• Published 30th Dec 2011
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Human - DannyJ



The Human of legend has been released, and the Brotherhood makes its move.

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Chapter 30: End of an Era

A number of ponies walked by First's side as they strode through the mist. They all talked, all passed him things, each vitally important to the existence of billions of lifeforms. The papers they gave to him, asked him to sign, asked him to read over, would decide the fate of nations and the destiny of individuals for centuries to come.

None of it mattered to him. Normally he'd have recognised the importance of what they were telling him and pay attention, but today was different. He nodded his head and gave them his assurances that he was listening. He made it seem like he was involved, while in reality he was trying his best to filter out their babbling.

They reached his office. The same little wooden desk with the car battery and telephones that had always been there. The closest thing he had to personal space. Time to kick out the strays.

"Sorry, but we need to continue this later," he said. "I have matters to attend to."

"But my lord!" one of the ponies responded. "This is very—"

"Yes, yes, I'll have a look at it later," First promised. "For now, just leave me to this. All of you. Out."

Steel Hammer, who had been following them with everypony else, ushered them out as instructed.

"Come on, everypony! You heard the man!"

"You too, Steel."

Steel didn't seem to expect that.

"Really? You don't need me for...?"

"I need to be alone for a little while."

The stallion did as told and left with the rest of the crowd. First would have felt worse about it, but he was in no mood for fake friendships right now. Steel Hammer was nothing more than walking propaganda. He was evidence of First's benevolence and love; there to convince anyone who needed convincing that he was a good guy. "I'm friends with my own killer! How bad can I be?" was the implication. It wasn't true friendship though. Steel Hammer was just another puppet in a world full of them.

None of that mattered now.

Sitting at the desk, First opened the top drawer and drew a whiskey bottle and shot glass from within, which he began to fill. In his life, he had never been a drinker. He was too young for that before. Now though, despite being perpetually young on the outside, his mind had aged significantly. And he was a god. No-one could stop him from drinking if he wanted to. Cthulhu couldn't stop him.

So he raised the glass. Not his first choice, but whiskey was dad's drink.

"Cheers," he said to nobody.

He downed the glass in one gulp.

Five hundred years now. Five hundred years to the day since his father was trapped in stone. The anniversary of his own death had already come and gone, and that was bad enough, but it was this exact point of the year where he really started to lose it.

First's eyes wandered to his forearm as he began to pour himself a second shot. The veins looked a sickly green. He sighed loudly. The corruption was getting worse, day by day. It had slowed significantly since those early years when he first noticed it, but it was still there, and still slowly working through his system. It was bad enough that it would be a problem soon. Give it another few centuries, and he'd fall to it as well.

And then there was Equestria and the mortal realm. First rolled his eyes at the thought of them. Stagnating. Static. Nothing ever changing. A pointless paradise, its only function being to exist and look pretty, but the residents in it were so happy and complacent that no decent progress had been made in an age.

All he ever hoped for was that Equestria over time might come to more resemble his beloved Earth, all skyscrapers and highways, with cars and iPods and a decent video game and movie industry. But no. It never happened. Equestria was as it always was, only with a few minor gadgets here and there to spice it up a bit.

The kind of tools that would be laughed at for their pointlessness in his world, such as the dog umbrella or the electric cheese grater, were the only new creations of note in five centuries. It was enough to convince an omnipotent elder god of death that all this really wasn't worth the time and stress.

"Right..."

Putting down the alcohol, he opened another drawer of his desk and pulled out a small remote control. It had a short antenna sticking out of it, and only a single red button. Below it, a label quite clearly stated the button's function.

KILL EVERYTHING.

First's finger hovered over it. He tapped it lightly a few times, not enough to depress the button, but enough to terrify any hypothetical witnesses. It would be so easy to press down and end it all. No more Equestria. No more mortals. No more souls. No universe. No afterlife. Nothing. Just end all existence and let there be nothing but peaceful oblivion.

He tilted his head from side to side as he regarded the button. Despite the power he held in his hands right now, his expression was dull and his eyes were glazed over. He turned the remote over like he would a newly-discovered seashell, inspecting its every element and playing around with it for as long as possible.

"Hmmm..."

He reached into his back pocket and drew a copper coin with a picture of an old president on it. With a grim look, he flipped it into the air. The penny landed on the desk in front of him, spinning for a bit before finally coming to a rest. First craned his neck to better look at it, and saw that it had come up tails.

"Oh well," he said.

He opened the drawer again and placed the doomsday device back inside. With a shrug, he returned to pouring himself a third glass.

"Here's to another five hundred years."

First gulped it down. He poured again. This time, he leaned back in his chair as he did. A haze began to come across his mind, and he sang quietly to himself.

"There's no time for us... There's no place for us... What is this thing, that builds our dreams, yet slips away from us?"

His hands shook, and he began to spill the whiskey over himself and the floor.

"Who wants... to live... forever?"

He stopped swinging on his chair and leaned forwards again. He tried to refill the glass that he had never got to taste, but instead his hands shook even more.

"Who wants... to live..."

Anthony dropped both the glass and the bottle, which clattered to the floor, and slumped over his desk.

"...Forever?"

***

The green mass was already shrinking. Previously too big to even be fully perceived, Explodey had already returned to something resembling his usual size. It didn't stop the crowd from backing away as the sludge pony limped towards them. Gradually, his features began to melt back in. The sludge stopped bubbling and solidified. It became a pinkish skin colour, and white hair grew out of it to form a coat. A cutie mark faded into being on the flank. The face was the last thing to come back.

All the while, Explodey didn't stop moving towards his friends. They ceased trying to back away once he was mostly himself again, and he smiled at them as he became fully formed and picked up his pace.

