hissed the little devil. "I had enough of doing your chores all the time. An I'm afraid you can't use those horses as an excuse. You have to do your job."
"Fine, fine!" snarled the archdevil, glaring at his son, that looked at him for a couple more seconds before leaving. Noxfero leaned against the wall, thinking: he had to go, that was true. But he couldn't leave the girls alone. Not with Jaco, of course, he had been a trouble-magnet in Equestria, but in Hell he was even worse. Leaving them with Esper was obviously not a good idea, Pumpkinhead… of course not, Junior was out of question…
The devil turned and walked towards the library. Sasha was of course the betst bet. The only risk was that she would say no.
-oOo-
"Why, of course. I'd love to keep an eye on them." Exclaimed happily the vampire, while floating around the shelves and moving around some books.
"You sure? They could be noisy." Stated the devil from the ground, following the girl with his eyes. The vampire just giggled and moved some other books.
"It's true that I appreciate peace and quiet, but I also appreciate some company. No one comes here, except you and Jaco. Also, they make you happy, so that's a good reason for me to look out for them."
"Why would you say that?!" asked the devil worriedly, his face greying a little. The vampire giggled, floating down and and giving Noxfero a quick kiss on the cheek.
"It's just obvious." She chirped, before floating away again. The devil sighed. At least, maybe things were going a little better.
Well, of course they weren't, but still, he didn't know that.
Oo-oO
New chapter, finally. Hope you liked it. Find a second to drop a review, I want to be sure to do a good job.