The sound of beeping and mechanical whirring slowly pulled her to consciousness, and with awareness came the sensation of warmth and of floating. She would later learn that it was the morphine drip, but for now, she didn't care.
What she did care about was the tingly sensation throughout her body, especially below her neck. After pondering it for a few minutes, so long because of how hazy her head felt, Sparkle realized that her magic was leaking from her core, and tried to pull it back.
She regretted it instantly.
Pain of the soul and of the magic was not something that could be treated with chemical pain relievers. Sparkle hissed, the motion of her face causing her to feel the bandages for the first time. And, while she still ached from her attempt to recompress her magic, it did bring something else: awareness.
A trace of adrenaline entered her blood, bringing her to full alertness in a second. Sparkle's eyes snapped open, but only one saw the distinctive tiles of the hospital ceiling. The other eye saw light, sure, but filtered through a layer of gauze.
"Mmmm..." she moaned. There were suddenly hoof steps, and a figure that she hadn't heard before then, but must have been in the room, appeared over her bed.
"Good morning, Ms. Twilight. How are you feeling?" the mare in nurse's garb said.
"..."
"I'm sorry. I didn't quite catch that," the nurse said.
Her voice rough, she croaked, "...'M name's Sparkle."
"Oh! My mistake. I saw your charts and thought you went by your first name," she said, her tone quite chipper. "Can I get you anything?"
"Water."
Something cold and moist touched Sparkle's lips. "Just suck on the sponge for me. Don't try and sit up just yet. I'll refill it when it's dry, so don't worry about that. Now, I need to ask you some questions first. Most of these are yes/no questions, so nod or blink once for yes, shake or blink twice for no, whichever is more comfortable. Are you ready?"
Sparkle nodded.
"Good. Do you feel any pain in your right foreleg or its shoulder?" Negative. "Any physical pain in general?" Negative. "Does your magic cause you any pain?" Positive. "On a scale of one to ten, with one being no pain, and ten being excruciating, does your pain rate more than a five?" Negative. The nurse looked relieved to hear that. Changing out Sparkle's water sponge, the nurse continued to ask a few more questions about Sparkle's health.
Finally satisfied, the smiling nurse said, "Now, you just rest here for a minute while I go get the doctor. He'll explain everything and answer your questions, and then we'll see about letting your friends and family visit you. How does that sound, sweetie?"
Sparkle nodded and took one last suck of water from the sponge. The blue-eyed nurse stepped out the door and a minute later, almost to the second, she trotted back in with a very serious-looking stallion. The doctor looked to the side, glancing at something Sparkle couldn't see from her angle, and then affixed his vibrant pink eyes on the injured unicorn.
"Sparkle, color me impressed. That stallion that carried you in told us that you'd lost the limb hours before he got you here, and that you'd been using your magic to keep yourself alive. That takes skill," the doctor said. "Doctor Scalpel, primary trauma surgeon of Canterlot Royal Medical Hospital, at your service."
"Thank you," Sparkle said. "So?"
"Right. We had to remove an additional quarter hoof length of bone and tissue from your right foreleg in order to seal it and prevent infection. You are likely going to be on antibiotics for at least a month to be safe, and you won't be leaving the hospital for two weeks, minimum. You suffered minor first-degree magical burns along the front and left sides of your body, although nothing a burn potion can't fix. As long as you don't get infected, you will likely make as complete of a physical recovery as one could expect from your situation."
Sparkle looked at him, her face neutral. "There's more, isn't there?"
"Yes. In all my time as a surgeon, I have fixed dozens of magical pathways and will likely have to fix dozens more, but I have never seen a unicorn's core damaged before. What did Discord do to you?" Dr. Scalpel asked.
"Discord didn't do that. The Elements of Harmony did it."
"I'm afraid that I don't know what those are," the doctor said.
"Light magic artifacts. Purified Luna and turned Discord to stone. Attacked me because bearers saw me and my magic as a threat. It nearly imploded my soul, my core," Sparkle answered.
"That's what Cobalt, the stallion that brought her in, said when I asked him," the nurse added.
The doctor frowned. "That does answer some of my questions. Now, while I would suggest sleep, I wouldn't want to keep you from your visitors outside, that is, if you want to-"
"Yes!" Sparkle said, cutting him off.
"Excited, are we? Very well." Dr. Scalpel turned around and said, "You can come in now."
As the doctor and nurse exited the hospital room, three figures entered the room, two ponies and one young drake. "Mom!" The smallest of the trio exclaimed. Thorn, in his smallest and most immature form, climbed up onto Sparkle's bed and lay down next to her head without any prompting. Similarly unprompted, Sparkle turned her head away from him and let him embrace her head. The two immediately sighed in relief, as the soul they shared, contained in the back of Sparkle's head and in Thorn's heart, came close enough together to nearly feel like one soul again, and close enough together to begin to heal one another.
It was more than that, though. The moment his claws brushed through her mane, a tingle went down her spine as he poured raw life-force into her. Under bandages, flesh began to squirm and heal shut, but only heal. Life-force alone could only heal, not regrow flesh that had been removed, and so Sparkle's limb, instead of regrowing, simply healed into a stump.
Now, while Thorn's actions might have taken a while to say, in reality, he was on her bed and beginning to heal her before most could stop him. "Thorn, get down from there," Shining Armor said, lighting his horn and surrounding Thorn with his pink aura.
"No! Don't touch him!" Sparkle protested, her voice quickly gaining strength even as she spoke.
The aura around Thorn died away. "Sorry, Sparks. I just didn't want him to hurt you."
"He's fine," Sparkle said. "I'm fine." Thorn tightened his grip unconsciously. "Shiny, Cobalt, are you two alright?"
"I'm fine, Sparks, just a little bruised." He frowned. "Cobalt, though..."
"Cobalt?"
"I... Whatever you did to protect us, didn't completely work. My memories are... all jumbled up, I think," the earth pony said. He smiled though, and rubbed the back of his head with his hoof, cleaned of paint and restored to its normal shade of red. "I sort of remember you, though. Were you important?"
