983 years later…
The last human in Equestria ran.
As hard as he could.
As fast as he could.
He was in a giant hallway, as wide as a football field and seemingly endless in length. He wasn't sure when or if it would end, but he was sure whatever it led to would be better than where he came from.
Equestria was far different than what he had imagined. It was almost a millennium since the events of the show, for one. And in that time, pony culture had become a little… well, let's just say… not kid friendly.
He had seen more blood in the last couple months than he had his entire life before. And the sex… dear god, it was only a matter of luck that he hadn't been dragged into any of those nightmarish orgies himself. Magic, infinite creativity, and the normalization of everything made some pretty extreme combinations.
Some said the god of this world, Celestia, had gone mad, but this was merely a loud minority. The prevailing opinion was she had always been like this.
The peaceful Equestria shown to humans every Saturday was not what this world's Celestia ever intended to make. To her, that was merely a stage to pass through to reach this—-a world that was, to any outsiders, a hedonistic hellscape.
In front of him, one of the massively tall windows shattered into a million pieces and Celestia delicately landed on the ground in front of him, covered in her own blood and thousands of little lacerations that quickly closed of their own volition.
Smiling the whole time, she spit out some of her blood and looked upon the human with wild eyes. "Tired of running yet?" she said, giving him that same hungry look she did when they first met. "I would appreciate an answer to my question."
The human grit his teeth. "No. I won't. I'm not going to 'play' with you."
"A shame," Celestia said, walking around him, and brushing his body with her tail. "But if you don't want to have a little fun before I have my way with you, that's your prerogative."
A bead of sweat dropped the human's face as his eyes darted around the hallway. "No. My honor is more important than my life."
Celestia smiled. "Excuse me?"
The human was struggling to get words out, working hard to overcome a natural fear of her he could not explain. "I know what you want. That hungry look on your face makes me sick," he said. "I'm not ever having sex with a horse! You hear me, bitch!? Never! I'll die first! I'm not like the rest of those sick bastards, you hear me!?"
Celestia grinned uncontrollably. She started laughing through her nose.
The human braced himself.
Celestia then pinned him against a wall with a hoof, breaking a shoulder and most of the bricks. Her face was an inch from his, breathing heavily on him, getting his skin damp with condensation.
"That's fine with me."
The human blinked.
"That hungry look was never about sex," Celestia said while licking his face, somehow. "I just want to eat you."
She bit a chunk of his cheek off, and chewed it slowly, savoring it. It filled her with far more pleasure than chewing anything should have, and she started giving his leg some unwanted attention without even realizing it.
"Oh god," Celestia got out, barely able to speak, her wings erect. "That's the one thing I'm going to miss about you apes. Your meat is delicious." She tore a chunk off the other cheek and shuddered. "I swear, it's like viagra to me."
The human 's remaining synapses were beginning doubts she "just" wanted to eat him, but the truth was she ate just about everything like this.
She rubbed against him, smelled the blood dripping down his face, and, completely unable to control herself, bit his head off in one fell swoop.
The body slumped down to the ground, spraying blood everywhere.
Celestia did roughly the same, except in a different objectionable way.
Many crunches later, Celestia was basically able to stand up, but clearly was having a hard time standing still.
"Oh… oh my god," she got out. "I… that's…"
She looked at the body.
"No… have to… resist…"
She shuddered again.
"Twilight… has to see this…"
– – – –
A pony in a French maid outfit rushed down one of the castle's seemingly infinite hallways, panting heavily.
When she found the door she was looking for, she knocked politely.
…which, with the way Celestia had screwed with society, meant she was loudly banging on and kicking the door.
"Excuse me!" she yelled, also politely. "Princess Twilight! Princess Twilight! Please come out! It is most urgent!"
A few seconds passed. The maid got a chill up her spine she couldn't quite account for, and then the door opened.
Twilight looked down at her, a small book floating in front of her face.
She was a full grown alicorn now, with the same figure as Celestia. She was about two times as tall as a normal pony, the muscles in her body were more developed and visible, her wings were impractically large, and her hair had broken free from the restraints of perspective. Like Celestia and Luna's, her hair flowed in an invisible wind, and showed arcane designs made of colors seemingly out of this world. It looked as though the designs in Twilight's hair were some kind of equations, but they were from no branch of mathematics this universe knew.
Unlike Celestia, however, who constantly had the look of a sultry predator in her eyes, Twilight's eyes looked dead to the world. Her half closed eyes looked down upon the maid with a lack of emotion that was unsettling in its own right.
"What is it?" she said in that silky smooth voice that was impossible for immortals to not put on.
The maid hesitated. "Celestia wants to see you," she said.
"Why?"
The maid gulped. "She said," she said, "it's 'dinnertime.'"
Twilight blinked, then looked up and sighed.
"Oh godammit."
– – – –
No one really liked eating with Celestia. It was obscene and disgusting at best. But Twilight had resigned herself to it. It was either this or murdering a castleful of people by mistake. Alicorn instincts… did not take kindly to restraint.
Twilight sometimes wondered if Celestia's immortality formula did that intentionally, to satisfy her sick tastes. But Twilight also imagined immortality was a quite delicate business, and doubted there was any room for extra features. The truth was, their immortality probably depended on eating meat as sustenance, and Celestia just made sure it was impossible for them to starve themselves. If things got desperate enough, even morals could not prevent an alicorn from eating the closest available living thing and living another day.
The only truly extraneous thing Twilight suspected Celestia added to their bodies was their sex drives. Celestia, of course, conveniently forgot to tell Twilight about this as well, leading to a significantly less lethal, but infinitely more embarrassing version of the Lavender Alicorn incident that happened later.
The amount of sex alicorns required was a bit ridiculous, especially considering that they were completely sterile. Unless, of course, they didn't actually violate the law of conservation of matter, and it was only an alternate way of expelling w—
No. Twilight shook her head. She did not want to go down that road again.
Quickly, Twilight pushed open the door to the alicorn dinner room.
It was exceedingly shiny and crystaly. Parts of the walls and floors jutted out erratically. Part of the room's security was simply to make sure the room was too ostentatious and dangerous for mortals to handle without dying horrible deaths—-or at the very least, tripping and scratching themselves up pretty bad.
In the center was a long table with a platter in the center. A naked human's body laid hunched over in the center, surrounded with garnish, its head messily ripped off.
Twilight looked at it without reacting too much. Celestia probably took a few bites early. It was gruesome, but at least it meant Twilight didn't have to stare at it fattened up with an apple stuffed in its mouth.
Celestia, Luna, and Cadance sat around the table. There was a free fourth seat for Twilight.
"Hello, Twilight," Celestia said, with a delivery disturbingly similar to that of Jerry Seinfeld. "Please be seated."
There were times to pick a fight with Celestia, and this was not one of them. Twilight sat.
"I present to you the last human in Equestria," Celestia said. "After this, no more of those filthy apes are going to appear." She turned her head. "Cadance?"
That slur had always bothered Twilight, not because it was offensive, but because she was reasonably sure this world had never actually had apes in it. She didn't dwell on it, though, and paid attention to Cadance.
Cadance cleared her throat. "The rift between our worlds is finally completely closed. He will be the last aftereffect from it," she said. "Now, we need only to worry about being destroyed by each other."
There was some light, awkward laughter, the kind that arises when a conservative family members tells racist jokes at Thanksgiving despite knowing they're insulting half of the people in the room.
Or vice versa, whatever that would be.
Twilight almost asked Cadance how on earth she knew this, but she was reasonably sure she would just get another "spoilers" and a wink for an answer. Cadance seem to be under the impression this was cute, but really it was just annoying.
