Human

by DannyJ

Chapter 29: A Life Defined by Mistakes

"Hi, princess! Check it out! I got you a present! Aren't I nice?"

An ursa major lay across the front lawn of the palace, its body large enough to block the view of the entire outer wall. Its limbs were splayed out, and its eyes were closed. A sparkling purple fluid leaked from a cut on its head, and a small river of it trickled across the grounds and dripped into the moat, which was beginning to tint the same colour. Atop the dead monster, a very much alive monster smiled and waved.

Princess Celestia spread her wings and flew across the grounds to meet Lord Second. She stopped, and hovered in place just to the side of the slain beast.

"WHAT have you DONE?!" she demanded.

Second was taken aback.

"Why, I was just bringing you a present, as I said!" he replied. "Can't you see? We went to great lengths to find and kill an ursa that was big enough to show how sorry we are!"

Celestia looked down at the ursa for a second, and then her eyes flicked back up to Second.

"So what? Is this meant to be some kind of apology? 'Sorry I permanently crippled several thousand ponies and threw your kingdom into chaos; have a dead bear'? I'm afraid I don't quite understand."

"But it's true!" Second insisted, placing a hand on his heart. "I feel simply dreadful for all that I have done. All that we have both done! And with your grace, we wish to make amends! Forgive and forget, yes? That's what you ponies love doing, isn't it? Forgiving people for shit?"

He smiled at her. Celestia remained stoic. She didn't trust this man for nothing, but if he truly wanted to apologise and put a stop to all this, then she was obligated to give him a chance. And considering the revelations that Twilight had brought her from the Ponyville investigation, she had to face the possibility that this all might have come from a great misunderstanding.

"Second..." she said carefully. "After me and Blade Edge met you two, I had some of my ponies look into what happened."

"Oh?" The human sat up. "And what did they tell you?"

"Well, for one thing, I know about your... shall we say, dramatic arrival. And I know how it was you came to be fighting an entire army before we arrived. The denizens of Ponyville spoke about how the police tried to arrest you both, and how you fought back against them. And continued to fight as they called more reinforcements, until this eventually led to the circumstances of our first encounter."

Second leaned back into the ursa's skin again.

"Mmhmm," he said. "That sounds about right."

Celestia frowned.

"During that meeting, you said that 'they' started it, presumably referring to the police that tried to arrest you. Am I right?"

"Ya."

"Except that 'they' were arresting you both for disturbing the peace, and according to my reports, it was very much warranted. Forgive me, Second, but I'm failing to see why either of you felt the need to do this. Especially given the lengths to which you took it. Why, Second? What did you do all this for?"

Second groaned loudly.

"We didn't think you'd all be so damn persistent about it, right?! It was a charge of disturbing the peace! Let it go! Christ!"

"'Disturbing the peace' is putting it very mildly, Second. I've seen the craters—"

"Craters schmaters! Ponyville is built right next to the Everfree Forest! It suffers severe property damage all the time!"

"And maybe that alone wouldn't have been worth calling in the army over, but when you factor in several hundred cases of assaulting a police officer—"

Second jumped up onto his feet again, his face red.

"OKAY! FINE! Fuck! So we shouldn't have attacked your goddamn police force when they tried to arrest us! Whatever! Can you please just accept the apology ursa already?!"

He gestured down at the beast that he still stood upon. Once more, Celestia spared a glance at it too, before turning her attention back to Second. She sighed.

"I really can't tell if this is actually a sincere gesture or not. If so, I should tell you that most ponies don't really appreciate dead animals as gifts. We're a vegetarian species, you understand."

"Well no shit," the human said flatly.

"Then this is just an attempt to antagonise me further?"

The princess almost flinched when Second suddenly leapt off the ursa and onto the ground below. He ran to its side and placed both arms beneath it. The body began to shift, and Celestia flew out of the way as the comparatively tiny man lifted the cosmic bear and launched it skyward.

She gaped as he then jumped into the sky as well, almost just as far, and kicked the corpse as it began falling again. The dead ursa flew far off into the distance, seeming to disappear over the horizon. All the way it went, she could see a faint trail of purple blood streaming over Equestria and staining the countryside below.

Second landed back on the ground again, and shouted up to her.

"THERE! I got rid of the star bear! Happy now?!"

The princess landed on the grass again as well.

"...It'll have to do."

"Beautiful. So, what do you say? Friends?"

Second held out his hand to her, in a gesture that Celestia recognised as an offer of a hoofshake.

To say she was hesitant was understanding it. The reason why she tried to talk with him was to give the human a chance to explain himself, since he claimed the police had started it while everything else she heard was about how they were the ones responsible. So far though, Second had done nothing but confirm that they were the ones at fault, even if he didn't act like he thought so. Still, blame could be decided later. What was important was that the violence would stop.

Celestia began to reach out.

"...If it means we can end this destructive conflict, then..." She stopped. "Wait. Where is the other human?"

Her hoof dropped back to the floor. Second just looked confused.

"What other human?"

"Your partner! The First! The one without the moustache! Where is he, Second?"

"One without a moustache? Celestia, I honestly have no idea who you're talking about. I came here alone, remember?"

The alicorn twisted around on the spot, looking in all directions. She stopped turning as she came to face the statue garden, and she took a long sniff of the air. Her expression darkened as she looked back over her shoulder at Second.

"A perception filter?" she said incredulously. "I knew I was missing something. What is he doing?!"

Second didn't say anything, and instead rushed past her in the direction of the hedge maze. He ran too fast for her to catch him on hoof. Even if she flew, she had her doubts. Fortunately, she didn't need to bother with either option. She channeled power through her horn, and in a burst of light she immediately warped directly to the maze.

Celestia flashed back into being in the statue garden just outside it. Second ran in from the side and stopped, grinning at her. Directly between the two of them, Lord First stood next to the statue of Discord, holding his index finger just millimeters away from the surface of the stone. He was looking sideways at Celestia, surprised to see her there.

"Don't. You. DARE," she warned.

First broke into a smile that wouldn't have looked out of place on Pinkie Pie. Celestia's heart nearly gave out.

"I'M GONNA DO IT!" First shouted.

"HE'S GONNA DO IT, PRINCESS!" Second gleefully repeated.

"I'M SO GONNA DO IT!"

"HE'S GONNA FUCKING DO IT!"

"I'M GONNA DO IT! I'M GONNA DO IT RIGHT NOW!"

"OH MY GOD, YOU'RE A CRAZY PERSON!"

"JUST WATCH ME DO IT!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The two of them screaming was what did it. Celestia's nerves got the better of her, and she had to put a stop to this before she had three problems to deal with. Magic couldn't affect them and they dodged anything thrown their way, so Celestia did the first thing she thought of. She grabbed a nearby statue with her magic and flung it at First.

Just as she predicted, he dodged to the side to avoid being struck. Celestia grabbed Discord's statue as well and tossed it right at the palace with all her strength. It smashed through a stained glass window and disappeared from view. The day was saved.

Then she saw a third statue flying right at her, and rolled to the side to avoid it.

"Well, I can't say I didn't try for peace!" Second called mockingly.

That's it, Celestia thought. If I can't defeat these two myself, I've got no choice. I have to bring in the Elements of Harmony.

***

It was in Limbo that the God of Death fell.

Anthony Carson-Summers thought of a life before the madness. So distant now, the days of Xbox and stealing dad's beer. He saw the tidal wave of pulsating green ichor coming towards him, and knew that it was the end of his reign. The place was a void, and there was nothing that mattered. Just him, and his oncoming destruction. Not even the ponies behind him even registered.

He had only seconds to reflect on his thousand years of existence. Looking back, he saw it all, and replayed it in its entirety. One thing that struck him was the contrasts; the sheer extremes in which he'd lived his life.

He'd began it so humbly, living in a small house, going to school, learning to read... Most kids' first books had been such simple things. Fairy tales, mostly. His first book had been The Hobbit. Mom was reading it at the time, and she liked it so much that she read it to little Anthony every night as a bedtime story, and taught him to read along with her as she did. He must have re-read it at least twelve times during his short stay on Earth.

Then he thought of later life. Standing against an army that swarmed from all sides, he'd called down lightning from the sky with his right hand and raised all the water of the ocean with his left. Terror had been in the mortals' eyes as he crushed them effortlessly, and their bodies were strewn across the beach. None of them died. He was too careful for that. He was precision, and he was efficiency. He was Lord First, and he was the most feared being in all of Equestria.

It was Christmas, 2011. Anthony was thirteen. He sat in his room with the lights on and the curtains drawn, even though it was early in the day. Howard sat next to him on the bed, watching intently as he did battle with a dragon. Afterwards, Anthony handed over the controller, and his father struggled with learning the buttons until he was confident enough to walk over to a giant's camp and attack a mammoth. He died in less than two minutes. It was the first time either of them had ever played Skyrim.

It was years later. Anthony was dead. He was standing in this very space, facing down an alicorn the size of a dump truck as she snorted fire and crackled with the life energy of a universe behind her. He remembered how he'd slain her, holding up his hand as she had struggled and gasped for breath.

He took her apart. She was a soul with no real physical presence, but he nonetheless divided every atom of her existence. She exploded in a cloud of dust with a terrified scream, and all the cosmos shook. In that moment, the whole universe felt the death of the closest thing to a god it had ever had. A chill swept over the mortal realm. Nobody knew what it was, but on a fundamental level, they knew that something was now missing from the world.

Anthony Carson-Summers cried as he failed his first spelling test. His mother had to be called in to get him to calm down. He'd never messed up anything so badly in his life, and he kept telling his teacher he was sorry. She told him it was okay, but he had to hear it from his mother before he really believed it. He learned from them that everybody made mistakes, and that messing up one spelling test was not the end of the world. He smiled as his teacher told him that she'd let him retake it if it was that important.

One thousand years later, it was the end of the world. Lord First, the God of Death, screamed in primal rage as he flipped over his table and demanded that his assistants bring him a drink. Steel Hammer brought him a glass of scotch, and he backhanded him. He needed something a lot stronger. As the pony left to get him another drink, First waved his hand and summoned one into existence by himself. He took a long swig of it and sat down at his desk again. So many souls to judge, so little time.

Little Anthony was grabbed from behind without warning. A man picked him up and bolted to the island in the middle of the road, where he put him down. Cars rushed past. Howard turned him around and crouched down so that he was level with his son. He scolded him, and Anthony learned all about the dangers of crossing the road. For years to come, he would never cross a road without someone else being with him, even if he could see that the road was empty.

Lord First walked over to the edge of a great firepit, and came face to face with Satan, bound in chains. He sneered at the progenitor of the demons as the monster attempted to bargain for his freedom. With a cruel smile, First told him that he was giving him a break from his usual torture, and asked how he felt about ice.

Anthony Carson-Summers didn't like ice cream anymore. It made his teeth cold and he was tired of it. Howard was surprised by this. His son had never turned down an ice cream before. Instead, they went to get candyfloss. It was sunny today, and the beach looked inviting.

First's smile faltered as he saw the look of horror on Twilight Sparkle's face. It had been going so well. She looked like she was ready to forgive him for all the chaos he and his father had caused. All he'd wanted was to make amends with her, and she and her friends seemed perfectly willing to forgive and forget. But as they saw the river of blood and heard the agonised screams, it was the last thing on their mind. He tried to explain that he only put ponies who deserved it through this, but they didn't seem to hear him. Twilight stood completely still and remained quiet as tears ran down her face.

In 2008, Anthony learned how to click his fingers for the first time. It took him three times after his mother showed it to him, and she smiled and told him what a quick learner he was.

In 2015, First was in Equestria. He clicked his fingers, and a song started playing. He and Second belted out their rendition of "I'm On a Boat" by the Lonely Island as Celestia's yacht began sinking with all of them still on it.

And finally, back to the present, he was about to die for the second time as the sludge loomed over him. Looking back on his whole life, he felt that somewhere he'd made a mistake. What was the critical moment where it had all gone wrong? Dying the first time? Coming to Equestria? When he threw that very first punch? Or was it that spelling test, the original mistake in a long string of them that defined his life?

Who knew for sure?

***

So. Let's review.

First floated alone in the void of time. This was not his afterlife. It was outside of conventional reality, at least for this particular universe. Physically, it resembled a great tunnel of swirling colours. It was very linear, but there existed space beyond it. The walls of the tunnel weren't actual physical matter. They were just energy. He could easily push through and see what was beyond, but there was nothing out there.

This place was what was important.

"Right..." he muttered. "So... How to fix this?"

A mote of purple light drifted by his face, moving at a leisurely pace down the tunnel to who knew where.

"Ah. Perfect."

He reached out and grabbed it.

The time void bled away, and an environment began to build itself around Anthony. He saw that it was a familiar place. A classroom.

There were many small desks arranged in a neat formation before a whiteboard. In the corner were beanbags and a small shelf of books, mostly fiction. The back wall was decorated with paintings and art projects. The other two walls were almost entirely windows. On one side the windows gave a view of an overgrown courtyard, potted plants lining the windowsill, and the other side had a view of the corridor.

In the middle of the room, a small child sat at one of the desks, sobbing. He was the only one there. The rest of the room was all empty. The crying boy had his face down, and a hand hung limply to the side of the table clutching a piece of paper.

Anthony stepped over to the side of the desk and crouched next to it.

Mistake number one. The first mistake I ever made. I remember this.

The adult First remained unemotional and dispassionate. It had seemed so important at the time, but hindsight meant that he had little sympathy for his younger self at this point. Still, this memory was important. He had to view this. Perhaps in here, he reasoned, he might find the point where his life started to go wrong. He doubted it, but this was as good a place as any to start.