"Maybe to you," she said. Sparkle narrowed her eyes in contemplation as she hummed to herself. "What do you mean 'jumbled'?"
"It's like... everything is there, but not connected together," Cobalt explained. "Names without faces, faces without names, words without images, sounds without meaning, skills without knowing how I learned them... Did you know that I can do unicorn magic? I have no idea where I could have learned that!"
"Hehehe, I taught you that," Sparkle answered.
"Oh, really? That makes sense, I think." His eyes lit up with sudden realization. "Hey, if you were my teacher, do you think you could help me put myself back together? I'm sure you know a lot of things about me."
Sparkle smiled. "It would be my pleasure."
There was a knock on the door. "Who? Come in!"
Cadance, being the only other pony who would likely have a reason to visit her, was who Sparkle expected to come through the door. And while it wasn't Cadance, it was a princess that walked through the doorway.
"Princess Celestia, Ma'am," Shining Armor states, snapping to attention and saluting the alicorn.
"At ease, First Lieutenant Shining Armor. And, while I expect to be calling you Captain Armor soon enough for your bravery the other night," – Shining Armor's eyes went wide – "that is not why I'm here." When Celestia’s eyes fell upon Sparkle, the young mare felt as if she were being bathed in sunlight, and not the gentle warmth of spring, but the blistering, merciless heat of a desert sun. Thorn further tightened his grip around Sparkle’s head on reflex, shying away from the radiant heat and light.
Sparkle made herself look away from the alicorn, her eyes choosing to gaze out the window instead. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Princess? Surely it's not just a social call."
"No, it is not," Celestia answered firmly. "Discord rampaged for hours, and for a being of his power, that is more than enough time to cause severe calamity and strife. The Elements of Harmony stopped him and restored the planet, and yet you nearly handed the world to him on a silver platter. I have heard my student's side of the story, and I want to know your side of the story before I decide what happens next."
Sparkle weighed her options before deciding that it would just be easier to play along. Looking back at the tall princess, Sparkle asked, "What do you want to know?"
Princess Celestia requested, "I want to know everything, starting from the Gala and ending when you woke up here."
Nodding, Sparkle started recounting the events of that night, from her deal with Fancy Pants to her conversation with Luna. When she got to the part about Vinyl Scratch, Sparkle added, "Vinyl gave me a warning. Some of the Covens are allying themselves with each other, despite being enemies, and are allying with some werewolves and changelings. Something big is stirring."
"That is quite troubling," Celestia replied. “How accurate is this information, do you think? How well can you trust this Vinyl Scratch?”
“I don’t know her that well, and this is the first time I’ve heard of this situation, but I do know that she would never lie to me. Even a vampire coven as tame as LSC would have her head if she did anything to alienate a necromancer.”
“And why is that?”
“Blood wine, Princess. If you were to tell Luna’s Red Platoon that you might be able to get them blood wine from me, their reactions will tell you everything you need to know,” Sparkle answered.
“I will. Now, continue with what happened after Vinyl Scratch approached you,” the Sun Princess said.
Still looking out the window towards the hospital courtyard, Sparkle recounted, “That was when those four ponies were killed.”
Celestia frowned. “What do you know about those ponies?”
“I know one of them was Prince Blueblood,” Sparkle said. “I’d never seen the other three before that night.” Which was true, technically; her specters had seen them, but she had not seen them with her own eyes. However, her interest in seeing justice against four dead ponies, when compared to her desire to not be associated with their deaths, was rather low.
“And the assailant? Do you know anything about that unicorn?”
“No.” Then Sparkle winced. “Thorn, your claws.”
The Drake loosened his grip. “Sorry, Mom.”
“I know you’re trying to make me feel better, but don’t hug so tightly,” Sparkle said. Addressing the source of the still-present burning heat, she explained Discord’s first appearance before her, and her subsequent teleportation, where she met up with Cobalt.
“Oh, that’s something I actually remember!” he suddenly exclaimed. “And then the streets turned into a maze, right?”
“Yes,” agreed Sparkle, before quickly finishing her tale. “Look,” she said as she concluded, “I solve problems. It wasn’t like I had a choice.” The lavender mare lifted the stump she had for a foreleg, which ended just below the elbow. “Discord literally took my leg away and prevented me from healing it. I was going to die otherwise. I tricked Discord so that he could be defeated and nopony except the shop keeper was hurt in the process. What more could you ask of me?”
“I wouldn’t have killed them, had I been in your shoes,” Princess Celestia said. “I would have handed the Elements back then and there and have been done with it.”
“And four people would have died if I had done that!” Sparkle shouted, turning to meet Celestia’s gaze for the first time and causing Shining and Cobalt to jump at the sudden loudness. “Me, Cobalt, Thorn and Savior, we all would have been killed by the Elements had I not negotiated Discord into giving my book back!”
Celestia knew that the Elements were powerful light magic artifacts; to fear death from them, when innocents were unaffected, Celestia equated to practically admitting guilt. “You never mentioned this “Savior” individual, and how would have Cobalt and Thorn been in any danger?” Celestia inquired.
“Thorn has half my soul, Cobalt’s brain is magically tied to me by a voluntary geas, and Savior is my innocent, unborn foal!” Sparkle hissed.
Shining Armor’s eyes went wide. This was the first he was hearing about the unborn Savior, and all of his brotherly instincts were telling him to demand to know who the father was so he could beat the pathetic stallion to a bloody pulp and lock him away. However, he refrained, seeing as his necromancer sister was in a heated discussion with the resident sun goddess.
“And you gambled with my faithful student and her friend’s lives, and the lives of countless people across the globe, for three ponies, without even the chance of escaping Discord’s rule should you have failed?” the enraged, albeit seemingly calm, Celestia said.
“You mean you would have sacrificed your family?” Sparkle growled. The next lash of her tongue came before she could stop it. Perhaps it was the morphine, or maybe it was schadenfreude, but either way, Sparkle quipped, “Oh wait, you have already. Luna.”
Out in deep space, the sun above let out six of the biggest solar flares ever recorded, detonated by Celestia’s rage. In the hospital room, however, all that the mortals saw was a twitch of her eyebrow.