Besides, Twilight had a more important things to bring up.
"Actually, there's one more left, right?" she said. She looked up. "Obama."
Celestia blinked. "Oh. Right. He's still on the moon," she said. "I'll get him down and kill him for real in a few weeks. I just wanted to make him suffer for a bit first."
Only in Celestia's eyes could a thousand years be "a bit."
Twilight looked a bit irritated. "Aren't you forgetting something?" she said. "You told me the moon kept mortal beings alive indefinitely and offered them a chance to escape every thousand years. That's in a few days."
Celestia laughed. "Don't be ridiculous, Twilight!" he said. "You need to be able to use magic to take advantage of that, and humans have always been infamous magic sumps! There's nothing to worry about."
The atmosphere grew chilly.
Out of Celestia's mouth, that was far more than a mere jynx. She usually only said that to her torture victims.
Twilight blinked. "You're not… under that mind control loop thing again, are you?"
"No," Luna said, "she's just cocky because she's finally succeeded at making a society as depraved as she wanted without all her citizens vomiting everywhere. We don't think she'd choose the Elements like that if she was being cautious, do you?"
Twilight frowned. "True," she said. "I'm still a little surprised anyone bought that all of the world's predators were locked in another dimension. No ecosystem would work like that."
"If you have some reason to be worried, I'd appreciate you telling me," Celestia said. "Otherwise, let's eat. I call the genitalia. It's always better to drink the semen directly from the testicles, if you ask me."
No one needed to hear that.
They began digging in. Twilight took a leg, because aside from the fact that she was eating a guy, she tried to approach human meat the same as any other meat and eat the parts that were tender and actually tasted half decent.
Everyone else seemed to be trying to be ironic.
"Heart, please," Cadance said.
"Oh, very fitting," Celestia said, jamming her hoof into the corpse's chest and gouging the heart out. "Oops, might have gotten a bit of lung with it."
"That's fine."
Celestia paused. "He might've been a bit of a smoker."
"Did I stutter?"
Cadance got a plate of bloody, godawful mess and set to work.
Twilight narrowed her eyes.
She was reasonably sure that, as an incomplete alicorn, Cadance didn't have the same hunger they did, and was choosing to do this for the kicks, but could never work up the nerve to ask. It was meaninglessly sentimental, but she wanted to keep some good memories of her brother's fiance.
"Hands, if you will," Luna said. "This may be my last chance to eat an opposable thumb."
"Here you are, then," Celestia said, ripping off the hands, and taking a bit of the arm with them. She did not do it very gracefully, and some of the bone jutted out at an odd angle.
There were loud crunches as Luna took a bite.
"And I guess I'll take the other leg, then," Celestia said, and ripped that off as well.
Unlike the others, she had a tendency to eat like a wild animal, and show off just how much her teeth could make tendons strech. Twilight usually found it too gruesome to watch.
What Twilight didn't know was the the rest of them found her habit of eating human meat with a knife and fork similarly hard to watch, mainly because they thought it was hilarious and didn't want her to stop.
It reached the point of the meal were they started making awkward smalltalk.
"So, Twilight," Celestia said, chewing on a muscle, "I hear you've been helping that charity again. Was it called again? Cor… corve… corvus…"
"Corvorum Crepusculum," Twilight said, not particularly caring about incriminating herself.
"For god's sake, Celestia, it's been a thousand years and you still can't pronounce it?" Luna said.
"S-Shut up," Celestia said, blushing. "They're the lamest insurrection group ever, so I have trouble remembering they exist."
"They've been around for a millennium now, though," Cadance said, coughing after eating a tobacco induced tumor or something. "Must be pretty smart."
"Yeah, cause for once they don't want to overthrow me," Celestia said. "They must be after one of you guys, and I don't really give a shit about that."
"How comforting," Luna said, deadpan.
Twilight, for the first time in weeks, smiled.
Celestia noticed. "She knows something about them, though, I know it. Look at that smug little face," she said, staring at Twilight. "I can't get her to tell me anything, though. I even put her in the spike box for a week, but nothing."
"You really need to sharpen those things, by the way," Twilight said, popping a toe into her mouth with a fork.
Celestia twitched.
"They do support a lot of countries you've condemned, though," Luna said. "Doesn't that mean they're opposing your foreign policy or something?"
Celestia shrugged. "All charities do that. It's an innate instinct. I don't take it personally. I only take it personally when they try to kill me." She smiled. "And that's when I enjoy it."
Twilight grimaced.
Luna smiled. "Maybe they're just biding their time to kill you."
"In that case, let them," Celestia said. "Sounds fun. I hope they stab me. With a bunch of knives or something. That always feels the best." She looked coyly at Twilight. "Unlike all that nonsense you did. Did you have to get out the anthrax?"
Twilight couldn't stop herself. She glared. "I wasn't trying to get you off, Celestia."
Celestia blushed. "Oh, you are so cute when you're angry."
"Fuck you."
Celestia blushed harder and started grinding on her chair.
Twilight rolled her eyes. Sometimes Celestia could be so predictable.
Twilight knew she was the only thing other than bloody mangled messes that could consistently arouse the most powerful being in Equestria.
For a while, though, it had been a bit hard to not take that personally.
"Anyone else want to fuck a corpse?" Celestia said, still grinding. "I want to fuck a corpse."
Luna sighed. "It's just you, Celestia. It's always just you."
– – – –
Meanwhile, in what could be generously called the Griffon Empire, there were explosions. Griffons were dying horribly, buildings were crumbling, and the worst part of it all was that wasn't even what the griffons attacking were aiming at.
"Tch," Colonel Kernel, a griffon, said like a badass. "Status?"
The griffon at the bazooka waited for the smoke to clear enough to see anything. "She's… definitely still alive, sir."
"Damn."
A figure rapidly moved between bodies, doing something to the ones that were alive.
The Kernel grabbed a megaphone and began screaming. "Surrender now, intruder! You are trespassing on the lands of the Griffon Empire and insulting our national heritage and dignity!"
The smoke finally cleared, revealing a deer applying bandages to a wounded griffon, gracefully. She looked up, and glared, gracefully.
Then she became a blur, and a split-second later, tackled the Kernel to the ground, also gracefully, and with enough control to injure him with nothing but bruises.
It is worth mentioning that he was a couple hundred feet away, and in the air.
"Tch," he said again, wincing. "You damn charities."
The deer got out what looked like a bazooka of her own, shoved it down his mouth, and fired some grayish sludge down his throat.
This was slightly less graceful, although some may disagree.
"How does zit feel to get zome decent food for once?" she said with an accent that vaguely screamed "foreign" but little else.
"We can feed ourselves, you princess slut," the Kernel said. "We don't need your help."
She looked behind her, at the emaciated bodies. "Zey would disagree."
"Only because of your propaganda."
She narrowed her eyes. "You blew zem up."
"Only because you wouldn't leave us alone."
She got up, gracefully, and held the food gun over her back. Yes, with hooves. "I regret zem dying," she said. "But… I'll say zis again. If you struck a deal with us, your people will not have to worry about hunger. What do you zay?"
The Kernel spat. If anyone could wear spit gracefully, it was her.
"Fuck you," he said. "I'm not making a deal with anything even connected to Equestria. Your nicest princess is a confirmed cannibal who's murdered multiple griffons for literally no reason and it only fucking goes downhill from there. You people fuck fish and have open torture facilities. Rape is fucking legal in your country. The only reason your race is even sentient is because Celestia wanted to fuck deer that could put on their own bondage gear, and that isn't even getting into those abominations that destroyed her capital. So no, I am not making a fucking deal with you."