Two women walked into the room. Anthony looked up at them. Both of him did, his younger self revealing a red face and teary eyes.

"Anthony, baby..."

One of the women crouched down next to the desk, next to where the invisible, older man was sitting. She was a pretty woman. Blonde hair, brown eyes, putting on a little weight, but that was to be at least partly expected by her age. Carrying children did a woman no favours for her figure. That was what she always said anyway. He smiled at the sight of his mother comforting his younger self.

"I f-failed, mom!" the little Anthony cried. "I tried my h-hardest, a-and I still failed!"

She had to move around the desk to pull him into a hug. The older Anthony rolled his eyes. This was embarrassing to look back at. He could scarcely believe he'd once cried at failing a spelling test, but here it was. The very first time he'd ever failed something in his life. At least, failed something that was apparently important.

To the side, his teacher had her arms crossed and was looking away from them. She had had to go outside and fetch Carol, bringing her in to help calm her student down. It was the end of the school day. Normally, all the children just walked out and met their parents to walk them home. Anthony had stayed in here crying until his mother actually came in.

"It's okay, sweetie..." she assured him. "It's only a little test. You can try again next time."

"But I c-couldn't do it! I m-messed it up! R-robbie said it was bec-cause I was stupid!"

"You're not stupid, Anthony, come on... Everybody makes mistakes..."

Older Anthony shook his head. This was pointless. He knew the mistakes didn't begin here, because this wasn't truly a mistake. His mother was entirely right. It had never been his fault that he failed the spelling test at all. But this was important for another reason. Because it was from this that he had learned that making mistakes was okay. And THAT he felt was his first true mistake.

It was good for him to learn that he couldn't beat himself up like this every time something didn't go his way. Every child had to eventually mature, and a big part of that was learning that one couldn't be perfect. However, he felt he had taken it too far. He'd learned to accept mediocrity. He let himself make mistakes, and he never dwelled on them enough.

His younger self here was showing a lot more anguish over this failed spelling test than he was right now over a lifetime of mistakes that he was sure were about to culminate in a second death. He wondered if a better lesson for him to take from this memory was that he had to be more aware of his failures.

"Mrs. Carson-Summers," his teacher began. "Anthony has had trouble with his spellings for a long time, but far from being stupid, I think he's actually quite a bright young boy. Language is a difficult subject, but... there is a distinct possibility that he might suffer from dyslexia."

He couldn't listen to any more of this. The older Anthony snapped his fingers, and the memory faded away. Alone in the time void again, he crossed his arms and closed his eyes.

"Right..." he said with a sigh. "Not there..."

How much time did he have available? He wasn't sure. Would there be enough for him to examine everything? It was vital that he have time to review all that he learned and try to pinpoint that moment. Only if he did that might he possibly survive this.

In a moment of weakness, he turned to the nearest wall of the tunnel and stepped through it, emerging back into his realm and entering something he called the overseer state. From here, First had a vantage point that overlooked all of Creation. Omnipotence didn't necessarily translate to omniscience, and complete control over a realm didn't always mean that he knew what was going on in it at all times. He had to consciously enter this state to achieve such a complete awareness.

His attention was immediately drawn to the sixth circle. What was this madness? Brotherhood ponies running free? His demonic legions defeated? This couldn't be right.

Reversing time a little way, he astrally projected himself into the middle of the rebellion as it occurred. All around him were the burning tombs that made up the sixth circle, and he was standing in the centre of an epic battle between ponies and demons. He needed to see how this happened.

He counted the demons. Twenty-four of them joined the battle. There were of course far more than twenty-four demons in the sixth circle, but the Brotherhood's tombs were all clustered on this side of the circle. The breakout was localised. Only the demons closest to the action were involved in trying to stop it, and that was this twenty-four.

Demons were powerful, but he was seeing the flaw in his security right away. They were trying to kill the escaped ponies, and these weren't mortals anymore. They were souls. They could not be killed, just like the demons couldn't. More than that, the demons could not even inflict lasting wounds. It was like they were fighting a crowd of alicorns.

The reverse was also true, but the demons were far fewer in number than the Brotherhood. They were getting beaten up far more than the ponies. And then when the unicorns began magically lifting the demons and sealing them inside the tombs that they had opened...

"Damn it," First grumbled. "What is even the point of having legions of immortal demons guarding your prisoners if THIS can still happen?!"

Slapping his forehead, he just groaned and fast-forwarded time to see how this ended. Just as expected, the demons were all eventually defeated. He looked over to the other side of the circle to see if any of the other demons on patrol had noticed what happened in this sector, and were going to do anything about it.

None of them were.

"I am surrounded by fools."

With another irritated sigh, First snapped his fingers and withdrew back into the void.

***

The world was blurry and unclear for Gold Coin. Dark too. He opened his eyes and tried to focus on something, but nothing was visible. Instead, he focused on other sensations. The distant voices of concern and the freezing cold all around him both painted a picture of a bad situation. He shivered as he crawled out of some kind of hole, hooves slipping on the edge. He was surrounded by ice, but there was a way out. Above him, he could hear the voices.

"Come on, Goldie... Here. Let me help you."

A hoof gripped around his, and helped pull him up the rest of the way.

"Are you okay?"

The voice was female. She sounded familiar, but he couldn't place it. Definitely not one of the princesses.

"Umm... I'm fine. I can't see. Where am I?"

"He can't see!" she called out. "Tomey, dear? See if you can help him."

"Dear"?

"Velocity? Is that you?" Gold Coin asked incredulously.

There was a flash of purple light that broke through Gold Coin's haze, and in a second his vision was back. The mare he had expected it to be was indeed standing there, smiling back at him.

"In the flesh," she replied.

"Huh. Guess I should have expected that you'd be here somewhere, but this is still a surprise."

Then he noticed Tome standing on his other side.

"You think that's surprising? You haven't seen anything yet," the old unicorn said with a wry smile.

Gold Coin was about to question just how exactly Tome got here, but then he noticed him looking at something behind him and to his right. The businesspony slowly looked back, and saw a great hulking red beast with three different heads on the end of long necks like a hydra's. The one immediately behind him looked like those of the demons he'd met on the mountain, and it was giving him a wide grin and staring at him with its glowing eyes.

"Pleased to meet you," it said in a soft but skin-crawlingly repulsive voice. "My name is Satan. I created the demons. I'm also your new best friend."

Gold Coin turned his head back to Tome and Velocity again, just as slowly as before. They both smiled at him too. He looked around the place some more.

A short distance away, Applejack was staring at Satan as well and talking with Princess Celestia. Both were next to a deep pit in the ice, identical to the one he had just crawled out of. A stallion that he clearly recognised as the famous historical military commander Shining Armor was balled up and laying on his side, rocking back and forth and muttering to himself. He spotted another two ponies also lounging about and doing the same thing. And Iron Hoof was attending to what looked like a crashed elevator.

"I quit," said Gold Coin. "The world doesn't make any sense, so I'm going to stop trying to rationalise it."

***

Explodey and Broad Sword both stood over the fallen body of Steel Hammer. The former guard lay on the floor unconscious, the shattered remains of First's desk scattered around him. A broken telephone continued to ring forlornly, and the car battery had begun leaking some kind of fluid over the floor. It looked every bit like a crime scene.

"First is going to murder us," Broad Sword pointed out.

"Nonsense!" Explodey replied. "We're already dead, aren't we?"

"That isn't going to stop him!"

"Swordy, you worry too much."

Explodey glanced at the still-ringing telephone. He reached out a hoof to answer it, but thought better and pulled it back.

"So, uh... our friends are in danger. Wanna go rescue them?" he asked.

"Well of course I do," Broad Sword answered. "I'm just worried about the consequences of making an enemy of the lord of the dead when we're in the afterlife."

Explodey chuckled.

"Swordy, you forget who you're with! I'm the most overpowered thing since Second. I think you're safe with me."

"Hmph. So what's in the circles then? I don't know what they're like. We aren't allowed down there."

Explodey thought for a moment.

"Well... I'm not sure, but I think the human world had this book or poem or something called Inferno that was about a Hell which the author divided into nine circles... The Firstian Hell may be based on that."

"What's in the ninth circle? That's where he said First took the princess."

"The ninth circle was for traitors, I think. I don't know much about it though. I know of things from the human world, but the things I know specifics about are random. So I don't really know much about Inferno."

Explodey grinned.

"But I could tell you all about this thing that humans have called the internet, and there are these people who—"

"Maybe later, yeah? We have ponies to save."

"Oh, right!" Explodey looked left and right, seeing nothing but mist in both directions. "Uh... let's go... this way!"

Before Broad Sword could stop him, the unicorn then charged off in search of the entrance to the circles. Swordy could only groan in frustration and give chase.

***

Chain Mail and Sliske found a winding path down the cliff that led from where they emerged at the top of the waterfall down into the valley below. As they came towards the end of the path near the bottom of the waterfall, where the white water crashed against the rocks and then calmed as it flowed into a long winding river, they admired the view of the paradise.

"It's really quite beautiful," Chain Mail commented as they trotted along. "I don't think I would actually mind dying anymore."

"Did you fear death?" asked Sliske.

"Yes. I think it's what I'm most afraid of. Or I was, until now, I think. I was always frightened that I would die one day and it would just be inky blackness for the rest of time. I used to have nightmares that dead ponies never actually left their bodies, just that they stopped being able to control them.

"I dreamt that I'd die, but I still saw out of my own corpse's eyes and heard with my ears. My mother would cry over my body, and I'd be unable to say anything to let her know I was still there. And then they'd take me off to be cremated, and I'd actually live through it and be aware of it, and continue life as a blind, deaf, unfeeling pile of ash."

Sliske stared at the captain.

"You have some disturbing nightmares," she commented.

"I conjured up that horror when I was just six years old," Chain Mail replied, "I had all kinds of bad dreams like that. It was because of my mother. She used to come up with all kinds of scary stories. I was never scared when she was the one telling them, but when nighttime came and I was left alone in the dark..."

They had reached the bottom of the path now, and stood side by side next to the edge of the river.

"Did you ever get over the nightmares?" asked Sliske.

"Eventually, yes. Just like all other colts who had bad dreams, I did eventually find peace when Princess Luna came to visit me in my nightmares. She helped put rest to those demons. I never forgot that. She helps so many hundreds of ponies during the night, and never expects anything in return. I thought I should give something back though. That's part of the reason why I joined the guard."

"What happened to your mother?"

"She died. Natural causes. She was pretty old..."

Sliske gave him a sympathetic smile.

"...We're in the afterlife, you know," she said. "If you want, we could go find her?"

"That would be nice, Sliske, but would you have enough magic to keep the intangibility spell going for long enough?"

"Don't worry about me. I've got magic to spare. Come on. Let's go find her."

The dark mare trotted on ahead, following the river out into the valley where the rest of the ponies were gathered. Chains smiled at her.

"You really are a true friend."

Chain Mail and Sliske weren't quite sure at first where to go. The whole valley was laid bare before them, but it was vast. Were they in the mortal realm still, Chain Mail doubted that they'd even be able to traverse all of it in a day. And his mother could be anywhere in it.

How fortunate for them that they happened to run into some of First's hired help.

"Hey! Hey you in the cloak!"

A pink unicorn mare paused and looked over his shoulder, and smiled at the two as they rushed over to her.

"You're one of the staff around here, right?" Chain Mail asked.

"Oh, yes sir. Yes I am."

She held out a foreleg, offering a hoofshake, which they both took.

"Marvelous is the name!" she said cheerfully. "Reaper-in-training, fifth division. How can I help you?"

"We're looking for a mare," Sliske explained. "Her name is—"

"Chain Letter," the captain cut in. "She's an earth pony, and her coat's sort of... A bit darker than my colour. A bit. Yellow and blue striped mane. Cutie mark of a pair of 952 Equestrian postage stamps. Can you help us find her?"

Marvelous reached into her cloak and withdrew a small brown book. She flipped it open to the centre page, and her eyes ran back and forth across it.

"Certainly, sir!" she said after a minute, snapping the book closed. "Follow me!"

***

I haven't much time. I must find the right memory.

The human looked at the other motes of light passing him by. One of these had to be the right one. On a whim, he picked the closest one to him, reaching out and grabbing it as it tried to pass. The world faded, and he once again found himself drew into a world recreated from his memories.

This was Ponyville, show era. To be precise, the season five opening episodes. He knew because he could see himself as he was one thousand years ago.

Oh God, I don't want to be here...

The moment was frozen in time. It was outside of Sugarcube Corner. Mr. and Mrs. Cake had their eyes wide open and were recoiling. Two other patrons of the shop were the same, equally shocked and just beginning to back away. Nearby, his father's face displayed mild surprise, but he also seemed amused, perhaps even a little smug.

In the centre of it all, a mare with an aquamarine coat was suspended in the air, laying on her back as she hung there. A blue police jacket with a gold badge covered her chest, and a little hat was floating just an inch off the ground below her. The mare's head was twisted to the side, and a tooth had been knocked out of her mouth and was flying away from her as her eyes locked on it. Just next to the mare, a round, plastic table of the kind often seen outside of cafes in the summer was teetering on the edge of falling over.

And then there was First, leaning forwards, fist outstretched, and a grin on his face as he punched the police mare. His older self gave the scene a distasteful look, mentally cringing at what he had initiated here, now that he knew what it would eventually lead to.

"The stupid things we do when we're young..."

