Celestia vanished in a blast of bluish-green flame, so quickly she had no time to cry out.
She's not dead, you can't kill the Sunbearer with fire, or any other kind of heat based attack, Discord has mentioned this fact in Not The Hero. I hope that this doesn't get Spike killed immediately afterwards, and that he can at least do some actual damage to her, or at least provide an opening for the others.
(Taken from Not The Hero)
Lava can't kill Celestia (I've seen dragons try), but it's not because she's an alicorn, it's because she's specifically the alicorn of the Sun, and you can't burn her no matter how much heat you generate. Alicorn-level beings don't naturally have the ability to resist lava.
Also, huh, I actually called it with Spike.
Edited to add: Hmm, that is quite an interesting thought made by other commenters, now that I had a chance to sleep on this and come back.
That could make sense. If she ended up with Harmony!Celestia, that would certainly lead to some... interesting conversations, to say the least, since she did read Discord's letter.
Despite this turn of events being heavily foreshadowed by the chapter title, part of me still hoped they would get the restraints off of Twilight in time to slap them on Celestia before she woke up.
Hoo boy, all the big chess pieces are moving! So, Opposition!Celly is out for now, maybe for good (I don't mean dead, but rather trapped in another dimension), so she can't kill Harmony!Twi, but she also can't stop Opposition!Twilight from summoning the Cold Ones—but maybe she doesn't have to, because Discord seems to have found yet another loophole and might actually manage to make a daring escape—maybe. The only one whose hand we don't see is Chrysalis, but I presume she, too, is a tad bit worried about the Cold Ones, and has already attempted to solve that by herself. Meanwhile, the Elements of Opposition are falling apart, and I don't think Celestia's (and maybe hopefully Discord's) disappearance will help with that. Yes, I can see why the future is such a big chaotic tangle of possibilities. I love it.
Oh WOW this is getting crazy, in all the best ways! *Dances* Still completely in love with this story, and like so many others I'm really, really looking forward to seeing what happens next! :D ... Hell, I think fan art is in order, if I can manage to draw something that looks good and fits.. And I never do fan art, because I'm typically selfish and lazy. Looks like there's an exception to every 'rule' ^.^
You are seriously amazing. Like wow, never in my life have I like a writer more! Not only are the plots interesting, but the way you write flows so smoothly while explaining everything that we need to know. Just, god man, if I could become half as good as you are, i'd be set for like man. 10/10 you've had me at the edge of my seat since 2014 with this one
Also
"Begging your pardon, your highness, but when we caught these guys, their Fluttershy had some stuff to say about Twilight plannin' to sacrifice Discord in some kind of dangerous ritual, so our Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash headed back to Ponyville to check on that and see if it's true," Opposition Applejack said.
It's a small error, but it looks like some command you put in didn't work correctly
W-woah. HOLY SHIT! I know I say this every time but OMG, Your writing is SO GOOD! Your descriptions are like no other, the plots are very well detailed, everything makes sense and flows, epic cliffhangers like no other, I seriously would give you more than 10/10 if I could in EVERY chapter of every story of yours. Man, you NEED to be an author, like, a REALLY GOOD author!
Also... that last scene was SO INTENSE! So perfect, my heart thumped like mad and I felt Spike's RAGE, I love Spike when he is badass in fanfics, so far this is THE BEST INTERPRETATION OF SPIKE IN ANYTHING! NOT TO MENTION DISCORD, HIM EVEN BETTER! All this is STILL concluding, so freaking awesomely!
Is... did Celestia get mailed or is she dead? I'm guessing you won't answer that but just saying, that's on everyone's minds. Spike's rage was... I felt it. I FELT it building up! Rage, rage, against the dying of the light...
I do like the way that the Spikes are leveling up. Harmony Spike getting rage-growth is absolutely awesome and I'm guessing that Opposition Spike is going to become the Chaos avatar when they figure out how to rescue Opposition Discord. Maybe Harmony Discord is going to poop out a little baby Opposition Discord?
Yes! Spike power! I love that you never leave out Spike. He's so important to Twilight and I feel like some people forget this. And that little guy has so much power in him. I love that he gets to be the key to (tenuous) victory here and in Not the Hero.
7931901 I think that might be best case scenario, because if there's anyone who can talk some sense into Opposition Celestia, it's Harmony Luna.
Also could be very bad. If the two Celestias ended up fighting, I'd bet on the crazy one that doesn't hold back. Especially if she can gain an advantage by threatening the citizens of Harmony Canterlot.