Sparkle’s hoof shot to her mouth, though she moved her shoulder as if the other hoof was still there. “No. I’m sorry! I didn’t mean that. Please forgive me, your highness.”
“For your services to Equestria, you won’t be serving jail time for the crimes of using black magic against my subjects, of which you have been found guilty.” Celestia declared. “Instead, Twilight Velvet Sparkle, you will be conscripted as a noncombatant member of the Red Platoon to investigate these claims of Vinyl Scratch, and, regardless of their validity, defend the living citizens of Equestria. You will receive standard pay, but continued service is compulsory until at such time I deem you have repaid your debt. Any infraction will be punished to the full extent, and abandoning your duty will be considered high treason, and punished accordingly. Furthermore, your only break will be for the delivery of your child, at which point he will be placed in the orphanage system or with a guardian of your choice until such time you are relieved of duty.
“Do you understand?” Celestia asked. Sparkle swore she could see the inferno bubbling in the princess’s eyes.
“But-” Sparkle was about to protest that her presence among the Red Platoon could actually spark a vampire war, but she held her tongue. “Yes, I understand.”
“Good. A guard will retrieve you when you are released from the hospital,” Celestia decreed. “Good day.” With that, she turned and left.
A moment of silence filled the room. And then, “Sparks, what in Tartarus is going on?”
“I get the feeling that was bad,” Cobalt commented from where he stood shaking.
“No shit,” Thorn replied.
"Sparks, you're pregnant? When did that happen?" Shining Armor pleaded.
Thorn snorted. "Of course that's what Uncle Shining gets out of that conversation."
Ignoring the other half of her soul, Sparkle said, "Savior is the son of Card Gambit, the stallion who had you kidnapped, and not in the way you think." Shining opened his mouth. "No, he didn't touch me." The stallion closed his mouth. "It's the reincarnation spell. I'm growing the stallion I had to kill a new body in my womb. Savior has been asleep inside of me for over three months."
Shining glared at her. "I'm pissed that you didn't tell me sooner, but this isn't the time for that. Now, what's the connection between you and the Red Platoon?"
"You really don't know?" Shining shook his head. "They're vampires, I'm me. That's a powerful combination."
"Yeah, and if mom can't get out of this, the other vampires are going to slaughter the platoon for having her side with the platoon instead of them," Thorn said.
"Then we need to tell the Princess," Shining Armor said.
"She'll find out soon enough," Sparkle said. “For now, I just want to rest. I’ll deal with this shit in the morning.”
“Language, mom,” Thorn habitually quipped.
Chuckling lightly, Sparkle replied, “Thorn, I don’t think you’re ever going to break me of that habit.”
Shrugging, he said, “A drake can try.”
Stepping closer, Shining Armor put his hoof on Sparkle’s good shoulder. “Sparks, we need to talk. I’m really disappointed in you - don’t give me that look. I’m not disappointed in anything you’ve done, but that you haven’t told me. I’m your BBBFF; if you can’t confide in me, then who could you.”
Thorn used deadpan glare; it was not very effective.
“I promise, on my honor as a royal guard and, more importantly, as your big brother, that anything you say will not leave this room,” the eldest stallion in the room said. “Sparks, what have you been keeping from me, and who is this stallion,” - he pointed at Cobalt - “that you brought into our lives?”
She sighed, “I guess this has been a long time coming, right?”
“You have no idea.”
She thought it would be hard, but when Sparkle opened her mouth, the words practically leapt off her tongue. For hours they talked, and while Shining’s face never looked anything other than stern, he never interrupted aside from the occasional question. For hours they talked, only stopping temporarily when the nurse came to check on her. And all the while, Thorn’s close presence accelerated the repairing of their shared soul.
Two knocks punctuated the conversation that had been going on for hours. The nurse stepped into the room. “Visiting hours are over,” she announced. “Unless you’re planning to spend the night in here with her, you’d best be on your way.”
“Thorn,” Sparkle said, “stay with me.”
He nodded. “Sure thing.”
“I’ll see you two tomorrow, right?” Sparkle asked the departing stallions.
“Of course.”
“Absolutely.”
Sparkle briefly glanced away. “Great. See you then.”
Cobalt and Shining Armor shuffled out of the room, passing a maneless earth pony in the hall as they left.
“Can you get the lights, please?” Sparkle asked the nurse.
“Of course! Good night, and rest well!”
The glow crystal lights clicked off audibly, throwing the mother and son in the hospital bed into near darkness. It fell to complete darkness as the door shut tight.
A second passed.
Then a minute.
Then an hour.
Then two hours.
“Thorn, Thorn, wake up!” Sparkle hissed quietly.
“Hmm... wha?”
“Thorn, I need you to quietly jump us into my lab in the apartment, but don’t solidify us until we see the room is all clear. Got it?”
“Got it.”
With little more than a thought, Thorn activated the spell that had been placed upon him by his mother to allow him to teleport through the shadows. Wrapping his arms around his mother’s neck, he fell backwards through the bed and landed softly not a second later in the empty lab.
Sitting up, Sparkle and Thorn immediately jumped into action. "Thorn, gather all my notes and books and put them in my space-expanded trunk, we're leaving."
Sparkle then hobbled over to a shelf, where she pulled down an iron box and a specific book. Opening the box, she quickly drank the tar-like substance of a research specter. 'Help repair the damage to my magic,' she instructed the artificial demon.
Then, opening the book, one of the Dread Necroptica, she commanded, "Dread-summoning array." The book's pages rapidly flipped past her before stopping on a page with the required shapes. New symbols adorned the page, indicating that she had been in possession of the sixth book and showed her how to summon it to her. Two minutes later, the equivalent runes were drawn on the ground and, with the help of the specter, the latest book in the dark series was in her possession once more. Sparkle silently counted her blessings that wherever it had been, there hadn't been magic interfering with the summoning.