The deer narrowed her eyes. She wanted to reason with him, but they had been through this game many times before.
She turned around, and began walking away. "Then zink what you will," she said, "but I'll be back."
And then, she conjured a small blizzard and propelled herself from building to building with incredible speed.
While doing so, there was a beeping sound from her ear, like there was some sort of invisible phone attached to it. She tapped it, gracefully.
"Agent Velvet, is your mission complete?" a staticy voice on the other side said.
"Yes, but zere were more casualties than I would have liked," Velvet said. "Next time we should use a more zubtle way of entering."
"There may not be a next time," the voice said. "Preparations for the plan are beginning."
Velvet was silent. "It's zat time already, is it?"
"Yes. Please return to the castle and stay there until further notice. Your position as an Element may be useful."
Velvet paused again. "Understood," she said. "But one zing."
"…what?"
Velvet looked serious. "If Corvorum Crepusculum lives through this, I'm continuing ze charity business. On my own if I have to."
The other end did not seem unpleased by this.
"Understood."
– – – –
The immortal dinners usually ended up going roughly like depraved fanfiction writers thought they did.
"Oh my," Cadance said airily. "You give almost as good tongue as your brother did."
Twilight, used to hearing far worse foreplay from Celestia, reacted only with minor irritation. "Cadance, stop saying things like that."
"Why?"
"Because I used to have some respect for you," Twilight said. "But now I'm starting to suspect you're the type of person who'd lock girls into small boxes for months and call it in 'an adventure.'"
Cadance licked Twilight's face. "And what if I am?"
Twilight looked at Celestia, who was currently doing stuff with the human's torso. "You'd still be better than Celestia."
"Glad to hear it."
They were silent for a bit.
"Twilight, I need to talk to you about something serious."
"Cadance, if you want me to take you seriously, I would recommend you stop humping me."
Cadance ignored that. They both knew their instincts were almost completely uncontrollable at this point, and that stopping would be like trying to not blink.
She took a breath, and looked down at Twilight. "Twilight, I think I'm going to die soon."
Twilight wasn't sure how to react to this, particularly considering what they were doing. "What?"
"I'm not sure about the exact time, but the state of the world seems about right. I remember it was overcast, and…"
Twilight whispered over the thumping. "Does this have to do with how you know things… for no reason? Like that the humans will stop coming?"
Cadance nodded. "That's right. I saw this, as well."
Twilight looked around, obviously more intrigued than she had been in decades, but also clearly worried. "Are you sure you want to talk about this around…?"
Cadance looked to the side. "I've been waiting for this, actually. Look at them." Celestia barely looked sentient, and Luna stood on her hind legs behind her, preparing to mount her. "There's no other time in the world when she's that distracted. Anything we say will, at best, get into her subconscious."
Twilight thought that sounded idiotic, but played along. "So… you can see the future, right? That's my best guess."
Cadance looked embarrassed. "In a manner of speaking. But I can't tell you too many details about it."
"Why?"
"They may affect how you act, and prevent the future I want from happening."
Twilight narrowed her eyes. "Is that what you meant with 'spoilers' this whole time?"
"Er, yeah."
Twilight looked slightly confused, but tried to understand. "So… presumably, you want me to try to save you?"
Cadance emphatically shook her head, then gave Twilight tongue. For appearance's sake, of course. "No, no, absolutely not. That's actually what I wanted to tell you. Me dying is essential for the future to work, and you must not, under any circumstances, try to save me. In fact, it would be best if you completely avoided the Crystal Empire from now on."
"…what?"
"I have a role to play in what's to come, and if I don't, the consequences to the universe may be catastrophic. I may even put my own existence at risk."
"What's going to happen?"
Cadance looked down. "I can't tell you. But it's going to be big. I can tell you that much."
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Bigger than me becoming immortal?"
"…arguably."
Twilight groaned. "Cadance, give it up already. We're coated in bodily fluids and this all sound like a bunch of bullshit. After Celestia pulled that Luna doesn't exist gag on me, you're going to have to do better than this…"
Cadance twitched, and suddenly looked distressed. "Whether you believe me or not, just… stay away from me and the Crystal Empire for a while, okay? Just forget I said anything."
Twilight smiled. "Well, after this, I don't think you have to worry about that." She grimaced. "I'm tired of this shit."
Cadance closed her eyes. "I just told you because… I wanted to say goodbye first. That's all. I know I haven't been a very good sister-in-law, but… this is all I have time to do now. I'm… I'm sorry."
Twilight frowned.
Was she telling the truth?
Celestia had pulled more elaborate pranks before…
– – – –
A few minutes or hours later (it didn't really matter when the length of each day was completely arbitrary anyway), the alicorns exited the room and found themselves being watched intently by an alpaca.
"Hi!" she said, getting in their faces.
Cadance was the only one who jumped. Celestia, Luna, and Twilight, on the other hand, had gained some impressively thorough cynicism from their immortality.
"Hello Paprika," Celestia said, sounding, at best, slightly irritated, "Element of Laughter."
"Hi Celestia!" Paprika said. "Why are you saying my full name?"
"Because why are you here?" Celestia said, perhaps less elegantly than she imagined.
"Because can I come in there?"
There was a silence.
"What?"
"I've heard you do all kinds of fun stuff in there!" Paprika said. "Like have amazing feasts with rare and exotic food, talk about how screw with all the other nations, and fuck like crazy! And sometimes you even fuck the food like crazy! I wanna be part of that."
"Oh, don't be ridiculous. We don't do anything that fun," Luna said, looking at Twilight, clearly meaning to exclude Celestia and Cadance.
Celestia cleared her throat. "Rumors say a lot of things. I should know. I start most of them."
"So it's tru—?"
Midsentence, Celestia teleported her away.
Just like all the other Elements of Laughter, Celestia and Paprika never really got along. It was a bit ironic, because Paprika was incredibly similar to Celestia—her lust for hedonism knew no bounds, and it apparently was no exaggeration that she almost single-handedly drove the alpacas to extinction in pursuit of her next big thrill.
But since she was so similar to Pinkie Pie, they never got along.
Also, it might've been a bit disturbing for Celestia to see herself mirrored so thoroughly, but she would never admit that, particularly not to Twilight.
Paprika, of course, poked her head from around a corner a few seconds later. "I'll get in there eventually, you know," she said.
"Out," Celestia growled. "Now."
"Okay, okay, geez," Paprika said, still smiling. She slowly walked away. "I'll see what Pom's doing. She's up for just about anything if you apply a bit of pressure…"
– – – –
About an hour later (Twilight got distracted and got lost in the castle, again), Twilight arrived at her room and opened the door.
Inside was a dark gray lanky unicorn whose hair had permanent purple magic singes at the edges. She was writing something at a desk, and looked up without much fanfare. "Anything interesting happen at the meeting, teacher?"
Twilight flopped on the bed, more of a sign of mental than physical exhaustion with alicorns. "I'd rather not talk about it," she said, then realized she actually had something fairly harmless to recount. "Actually, Cadance told me she was a time traveler. She was probably screwing with me, though."
The gray unicorn thought. "That would explain a lot, though…"
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"
"Her impeccable ability to forecast the weather." She started looking through a pile of brochures on her desk. "She took over this world's Farmer's Almanac, and it's been uncannily accurate ever since."
"Wait, you happen to have a copy right there?"
"It's a long story."
The gray unicorn was Oleander, one of the first unicorns for hundreds of years to successfully experiment with dark magic. Unicornomicron in hand, she imbued herself with just enough dark magic to give her the most practical of Eldritch curses—the art of being under a constant caffeine rush.
So basically, she never had to sleep. And that was about it.
