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.
There are some skulls that need bullets through 'em. I'll go get my LSAT...
Big red button of Doom is always fun. I think I have at least 6 different designs in the shed. My own personal favourite is the ZPR laser.
Karic Reincarnation is fun, especailly if cycle memory occurs, no matter what the variation.
Pantheon, Nigel is going to be a pain in the backside.
3983007
My favourite is Doom by Penguins.
Don't think Second is going to enjoy hearing what happened to first.
Oh god how I wish there was a fourth, or that the third, (Whom's story is moving updates at a yearly pace ) saved the day somehow. The story just seeems so depressing now. A world where the villains don't get a choice to be good or evil is just....
I wish that button would turn back time, and first and second could be made only lightly chaotic instead of the full ballistic that world made them. Like their moral compasses could be reset to match the third's....
I just hate to see someone who isn't inherently evil not have any control over the cause of his death. Think about it, it's even more depressing than any deaths possible, aside from torture to death. At least when normal people die, their actions are what lead them to that point, and they have a physical choice in the matter. This though, this takes away the freedom to even do that much.
Slavery is a terrible thing....
Reincarnation is probably my least favorite form of afterlife. I absolutely hate it. Ugh. Oh well. It's not like I can ask you to take it back. It just pisses me off that what it is doing is flipping off what a person is and telling them to do it over again. Sure, it has both good and bad points, but it basically gets rid of the sense of self. It erases everything you are. I just hate it.
3983422
And therein lies the tragic element. But then again every form of afterlife has its pros and cons. And the Firstian afterlife, as we saw, was pretty heavy on the cons. I'm a Christian myself, but the vision of the afterlife put forth in Dante's Inferno creeped me the fuck out. Which is why it was the primary inspiration for the nightmare that has been the last several chapters, and why I'm glad that it's a fiction rather than an actual religious text.
Reincarnation I don't much like either for the same reasons as you, but it's thematically appropriate, considering that the story is large in part about individual freedom and identity, with the Pantheon representing the opposing force trying to destroy those traits.
But that's just my opinion.
Holy shit, two chapters, I'm proud, Mistuh J.
At least First got his shit together and got his message out there in some way. But now I'm curious as to what the hell Third did.
R.I.P, Iron Hoof
3983576
This is excellent. Everybody must now join this group.
3983422
Eh, in Reincarnation's original format, that was very much not true. The slate didn't get wiped clean, everything you did was tallied up and depending on whether you were good or bad, you went up or down the reincarnation pole. What it basically meant is that souls who did good in their former life ended up with more power(and thus, more capacity to do good) in the next. Start off as some small animal, work your way up to human, work your way up being more and more powerful humans... eventually, become one with everything and be the universe, or something along those lines. Basically, reincarnation didn't last forever. Eventually, there is in fact a final afterlife. You just had to go through several hundred lifetimes worth of effort(your soul starts off in a bug) to reach it.
Two updates in less than a month?
Who is this guy and what has he done with DannyJ?
I honestly didn't like the afterlife ark either. I love how you just admitted to destroying it because you didn't like how it turned out though. It was all written well, just the afterlife part seemed to drag on forever.
3984025 sense it is all speculation anyways, Reincarnation can be anything you want it to be. There is no right way to do something that hasn't been proven to exist.
3983422 If you think about it, reincarnation is the most likely. If your consciousness comes from the quantum mechanical interactions (nothing can be the same state at the same time, so this is the most likely to be true) of neurons interacting, then once you die, if the same quantum states appear in another form that can process like a brain, then your perspective might form again. I explained this horribly, but this is my theory. I am not saying it is right but other than this I all got is your perspective would freeze the instant your neurons stop working, this means you would always exist, but only in the Planck second before complete inactivity. I went way off topic here... Eh.
Lol nice job just nuking the whole shity afterlife.
good to be back in the real world now, and i softy being a vampony, dunno why i didnt expect that.
3983474
Which is why Dante's inferno usually doesn't represent the actual christian hell, despite the fact that even most Christians accept it as one nowadays. (It was a book he used to lambast rivals and people he hated!)
*Nukes Dantes Inferno* YAY :D
Srsly given that we probably won´t be able to come up with an afterlife that entertains us for eternity and where everyone gets what he deserves/has at least a possibility of redemption, I think reincarnation is the most elegant way to deal with the whole afterlife issue. At least it´s the most fair-minded way without the need of introducing any deities to the story
(exept Space Odin...no one can argue against Space Odin)
3985209
Dante's Inferno was Bible fanfic. The world's FIRST fanfic. In a way, we have it to blame for this whole site.
