Concepts & Creations – Trixie vs. Equestria 2 · 1:57am Apr 12th, 2020
At last, we finally get to what was intended to be the culmination of my TvE series that, alas, will almost certainly never come to be. Before we get started, let's make sure everyone's up to speed. Linked below are all the previous TvE-related C&C blogs. Give it a go and come back when you're ready. I can wait.
Concepts & Creations – TvE Tales: The Many Lives of Pinkie Pie
Concepts & Creations – TvE Tales: On Sunburned Wings
Concepts & Creations – TvE Tales: Rise Against
Concepts & Creations – TvE Tales: Pony at the Gates
Concepts & Creations – TvE Tales: Belle
Concepts & Creations – TvE Tales: At The Mausoleum of Twilight
All caught up? Good. So by this point most of the Mane 6 have discovered their destinies in relation to their Elements. Equestria is on the brink of economic collapse and all-out civil war. All over the world, creatures are suffering hallucinations featuring themselves, sometimes in disturbing ways. All of it is coming to a head when the Mausoleum of Twilight's construction is finally shut down. The princesses are all struggling to keep order and save the country from all this upheaval brought about by the defeat of Evilestia and the return of Celestia to the throne, which is the reason for a completely overhaul of the Equestrian government.
And then there is an explosion at the mausoleum. Ponies are dying. Lots of ponies. Very quickly. Some new disaster has started. Celestia, Luna, and Trixie are caught flat-hoofed and rush to investigate. What they find is a trail of multicolored fog and Twilight Sparkle missing – both of them.
Let's back up. All the way to the beginning: Twilight's Inferno, Yes, I wrote Trixie vs. Equestria first, but chronologically TwI precedes it. Even then, way back in 2014, I had these plans laid out in my head. I knew where the story was meant to go, and I prepared for it. As some of you guessed (and by now absolutely know thanks to that art up top), it all centers around Ne'er-Do-Well, the conjured abomination of Starwirl the Bearded in the Sloth level of Tartarus. Allow me to take this opportunity to relate its story.
In this AU, Starswirl was once Evilestia's trusted advisor and magical researcher. But Starswirl was a perfectionist, and perhaps even a coward. He always insisted that he was never ready for anything, unprepared, required more research. He was convinced that to achieve anything, you had to understand everything about the goal, but he always fell into a circular doom of never acting because he never thought he was ready. Evilestia, disgusted by what she saw as Starswirl's incompetence and laziness, threw him into Tartarus to serve as an example for his successor.
Ever-ambitious, Starswirl didn't just lie down and take this. Using his powerful magic, he created his own laboratory in what would eventually become the level of Sloth. There he began research potential means of escape. Yet he knew that he could not escape without also determining a means of defeating Celestia. He needed to perform more research. Thus did he fall into his own personal limbo of always studying to be prepared for something he was convinced he'd never be prepared for, and there he has remained ever since. Eventually, Starswirl began studying a highly unethical field: Soul Magic. Which, as the name suggests, involves using the souls of sapient creatures to power spells. But capturing souls is a wearying, demanding process, and Starswirl wasn't interested in wasting time on it. Far better to have the souls already gathered so he could just do his research. For that, he needed someone else... or something else to do the hunting for him.
Thus did Starswirl create Ne'er-Do-Well, a soulless golem designed and programmed to do two things: capture souls and seek a way out of Tartarus. It seemed the perfect solution: Ne'er would travel the local area of Tartarus and steal the souls of any creatures that wandered through, delivering those souls to a "soul cairn" in the laboratory, and in the process would look for any potential chance of getting out of the Eternal Prison, and all the while Starswirl could continue his research uninterrupted. What did he care what happened to the souls? This was Tartarus. It was filled with scum and monsters anyway, so who'd miss them?
There was one fundamental flaw in the creature's design: Ne'er was a conjured construct that required souls as a fuel source. Starswirl solved this problem by making Ne'er internal "soul cairn" with a tiny leak Ne'er could feed upon. He'd lose a little bit of each soul it collected, but that was a small price to pay considering he was getting a theoretically limitless supply.
But Starswirl's solution was shortsighted. He didn't realize that with every soul Ne'er captured and delivered, the creature would absorb just a tiny fraction more of the soul than it needed for survival. In doing so, it gained a small boost to its strength. Over the centuries Ne'er would collect and deliver countless souls, the vast majority from the worst types of creatures in the world: murderers, rapists, war criminals, door-to-door salesmares, and so on. Ne'er grew stronger. Ne'er grew darker. Ne'er developed a mind of its own. Over the years, the gradually more corrupt creature would stop merely stealing the souls of its victims directly and instead seek more inventive ways to gather them. It invented tortures. It began killing targets, but since Tartarus prevents actual death the victims would eventually be pieced back together, even when ripped apart, only to be tortured and killed again. Only when a target had given up the will to resist and accepted their fate to hopelessness would Ne'er take their souls. Starswirl had created a monster. He never even noticed.