Unfortunately, this also died her fur black, which was a problem for the white fur supremacist cult she had grown up in her whole life, and the fact that she used dark magic at all had gotten her on Celestia's hit list.
Many assassination attempts later, she happened to run into Twilight while running through the streets of Nude Canterlot. Twilight, on a whim, immediately shielded her from Celestia's Royal Laser Beams and declared her to be her new disciple, mainly just to screw up whatever plans Celestia had for her. Celestia relented, unwilling to fight an evenly matched alicorn in the middle of a crowded city (particularly after New Canterlot through New New New New New New Canterlot had all been blown up or crushed by giant horny monsters), and Twilight and Oleander were stuck together for the rest of Oleander's mortal life.
This worked out surprisingly well, especially after Oleander became the next Element of Magic.
"So, what are we doing tomorrow?" Oleander said, continuing to write.
"I was thinking we'd head down to the bookstore," Twilight said. "I… need to relax a bit after today."
"Sounds good."
Twilight turned over, and stared at her for a few seconds. "What are you working on, anyway?"
"I'm trying to figure out if the human concept of 'black holes' could exist in this universe," Oleander said, scribbling away.
Twilight waited for the other shoe to drop.
"…and if so, if it has any application in the bedroom."
Twilight approached Oleander. "Want to… test out your theories?"
Oleander looked back. "If I'm wrong, you could implode. From the inside." She paused. "It will hurt."
"That's fine," Twilight said, giving her bedroom eyes. "I want to die. And not just ironically, like those memes."
Oleander looked completely confused.
"It's… a human thing," Twilight said, blushing. "Some of my research took me on… some interesting paths."
"You'll have to tell me more later," Oleander said, and then they made out.
Twilight had become surprisingly okay with lesbianism after finding out that not all women were like Celestia.
– – – –
Nude Canterlot was pretty much what you'd expect.
It was like normal Canterlot, except nude.
No clothing was allowed. Not a single scrap. In fact, there was magic to disintegrate any nonorganic matter that tried to enter the city. If you wanted to cover up, you had to use plants or a trained snake, and not many people were willing to go to that kind of trouble to hide their genitals.
It also helped the economy, because whatever goods you had in Nude Canterlot, you had to buy.
For most people, this had no impact on their daily life whatsoever. It pretty much put fashion designers out of a job, though, and the field lost nearly all credibility when its greatest minds were reduced to coming up with creative ways of covering yourself up with your tail. And no one was willing to deal with the snakes.
Even outside of Nude Canterlot, though, clothing was viewed as extravagant and trashy, and just wearing some jewelry could get people asking you why you were ashamed of your body.
Historians were divided on whether this was caused by Rarity annoying Celestia many hundreds of years ago, or whether it was because of that one unicorn that made weaponized schoolgirl uniforms that turned random people into supersoldiers that blew up New New New Canterlot.
Regardless, Twilight and Oleander were now in a bookstore full of naked people.
"I'm going to see what they're writing about me," Twilight said, ignoring the horrified stares of the people that weren't used to seeing immortal gods casually walking around the bookstore. "You can look around too. Buy whatever you want."
"Sounds good," Oleander said, and they kissed on the cheek.
There were some flashes, and Twilight was sure that in a few days, the tabloids would be filled with small "Twilight and Oleander still together" headlines.
They split up, and Twilight went straight to the political books section. Skipping over the books about the demented political systems of the humans—Obama had given her a far more practical education in that—she found the books about the princesses and got to work.
– – – –
Oleander had actually seen pretty much all she needed to of the bookstore, and went outside to wait for Twilight. There was a quite nice-looking fountain outside of the bookstore that she had always regretted not spending more time at.
She laid down on the edge, closed her eyes, sighed, and then heard some odd splooshing sounds.
She looked over and saw a nubile dragon pony hybrid taking a bath in the fountain.
Even for Nude Canterlot that was unusual.
Even worse, she knew her.
"Hey! Oly! What's up?" the bather yelled, running over and waving. "You don't get out much, do you?"
Oleander got some water splashed on her, but didn't really mind, but was too busy ogling to care. "Er, no, not really."
The dragon/horse/whatever girl thing was Tianhuo. She came from a warrior tribe of dragon pony hybrids that lived out in the boonies near some volcano. There weren't very many dragons left these days, but hybrids like these were very common. When the general public discovered that dragons and ponies could interbreed, the few remaining dragons were tracked down and… used. A lot.
The resulting children usually had some sort of social problems. In Tianhuo's case, this mainly resulted in her actually taking advantage of the public sexuality laws everyone else was just happy to know existed.
"So," Tianhuo said, bending over as she took a sip from the water, exposing her toned, dripping wet back, "wanna help wash my tail or something?"
"Not particularly," Oleander said, blushing, knowing she would be unable to control herself if she did so. Oleandar was just as horny as everyone else, but spending her entire life around a cult obsessed with moral purity and the slightly conservative Twilight made her a bit more prudish than the average pony. "Besides, isn't that Arizona's job?"
Tianhuo blushed. Through scales. It was her pony heritage. "How did you know she was here?"
"You two are inseparable," Oleander said, slightly irritated. "I don't get why you don't just hook up already."
"But we've fucked plenty of times already!" Tianhuo said. Then she paused. "Or do you mean like, getting in a relationship?"
Oleander gave her a look.
Tianhuo put a… hoof (claw?) to her chin. "You know… I kind of like the sounds of that."
She walked away, and Oleander was left alone for a few seconds. She started to relax, but then Tianhuo came running back, wincing.
"She punched me in the face. What does that mean?"
"Usually, I would say that meant she rejected you," Oleander said, despite secretly wishing that to be true. "But… in Arizona's case, I think I you're fine."
"What? Really?"
Oleander looked into the distance. "Arizona… tends to approach every new situation with violence. She entered the competition by beating the shit out of her father, remember?"
"Yeah, now that you mention it…" Tianhuo said, trailing off in thought. She looked to Oleander. "You think I should hump her and see what happens?"
Oleander shrugged.
Tianhuo briefly hugged Oleander, getting the latter completely soaked. "Thanks for the talk. It really helped," she said. "I'll make it up to you later."
"S-Sure," Oleander said, blushing, and Tianhuo ran off.
– – – –
Twilight was reading a particularly convoluted defense of her actions during the Lavender Alicorn incident. It went along the lines of this—think about how many people Celestia's killed after torturing them their whole lives. Does this really compare to that?
Twilight, finally tired of the book, slammed it shut and shoved it back in the shelf. If she didn't think of it like that, why should anyone else? She was a bit irritated at how easily people were willing to forgive her for what she considered some of the most deplorable acts of her life.
Then, she felt someone looking at her, and looked over to the window.
Her eyes widened.
She shook her head, and looked again, but then they were gone.
– – – –
Back at the castle, Twilight and Oleander walked down the single, giant hallway towards Twilight's room. Technically, the castle had no inside or outside, or beginning or end, but if you didn't think about it too hard, it all seemed to fit together.
On the way, a small sheep in a summer hat approached them. She would have been small and adorable if it wasn't for the look on her face.
"Could you, uh… ah…" she panted, blushing, her tongue out, "give me… oh… a, uh…. ah… order…"
Oleander looked slightly taken aback, but Twilight merely blinked. "Take a cold shower for 10 minutes," Twilight said, with the air of someone who had clearly been through this a lot.
A shiver seemed to pass through the sheep's body, and her face made it clear she was experiencing ecstasy. "Th… Thank you…" she got out, and slowly wobbled away.
There was a bit of a tense atmosphere during this period. When she was out of eyesight, Oleander looked to Twilight. "I've been wondering this for a while, but…" She paused. "You don't think Pom gets off on being ordered around, do you…?"