He walked up to the mare and the other him, and once again crouched down. He could see the place where he had punched her. Right in the mouth.

In a second from now, she would hit the ground neck-first and nearly break it. Her partner, who was standing on the other side of the square right now and witnessing these events from afar, would turn and run away. He would find other police ponies and call for backup. A fight would initiate, during which the younger First and his father would discover that they held extraordinary powers. In two hours from now, they would face down an army. In three, a princess.

A minute ago, this mare had demanded that the two of them freeze. She was intending to arrest the two of them for disturbing the peace.

After their explosive entrance to Equestria, the ponies had panicked. They were afraid and running scared from the two aliens that had dropped out of the sky. Any humans in the same situation would not have behaved differently. This police mare here had been the only one unafraid of the two of them. She perceived them as the cause of a massive public disturbance, which they were, even if they had not intended to be.

Howard had said that it was best to allow themselves to be arrested. To resist arrest in America was illegal, even if you were being arrested for something you did not do. If you were innocent, it could be proven later, and the police would be forced to let you go and apologise. That was how it worked in the real world, and at first, they were intending to treat this the same. Let the ponies bring them in for now, and they could clear up this whole mess later.

Anthony had been the one to protest. He had been the one to say, "We haven't done anything though!" and fight back against the police officer when she tried to cuff him anyway. An immature response. Had he done such a thing in real life, it would have ended with him on the floor and several men with nightsticks beating him. Here though, it led to an entire army of ponies being crippled, and him and his father passing into legend.

Staring at the frozen mare, First gave a slight smile. It was strange, in a way. She had never seen a big scary alien and ran away. She had seen what she thought was a criminal, and tried to make an arrest. Their species had never mattered to her. This mare indirectly started this whole debacle because she was the LEAST prejudiced and panicky in this town. And look what it had gotten her.

He tried to remember what happened to her after she died. If he recalled correctly, he had her tossed into the second circle for having an affair some time in her early forties. Then again, maybe he was confusing her with that other police mare from Fillydelphia? It became hard to keep track sometimes.

"Okay," First said to himself. "Definitely a mistake here."

This was a mistake alright. One of many. There were any number of things he could have done differently here. Quietly allow himself to be arrested and inevitably let out and apologised to later, keep his temper and try to explain what was going on, shut up and let his father explain things instead, or even just run away. But he didn't. He had given the most impulsive, reckless, immature and juvenile response possible. And for some reason, it led to him becoming a part of Equestria's pantheon of dark gods. Karma was confusing like that.

Was it THE mistake though? The exact one where it all had gone wrong? He wasn't so sure. He had to compare it first. Certainly this had been what set the ball rolling. This is what made him the the target of entire armies. It was what eventually led to his death. But he doubted that the universe wanted to kill him all over again because he had punched this specific mare in the face.

Waste of time. Need to go further.

Once again the world bled away, depositing First back in the time void.

How much time left now?

It couldn't hurt to check, and so he phased through the wall of the tunnel again...

***

"You're insane. All of you!" Gold Coin admonished. "You're fucking crazy, and I'm not going along with this plan!"

As the stallion tried to march away, Ancient Tome grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back.

"Brother Gold Coin, I don't like it either, but—"

"Don't you 'brother' me, you bearded idiot!" the businesspony replied, throwing him off. "You're the worst one of all! All that, 'oh, Goldie, don't trust the princesses! They might still be secretly evil! Just because Second turned out to be a fucking lunatic doesn't mean you should trust them!' And then what do you do?! A princess suggests letting loose a demon comparable in strength to Tirac himself, and your response is, 'Yeah, this seems legit!' FUCK! What is WRONG with you?!"

"Wait, what?" said Celestia.

Ancient Tome cringed as the alicorn walked over to their side to join the conversation.

"Is it true, Ancient Tome? Even after everything that happened at Canterlot, you and your ponies are still against me?"

Tome at first gave her an apologetic look, but his resolve hardened as he answered her.

"No offence, your majesty, but we still can't be sure if you can be trusted."

Celestia frowned.

"And why not? What have I done to show I can't be trusted?"

"...Well..."

"Various things, according to some bullshit conspiracy theories," Gold Coin interrupted. "The Brotherhood's entire anti-royalist stance is based chiefly on the writings of two of our founders, who in the years after the Eclipse Crisis began retroactively coming up with reasons to hold up the humans as heroes while vilifying those who stood against them. You're the Brotherhood's enemy because you opposed Second while we were stupid enough to like him. You've done nothing wrong, princess. Until recently, anyway. Tome here is just a moron."

"Goldie!" Tome hissed. "What are you doing?! You're not supposed to reveal the Brotherhood's workings to outsiders! Especially not her!"

"Fuck you." Gold Coin turned back to Celestia. "And this is still a stupid plan you've made! Give me one good reason why we should trust that monster to not eat us the moment we let him loose!"

Celestia shrugged with her wings.

"No reason. We just don't have any better alternatives. He's the only one strong enough to break through the ceiling and get us out of here."

The earth pony facehoofed.

"Fine then. I don't care anymore. Second's lap-dancing midget maidens, this is a horrible idea."

Celestia rolled her eyes.

"Whenever you're ready, Gold Coin."

She walked off, leaving the two Brotherhood ponies alone. The earth pony grumbled and turned on Tome again.

"Just to reiterate: Fuck you. Fuck your Brotherhood. Fuck her too. Fuck humans. And fuck this awful plan."

"You're so eloquent," said Tome. "Just go get on the demon, okay?! We've got a god to overthrow!"

***

Sliske and Chain Mail followed Marvelous through Paradise on hoof. Though it would have logically taken a long time to walk where they wanted to go, the subtle liberties taken with the laws of physics in this realm meant that they arrived in no time at all.

The captain froze when he saw his mother up ahead, conversing with a few other mares. Chain Mail recognised them as friends of hers. It was the first time in years he had looked into the old mare's eyes. He had never seen her look so young before. While he stood in place, Sliske by his side, their reaper escort trotted over to Chain Letter's side and whispered something to her. It was then that she turned her head and noticed her son standing there.

His mouth twitched slightly, and he also smiled as he ran over to her side and hugged her without warning. She was less happy about it. While she returned his hug, her voice was filled only with concern.

"Chain Mail? My poor boy, don't tell me you died already? You're still so young..."

"I'm not dead, mommy. Just visiting."

She looked ready to question him, but for the moment just decided to return to the embrace. Sliske approached as well, more apprehensive than her friend, but encouraged by their Marvelous.

"Um... Hello, Mrs. Chain Letter. It's nice to meet you."

The other mare looked up.

"Oh. Hello there. And... who might you be?"

"Uh... Sunny. My name is Sunny."

Letter's smile came back.

"Pleased to meet you. Are you a friend of my son, or...? "

"Friend. Yes."

She nodded, and then looked back down at the captain again.

"Ahem. Chains, dear?"

"Sorry..."

He reluctantly let go of his mother, and stood up again.

"It's just that I'm so happy to see you again, because it's been so many years since—"

"I know, darling. I've been watching you too, now and again. Captain of the royal guard now, are you? I'm so proud."

"She's right, ya know," said a gruff-sounding voice. "Cap'n of the royal guard? Never thought I'd see th' day. Kinda didn't, actually. Sorry 'bout that."

The voice's owner turned out to be an earth pony stallion with a dark grey coat and stubble around his face. He beamed at the captain as he trotted over to him and Letter.

"...Sorry, but... Who are you?" Chains asked carefully.

"Chain Mail, darling, this is your father," the older mare answered.

The two stallions stared at each other for a moment, before the captain grabbed his father and pulled him into a hug as well.

Sliske smiled as she watched the reunion, but was interrupted when Marvelous tapped her on the shoulder and whispered something into her ear. The alien's eyes shot wide open, and she turned to look at her escort.

"Really?"

She nodded.

"Chains, I'll catch up with you in a bit!" she called. "It's my people! They're alive here!"

***

"What is THAT?!" First shouted to no-one. "What the FUCK is THAT?!"

He zoomed in closer. He was floating over the ninth circle again now. Still invisible, he stared down in abject shock as Ancient Tome, Iron Hoof, Velocity, Gold Coin, Applejack and Princess Celestia were all busily breaking Satan out of the ice.

"WHAT?!" he screamed. "WHY?! WHY WOULD YOU EVEN?! IT'S FUCKING SATAN! WHO TEAMS UP WITH SATAN?!"

This couldn't be real. There was no possible way that the people who were teaming up with the literal devil were considered the good guys compared to him. This was either tremendously stupid or a wilful act of evil, and yet he was still the one who would be considered the villain in this situation.

And then there was the presence of Ancient Tome. When did he die and get sent to the ninth circle?

"Alright, I need to stop this..." With a wave of his hand, First stopped time. "When did this madness start?"

He rewound to the moment that the ponies arrived in the afterlife. Twilight Sparkle led them all through the portal. He had caught them all. He watched closely as his past self divided them into several more manageable groups. One of those had been Celestia's group, and of course, he knew what had happened with them. Applejack and Gold Coin were placed under the ice that they were now breaking out of, while he had handled the princess himself, with disastrous results.

Chain Mail and Sliske were released into Paradise and wandered around aimlessly. He observed as they came across a young reaper mare, one of the more recent additions to his workforce, and with her help found Chain Mail's parents. The guard captain found his mother again after so many years. They hugged and cried and had a great reunion. Chains introduced Sliske to his mother, and she introduced him to his father, a stallion he had never even known until now.

Soft Spoken and Twilight were stuck together in the first circle. There was Mystic, who was alone in it. He'd been left there ever since Rarity and Rainbow Dash were banished to the fifth circle by Steel Hammer. Speaking of... Yes. Rainbow and Rarity were still imprisoned. They at least had the good manners to stay put, even if they were struggling to get out. And then there was Luna, Pinkie and Fluttershy's group, who appeared to be in one of the many other versions of Paradise created for one of the various alien races.

Well, that seemed to be everybody accounted for... Almost. When did the Brotherhood show up? That was the real question.

First turned his gaze back towards the moment of the arrival. He had separated the groups, and then left to torment Celestia. Ancient Tome had arrived... immediately after everyone else. Looking back at that moment, First stared at the two Brotherhood ponies entering the afterlife as one would stare at an unfamiliar dead cat laying in the middle of their kitchen.

He blinked in disbelief.

"Are you telling me that if I had kept my eyes on that portal for just four seconds longer, I would have seen this whole thing coming?" he asked the air.

It was called Dramatic Convenience for a reason, he supposed. With a loud groan, he began fast-forwarding Ancient Tome's personal timeline so he could observe that too. He had to know to just what extent this unicorn had screwed everything up.

First didn't speak further as he watched all that had happened. He raised his eyebrow as the two stallions rifled through his desk and looked at his files. He frowned as they stole his folder of death certificates. He rolled his eyes at Tome's reluctance to enter the elevator, slapped his head when this inevitably tied back into the sixth circle break-out, and placed his face in his palms and groaned even louder when they proceeded down into the seventh and eighth circles to wreck his carefully-organised sorting system even more.

"Screw it. I don't care."

He waved a hand and dismissed the visions, returning to the void.

***

The eighth circle was in chaos. Ponies were escaping from the various pits en masse, carried by the pegasi up onto the relatively small platforms between the bolgias. It was they that were able to see down into the dark abyss that was the very centre of the circle. After the tenth bolgia, there was a great hole in the middle of the platform that was impossibly deep and had no visible bottom.

From within that chasm, the escapees saw Satan himself vigorously scaling the pit’s walls with his claws, which easily dug through the solid rock. The beast snarled and roared as it made progress moving upwards. His intentions were simply to make First pay for all the torture he had suffered, and he had been threatened by his niece to not touch any of the souls trapped in this realm with him. But he was still a terrifying, colossal, monstrous, three-headed, snake-necked, incarnation of all things evil, and besides all that, the ponies knew nothing about the circumstances of his escape.

“DEMON! GIANT DEMON! EVERYPONY, RUN!” shouted a pegasus mare near the edge.

Even if only the ponies near the centre were able to see what looked to be the oncoming apocalypse, it did not take long for panic to erupt all across the eighth circle. The revolutionaries and escapees might have been courageous against the demon guards that had been sent to subdue them before, but all of them went running or flying away in fear as Satan's hand grabbed the edge of the pit and he began to hoist himself up and out.

The beast let out a tremendous roar, opening all of its mouths to reveal multiple rows of razor-sharp teeth in every one of them. The bridges linking the platforms between the bolgias were congested from all the ponies trying to escape over them, but a few stopped as they heard this sound, and came to a realisation as they saw the ponies stood atop the titan.

Applejack, Gold Coin, Ancient Tome, Iron Hoof and Velocity all clung onto the bottom of the necks, sitting either between them or on Satan's shoulders. Most of them were merely trying to keep ahold and looked just as terrified as the fleeing ponies below, but Tome was instead working some kind of spell, while Gold Coin was relishing the moment and loudly shouting obscenities. Meanwhile, Celestia rode on the centre head, hooves planted firmly and ordering the demon onwards.

Satan crouched slightly once he was out of the hole, and then sprung up. The ponies below were shocked to see such a large creature leap so far, but he cleared all ten bolgias in a single bound and sailed right over the crowd. He slammed into the wall of the cliff leading up to the seventh circle, and began scaling that just as easily as he had the pit he had just emerged from.

The souls of the eighth circle stopped their chaotic rioting when they saw him beginning to leave, instead watching with interest as he rose higher and higher. They all saw the ponies on his shoulder then, and began to realise the truth. He was just like them. Another prisoner escaping the bondage of First. Those nearest the outside of the circle immediately began to rush for one of the many staircases leading up to the seventh circle, now confident that First was about to fall.