Satisfied with the requisition of her book, Sparkle drew a new, though simpler array on the ground. As her summoning ability was exceptionally poor from having only minimal practice with it and being terrified of what could enter her reality should she mess up, the array before her was about the limit of what she could do. It was limited to summoning small, inanimate objects from within the same city that were already stained with her magical signature. Objects like her missing bones, for instance.
So when her bones, including the removed fragments of her radius and ulna, materialized in the circle, she sighed in relief. Bones could be used in sympathetic magic, where spells cast on them would affect the one that grew them, and there was no way she was going to let anypony have her bones.
“So what’s the plan? Where are we going?” Thorn asked as he carefully added more and more books to the trunk, which remarkably seemed to grow no heavier regardless of how much he added.
“I was thinking Fillydelphia, first, to hire a machinist to craft me a new leg, since my bones won’t do well by themselves,” explained Sparkle. “While we’re there, you could visit Dragon Town, to see if there is anything of use to you there. Then, depending on time, we’ll go further north to Manehattan, or even further, to Haylem, because I want to check out some rumors of hidden caches of dark texts.”
“Sounds like fun,” Thorn said. Pausing, he straightened up and looked towards his mother. “I’ve always wanted to see Dragon Town. Actually, I wanted to see some other dragons, period.”
“You’ve seen Spike,” Sparkle commented.
“Bah, he doesn’t count.” Thorn waved a claw dismissively. “Even I know that we’re not even real dragons."
“Thorn...”
“What? It’s not like it actually bothers me. It’s just... whatever. Doesn’t matter.” He grabbed yet another book of the shelf, this one a notebook containing Sparkle’s observations on the anatomy of a soul. Then he paused again. “What about Cobalt?”
“What about- oh... OH! I can’t just leave him,” Sparkle realized. “Think, think, think... Given his symptoms, it doesn’t look like the memories were suppressed, just misplaced. But if he tries to sort them out and messes up, his memories will be flawed... and if he doesn’t, he’ll start forgetting anything unorganized soon enough. What to do...”
She looked down at her bad hoof. “That will work.” Reacting to her will, the specter oozed out of her body, releasing the bones of her severed leg as it did so. “Go to Cobalt. Help preserve his memories, and reconstruct anything you can using our memories. If you get the chance to do so discreetly, draw upon my magic and replicate yourself. Have the clone research his personal history to aid in the reconstruction. And try to get him to see a psychiatrist, if you can.”
Giggling slightly, the specter nooded and shot out the window. “Good, that should help him for now.” She turned slightly and notice that Thorn was giving her a funny look. “What?”
“I kind of thought you would have brought him with us,” Thorn admitted.
“Bring a mentally unsound individual with us on a cross-country trip as we flee from the Royal Guard? No thank you,” Sparkle proclaimed. “Besides, he needs professional help; there’s only so much I can do to fix the mind.”
Hobbling over on three legs, Sparkle ignored the ache in her magic and levitated the last of her important possessions into the box, closed and locked the trunk, and dropped it, a good amount of bits, and her bones into a space-expanded set of saddlebags, which she quickly put on her back. Looking around, the lab seemed pretty barren, now that everything she couldn’t risk the Guard confiscating was now packed away and stowed on her person.
“Thorn, go grab anything you want to take, but be quiet. Don’t let Shining Armor know you’re here.”
“No, I’m good,” Thorn countered. “We don’t need to take the chance.”
Sparkle blinked. “Right. Thorn, here’s the plan. We’re going to teleport to the far side of Mount Canterlot, and then we’re going to fly to Crystal River Junction. We’ll catch the morning train to Fillydelphia there so we’re not just waiting around for a guard to catch us here.”
“Got it.” He held out his claw. Sparkle offered her stump in return. “Ready?” Sparkle nodded, Thorn grasped her, and then they vanished into the night.
When the nurse ahead of him had screamed, he knew something was wrong. Dashing ahead the last few feet, the soldier burst through the door to find neither assailant nor dead body, but an alarmingly empty bed.
"Princess Celestia!"
The royal mare looked up from the stack of papers she was reviewing before morning court. There, galloping towards her, was Lieutenant Shining Armor. "Lieutenant? I thought you would be with your sister."
"Sparkle vanished from the room several minutes after you left, your Highness," Shining explained with slight exaggeration .
Head snapping towards her guard, the solar princess commanded, "Go, find her."
"Yes, Princess." The guard galloped off.
Turning back towards Shining Armor, she asked, "Did she say anything to suggest that she would do something like this?"
“No, not that I can think of,” he replied. “But I know my sister, and I know that she isn’t going to do anything too reckless.”
“And she did this while still recovering from a leg injury,” the princess said.
“She’s not recovering. She’s recovered, I’m sure of it,” the escapee’s brother corrected.
Celestia asked, “What do you mean, Lieutenant?”
“My sister told me... some things in confidence that lead me to believe that while Thorn was with her last night, he was accelerating her healing.”
Celestia took a louder-than-normal breath, not quite a sigh, but getting there. With a hoof pressed against her temple, the princess stated, "That mare makes me feel my age. Have you noticed how bold she's growing?"
"I have," Shining Armor replied.
"Your sister is a dangerous mare, Shining Armor. I cannot afford to look weak in front of her, lest I lose all authority I have over her. At the same time, I cannot be overbearing, or she will rebel, not that certain factions among the Canterlot Elite are helping on that matter."
"Princess?"
"Those four ponies that died at the Gala, do you know what they have in common?" the alicorn asked.
The white unicorn replied, "I'm not sure."
"Those four are among the most intolerant individuals I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. They were political allies supporting controversial bills and general nuisances in my court. My instincts are screaming at me that Sparkle knows far more than she was letting on, both about them and their deaths," said the Princess.
"So you think she might have had a connection?" Shining Armor asked.
"That's what I want to find out when she is retrieved. Lieutenant, you are dismissed."
He saluted. "Yes, your highness."
"This is exciting!" Sparkle said enthusiastically, though her voice held a hint of hidden sadness. She stepped off the first train to Fillydelphia and into the midday sun. The first of many stops on their whirlwind tour of eastern Equestria, Fillydelphia was their first and last stop on the loop they’d make before returning to Canterlot. "This is the furthest I've ever been from home."