For me the real kicker here isn't the destruction of the Firstian afterlife, the reincarnation of all souls involved or a karma system. It's First's fate and that the ponies are starting to get an idea onto how the narrative is shaping their world. Heck, you could argue that all canon villains might not have been that bad to begin with and were instead forced by the Pantheon to drive the story forward. Give the good guys something to do so they can be good guys. How much of a hero are you really when the bad guys are not in control of their own deeds and you are fated to defeat them no matter what?
What really interests me is how Explodey "digested" First. Did he assimilate his soul? Did he absorb his memories, including the one shown? I very much doubt this will be free of consequences.
3987236
In whose favour?
Holy fuckshit...
This story feels like it's actually alive, like it would actually exist somewhere.
Creating an universe of your own, it's bizarre, it's understandable, it's complicated, it's easy, it's fun, it's horrible, it's fascinating, it's boring, it's everything and nothing.
Yup...
Holy fuckshit.
That's literally the only way I can describe this story anymore. I can't make clear if this story is an actual extremely huge and well-developed universe, or if it's just a big joke.
"Holy fuckshit."
~ Me
I wonder, does the title stand for something else than the humans in the story. Does it stand for the complexity of being a human with all it's questions? Or does it just indicate the being of a human in the story? Is the human in the story even human?
Holy fuckshit...
3988068
Honestly, the title is probably the most meaningless part of this whole thing. It's not even technically accurate, since there is more than one human, and the main human it refers to is named for the fact that he is the second of a pair. And in hindsight, I didn't make it an easily searchable title either.
It's the little things in life that trip you up, isn't it?
3988097
And then comes the answer.
This is exactly what I was after with my comment. Sometimes things are so easy to take and overanalyze with all kinds of philosophical ways, and yet the only true answer is something along the lines of "word "simple" has an i in it"...
That's why I did that little "philosophical overanalyzation". But it's also funny how I accidentally intentionally made my comment seem both like an actual comment and like a joke.
Fucking hell your story makes me feel brilliant!
OK. I just started this story two days ago. It was long. Like really long. First thing to note is that the entire premise is the most fucking awesome concept. Second thing is there are so many different things happening at once, ii don't even.... Thirdly, the characters are hilarious. Finally there is so much horror in this story, i can't even begin to describe it. All in all, this story is fucking metal. Great job writing it.
This comment is probably going to get a lot of dislikes but personly if second dies I probably won't read any further
3989771
If Second dies the story may run out of villains and thus the narrative ends (for the time being).
Oh my god, what happened to Hayato? Did the ponies kil him?
Finally, we are going to see more of Second.
Now that First is dead, will Celestia be able to tell Second that she encountered his son in the afterlife?
Oh. OH.
Oh yeah, congrats on not being on the death bed anymore, J.
I just wanna say first that I LOVE this story and have been following it from the beginning.
as to my opinion of this and the firstian afterlife arc in general, I really liked it.
I have always been intrigued by Dante's Inferno in general and I think you described it very well. Truthfully I am sad that first died but I understand that he needed to for the story's sake. The only thing that I think needed more emphasis was the video log from First. I think that it should have been sadder and conveyed how he really was a good guy before he was corrupted.
I know you HATED this arc but I think it came out great.
Your story here sounds very fun, but I have a question: How much (and why) does this story deserve its 'sex' tag?
3998302
Well, the type of humour used throughout the story ranges massively depending on the context and the tone I was going for in a given scene or chapter, mostly with the intent of keeping the comic element fresh and not having to rely on a gimmick. The downside to this is that some of my jokes are completely tasteless. The sex tag is there for some of the more risque comedic moments, and offscreen sex between some characters does happen to facilitate these jokes sometimes, but it's not often and it's never seen or described. There are no "sex scenes". Mostly stuff is either suggested, inferred or sometimes just stated.
Either way, if the presence of the sex tag at all bothers you that much, then I'd probably suggest not reading it. The sexual elements are far from being the focus of the story, but they're still very hard to ignore. If you have a low tolerance for that brand of humour, you're gonna have a bad time.
3998509
Thank you for the quick and honest reply! I guess I'll skip this one.
3999722
No problem, man.