7931783 Probably to...the normal Celestia, who has just received a bunch of hoofcuffs, and probably knows to expect anything. No doubt, Luna is there too, and ready to absolutely school her on morality.
Not actually that many errors, mostly from double quotes getting garbled as HTML somehow. "lying prone in rhe grass" "see if it's true,"" "try to prevent this from happening."" "from attacking you for raping him."" "Despite himselfCOMMA NEEDED HERE Discord felt a surge of hope."
7931607 Me too... Alara, you continue to astound me with every chapter. Love Pinkie and Spike in this one and how you describe Pinkie's unique abilities without making her seem psychotic. Pinkie and Spike are highly underestimated, as are Fluttershy's. You do them all justice here. Glorious.
7932410 7932042 I suspect it wouldn't occur to any of them that Luna could be suicidal. If she survived a thousand years on the moon, I personally would think she'd survive being brought back to life by an evil necromantic ritual performed by her sister... though she'd kick Celestia's ass for it. A lot. I strongly suspect she'd never forgive Celestia for that. But I don't think she'd kill herself over it; that would make the innocent pony's sacrifice be in vain.
7933954 I suspected something along those lines. The thought is so horrible, they might, deep down, refuse to even consider it.
As for Luna and the sacrifice, that could be. Still, her life would essentially be stolen from somepony else. Even if it's not guilt driving her to despair, she might still work to reverse the process, after she dealt with Celestia. Bring Twilight back at the cost of her second life. She would only give back what wasn't hers in the first place.
End result is the same: Best case, Luna's dead and Twilight's back. Middle case, Luna's still around but Twilight is dead. Worst case, they're both dead, making everything Celestia is doing to bring about her return meaningless.
7933886 Even Squishy McHuman has ten or more seconds of panic before they die in space. I think thousand-year-old absurdly tough regenerating magical alicorn Princess Sunnypants can last long enough to come up with a few life-supporting spells. If your body can regenerate entire limbs, a bit of radiation and decompression sickness are child's play. (I mean, how many humans could live a thousand years without dying of cancer at least three times?) She probably still needs air, but I think somepony powerful enough to move a star can magic up a bit of oxygen.
Don't underestimate Celestia. Don't count her dead till you see a body. And even then...
7934250 Crap, now you're making me think about magical rejuvenation and cancer. Magical rejuventation/healing factor should just make cancer that much worse, actually. Unless it just makes it really easy to lop off any part of Celestia with a tumor or something.
But yeah, given her experience dealing with Discord, she's probably got spells to seal the environment around her and create breathable air, and then she can just teleport right back where she came from.
For some reason I picture Pinky saying "spinning star kick " when she drop kicked Celestia. Also MVP goes to Pinky, cause you know drop kicking an alicorn.
The plot twist: Dark Celestia secretly kills off Vanilla Celestia, and takes her place in order to stay with Vanilla Luna. Where she is concerned, any Luna will do.
7934267 No, magical rejuvenation/fast healing/lack of aging means you don't get cancer, because the mechanism that causes cancer is the same mechanism that causes fast healing, only with a lack of an error checking mechanism. In real life, aging is caused by telomeres, ending sequences on a chromosome, being lopped off with every division, and when all the telomeres are gone, the cell doesn't divide. So things don't heal, cells aren't replaced when they die, and aging and eventual death occurs. Cancer cells don't do that; the telomeres aren't removed and they replicate forever. So the most likely mechanism for immortality is the same preservation of telomeres that cancer cells have, but with a robust error-checking mechanism to make sure that cells only divide when they need to, and that cells with transcription errors are attacked by the immune system and destroyed before they have a chance to replicate.
Creatures that are immortal because they don't age are most likely using something like this, which would mean they can't get cancer.
It's mentioned at the beginning of the first chapter (the third sentence of the story) that Luna would send scrolls to Spike, albeit almost never doing so. So what if the reason the dragonfire is bluish-green is because Spike sent her to Harmony!Luna?
I like that they almost made Celestia see reason by appealing to her better nature, reminding her of the people she would be hurting, another great way to show that this isn’t just an ‘evil goatee universe’
I loved it when Pinky Pie entered the sea of possibilities and we got to see how bad the odds were. Pinky Pie taking the first steps on the path to victory while only being able to hope for the best was great. Awesome stuff all around!
I really loved the possible bad ends, great way to show the stakes and giant Spike showed what she might think of is bad ends could just be one bad-step on the road to the good end, breaking the elements might also be one such bad-step before they can get to the good end.