A night of good sleep, using Thorn as a pillow, had helped her damaged soul heal itself enough that she could start helping it along. Now, hidden behind several illusions and a notice-me-not spell, the duo could walk without fear of being recognized.
Around them, the tall buildings towered over them, on average several stories higher than almost anything in either part of Canterlot. Even the air felt different, denser than in Canterlot.
"Where to?" Thorn, slightly taller than normal, asked from where he stood alongside Sparkle.
"A prosthetist first, and then Dragon Town for you."
"Sounds good."
That deleted scene though.
Full Metal Necromancer?
Yes! Celestia is finally having her shit called on!
And no, I don't buy the politics tying her hooves angle.
If she actually cared about Sparkle one freaking iota, there would have been a thousand and one tricks for her to use; all the way from something as 'mundane' as a false identity, to the lofty height of 'BECAUSE YOUR GODDESS HAVE SPOKEN, BEGONE!'
But she didn't. She kept being a freaking uncaring hard-ass.
For fck's sake, Sparkle saved the day —with her leg torn off, and nearly getting annihilated by friendly fire from the heroes I might add!— and she gets freaking drafted as thanks?!
So, yeah, this bit of outright rebellion was way, way overdue.
I take it that Sparkle told her brother who killed those four and is keeping quiet among the other things she told him. Hope Sparkle is ready for the big world, most things will ignore her but if what you suggest is true then changelings, vampires, and werewolves should recognize her power immediately.
5872861
There's a bit more to it. Think about it, if Sparkle is in the Guard, specifically in the one platoon that could most benefit from her presence, and she has the support of the entire military, she's actually in a really good place to follow her goal of defending Equestria. Honestly, while it sounds like a punishment (and the restrictions technically make it one), I actually think it might be a blessing in disguise for Sparkle.
5872898
Ninja'd.
Thought of that myself just moments after leaving that original comment. Oh well.
Still, Celestia could have handled things far smoother, especially given how she knows how much Sparkle despises her.
Then again, it's perfectly in Celestia's character to turn what could have been solved over a cup of tea and a chat, into this grand secret test of character for the sake of epic destiny. So props for that even if it is worthy.
I do wonder what the reaction will be now that Sparkle have outright failed one of those tests, though...
Celestia seems to think that being harsh with Sparkle will keep her under control, as opposed to accepting her with her unfortunate skills.
I'm of the opinion that this is a rather dangerous belief and fairly self-defeating in the long run. Sparkle is not a power hungry necromancer, if anything, she seems more afraid of what she can do than others (save for a certain unfortunate guard). Celestia would have been better served attempting to be a part of her life, a kind, caring and supportive part (especially after she lost her parents) that understands and can work with Twilight's dark gifts, even if not directly.
Maybe Luna will step in, not sure if her magic is dark either though... I'd assume so, seeing as she wrote a few books on it, and has a whole pack of vampires as a guard squad.
I'm wondering if Celestia did in fact know that conscripting Sparkle would start a blood war, and was hoping to ride it out, to rid the city of many of it's covens?
5872927
I get the feeling from Celetia in canon that she's been ruling so long that ponies have (seemingly) become critically dependant on her opinion to function, and so she escalates the challenges they face in such a way to force ponies to have more autonomy. There are two problems with this: Ponies that are already rather autonomous (Sparkle, Card Gambit, etc.) who she overlooks or alienates with her games, and that she's habitually escalated thing so much that a little anger is enough to blind her on when not to escalate.
You know, practically every problem in the season openers/finales (excluding season 5 ep. 1) could have been avoided if Celestia had just said, "Here are all the details. Go solve this problem while accompanied by a regiment of trained guards."
I think I'm just a bit annoyed with canon Celestia, and that comes out here. I'm not trying to bash her or anything, it's just that I'm frustrated.
5872936
Can you believe I honestly hadn't thought of that? It will be interesting to play with that idea, even if it doesn't pan out.
5872965
Well, I for one find it quite funny when Celestia thinks it's okay to hand over the purification of her insane sister, an existential threat to all life on the planet, to her unknowing student to teach her a lesson, but is enraged about Sparkle playing her own games with Discord to safe herself and a bunch of other beings from certain death. Hypocrisy at its best. I'm already looking forward to see how Celestia tries to handle the Chrystal Empire's reappearance...
Solid performance, Can't wait for the next installment.
Celestia isn't making much of an effort to make Sparkle want to obey her, is there? There are generally two ways to control someone.
Respect and Fear. Fear only works until they get strong enough to not fear you anymore. Respect holds everlasting, as long as trust isn't broken. Much more easily avoided compared to fear.
and Sparkle really should've left a note saying joining the Reds would cause war.
that is, of you want to
cause severe calamity and straif
As her summoning ability was exceptional poor from having only minimal practice
“Even I know that we’re not even real
1. If.
2. Strife.
3. Exceptionally.
4. Forgot your closing quotation mark.
5872898 A blessing in disguise sure but like Sparkle has said, her having join the Red Platoon which are vampires (and also noted that the vampires will act aggressively should Sparkle join one side openly) will only lead to definite war of some kind, be it terror strikes or all out warfare, there will be death and by technicality, both Celestia and Sparkle would have been the cause of it all.
Also, go Sparkle, escape, get more badass and possibly egg Celestia in her face. Because from the looks of things, Celestia has explicitly no knowledge of the underside of the world as much as we thought she had. Could be due negligence on her part or being too occupied most of the time.
Oh right, so Sparkle has about near two thirds of her leg gone is that right? Or did I count wrong from adding half and then adding a quarter of the remaining half?
With mentions of a new limb prosthetic, it marks up the technological aspects of pony society. Though it begs some branch questions; How much can the prosthetic do and what does it look like?
*From the doc, you can ignore if you want to*
It will figure out how badly your hurt
I might never get too at all
1. You're.
2. To.
The shipping feels so real. Casa Blanca anyone?
5873005
Thanks for the fixes.
