Epilogue
I can't move.
I can't speak.
I can't do anything really, save for summon up the strength to eat a meal every once in a while. Even then its always the same thing. Some soup and a little bread. I can't seem to keep down anything else, and even this I barely stop myself from vomiting up.
Everyday I do the same thing.
I sit in my cell, but I'm not alone. In here with me are Celestia, Cadence, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and countless others who I don't recognize, yet understand what fate brought them here.
I killed them. I killed every last one of them. I killed them all without even a second thought, without hesitation, and without remorse. I had cut, burned, crushed and impaled them, all with the same care and effort that one gives to crushing an insect. I had likened some of my best friends in the world, with whom I had shared numerous stories and adventures, to insects to be squashed.
What sort of monster was I?
"Hello? Hello Hello Hellooooo? Is this thing on? Anypony there?"
"I'm certain she can hear you loud and clear darling."
I could hear their voices. Voices I recognized, and had once silenced.
"Twilight... Why?"
"C'mon sugarcube. Talk to us. Why did ya do whatcha did?"
"You're wasting your time. She hasn't opened her mouth for like, two weeks now. She's probably just ignoring us."
"I dunno how she can ignore us! I mean I've been talking nonstop for almost three days straight! I could always try to go for four days? How about that? Four days sound good to everypony?"
"Please Twilight. You were my student once. Can you write a letter perhaps? If you won't speak, perhaps writing things down would be easier."
I tried to cover my ears with my hooves to keep out their voices, but to no avail. They rattled around in my head, burying themselves deep into my brain and digging up horrid, bloody images of what I had done. Rainbow Dash slumped in a pool of blood. Rarity with a metal pole stuck through her torso. Pinkie Pie's battered and broken face, still trying to smile defiantly at me.
She had been one of my best friends, and I beat her with my bare hooves until I could scarcely recognize her face.
"Please talk to us Twi. I'm your sister in law for crying out loud! You're not going to feel any better if you don't talk about it."
"C'mon just talk already!"
"I'm here to listen i-if you need me."
"Please Twi? We're just askin' for an answer here."
"I'm gonna keep on talking until you do Twilight!"
Celestia's corpse, fresh and pocked with shards of glass flashed through my vision, followed swiftly by my blade descending and severing Cadence's head. Fluttershy and Applejack lay in a heap of charred, blackened flesh. My nostrils could still smell that room. The faint metallic odor of dried blood, the overwhelming stench of decay, and undertones of smoke and burnt hair practically choked me as I grit my teeth, trying to fight back the urge to vomit.
More sounds, other than the clamor of voices soon assailed my ears. I could hear screams, both of the ponies I knew and those I didn't. I could hear the ghastly popping and bubbling of flesh set ablaze, as well as the soft burst that accompanied the explosion of their eyes. I heard the cracking and splintering sounds of bones snapping. I could hear the tearing of flesh and the gurgling of blood in the throat. I could hear the coughs and gasps of dying ponies, struggling to fill their lungs to no avail.
I heard my own words echoed back to me.
"You are nothing to me. You never were."
"You're trying to kill me. You're no friend of mine, traitor."
"Why are you smiling?"
"I am magic!"
I closed my eyes tight, but visions of the blood I had split still haunted me. Ponies crushed beneath rubble, ponies choking to death on smoke, and ponies wailing over the death of their loved ones flashed endlessly through my eyes. I tucked my head low, trying in vain to avoid the memories, yet they persisted nonetheless. I saw the sun and moon whipping through the heavens on courses I had sent them upon. I saw myself, eyes ablaze and wings extended, silhouetted against the bright corona of the sun. Something deep within me knew that I was... wrong somehow. Something deep within my gut instinctively feared what I saw, despite it being my past self. I began to sweat, to thrash, to scream, all in vain as the vision of myself overtook me.
I was beautiful, yet terrible.
I was an abomination. A freak of nature. A disgusting blight on a reality that could scarcely contain me. It was terrifying to look at, and my body began to quake with fear. I wasn't a goddess. I was an atrocity.
Harmony had forced my eyes to see myself as I really was, a loathesome, terrifying being who had brought nothing but pain, death and misery upon the world she sought to reform. In the same way, it forced me to relive my actions, over and over again day in and day out, the sensation feeling as though I was right there in the moment once more.
It made me sick.
I fell to my knees, retching up the contents of my stomach onto the floor of my cell.
And I knew tomorrow and for every day that followed, I'd do this same thing.
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Well... she's gone insane now.
Very well done.... This is a little gem of a story, and I'm glad to have found it...