The possibility of seeing Chaos-God-Spike in the near future is also interesting. From what we saw of how Discord got the job, it might mean one of the Spikes will get to choose between dying as himself or being reborn as what he hates.
I’m a little surprised you haven’t brought up the alicorn of chaos (Screw Ball) as a possibility for either the job of new Chaos god or sacrifice for Luna’s resurrection
I love it when you do worldbuilding on dragons and the Discord / opposition-Spike interaction was great. "just how much of a dragon are you?" is the question at the heart of Spike the dragon. Dragons keeping trophies of their kills made so much sense, since they are predators and their hoarding instincts are intense.
Why do I have a bad feeling that Discord learned about this the same way he learned about so much else about dragonkind… by observing the actions of his draconic enemies. I can just see a young Discord during the dragon wars finding his (adopted) dad’s skull on display in a dragon’s hoard somewhere, adding insult to injury.
You know if they are still going with the ‘let's fix things and leave, so they can just suffer knowing what they did’ plan. Discord should also give his memories of what they did to him to all the ponies they know, since the ponies in ponyville didn’t really care about or realize that Discord was sapient and what the opposition-main-6 were putting him through.
then they will have no chose but to suffer for it, since they can't pretend it didn't happen or it wasn't that bad. I don't think anyone will let opposition-Twilight be alone with their children after this, so no Twilight time.
or instead of using easily damaged DNA, magical creatures use their souls to store a 'template' of their 'innate form' which their magic uses to guide their growth and healing from injuries.
it would also explain why Tirek became younger when he was overcharged with stolen magic and why the longest lived characters in the show also have a lot of magic to their name.
the ones who grow old do so because they get out of shape and the damage from growing old makes it hard for them to fix it. also explains the old dragons we saw without adding several millennia old dragons to the show, they just wasn't able to keep up with their body's need for magic.
plus, pony-DNA make zero god damn sense! born a randomly assigned species independent from their parent species WTF!?
I love Discord's reasoning at the beginning of all this.
Several things bothered me about Twilights Kingdom, one being how everyone asked Fluttershy how she "didn't see that coming". Uhh guys? Every other sentence out of your mouths was "Fluttershy won't like X" or "Piss me off Discord and it's baack in the can for you!", so of COURSE he'd betray you, he only had one friend AND severe restrictions on what he'd do! If not for Tirek, Discord would have eventually gone off the deep end anyway, WITHOUT a chance of making him regret it...
Getting kinda confused about Spike's fire here. Can't remember exactly what color it was when sending extra dimensional mail, but Discord claimed it could only go between cognates... When Harmony first crossed over they sent a test message, and Celestia sent a reply... In prision Spike effectively got a 'adress not found' error... Now Spike used a blue-green flame to send Celestia Faust knows where...and in her current state of mind, I don't think there is ANY good place for her to go.
Must say, I'm a little disappointed how that confrontation went. HTS:So, your big plan was to train Discord to be obedient, and raise the sun and moon for you so you'd get a vacation? SBC:Not exactly in those terms, no... HTS:But now that I'm here, you want to sacrifice me to bring Luna back, who begged you to kill her while she was herself and not nightmare Moon, foust the sun and moon on her, and take a vacation? Aren't you a selfish little bitch?
7934733 The preservation of telemeres makes sense. I suppose the robust-error checking needs to be inferred, because otherwise every immortal would have dropped dead from a brain tumor within a century or two.
7935087Since this Luna is dead and Spike never met her, I assume you mean the other dimension's Luna. It's possible, but I think the other Spike had significant problems teleporting that scroll across dimensions, I imagine a magical unwilling alicorn would be exponentially harder. If he could pull it off though, that would be an elegant solution.
Yes, I'm talking about Harmony!Luna (original post has been edited to clarify). The reasons that I'm inferring Spike may have managed to mail her to the other world are because one, she plainly would be expecting him to be trying to kill her with fire, and not to attempt a teleport, so therefore, she wouldn't be trying to block that, and two, I'm making the presumption that his greed growth gave him enough power to breach the dimensional barrier with that spell. I could be wrong on this, but who knows?
Just had a troubling thought. If moustache twirling Celestia got Gmailed to happy town who is left to move the sun and moon. Is this a universe where the sun and moon need occasional nudges in the right direction or this a universe where the heavenly bodies need continously to be monitored? If it's the latter there will be serious problems in short order. Thats assuming Celestia did catch the dragon fire express to dimension harmony.