4004953
While I do love seeing a range of opinions in this story and I normally like to refrain from debating with my commenters (as I support any reader's ability to differently interpret the story or characters), I really have to question what it is about the new Elements that makes them retarded, in terms of morality and their actions regarding the humans at least. None of them hold any responsibility for whatever happened to Second and First (if anyone truly does), the humans have been the aggressors in all conflicts, and the new Elements have been given very few reasons why they should sympathise with or try to understand the humans.
I don't normally question my commenters' opinions, but this is the one thing I genuinely don't understand. An apocalyptic legendary evil returned to the world, murdered a beloved monarch in front of them, murdered one of their friends, and when they go to meet his counterpart in the afterlife, who they've been led to believe is better, they find that he's a mass-torturer. So far, most of what they've done has been reactionary, and I can't really see how they can be called wrong for doing any of that.
Like, what else could they have done given the circumstances? Other than not fight the humans and let things get even worse?
4005023
Okay, something is seriously wrong with FiMfiction, because this is the fifth time within the span of two weeks, where someone has responded to my comment, and I didn't get any notification.
Okay, first, I like the new elements, I don't think they're retarded, in fact, I was being a moron for improperly wording my opinion. As stated, I like the new elements, Soft Spoken is a pretty cool guy, Mystic and Sliske, I believe that's how you spell his name, are a pretty cool duet, and Sliske's back story was well developed, Gold Coin is rather enjoyable, Broad Sword and Explody are actually my favorite two characters, and Chain Mail is rather admirable. What I was referring to when I said that it was retarded, was the forced friendship lessons, and the like. The way I saw it, the new elements were being forced to conform to the traditionalist ideals of Harmony and Friendship, which I totally disagree with, wholeheartedly. The story's secondary characters, forcing the new elements, to become a mirror of the old, would have defeated what makes the new elements, friends, and, I'll be honest, would have stripped the story of much of it's comedic relief, that I have come to enjoy whilst reading the past 37 or so chapters.
Second, I never said, or really wanted to imply they were responsible for first and second. I had wrongfully assumed that the story wasn't as meta, during First's and Second's insurrection. I had thought that since Celestia was in a way, a main character, during the original run of the show, that she had some semblance of free will, and because of this, her actions were wrong, and et cetera, et cetera. I don't think what First and Second did originally, was right, but now I can see that there is far more Meta to the story than I thought, so really, a good portion of the blame that I placed on Celestia and Luna, can now be placed on the Pantheon, because they were playing both sides, far more than I originally thought.
Third, I sympathize with First and Second, up until the point where their actions were done in free will, everything else, is their own darkness, that they should rightfully be punished for. And I also think that the ponies give DC, and the Pantheon, far less credit, than they should. And while I believe it's fair to say that the Elements have no reason to trust Second, and possibly First, if he makes a comeback, but it has clearly been made obvious that First and Second have both gone through their own little personal hell, at the cost of their lives, and sanity, all for the sick amusement of the Pantheon. Now they shouldn't necessarily sympathize with them, but I was kind of questioning why none of them really realized how First and Second's actions were born from the Pantheon's meddling, and that if you kill the puppet master, you release the puppet. This was evident, to me, when a couple chapters back, a number of the new Elements were opting to let the Pantheon stick around. If that made any sense, let me know, because I'm having a difficult time describing my side.
Forth, I think what they're doing, is fine, but is also more or less, giving into what the Pantheon wants. They want the narrative to continue, they want the elements to do what they think is right, they want Second to go down, so that he can be removed from the picture. It's like the enemy of my enemy sort of deal, while First and Second are the traditional villains of the story, they are merely beings born of circumstance, and forces beyond their level of existence, and comprehension. So while they could be working to oppose Second, and First, it just seems smarter to help oust the Pantheon, because it's through their actions, that First and Second, did, for the most part, what they did.
Fifth, there is far more I could elaborate upon, that I could use to further explain how much I interpreted in the wrong way, all because of the chapters that I read after the one I commented on. A large majority of what I had assumed to be the truth, I found to be wrong, the stuff I thought I had right, was wrong, the story is now even far more Meta than I gave it credit for, and the Pantheon has far more influence than I thought. So, you can pretty much disregard a good portion of what I said, the inconsistent moral tone still somewhat withstanding.