Sparkle lost her leg below the elbow (joint between humerus and radius/ulna). On a human, that's not so much. On a horse/pony, that's most of their leg.
infovisual.info/02/img_en/072%20Skeleton%20of%20a%20horse.jpg
Also, pony prosthetics are magical in nature, pulled like a puppet with the user's magic (or animated by a rune system powered by the pony for non-unicorns). How good they are and what they can do depends on the maker. I was thinking of having Sparkle request that her bones get incorporated into it to make it magically a "part" of her.
5873019
I was kind of sad to sink that ship, but Cobalt needs medical attention that Sparkle can't provide. Taking a memory damaged individual with you while on the run isn't the best of ideas.
5872860 It's too bad they can't stop over at Rush Valley.
Too late Celestia. You gambled and just lost control. Sparkle can be forgiven being severely injured and on medicine, but you really should have thought through your words.
I'm trying to imagine what exactly was the breaking point.
Was it being told she'd have to give up Savior?
Was it being told the life of her and her friends and family don't matter? The only people in the world that treated her kindly? Because Celestia certainly doesn't.
Was it being drafted and potentially starting a war by taking a side?
Was it basically having her accomplishments and sacrifices spit on? She came very close to dying and both her and Cobalt sacrificed themselves in the end. More than the Elemental Bearers did.
It's a real shame about Cobalt. I like him, and I hope he remains a key part of the story even if he disappears for a bit to heal up. I wonder how Twilight will react to this. She'll need to know, if only so if timelines are forced together again she isn't taken by surprise by the information.
Sparkle being absent would be a great way to explain why the Changeling Invasion happened, but then again it relies on her brother (who is in a different position) getting married.
It occurs to me that is Sparkle couldn't sacrifice herself like Celestia said she do -- had she tried to just return the elements, her sister (who was required to go along with it or both Discords would have remained free) wouldn't have done so. And that's assuming Discord wouldn't have intervened at all, which I'm pretty sure he would have.
No, the only way it would have worked was diverting Discord's attention, which only happened when he thought some of the bearers died.
I know it's been forgotten in the Discord shenanigans, but I guess the prototype entangled devices won't be marketed and sold. I don't think they ever got around to demonstrations.
A real shame that, Celestia, both of them could really, really use that type of communication, especially as things diverge more. Twilight's Celestia could use information Sparkle's Celestia has, since the conspirators are still alive there. If bills are introduced in one world but not another, they can see the conspirator's influence. And the only starting difference between the two timelines is Twilight Sparkle. That means the vampire covens thing may still be a problem for Twilight's Celestia, as well as werewolves and Changelings working together.
I wonder if there is any way to pass information between the worlds except by Thorn and Sparkle. Even though it's unlikely because of this, should Sparkle's Celestia attempt to contact Twilight's Celestia to get Twilight to help bring in Sparkle, I expect the Twilight's reply to be something like this:
"I have no control over her. Literally. It's why time itself was split between us. She is my sister, but she is also my opposite and I have no power over her, just like she has no power over me. Your problems with her are your own, I'm her family, the only one who taught her when no one else would, the only one who would hug her no matter what happened, and I won't betray that trust. I can pass along a message, but no more."
5873095 You're narrow minded.
well i understand your celestia has the world on her soulders frankly she is an unjust ruler in almost every accoutn i fnd i won't be surprsied when she attempts to order shining armor to kill his own sister because she lacks anymore use or something. as for her punishment given her relationship with luna i find it likely that her conditions towards savoir well be as good as canceled out as well as several other ideas going too far. luna seems to be the better head of the two this time around.
This constant hypocrisy and double standerds from celestia are pissing me off.
Why doesn't she just get it over with and try to have Sparkle executed. It's quite obvious that at this point she just wants the necromancer to die. (And actually stay dead). She doesn't care about her other then the potential problem she can be.
And just like the other readers have been saying Celestia would catch a lot more with honey than she would with vinegar, and she is stuck on using so much vinegar.
Edit: I was really really hoping that Sparkle's actions in both tricking discord and helping the element bearers would have finally gotten her some positive recognition at the very least out of trixie. Instead she's apparently not only slammed by Celestia but implied that Trixie painted a bad image as well. So much for that "princess of friendship in training".
All I see is it's constantly going downhill, and I can't imagine there being any upswing at this rate. Because Sparkle either becomes a fugitive and spares the nation of vampire war, or she stays, and the war happens anyway.
This story is quickly becoming depressing.
I am impressed - it has been a while since I have disliked a fictional character as much as your Celestia, so props for that. That your writing manages to invoke strong emotions in your readers is definitely a good sign that speaks well for your writing.
And damn, I sincerely wish that a time will come where Celestia will have to pay her dues, because this level of short-sighted incompetency and blind self-righteousness simply deserves to be whacked over the head.
I was thinking that, after saving the world from this much nastier version of a Discord - after the rest of the bearers and Celestia's own student (Trixie) had already failed would at least earn her a word of thanks, especially as she willingly sacrificed her leg in the process ... and yet Celestia harps on her how Sparkle didn't sacrifice enough? F you and the high-horse you rode in on, you petty tyrant.
Because that's exactly how Celestia has been treating Sparkle since the start, over a condition Sparkle couldn't do anything about - like a petty tyrant who only knows how to rule with the stick, when showing a modicum of decency and acceptance to an otherwise abandoned and scared filly at the time would have rewarded her with a most loyal and trustworthy individual.
You can rule by either inspiring loyalty or fear - and it says something about Celestia that she has chosen fear (and still has the gall to think herself a decent individual) as the easiest option. I do hope that some disaster strikes Canterlot soon enough that can only be laid at Celestia's hooves that she has to answer and take responsibility for, because at this point she deserves a nasty stumble down the stairs.
At least Luna seemed decent enough from what we saw of her in the Gala ... I wonder if we will see more of her sometime soon - she still has that mark on Sparkle that allows her to find her in the dreams. Perhaps she can slap some sense (literally and preferably if need be) in her wayward sister if she learns more of the situation.
