The Bad Ending (Alternate Ending 2)
(Ending requirements: Do not complete Saint Twilight Sparkle's loyalty mission and beat the game.)
---
Twilight took a long time before she was able to calm herself enough to stop holding her face against her mentor's barrel, sniveling and wiping her eyes as she hesitantly gazed up at said mentor. The appearance of tears on the alicorn's face did put her slightly more at ease, but there was a question that kept her from really stopping.
"... Then... wh-what... are you going to do?" she emitted, earning the attention of her ruler. Princess Celestia breathed deeply once more and drew the mare closer, swallowing audibly several times to regain her composure.
"I can no longer teach you." Twilight's ears twitched. She had heard that correctly, as much as she hated to believe it. The Sun Princess released her from the embrace and slowly stood up from the bed before sitting down beside it with another sigh. "I'm sure that the other Bearers have told you about Tirek."
Twilight nodded slowly, knowing where this conversation was going, but continuing to listen.
"Without you, Equestria was taken over. Put in jeopardy. Every one of my little ponies was endangered and enslaved." Her voice gained a great amount of steel and passion, as did her expression. "... Rainbow Dash did save us all, yes... But can it happen again? Will she be able to save Equestria again if a new evil seeks to take it? ... I cannot be sure. But I refuse to allow the security of Equestria be compromised again..."
She looked Twilight in the eye and allowed her visage to relax slightly. "Your magic is tainted... The... atrocities that you have committed have changed you, Twilight. There is a darkness in your magic, in your very soul." The purple pony grit her teeth without showing them, unable to help the fiercely gripping dread that engulfed her thoughts. "I cannot teach you. If you ever... became a threat to Equestria and its citizens, I would have only myself to blame."
"... But..." Twilight uttered softly, her body unable to muster any more tears.
"No, Twilight," Celestia cut in, her voice full of steel. Then she paused, breathing deeply. "I know it hurts, Twilight. But I have failed my little ponies too many times. I have allowed their ways of life - or indeed, their very lives - to be put in danger enough... To the point where the ponies of Equestria no longer have faith in me."
Twilight was only half listening. A small part of her was angry, though not with the Princess. She understood what she meant. No, she was angry with Zinyak, and the Saints, to an extent. Being abducted, enduring all that pain, all that misery, all that strife... All of it had been for nothing. And that was what the rest of her was hopelessly clinging to.
She remembered Tirek... That bastard. The villainous centaur slid easily into her hatred's crosshairs, the mare clenching her teeth harder as she thought of him.
"... You will not be punished for attacking Rainbow Dash. You may move back to Ponyville and resume life as normal. But I can no longer be your guide. I'm sorry."
Twilight did not answer for a good long while, just staring at a few wrinkles on the infirmary bed's sheets, angry. There would be no "resuming life as normal." She had no life anymore. Tirek had destroyed it. Tirek and Zinyak. Her friends, in spite of what they had said, undoubtedly saw their long lost friend far differently than they had before. And why not? Her time in the Simulation, with the Saints, with the Boss had changed her so much...
She thought back to when Rainbow Dash had been explaining how Tirek was overthrown and defeated. That one question that she asked so impulsively: "You didn't kill him?" Murder was a part of her, ingrained in her very psyche. It was an option that her subconscious could easily take by impulse. She imagined being in her library, calmly reading before Rainbow Dash crashed in through a window and made a mess of things. She cringed as the thought immediately had her grabbing the flyer in her magic and crushing her spine in a fit of anger.
There was no "normal life" she could return to. Not really. Her mind was inundated with scenario after scenario of committing atrocity after atrocity, slaughtering ponies over small, insignificant things...
And one last mental image, one more powerful than any of its predecessors, hit her with all the force of a train crashing into a wall of stone. One of her Simulation, her Ponyville Tartarus. A picture in which Twilight Sparkle was fleeing and cowering from herself.
A gentle prod on the back of her neck scared the poor mare out of the dark pits in which her mind had been wallowing, making her jump and snap her gaze to its source. "Twilight?" the Princess asked, gazing- glaring down at her, as if the alicorn wanted to decapitate her... And her horn started to radiate with a bright, intense yellow glow! "Are you alright?" The tone of her voice carried genuine concern that did not match the glare.
"Uhhh... I- Errr..." she stammered, rapidly blinking as she looked all around the room in a panic.
"Twilight...?" Celestia's voice sounded again, sounding more worried and wary. The poor pony finally met the Sun Princess' eyes with her own and... she looked worried and wary. Her horn was normal, not a trace of its owner's golden magical aura. Twilight blinked several times, mouth slightly agape as she tried to process what was really happening.