"Hey, guys! Wasn't that just crazy? I mean, even I wasn't expect—"

He stopped in his tracks and his eyes bugged out. Explodey began coughing. None of the other ponies, even the alicorn princesses, dared move. Instead, they watched with wide eyes as the stallion beat his chest with a hoof three times, before finally retching and spitting out a human skull. The last remains of Lord First clattered on the stone floor and bounced across it, landing just before Celestia's hooves.

Everyone stared down at it, even Satan. Then they collectively stared back at Explodey again, who belched.

"Eugh," he said, hitting his chest a fourth time. "Elder gods are hard to digest."

***

It was another thirty minutes before everyone got over the shock of what they had just witnessed and finally decided to get on with it. Though First was evidently dead, it wasn't over yet. All Hell had literally broken loose, the afterlife as a whole was in need of a new leader, and none of them had any idea how to control or influence this realm the way that First did. His power over the afterlife had been something that came uniquely from him. Replicating it would be problematic at best, and impossible at worst.

Celestia had already gotten rid of Satan, sending him off back into the lower circles and instructing him to make sure that nothing escaped into Paradise. Though there were many innocents trapped down there, they could not risk opening the floodgates when there were just as many murderers and rapists mixed in. It would be a disaster.

Everypony else remained in Limbo, deciding to keep together and not risk splitting up and getting lost again. No longer needing to present a unified front against First though, they had now split up into their groups. Velocity and Mystic were off by themselves, the original bearers of the Elements of Harmony minus Twilight were all together, and Broad Sword, Sliske and Explodey formed a trio of their own.

The remaining eight, that being the princesses, Twilight, Soft Spoken, Gold Coin, Chain Mail, Iron Hoof and Tome, were instead all clustered around the remains of First's desk. It had not survived the onslaught of rioters from the lower circles, but its pieces were all there and waiting to be salvaged. Twilight Sparkle had already painstakingly collected up all the loose paperwork that had been scattered in the chaos and put it in a pile next to the wreckage.

The drawers had all been removed from the destroyed desk, and Twilight was now rummaging through one of them. They turned out to be much larger inside than out, so it was a job for several ponies. While she worked on the one drawer, Iron Hoof, Ancient Tome, Celestia and Gold Coin all had drawers of their own that they were sorting through as they conversed, while the others stood to the side and pored over the files they had already recovered.

"I just don't get it though," said Twilight, removing another folder from her drawer. "If First was as afraid of dying as he seemed, if he predicted that something like what Explodey did would happen, then why would he still attack us? I know he's a megalomaniac, but it just doesn't make sense for him."

"More to the point," added Luna, "why would he choose to be our enemies at all? If he's aware of the fourth wall and the Pantheon, and he knows that this... this... narrative is on our side, then why would he willingly choose to oppose us?"

"Maybe he wasn't willing?" Celestia suggested.

The elder sister pulled a snowglobe out of the drawer she was searching with her magic. It had a miniature Canterlot inside, replicating the city as it was circa 1000 CR. Looking it over, she saw that it had a caption at the bottom. "Home to the best and the worst." She lingered on it for a moment, before setting it aside with everything else and shrugging.

"Are you suggesting that he may have been being controlled, sister?"

"Perhaps. He once told me that being influenced by DC didn't truly remove one's free will, but if he was being influenced by it himself, then I'm not sure I trust his word on that."

"Well it hardly matters anymore," Ancient Tome grumbled. "He's dead, so we can't ask, and his answers wouldn't change anything."

Over by the piles of paper that he was sifting through with Luna, Soft Spoken's eyes darted to Twilight as he held up a file in his hoof.

"These papers keep referencing a larger death register," he explained, catching her attention. "It seems like there are meant to be a whole lot more older files, but I'm not sure that they're here."

Twilight looked back into her drawer.

"It's probably in one of these somewhere, but I haven't found anything yet," she replied. "I'll let you know if it turns up."

Ancient Tome and Iron Hoof looked to each other.

"Actually... Um..." Tome began. "When we arrived here, we might have stolen something like that. It's why we went down to the sixth circle to free the rest of the Brotherhood. The death register told us where they all were."

Gold Coin's head shot out from within his drawer.

"Do you still have it?!" he demanded.

Tome lifted his hat and floated out folder that he had been hiding beneath it. The word "register" was clearly stamped on it in red. He was about to throw it over to Gold Coin, but he then caught Soft Spoken's eye, and passed it over to him instead. The old stallion opened it up and began flipping through, noticing that it too was bigger on the inside.

"Violating physics just as much as the drawers, I see," he commented.

"It responds to vocal commands," Tome explained. "Say a name and it'll bring up their file."

Soft Spoken raised an eyebrow.

"Really now?" He paused, looking down at the death register. "Captain Bloody Barnable Cutlass."

A file floated out from within the folder, and Soft Spoken grabbed it with his hooves, placing the register itself on the floor next to him. Most of the other ponies, including Twilight, took a pause from their searching to watch him as he read it. After a moment, he put it down and sighed.

"Seventh circle. Can't say I'm surprised."

Everypony there who had seen much of the seventh circle all winced.

"I'm sorry, my little pony," said Celestia.

"Don't be," Soft Spoken replied, picking up the register again. "If anypony ever deserved First's punishments, it would have been him."

"...If it helps, when we take over running this realm, we won't be continuing the old ways," said Twilight. "We won't let all the guilty ponies go free, but they won't suffer like they have been until now."

Softy nodded and looked away from her.

"Thank you." He picked up the death register again. "Hmm... True Shot and Cotton Wool."

Two more files floated out. This time, Softy didn't take them in his hooves, but simply read them as they were suspended in the air in front of him. Gold Coin noticed him smiling as he looked at this pair.