Honestly, I love Sparkle so much. She is extremely clever, is willing to do what needs to be done no matter what, and is the perfect mix of kind and a jerk.
5873031 Wait, I just had a stroke of madness. Had the spectre that Sparkle sent to help Cobalt reconstruct his memories be a mischevious spirit that likes to skirt the orders, maybe it can make some memories of where Cobalt had a crush on Sparkle? Though this would present some future consequences when Sparkle finds out... So the ship isn't entirely sunk yet but on a life raft.
Amount of time Sparkle successfuly "slapping" Celestia astounds me.
5872965
I don't think that would have solved the season 1 pilot. Depending on head canons, Twilight needed that trial by fire to form the friendships needed to activate the elements of harmony. Being informed might have made the friendships sooner but shallower; having guards might have removed the trials the rest of the mane six needed to display their elements.
Damn , how did somepony that imcompetant , unfair and blind manage to stay in power for that long ?!
She is nothing more than a tyrant at this point... and even being a tyrant she manage to fail at it.
God , I was reading this during a lecture (student here) and I still hit my head against my desk in consternation.
If she had treated Sparkle right from the start instead of sentencing her to misery and disgrace (Yes , because Sparkle "unlucky" life is technically her fault) like the self righteous bigot that she is , everything would have gone much better...
(Like several people said above. I upvoted you guys , for the greater good, justice and shit.)
God she pisses me off so much. (Congratulation on making me hate a character)
Hope Twilight's Celestia call her on her shit at some point ...
5872965 It doesn't look anything like a blessing in disguise to me. Between the emotional context of the confrontation, the potential political abuse (by Celestia or outside schemers), what we know and can infer about Celestia and Sparkle's past history, and Celestia's handling of both the Nightmare Moon and Discord situations in general, this whole thing is all kinds of messed up.
Honestly, I was ready to dissect all the ways Celestia's screwed up in how she's treated Sparkle, but there is too much to list. Pretty much everything she's done with Sparkle, both "on-screen" and in the backstory, has been a long line of horrible errors in judgment. I do want to point out the ones that I believe are the most vital though.
To start with, Celestia's actions here and in the past imply that she usually punishes Sparkle anytime there's trouble, whether or not there was a good reason or what actually happened. A punishment-liberal attitude like this in an authority figure - especially with someone who is used to being treated as the bad guy - is going to cause that person to stop caring about authorities and the values they promote and focus on how to live their lives outside of prying eyes as much as they can. Seems to me Celestia has herself to blame for Twilight's increased boldness because of not cutting her a break when she had good reasons for what she's done.
Particularly jarring is that in their meeting after returning from the Everfree, Celestia showed some hints that she does care about Sparkle (even if Sparkle didn't notice) and Sparkle seemed to be reaching out to her a little and might have wanted to trust her and be trusted in return. But here what Celestia says about Sparkle's plan basically amounts to, "You should have just died instead of risking other's lives trying to save yourself and those depending on you." What the hell? Personally, I think it's reasonable for someone to try to protect themselves and their loved ones, especially when that plan didn't condemn anyone else (except Discord), not to mention that just handing over the Elements while Discord was watching probably had a much lower chance of succeeding.
But I find the worst thing about all of this to be the drafting itself. Celestia specifically says that the draft will last until she feels that her debts have been paid. This kind of punishment is extremely unethical to begin with and very abusable even when the defendant isn't hated by everyone around them. Sparkle is already being forced to come to the castle every three months and give very valuable training for minimum wage, presumably until she is physically incapable of doing so, and there is no reason for her to believe that this is going to be any different. Celestia then promises that any trouble (which Sparkle will likely be blamed for regardless of what happens) will have the most severe penalties possible, which will most likely offset the regular pay by a lot and make Sparkle's life even more miserable than it already is. And with no breaks and already spiteful castle staff, Sparkle probably wouldn't ever be able to go to Ponyville, so far fewer visits with her sister. On top of all of that, there's Savior. I don't even know what to say about that.
Celestia has taken the wrong approach to dealing with Sparkle and she's too stubborn to see it. There's just so much wrong with her assumptions about who Sparkle is and how she acts, the Elements and how they work, and possibly Trixie's nature as well. If the Elements don't affect innocents then why was Sparkle effected despite ultimately helping them set things right? Sparkle being innocent would mean that she shouldn't have been hurt regardless of what she feared the Elements might do, but it happened anyway. In any case, Celestia's actions overall seem to make Sparkle's life harder than it needs to be, which creates problems for her down the line and builds hard feelings, and only seems to get worse as she keeps pushing a method that isn't going to work.
On a side note, I noticed you said in another comment that the season openers/endings for all but season 5 would have gone much smoother if Celestia just told people what was going on. I feel that it's similar here for Sparkle and Shining Armor, though a lot more intimidating with Celestia using her position like a club. Still, I'm hoping that the next time they meet, Sparkle will give her a well-deserved rant on exactly where and how she messed up, because I don't think Celestia is going to realize it on her own.
I'm not sure I get this.
hiring
I was wondering about Sparkle telling Shiny she's pregnant. . Seriously, from what I saw, she expected him to act as the father figure for Saviour, and in three months she didn't find the right time to tell him? Combined with not telling him of the hidden laboratory...
Also, just to be clear. Sparkle dreams of being taught by Luna, and has sought her attention several times, but the idea of officially working for her is abhorrent? I get that she thinks her presence might start a war, but given that she invited Luna to her house, rather than a more discrete meeting location; means some contact is allowed, and she could probably work as one of the Red Guard so long as she was keeping it on the down low. But here Sparkle seems to think any involvement with the Red Guard would start a war, and it's hopeless to even try and explain this to Celestia, or Luna.
Then again, she is thinking with a brain full of morphine.
Woooo, Sparkle's Celestia is a fucking idiot, she basically forced Sparkle to run away, let a massive vampire war be sparked, that along with basically making her life more miserable every damned chance she gets. She REALLY should get the view of a completely unaffiliated third party in on this, because she is not even close to capable in making good decisions regarding Sparkle.