"P-Princess," she uttered breathlessly, her body beginning to shake. "... I... I... I'm..." She lowered her gaze again, and shook her head out rapidly. "... I'm sorry, I... Just a sudden headache..." the unicorn lied.
The white mare's wing nudged the former apprentice closer, her expression unchanging. "You were quiet for a few minutes, Twilight," Celestia said in a low tone. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing!" Twilight replied, doing her best to sound sincere. "I was just... wondering how everypony will react when I come back..." As she said this, she sniffled, magically retrieving a tissue from the box beside the bed and blowing her nose.
The Princess stared at her for a few brief seconds before she smiled and let out a soft giggle. "That's what you're worried about?" came her humored query, prompting Twilight to emit an embarrassed chuckle. She didn't have to lie about this, at least.
"Y-Yeah... I just... I don't know how I'm going to really settle back in," the bookish mare continued, thinking quickly to make it more believable. "Especially without writing friendship reports to you..."
Celestia seemed to think for a moment on that before responding. "Well, if you like, you can still write them. I've always enjoyed reading your reports, Twilight. In fact, I've..." Her tone dropped an octave, became a bit more somber. "-all but memorized all of them since your disappearance."
The violet pony raised an eyebrow. "You have? Really?"
"Dear Princess Celestia..." she began, clearing her throat. "I am happy to report that I now realize there are wonderful things in this world you just can't explain, but that doesn't necessarily make them any less true. It just means you have to choose to believe in them. And sometimes it takes a friend to show you the way." Twilight listened intently and immediately remembered writing that letter; after she had accepted Pinkie Pie's sixth sense. "Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle."
"You have... wow," Twilight softly commented, nodding slightly. "You missed me that much..."
"Of course, I did, Twilight." The Sun Raiser answered without hesitation, nuzzling Twilight gently. "Tirek or no, a dear friend had disappeared from my life. From many lives. Your friends, Spike and I tore Equestria apart looking for you when you disappeared."
Twilight managed a smile, returning the nuzzling briefly. "... It's good to hear you say that, Princess..."
Celestia let out a soft hum of contented acknowledgement, pausing a few seconds before saying anything more. "In any case, feel free to continue writing reports, Twilight... Even if you'd just like to talk." The Princess seemed rather insistent on that last bit. "If anything is ever wrong, you can always write to me. Student or not, I'd still like to be your friend."
Twilight's smile grew a little. "Thank you..."
---
That was advice Twilight never took. It had been nearly three weeks since the Saints had left the planet, and Twilight was settling into a slight semblance of a routine at the Golden Oaks Library... Open the library, close the library, go to sleep... Occasionally she would be visited by her friends, but the only one that she regularly interacted with was Spike.
Twilight was even more of a shut-in now than she had ever been. She barely spoke to anypony in the twenty days she had been home, and hadn't left the library in the last three.
This worried Spike.
He knew Twilight was different now, that much was obvious. She didn't read nearly as much. She was sloppy. She no longer obsessed over details and checklists. And she wouldn't let Spike into the basement, claiming that she was doing something secret at night that she didn't want him to touch.
But none of that got to the baby dragon as much as how sad his caretaker had become. How sad her experiences had made her. How much they weighed on her. How much they tormented her. It wasn't uncommon to overhear weeping from another room, only for it to stop and for Twilight to have put on her bravest face. He often caught her just staring off into space, her expression blank, lost in thought. And he had lost quite a bit of sleep to Twilight's nightmares.
It was as he broke the eggs for that morning's waffles that he really began to wonder about Princess Celestia. He thought about writing a letter of warning to the Princess. Something along the lines of "I'm worried about Twilight, please come help before something happens." The drake pondered what that "something" could be... He wasn't quite as naive as some ponies thought, to be sure, but he never felt like he knew what Twilight was thinking anymore. It could be anything...
"Twilight, wake uuuup!" he called, mixing the batter... Several minutes passed and he heard nothing. No hoofsteps or returned yelling. "Twiliiiight!!" He held his breath and froze, listening carefully... Several more minutes passed. No sound. "Darn it..." he uttered, turning off the waffle iron and hopping down from the kitchen stool to head up to Twilight's bedroom.
The door was open when I came down here, he noted as he reached it, pushing it open as he-
Twilight was gone.
"... Twiliiiiight...!?" the baby dragon called again, beginning to panic as he started searching the room. He began to try to remember if she was in bed when he woke up. He tried to think if he heard her leave. He tried to think of every possible thing that she might have done, every place she could have gone.
"Hoot!" Owlicious' loud hoot startled Spike as the avian approached him, a scroll clutched in its beak.