Pom was she sheep they had just seen, the Element of Kindness. "No, I'm sure of it," Twilight said. "In fact, I bet all sheep experience pleasure as a result of following orders. It would explain their demented political system, for one. And it sounds like something Celestia would do." She looked down to Oleander. "It's true, you know, that she gave deers sentience just so they could put on their own bondage gear. I'm sure she had similar motivations with other species."
Oleander looked uncomfortable. She didn't particularly like hearing just how much Celestia controlled the world. It disturbed her a bit that Celestia, paragon of light, was infinitely darker than the deepest depths of dark magic—and dark magic was based entirely on living sacrifices. Quite a few ponies had to be sacrificed to make the Unicorninomicron, after all. And in a giant pentagram shape, too.
"Say," Twilight said, "is there any way to halt aging with dark magic?"
Oleander jumped a bit, and then thought about it. "Probably," she said, "but it would most likely still dye your fur black. Why?"
Twilight grimaced slightly. "In the bookstore, I thought I saw someone I knew from before I turned immortal. But they'd be long dead by now."
Oleander paused. "Are you sure it wasn't just a descendent of theirs or something?"
Twilight shook her head. "No, it looked exactly like her. And she wasn't an alicorn, either. Celestia never liked her, for one, and for two I'm pretty sure there's only four immortals." Then her eyes widened. "No, wait. Descendent. Maybe…" She turned around and started to run the opposite direction. "I've got to check the archives for something. Go on to the room without me!"
"O-Okay," Oleander said, a little awkwardly.
It wasn't the first time Twilight went off investigating something on a whim, but Oleander still didn't like being left alone.
There were some advantages to it, though…
– – – –
Twilight frantically looked through the documents on the human colony.
"As I thought, the records about her stop making sense around there…" she muttered. "Dammit, I should've known as soon as I heard about the money laundering! But the whole thing's so ridiculous, it's no wonder no one's pieced it together yet…"
She saw a folder she recognized and pulled it out. She opened it up and looked at a paragraph in the middle of the first page.
"'Some of these bronies have tried to genetically engineer'… blah blah blah, but what was it called?" Twilight muttered. She looked up. "Wait. If I was one of them, what I call a project like that? I'd name it after…" Her eyes widened. "That's it!"
She flipped through the box, looking for the "M"s. Then, she saw it, pulled it out, and skimmed the first page.
She smiled.
"MLD Project. I knew it."
– – – –
Oleander was writing at her desk again. This time, however, she was not writing furiously—she doodling absentmindedly while sensuously rubbing her chest.
"Tianhuo," she moaned, "you are an idiot but dear Celestia you are sexy."
In another wing of the castle, Celestia raised her eyebrows and smiled. She could hear whenever anyone said her name, particularly with the Elements.
"She said she'd make it up to me, but would she really just let me have sex with her if I asked? That feels too easy, but she's really progressive," Oleander said absentmindedly, putting quite a bit of detail into a drawing of a disembodied tail. "It'd probably have to be a three way, though. She's so close to Arizona. I'm not sure what I think about cows, but who knows, maybe the milk could be sexy…"
She was starting to grind on the seat quite roughly when there was a knock at the door. Blushing, she got up, flipped the paper over, and answered the door, cracking it open slightly.
"Twilight's out. Could I take a mess—"
– – – –
Twilight rushed down the hallway, flung open the door of her room, and was greeted by a slightly unusual sight.
Oleander was nowhere to be seen, but Velvet was laying on her bed next to a tray of tea and scones.
Gracefully, of course.
"A maid was bringing zis to you, but zen Celestia came and started raping her for no reason," Velvet said, also gracefully. "I didn't understand what was happening, but I figured I would finish ze job for her."
Twilight's suspicions were raised immediately. It sounded like the type of excuse someone who didn't know Celestia very well would try to make. The truth was, her food fetish nearly always overrode her rape fetish, and as long as they did their jobs right, the chefs and maids were some of the safest ponies in Equestria. She didn't want her staff getting the idea that doing a good job was a worthless because she'd rape them regardless, after all.
Then the desk caught Twilight's eye. A paper with doodles of lizard legs and tails had been hastily flipped over, and the chair was slightly damp towards the center.
Twilight could guess what Oleander was doing in her alone time, and it was incredibly not like her to not clean up afterwards.
She inhaled, subtly enough that a mortal like Velvet could just barely tell, and caught a whiff of Oleander's scent coming from the restroom.
She was breathing, luckily.
Grateful she didn't have to worry about that, at least, Twilight calmed down and let a breath out. She already knew Velvet was a double agent, after all. And she supported Corvorum Crepusculum. The chances they could reach a deal were pretty high.
All of this only took a second.
"Why thank you," Twilight said. She gracefully (but not as gracefully as Velvet, of course) laid on the bed, on the other side of the tray, and lifted one of the teacups with magic. "Celestia often sends me random food items to sample. They can be… quite exciting."
She took a sip of tea, and couldn't restrain a slight grimace.
She was expecting at least some cyanide, but no such luck. The tea itself wasn't even that good.
She was beginning to wonder what kind of ambush this was supposed to be when she took a bite of scone. That at least tasted good. There were even some little raisins inside—the type of food you never got to eat with castle catering.
Twilight chewed for a bit, downing the whole thing.
"So," Twilight said, congenial, but looking Velvet in the eye very seriously, "what do you want?"
Velvet hesitated slightly. Not many people could stomach that kind of gaze from an alicorn. Velvet concentrated for a bit, and a small magical swarm of snow surrounded the two of them, gracefully.
"Zat should take care of any surveillance magic Celestia has zet up," she said.
Twilight decided not to mention that saying Celestia's name alerted her of anything they said, and that Oleander was awake and listening.
"As you may know," Velvet said, "I work for Corvorum Crepusculum."
"I know," Twilight said. "I've covered for you more than once."
"I zuspected that you knew, but I wasn't sure," Velvet said. "You did a good job hiding it."
"Thank you," Twilight said.
"Anyway, our leader would like to zpeak with you, privately," Velvet said. "Zey are very grateful for your support of their charity work, and would like to thank you personally."
Twilight wanted to ask what part of that gratefulness entailed knocking out Oleander, but she knew what Corvorum Crepusculum's real goal was. It was even in their name, and once she figured out who their leader was, everything made perfect sense.
"Gladly," Twilight said. "But… one thing."
"Yes?"
"If Celestia somehow hears about this and shows up, you can't hold me accountable."
Velvet looked a bit confused. "Why would Celestia show up?"
Twilight looked over to where Oleander was hiding. "No reason."
– – – –
Velvet took Twilight to an abandoned part of the forest nearby the castle. A few seconds later, Celestia, Luna, and Oleander teleported in front of them.
Velvet jumped. "Oleander!?" she said. "I thought I knocked you out!"
"My dark magic puts me under a constant caffeine rush," Oleander said. "You can't knock me out for more than a few seconds. That was a pretty good kick, though." She turned to Twilight. "Sorry, I didn't mean to tell Celestia anything, but she teleported in right after you guys left, wanting to know what you are talking about, and… well…"
"I applied some pressure," Celestia said, smiling.
"She really didn't," Oleander said. "I just couldn't think of any reason to hide any of this."
"It's fine," Twilight said. She looked at Celestia. "Just don't interfere. I'll handle this on my own."
"I'm fine with watching," Celestia said. "The charities spice things up. I have no reason to want to blow the biggest and craziest one ever up right now."
Luna raised an eyebrow. "But later?"
"Oh, yes, definitely."