Then, after hundreds of years of this, something comes along that neither Ne'er or Starswirl ever anticipated: an alicorn named Twilight Sparkle. Starswirl thinks in alicorn soul might make for some interesting research results. But Twilight, with the aid of Sunset Shimmer, escapes Ne'er's clutches. But not before Ne'er did... something. Something it didn't normally do.
“Are you okay?” Sunset was at her side, catching Twilight before she could fall.
“No, I am n-not okay.” She meant for it to be a shout, but all Twilight could manage was a whisper. “I almost h-had my soul sucked out b-by an abomination. This is not okay!” She jerked away and threw up a second time.
Sunset hovered over her, shifting and chewing her lip. “I d-don’t think it was trying to take your soul. That wasn’t its usual spell. I don’t know what it was trying to do.”
—Twilight's Inferno Chapter 5, "Naught but Smoke"
So what did Ne'er do? It occasionally gets shown that Twilight is sick from whatever this was. Indeed, in the end it is not Twilight's injuries that ultimately kill her but the sickness that originated with this encounter, a sickness that very slowly and subtly ate away at her. Ne'er itself never shows up again beyond nightmares and doesn't come up much afterwards, but Twilight herself knows that Ne'er is responsible for her illness. But at no point do I ever explain or bring up again exactly what it is Ne'er did to her. To understand that requires a key element of what Ne'er is:
Ne'er as programmed to collect souls and seek a means of escaping Tartarus. Another important piece of this puzzle is that Starswirl failed to specify that Ne'er was to look for an escape for Starswirl.
What creature, among all the creatures that exist, might stand a chance of escaping? By this time Ne'er was extremely powerful, enough so that it could challenge, if not for sure defeat, an alicorn. Ne'er had devoured so many souls that it was beginning to develop an independence from Starswirl, and in time it would certainly have broken free of his control entirely, but it wasn't quite there yet as of Twilight's Inferno. Yet it was powerful enough to defy his will in some ways. Ne'er resisted its orders to capture Twilight's soul and instead put a tiny piece of its own essence within Twilight, an essence poisoned by centuries of gathering countless souls of the most corrupt and foul creatures to have ever existed. From that point on, Twilight had a tiny, dormant piece of a demon within her, and it is that twisted chunk of foulness that finished her after she escaped.
Princess Twilight died, and then her body was found by Trixie Lulamoon and interred in crystal within the slums of Canterlot. Nopony suspected that within that body was hidden a corrupt spirit, a spirit which awoke after Twilight's death and continued with its programming: to collect souls. As the story of Princess Twilight spread, ponies and other creatures began to visit her tomb, be it from curiosity or other reasons. Through the thick crystal, the Ne'er spirit couldn't do much, but it could still consume trace amounts of soul energy from the visitors. As this world's Twilight Sparkle began to visit the body regularly, Ne'er began to connect to her, learning about the world through her mind, not caring that this process was having detrimental side effects for her.
Then Princess Twilight's body, and the Ne'er spirit, were moved to the mausoleum. Now it had access to workers coming and going regularly. With less crystal between it and the outside world, now it could feed with greater efficiency.
But there was more.
Princess Twilight Sparkle was from another world, and though she was deceased she remained connected to that alternate timeline via its Element of Magic which, as it happens, still existed in the TvE timeline. And while sharing Twilight's body, Ne'er had access to everything she knew about it and all the ways she was connected. Ne'er could see the threads: No Heroes, the Fleur-Verse, and yes, even the canon Equestria. New worlds to explore, full of fresh souls on which to feed. With that much sustenance to build upon, Ne'er could transcend the alicorns. By consuming all the souls of all the worlds... why, Ne'er could become a god. There would be no universe beyond its grasp. Using Princess Twilight's unnatural connection, it began to tug on the strings of time and space, pulling the four timelines closer to one another.
That's when the hallucinations began. Creatures all over the world seeing visions of themselves, some happier, some miserable, some dead. Nopony can explain it. Nopony has time to study it. So none of them have a chance to realize that what they're seeing isn't ghosts or a mass illusion. They are seeing themselves in the other timelines.
And their other selves are also seeing them.
The Ne'er spirit pulled the worlds together, and consumed more greedily to fuel the process and build its strength. Workers began dying. It knows what it needs to do, and when Twilight Sparkle arrives to beg the spirit of Princess Twilight to spare Equestria, it is Ne'er that answers.