"What's that?" he asked, reaching up to catch it as Owlicious dropped it. It was wide parchment, rolled up neatly and closed with one of their usual seals. Spike looked at the scroll for a moment... He almost didn't want to read it. Nopony else but Twilight could have written this letter. And combined with the fact that she was gone, Spike felt dread beginning to claw at his heart. He took a deep breath and unrolled the message.
The hoofwriting was neat, to be sure. Twilight's usually was. But it was heavily stained with tears, some of the ink smudged by such. Gingerly, he began to read.
---
"To Everypony,
Spike will probably be the first to find this letter, declaring that I have disappeared. That's fine. I write this because everypony deserves to know why I'm leaving. And why I'll never come back home.
I'm a monster. My time in the Simulation and with the Saints has turned me into an abomination that doesn't deserve to live in Ponyville. Or even exist on Equus. I regret not leaving with the Saints. At least there, I could be myself. My real self. I could be a killer among killers, and I could at least feel useful.
I'm too dangerous to live anywhere. Every time I see somepony, I imagine myself killing them. I hate it. I hate all the pain, I hate all the worrying, I hate all the fucking hallucinations and nightmares so fucking much! I just can't take it anymore.
I'm going to die. And I want to die.
Nopony can stop me. Don't try. You'll only get yourself hurt or killed as well.
If nothing else, I want to do everypony some good before I die. I've gone to Tartarus to do what Rainbow Dash should have done: kill Tirek. And once he's dead, I'm going to let the creatures of Tartarus take me. It's what I deserve. It's where I deserve to die.
The Saints left me a large amount of their weaponry (they call them "guns") as a parting gift. I want them to be taken and used to defend Equestria. It's the least I can do.
To all of my friends, this is goodbye. I wish I could have brought myself to see you face to face, but I don't want to kill anypony. Least of all any of you. Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, I'm really, really, truly sorry.
To Princess Celestia, I'm sorry. I wanted to write to you, but I know what would happen. If I told you of what I see, of what I'm constantly thinking, I would never be able to do this. I fear that you would have me killed, imprisoned, or banished. I couldn't trust you.
And to Spike. I'm so sorry. I'm so very sorry. I'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'm sorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorry. I'm going to miss you. Behave yourself, okay? I love you.
Goodbye, everypony. This is for the best.
-Twilight Sparkle
Saint"
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I understand that it's an alternate ending as in 'the one that didn't happen' but a suicide? Really?
6384910 What do you mean "really"?
6384919 I mean suicide is bit much, no offense
6384924 I know, but the dark tag IS there for a reason...
6384924
6384942
Besides, it's fairly true to life, since those with PTSD tend to have higher suicide rates than the rest of the population. (Of particular concern are veterans with combat experience, as seen in this report by the VA.)
6385065 I actually read that earlier. I was doing a lot of research on the topic just to be sure I wasn't doing anything wrong.
I- Uhh... 3 weeks is 21 days right? Just asking to make sure.
It's a sad ending yeah, Twilight believing that she can't tame the trauma she's experienced and live a regular life, not in this case. She lost her pillar so to speak and she's directing the fallout at what she know as the ones that caused those close to her grief and she won't stop until it's done. She couldn't talk to anyone about it as in their world, what she is she already knows and so she hid her feelings until she decided to act on it in the only way she knew how. A pity really but yeah, the tag is there for a reason.
Great write up. Perhaps it doesn't have to be so 'bad' of an ending at all? I would like to humbly point out a few things:
1) the actual suicide is only inferred not shown. She (and we) only assumes the creatures of Tartarus will tear her apart after killing the biggest bad there.
2) "You keep what you kill" is a running them both in Saints canon and this story.
Setting up Twilight as the FiM version of the Greek Hades -- gloomy, depressed, in exile, lonely, anti-social -- is so damn awesome that it should be a thing.
Who would be her Persephone?
6385113 Heh, it could be Tirek, for all you know~ I ended at the end of the suicide note for a reason.
6385110 Fixed, and exactly. The mind is not always a rational thing, after all.
6385132
BTW, your cover art image seems to be broken...
6385162 it most certainly is. I wish I knew why.
And Celestia screws up yet again! Almost want to see another chapter of this ending to see how everyone reacts to the letter and the princess' latest screw-up. Bet Luna would take it bad as this is pretty much how Nightmare Moon came about.
Wow maybe the aftermath of this ending might led to the rest of the mane 6 taking there own .
So far, we have had a "Bad End", and now a "Worse End". ...we aren't going to get a "Good End", are we.
6385523 good end at this point would be the saints come back and she leaves with them i think.
Sorry to say this but I actually prefer this ending to the original ending. As messed up as this ending is with Twilight sacrificing herself to get rid of Tirek and running away from her problem coping with how much she's changed, I still prefer this to the messed up way she burned down Starlight Glimmer's village and presumable killed her in the most painful why she could.