Twilight ignored that. "Please continue, Velvet."
Velvet hesitated, but continued walking forward.
Eventually, they reached a clearing in the forest where a small table had been set up, with a umbrella over it and two chairs on either side.
The further chair had a blue mare in a large hat sitting in it. "I thought I said to come alone, Twilight Sparkle," she said in a vaguely familiar sounding voice.
"Celestia interfered," Twilight said. "It's practically a law of physics. Please understand."
"I'll just watch, I swear," Celestia said, unconvincingly.
The mare paused, but seemed to accept this explanation. "Sit, then."
Everyone but Velvet was a little surprised at the lack of respect the mare showed an immortal, but Twilight obeyed as if nothing was unusual.
There was some tea on the table. Twilight took a sip.
She shuddered a bit, but then smiled.
"I'm almost flattered you've gone to so much effort to kill me… Trixie Lulamoon."
Twilight lifted off the other mare's hat, showing her face to everyone.
It was indeed Trixie, looking completely unchanged from the day Twilight first met her.
Everyone but Velvet immediately recoiled in shock. Celestia was particularly taken aback. "Wha… bu… how…!?"
"She's not immortal," Twilight said. She grabbed a twig with magic and scratched Trixie's arm with it, leaving a small mark that didn't heal. "I figured it out when she appeared in a bookstore to taunt me. She's likely a 10th generation clone of the original Trixie."
Celestia lurched. "What!?"
"You're not the only one that plays around with genetics, Celestia. Or fate," Luna said, slightly scoldingly, to Celestia. She thought. "But I've never heard of any ponies getting a successful cloning project working…"
"That's because it wasn't ponies that did the initial research," Twilight said. "It was humans." Twilight looked at Trixie, who continued to be silent. "Some humans, inspired by stories about us in their world, wanted to take DNA from some popular ponies and clone them, so they could raise us as children."
"Or do other things," Luna said, grimacing.
Twilight ignored that. "They called it the 'MLD Project,' after a story with a similar concept—'My Little Dashie,'" she said. "Trixie probably heard about it while she was in the human colony with Donald Trump. Shortly after her time there, there were some reports of her being in multiple places at once, and not looking too good. Those must've been failed experiments."
Celestia got a sinking look on her face. "And her time with The Donald…"
"…taught her how to raise illicit funds with incredible efficiency," Twilight said, smiling. "That was how Corvorum Crepusculum consistently had access to so many resources. She knew how to game the system exactly the way you wanted."
Celestia blinked. "And that name?"
Twilight giggled, her inner bookworm showing for the first time in a long while. "It's quite simple, really," she said. "It's a pun in a human language, Latin. Corvorum is the plural of corvus, which can mean 'raven' or 'crow.' Either could work, but what's the plural of crow? A murder. And that makes more sense next to the other word, crepusculum, which can mean 'evening,' 'dusk'… or 'twilight.'"
"Murder Twilight," Oleander got out. "They were literally called Murder Twilight this whole time."
"That's right," Twilight said, and then looked at Trixie. "Trixie cloned herself at least nine times and created one of the world's largest charity syndicates just to gather enough resources to kill me."
Twilight then stopped. Trixie had been unusually quiet during all of this, and seemed to be subtly mouthing something. "Trixie, what are you doing?"
Trixie smiled. "I bet you think you've got this all figured out," she said. "But you haven't noticed one thing."
"What's that?"
"Those weren't raisins in that scone you ate. Those were small bombs."
Twilight then proceeded to explode.
Celestia, Luna, Velvet, and Oleander dove behind a tree as pieces of Twilight rained everywhere. "Fuck!" Celestia yelled. "She knew this was going to happen, I know it!"
"You were the one that insisted on tagging along," Luna said. "Besides, they aren't after us. That much is clear now."
"Yeah, but what if it works!?" Celestia said. "Twilight's been my best fuck toy for millenia!"
Luna was quiet. She leaned over to Celestia's ear. "Celestia," she said, "we already confirmed they don't have the Weapon. She's outside the dome, and hasn't moved for a very long time now. "
Celestia's eyes widened, and she took a breath. "Yes, that's right," she said. "You're right, Luna. It's fine."
Oleander pretended not to hear this.
Twilight's guts then started vibrating and coming together with such force they were drilling holes straight through trees.
"EEEYAAAAK!" Velvet screeched, her eyes wide, completely horrified.
"…we should probably maintain a safe distance, though. If only for their sake."
"Good idea," Celestia said.
They teleported up about 50 feet into the sky, and stood on a small invisible platform Celestia conjured.
She looked to Velvet and Oleander. "Don't worry, it's shielded. We should have a good view up here." Then, she conjured some popcorn, and ate it.
Velvet was shaking. "She's… She's a monster…"
Oleander looked a bit sad. "No, Velvet. You've got it all wrong."
"What?"
Oleander looked out. "The fact that your organization even exists… means you don't know her very well."
– – – –
The smoke cleared, and there Twilight was, completely intact.
Trixie grimaced.
"You can't separate our bodies, you know," Twilight said. "The pieces come together far too quickly, and with far too much force."
"You talk big for someone who didn't even realize there was cyanide in her tea," Trixie said. Her horn lit up and a bunch of sharp metal blades shot out of the ground and impaled Twilight throughout her body.
Within seconds, Twilight's skin sealed through the gaps and broke the tips off. "See?"
"We'll see about that."
A magic blade appeared and constantly slashed at Twilight's neck, making her head fall off. The tendons tried to reattach themselves, but the blade kept cutting them.
"Painful, yes," Twilight said, "but I could hypothetically live forever like this."
"Smug little bitch," Trixie muttered.
She turned off the blade and Twilight's head reattached, for real this time.
Then Trixie casted the live flamethrower vivisection spell on Twilight.
It was, once again, pretty gross.
"How about that!?" Trixie yelled.
"I used that Celestia," Twilight said, but by projecting audio with her horn, since her mouth and vocal cords were currently in eight pieces. "She made the damn thing, you know."
"That's not all," Trixie said.
She cast another spell, and a vortex started stirring Twilight's innards like soup.
After a few seconds, the now liquid Twilight teleported out, and appeared behind Trixie, quickly reforming into her old self.
"No matter how creative you get, splitting me up isn't going to work," Twilight said. "What's next, Trixie?"
Trixie grimaced. "Oh, I've got more. I've got plenty more."
Her horn glowed, and a few pillar like machines appeared around Twilight. After a few seconds, they started emitting a low hum.
Twilight winced. "What's this?" she said, grinning.
"Radiation generators," Trixie said. "Right now, they are sending eight times the normal lethal dose of radiation straight to your body, and nowhere else. The humans had a disturbing amount of research done in the subject."
"Planning to disrupt me at a molecular level, huh?" Twilight got out, showing she was in pain for the first time.
"That's the idea." Her horn glowed, and the hum grew noticeably louder. "In fact, here it is at twenty times. How does that feel?"
Twilight collapsed to the ground, gagging, unable to speak. Some blood leaked from her nostrils.
Luna, looking down from the sky, was a bit surprised. "She's bleeding. It's affecting her body." She looked to Celestia. "This isn't going to work, is it?"
Celestia looked up vacantly, doing some math in her head. "Probably not."
Luna got irritated. "Probably?"
Velvet was still quite distraught. "Why… why isn't she fighting back?"
Oleander was silent.
– – – –
About 10 minutes later, Twilight was still gurgling.
Trixie was having difficulty containing her glee. "There you go," she said. "Now you know what it feels like. You humiliated me so much. You destroyed any prospects I had for a future. Because of you, I had to work for that damn Trump for years. And the things he did to me… oh, if only I could make you experience them. But alas, I don't have years to kill you."