In the seventh circle, the centaurs did not even try to fight. They had heard Satan coming, his arrival heralded by the roaring and the screams from the eighth circle, and knew better than to attempt to do anything themselves. Instead, they all ran to get out of the way and called for support from First's other forces.

Eighth circle escapees began emerging from below, coming up the staircases. Hearing their various anti-First chants and seeing the centaurs fleeing before Satan's might, thousands upon thousands of murderers began to crawl out of the Phlegethon and onto the shores, quickly joining the mob. The violent and the criminally insane mingled with the liars and the deceptive, and together they formed one great mass that chased down the centaurs and followed the path of destruction that the progenitor of the demons was carving through Hell.

It took four minutes for Satan to make his way through both circles, and the sixth was still to come.

***

Sliske and Marvelous landed on the top of a large mountain peak. They had left the valley of ponies long behind them, and many other valleys with more terrestrial life too. Far across First's realm, they now stood looking down at an alien landscape. Or at least, it was alien to the reaper escort. For Sliske, it was like coming home again.

She floated down towards the rocky red plains. In the distance, she could see bleached-white forests of trees that towered miles into the sky. They passed over lakes and rivers of discoloured water, poisonous and toxic to ponies, but to a Zarlan, a magnificent hot spring for bathing and religious rituals.

There were purple plants that oozed a glowing substance, considered a delicacy in all major Zarlan civilizations. The slight gold tint on the tips of the red blades of grass they walked over indicated a rich soil. Places like these were home to burrows of montegnals, the rarest and most beautiful of the ground-dwelling zishtigs, and said in Zarlan myth to grant long life and good fortune to all who saw them.

And of course, there were the Zarlans themselves. All huge, burly creatures with four arms and nine eyes, dotted around a bald head so that they could see in all directions at once. They walked on two legs and towered high above Sliske's comparatively tiny pony form. She was in wonder as she trotted around the strange environment, looking at all the different Zarlans going about their daily post-life.

One of them stopped as he walked by the two, looking at them oddly.

"Grrrrrm... More aliens from the other valleys..." he said.

Sliske ignored the wariness in his tone and jumped up to hug the alien.

"I HAVE MISSED YOU SO MUCH!" she screamed.

"...Do we know each other?"

"No. But I've missed you anyway."

The Zarlan prised Sliske off with some difficulty, and deposited her back on the ground.

"...Indeed."

He stomped away again, no longer so apprehensive or cautious, but now simply confused. Sliske couldn't help herself from running around in circles for a bit.

"Yes! Yes! Yes!"

"You look like you're having fun," Marvelous commented.

"Oh, I am! Yes! A thousand times yes!" Sliske stopped, and gasped. "Wait! Do you have a name register for all the Zarlans in the afterlife too?!"

The reaper smiled.

"Yes, ma'am. Of course."

"Can you look up a Zarlan named Drelmary for me?"

"Certainly."

After a few moments of page-turning, she looked up from her book with a grim expression.

“I’m so sorry, but she appears to be in the fourth circle of Hell.”

***

The ground was rumbling in the sixth circle, and the rioters occupying it took notice. It progressed into a full-on earthquake soon after, before the towering form of the devil himself emerged from within the pit and loomed over the field of flaming tombs. From atop his shoulders, the ponies riding him could see all of Dis, and even the swamplands of the fifth circle beyond the outer walls.

The mob from the lower circles charged up the stairs and rushed in to continue the fight. In one particular area of the sixth circle, the recently-freed Brotherhood of Man ponies lost each other and were separated in the chaos. All over, the rioters began busting open more tombs and freeing their prisoners, seemingly unaware that the majority of the prisoners they were letting out were vampires.

Meanwhile, the demons who were meant to be guarding the wall and preventing all this could only grin to each other as they saw Satan beginning to stomp his way through the tombs. Their forefather had returned, and not a single one of them took more than a second to betray First and all their oaths after millenia of loyal service. The demon guards all threw down their weapons and began tearing down the wall themselves, allowing the mob to spread further. Chunks of masonry were sent flying, and a great cloud of dust blanketed the area around the demolition zone.

Satan stomped across the tombs, crushing them carelessly, and passed through the ruined wall into the fifth circle. Looking up, he saw the layout of upper Hell. It was similar to how it been lower down, following the funnel layout of concentric circles and with each one getting larger as it went up. The only real difference was that the previously cavernous-looking walls were now taking on the appearance of some sort of monolithic crypt.

Looking down, he saw that his foot had been submerged in an expanse of murky, swampy, bubbling water. A massive brawl between those who were condemned there was taking place both on and beneath the surface. All sorts of creatures were biting, punching, kicking, wrestling, and tackling each other for no apparent reason, and not even the horde of revolutionaries pouring in from the wall seemed to distract them from their combat.

The sight of it all was very senseless and violent, which was something Satan could appreciate, but sadly he had promised Celestia that he would not intentionally cause harm to the ponies here, so he was unable to partake in it himself. Instead, he ignored them, and began trudging through the swamp. Let the rioters and revolutionaries do as they would with them.

Tome looked over what he had started from his perch. It warmed his heart to see such a violent and bloody uprising, even if wasn't against the mare he had spent his life planning this for. He looked over at Celestia, who he saw was instead mildly disgusted by the sight. Tome was at first tempted to write it off as the tyrant foreseeing her own future, but then he looked back at it again.

This was turning into an uncivilized, nasty thing. Far from an organised revolution against a common foe, this was nothing but chaos and anarchy. With how many ponies were down there, he was certain that they weren't all innocent. He remembered quite clearly that Hell did indeed contain many murderers and other criminals, who were all likely even more psychotic after years of torture.

Tome sat back and looked down at his own hooves as he thought about what he and the others had done here today. Had they just unleashed all that on Paradise? Was this destruction going to spread across this whole realm? Perhaps they were about to stop First, and there was no doubt that he did need to be stopped, but what then? Who would replace him? What would happen to this realm and all its inhabitants?

He was broken from his thoughts by the sound of a shouting pony.

“Hey, princess!”

Everypony riding the demon all looked off to the left as a light blue pegasus with a rainbow mane flew in. Right by her side was a brown and white griffin, and the two of them were both holding up a white unicorn. Even though this was the first he had seen the two mares in person, Tome knew who they were right away.

The three landed on top of Satan's dragon head, and Rarity had to grab ahold of a scale for fear of falling off again. The fliers were less phased. Satan for his part just ignored them, and kept tearing through the swamps.

"Dash! Rarity! Down here!" Applejack called up to them.

"'Sup, AJ!" Rainbow answered. "I see you guys found a ride out of here!"

"A sky carriage would have been more comfortable!" Rarity shouted back as she nearly fell off again.

"Rainbow Dash, Rarity, it's good to see you again," said Celestia. "How are you here though? Where did you go when we were separated?"

Satan stuck his leg in an especially deep pool and Rarity let out a squeal at the sudden drop. He was only submerged up to his thigh though, and the demon pulled himself out again with a growl to continue crossing the circle. Looking behind them as they passed the pool, Tome saw a number of other pegasi from around the swamp taking flight and trying to go straight for the rocky ceiling of Hell, though it was so far up he doubted they'd ever reach it.

"One of First's brainwashed ponies got to us and sent us here. Mystic too, but they sent him to the first circle."

Tome and Velocity both sat up and turned their full attention to Dash. She didn't seem to notice them.

"We both landed down here and started getting attacked by everypony," she continued. "We kept fighting them off for a while, and then I realised one of them was my old pal here!"

Applejack looked at the griffin.

"Gilda? That you?"

The griffin sighed, but said nothing.

"She's been stuck here fighting for nine hundred years too, but when she recognised us again, she snapped out of it! Pretty weak mind control if you ask me!"

"I told you, it's not mind control! It's psychological!" Gilda snapped. "I was just fighting because everyone else was attacking me! And that's the same reason everyone else is fighting too!"

"A self-perpetuating torture..." Celestia mused.

“So, what’s the plan here?” Rainbow asked to no-one in particular.

Gold Coin answered her.

"We go through Hell, fuck everything up, find everypony, kill First, get the fuck out of here, and save the universe. It's SIMPLE. It's fucking TUESDAY for us. ALL ABOARD THE MADNESS TRAIN!"

***

Chain Mail gave Sliske a confused looked.

“So you want me to come with you to the fourth circle of Hell?”

“Yes.”

Sliske quickly looked back at Marvelous, who stood with her back to them a short distance away. The reaper mare looked like she was talking with some other pony, so Sliske was reasonably sure that she wasn't listening. She leaned in and whispered to Chain Mail.

“First sentenced my wife, Drelmary, to eternal torment for being greedy. Greedy! On Zarlow! I know greed isn't an attractive trait, but... Chains, you've got to understand! It's Zarlow! She used to live in a mud hut before we married! Almost nobody on our planet lived in the kind of luxury that I did! You can't judge her for getting taken up in it! Of course she got a little greedy! She never experienced anything like it before! She doesn't deserve this!"

Chain Mail took a step back.

"I... never said she did?" he offered.

"But we need to get her out of there, Chains!"

The stallion paused, and glanced over Sliske's shoulder at Marvellous.

“Okay, I can see where you’re coming from," he admitted, facing Sliske again, "and I completely agree with you, but are you sure we can just waltz into Hell and do something like that? Don't you think there'd be security?”

“We have our reaper to escort us, and she says that relatives are allowed to visit. They just have to consent to having their memories wiped afterwards so that knowledge of Hell doesn't spread to the rest of the ponies here.”

“And when she finds out that we’re really doing down there?”

“We get out as fast as possible and try not to get caught.”

Chain Mail frowned at her.

"Really? That's all we've got?"

"Well, what else can we do?!"

He sighed.

“I guess that’s as good of a plan as we’re going to get. Fine, I’ll do it. I’ve gotten to meet my dead parents, I suppose it's only fair for you to meet your dead wife. Just give me a moment to say goodbye.”

The soldier turned around and trotted back over to where his parents were conversing. The two stopped talking to each other and brought their attention to their son, who looked upon them with a bittersweet smile.

“I’m going to have to go now. I promise that I’ll make you proud when I get back to the living world.”

“Ha, that what’s I like t' hear!” his father cheered, “Now I know that Equestria ain’t in the best shape right now, so you be careful out there.”

“And keep up your manners. I’ll be watching,” his mother reminded.

“Oh, I will,” Chain Mail assured. “Well… I guess this is it. I’ll see you when my time comes. Goodbye.”

“See ya, son.”

“Goodbye!"

Chain Mail cantered back over to Sliske. Marvelous was already by her side, as cheerful as ever.

"Are we ready?" she asked.

Both Sliske and Chains nodded.

"Great!" she chirped. "Good thing I know a really fast way to Hell, so hold on!”

The horn on the pink unicorn flashed to life. With its glow came a large, inscribed, crimson-red pentagram that surrounded the ground under them. Dotting the symbol were several cryptic-looking runes and glyphs. Muffled screams and moans emanated from the center where they stood. Eldritch, purple energy leaked out from the lines, obscuring their vision.

The reaper, who had now started to hum as if she were baking a cake, pulled out a small glass bottle of blood from her cloak and started to pour its contents in certain areas, causing the purple energy to greatly intensify. Chain Mail and Sliske both looked sideways at each other, both starting to regret their decision already.

The energy grew and grew until it engulfed the three ponies and caused them to disappear.

***

First decided to skip his death. That was definitely a mistake, but it was a different kind of mistake. Not a moral mistake that he would deserve to be killed again for. It was a practical mistake. An accident that resulted in misfortune for him. So instead he decided to jump straight to his arrival in this realm.

His ascension to godhood.

***

Anthony stood before a mighty beast. An alicorn as big as a house glared down at him, with a deep purple coat and a long, flowing black mane that shimmered in the light of an artificial sun. Her wings were oversized even in proportion to the rest of her body, almost as big as aeroplane wings, and their every flap was heavy and lumbering. Her horn was like a great harpoon, easily big enough to run all the way through a dragon's gut. Her hooves were larger than Anthony's whole torso.

She had her head turned to the side and was watching him with just one eye, much like a hawk. Electricity crackled over her body, the power of an entire universe coursing through her. This mare was the alpha and omega of this realm. The universe that Equestria inhabited fell under her rule. Though many of its living inhabitants did not know it, this was the supreme being to which they were all subservient.

Mortality leaned down. As the two floated in the expanse over the valleys of Paradise, she gave a wicked smile.

"Could it be? A little thing like you, challenging me?" she asked. "Such a thing has not happened in twelve thousand years!"

Her voice echoed across the realm. The souls below all heard her mocking laughter and her belittling of the human she was facing.

"I do so love mortals," she commented. "Such brave things. So eager to throw their lives away. So unaware."

Anthony stood his ground. He floated before her, taking a combative stance. His fists were raised and guarding his face, like he was expecting a boxing match.

"I'm not afraid of you, Mortality!" he shouted back. "This universe does not need a despot like you controlling their existence!"

Again, she laughed.

"Why, young First, this universe could scarcely function without me! What sort of world would it be? Would you condemn these poor souls to an eternity without my guidance?"

She gestured with one of her giant hooves towards the ground, where Mortality's subjects all stared up at them, eyes alive with hope.

"They might need guidance, but they don't need it from you!"

First made a sweeping motion with his arm and pointed a finger up at her.