6385173
Well, whatever the problem was, it seems to be fixed now. Probably some glitch in the database.
6385523
6385862 I'ma be honest, unless I decide to do that extra ending, the CANON ending is probably the best ending Twilight's going to get.
6385331 Celestia is at fault, but she's making a decision to the safety of Equestria before the needs of one.
6385862 or The Saints left a sim pod in the basement to take care of Twilight's boredom and help her get back to some what normal life.
Huh. Well...suicide. I did not see that coming. Though...that's just me. And NO ONE deserves to be me.
Now...here's a song about what the next ending should be!
Just replace Gor-Gor with Twilight! Let's get ready to INVADE EQUESTRIA!
And of course, she'll enjoy every second of it, and she won't feel any remorse for what she's doing.
6386365 Yeah, but her decision potentially could have been for the worst of the country. In fact very close to the situation with Nightmare Moon where she ignored her and she became a threat to the country. Twilight could have gone the same way, but this path isn't much better as now ponies will lose faith in her and Spike could potentially become a threat in the future if he reacts badly enough.
im sorry no i still want twilight to stand up to celestia and give her the what for her view on twilight is wrong is fucking wrong and hypercritical
1 year day and night constantly killed by all her friends then she fights for her life and saves her home planet and she is the bad one NO FUCK THAT give the mare a medal you bitch if those aliens landed you were FUCKED elements of harmony or not i bet bullets and lasers travel faster than the friendship rainbow
Wow. Bad ending indeed.... at least she'll go out with a bang.
6387774
Dude...all she needs after hearing that is to invade Equestria, and prove her mentor right. After all, if they want a threat to the nation, she'll sure as hell give them one...
6387774
I agree.
I can imagine an alternate ending in which Twilight gets in a heated discussion with Celestia about this.
During that discussion Twilight might remember what Zinjai said about time travel.
She (and maybe the Saints too) could then go back in time and kick Tirek's butt
"But what about time paradoxes?"
"Fuck paradoxes, we're the Saints!"
6394821 Huh that opens up all new possibilitys how about going back and stopping her kidnapping
Yeah, great job kicking out one of the few steady constants of Twilight's life and leaving her mentally unhinged.
6394821 Yeah, I can see that happening and that exact pair of quotes.
I know ptsd is no joke but you did a good job putting it out in all endings. Nice story and I hope to see more from you
Loved the story up till then ending but meh we all have different likes. Thank you for sharing
This fic left me... Lacking.
Don't get me wrong, it's well written and paced on a technical level. Maybe I should have heeded the dark tag with more caution, but the ending just... Doesn't sit right with me. Not even the "bad end" which I'm honestly purposely avoiding at this point.
The way Celestia treated Twilight's return and what she has been through doesn't seem right. Her acts or no, Twilight spent over a YEAR reliving getting killed over and over and over again by her best friends AND her mentor. She's changed- she's SCARRED by it. Celestia all but disowning her doesn't seem like the course of action she would take- it's the same mistake she made with Luna and she's grown from that. Twilight now more than ever needs her to be there- to give her help. To console her and maybe even get her some therapy. Equestria is a saccharine world that believes in second chances- Twilight deserves hers.
It's not like there aren't other solutions of reconciling violent settings with Equestria's peacefulness. Maybe my bar was set a bit too high by it, but The Equestrian Equation manages to combine the war and killing of Mass Effect and the nonviolence of ponies in an incredibly sensible way- I'd suggest giving it a read, it's a quality piece of work.
Overall I kind of regret reading this. Up until the end I had high hopes for it, but the conclusion just kind of let me down. But overall, a 7/10 rating.
THE FEELS ARE REAL!!! But seriously, this was really good. I'd...I'd like to see a continuation!
I enjoyed the story overall, the ending kind of sucks but other then that it was pretty good.
this story was as awesome as i expected, i really enjoyed this one. i didn't care for the ending. but i still had fun reading it.
Right. Now we just need the ending where Twilight gives Celie here a good bollocking for disowning her after SAVING THE FUCKMOTHERING PLANET FROM BEING TURNED TO ASH!
Preferably with Luna, Spike, and the Mane 6 helping.
... I think reading this has just soured every saints row game for me now. Which I suppose was inevitable really considering its the saints were talking about here. By the end I didn't even care about them I just wanted something to end the Saints miserable fucking existence.
I'm sad she didn't go back with the Saints. The moment she had a freak out about being banished, it made me think Celestia was going to say something about her being banished, but with the obvious implication of going with the Saints. The regular ending felt a little weak.
That said, fuckin fantastic story, I never knew I needed this until I found it while searching up random shit.