The Ne'er spirit finally possesses enough strength to escape its confines. It consumes Twilight's soul and descends upon the locals, devouring all it can as quickly as it can, every soul increasing its strength. It moves from town to town, first like lightning, then a tornado, then a hurricane, making a beeline for Tartarus. It's only goal: to consume enough souls to break into the Eternal Prison, rejoin the original Ne'er, and consume all the souls there in one fell swoop, giving it all the power it needs to enact its plan.
Celestia, Luna, and Trixie pursue the creature, but have no idea the kind of threat they are dealing with. By the time they catch up, it is already at the Gates. Their attempts to thwart it fail spectacularly. The Gates are destroyed and Ne'er begins to feed, consuming the souls of all the prisoners – even that of its own creator, Starswirl. Too late, Celestia realizes what it is doing.
A desperate solution is devised. The timelines are interconnected because of two things: the body of Princess Twilight and the Element of Magic she brought with her from her own world. Returning them to their original timelines would severe the connection between the worlds, slamming the door on Ne'er scheme. Acting quickly, Celestia uses her substantial power to slow Ne'er while Luna retrieves the Element of Magic from Canterlot and Trixie descends into the living maelstrom – for by this time Ne'er is quite literally a rampant force of nature given life – to find Princess Twilight's body.
What would follow is a complex adventure through the combined canon, TvE, No Heroes, and Fleur multiverse. Trixie would meet all sorts of characters, all of whom are in the process of being merged with their counterparts from other worlds. Needless to say, this would be extremely traumatic for them, especially the ones who find themselves merging with their deceased counterparts (like Fine Crime). With memories and backstories and fates intertwining chaotically, madness is a very real threat. Trixie is no different, being forced to confront her own different forms and all their flaws and features. She would eventually meet and attempt to recruit each of the Mane 6, who all struggle with their own alternate selves. Over time, the merging goes beyond the psychological and into the physical, with the four bodies slowly becoming one. And even as all this is going on, Ne'er-Do-Well is consuming these souls into its "soul cairn", removing them from the scene and preventing them from helping Trixie.
Eventually, Trixie would find the body of Princess Twilight, now merged with the other Twilights who are all traumatized over the memories of their deceased counterpart. Luna too eventually arrives with the Element of Magic. Using the elements of Harmony, they give Princess Twilight her much-deserved final sendoff, returning her to her own timeline and severing the link between the worlds.
But Ne'er-Do-Well, by now a literal storm of malevolent, sentient Soul Magic, has become a creature beyond comprehension. Even if the other universes are saved, the TvE universe may very well be doomed. Trixie and Luna return to Celestia, somehow still holding the demon back but at the very edge of her limits. Ne'er is now spreading across the world, consuming souls at an exponentially increasing pace. With all that power, it may still have the magical ability to bridge the space between dimensions. In a last-ditch effort, Celestia sacrifices herself to pull out of Ne'er the source of all its strength: its "soul cairn." Together, Trixie and Luna destroy it, which in turn frees all the captured souls. With no means of containing its power, Ne'er finally perishes.
When the storm abates, the results are determined. Hundreds of thousands are dead, including Celestia. But not all; some of the souls were able to return to their bodies. The disaster has practically destroyed modern civilization, forcing the survivors to restart with a clean slate. Trixie takes on Celestia's duties and rules the new Equestria alongside Luna, beginning a new chapter in their universe's history.
I doubt it needs to be said, but there is so much going on with this story. It's impossible for me to know what I should and shouldn't discuss at this point. I can say that this would have been the definitive conclusion of the TvE series, with zero plans for expansions past it chronologically. Rather than go into depth about all the underlying consequences of this, I think I'll open this up to questions from the (admittedly limited) audience and answer what you folks consider to be important. I may do a second blog discussing more about this story's various elements if I feel the urge. I'd do it now, but this blog has gone on for long enough.
So come one, come all! Ask your questions and let me know what you think of this 6-year dream of mine, sadly, will remain only that.
My two cents? Just this summary was awesome, but I'm not sure it would have been worth writing six other fics worth of buildup beforehand. Especially considering that your self-contained works like Guppy Love and Bulletproof Heart are just as gripping without requiring so much of an investment from readers. Either way, thanks for sharing, and keep on writing, horsewords or otherwise.
I'm getting serious Crisis on Infinite Earths vibes from this. Not a bad thing, as that story was awesome!
Sounds very ambitious. Seems like the oncoming economic and civil war subplots would be dropped for a more standard Big Bad scenario. A little disappointed in that since I was expecting the characters to work through it and come to a compromise for the whole world. In this case, it's wiping out all that setup. Still, perhaps that would have factored in somewhere.