7935425 Makes sense, if his magical power grows with his greed growth. Speaking of Spike getting new powers in his greed growth, I bet Spike gets wings now in his greed growth form, just because it seems like the author has been dropping hints about that in the last two chapters.
and his back itched and ached and erupted in agony. Spike bellowed, hearing his own voice deep and alien, and something was flung off his back but stuck to it in two spots and he flexed them and they were wings, he had wings bursting out from his back.
So that's been confirmed already, I don't know how you missed that, but Spike does in fact have wings now, in what would seem to be a parallel to Not The Hero, where someone with the power of an alicorn (Dainn and the caribou in that one, Twilight and her friends in this one) has a greed grown dragon at their disposal that grew wings in the process.
It's also important to note that Discord observes in that story that dragon flying seems to be "inborn knowledge", as shown by that dragon managing to fly with newly grown wings, meaning that Spike at least has a basic idea on how to fly.
Alara, I have to tell you something very exciting but I need your permission. I have decided to start working on... An MLP Audio Drama of this story! I've thought long about this, and now I am sure this is my favourite story on the site! Think of the possibilities here, the sheer awesomeness and drama of it all would be EPIC as an Audio Drama! Yeah I know it's gonna be a lot of hard work but it'll be worth it! So, what do you say?
7953224 yeah I've been thinking about that, I think it might be best to just cut to clips running through their head, its a good idea but it has to be done well. This only needs to happen if essential obviously. Flashbacks would also be good, but only if it's really needed. Also monolouging doesn't seem to be the best thing to do. I'll make it work out. But if this idea turns into just a high quality audio book, I guess it won't matter then. But I really do want to make an audio drama, it would feel so much more... well, story and drama!
His eyes focused on the sun alicorn. There was fear on her face, for once, and right now he reveled in it. Oh yes, she should be afraid. She had tried to kill his. She should be very afraid. "Let go of my friends!" he shouted down at her, his voice reverberating through the stone. Despite his height, he could see her face as clearly as ever. "Spike... I'm sorry," she whispered. Her eyes were full of tears as her horn lit. The blast of superheated plasma that sailed narrowly past his face, when he threw his head sideways to dodge it, was so hot he felt like it might have singed his scales. But she'd missed. He had to get his head down low enough to target Celestia, and only Celestia. In the second it took him to do so she could have fired another bolt. But she hesitated. He didn't. "Spike!" Twilight screamed. "Don't kill her!" Celestia vanished in a blast of bluish-green flame, so quickly she had no time to cry out.
...
FInally, it happened!! IT WAS DONE!!
Sorry, but I really don't feel any other negative emotion right now. This had to happened, it had to be done, and considering how clear she made her point in not caring about anything and not wanting to listen to others, her subjects, her student and her friends, as well as practically her dragon-stepson, this was a punishment she deserved. Especially taking into account how much she hurt other people so close to her. I don't know if it was Spike's luck, that she had a moment of hesitation after the first attack, but in the long run, it really doesn't matter though. She already declared merciless execution of Twilight's friends right in front of her, and in front of Spike.
She utterly failed as a parent, mentor or a ruler. The sad part is just, that she became as deranged as the other element bearers, even without a DIRECT INFLUENCE of 'Mad Discord's' wonky chaos magic.
The elements had done their own horrors, but at least they CAN excuse their fall with Discords magic, shifting the blame on him since he magically forced them to change, but Celestia can't though, since she wasn't magically turned or forced by anyone, she chose that madness on her own.
And as the ruler of Equestria, a role model to all, that was a really bad way to be and to go with. At least she let herself get punished by Spike in the end, intentionally or not.
A Blue/Green purgatory for the Ex-Princess. The proper way to tell her she is fired.
Also, what a great 'Pinkie Pie Alicorn knockout Punch'! It's a 'Pie' family trademark, Maud would be proud.
Still wondering why Celestia wasn't out cold for much longer, I mean this was a pie kick/punch she took, at point blank on her 'sensitive' horn, without any protection spells active.
Great chapter, waiting for more and getting excited.
PS: If Spike just send that Celestia to the harmony version of Luna in the other world, then I shall be called 'The Sad Face :(
Considering the fact that Celestia knew that her father was viscously slaughtered by dragons I can imagine seeing the dragon standing on top of one of her tower blowing dragonfire into her and she hesitated because she raised the thing must have been brutal for her.