"Seems my real parents fared a lot better," he commented. "Good."

Chain Mail nudged his shoulder and grinned at him.

"It's not all bad news, huh?"

Softy briefly returned his smile, but then became grim again as he looked back at the folder. He spoke the next name with trepidation.

"...Professor Van Helsing."

The staring and the lingering silence became even worse when no file seemed to emerge.

"Van Helsing," he repeated.

Still nothing.

"Professor Abraham Van Helsing."

Softy frowned.

"Professor Van Helsing Hunter? Hunter Van Helsing?"

Still no file came out. Softy dropped the death register, now visibly worried, and stood up again. He took a step back from it, shaking his head.

"Okaaaay..." he muttered. "That's not possible..."

Chain Mail, already sat nearby Softy, tried to reach out a hoof to him. Before he could, the older pony turned his back and began to walk away from the group. Everypony's attention was still on Softy as he slapped his own head and groaned.

"One hundred and thirty years! Of course!"

He galloped away, leaving the rest of the ponies to just be confused.

***

Over with Sliske, Broad Sword and Explodey meanwhile, a very different conversation was going on. The three "ponies" formed a circle and either sat or lay around on the stone floor, not far enough away from the other groups that they weren't visible to each other, but out of earshot so that they could have their own conversations. Laying on her side, Sliske in her pony form watched Mystic Chant and his mother talking, until she noticed Soft Spoken breaking away from Twilight's group and galloping off somewhere.

"Hmm..." she intoned.

"It's not what I'd have expected when this all started," said Broad Sword.

Sliske tore her attention away and turned it back to her other friends.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"I was just saying, when all this started, I'd have never expected it to turn into this."

Broad Sword was opposite her, sitting up straight instead of lounging around. Explodey leaned his back against Broad Sword's side, a serene look on his face as he stared at the endless nothing above them.

"What's 'this'?" asked Sliske.

Broad Sword raised a hoof and gestured to the expanse around them.

"Just this. Things were pretty crazy to begin with. Explodey was some kind of artificial pony who could regenerate. I was friends with a ghost alien who terrorised ancient Equestria. Chain Mail was a cyberpony and Soft Spoken was really really old and Celestia was dead. And we were all supposed to be the Elements of Harmony now, and fight against elder gods and alicorns and all this..."

He sighed.

"Just a few days on, look at what happened! Now I'm dead, you're suddenly a mare, Equestria is being ravaged while Princess Celestia is back as a zombie now. I don't even know what's up with Explodey..."

"Believe me, neither do I," Explodey commented.

"But it's just insane, isn't it?"

Sliske knowingly rolled her eyes.

"That's putting it lightly, I think."

"It's gonna get worse, you know," said Explodey.

The other two both looked to him.

"Why do you say that?" asked Broad Sword.

Explodey sat up properly.

"It just seems like that's where this is all going," he explained. "Stories have themes, don't they? If we're a story now, and if this whole adventure is meant to result in some kind of message, what are we supposed to take from all this? What is the theme?"

"Sometimes crazy shit happens?" Broad Sword suggested.

"Always rely on your friends?" Sliske added.

"Nah," said Explodey, waving a hoof dismissively. "If I had to call it, I'd say that the theme of this story is entropy. The idea that everything always deteriorates and gets worse. For everything that's already gone wrong today alone, I guarantee you that something even more horrible is about to happen to us very soon."

Sliske and Broad Sword exchanged a look.

"Well, that's depressing," Broad Sword muttered.

"I don't see what could go wrong now though," Sliske argued. "First is dead, Second is far away and doing something else, and Satan is containing the chaos in Hell. What else could happen?"

***

Iron Hoof reached into the desk drawer and removed something. It was a remote control. He held it between his two hooves and looked at the ominous label just below the big red button. Looking to see if anypony had noticed him picking it up, he quietly tucked it away in his tail.

"This is interesting..." said Celestia as she read through some files. "It seems that First's so-called 'reapers' were allowed to enter the mortal realm as ghosts."

"Why is that?" asked Chain Mail. "Do they go around killing ponies who First told them to?"

"Far from it." Celestia floated the paper over to Chain Mail. "This is the reaper mission statement. It says that part of a reaper's duty is to extract souls trapped in the mortal realm by certain kinds of monsters. Cockatrices, assimilators, deathlords, vampires; they're all capable of killing ponies in ways that leave their souls unable to pass on. This document says that the reapers had to go down into our world and rescue them."

"We came across reapers sometimes while wandering the world," said Twilight. "It takes a brave sort of pony to volunteer for that kind of job. Just being a ghost doesn't mean you can't be hurt. Equestria has plenty of monsters that feed on spiritual energy. They normally try to remove it from the living, but they can eat ghosts too. I remember this one time that Pinkie nearly got herself eaten by a deathlord, so me and Rainbow Dash had to—"

While still rummaging through the desk, Twilight removed a small television set. She held it up in her magic just in front of her, giving it a bewildered look.

"What the...?"

The machine buzzed to life, a flicker of static crossing the screen before it gave way to an image of First's desk and the chair behind it. Iron Hoof's eyes flicked up to it. First himself appeared on the monitor, walking up to his chair and sitting down. He looked through the screen at them and cleared his throat. The sound made everypony who hadn't already turn to look at Twilight and the TV set. Luna shuffled forward to see it better, while Chain Mail got up to walk over and get a front-row seat.

Twilight set it down on top of a stack of paper. She and everypony else all crowded in front of it. On the screen, First looked down at his own hands. He seemed to be struggling to find the words.