Annnd just wating for the suicide attempts
Harmony is a bitch
She deserve this.
Она заслужила это.
And considering she won't speak to the spirits of the past, it seems she will remain in Harmony's "therapy" for a long while longer.
5998179
Or she's gone very, very sane. I don't know which is worse: the monster without a conscience or the immortal prisoner with a conscience and a long, long memory.
It's called karma, Twi.
I would like to see the world of MLP reached into future, like a 1000 years or even a bit more, where Twi finally regains her sences, breaks out of her cell (I think it's save to assume it's Tartarus) and sees the world. And there -trololollo- Trixie and Sunset Alicorns! (And possibly a larger royal family desending from TrixieXShining and FlashXSunset, mayby even Blueblood) And new Harmony Bearers who are send to hunt Twi down! I also think that Twi slowly radiated out her magic over the years so she's "only" on Celestia's level. Mayby even a crazy plan of resurecting her victims?
A sequel in the distant future would be nice.
5998298
The former is worse for everypony else but the monster. The later is worse for the individual in question. Since the first is a horror to everything they gaze upon, and somethings they don't need to gaze upon to slaughter. The second isn't a threat to others, but condemns themselves to worse hells than the physical planes can ever muster. Possibly forever.
What we got here is one of History's footnotes. If she ever manages to get back into the civilized world again, she'll be regarded as a mildly distasteful curiosity whose deeds are of interest only to those who delight in tales of the sordid and short-sighted.
5998249
if they don't hang here first
Well.
That was sad.
I really do wonder how Luna's going to deal with the aftermath. She's the only living alicorn left in Equestria and she also has to fix all the damage Twilight caused. Not to mention Shining knowing that it was his sister that did all this.
On a bright note, Trixie's new outlook on magic and life might make her a prime canidate for future princesshood. Helps that she knows hardship better.
That is quite possibly the most horrifying depiction of the aftermath of the elements being used that I have ever seen. She brought it on herself, yes, but I actually feel kind of bad for her.
5998461
Hanging her at this point would be giving her mercy, i belive they will leave her to rot in the cell, while she is torture by her own sins until she dies of old age or kills herself.
As John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton once said "Absolut power corrupts absolutely"
If you fight and lose against Good, you'll be treated with mercy, whatever that may be in your specific case.
If you fight and lose against Evil, you'll be tortured and killed but you'll at least know you did the right thing.
If you fight and lose against Discord, you'll be humiliated and he'll laugh at you, but he won't be mad at you for long. Because he's actually a pretty cool dude.
If you fight and lose against Harmony, every strike you dealt will be delivered back at you with karmic precision on a strictly emotional level, you'll be stripped of the capability to do it again, it will be made very clear to you that what you did was wrong and then you'll be left alive with your newfound guilt for the remainder of your natural life span. In other words: It's called harmony, not niceness, and for a good reason.
All the yes
This was... dark.
Sequel, sequel, sequel, sequel, sequel, sequel, sequel, sequel, sequel...
5998697 Which is, in fact, incorrect.
Power itself does not corrupt. Power is a tool, just like any other. A hammer does not corrupt, nor does a gun. A butcher's knife can be used to slaughter thousands, or simply to cut meat. Does that mean that people that become butchers are psychos waiting to cut up other people? No.
It is the fact that, instead, beings that are corruptible are attracted to power.
And also that in a fictional story, especially fan fiction, the author can do whatever they like to a character and it shouldn't be taken as empirical proof.
But that's a separate tangent.
But jeeze, this is a dark ending. I am mildly horrified; was expecting either Twilight to mercilessly crush them or for her to be forgiven in the end. But nope. Tortured by her guilt in a dark and cold cell until she dies, with no hope or chance to recover.
Oh, c'mon, seriously? That was barely even an ending. I have no clue what actually even went on there just now. Why did any of that happen at all? If you were sick of writing this you could have just said so, "sudden deus ex machina and Gainax epilogue" really wasn't necessary to go for instead.
5999995
5998697
The sword is just a tool. It is the wielder holding the sword that delivers death.
5998695 Idk about old age, unless the blast stripped her immortality. Although it's still possible that Twilight eventually listens to the voices, even if they're hallucinations (although it seems more like they're manifestations of her friends, peers and mentors brought about by Harmony), and at the very least accepts what happens.
...Then she kills herself because she's at peace but has absolutely no place left in the world. Not to make it sound like a dark twist, just that the seeming dichotomy is either she never understands and kills herself in grief, or she does understand and helps them understand, and with effectively the last bit of purpose she has gone she lets herself go. Or suffers through living in a cell for all her days.