I'm having a war between stubbornly hoping everyone makes it out, and reading that Pinkie sense is absolutely certain it won't end perfectly.
She's not dead, you can't kill the Sunbearer with fire, or any other kind of heat based attack, Discord has mentioned this fact in Not The Hero. I hope that this doesn't get Spike killed immediately afterwards, and that he can at least do some actual damage to her, or at least provide an opening for the others.
(Taken from Not The Hero)
Also, huh, I actually called it with Spike.
Edited to add: Hmm, that is quite an interesting thought made by other commenters, now that I had a chance to sleep on this and come back.
That could make sense. If she ended up with Harmony!Celestia, that would certainly lead to some... interesting conversations, to say the least, since she did read Discord's letter.
I know every author hates to hear this, but I can't wait for the next chapter.
(apparently it's like being told to clean your room after you just did)
Did he just dragon-mail her, like a friendship report?
Where would she even end up?
If he did Dragon-mail her, would she end up with Harmony-Celestia? Because that might work...
Despite this turn of events being heavily foreshadowed by the chapter title, part of me still hoped they would get the restraints off of Twilight in time to slap them on Celestia before she woke up.
Wait, blueish-green flame? The only time Spike's flame ever changed was when Discord cast a spell on him, so who is helping Spike now?
Kind of surprised that none of the ponies asked Celestia, "What if Luna kills herself, just to get away from the monster that you've become?"
Well then, either he mailed her to other celly or to the moon
Hoo boy, all the big chess pieces are moving!
So, Opposition!Celly is out for now, maybe for good (I don't mean dead, but rather trapped in another dimension), so she can't kill Harmony!Twi, but she also can't stop Opposition!Twilight from summoning the Cold Ones—but maybe she doesn't have to, because Discord seems to have found yet another loophole and might actually manage to make a daring escape—maybe.
The only one whose hand we don't see is Chrysalis, but I presume she, too, is a tad bit worried about the Cold Ones, and has already attempted to solve that by herself.
Meanwhile, the Elements of Opposition are falling apart, and I don't think Celestia's (and maybe hopefully Discord's) disappearance will help with that.
Yes, I can see why the future is such a big chaotic tangle of possibilities.
I love it.
Oh WOW this is getting crazy, in all the best ways! *Dances* Still completely in love with this story, and like so many others I'm really, really looking forward to seeing what happens next! :D ... Hell, I think fan art is in order, if I can manage to draw something that looks good and fits.. And I never do fan art, because I'm typically selfish and lazy. Looks like there's an exception to every 'rule' ^.^
All this trying to convince Celestia, and they don't state the most painful argument.
"What if Luna can't live with what you've done to get her back?"
You are seriously amazing. Like wow, never in my life have I like a writer more! Not only are the plots interesting, but the way you write flows so smoothly while explaining everything that we need to know. Just, god man, if I could become half as good as you are, i'd be set for like man. 10/10 you've had me at the edge of my seat since 2014 with this one
Also
It's a small error, but it looks like some command you put in didn't work correctly
Are you are real
villain?Dragon?Sorry, I had to
W-woah. HOLY SHIT! I know I say this every time but OMG, Your writing is SO GOOD! Your descriptions are like no other, the plots are very well detailed, everything makes sense and flows, epic cliffhangers like no other, I seriously would give you more than 10/10 if I could in EVERY chapter of every story of yours. Man, you NEED to be an author, like, a REALLY GOOD author!
Also... that last scene was SO INTENSE! So perfect, my heart thumped like mad and I felt Spike's RAGE, I love Spike when he is badass in fanfics, so far this is THE BEST INTERPRETATION OF SPIKE IN ANYTHING! NOT TO MENTION DISCORD, HIM EVEN BETTER! All this is STILL concluding, so freaking awesomely!
Is... did Celestia get mailed or is she dead? I'm guessing you won't answer that but just saying, that's on everyone's minds. Spike's rage was... I felt it. I FELT it building up! Rage, rage, against the dying of the light...
I do like the way that the Spikes are leveling up. Harmony Spike getting rage-growth is absolutely awesome and I'm guessing that Opposition Spike is going to become the Chaos avatar when they figure out how to rescue Opposition Discord. Maybe Harmony Discord is going to poop out a little baby Opposition Discord?
THIS is the chapter I've waited months for. Top Kek.
Yes! Spike power! I love that you never leave out Spike. He's so important to Twilight and I feel like some people forget this. And that little guy has so much power in him. I love that he gets to be the key to (tenuous) victory here and in Not the Hero.