"...Log entry seventy-nine," he said eventually. "It has been some months since my last update, but things have been busy. Hell seems to have taken proper shape at long last, and I believe that the demons are beginning to see my way. I may still be able to ensure their loyalty. Their unique abilities will be well-suited to managing a lot of the technical problems in making this realm run properly. If I can get enough of them onto my side, I might be able to seal the rift exposing us to the void of time at last. Maybe then this place won't be so rife with paradoxes, and I won't keep finding chronovores nibbling on my future. They're annoying, and I don't like the timeskips."

First shifted in his chair and looked down at his desk, away from the camera.

"Mxy is settling in well to his new job. I don't think he goes through quite as many formalities as I do. Since he manages the whole rest of the universe, I imagine he doesn't have the time for it. I wonder sometimes if I gave him too much freedom. He doesn't hold most of the aliens to the same standards that I do, but I still insisted that the Zarlan races remain subject to my judgement. I don't know if Sliske the Destroyer, the sakrassi that is, will ever truly die, but if he does, then I want the jurisdiction to punish him. He has it coming."

He faced the camera again.

"And on a final note... the corruption is getting worse. It's spread through most of my left side already, and I can already feel my control waning. It makes me feel sick. I wake up in cold sweats some nights. Sometimes I'll have memory lapses. I'll be doing my job as usual, filling in papers and taking calls, and then I'll realise that I don't remember what I did yesterday. Whatever this thing is that permeates my being, I feel my body trying to fight it. Every second of every hour of every day, my blood is boiling, red against green, both trying to force out the other. And the rage problems... I can't help it. I feel so angry all the time and I can't help myself."

First turned his head, staring off to the side. He swiveled his chair around so that it faced the same way and leaned back.

"I don't know how long I have left before it takes over completely, and I don't know what will happen when it does. Maybe I'll die again. Maybe I'll become somebody else. All I know is... I'm scared. Anything could happen, and I can do nothing about it. I'm omnipotent, and I'm helpless. How pathetic is that?"

He gave a bitter laugh and closed his eyes.

"I don't know what I did to deserve this, but I only wish I could make it right. I've not lived a long life, but I have so many regrets. I miss my father. I miss my mother. I wish I could say sorry to Celestia and Luna and the main six. I didn't mean to cause all that chaos... I just wanted to have fun. And now I'm stuck in this universe, running this afterlife, and it seems that just being in this world at all is making me into... something I'm not."

He opened his eyes again and looked back at the camera.

"I will continue to oversee this realm. It needs me now. As much as I'd like to leave and try to find a way back to my own universe... I have responsibilities here. Nobody is incorruptible. I can trust no-one with this place. Least of all myself, but with no possible successors to pass my power onto, what can I do?"

First sighed and swiveled his chair back around. He opened the desk and removed a glass and a bottle of whiskey. He began pouring it, his eyes darting back up to the camera as he did.

"I started drinking too. Did I mention?" He finished pouring, put down the bottle, and took a long drink from the glass before slamming it down on the desk again. "I can only hope... that I find someone trustworthy soon. I don't want to still be running this place when the corruption takes me. God only knows... heh... God... God only knows what will happen if the ponies of this realm are left to my mercy when I'm probably too insane to even think straight. If I'm like this right now... I shudder to think what I can become in another hundred years."

He picked up his glass again and swirled it around, staring down at its contents.

"Mxy is a good guy. He sacrificed a lot, and it wasn't fair what happened to him, but I don't trust him to run this place in my absence. He might not be suffering corruption like I am, but he has his own inner darkness. It doesn't surface often, but I see it there. It's in his eyes."

He took another drink.

"One day," he said, looking at the camera again, "I'll kill myself. If I can't cure this thing, whatever it is, then I'll have to make my peace with the idea that nobody is perfect, and pick someone anyway. And when I do, for better or for worse, I'll leave them to it. I'll give them the keys, all my power, and I'll leave this place for good. Maybe find a nice supernova and fling myself into it. Either way, I can't live forever. I just can't. Not like this."

First took one last look at his whisky before gulping down the rest of it all at once and throwing it aside. He chuckled and threw the glass as well. The sound of it shattering could be heard through the TV. First looked directly into the camera, and suddenly he seemed so tired, slouching in his chair and his eyes red with bloodshot. He gave a wan smile.

"I just realised that I don't remember last month at all. I wonder if I'll remember any of this a few years down the line?"

His smile died.

"That's all for now. End log seventy-nine."

The television set cut out and gave way to static again, leaving the ponies to stare in silence. Many of them looked to each other or down at the floor. None of them seemed to have any words in light of First's message. Alone and unnoticed, Iron Hoof inspected his mechanical leg, and noticed a drop of green liquid trailing down the metal.

***

Soft Spoken descended into the second circle, emerging at the top of the staircase that the group came down last time. The circle was surprisingly bare. There were crowds of ponies off in the distance, but most of the ground around the staircase was clear for several miles. This was likely thanks to the demon king who stood by the base of the stairs, standing resolute and unyielding. A small garrison of regular demons formed a line of defence around the base of the stairs in all other directions.

Softy didn't go all the way down, instead stopping when he was level with Satan's head.

"Hey!" he called out.

The demon twisted his centre head around to face the earth pony, leering at him.

"Yes?"

It took a moment for Softy to remember what he was going to say, but he steeled himself and stood up to the demon.

"I need to be allowed into the lower circles, preferably with protection."

Satan's dragon head also twisted to face Soft Spoken, and it leaned in closer than his other one.

"HELL IS OFF-LIMITS!" it thundered.

"By which I mean," Satan continued with his centre head, "that Celestia has instructed me to keep this prison secure. I could not go to protect you during whatever business you have down here. I must guard this stairway. I am the only one powerful enough to hold off all the forces of Hell. An entire demon legion would struggle to do the same."

"Then let me go alone!" Softy pleaded.