"Your lies mean nothing to me!" he shouted. "Because I made you, and I know what you are! I know what you did to become this! I know what you really do here! And I know that the universe can survive without you! This world does not need Mortality to survive, it only needs its people! And if those people need a guide, then I can be it! But you are no guide!"

Mortality began to laugh again, but her laughter died in her throat and she instead found herself gasping for breath. Anthony kept a solemn expression as he kept his hand held out, only instead of pointing at her, now he was making a choking motion. The giant alicorn began thrashing about in panic. She looked down at her body and began clawing at her neck with her hooves, trying to stop whatever was being done to her.

What looked like purple snowflakes began peeling away from her and drifting through the air. Black ones soon joined them, floating in front of Mortality's face as they parted from her mane. Then from her side, she saw red ones.

"No! NO!" she begged. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME?!"

Anthony bowed his head, unable to look her in the eye.

"I am bringing you peace."

Death incarnate cried in fear for her life. Seconds later she exploded, leaving only coloured dust.

Later that day, First would take his place as Lord of the Dead.

***

Was that it? Harsh, yes, but could even the most diehard of moralists argue that he deserved to be killed because he took down Mortality? She was just as cruel a god as he was, perhaps even more so depending on how you looked at things. He had been a hero then. The ponies of this realm had gladly accepted him as their new leader after he stopped her.

First considered Hell. A moralist could argue that he deserved karmic punishment for that, couldn't they? He thought back to the main six and how he had shown them the truth of his kingdom. How he had revealed where the bad ones go.

Only one thing for it. Next memory.

***

Explodey and Broad Sword had been walking for a little less than hour in the foggy realm of Limbo. Their trek had seemingly brought them nowhere, and the only thing that had changed was their patience wearing ever thinner.

“Man, it sure is boring here,” Explodey complained. “I liked Paradise so much better.”

“I think that’s kind of the point. This place was meant for punishment,” Broad Sword pointed out.

“Like a hardcore time-out. I would hate to get sent here.”

“It can’t be as bad as the other circles. There you’d have a little more to complain about than just boredom.”

“At least you’d have some company. I bet we could walk around here forever and not run into a single pony to talk to.”

Just as Explodey said that, the figures of two ponies appeared through the mist. The two stallions quickened their pace, and soon were close enough to identify them as Twilight Sparkle and Soft Spoken. The two sides stopped and stared at each other.

"I should say things like that more often..." Explodey mumbled.

Twilight looked up and down at Explodey.

“Hello,” she said while she appraised him. "Explodey McGee, right?"

“Yep. Hi, Twilight! And hi, Softy!”

"Ahem. Yes. Hello, Explodey. Nice to see you too," the old stallion replied.

It went quiet for a second.

“How did you know me?” asked Twilight.

“Dramatic convenience?” Broad Sword suggested.

Twilight looked at the former royal guard, and then turned to Softy.

“That’s Broad Sword. He was with us until Second murdered him,” he informed.

"And I notice someone hasn't said hello to me yet," Broad Sword interrupted. "Come on! Not even a 'I was so sad you died'?"

"Yes, but, well, you're here again now. I was sad you died, but then... afterlife. It's... really disorienting. I'm not sure how to feel about death anymore. The mourning process is all about accepting that you'll never see somepony again, and this kind of messes with that."

"How did you get here?" asked Twilight. "Something about this is wrong. There shouldn't be any other ponies here, let alone exactly the one we came here looking for."

"Looooooooong story," Broad Sword answered. "What about you guys? What happened with you?"

"I think we declared war on First," said Softy.

"Wait, you did what? How? Why?"

"First did some bad things, Twilight and her friends were part of a rebellion, it ended badly the first time and now we're here... It's a whole thing, but it'll take a while to explain... I think I've lost my talent for talking somehow, because I'm completely unable to explain any of this in a satisfying way."

"There was a previous rebellion?" asked Broad Sword, looking to Twilight.

She nodded.

"I didn't hear anything about that. What happened?"

Twilight slumped and sat on the ground. The other ponies gathered in a half-circle around her, waiting to hear the story.

"...Most of the damned trapped in the ninth circle are there because they participated in the first rebellion. When we arrived in the afterlife and found it being ran by First, we tried to give him a chance, because he insisted that he was redeemed. Then we found out that most of the Firstian Hell was populated by ponies thrown into the circles for minor crimes.

"Not just murderers, thieves and rapists as First would have you believe, but ponies who lied too often, griffins who he thought had too much fun hunting for food, diamond dogs who hoarded their gems even if they were legitimately earned, merchants who charged too much, and so many others. None of those things are pleasant, but it's hardly grounds for an eternity of torture.

"We didn't stand for it. We demanded that he stop, and he refused. So we did the next best thing, and went to rally support. We were the first ones other than his staff that were trusted with the secret of what happened in the circles, so everypony else had remained ignorant. We broke that. Told the truth to everypony, and tried to get enough support that First would have no choice but to stop."

"When the Third came along all those years ago, I wanted to believe that not all humans were bad. He took that hope and crushed it. And then First convinced us that he'd reformed, only to do the same thing. I just so wanted to believe that at least one of them wasn't all bad that I didn't think to question him more..."

The other three let her words sink in.

"And I thought the tax collectors were bad," said Explodey.

Twilight then jumped back on to her hooves, standing up straight and proud.

"But it's alright. Because now we're going to have a second rebellion. This time we won't fail!"

The others cheered. Except for Soft Spoken.

"Yeah, uh... about that... Where exactly are we going?"

"The same place we have been ever since we arrived," Twilight answered. "The elevator of the damned."

"That is an AWESOME name!" Explodey shouted.

"Miss Sparkle," Softy began, "I hardly think we're going to find the elevator, or anything for that matter, just by aimlessly wandering about. We need a plan here. We can't always rely on Dramatic Convenience to make us keep running into exactly what we—"

"Hey, guys, look, it's Mystic!" Broad Sword interrupted.

Miraculously, Mystic Chant stumbled through the mist and stood in front of them, looking between the adult ponies almost in disbelief at his luck. They in turn stared at him, stunned.

"Silly me." Softy rolled his eyes. "I forgot where I was."

Twilight just sighed and threw a hoof up.

"I don't think we should question it. Logic really doesn't always work too well here. Let's just get Mystic and keep looking."

Mystic didn't even bother speaking. He just gave the old stallion a questioning look, which was met with a noncommittal shrug. Accepting that he'd get no better answer than that, the colt trotted over to Softy's side and climbed onto his back again.

"Shall we press on, then?" Twilight asked.

As if on cue, a dark purple portal tore open right in front of him, depositing two screaming ponies and one giggling reaper. Sliske and Chain Mail crashed onto the floor while the bubbly pink unicorn floated down like an air filled balloon and touched down.

Soft Spoken's eye twitched ever so slightly.

"Okay, I'm done!" he shouted. "I'm done with trying to actually think like an intelligent pony."

"Dramatic Convenience," Twilight muttered under her breath.

"You know, even for Dramatic Convenience, this is pushing it," Broad Sword commented.

Sliske and Chain Mail stumbled up onto their hooves, each one silently cursing and rubbing their heads.

"Cappy!" Broad Sword shouted out as went over to hug his aching captain.

"Broad Sword? Explodey? Mystic? Wait, where have you all been, but better yet…" Chain Mail pulled himself away from Broad Sword's hug and pointed his hoof accusingly at their bubbly escort. "What the hell did you just do to us, you demonic freak?! I thought we were going to the first circle of Hell!"

"Oh, but I did take you!" Marvellous replied with her usual chipperness. "I just did it the super speedy fun way! How'd you think I did with it? I'm still not that good with my blood rituals."

Chain Mail gritted his teeth and was about to respond, but was cut off by Sliske.

"You did fine. Now, can we go down further?" The alien mare looked over towards her comrades. "And can all of these ponies come with us? They were all very… uh… close to my wife."

"Oh, so you're going to Hell to free everyone and start a revolution against First too?" Explodey casually asked.

"Why would we ever do that?" Sliske asked, glaring at Explodey threateningly. "We all love First and don't want to arouse suspicion by having any intention to break any of the rules of the afterlife in any way. Right, guys?"

Silence.

"Right?"

"Oh, yeah! Totally!" said Broad Sword "I've NEVER even THOUGHT about leading a glorious revolution to overthrow First in vengeance for what he did to me. I love him like a father!"

"Well, you guys seem like a nice bunch, so I guess I can take you all down." Marvelous giggled. "Just don't tell anyone about this little adventure, okay? I could get into some serious trouble if they found out I was fitting more people in the elevator than I'm supposed to."

She turned away and cantered in a seemingly random direction, disappearing briefly into the mist.

"Follow me to the fourth circle!" she called out.

The entire group minus Explodey, Broad Sword and Mystic all simultaneously facehoofed, the sound of their collective motion almost echoing through the first circle.

***

"Here we are! This handy elevator will take us do—"

The reaper gasped. The elevator was no longer there in its usual spot. It was instead replaced by a square shaft that went stretched down into utter darkness. She looked down into it for a moment, her eternally upbeat nature for once disrupted just a little bit. In seconds, she recovered, and her smile returned.

"Well, it looks like we're in for a little climb, visitors!" she chirped. "Be careful though! This elevator shaft goes down for over five miles, so you wouldn't want to fall!"

The others looked alarmed at how dangerous this would be, especially since none of them were exactly inclined to climbing down rope. Even though they knew full well that they couldn't die, the situation of falling down to the deepest part of Hell wasn't very tantalizing.

"And how are we all supposed to climb down some thin rope? We aren't exactly monkeys!" Chain Mail raged.

The escort giggled.

"Oh, just kidding you guys! We can go down the handy-dandy maintenance stairs."

The pink unicorn cast a spell on the perimeter of the shaft opening, which caused a dusty stone spiral staircase to slowly slide out from the sides.

Relief passed over the group, and they all started to descend along the stairs into the imposing blackness. As they started to get to where the light was no longer reaching them, Twilight provided all the luminescence that they needed to climb down the unrailed set of stairs from her magic, insisting that she had plenty to spare and that light spells were hardly draining.

It didn't take long for them to reach the top of the second circle. But before they could descend into the chamber beneath them, Marvelous, who was at the front, signaled for everyone to stop.

"Okay, everypony! We need to be extra super careful when we're passing through down there. The second circle, reserved for the lustful, has powerful winds that could woosh us away with ease! But no need to worry, because as long as we stay within the area that elevator shaft would cover, the dangers of Hell won't affect us! So just don't jump away from the staircase and we'll be A-OK!"

She talked as if she were addressing a kindergarten tour, but the other ponies nonetheless nodded in response.

"Super. And I know that this is probably your first time in Hell, so if you have any questions, just pipe up and ask me. I aced my last exam on Hell, so I know a thing or two. Now, let's get going again!"

They followed their escort down through the opening into the main part of Hell. From their vantage point, they could make out the rough layout of the first three circles underneath them, each one getting smaller and deeper, forming the first and widest parts of a funnel that led to bottom.

The one immediately under them could be clearly seen. Creatures there were being blown about by what they assumed to be the winds Marvelous had told them about. It was like watching a gigantic circular wave pool, but instead of waves there were powerful gusts of wind.

The third circle was covered up by gloomy rain clouds hovering just above the cliff that dropped down into it. This had the effect of obscuring the third circle itself, as well as the fourth and any lower circles, from their view. All that was clear was that there were definitely more circles below, and at least one of them probably had some kind of fire or lava, judging by the (appropriately) hellish red glow piercing the clouds.

The stairs beneath them continued straight down through the rocky ground of the second circle without the guidance of the elevator shaft walls. As they descended nearer to the surface of the circle, they could clearly hear the tempest that was raging. They had gotten to the level where they could see the expressions on the faces of the damned creatures. Most expressions were blank, some were pleading, some were scared, and some where just confused.

Out of the sea of tumbling creatures Chain Mail miraculously spotted something worth stopping for. He stopped walking, gave Sliske a nudge, and pointed his hoof over to a certain earth pony.

"Hey, Sliske. Look."

Sliske turned her head to follow the direction of his hoof. She frowned as she recognised the pony he was pointing out.

"Isn't that... That's Gold Coin's brother. Cheddar Cross. Wasn't he alive last week?"

Light red coat, brown mane, a cutie mark of something apple-related though it was hard to make out given that he was in motion and flying around them... Yeah, that was definitely him.

"We need to free him too," Chain Mail whispered. "Can you do something about Marvelous?"

Sliske gave a sly smile.

"Like this?"

She casually trotted up to the front of the crowd and pushed their escort into the middle of the spiral staircase. The reaper mare yelped in surprise as she tumbled over the edge, falling down the length of the entire elevator shaft and disappearing from sight. As she fell, her last words echoed back up the shaft.

"Oopsies!"

Everypony stared at Sliske.

"Not what I had in mind, I admit..." said Chain Mail.

"Excuse me, but what the hell was that for?" Softy asked bluntly.

Chain Mail again pointed to Cheddar Cross, who once again flew past their position, being blown even closer towards the staircase this time. Soft Spoken took a second to recognize him, and gave out an brief "oh" when he did. The group stood mesmerised as they watched him circle the staircase, like they were in the centre of a tornado and he was a piece of flying debris.

"It's hypnotic..." Broad Sword mumbled.

"Ahem," Softy interrupted, breaking them all out of their reverie. "Quite right, yes. We should get him out. Twilight, are you able to— Oh."

Twilight had already grabbed the pony in question and pulled him into the safe zone surrounding the staircase before the old pony even finished speaking. Cheddar Cross, for his part, seemed like he was waking up from a long nap. He slurred his words as he spoke up, looking between all of them.