5998654 I don't think they are going to make another princesses, any time soon
6000201 That was the general... gist of my statement, though it fails to capture much of the thrust of it. The point, if you will, is missing.
The cutting edge of the argument has been blunted by generalization.
... I should probably not respond while buzzed. But the fact remains that more often than not, people that choose to wield swords enjoy using them.
Well that was dark.
6000079
That's not a Gainax ending, it's perfectly clear what happened. The Elements rendered Twilight powerless and restored her to the pony we see on the show, including all the guilt and horror she'd feel at what she became.
6000079
5999995
If one has absolute power over others, there is few who would't exploit it, power is indeed a tool and it will turn good men into monsters.
Look to history or even mlp itself, Prince Bloeblood in the cannon is the result of being raised be ponies with great sway, influence and wealth.
Those who lack power seek it, whether it is strenght of arms, influence or wealth, Power does corrupt and having more power than others bring out the worst in people.
6001472 Power does not -on its own- corrupt. I could point to dozens of men and women who wielded power for just and righteous purposes throughout history. Unfortunately, power attracts the easily corruptible; Men and women are more likely to hunger after power if they are more likely to be corrupted.
That's why, if you want to find the person who is most trustworthy with power, look for the one who wants it least.
And even then, the people that will be attracted to them, to serve or advise or love them, are those that hunger for the power they possess. A just king served by a wicked council is still going to be likely to put out laws that are evil because of what his council tells him.
And that's the nature of the world.
Only reason I'm disagreeing with you is that you speak in an absolute. I won't deny that most people are corrupted by power, but not all are. And that's why the phrase I prefer is the one I presented.
6001573
The phrase absolute power corrups absolutely refers to something called absolute monarchy, in were the king ruled unhindered by law and i didn't mean all with power is corrupt, Twilight was considering herself a god afterall, you don't get more absolute power than that. Should have proparbly used the more common one, power corrupts.
My apologies
6001207
So when did they spontaneously start existing again? Because last I checked, three chapters ago everone was still dead and Blueblood was giving silly speeches in Ponyville or whatever, not charging up the Wave Motion Gun. It's "perfectly clear" only in the sense that you can see what happened, but not remotely why.
6001680
Oh, I see what you mean a little better now. The mob of ponies and whatever else managed to channel the Elements because in the face of everything Twilight has done, none of their differences mean anything to them anymore. It was a bit abrupt, and kind of feels like a copout after how ridiculously powerful Twilight was in tbe majority of the story, but it's still not as confusing as a gainax ending.
6001915
That is pretty much exactly how I felt about it and why, yeah. Nomenclature nonwithstanding.
I like this ending.
Short, sharp, and no trace of honor.
6001382 I get that you don't like criticism but do you have to be so childish?
6007400
I don't mind criticism. You don't like the story, that's cool. I get it. Its not for everyone. There are plenty of people who post criticism on my stories who don't get a response from me, and that doesn't really matter.
But.
Someone brings up Gainax endings? I'm gonna post Evangelion. And seeing how I myself just brought it up...
i.imgur.com/4F2RZkw.png
6007421
For what it's worth, as immature and bad about criticism as people can be here, I still totally would have done the same thing. It's that kind of golden opportunity.
6007421 I still say you should of blood for the blood god
6007715
Its one of my favorite animes. Say what you will about the ending and such, but I rather enjoyed it. Its not without its flaws of course, but what it did right, it did very right. So...sue me I guess?
6007767
I think it's overrated, personally, but that should never stand in the way of a good joke of opportunity.
Awesome story !!!
I love how you described the story throught different characters.
Dark but really good.
And So, Stripped Of Her Power, The False Goddess Sees Her Error, Knows The Pain She Inflicted, And Suffers For It. Does She Deserve It? Maybe She Does, Maybe She Does Not. In The End, It Is Not My Place To Decide.
Best Regards,
Prophet_Of_Madness
6276462 There is no need to fear.
It makes a joke out of a pathetic excuse for a man.
6276534
38.media.tumblr.com/4cbf36e7bf353c219ae25a215fd730e1/tumblr_meqv9vVuZ01qmo3obo1_500.gif
Bingo.
Welp, i've read this to the very end.
).
Thought in the result, it appears not what i've wandered for, when i found this, yet i find it very enjoyable almost trough the entire fic.
duh, well done, mate, you got the like on both stories, thought it'd pass by my fav (not rly a big deal, thought there is nothing in it yet
Also, sorry for my language, im ok only with reading, and quite well with speaking, while my writing is, well, sucks