The dragon head snorted and turned away, but Satan's demon head only leaned in closer and took a long sniff of him.

"Why?" he asked.

"I need to talk to somepony. A vampire. Well, a dhampir. She might know something important. First sent all the vampires to Hell, didn't he?"

"Indeed," Satan answered with a large, toothy grin. "However, I cannot allow you entrance unless my niece tells me to relent. Come back with her by your side. I may be inclined to listen then. Otherwise, you had best leave. No other force has any power over me like she has, and it is best not to tempt the wrath of a demon king."

There was a distant rumbling. Softy wasn't sure what to make of it, but Satan's eyes suddenly went wide and he looked back over the rest of the second circle.

"Oh..." he said. "It seems that the afterlife is about to explode."

***

Several minutes earlier, Iron Hoof nursed a growing pain in his leg just above the mechanical part, as the rest of the ponies obliviously continued with their duties.

"Mxy... Who is Mxy?!" Celestia demanded, tossing aside some more papers. "He's obviously an important figure! Possibly even First's chief lieutenant aside from Steel Hammer! Yet I can't find any other references to him!"

"Mxy..." Chain Mail mused. "Could he be... where is it...?"

Twilight perked up.

"What is it?" she asked.

"There was a document, or a letter around..." Chain Mail explained, rifling through his pile of papers. "I remembered it because it was signed with a name, that was... well, it looked like I couldn't pronounce it, but it could have been shortened to Mxy. It was... Ah! Here it is!"

Chain Mail produced a letter from the pile and flattened it on the ground. Pinning its corners with his forehooves, he cleared his throat and began reading it out loud.

"'Anthony, I write you now because I believe that the impending crisis is worse than we thought. It seems that you were right to assume that there should be more souls pouring in from the galactic disaster than we have been so far receiving. For as much as I am swamped by all the additional work from the entire planets and races of beings arriving in our realm as of late, my inquiries to the leaders of these dead worlds have yielded a disturbing find. Of all the alien races that were wiped out in their entirety, the only ones whose souls have come to our realm are those that...'"

Chain Mail stopped reading. His mouth opened and he blinked.

"'...are those that killed themselves through destroying their own planets or other forms of mass-suicide, so terrified were they of the coming beast. The planets and races that did not go through with suicide, and instead allowed themselves to be annihilated by this unknown cosmic horror... have not passed on. I can only conclude that this thing, whatever it is, possesses the capability to either trap or destroy souls. Those that die to the beast go no afterlife. Those that die to the beast belong to it forever. I know not what we face, and I look to you for wisdom and guidance, as I always do. It is your decision. Do we evacuate the universe, or do we fight this thing?'"

Twilight looked ill. Luna looked horrified. Celestia tapped her forehead with a hoof, her face scrunching up and her eyes closing in concentration.

"This doesn't make sense..." she muttered. "What was going on here before we interfered? What were First and this Mxy DOING here?! What are we facing?!"

She threw her hooves down and fell over, landing on her back and spreading her wings over the floor. Luna looked either side of her at the ponies around them, before walking over to her sister's side.

"Tia..."

"I can't, Luna. Every step forward is another two steps back. For the first time, I have no idea what to do. Before, even when I was in such unfamiliar territory, dying and coming back to life, I at least had First and Second's advice. I didn't trust either of them, but at least it was something. Now, First is dead, and I don't know if Second will be any help at all with this."

Celestia sighed.

"Sister, please—"

"For over two-thousand years, we never needed anypony else's help to make decisions or be leaders. Why do I feel so lost now, sister?"

"It would be because of Us."

All eyes were on Iron Hoof as he trotted over to the remains of First's desk, climbed up on top of them and faced the rest of the ponies around the wreckage. He grinned.

"Iron!" Tome shouted. "What are you doing?!"

"Stuff it, grandpa!" Iron shouted back. "We are not Iron Hoof! That fool is dead. He has been dead for a very long time. He just didn't know it yet."

The thing wearing Iron's skin looked back to the princesses. Celestia sat up again and entered a combative stance, confronting the creature.

"Who are you?! And what have you done with the pony you are speaking through?!"

"We are the Pantheon, at your service," it said with a flourish. "No need to worry about strange voices with Us. We do not speak with the voice of the legion, even though We are many. Nor do We care for the unearthly noise that the demons speak in. A pony with simple, mortal vocal chords is sufficient for Our needs, and enough to get Our point across. It just so happened that Iron Hoof was a convenient host to ride along in. The greatest of all zealots and most irrational of all stuck-up revolutionary wannabes. He's a pathetic excuse for an individual, and not at all a significant character in the story we have built around your adventures. Were he to disappear at some point offscreen, he would not be missed. The perfect disguise, you might say."

Tome glared at the impostor.

"How long?" he asked seethingly.

There was a flash of green in Iron's eyes. The Pantheon smiled at him.

"There was never a point where we weren't here."

Sliske, Explodey and Broad Sword had all wandered over to the group as well now. The rest of Twilight's friends and Mystic and his mother were making their way over too

"Guys? What's going on here?" asked Broad Sword. "Is Iron giving a speech?"

Chain Mail leaned over and answered him.

"He's not Iron. He's the Pantheon."

"Oh," Broad Sword said simply, seeming to not need any further explanation.

The Pantheon laughed.

"That's right! And now, We are afraid to inform you that it is time to end this farce. First is beaten, and We congratulate you on a job well done, but you cannot be allowed to interfere with our plans further. The narrative must be followed. Your destinies are set in stone. And Our story makes no mention of afterlives. This realm is a side-effect. A byproduct. A toxic creation of a poor fanfiction that was incorporated into Our perfect world by accident and family connection that should never have been. It must be burned down and replaced."