"Wha-what's goin' on? Are y-ya Twilight Sparkle? A-and ya'll are those folk Gold Coin had over at the farm?" Cheddar stammered.

"Yes and yes," Soft Spoken answered, "But before we explain anything, how did you get here? You were alive the last time we checked."

Cheddar shook his head and started to regain his composure.

"A-ah don't rightly know where ta start. There was a Celestia-derned apocalypse goin' on! Them zombies is what got us. The fences didn't hold long. Ah don' know how many got outta there alive."

"Your accent is thicker," Explodey noted.

Everyone ignored him.

"What are you doing in this circle though?" Softy pressed. "This is the second circle, isn't it? For the lustful? Mister Cross, what did you do?"

"Ah... Ah don't rightly know..." There was a moment of tense silence as the other ponies all glared at him. "There... might've been married mare Ah had relations with..."

"There we go," Twilight muttered. "Eternal torture for adultery. Sounds like First, alright."

Softy looked over the rest of the circle.

"Should we be helping the ponies in this circle too?"

"I wouldn't," Twilight warned. "First groups anypony considered guilty together with no regard to the severity or scale of their crimes. Mr. Cross here might just be an adulterer, but the rapists and other, similar ponies would have been tossed in there with him. Let the whole second circle free, and who knows what we'd be unleashing?"

***

A full-on stampede was raging through the Fourth Circle, spearheaded by the Satan himself. What had started as a mob had grown into an immeasurable, unstoppable swarm of rioters, all of them now shouting various chants about First and where he could stick it. The guards of Hell didn't even attempt to fight back anymore as the horde steamrolled any opposition. It was a brilliant display of the snowball effect, and the snowball was still not done growing.

The fourth circle had once been the punishment zone for the greedy and wasteful, where the damned literally eternally jousted each other with giant bags of their life's accumulated wealth. Now it was the revolution's newest conquest, and they crawled over it like a billion ants over a family picnic, absorbing its inhabitants and guards into themselves to become an even larger mass of pure chaos.

By this point, the circles were practically child's play. The security actually got lesser as they ascended, making it all the easier to stomp through it all and climb the next cliff. Satan took no time at all to stride across the entire fourth circle, scale the wall, and emerge into the third.

This one was unique in that it seemed to have weather. An overcast of ominous, dark clouds produced a constant torrent of icy-cold water that showered down onto the muddy pool of a floor where circle's prisoners were writhing in. A swipe of Satan's claws pushed the clouds aside and began to clear the area. Not many knew that the demons had pegasus magic, but that was one of the benefits of being descended from the alicorns.

Nearly through his trip through the third circle, Satan stopped as they came across an out of place stone staircase coming out from the side of the cliff divider and down into the ground. Running down those stairs were a group that included four unicorns and four earth ponies. It was also a group of ponies that Celestia recognized.

"Uncle, stop!" she ordered. "We all need to get off here. You can keep going forward without us."

The titan did as he was told. He stopped where he was and lowered his shoulder to ground level so that it was safe for his flightless riders to jump off of. Once free of them, he gleefully continued crashing the rest of the way through the third circle, heading off into the distance towards his next climb. The ponies watched him go, at once both glad to be rid of him, and fearful of what they had done in letting him go.

At the base of the maintenance stairs, Celestia's group finally met Twilight's again. Instead of going leaving the staircase and joining everypony else in the third circle though, Sliske kept going downwards, only briefly shouting something back up at Chain Mail as he held back to ask what she was doing. The rest all trotted across the surface of the third circle to meet the others.

On one side, Twilight, Mystic, Explodey, Broad Sword, Soft Spoken, Chain Mail and Cheddar Cross approached. On the other side, Celestia approached with Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, Gold Coin, Ancient Tome, Iron Hoof, Velocity and Gilda in tow. As Celestia looked over both her own group and the other, she couldn't help but notice the few that were missing, including her sister. Both sides began to intermingle again, ponies generally bunching up in smaller sub-groups to converse with somepony from the other group.

Celestia herself was approached by Twilight.

"Princess..." she said uneasily, "Was that a demon king I just saw you riding?"

"...It's a really long story, Twilight."

Rainbow Dash flew over to the Princess's shoulder.

"But an AWESOME one! You'll never believe what happened! So, when we..."

Over with Gold Coin meanwhile, a much more heated conversation was occurring.

"Hey, bro," Cheddar said nervously. "Ah was just—"

"FUCK you!" he shouted. "I've had a shit enough day already, and then YOU show up here! Fucking HERE of all places! Celestia damn it, Cross! You couldn't even have the decency to die a natural death at an age where I could at least say you lived a full life! You had to go get yourself fucking MURDERED by zombies in the fucking apocalypse, didn't you?!"

He turned away from his brother and covered his face in his hooves. Cross looked off to the side awkwardly.

"Not the reaction Ah was expectin'..."

"Damn it, Cross. Just please, at least tell me that the rest of the family made it?"

"Well, they was comin' at us from all sides, the barriers had just broken when Ah bit it, and our kin ain't exactly pegasi, Goldie..."

Gold Coin twisted back around to face his brother again, revealing that his face was wet. He at no point stopped looked furiously angry.

"GREAT!" he yelled. "So my whole FAMILY is dead! WONDERFUL!"

He pressed his forehead up against Cross's.

"You fucking thank your lucky stars that there's an afterlife, you bastard! And especially that I came along when I did to put it under new management! If this is me right now, just imagine what I would be like if I had to actually go through some kind of mourning process for you guys."

Cross chuckled nervously.

"It's, uh... good that you don't then, right?"

Gold Coin pulled him into a hug.

"I fucking hate you," he muttered.

Not too far away, a young colt hugged his mother's foreleg. It had been what seemed like an eternity since Mystic had seen his mother. And after being a part of a traumatizing quest to defeat a maniacal elder god, the reunion was even more powerful. For almost a minute, Velocity didn't talk and only gave her son a loving muzzle. She pulled away and donned a warm smile.

"How has Tome taken care of you?" she asked.

Mystic stopped and pulled away slightly.

"Oh, he's been doing alright, I guess... But I've had to do a lot of things without him. I can tell you about them if you want!"

"I'd love that. Tell me everything."

And elsewhere around them, even more talks were going on. Iron and Tome placed bets on how long Equestria would last. Chain Mail was telling Soft Spoken what he had seen of Paradise. Gilda and Broad Sword were even chatting it up for reasons not clear. Everywhere around the stairway, the ponies took this brief respite for all they could get. It was the only time many of them had had to relax after the last few hectic hours, and they knew that it would resume at any moment.

Even then, the revolutionaries from the lower circles were still ascending.

***

Anthony stood off to the side, watching a younger him walking through the first circle. A cyan pegasus with a rainbow mane fluttered just next to his shoulder on his right side, scrutinising him closely. On his left, Twilight Sparkle trotted along, looking much less hostile. In fact, she was smiling. The other four trailed behind them.

"I'm telling you, Dash, it's true!" Twilight insisted. "First is not the monster we once knew. It's been almost a century. He's changed."

Ugh, her.

He had never liked Rainbow Dash. Even when he used to watch the show, she was one of his least favorites. She had always came off as a overly-haughty jerk, more so in the flesh. And her skepticism didn't help. At that moment, he had just explained to her and the other Elements how he had freed the afterlife from it's tyrannical overlord and instated a new system that made every good living thing's afterlife a literal paradise, and the pegasus still didn't think he was good.

Maybe he shouldn't have done Paradise first? Maybe he should have gotten Hell out of the way first, and won them back by showing them Paradise. Well, there was one mistake, but maybe it was more in his presentation of Hell. Perhaps he came off as too cold or cruel.

At least the other five were with him for just that moment. It was probably the closest he had ever gotten.

"I'd hafta go with Twi' here, Dash," Applejack agreed. "Paradise sure ain't somethin' the old First woulda done."

Rainbow stopped to consider this but remained skeptical.

"Okay, but is this afterlife all just a bunch of laid-back fun and games? What about the ponies who don't deserve it? Where do they go?" she interrogated.

"I can see why you'd be concerned, Rainbow Dash," First assured, making sure to use a friendly tone in spite of feeling what his future self remembered as seething hatred at that moment. "Not to worry though. They go to a special section."

First could see how that already had frightened Fluttershy. She especially seemed like she hated punishments. She had been leaning more towards liking First the moment she had discovered animals in paradise (he seemed to remember her being terrified that animals wouldn't make it to the afterlife for whatever reason), but she was now questioning that.

"What do you mean, 'special'?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Why, I was just about to give you the tour of it, so you can see for yourself," First replied. "I present to you all, Hell! You see, right now we are all walking in the first section of it, the first circle of Hell. It's also my office."

Rarity produced a clearly audible "hmph".

"Well, I can't say I'm a fan of this dreary 'office'. You could have at least given it some decor."

First shrugged.

"Eh, I wanted a silent, distractionless place to work, and this fits the bill. But anyways, there's nothing to really see here. Let's go deeper. There you'll really see my work."

With a snap of the human's fingers, they all immediately found themselves in an entirely new setting. They were standing on a rocky ledge that overlooked the beginning of an impossibly large cavern, more precisely the second circle.

The current First looked at the pony's expression as they gazed upon the real body of Hell for the first time. It was painful to watch.

Why did I ever let them see Hell in the first place? What did I even expect? That's the real mistake here... Ah, no. They would have found out about it eventually. They would just be even angrier with me if they found out I had been hiding it from them. This was my only shot to convince them.

When they first saw it, the sight of seeing all of the creatures below being blown about by hurricane-force winds just confused them. They then seemed to give it some thought and came out looking very uncomfortable. Their stares directed towards First wordlessly demanded a good reason for such a punishment.

"This, if you couldn't figure it out, is the second circle. In that large ring you see right below us are a great many sinners. These sinners in particular are the ones who have indulged in the the sin of lust, such adulterers or rapists. These damned souls have to suffer being tossed around by powerful winds, which symbolizes how lust controlled their lives and aimlessly blew them about. Kind of. I based this whole thing on Dante, and I'm pretty sure he came up with the punishments first and thought of the sins to match them later."

They all put on expressions of surprise and irritation. Not even Rainbow Dash seemed to have suspected such a thing out of First. Still, they knew how powerful he was. They weren't bold enough then to get on his bad side by directly insulting his system. That would change soon.

"Is something wrong?" First asked.

Twilight spoke up for the group.

"Oh, no. We're… uh... fine. We really shouldn't judge this before we see it all. Go ahead and show us some more."

Twilight legitimately seemed to be trying to give him a chance, although disbelief could be seen all over her face.

Was I really that oblivious? the present First asked himself. Or maybe I was just so convinced they would agree with me that I was blind to anything else? Even a century old, I still wasn't that much of a sage. I should have just stopped it there and given them my argument. They were at least willing to hear me out then.

After that circle, it only got worse. With each circle and its respective punishment that he showed them and described, he could see his audience containing more and more rage. They did a good job of it though, as it took until the seventh circle for them to finally crack.

"...And in the inner ring, you can see the damned souls wandering flaming sand dunes with fiery flakes raining down overh—"

"Alright, I've heard just about enough of this!" Rainbow shouted.

By then, everyone looked like they were about to throttle the human, if only they could. They no longer tried to hide it. First was surprised that his past self had managed to remain oblivious for that long.

"Yeah, I ain't gonna just stand here and accept it no more!" Applejack joined in.

"This is completely unjustifiable! Nopony deserves such brutish punishments!" Rarity continued.

Maybe this is it. I'm pretty sure I've gone past the point of no return, but what do I do here?

First had kept up a deteriorating friendly attitude so far, but that seemed to just fly out the window. He addressed them with volume, with burning anger, and with a touch of superiority in his voice.

"Silence! Ponies like you don't know how to make the tough decisions! You're kept in a sheltered set of moral standards that say that friendship can just go and solve everything! It's not like that in reality. In reality, the only way to deal the bad, the sinners of the universe, is to separate and discipline them!"

Twilight even joined in, but tried a more diplomatic approach.

"First, I understand the need for separation of the good and bad ponies, but all these awful punishments are completely unnecessary! We can work out a resolution. We can make a new version of Hell where the bad ponies are still punished, but it doesn't have to be this!"

Present First froze.

What?!

First paused the memory and ran over to crouch down next to the memory version of Twilight.

"YOU DIDN'T SAY THAT!" he shouted. "I WOULD HAVE AGREED TO THAT! I REMEMBER THIS! YOU WERE AN ASSHOLE AND I WAS THE REASONABLE ONE WHO LAID DOWN THE LAW! THAT'S WHY YOU STARTED A WAR! BECAUSE YOU COULDN'T ACCEPT THAT YOU NEEDED ME!"

He unpaused the memory and looked back at his past self. To his shock and horror, the past First looked positively offended by Twilight's words.

"What?! You dare?! I have thousands of things on my schedule for this week, and you really want me to take off time to listen to and implement your terrible ideas? No! I'm already doing you all a favor by giving you this tour, so how about you all be quiet and let me continue?!"

"Actually, I think we should stop it here. I just need to go somewhere to think," Twilight replied.

"Oh my God..." the future Anthony said. "This isn't me! I'm not this much of a raging douchebag! I'm not a villain!"

The memory bled away, and First returned to the void once more, now much more frantic. The real memory was clear in his mind. The real memory that he had just witnessed. He knew that he had just observed the true events that set this in motion. Though he didn't remember it, he knew in his heart that he had spoken those words and meant them at the time. He looked down at his hands, and just for a second, he thought he saw the shimmer of a thin line of strings.