Twilight's horn glowed slightly. Trixie didn't really notice, but she was conjuring up various figures in front of her face. Numbers and equations appeared and rearranged themselves constantly, until…
She stopped. She turned her magic off, and started laughing weakly, her eyes growing wet.
"Oh, are you starting to break?" Trixie said, mockingly. "Is this all it takes? 10 minutes? I wonder just how long we'll have to keep this thing on to kill you completely. I'm willing to wait."
"I… I'm…"
Trixie leaned in. "Oh? Oh? What is it? Are you in pain? Do you want my help? Tell me, Twilight. Tell me."
Twilight swallowed, and continued to speak. "I'm… regenerating… too… fast…" She paused, coughing up a little blood. "Next."
Trixie's eyes widened, and her entire face contorted into madness. "DAMN YOU! ALWAYS HAVING TO SHOW ME UP, YOU STUPID FUCKING BITCH!" she screamed. She tried to compose herself, but only succeeded in making herself look half normal. "YOU KNOW WHAT? HERE'S EVERYTHING FUCKING AT ONCE!"
Her horn glew, and invisible blazes and vortexes and flames turned Twilight's body into a glowing, spinning soup, with random sections bubbling up into bloody tumors from the radiation. Trixie looked upon the scene and laughed like a madman, sweating from the exertion.
Celestia's wings raised. "Oh my."
"DON'T YOU WORRY ABOUT ME! I HAVE A BACKUP PLAN! I HAVE A BACKUP PLAN FOR EVERYTHING!" Trixie screamed. "WHO CARES HOW FAST YOU CAN REGENERATE IF NOT A SINGLE ATOM OF YOU IS LEFT!?"
She tapped her ear. "Do it," she said.
The ground shook, and sections of the forest started to slide away. What was left of Twilight's body and the radiation machine began to float in air, surrounded on all sides by an underground missile complex, with giant rockets aimed at her from every side.
"Each of these missiles contains 15 hydrogen bonds, the most powerful human weapon ever made," Trixie said, putting on some goggles and walking on a catwalk to a control room. "We tested them when the various Canterlots were being humped by giant monsters, so the seismic disturbances wouldn't stand out."
Luna glared at Celestia.
"And what did we find?" Trixie said. " With enough explosive force, you can completely vaporize the area at the center of the explosion. And, of course, with this many bombs, there's no way that won't happen." She opened the door. "And don't worry, we're in a remote area, and the explosion will eventually dissipate harmlessly in the atmosphere, so no one else will be hurt. Besides, with magic, I can seal myself off fine, which is all that really matters." She entered the control room, closed the door, and various parts of the complex became enveloped in a shimmering magic shield.
An intercom clicked, and begin to count down. "Ten… Nine… Eight…"
Luna looked incredulous. "I don't think she has quite the handle on nuclear physics she thinks she does. All the atmosphere would do is…" Her face sank.
"Five… Four… Three…"
Luna's eyes suddenly widened, and it looked like she was just about to have a heart attack. "CELESTIA! THERE IS NO ATMOSPHERE! THE DOME!"
Celestia's eyes widened just as much. "FUCK!"
In a split second, both their horns glowed and a giant spherical shield appeared around the area.
"One… launch!"
Celestia grimaced, exerting herself. "Look away, you two!"
Velvet was too shocked to react, so Oleander quickly tackled her to the ground and covered her eyes.
Immediately afterwards was one of the most impressive and ridiculous fiery glows any of them had ever witnessed. A deafening roar echoed through the landscape, and continued like this for at least a minute.
All of Equestria wondered what on earth was happening next to the castle this time.
A few more minutes passed, and the area was still fiery looking, but the main part of the explosion had finished.
"I think we need to keep the shield up for at least five more minutes!" Luna said, sweating.
"I know!" Celestia yelled.
Oleander, hearing the sounds die down, opened one of her eyes a crack and snuck a peek at the scene.
The area inside the shield was completely engulfed by flame, and every living thing inside had been obliterated. The only things remaining were the few protected parts of the missile complex—the control room, and the foundations needed to stand that up.
Twilight and the radiation machine were nowhere to be seen.
Oleander quickly closed her eye, just in case.
Minutes passed with no activity.
"I'm going to test for radiation," Luna said. "Take the shield for a few seconds."
"No, I'll do the test," Celestia said, sternly. "You take the shield."
Luna didn't argue.
The shield shimmered oddly for a few seconds while Celestia concentrated. Then it went back to the way it was before.
"Nothing," Celestia said. "The explosion was so localized there aren't even any ashes left."
Luna sighed in relief. "Good. Then release in three… two… one…"
The princess' shield disappeared. A few seconds later, the missile complex's did as well.
"You can look now," Celestia said.
Velvet and Oleander immediately opened their eyes and looked down on the scene.
The middle of the forest was now a massive crater, completely devoid of anything whatsoever. There wasn't even any smoke.
It was as clear as day that no part of Twilight remained.
The door to the control room opened, and Trixie exited. She danced around the exposed dirt, laughing maniacally.
"I did it! I did it!" she yelled. "I killed Twilight! Do you hear me, past Trixies? I did it! I finally did it! I finally achieved our holy goal, passed down from generation to generation from Trixie Prime, the great, the powerfu—!"
But then, she stopped.
In the center of the crater, what looked like small pieces of dirt started gathering. A few seconds later, they began to form themselves into a vaguely quadrapedal shape.
Trixie barely had words. "W-Wha…?"
With each passing second the form grew more distinct. Bone started appearing. Then, pockets of blood started floating in the air. Muscles appeared and started stretching themselves out. Soon, a disembodied brain and eyeballs gained form where the head should be, but it too was soon covered by muscle and flesh. With no particular pattern fur and feathers grew on Twilight's naked body.
The last thing that appeared was her celestial hair, which appeared to rip a chunk out of the piece of reality next to it and toss it to the side.
And Twilight did not look happy.
"Enough with the games, Trixie," she said, glaring. "Is that all?"
Trixie looked absolutely terrified. "Wha… bu… h-how…"
Milliseconds later, Twilight had Trixie pinned to her control room, which quickly began cracking under the pressure.
And unlike Celestia, Twilight wasn't turned on by this in the slightest.
Her entire body was filled with rage.
"I thought so," Twilight seethed.
"H-How are you alive?" Trixie stammered.
"I am a soul connected to a particular point in space," Twilight said. "It doesn't matter if every atom of my body is destroyed. As long as that connection remains intact, I can always come back."
Trixie glared. "Y-You're a monster."
Twilight was silent, and looked down.
"…you're right."
"What?"
"We all are. All the alicorns. I don't even care about the living forever part. We have to rape and cannibalize just to survive. It's part of our instincts, and Celestia fucking made it so we can't resist them even if we tried. I've killed and maimed more people than I even knew before this." When their eyes met again, Twilight's had tears in them. "I've tried to kill myself so much. I need to pay for my sins, and I can't. Do you understand, Trixie? I want to die."
Trixie couldn't respond.
"When I figured out what Corvorum Crepusculum meant, I was so happy. You were the best chance I had for finally escaping this hell. So I helped you. I helped you as much as I could." Her voice started shaking with anger. "You had a thousand years, Trixie. A thousand years, brilliant scientists, almost infinite resources, and the support of your target. And you used all that power to make this? A bigger explosion than normal?"
"I had… other ideas…"
"Shut up," Twilight growled. "Your other ideas? I already tried them. All of them. I've kept myself vivisected for a week. I've been impaled by spikes for months. I sometimes put cyanide in my coffee for taste. Committing suicide is part of my daily routine, and every assistant I've had has given me new ideas on how to end my life. And I only kept you alive because I thought you might be smart enough to think of something different."