Though Iron Hoof was not a unicorn and shouldn't have had magic, a remote control nonetheless emerged from his tail and floated up to the Pantheon's side, suspended in the air by a glowing green magical field. They pointed it in the ponies' direction to show them the "KILL EVERYTHING" label underneath. Iron's eyes began glowing the same green colour.

"We have repurposed First's tool to fit Our needs, much like We have done to this pony. This world does not need such chaos as a Heaven and a Hell. It has enough of that already. Too many tyrants have already risen from it, and We need not give another individual the same power that First once wielded. He was right. Nobody can be trusted."

They looked directly at Twilight.

"Not even you, marketable though you may be. Perhaps things might have been different if the winds blew another way. We still think that the previous Pantheon should have gone through with making you a princess. It would have been far less painful for all involved. Another thing you can blame Lord Second for."

The Pantheon reached out to press the button, but Celestia blundered forward to stop them.

"NO! WAIT!" she shouted. "You can't! It's murder! You'll be killing uncountable trillions if you do this! You'll be the greatest mass murderers in the history of the universe!"

The Pantheon-possessed Iron Hoof gave her another grin.

"Oh, not to worry. We shall be replacing the current system with a cycle of reincarnation. This realm was getting overcrowded anyway. Goodbye seven deadly sins, hello KARMA!"

They drew back, raising the remote control over the rest of the ponies.

"Celestia, Luna, you and the Elements of Harmony will survive this no matter what. We need you for the rest of the narrative. We will even give you back Explodey and Broad Sword. Go to Canterlot and kill Lord Second. He's been a throbbing pain in Our side for too long. Do that, and We will let you go. All of you. Do be warned though, this entire plane of existence is going to start collapsing in on itself the moment We press this button. You'd best escape quickly."

Gold Coin looked over his shoulder in the direction of lower Hell, sweat running down his face and panic in his eyes.

"My brother is down there!" he protested, bounding up to the Pantheon. "Possibly the rest of my family too! What'll happen to them?!"

"Reincarnated. I'm beginning to count down from ten now. Ten!"

Chain Mail pushed aside Gold Coin.

"What about my mother?! And my father?! What about them?!"

"Same! Nine!"

"Soft Spoken isn't here! Where is he?!" shouted Broad Sword. "We can't escape without him!"

"I don't know! He ran off looking for something, I think!" Twilight shouted back.

"Eight!"

"Twilight, what's going to happen to us?" asked Fluttershy. "Are we still going to be ghosts? Or are we...?"

"That's a negatory! Reincarnation for EVERYONE! SEVEN!"

"Uncle Iron!" Mystic cried.

"Iron, don't do this!" Tome agreed. "I know you're in there! Fight it!"

"Oh, that'll be fun!" the Pantheon said with a chuckle. "Let's let the puppet out to play one last time! He can say his final goodbyes! Six!"

Iron shook his head suddenly, and his eyes weren't green anymore. Instead, they were red and bloodshot, just like First's eyes towards the end of the video. Tears escaped them. Behind him, Celestia and Twilight were ripping open a portal back to the mortal realm.

"Tome! Velocity! Mystic! I'm sorry! I'm sorry for everything! I can't fight it! Five!"

"Yes you can! I know you can! You're the strongest pony I know!" Tome yelled, running up to Iron and grabbing him.

Iron laughed as the green glow returned to his eyes.

"No he's not. He's generic. What we in the business call an underdeveloped character. I hope you weep for him, Ancient Tome! None of the audience will! HA! FOUR!"

Luna rushed away from the rest of the group, looking out over the empty landscape of the first circle around them. She called out at the loudest volume she could without resorting to the royal Canterlot voice.

"HAYATO! I KNOW YOU'RE OUT THERE!" she screamed. "IF YOU EVER CARED FOR ME AT ALL, WE NEED YOU NOW! I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME!"

Nobody appeared.

"Uncle Iron!" Mystic called again.

Celestia scooped him up and ushered him through the portal. Most of the other ponies had already left. Twilight and her friends remained behind, as did Celestia, Luna, Velocity and Broad Sword.

"Mom!"

"I'm sorry, sweetie! I can't come with you!" Velocity hurriedly explained. "You be strong for me, right?! Take care of your father!"

"MOOOOOM!"

"Oh, this is such FUN! So many dramatics! I LOVE it! THREE!"

Ancient Tome grit his teeth and stared down the Pantheon through the glow of his friend's eyes.

"You won't get away with this! I will find you again one day, Pantheon, and I will fucking kill you all for this! I'VE KILLED ONE GOD TODAY! WHAT'S ANOTHER FEW DOZEN?!"

The Pantheon smirked.

"You didn't kill any gods. You never did. You're a poser, Ancient Tome. Nobody fucking cares about you. As your beloved Second would say, eat my elder god dick. TWO!"

Tome blinked. The sudden vulgarity was unexpected, but then again, he had started it. At that moment, Celestia picked him up and tossed him through the portal as well before he could have any last words.

"What about Softy?!" Broad Sword reminded them.

"Only one thing for it..." Twilight said grimly. "I'm canceling his spell. He'll fall through the void of time, but at least he won't be here."

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE!"

Broad Sword gave Twilight a desperate look as she cancelled the spell. He looked like he wanted to say something more, but he couldn't find the words. A glance back at the Pantheon and their remote control was all it took to convince him to jump through the portal as well. At the same time, Celestia rushed forward and wrapped Twilight in a wing hug, her sister now standing by the edge of the portal and staring through it back at the mortal world.

"Goodbye, my faithful student," Celestia whispered. "Whoever you are in the next life, make it a good one."

Twilight nodded as she pulled away.

"SISTER!" Luna called.