5844681 I don't think he's endangered by any of these, in fact it's quite simple, he is Sparkle's unborn child, if Sparkle is destroyed, so is he despite being completely innocent.
Nitpicks:
(Middle paragraph is not indented)
discreetly
>to higher a machinist
*hire
>Sound’s like fun
>Sound's good
Do you mean 'Sounds'?
Needs to be 'Hire', not 'Higher'
I know, I know, homophones.
5874627
5874618
5874555
5874446
Fimfiction's editor isn't working; I can't save any updates, so I can't fix these just yet.
5874932 ;_;
5875374
It's fixed now.
5873902
The most vital part of the Vampire/Necromancer relation is the fact that Vampires with the backing of a skilled Necromancer would become nearly unstoppable forces of destruction and since the guard would by its very nature and whom they serve be more dangerous then a regular vampire coven Sparkles involvement with them would make them far more dominant then every other coven.
It might drive the other covens into some kind of alliance which would make them extremely dangerous to the general public because they wont be held down by each other as much as when they where at odds and while they might not be able to attack the Guard itself their support structure would be wide open and far less capable of defending itself.
5875653
Exactly.
5873815 You'd think that after a couple thousand years of rule that Celestia would realize that it's far better to be loved than to be feared. If she had just made Sparkle her student like she did Twilight none of this would even be a concern. When your biggest fear in a situation is that the kid won't use their power responsibly, you don't just leave her out on the streets as an orphan and treat her like a bad guy, people often become what the world tells them they are. If she had taken her in she could have trained her and taught her the values and responsibility she needs with that kind of power, while gaining her undying loyalty. Hooves off with an impressionable and potentially extremely dangerous person like Sparkle isn't really the best way to go. I feel like I've said this before, but I'm not sure.
With the blessing in disguise thing though, as far as Celestia knows that's exactly what it is. She doesn't have the information we do about vampires we do to know just how stupid the idea is. She also doesn't know Sparkle well enough to understand just how she'd react to this. Just one more problem she could have avoided if she had just taken early precautions and taken little orphan Sparkle under her wing.
5876147 Eh, taking her in as an apprentice seems like a bad idea actually. The entirety of Canterlot would have revolted, especially so soon after the incident that gaining her cutie mark caused. Even if Celestia somehow managed to get Sparkle the position, there would have been assassins, enemies at court, and other political fighting. There was no real chance that would happen. I also believe that Celestia doesn't understand what Sparkle's situation is like. She believes in the best in ponies and doesn't normally have to deal with things like there are in the industrial sector, or actually witness the stigma Sparkle suffers under.
Celestia is so used to ponies loving her that a good pony living in Equestria that doesn't admire her is probably very unusual. The problem I see here is that she's treating Sparkle like a troublemaker and punishing her any time she draws attention in an attempt to correct bad behavior when she should be paying closer attention to the details of what Sparkle is doing and treat her like a pony instead of a problem child. I say problem child because we have problems very similar to this in our own world where teachers and parents will take a less-than-informed hard-ball approach to dealing with what they view as troubled kids and end up alienating them. It's more of an issue of flawed and ignorant decision plans than dislike, so Celestia believes that she is trying to manage bad behavior and not seeing that she's actually attempting to terrorize her into obedience.
I have to disagree about the part with the Red Platoon. Sparkle had just told her that a necromancer siding with a group of organized vampires would cause trouble and then she decides that's what she's going to do. Maybe Celestia didn't realize that the actual vampire clans wouldn't distinguish between underground organizations and a military one, but it was still a bonehead move.
5876265 Oh yeah, if she had just gone out and made Sparkle her student Canterlot would have revolted. But I'd like to think Celestia's smart enough to change the connotation. Rather than saying she's taking her under her wing, she would have said that she was personally keeping an eye on Sparkle to keep her from causing trouble. It wouldn't even be a lie really, because that's exactly what she would be doing. Of course, I'd also like to think Celestia is smart enough not to do any of the things she's done in this story. It's its biggest weak point really, that Celestia has been bouncing around the idiot ball through the whole thing.
5875653
But again:
If Sparkle can invite Luna to visit her in her house, and take magic lessons from her, without any worry about sparking a war; she should probably be capable of discretely reporting to Luna as she investigates the vampire/werewolf/changeling alliance.
Especially given that any one of her hundreds of specters could probably be used as messengers, Sparkle claims the Royal Guard could be 100 X more efficient and still couldn't keep her caged (despite having been caught violating parole 40 something times) and that Luna can visit her in her dreams. She should be able to keep her service a secret.
5876294 Well, if she'd been able to find time in her schedule, a trick like that could have worked. Though there is also the problem that she needed to train someone who could wield the Element of Magic, and a social pariah had little chance of doing that. Still, I agree that there is plenty she could have done for Sparkle if she had put even a little effort into it instead of assuming that she would be fine in the end, even if she was disliked by others.
5876376 Well that's the easy part! Just teach Twilight and Trixie together! Have them bunk up in the same room, work together on assignments, all that stuff. Two minds are better than one, and there's a good chance that they'd become inseparable considering their status as social outcasts and magical talents. If they had eachother to lean on she wouldn't have to worry about either going Sunset Shimmer or Nightmare on her either, because they'd always have someone there for them. It's much easier to guide someone when you have another constant to bounce them off of.
The argument against this is that Trixie hadn't shown up yet, but if she had at least put Sparkle and Shining up in the castle to keep an eye on them rather than out on the streets she could have justified changing her mind later when Trixie was around.
Her biggest mistake was trying to separate Sparkle from herself early on. By doing so, she completely gave up control of the situation and failed to do her duty in protecting her subjects from potentially dangerous ponies like Sparkle.
5875381
5876325
The simple fact that the effect that Sparkles involvement would have on the vampire ponies would never go unnoticed by the other covens because it would be glaringly obvious to them that the guard has a supply of blood wine and the perks that they get when having a necromancer around, it does not matter that they don't know who that necromancer is, even if it would not be obvious who is involved because there are not that many necromancers around who would help the crown.
5881802 How much alcohol and headache-drug-of-choice will that require? I'll help if I can afford it.