"...I found my mistake," he whispered. "And it wasn't even my fault..."

A quick glance at the situation developing in Hell was enough to tell him that his time was about the reach an end. People were now rallying behind Satan like he was some shining leader. He could hardly get ponies to do that with his mind control. The revolution was sweeping through the last circles, and it wouldn't be long now before they reach Limbo.

The question though was what to do now. He had found and identified his mistake, and it wasn't even anything inside his ability to control. It was Dramatic Convenience. It was always Dramatic Convenience. He was forever a puppet without the ability to cut his own strings, and even though this whole memory exercise was meant to allow him a way to escape his current fate, he still had no idea how to apply what he learned to this situation.

Unless...

He knew what he had to do to survive this.

***

Sliske hurried down the spiraling path, a few times almost tripping, until she reached the point where the the stone staircase turned into a long platform leading out of the cliffside dividing the third and fourth circles. Entering out into the open space, she was surprised to see that there wasn't any saving left for her to do. The ponies who were previously chained to massive, generic-looking money bags were now having various rioters break off their chains to free them. Many of those who got their liberation followed the river of revolutionaries up to the next circle.

As happy as she was to see that they were no longer being imprisoned, it worried her, because Drelmary might have already gone ahead. Still, she decided on getting down to surface to find her lost love. Despite the large number of creatures below, a hulking biped with four arms and nine eyes would be easy to spot in the crowd.

Touching the cavernous ground, Sliske started to make her way through the busy crowd. She moved as discreetly as possible and tried to avoid physical contact with the other ponies. At one point she bumped into a pair of earth pony mares, one pink and one grey, who yelled at her. She ignored them and kept moving. Soon, she spotted a Zarlan in the distance and rushed over to the scene.

When she got there, she saw three unicorns all trying their utmost to blast through the significantly thicker chain that connected the Zarlan to a significantly larger money bag. Although the alien didn't posses many differences from her kin, Sliske instantly recognized her.

"Drelmary! It's me, Sliske! I've come to save you from this undeserved torture! Here, I'll help you with that chain."

She joined the other unicorns in their attempt to cut through the metal, proving to be the last bit of power needed to complete the job. Once it was broken, Drelmary stepped away from her former prison as the rest of the unicorns all turned and fled, shouting general curses to First. Sliske smiled at Drelmary, waiting for a thank you or sign of acknowledgement. Instead, she just received a very confused look.

"No, it seriously is me! I know I must look alien to you, but I really am the Sliske you loved! You have to come with me. I can get us out of this insane place!"

Drelmary slowly shook her head.

"My husband has taken the form of a Zarlan in this afterlife. He is probably on his way up from the seventh circle, where I know him to have been sentenced. There is no possible way you could be him."

Sliske's smile died a slow death.

Of course she doesn't think it's her husband. I'm not really him. I just possessed him and took the name.

Defeated and disappointed, the unicorn mare turned away and drifted back to the stairs, not even attempting to argue the point.

After an uneventful journey back up the winding stone stairs, she meet up with the waiting group of ponies, who eagerly welcomed her. After a few words with Celestia, the group started up the staircase at a brisk pace, all headed for the topmost section of Hell.

***

Luna was extremely bored. She had been sitting in the same corner of the same elevator that had been going the same speed for the last several hours. The prospect of spending large amounts of time with Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, two ponies she hadn't had the chance to talk to in the last nine centuries, at first seemed like a wonderful thing, but even they could grow bored by waiting so long.

The only thing that seemed to have some activity to it in the cramped and surprisingly elegant interior was a blue progress meter with a digital display above it tracking what percentage it was on. Now it had finally creeped up to a whooping 3%. The bar under it was still just a sliver.

The princess took a moment to recall just how she had gotten into this torture. It wasn't a grand story or anything. She, Fluttershy, and Pinkie had simply been teleported to fancy-looking office, found this elevator, and asked it to take them to First. And that had led directly to their current confinement.

Luna wondered if she could have done something to save herself from this fate. How long would she be stuck here? She in fact couldn't even remember when she really got in the elevator to begin with. Had it been hours, days, weeks? Was she just being overdramatic? Did she have reason to? Her sister and friends could need her help.

Whatever the situation was, she couldn't stand the stale silence any longer. She took shattered it with as much volume as possible.

"I WILL NO LONGER STAND FOR THIS! GO FASTER, YOU INFERNAL MACHINE!"

The yell seemed to daze the other two passengers, so Luna was surprised to hear a response.

"Increasing speed," a mechanical but cheery voice announced.

Luna then watch with wide eyes as the progress bar slowly filled up. When it reached 100%, a ding signaled that they had arrived. The alicorn shook the other two from their daze and watched as the two metal doors slid open to reveal a very interesting scene.

Masses of ponies were pouring out of a hole in the blank white floor of Limbo. Many had already reached the surface and were now occupying it, yelling for First to come face his punishment. A horrendous three-headed behemoth that made Tirac look cute was casually resting on the ground near the rioters. Amidst the chaos, a wooden desk that had been split in half lay on the ground.

They had obviously missed something, so they began to head out into the crowd. At the very moment they left the elevator, Luna almost bumped into her sister by accident. She looked Celestia up and down, not quite believing her luck.

"Sister," she said curtly.

Celestia looked over the group gathered around her. There were six stallions and one ghost alien thing of ambiguous gender, together forming a group that now called themselves the Elements of Harmony. Standing together with them were the previous bearers, the six mares. And others contributing the collective that they had made were three Brotherhood members, a farmer, a griffin, and her very own sister.

"It appears that we've all made it back together again," Celestia observed. "Now there's only one matter left to take care of."

Luna looked upwards to where a sky should have been were this still Equestria.

"He should be here soon," she agreed. "Chaos like this is bound to get his attention."

Then, in an instant, it all vanished. The rioters were gone. Limbo was clear. Even Cheddar Cross and Gilda were sucked up by whatever had abducted them, though not the Brotherhood, for some odd reason. The two alicorns, the thirteen Elements of Harmony, and the three ponies of the Brotherhood of Man stood alone. Oh, and Satan.

At that point, silence fell as the ponies heard the sound of a slow clap. To the princesses and the new Elements, memories of Second walking into the throne room in Canterlot came rushing back. They recalled how badly that had ended, and so it was with almost palpable dread that they all turned their heads slowly towards the figure emerging from the mist.

Lord First though was not nearly as pleased with himself about all this as Second had been. His face was completely stoic and humourless, and he had cast aside his previous outfit in favour of a simple white t-shirt and jeans. The shirt was stained red near the stomach as a result of the ever-present wound, but he seemed to pay it no mind.

The human stopped not far away from them, but still kept his distance. He dropped his hands to his side and sighed.

"I give up," he said. "Consider this my official surrender. I place myself at your mercy, and humbly request that you show more than I did."

With that, he bent down and got on his knees. He placed his hands behind his head, and looked up at Celestia and Luna from his place kneeling before them.

"...What?" asked Gold Coin. "I'm sorry, but WHAT?!"

"I said I surrender. Do with me as you wish."

Gold Coin blinked disbelievingly, and then turned to the older stallion next to him.

"Are you seeing this, Softy?!" he demanded. "Is this fucker being serious right now?!"

"Gold Coin! Calm yourself!" Celestia snapped. "And, First, why would any of us have any reason to believe you, much less show you mercy after seeing what you've done?!"

"I can't make you trust me," he answered. "I wouldn't be surprised if nobody ever trusted me again. All I know is that you're a good pony who would never stoop to violence when there is a chance for diplomacy, and I'm asking you, begging you, to let me live."

"Fat fucking chance, you bastard!" Gold Coin yelled. "If you're so afraid of death right now, even though you're already dead, then I think we can harm you! So how about we kick your ass into non-existence right fucking now?!"

He galloped forward at first, but was restrained by Sliske's magic.

"No!" she ordered as she pulled him back. "Bad idea!"

Celestia trotted forward, despite still sporting her injuries that First gave her earlier, and came to meet him in the middle ground. She held out a hoof to him.

"If you mean what you say," she said reluctantly, "and you are willing to listen to us, we will give you one more chance. One. Do we have your agreement, First?"

He climbed to his feet and raised a hand to accept her hoof. As he held it out, he could see that he was shaking.

Reach out and take it, he told himself.

This moment was crucial. This was his one chance to prove to them that he was worth saving. First's whole life flashed before his eyes in that moment. It was a whole life of mistakes. He knew why it was so hard to identify where he had gone wrong now.

He never got it right in the first place.

In an involuntary movement, he clenched his hand into a fist, leapt forward, and punched Celestia in the face. She fell over onto her side. Some of the ponies, such as Fluttershy and Broad Sword, were surprised by his action. The vast majority of them seemed to expect it. Sliske stopped restraining Gold Coin, who ran towards First, only to get hit with a backhand powerful enough to send him flying right back over to the rest of them.

NO, NO, NO, NO! First screamed in his head.

Despite his attempts to stop himself though, he reached down and grabbed Celestia by the throat, hauling her back up and pressing her against himself to use as a shield, his forearm around her neck.

"I AM LORD FIRST!" he shouted, spittle flying from his mouth. "I AM THE GOD OF DEATH, AND YOU ARE INSECTS COMPARED TO MY POWER! THIS REALM IS MINE! THIS UNIVERSE IS MINE! THE MORTALS ARE MY PLAYTHINGS, AND THE IMMORTALS ARE MERELY AN ANNOYANCE! YOU! ARE! TINY!"

He gave it his all to try and regain control, but whatever had made him its puppet was impossibly strong. This was all strange to him. He was omnipotent, wasn't he? What was so powerful that an omnipotent elder god of death couldn't stop? He then took a second to remember what really dictated this universe.

He felt like an idiot for not thinking of it sooner. This was how the story was going to go from the beginning. He was a villain, and nothing he could do or say would stop his fate. He thought he could outsmart it, but he had forgotten one key principle about the universe he had been sent to: free will was a lie here.

He internally wept as he maniacally laughed, grabbed Celestia by the throat, and slammed her to the rocky ground. The looks of shock and anger he got from those gathered told him that he had blown his very last chance at salvation. He had lost. He would fade away and forever be remembered as the villain of a singular story arc. It was over.

Luna blasted some magic at him out of what remained of her horn, but he caught it in his hands and threw it back at her. Ancient Tome charged at him and tried to gore him with his horn, but he grabbed him and threw him skyward and out of sight. Celestia tried to crawl away, but he kicked her like a football to knock over Twilight and friends like bowling pins.

"GUYS!" Chain Mail called out. "Fall back!"

Satan began stomping forward to meet First in combat. The demon laughed like a maniac. First laughed too, flew upwards towards him, and knocked him to the ground. Satan landed on his back, the human jumping onto his chest as he began repeatedly beating him into submission.

Inside his head, First knew that he was already dead. These were his death throes.

***

The seven ponies of the new Elements of Harmony ran from the fight as the rest tried to hold out.

"What are we doing then?!" Gold Coin demanded. "What's the plan?!"

"I don't know!" Chain Mail responded. "But if we're the Elements of Harmony now, and the story is on our side, this is the part where we save the day, right?!"

"Yes, but we can't just do nothing and expect the situation to resolve itself!" Soft Spoken added. "There has to be some action that we take!"

"You know, this would be a great time for us to all discover which Element we are," said Explodey.

Everypony looked at him.

"Wait, remember what Luna said!" said Gold Coin. "Sliske, what did she say?"

"I don't know. What did she say?"

"She said to take an educated guess! If we're not sure which Elements we all are, fucking guess! There are only so many possible combinations, right?!"

They all looked to each other again.

"Okay! Easy!" Softy agreed. "Sliske, merge with Mystic again! I think we've established that you two are meant to be magic together!"

Sliske closed her eyes, and her pony body seemed to dissolve into smoke. It soon coalesced into Sliske's more familiar form, with the very simply facial features at the forefront of the cloud. Then she swooped down towards Mystic. The colt blinked as Sliske entered his body and took control once more, and soon the familiar mutations began to grow.

"Okay, I'm back insssssssside..." She stopped and looked down at her mouth. Her snake-like tongue ran over her teeth. "I can hear the hisssssssss now. I'm not ssssssssure if I misssssed it or if it makesssss me feel weird now."

"Pay attention!" Chain Mail ordered. "Now, we've already decided on Gold Coin as generosity. Guess the rest of our elements, and if you get it wrong, keep guessing! Brute force hacking! Come on!"

"Okay! Sssssssoft Sssssssspoken represssssssentsssssss the ssssssspirit of... kindnessssss? I think?"

A mass of white light rose from the ground and surrounded Soft Spoken, temporarily blinding all the other ponies. When they could see again, he was wearing a golden necklace with a jewel shaped like his cutie mark.

"...Did anypony else just realise that we didn't actually bring the physical Elements of Harmony with us?" asked Explodey.

"It doesn't seem like the story cares," Gold Coin commented. "See, I'm not wearing my necklace either. I left it behind. I bet you it'll show up in a few minutes though. I bet you anything. Watch. Oh, magical necklace of bullshit magic! I summon you!"

Gold Coin's necklace appeared on his neck. This one didn't come with a light show. It just popped into existence. Literally popped. They could hear the popping sound. Gold Coin looked down at it as if he couldn't quite believe that he'd been right.

"Whoever it is that's writing our story just doesn't care at all..." he groaned.

"Thisssssss isssssss eassssssier than we thought it'd be, at least," Sliske reminded them. "Ssso, who'sssss nexxxxt?"

"Broad Sword is the spirit of loyalty!" Explodey called out.