With reluctance, Celestia turned and fled through the portal as well, her sister following and closing it behind them. Now alone with the avatar of the Pantheon, Twilight and her friends turned to face him down, backed up only by a terrified Velocity.

"Oh, it seems we've reached the end of the countdown," Iron said with a giggle. "Aren'tcha proud, Mistuh J?"

The green burst out of his eyes and began flowing across the ground like liquid as he pressed the button. Twilight pulled her friends into a hug. Pinkie dragged Velocity in as well in their last moments. All the while, the Pantheon laughed.

***

"What's going on?!" Softy demanded.

"I told you. The afterlife is exploding. This entire realm is about to be consumed."

"WHAT?! What happens then?! Where do we all go?"

Satan puffed out a small cloud of smoke through his nostrils.

"I couldn't say."

Softy turned back to climb the stairs.

"I need to get back to the others! We need to leave!"

"They've already left."

The rumbling was getting worse. Rocks were falling from the ceiling in the distance. Softy's blood ran cold.

"...What?" he nearly whispered.

"They have gone. I know not why. But they... hmm..."

"What? What?!"

It was a curious sight to see a demon king raising his eyebrow at you, but Satan was doing so.

"...You no longer have the intangibility spell around you. You should have fallen into the void of time. Perhaps a tactic of your friends to allow you to escape without them. Yet... here you remain. What are you, Soft Spoken?"

Softy frowned.

"I think we both know the answer to that, demon. But if I can't get out of here by falling through into the void, how do I escape?!"

Satan laughed.

"Simple. You must be thrown through, rather than be expected to fall."

The demon king raised a finger and placed it next to the stairs. He moved it in a circular motion four times, and a trail of light followed the movement of his finger, giving way after the fourth rotation to a portal to a hazy-looking purple dimension.

"One last favour for your kind before I die. How you will make your way back to Celestia, I know not, but if you do, tell her that my last act was to save you. It is not sufficient to atone for my sins, for I am sin incarnate, but I'm sure she will be happy that I tried at least."

Soft Spoken nodded. With a grim finality, he walked back a few paces, galloped forwards, and then leapt off the stairway and into the portal. He disappeared through it, and it closed just as the ceiling gave way.

***

The portal was imperfect, not dropping the ponies exactly where they had left from. It was instead suspended in the middle of the air above the entrance hall of the Harmonite temple. Celestia had no time to right herself in the air or catch herself with her wings before she face-planted on the temple floor. Her sister was right beside her, already getting up.

Celestia dragged herself to her hooves also, though it was slow and arduous for her. The injuries that First had given her were still giving her whole body a dull ache, and her eyes were heavy after the experience. For all that they had all gone through, it was probably she that had suffered the most from that journey.

Arcelio and the Harmonites entered the room from the far end.

"What the devil happened?!" asked Elder Seneca, rushing to the princess's side and helping her up.

"Where are the rest of the spirits of harmony?" asked Arcelio. "In fact, where is that Soft Spoken fellow?"

Princess Celestia didn't say anything. Instead, she turned to the door and headed for the exit. She could hear the spiders and the ponies begin talking behind her as she left, opening the door and emerging into the snowstorm outside again. New Arachnia lay below. Further down the mountain, though it was obscured by the weather, she could see the Prometheus, still waiting for her.

The door opened again. Celestia looked back as Luna also walked out into the snow.

"Sister, where are you going?"

Celestia could see her breath from all the cold, but she barely felt it herself. Though it had only really been a few hours at most, it felt like a year since she had last been in the physical world again. She turned away from Luna, looking south, towards Equestria. Even now, her subjects out there were suffering.

She chose her words carefully.

"I must make a detour," she explained. "After what just happened... I think I need to speak with Second. I owe him a visit."

Celestia spread her wings and took off. Luna reached out a hoof to stop her, but wasn't fast enough. She cried out to her, but her sister paid no attention. Soon, Luna was left alone outside the temple, hoof still outstretched as the older alicorn disappeared, blending into the snow and clouds as she soared away.

***

Back in the temple, Gold Coin sat by himself by the mural depicting the Battle of the Four Armies. The princesses had left, and Explodey and Chain Mail were left trying to explain to Arcelio and the Harmonites just what had happened. Needless to say, it was a very long and complicated story, so this looked like it would be going on for a while. Over in the corner, Ancient Tome sat by himself, head bowed and trying his hardest not to be seen. Broad Sword and Sliske stood in the middle of the room, just talking to each other.

And as for Mystic, he was creeping up to Goldie's side. The stallion looked aside at him, giving Mystic pause, before putting his eyes on the mural again. Mystic took this as a sign to sit down next to him.

"Mr. Gold Coin?" he said in what could almost be described as a squeak.

"Yes?" Gold Coin replied with a sigh.

"What will happen to Softy? Will he be okay?"

"I don't know, kid. Twilight said that he fell into the void of time. That means he could end up anywhere in history. I hope that means that he could only fall into the past. If he fell into the future then we might never see him again. If he fell into the past, he might still find a way back to us somehow. I don't know how, but it's possible. Still, even then... history is dangerous. And if he could go anywhere in history..."

Mystic hugged his leg.

"I'm worried about him, Mr. Gold Coin."

Gold Coin smiled and ruffled the colt's hair with his other foreleg.

"Me too, kid. Me too."

***

Luna stayed outside. Though Celestia was gone, she couldn't help but stay there, transfixed, staring off into the distance at Equestria just as her sister had been doing.

"What are you thinking, Tia?" she muttered to herself.

Down below, she noticed a hooded figure ascending the path to the Harmonite temple, carrying a wooden walking stick in one hoof. She kept watch on this figure for a moment, trying to decipher what it was about him that she found so strange. It was then that she remembered where they were. There weren't any ponies in New Arachnia, and this was a pony. It must have been one of the crew from the Prometheus, coming up to deliver news. She wondered what could have gone wrong now.