A fascinating tale throughout!
5240786
You're probably right, but I'm nothing if not ambitious to a fault. It's one of my greatest weaknesses. Everything I write I want to make larger than life, and the greatest challenge is to not let that natural desire take over my stories. For TvE, it absolutely did.
5240787
I had planned on all those threads tying into this story, although exactly how isn't clear. I fully acknowledge it would have been a tall order to get all those loose strings together with this. However, my primary goal all along had been to develop the Mane 6 so that they in turn could help Trixie develop during the course of this adventure and provide her the character boost she'd need to see the cataclysm through. Would this have been potentially unsatisfying? Absolutely. But as I mentioned in a prior comment, my ambition really got away with me on this one, which is a major reason why none of it happened.
I'm curious how this affects all the other timelines. You said that Ne'er was absorbing the souls of the Mane 6 into her soul cairn. Does this mean that the Mane 6 from every universe end up dead afterwards? On the same note, how's the death toll in the other universes?
Another thought I had is to wonder what happens with the Mane 6 within this universe. I assume that they at least would be dead, so do we get to see some conclusion to their stories? I suppose it would be pretty disappointing to see all of them, especially Rarity, get all the way through the events of their stories only to die horribly at the hands of Ne'er Do Well in the end.
Regardless, this seems like it would be a very exciting conclusion to this series. I know it likely won't happen, but should you find the time I wanted to give my support for seeing completed versions of these stories. Ambitious the series may be, but I would love to see the effects of Twilight's Inferno finally come to a close. Perhaps the first six could be condensed into an Order of Shadows-style group fic instead of each being their own separate complete story?
Well, even if you don't find the time, thanks for bringing the plans to light. These are some wonderful concepts
5241206
A good query, and one that I did consider, although not in too much depth because, let's face it, it was a long ways away. Assuming it happened at all, which we now know: it won't.
The thing about Ne'er-Do-Well's methods is that the soul cairn captures souls, but that means nothing for the body. I've been using the term "consuming a soul" poorly because it misrepresents what is really going on. Ne'er does have to feed from the Soul Cairn regularly to continue existing, but that is purely a survival element and is not related to how strong Ne'er is. The rate Ne'er consumed souls in the literal sense to sustain its life is unchanged between the beginning of its existence to the end. The implication of this is that the vast majority of the souls are still there, unconsumed.
Another aspect to recognize is that Ne'er doesn't have to kill somepony to take their soul. If the soul is gone, the body can keep living. It would be akin to being in a coma: the fleshy bits are still functioning, but the head is empty. Some souls, when freed from Ne'er, can go right back to their original body – assuming said body is still alive.
Of course, this isn't a straight-cut process. The soul has to get back somehow. Some souls, like those with a strong will to live, may go back right away. Others may become ghosts for any number of reasons, including simply not knowing where their body is. Some souls just move on to the afterlife, living body or no (and yes, there is an afterlife in this AU).
The end result of this is that it's impossible to know who survived and who didn't. I could make claims, but I'd be making it up as I go, and I don't want to do that. Could some or all of the Mane 6 be dead? Absolutely. They also could have all lived. The same is true for almost any character you can name. If I did write a future story after this (which I won't, because I don't expect to write this one), I'm pretty sure at least some of the Mane 6 would be gone for good, although I've no idea who. Heck, ask me any given day and I'd probably give a completely different answer with each one while speculating on the consequences of the choice.
Now, regarding the other timelines. As noted, Trixie and Luna would succeed in sending Twilight back to her own timeline in the Fleur-verse. This separated the realities and essentially undid all the merging of characters and places. There was still significant damage caused by the brief connection, but otherwise the physical worlds – and, specifically, the individual characters of those worlds – are safe.
I did have a story idea relating to this, in which Fleur-verse Trixie (who lives with Applejack, long story) was present for Twilight's big time travel experiment and feels responsible for her disappearance despite having no reason to other than having been there. The story would have ended with Twilight's corpse brought back to their world and a final, much-deserved sendoff for the princess.
The other ponies would certainly have been impacted. Take the Fine Crimes who now must live with the memory of having died at the hooves of TvE Trixie. Or the Celestias facing new memories of being both trapped in stone for a thousand years and sending Equestria into a seemingly endless spiral of corruption and chaos at the same time. Or the Chrysalises having memories of seeing their hive completely wiped out and then spending centuries withering away in Tartarus, starved and insane. Needless to say, these things are going to impact their lives in so many ways, and you can bet that each one has unfathomable potential as a story.
To answer your question directly, for the most part the other Equestrias suffered vastly less physical damage and casualties compared to the TvE world, but the mental scars would make up for it.