"Yessssss, Broad Ssssssword issss the sssssspirit of loyalty."

Light began to surround Broad Sword too. In the distance, the ponies could see First still fighting off Satan and the alicorns. At that moment, Fluttershy ran over.

"Are you all discovering your elements now?" she asked.

"Yesssss. Jusssssst a moment. Uh... Let'sssss sssssee. I'm going to sssssay... Exxxplodey issss laughter, Chain Mail issssss honesssssssty, and that makessssss me magic, right?"

The lightshow came and went for the remaining few stallions, and once it was all cleared, the six (technically seven) all wore their own necklaces with their cutie marks represented by a gem in the centre, except for Sliske/Mystic, who had a crown thingy. They were officially the Elements of Harmony now.

"What a thrilling and inspiring way for us to discover such an important part of ourselves," said Broad Sword.

"You realise that if we'd just done this from the start, we could have stopped the zombie invasion in Canterlot and probably saved thousands of lives, right?" Gold Coin added.

"Can we go save the world now?" asked Softy. "I think we're overdue."

***

"YOUR DEFIANCE DISGUSTS ME!" First shouted. "YOU WRETCHED CREATURES HAVE NO IDEA JUST HOW GRAVE A MISTAKE YOU HAVE MADE! EVEN NOW, YOU HAVE SEEN BUT A FRACTION OF MY TRUE POWER! AND WHEN I LAY MY JUDGEMENT UPON YOU, YOU WILL DESPAIR! FOR THEN, YOU WILL KNOW THE TRUE WRATH OF AN ANGRY GOD!"

First held Celestia over his head by one of her hooves and swung her around to knock away Twilight and her friends. As Luna prepared to attack again, he launched Celestia through the air, knocking her over and leaving the two alicorns in a heap.

"NONE CAN STAND AGAINST ME!"

"Oh yes we can!"

First twisted his head around a hundred and eighty degrees to see that the new Elements of Harmony were gathered behind him, all with their necklaces. He turned to face them properly. In his mind, he cringed, knowing that this was the moment. Outwardly though, he grinned and stomped across the floor to meet them. Explodey defiantly stood at the forefront of the group, pointing a hoof at first.

"You think you're so great, don't you?! Well let me tell you something, First! We are so much stronger than—"

First picked up Explodey and threw him over his shoulder. The other ponies watched with wide eyes as he disappeared into the distance. Even First was surprised that he had done such a thing, though he obviously didn't show it on his face. Instead, he gave them his best evil grin and a sarcastic shrug.

"Oops! Look what I did! Seems you're down an element!"

He kicked Soft Spoken onto his side and grabbed Chain Mail by the scruff of his neck.

"SO LET'S HAVE SOME FUN!"

First noticed Velocity attempting to divebomb him out of the corner of his eye, and so abruptly turned around and threw Chain Mail up at her, knocking the pegasus out of the sky. Then he saw Broad Sword also attempting to attack him. He jumped off the ground and slammed back down again, ramming a fist into the stallion's back and knocking him to the floor.

"NONE OF YOU GET IT, DO YOU?! THIS IS A HOPELESS FIGHT! I AM A GOD! I CANNOT BE—"

"hUmaN BEinGs iN A MOb..."

First stopped. A distorted sound, like a thousand voices speaking in unison interrupted him. It was like he was hearing a voice being filtered through some kind of otherworldly power. It felt wrong.

"WHAt's a MoB to A kinG?"

He turned around to face where it was coming from, and found himself staring at a great wall of green sludge that stretched as far as the eye could see in all directions, lumpy and pulsating. Tendrils crawled across the floor at the bottom of it, and the shape of what looked very vaguely like a pony's head stuck out of the front of solid barrier of the liquid.

"wHAT's A KING To A gOd?"

It was only a head in the loosest sense of the term though, lacking eyes or a mouth of any kind, and just retaining the shape of a unicorn stallion's head, only it was so massively huge that the horn alone dwarfed most Manehattan skyscrapers.

First realised that the voice wasn't even actually making real sound. It was speaking in his mind.

"whAt'S a GoD tO a nON-BELievER..."

The thing leaned in close to where First stood.

"...WhO dON't beLievE IN... AnyTHing?"

On the floor, all the ponies and even Satan himself had stopped trying to fight first, and were instead remaining perfectly still, dumbstruck by the sight and jaws almost on the floor. The progenitor of the demons himself couldn't help but bow in reverence, for even he was dwarfed by the size of the monster before them.

Gold Coin was the first pony to speak.

"...Explodey?" he muttered in disbelief.

First looked at Gold Coin for a moment, and then back at the creature above him. It stared directly at him, seemingly expecting an answer. First laughed nervously.

"Ah... heh... Um..." he stuttered. "I can... explain?"

Explodey's giant gooey construct that was standing in for a head tilted slightly to the side.

"gO ON, theN."

"I... uh... um... I was... just pretending?"

There was utter silence for a few seconds.

Then the creature pulled back, losing its solid shape as it did. It rose up and came crashing down towards First like a tidal wave of sludge.

"OH JESUS CHRIST, NO!"

And then the self-proclaimed Lord of the Dead was drowned under an ocean of Explodey.

***

PONY AFTERLIFE BOOK ONE: HEAVEN AND HELL
FIRST DRAFT
BY ANTHONY CARSON-SUMMERS

(Hey, TY for agreeing to proofread for me. I'm not so good with the grammar aspects. I'd like to go to my dad about this, 'cause he knows all about grammar corrections and everything, but I kinda want to surprise him with it. He's always taken an interest in my writing, and I think he'll like this.

I couldn't do this without you, man. Thanks again.

BTW, LOVED the latest chapter of KtYOC. Keep it up! And try not to take four months with the next one, kay? lol JK.)

END.

Author's Note:

Theme.

Oh fuck, this chapter is TERRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIBLE! I can't believe how much I came to despise this chapter by the time I was done with it. You want to know why this took so long? Because I was so fucking sick of the afterlife arc in general that I just didn't want to keep on with it. Thank FUCK we're mostly done with all this bullshit now. I'm not sure how many of you have noticed a decline in quality for the past few chapters, but I know I sure as shit can't help but be familiar with every single minute flaw in this, and the story in general lately. The afterlife arc as a whole was a bad idea, and I regret it utterly.

From next chapter onwards, I'm going to stop writing like such a fucking tard. The story from here on out should be much better. And once I'm done writing the good part of the story, I'm going to go back and revise everything before this so that it doesn't suck so many squirrel nuts. The story events themselves won't change, as I've regrettably spent too long on the afterlife arc now to just remove the whole thing and try to forget it, but I can at least fix all the grammatical and mechanical problems and try to iron out all my writing quirks. You tend to learn a lot in a year, and it's been almost a year now I think since this arc started. And you know what I've learned? I have a major show vs. tell problem. I'm going to fix that in future. I'm going to stop being such a hack. Trust me, readers, you'll notice sharp increase in your story enjoyment once I stop that shit next chapter.

Just like last chapter, partial credit to Mr. Spiffy for writing this, who again handled most of the scenes in Hell itself before the confrontation with First, and without whom this might have taken even longer to get out. I swear I'll stop relying on him to get things done after this. From here on out, I'll never write a chapter with this many characters again. Shit gets confusing, and it pads the word count immensely.

Seriously, fuck this chapter.

Next Chapter: We leave the afterlife and put this abysmal story arc behind us.

Comments

[AleneShazam]

AHAHAAHAHAHAHA
Oh god this chapter is hilarious.
Chaotic as shiez.
But hilarious.

[Confusion_]

YAY! About fing time! Took me about half the chapter to remember all the different characters because it has been so long since I read through this story. I can't even remember what Second is doing in the "real" world at the moment. I hope we can get more chapters in regular intervals in the future.

There is so much going on in this story I can't even think how to describe First's character development at the moment. Only thing my brain is telling me is "good". (Very concise of it.) That drama of First's struggle with the narrative was great! His suffering was delicious. It pushed him into that "Not an idiot villain/victim." zone and made him very interesting. Very sure he was already interesting but I can't remember...

I need sleep.

[Armalite]

I get the feeling that Danny does not enjoy this chapter.

[Spifffy]

Don't worry, Danny. I'm sure the time machines are being put together as we speak for the sole purpose of making sure this arc never happened.

No, but seriously, you shouldn't be so critical of yourself. A good amount of interesting events happened I thought. I still enjoyed reading it as much as I did the other chapters. Maybe I didn't laugh as much, but it wasn't like it was grimdark.

Also you narrowly escaped being the new Mr. Six Months with that interlude. Smart move with that.

[DannyJ]

3919895

Fuck off with your positivity and motivational speeches. I know what sucks and what doesn't. This arc sucks, this chapter sucks, First sucks, I suck for writing this, and you suck too for contributing to this travesty. Eat my dick, Spiffy. I hope you die.

You're still coming around my house on Wednesday, right? I need to know if you want pizza or Chinese.

3919782

Now whatever gave you that idea?

[Alien Entity]

Just be careful you don't make it too much better. Otherwise, everyone's brains might explode from too much awesomeness.

[Alphaetus_Prime]

I don't remember what the fuck is going on at all.
I'm pretty sure that's the best way to read this story.

[StyrofoamPie]

And then the self-proclaimed Lord of the Dead was drowned under an ocean of Explodey.

This could be the greatest sentence in existence. I would deep fry this sentence and serve it with a plate of bacon

[jolan5]

So he never wanted to be a stereotypical bad guy.
He was just...forced.

[The Tyrannical]

So I heard this is Danny's favorite chapter.

[Signia]

3920198
Seconded.
See what I did there?

[Purple_Smart]

To be honest I like this arc it gives some what reasonable info about First if I remember the rest of the story correctly. All I want to now now is if First is really going to be killed and if so is he going to make some kind of a comeback, guess im just going to have to wait and see Anyway please continue I cant wait to read more its been so long

[The Chain Warden]

Poor First. He's being dommed hard by DC. Even worse than hell.

[Nasty Mister Monket]

I think you are the only one who could write a story where a major villain dies to a quote from a song by Kanye West and still maintain the suspension of disbelief.

[Trihors]

"WHAT?!" he screamed. "WHY?! WHY WOULD YOU EVEN?! IT'S FUCKING SATAN! WHO TEAMS UP WITH SATAN?!"

This.
Easily the best part.

I wonder what happened to Haya- Hayama- Hayamoto... uh... Third...

Holy. Fucking. Shit.
This story is so deep that even Black Holes get embarrassed.

The story from here on out should be much better.

Dude...
DUDE...
This story is already on my Godlike-list's top, and if you make this even better, I have to finally bring out a new list for stories that are good beyond godlike things...
And in case you're wondering, no. It would not make me happy since it would begin the destruction of the last pieces of sense on my listing.
"Forget him. It would make us all happier than ever."
No please don't do t-
"You have no control over us."

[Booster Spice]

Aww, I totally forgot about Explody and the total subsume and belief innocence from only a couple chapters previously or I shouldve picked up that just throwing him away into a source of materil is not a good idea.

Though the First controlled by Threads is intresting, though very annoying. Did you know you can give story characters as much appearence of free will as we have, for similar reasons, fairly easily?

Write up choices, then roll dice. Because its the multiverse selecting and not you, it works just as well. Especilly if you remember to roll to resist.

[IkioStar]

Is it bad that I read First's last words in

voice?

That being said, why do you keep killing my favorite characters? Does this damn story have a tragedy tag?

[Coltsguy]

Honestly? I like this chapter. A lot. It has the same humor that I've been watching with all the meta thought thrown into it.

Flaws? Yeah, there's flaws in it, but I honestly attribute that to what's happening from the viewers world of things. They made up a terrible sequence of events and movies and now they are trying to make things smooth themselves out... and doing a terrible job at it. I only have two nitpicks for the entire thing. The disjointed feeling at the beginning where I didn't know how First was dying. You know what? It ended up being a pretty good show and tell. The other was adding in more characters for just this one chapter. That probably was unnecessary.

Everything was really good and this reads quite well (other than, well, you know, the 'him dying out of nowhere' part) and even the backstory at the beginning was interesting. Don't beat yourself up about this chapter. You do that and then you could end up like Draven. His story is good, but he doesn't feel that way. Think about it.

[EverfreeSparkle]

What?
3919977 Eh, it felt too jumbled to me. Still better than a lot of other stories, but ATM it feels like the story is stranger than it usually is. Either that or it has been so long I am just not used to the crazy meta forth wall breaking of the forth wall into the forth wall strangeness.

[Unwitting Brony]

SON OF A BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITCH.

First was just about to set shit right and suddenly he gets FUCKED by the story. I really hope that somebody finds the bastard controlling all of those little bullshit things that keep happening, and decks them in the goddamn face.

I wonder just how badly Hayato screwed things up, for Twilight to have lost all hope for the human race after meeting him.

[Fley_The_Dragon]

I think this chapter clears up an old argument.

[Beeooow]

If no-one's is truly responsible for what they've done, then what is to blame? Second was molded into what he was by the events of his life, which appear to have been orchestrated by other beings, which, in turn, were planned by others and so on. Most, if not all the characters were shaped similarly. I don't think anyone's really to blame. But then, who is to blame? What planned the planning of the planning of the planning of the planning of Second's descent into madness? I think I'm trying divide by zero again...

[Lynwood]

In this chapter I was hoping to have First appear and snap his fingers and release EVERY soul that he had placed, taking away both hell and paradise, then leaving and letting the others deal with it. Too bad.

[Lithl]

I felt really bad for Sliske there.