So, to wrap things up, I'm pretty sure there is something I missed, or failed to elaborate upon. And looking over everything, I can tell it doesn't seem to make much sense, so please, if something I said, doesn't make sense, let me know, and I will try to put it in a different fashion, they're already been one misunderstanding, and I do not want to create any more. And I wasn't trying to disrespect you, or insult your work, or the story, it's just I got caught up in the morality aspect of the story, that really seems to, at least from my perspective, lacks a consistent tone, if you will. If anything, I love the story for it's creativity, it's plot, fore mentioned minor issues withstanding, it's characters, it's humor, it's meta, even though that has confused more quite a bit, and it's atmosphere.
So let me apologize for the misunderstanding. I didn't intend to make such a moronic comment.
4006735
No, that's cool. I probably just didn't realise that you weren't up to the current point the story is up to. I fucked up too. It's all good. And sorry about that inconsistent tone thing. That's been a problem from day one. I'm taking steps to try to fix it in later chapters.
4014193
Moral conflicts, I am okay with, more than okay with actually, I love them, I like characters debating conflicting philosophies, and ideals, trying to meet a middle ground, or trying to do what they perceive is "right". What I had an issue with was the fact that the moral overtones to the story, and the individual characters, were flipping so much, I was beginning to have difficulty figuring whether half of the cast was good, bad, grey, or if they're going into the third dimension, and making their own morality. There is also nothing wrong with characters changing the purview of their moral philosophies, but as I said, when First starts to look good, only for him to turn into afterlife Mega Hitler, who managed to make Satan his bitch, while Second goes from playing Foalball to basically being Jesus if he had Deadpool's charisma, I start to get seriously confused. There was also the issue that while the Elements were trying to be the lawful good types, they also seemed to miss out on the fact that First was imprisoning murderers, rapists, and hardened criminals. And then the story takes another turnaround, and has Ancient Tome releasing his murderous, zealot, brethren, and these guys are supposed to be the good ones? The same ones who murdered, fuck if I know many innocent guards, and other opposing individuals?
And I was also beginning to question the logic that was running through some of the ponies heads, when they were okay with keeping the Pantheon around, you know, the same guys who started all this shit, caused Second to wound, and kill Celestia, and blow of Luna's horn, and caused First to die, and through their influence, caused him to be corrupted, bring forth Dante's interpretation of hell, and damn thousands of souls to the ninth circle of hell, in addition to the laundry list of other shit they've caused.
But I am with you on this point, the hell chapters were somewhat difficult to get through. For me, it wasn't the content, or the tone, it really came down to the forced morality.
4014271
I'm understanding your point of view a lot more now, and I think there's been some confusion.
Despite what you've inferred, Second and the Brotherhood have never been presented as good guys at any point. At most I can say that I've tried to present them as people rather than static objects. They have good sides to them, they'll occasionally do good things, and sometimes shit happens to them that causes them to gain your sympathy. But neither have ever meant to be presented as being morally in the right, and both Tome and Second have acknowledged and reinforced this themselves.
Now the Elements and First are a little different. First himself went from being perceived as a good character to a bad one not because he changed at all, but because the bad things that he had always done were not revealed until later. When Celestia first met him in the story, we were led to believe that he was a benevolent father to his subjects. Later we learned about his darker side and he was opposed and defeated. And around the same time, we learn about where that darker side came from and that it might not have been entirely his fault (though do note that it has not been clarified yet how much was his fault and how much was the Pantheon's corruption).
The Elements meanwhile took a stance against First because of the people he was torturing that were not murderers, rapists and hardened criminals, who were thrown in along with those that were.
On the subject of the Pantheon, I'll admit that they're horrible and that ignoring the threat they pose is stupid at this point. However, I'd also like to remind you that those arguing against fighting the Pantheon were doing so at a point in the story where the Pantheon were thought to be relatively harmless and unknowing of the damage they're causing. The Pantheon weren't directly interfering or being actively malevolent as far as the characters knew. So whether any given character was against the Pantheon at that point or not depended on their moral stance on whether it's right or necessary to punish people for crimes committed unintentionally.
Perhaps you might still find fault with the morality of the characters, but I felt I should at least explain the rationale I'm using as I write them. I don't group them as good guys and bad guys, despite the way many of the characters classify themselves and each other. Real life has no black and white morality, and neither does this story. It has protagonists and antagonists, but it has no good and evil. EVERYONE is grey here. That's why you and the other commenters are really able to take anybody's side.
Except the Pantheon. They're probably as close to morally black as you can get.
Ah, this is starting to feel like the old chapters again. The afterlife arc wasn't really bad but It just was missing something from the previous chapters. Something important. Anyway, something in this chapter had me wondering...
