Unimpressive Scraps

by An Unimpressive

Twilight, Revised alternate ending

Author's Note:

Found this on an old drive. Abandon all hope of subtlety, ye who enter here. Never edited or reviewed by anyone and is probably trash.

I returned home, feeling nauseous. The resistance in Manehatten had been well-funded, well-organized, and bitterly entrenched. I had made mistakes where I could, not flinching as I watched ponies I’d known my entire career kill each other thanks to my deliberate stupidity. I tossed my head about as I entered the throne room; fighting poorly was all I could do. I didn’t believe in what I was fighting for, but what could I do? My little sister had been enslaved by this usurper, and my parents were too frightened to run, although I worried constantly that they were going to do something stupid if Twilight didn’t snap out of her haze.

They had admitted as much at Canterlot’s resistance meetings, ones I found myself more and more hard-pressed to attend; any bodyguards Nightmare Moon assigned to me “for my own protection” were more like jailers, always keeping tabs on my movements. I was under house arrest, only the house was all of Equestria.

The guards nodded to me—out of some habit they retained under all that accursed brainwashing, no doubt—as I entered.

Something was wrong. I slowed to a stop, eyes sweeping the hall for any traps. There were no guards posted, and the fiend herself was not at her throne.

Instead, there was only my little sister, sitting just to the throne’s left, attached to it with a thick chain and a collar, as though she were some kind of royal bitch.

My pulse quickened. There was always the chance this was a trap, of course, but I hadn’t had a moment alone with her since this madness started; if I could just figure out what was wrong with her, maybe I could fix it. Maybe, just maybe, I could help.

My sister seemed to be asleep, totally motionless, or maybe— “No!” I shouted, galloping to her and placing a hoof on her neck, fearful of finding no pulse. To my immense relief, she still had a pulse, and she stirred at my touch.

My first thought was, What’s wrong with your eyes? Her eyes looked flat, dead, like glass eyes made to be poor imitations of pony ones. No expression or emotion appeared in them, making me feel like I was hardly looking at a pony at all, just a pony-shaped imposter of my sister.

“Hello, Shining Armor,” Twilight said, her voice hollow and flat, without any hint of warmth. “How did you serve the mistress today?”

I gestured to my blood-matted coat. “This. This is how I ‘served.’” I leaned in. “Twilight, this isn’t right! Ponies shouldn’t be killing each other!” As I spoke, I reached out with my magic, trying to remember what Cadance had taught me before she had vanished without a trace. To my horror, I felt nothing; there was no hint of consciousness or thought in the pony before me, not to the level of what anypony could call equine, at least. I’d felt stronger minds in birds.

“It is all for the mistress. And, for what it is worth, Pet agrees,” she said. Her voice, still remaining emotionless and dead, sent my back hairs up. “Those ponies should just surrender, and we could all be happy under her rule.” The exaggerated “her” she had used previously was gone: her voice, her eyes… what had happened to her now?

“Twilight, are you okay?” I said, dropping my voice in case of eavesdroppers. Much as I wanted to try to get through to her, I needed to make sure there was something to get through to first.

“Oh, she is fine and so is Pet,” she answered, a mechanical mockery of a smile spreading over her face.

“Pet? Who is Pet?”

“Pet is Pet.” She gestured to herself. “Pet serves.” She rubbed her collar; her expression finally took on an emotion: adoration. “Pet was made to serve, born to serve. Pet sees this now.”

“Twilight. I’m talking to Twilight.” Irritation got the best of me. “Snap out of it!” I hissed. “We need you, Twilight, more than ever.”

Her expression grew wry, in a slow, jerky way, as though someone was crudely yanking on the strings of a puppet’s mouth to try to make it smile. “Oh, Twilight is no longer here.”

“What… what did you say?”

The empty abyss of her dead eyes gazed into my own. “Twilight is someplace far, far away. She was a foolish pony, deluding herself and telling lies to herself, pretending she had a purpose beyond that which she was given. The mistress tried to show her her true purpose, but she grew resentful. Rebellious. Ungrateful of the gift of happiness the mistress had bestowed upon her.” The thing that looked like my sister chuckled. “She was still trying to do things on her own—still trying to exercise the free will that had made her so miserable in the first place. She was only happy when doing what she was told, whether by Celestia or by the mistress.

“However, she denied this, like a foal. She tried to convince herself that she had a life, a will, of her own, and that she was simply being guided by either of her mistresses, but could have been happy doing other things. She deluded herself into thinking she had the choice to not obey. Even after Twilight had defied the mistress, the mistress, in her great wisdom, showed her the truth about herself, showing her how she was happy only when she obeyed.” The husk’s voice was growing more energetic now, gaining more personality as it went along, and taking a silky tone that made me uncomfortable. Her eyes, too, were changing color, gaining a greenish tint; I found myself unable to move, unable to look away as the light from my horn flickered and died.

“So,” the thing that had once been my sister continued, “the mistress gave her a little eviction notice.” She giggled, just like the innocent filly she had once been. “She’s happy now; it took her a little time to adjust, but she’s happy now. She believes she’s forever almost falling asleep with Celestia stroking her mane, as they together watch the mistress work.” It smiled. “Her soul fuels the mistress’ power now; Pet is told it was… quite delicious.” Her speech affectations now fully matched Nightmare Moon’s.

She blinked, and when her eyelids opened again, I was staring into the eyes of Nightmare Moon, who began to speak through my sister’s body. “Well, hello Shining Armor. Back from pretending to carry out my will?” I must have flinched, because she waved a hoof condescendingly. “Aw, poor thing. Did you really think your actions would go unnoticed? Did you truly think you could deceive me? Now then.”

Her eyes took on a hellish cast, and as my gaze swam, she spoke in a low, hypnotic tone, her voice echoing in my suddenly still mind. “You will tell me where the rebel bases are in Equestria. You will carry out my will and slaughter those who oppose me as the head of my Guard. You will not think any disloyal or traitorous thought against me.”

My head swam, the commands struggling against my wave of revulsion as I strained not to obey.

She asked, “Is that understood?”

My mouth went dry; it was so hard to think. “Y-yes,” I answered, my mind buckling under the intensity of her gaze and her will.

“Yes, what?” she asked, her sultry tone coming out of Twilight’s mouth.

“Yes, mistress,” I answered, the words coming out of my mouth without a thought from me. I floated on a blissful wave of emptiness; it felt so good to have things decided for me.

“Now then, to seal the pact with your mistress… kiss my pet.”

My head twitched back, even as I puckered up and drew closer to what had been my sister. This wasn’t right, but I had to… I had to… “I’m sorry, Twilight,” I whispered, as I drew what had been my little sister in for a kiss as I obeyed.