7931901 I think that might be best case scenario, because if there's anyone who can talk some sense into Opposition Celestia, it's Harmony Luna.
Also could be very bad. If the two Celestias ended up fighting, I'd bet on the crazy one that doesn't hold back. Especially if she can gain an advantage by threatening the citizens of Harmony Canterlot.
7931783 Probably to...the normal Celestia, who has just received a bunch of hoofcuffs, and probably knows to expect anything. No doubt, Luna is there too, and ready to absolutely school her on morality.
Not actually that many errors, mostly from double quotes getting garbled as HTML somehow.
"lying prone in rhe grass"
"see if it's true,""
"try to prevent this from happening.""
"from attacking you for raping him.""
"Despite himselfCOMMA NEEDED HERE Discord felt a surge of hope."
7931615 She could be dead if he teleport-flamed her into space or something.
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Me too...
Alara, you continue to astound me with every chapter. Love Pinkie and Spike in this one and how you describe Pinkie's unique abilities without making her seem psychotic. Pinkie and Spike are highly underestimated, as are Fluttershy's. You do them all justice here. Glorious.
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I suspect it wouldn't occur to any of them that Luna could be suicidal. If she survived a thousand years on the moon, I personally would think she'd survive being brought back to life by an evil necromantic ritual performed by her sister... though she'd kick Celestia's ass for it. A lot. I strongly suspect she'd never forgive Celestia for that. But I don't think she'd kill herself over it; that would make the innocent pony's sacrifice be in vain.
7933954
I suspected something along those lines. The thought is so horrible, they might, deep down, refuse to even consider it.
As for Luna and the sacrifice, that could be. Still, her life would essentially be stolen from somepony else. Even if it's not guilt driving her to despair, she might still work to reverse the process, after she dealt with Celestia. Bring Twilight back at the cost of her second life. She would only give back what wasn't hers in the first place.
End result is the same: Best case, Luna's dead and Twilight's back. Middle case, Luna's still around but Twilight is dead. Worst case, they're both dead, making everything Celestia is doing to bring about her return meaningless.
Oh shit Spike just went Mega Sans mode *Megalovania begins to play*
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Even Squishy McHuman has ten or more seconds of panic before they die in space.
I think thousand-year-old absurdly tough regenerating magical alicorn Princess Sunnypants can last long enough to come up with a few life-supporting spells. If your body can regenerate entire limbs, a bit of radiation and decompression sickness are child's play. (I mean, how many humans could live a thousand years without dying of cancer at least three times?)
She probably still needs air, but I think somepony powerful enough to move a star can magic up a bit of oxygen.
Don't underestimate Celestia. Don't count her dead till you see a body. And even then...
7934250 Crap, now you're making me think about magical rejuvenation and cancer. Magical rejuventation/healing factor should just make cancer that much worse, actually. Unless it just makes it really easy to lop off any part of Celestia with a tumor or something.
But yeah, given her experience dealing with Discord, she's probably got spells to seal the environment around her and create breathable air, and then she can just teleport right back where she came from.
For some reason I picture Pinky saying "spinning star kick " when she drop kicked Celestia. Also MVP goes to Pinky, cause you know drop kicking an alicorn.
The plot twist: Dark Celestia secretly kills off Vanilla Celestia, and takes her place in order to stay with Vanilla Luna. Where she is concerned, any Luna will do.
7934267
No, magical rejuvenation/fast healing/lack of aging means you don't get cancer, because the mechanism that causes cancer is the same mechanism that causes fast healing, only with a lack of an error checking mechanism. In real life, aging is caused by telomeres, ending sequences on a chromosome, being lopped off with every division, and when all the telomeres are gone, the cell doesn't divide. So things don't heal, cells aren't replaced when they die, and aging and eventual death occurs. Cancer cells don't do that; the telomeres aren't removed and they replicate forever. So the most likely mechanism for immortality is the same preservation of telomeres that cancer cells have, but with a robust error-checking mechanism to make sure that cells only divide when they need to, and that cells with transcription errors are attacked by the immune system and destroyed before they have a chance to replicate.
Creatures that are immortal because they don't age are most likely using something like this, which would mean they can't get cancer.
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Wait a minute, I just had a thought...
It's mentioned at the beginning of the first chapter (the third sentence of the story) that Luna would send scrolls to Spike, albeit almost never doing so. So what if the reason the dragonfire is bluish-green is because Spike sent her to Harmony!Luna?