Trixie could only open and close her mouth incoherently.
Twilight drew her face inches from Trixie and glared with a seething anger worse than anything anyone had seen from Celestia.
"Trixie," Twilight said, baring her fangs, "you're pathetic."
And she punched a hole through Trixie's stomach with her hoof.
Trixie fell to the ground limply, and Twilight wasted no time to feed. She tore a chunk of arm off, and proceeded to ravenously eat it as if she had not eaten in weeks.
Soon, there was only a skeleton of Trixie left.
No magic.
Just a hungry predator eating to survive.
Then, Twilight set her eyes on the ponies in the control room, her mouth covered with splattered blood.
They knew what was coming next.
– – – –
Velvet could barely speak.
"I've known for a while now," Oleander said. "Twilight's had me help out with her tests. And it's true. I don't think there is a way to kill her." She glanced at Celestia. "Not that I want it to work, of course…"
Celestia smiled. "Don't worry, Oleander," she said. "You're the Element of Magic now. I can't replace you easily. I'll make sure you stay alive until I find another one."
"How comforting."
Celestia looked down. "Well, I would work on eliminating Corvorum Crepusculum myself, but it seems Twilight has grasped that they are too dangerous to remain in this world," she said. "Tell her she can do whatever she wants with their remains, as long any remaining hydrogen bombs and the knowledge of how to create them is destroyed. I don't think she'll have a problem with that."
Oleander bowed slightly. "I will." She raised an eyebrow. "And, to confirm… whatever she wants?"
Celestia smiled. "You two really are a pair."
"Why can't… you tell her now?" Velvet said nervously, although she had an idea.
Celestia looked at the control room. A dismembered leg flew out of the window.
"I don't think she's quite… sentient right now."
"Sapient," Luna corrected.
"Shut up," Celestia snapped. "No one uses that word and you know it."
Oleander stood next to Velvet. "Alicorns need to eat meat to survive," she said. "When they get hungry enough, they go into a sort of… auto feeding mode, and you can't stop them. She'll be like this for at least an hour."
"And don't forget the fucking!" Celestia said.
Oleander rolled her eyes. "Oh, yeah, and their sex drive works the same way. She'll have to have sex for about five hours tonight after all that regenerating."
Velvet was having trouble taking this in. "So… you two are…?"
"Oh no," Oleander said. "She can't be with a mortal when it gets this bad." She looked to the princesses. "It'll be with one of them."
"I call dibs," Celestia said.
"She usually chooses me in these situations, you know," Luna said, grimacing.
Celestia smiled. "Then I'll just have to make sure she finds me first."
They started bickering randomly.
Velvet opened and closed her mouth.
Oleander looked at her. She smiled, but it looked a little forced.
"So, how does it feel to be part of the fold?"
– – – –
The next morning, Twilight awoke, with only vague memories of what she had been doing for the last six hours.
She could guess, though.
She was resting on Luna, who was breathing heavily and had a lustful look in her eyes.
Twilight had to admit, even though they all had the same figure, there was something about Luna that she found infinitely more erotic than Celestia.
The fact that she didn't completely hate her guts was probably part of it.
Twilight got off of Luna, stretched, and used a cleaning spell to dry herself off.
And the floor. And the walls. And the ceiling.
She left Luna the way she was, though. She knew she would enjoy it.
Twilight walked over to the window and looked outside.
It was overcast. It was always overcast this day, and for a few days after.
She was sure that was intentional.
– – – –
Velvet awoke in Twilight and Oleander's room. She stretched, gracefully, looked around, and saw Oleander sitting in a chair, watching her.
"Have been watching me zleep?" Velvet said, uselessly covering herself up with sheets.
"Yes," Oleander said. "Mainly just to make sure you didn't run off or anything, though. Don't get any ideas. You're not my type."
Velvet looked incredulous. "What is your type?"
"Anything scaly and slithery or three times bigger than me."
Velvet raised an eyebrow. "Don't you ponies ever sleep with each other?"
"Oh, that fell out of fashion hundreds of years ago," Oleander said, half joking. "Anyway, until Twilight's decided what to do with the remains of Corvorum Crepusculum, I figured you'd stay here. I imagine things are a little… chaotic now that your leader's been killed."
Velvet looked around. "Where is Twilight? Haven't you seen her?"
Oleander looked down. "She always takes today off. It's… an important day for her."
– – – –
Twilight stood in the garden in front of the castle. Although, calling it a castle was perhaps a bit generous. It looked more like a floating… vase… thing.
There was a large part of it that was empty, save for a single plaque.
Slowly, Twilight set a bouquet of flowers in front of it.
And a pair of used panties.
That was for Rarity.
"Hi guys," Twilight said. "I know it's been a while."
There was, of course, no response.
"I wish you could be here right now. I know I didn't act like I cared too much, but… I didn't realize how close I was to all of you until you were taken away."
She paused.
"…and also, my long life has revealed that even if everyone's an asshole, they're either boring assholes or funny assholes. And you all were definitely the latter."
She laughed a bit at her own joke, but then stopped, because that was pathetic.
She sighed.
"I screwed up."
She took a breath.
"Well, maybe not. According to Celestia, the only way I could've avoided this was by killing myself when I was three. I don't have many regrets not doing that."
She shook her head.
"Anyway, you remember Trixie? Well, guess what. She's been cloning herself for the last thousand years, just to kill me. And she made this huge charity empire too! I kind of like that part. I might try to keep that running."
She opened her mouth. Her voice started quavering.
"I thought… she'd be able to do it."
The clearing was silent.
"That was… the one thing that was keeping me going this whole time."
She did not talk for a long time.
"But… whatever. I'll just have to find a new reason to live! I can… help people, or something. I don't know. There's all kinds of stuff. Really."
She had trouble thinking of anything.
"Anyway, that's all for this year. See you next year. Bye, guys."
Twilight quickly turned around to leave.
As soon as she did so, she saw Obama, clad in dark blue armor and a quite large hat similar to what a pope wore, on the back of a large purple dragon with green spikes.
They had landed on the ground directly in front of her.
Twilight had no idea how she had not noticed this spectacle.
"Wha…?"
"I'm off the moon," Obama said, getting off the dragon.
Twilight had many questions, but one jumped to the forefront. "What are you wearing?"
Obama walked over to the plaque and stared. "You mourn your friends on the day I was banished to the moon?" he said. "I'm flattered."
Twilight blushed, embarrassed. "Well, we never found out exactly when they all died, so…"
Obama looked at the pair of used panties. "Are these for…?"
Twilight hesitated. "Rarity? Yes."
Obama smiled. "Good one! Good one," he said, patting Twilight on the back.
Twilight smiled.
There was an awkward silence.
"What are you doing here, Obama?"
"Well, I realized the alicorns are completely immortal, so I'm going to destroy the world."
Twilight continued smiling awkwardly.
"What?"
Obama extended a palm and a giant beam of energy came out.
Two seconds later, Twilight was on the other side of the garden, skidding against dirt. She got up, wincing, and the next thing she knew, Obama and the dragon were standing over her.
Twilight was lost for words. "Magic!? Wha—!? Bu—!?"
"Tell Luna I could avoid the temptation of the moon rocks just fine. She'll fill you in."
"Wha…? What temptation…?"
"And Spike here would like to have a few words with you."
Twilight looked at the dragon. "Spike? Where have you been? I thought you'd died."
Spike, whose head was as big as Twilight's whole body now, smiled. "Very typical… mother."
Twilight thought about this a bit.
"…excuse me?"