"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."
This really caught my attention. It's surprising for me that Celestia, who loves all her ponies to death would think that. In criminal justice, at least in my country, we say that we would rather have a thousand guilty persons free than having just one innocent recieving undue punishment. And, well, saying otherwise is really pragmatic but having Celestia accept having innocent ponies locked up in hell because setting them free would also set free bad ponies is kinda offputting for me. That is really no different from sacrificing a small town to save Canterlot, for example, which is something you would think Celestia wouldn't have. This probably isn't really important and its no big deal, but it just got my attention.
Great chapter anyway. Looking foward to the next one.
4031795
There was never any intention to leave them in there permanently. That would have gone beyond pragmatism and made them just as bad as First. It's just that they needed time to go through the records and work out who to release, because releasing all of them would have been a lot worse than letting only a thousand guilty people free. The innocent would have been let out either way. It's just a matter of doing it now at the cost of terrorising trillions of innocents and then having to round up all the guilty again later, or waiting a few weeks to release the innocents so they didn't literally let all Hell loose on Paradise.
And once again I have failed as a writer, unable to convey this through the story and needing to explain it in the comments for you. I apologise.
4032705 Oh Danny, you're so cute when you're full of self doubt. We know how much Celestia loves her ponies, so people can infer that she doesn't intend to keep them there forever.
4087181
Jetty, bro, you know I love you, right? Really, your comments are always my favourites, and I love having someone like you who can actually read this deep into what I'm doing with a story. But please, don't antagonise my critics, and don't try to excuse the flaws they point out when I've already acknowledged them as being flaws. I'm glad to see that you disagree with Pixel on this, but that's no reason to start a comment war, and I'd rather not have to moderate one. People have differing opinions. Let him have his.
As long as First and Second eventually meet again, as long as they meet again, as long as they meet again. *crosses fingers*
4089366
If you're going to call out another commenter for having a perceived attitude problem, then that's fine, but I'd really rather you keep your own temper under control. If he didn't mean it in the way that you read it, then by stooping to that level, you become the one who opens hostilities and you become the one who looks worse coming out of it.
I swear I wrote a blog on this subject before...
4106171
I haven't forgotten my other commenters. I never forget my other commenters. I simply happen to believe that everyone's opinion is legitimate until they prove otherwise, and I don't count being a dick to someone as grounds to dimiss their critiques. If Stalin himself said that he thought my fic was too heavy on the adverbs, I'd still consider that when writing the next chapter. I've dealt with some real cockhead commenters before who were far nastier and far less helpful than Pixel (as you well know), and even them I took into consideration. A comment that doesn't help in some way, shape or form is very rare.
Skirts is massively self-critical because his work is legitimately flawed and he knows it. Somber, the writer of Project Horizons, is the same. And while both of them often come off as super depressed because of that, as writers, I think that they both benefit from that attitude. Humility is a virtue, and in real life I'm often told it's something I'm sorely lacking. I employ it online because it is useless to be anything else. I cannot defend myself when I don't really believe the defences I'd be making. I'll explain my rationale and I'll factor in the subjectivity of opinions, but when a critic points out something that is true and that I agree with, to do anything other than cop to it, apologise, and improve is pointless.
What's more, I maintain that attitude for the sake of peacekeeping. I dislike online conflict in all its forms, and while I'm always up for a good debate, my top priority in any situation when I see things getting heated or people being angry at each other is to defuse it. If someone holds a seething hatred for a shitty fanfic they read or some real life drama that happened, I tell them to mellow out. If two people are arguing in a comment thread that I'm involved with, I'll tell them to both chill and try to find the common ground. Even a lot of my blogs are about trying to put to rest long-running arguments or trying to understand a point of view I'm unfamiliar with.
And in the cases where I am a part of the anger I'm trying to quell, such as in the case of a commenter that might be saying what could be perceived as rude remarks, that process begins with replying honestly, calmly and politely to set a good example, ease the tension, and subconsciously remind said commenter that they're dealing with a rational human being who is treating them with respect and thus is someone that should be respected in turn.
Which kind of falls apart when someone else then re-opens hostilities on my behalf, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't, mmkay?
4116402
A'ight. Whatever man. I'm just trying to head off an explosion by turning off the gas mains here.
4120824
Thank you. Apology accepted.
It's no different to me, since I don't even emotion. FYI, if I cared at all about emotions, I'd be complaining