I like that they almost made Celestia see reason by appealing to her better nature, reminding her of the people she would be hurting, another great way to show that this isn’t just an ‘evil goatee universe’
I loved it when Pinky Pie entered the sea of possibilities and we got to see how bad the odds were. Pinky Pie taking the first steps on the path to victory while only being able to hope for the best was great. Awesome stuff all around!
I really loved the possible bad ends, great way to show the stakes and giant Spike showed what she might think of is bad ends could just be one bad-step on the road to the good end, breaking the elements might also be one such bad-step before they can get to the good end.
The possibility of seeing Chaos-God-Spike in the near future is also interesting. From what we saw of how Discord got the job, it might mean one of the Spikes will get to choose between dying as himself or being reborn as what he hates.
I’m a little surprised you haven’t brought up the alicorn of chaos (Screw Ball) as a possibility for either the job of new Chaos god or sacrifice for Luna’s resurrection
I love it when you do worldbuilding on dragons and the Discord / opposition-Spike interaction was great. "just how much of a dragon are you?" is the question at the heart of Spike the dragon. Dragons keeping trophies of their kills made so much sense, since they are predators and their hoarding instincts are intense.
Why do I have a bad feeling that Discord learned about this the same way he learned about so much else about dragonkind… by observing the actions of his draconic enemies. I can just see a young Discord during the dragon wars finding his (adopted) dad’s skull on display in a dragon’s hoard somewhere, adding insult to injury.
You know if they are still going with the ‘let's fix things and leave, so they can just suffer knowing what they did’ plan.
Discord should also give his memories of what they did to him to all the ponies they know, since the ponies in ponyville didn’t really care about or realize that Discord was sapient and what the opposition-main-6 were putting him through.
then they will have no chose but to suffer for it, since they can't pretend it didn't happen or it wasn't that bad. I don't think anyone will let opposition-Twilight be alone with their children after this, so no Twilight time.
7934733
or instead of using easily damaged DNA, magical creatures use their souls to store a 'template' of their 'innate form' which their magic uses to guide their growth and healing from injuries.
it would also explain why Tirek became younger when he was overcharged with stolen magic and why the longest lived characters in the show also have a lot of magic to their name.
the ones who grow old do so because they get out of shape and the damage from growing old makes it hard for them to fix it. also explains the old dragons we saw without adding several millennia old dragons to the show, they just wasn't able to keep up with their body's need for magic.
plus, pony-DNA make zero god damn sense! born a randomly assigned species independent from their parent species WTF!?
I love Discord's reasoning at the beginning of all this.
Several things bothered me about Twilights Kingdom, one being how everyone asked Fluttershy how she "didn't see that coming". Uhh guys? Every other sentence out of your mouths was "Fluttershy won't like X" or "Piss me off Discord and it's baack in the can for you!", so of COURSE he'd betray you, he only had one friend AND severe restrictions on what he'd do! If not for Tirek, Discord would have eventually gone off the deep end anyway, WITHOUT a chance of making him regret it...
Getting kinda confused about Spike's fire here. Can't remember exactly what color it was when sending extra dimensional mail, but Discord claimed it could only go between cognates...
When Harmony first crossed over they sent a test message, and Celestia sent a reply...
In prision Spike effectively got a 'adress not found' error...
Now Spike used a blue-green flame to send Celestia Faust knows where...and in her current state of mind, I don't think there is ANY good place for her to go.
Must say, I'm a little disappointed how that confrontation went.
HTS:So, your big plan was to train Discord to be obedient, and raise the sun and moon for you so you'd get a vacation?
SBC:Not exactly in those terms, no...
HTS:But now that I'm here, you want to sacrifice me to bring Luna back, who begged you to kill her while she was herself and not nightmare Moon, foust the sun and moon on her, and take a vacation? Aren't you a selfish little bitch?
7935198
sickly green / yellow if I remembered corectly
7934733 The preservation of telemeres makes sense. I suppose the robust-error checking needs to be inferred, because otherwise every immortal would have dropped dead from a brain tumor within a century or two.
7935087 Since this Luna is dead and Spike never met her, I assume you mean the other dimension's Luna. It's possible, but I think the other Spike had significant problems teleporting that scroll across dimensions, I imagine a magical unwilling alicorn would be exponentially harder. If he could pull it off though, that would be an elegant solution.