Luna cantered down the path to meet the hooded pony, who stopped in front of her when he saw her approach.

"What is it?" she asked.

The pony threw back his hood. Luna gaped.

"Soft Spoken?!"

The much, much older Soft Spoken only smiled back at her.

"That any way to greet an old friend?" he cracked, before devolving into a fit of coughing.

***

"So what do we do?" asked Mystic, still hugging Gold Coin's leg.

"What do you mean?"

"How do we find Softy?"

Gold Coin tilted his head back and considered the question.

"I guess... if it's true that the Pantheon really do need us all together again for the Elements of Harmony to work, then they'll get Softy back to us somehow. I don't know what to do, personally. All we can do is just... hope that he turns up."

A hoof tapped Gold Coin's shoulder.

"Ahem."

The both of them turned around to see Princess Luna and Soft Spoken standing behind them, the latter in a hooded cloak and carrying a walking stick. He smiled and waved at them.

"SOFTY?!" the businesspony shouted.

Everyone else in the room, ponies and spiders alike, heard him and all turned to look their way. Softy lowered his hood so that they could all see, and the rest of their friends rushed over to their side. Explodey galloped over the fastest, almost tackling Softy as he pulled him into a hug as well. Broad Sword joined them. The old stallion let out a pained groan.

"Ahhh...! Please don't do that! These old bones are fragile!" he begged in a much more strained voice than they were used to hearing from him.

Explodey and Broad Sword both pulled away again, though they both kept grinning at him. Mystic wandered over and gave him a much gentler embrace, although like usual for Mystic, he was only tall enough to hug his foreleg. Chain Mail and Sliske stood aside, while Gold Coin was still wearing that bewildered look.

"How though?! What?! Where did you...?! How?!" he spluttered.

Softy chuckled, having to stop when he began coughing again.

"No need to worry," he assured them. "I know what happened... sort of. You dropped me into the void to save me. It's fine. I only went back a few years anyway. It's been a long, long wait, but I'm glad to finally be with you all again."

Gold Coin reached out and touched Softy's face, running a hoof over it. It was indeed the same Soft Spoken, but somehow even older. Before, he looked old enough to be seventy. Now, he really did look one hundred and thirty, with his wrinkles being worse than ever before, a few new liver spots, and his eyes looked so weary now. More than that, even though his body was covered by the cloak, it was evident that he was much thinner now. The pony was practically a skeleton.

Gold Coin pulled his hoof away.

"Dear Celestia... What happened to you?"

"Time. Just time."

"Softy, answer me honestly now," Gold Coin said in a low voice. "How long were you waiting for us?"

Softy tried to deflect the question with a casual laugh.

"Oh, not that long! A few years! It looks bad, but I was old anyway. You age a lot faster towards the end. Trust me though, I think I've still got a good few years left."

He again coughed. Gold Coin frowned.

"You didn't answer the question. How long, Softy?"

Soft Spoken's smile faltered for a moment, but he kept it up.

"Not long. Two, three years..."

"You're lying." Gold Coin advanced on his friend. "Don't you lie to me! I can tell that you're lying. Nopony ages that much in three years! How long, Softy?! How old are you now?!"

Fangs popped from Soft Spoken's mouth as he leaned in and shouted in Gold Coin's face.

"FIVE! HUNDRED! AND! TWELVE!"

Everyone's eyes widened and they all took a step back from him. Softy began crying.

"I'm five hundred and twelve..." he sobbed.

He collapsed, and Gold Coin caught him, the older stallion crying into his shoulder.

END.

Author's Note:

Entire new chapter of Human written and edited from scratch in two weeks and with no help. I am officially back in the zone.

So, as you may have noticed, I think I had some personal issues with the afterlife arc that I needed to work out. NAMELY THAT IT FUCKING SUCKED. So I destroyed it, and all the characters that came out of it. Boom. Problem solved.

Well, technically they're not any more dead than before. Twilight and friends didn't stop existing or anything. But with reincarnation, I think there's more of a balance now. The point of the Firstian afterlife was to make the deaths less grim and keep the tone from getting too heavy, but I know it also had the effect of removing a lot of tension and making it seem like there were no true consequences for death. The new reincarnation cycle, I think, finds a happier balance between death not being the end and death still being tragic and something to avoid. The dead from now on are never truly gone, but they are gone as we knew them.

All this death talk unfortunately seemed to weigh heavily on this chapter, and I think it was a bit more lacking for comedy than usual, but the events and subject matter demanded it. I'm going to try not to have the tone bounce around so much anymore. From now on, I'm going to try to keep every scene in a given chapter a fairly even mix of comedic and serious, and chapters as a whole will have a more consistent feel, being either overall comedic or overall dark, and with plenty of lead-in from the previous chapter if we do shift tone between them. I don't think I'll ever manage a completely happy marriage of comedy and drama, but I can try.

Another thing you'll notice with this chapter that's different is that I'm trying to ease up on the telling. No more (or at least, far less) directly stating the emotions of the characters. Gonna try to convey it more through dialogue and body language if I can. So if you got a clear sense of what emotions the characters were feeling this chapter, despite me not using as many "he screamed in fury" or "said sadly" statements or whatever, then I'm doing my job right at last.

As always, I encourage any criticism or even just minor nitpicks that any of you have. I know I'm trying a lot different with this chapter, and I'd like to know how most if it came across to see if you all agree that I'm moving in the right direction, or if you think some stuff could still use work. Human is a learning tool for me, and all of you are my teachers.

Thank you for reading all my bullshit, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

Next Chapter: Jekyll and Hyde.

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