7935329
Yes, I'm talking about Harmony!Luna (original post has been edited to clarify). The reasons that I'm inferring Spike may have managed to mail her to the other world are because one, she plainly would be expecting him to be trying to kill her with fire, and not to attempt a teleport, so therefore, she wouldn't be trying to block that, and two, I'm making the presumption that his greed growth gave him enough power to breach the dimensional barrier with that spell. I could be wrong on this, but who knows?
Just had a troubling thought. If moustache twirling Celestia got Gmailed to happy town who is left to move the sun and moon. Is this a universe where the sun and moon need occasional nudges in the right direction or this a universe where the heavenly bodies need continously to be monitored? If it's the latter there will be serious problems in short order. Thats assuming Celestia did catch the dragon fire express to dimension harmony.
7935087 oh
7935425 Makes sense, if his magical power grows with his greed growth. Speaking of Spike getting new powers in his greed growth, I bet Spike gets wings now in his greed growth form, just because it seems like the author has been dropping hints about that in the last two chapters.
7935663
Um...
So that's been confirmed already, I don't know how you missed that, but Spike does in fact have wings now, in what would seem to be a parallel to Not The Hero, where someone with the power of an alicorn (Dainn and the caribou in that one, Twilight and her friends in this one) has a greed grown dragon at their disposal that grew wings in the process.
It's also important to note that Discord observes in that story that dragon flying seems to be "inborn knowledge", as shown by that dragon managing to fly with newly grown wings, meaning that Spike at least has a basic idea on how to fly.
7935709
There's a simple explanation: I'm an idiot.
I though the one who was going to save them will be shining armor. Your story is just perfect, can't wait for the next chapter.
Alara, I have to tell you something very exciting but I need your permission. I have decided to start working on... An MLP Audio Drama of this story! I've thought long about this, and now I am sure this is my favourite story on the site! Think of the possibilities here, the sheer awesomeness and drama of it all would be EPIC as an Audio Drama! Yeah I know it's gonna be a lot of hard work but it'll be worth it! So, what do you say?
7952862
i'm flattered, but so much of this story is about what people are thinking or feeling, not saying, so how does that work?
7953224 yeah I've been thinking about that, I think it might be best to just cut to clips running through their head, its a good idea but it has to be done well. This only needs to happen if essential obviously. Flashbacks would also be good, but only if it's really needed. Also monolouging doesn't seem to be the best thing to do. I'll make it work out.
But if this idea turns into just a high quality audio book, I guess it won't matter then. But I really do want to make an audio drama, it would feel so much more... well, story and drama!
...
FInally, it happened!! IT WAS DONE!!
Sorry, but I really don't feel any other negative emotion right now. This had to happened, it had to be done, and considering how clear she made her point in not caring about anything and not wanting to listen to others, her subjects, her student and her friends, as well as practically her dragon-stepson, this was a punishment she deserved. Especially taking into account how much she hurt other people so close to her. I don't know if it was Spike's luck, that she had a moment of hesitation after the first attack, but in the long run, it really doesn't matter though. She already declared merciless execution of Twilight's friends right in front of her, and in front of Spike.
She utterly failed as a parent, mentor or a ruler. The sad part is just, that she became as deranged as the other element bearers, even without a DIRECT INFLUENCE of 'Mad Discord's' wonky chaos magic.
The elements had done their own horrors, but at least they CAN excuse their fall with Discords magic, shifting the blame on him since he magically forced them to change, but Celestia can't though, since she wasn't magically turned or forced by anyone, she chose that madness on her own.
And as the ruler of Equestria, a role model to all, that was a really bad way to be and to go with. At least she let herself get punished by Spike in the end, intentionally or not.
A Blue/Green purgatory for the Ex-Princess. The proper way to tell her she is fired.
Also, what a great 'Pinkie Pie Alicorn knockout Punch'! It's a 'Pie' family trademark, Maud would be proud.
Still wondering why Celestia wasn't out cold for much longer, I mean this was a pie kick/punch she took, at point blank on her 'sensitive' horn, without any protection spells active.
Great chapter, waiting for more and getting excited.
PS: If Spike just send that Celestia to the harmony version of Luna in the other world, then I shall be called 'The Sad Face :(
Couldn't stop cackling during Spike's dragon-greed growth. At 2:40am.
Pretty sure my neighbours think I'm a necromancer.
Considering the fact that Celestia knew that her father was viscously slaughtered by dragons I can imagine seeing the dragon standing on top of one of her tower blowing dragonfire into her and she hesitated because she raised the thing must have been brutal for her.