The Other Side of the Coin
The two goddesses were reclining on giant, ornately decorated pillows, conversing between themselves. The building they were in had also transformed into a miniature palace under the direction of Sparkle’s parents, who were experimenting with their new control over the afterlife’s environment. Outside, Thorn and Cobalt had decided to spar, in order to test their new power, never mind that they were inside each other’s head and could see and feel everything from each other. Scootaloo had decided to watch the titan and the assassin spar, which ended up with the two males turning it into a competition of who could win more of her adoration.
Yet the general good mood was soured by the sheer amount of unknowns they were dealing with. Sparkle was just finishing up her explanation of what she knew to Twilight.
“So, we really are goddesses?”
Sparkle nodded.
“We look the way we do because you attached extra bits to your soul, and your bodies adapted to that. Then, me being me, I reflected that during my own ascension.”
Sparkle nodded again.
“And we’re potentially stuck here until we can figure out a way home,” Twilight said.
“Yeah, I can’t feel the one anchor I had left. We could be drifting through the void for all I know.”
“Wonderful.” Twilight’s shoulders slumped.
“I'm not that worried, though. Thorn says that we can’t be stuck here forever because I met myself, the future me -”
“Oh, right. Time travel,” Twilight muttered.
“And I couldn’t have met me unless I returned home and lived long enough to find a way back in time. Circular causality is a wonderful thing in situations like this,” Sparkle remarked.
Twilight smiled. Her hoof traced the plant-like embroidery on her cushion. “Of course, that means you absolutely must find a way to time travel.”
The dark goddess nodded. “Of course, you do too. There were books that described you. Obviously, you have to go back at least once.”
The goddess of life replied, “Fine, but we have to get out of here first. I don’t even know how I got here to begin with. Sure, I was floating in the void, but what connection would I have with this place?”
“I might have an idea,” Sparkle replied. “I’ll try and confirm it later, though. Home first, and preferably before we eat through my stockpile of real food.”
“Wait, what? Can’t you just make food in here?”
Sparkle shrugged. “Yes and no. I can, but nothing made in here can leave here. If you eat it, and then you exit, the matter vanishes from your body, wherever it might be. I’ve got enough for four people for a month, but I’m bigger, Thorn’s bigger, and we have you and Scoots to feed as well. Plus, wherever Sombra is, he’s eating some of that food. I guess I should put him into stasis...” Sparkle’s horn darked. Like ink flowing in water, a specter emerged from her horn. However, in the afterlife, it took on a far more pony-like form than before. In fact, it was so realistic that the little inconsistencies made it look rather unsettling.
Nodding, for it was created already knowing its task, the specter flew off to find the ex-tyrant to kiss into an enchanted sleep. “That’s easy enough,” Sparkle remarked as it flew away.
Then she stood up and stretched. “Ah... Ok, let me put Scootaloo to bed as well, and then we’ll go figure out if there's still a connection to home.” She trotted outside to where the rest of the group was.
Craters dotted the landscape, while the burning husk of a city provided the backdrop. For supposedly “light” sparing, the surrounding environment looked like a battlemage’s warzone. Above the two warring combatants, Scootaloo watched from her cloud perch.
“Hey, Mom,” Thorn’s deep voice rumbled. The titanic dragon landed before shrinking down as far as he could go. Alas, he’d never be small enough to ride on Sparkle’s back ever again. “Look what I can do. Cobalt!”
The assassin nodded and launched a high-powered cutting curse at the drake, cleanly decapitating the latter. Thorn’s head bounced on the ground once before the body went and picked it up. “Ok, you know how with injuries like this, I’d need you to stitch me back together?” His severed head said. “I can do it by myself now.”
The lich tossed his head up into the air. A tendril of blood shot out of his neck, latched onto the head as if the blood was rope, and then pulled it back in. With a wet squelch, his head landed back on his body and started healing the wound. A second later, and Thorn was literally as good as new. “Cobalt’s got a healing factor, too.”
“Yes,” Cobalt agreed, “though it doesn’t seem to be as fast as Thorns. Still, I had a gash on my leg that I don’t have now.”
“Interesting. We’ll investigate that more later. For now, I need to borrow Scootaloo,” Sparkle said.
Looking down from her cloud at the sound of her name, Scootaloo called out, “Yeah?”
Sparkle levitated the filly down to her. “Sorry, Scoots, but it’s nap time.”
Before the orange pegasus could reply, a sleep spell crashed against her head. She was unconscious an instant later. “Mom, Dad,” Sparkle called out. “Could you watch over Scootaloo for a while?”
“Sure thing,” the ghost of Twilight Velvet replied. “We’ll keep her nice and comfy.”
“You know how to contact me if you need to,” Sparkle said. “And... she’s in an enchanted sleep, so if there happen to be some loud noises, she won’t wake up.” She turned to her son and student, and motioned for them to follow.
“You do realize that they’re-”
“Yes.”
“Twelve years apart and-”
“I know.”
“I’m just saying that-”
“Cobalt, would you kindly stop talking about the thing that I know my parents may or may not be doing?”
Cobalt’s jaw snapped shut against his will.
“Thank you.”
The group continued on in silence for a time. Cobalt shot Thorn a pleading glance. Thorn replied with a smirk, and then inhaled. “They’re fucking like rabbits, aren’t they?”
Seething, Sparkle growled, “LANGUAGE.” Next to her, Twilight was similarly gritting her teeth, as well as blushing profusely.
“And yet she doesn’t deny,” Thorn quipped. “So... Mom... any chance that you’d let me lose my virginity any time soon?”
Sparkle stopped, groaned, and then teleported a good distance ahead.
It didn’t help, as everyone else in the group just teleported after her. However, before they did catch up to her, Twilight gave the two males each a no-nonsense glare, which served to get them to drop the matter entirely. Sure, Thorn might have been a demigod-dracolich, and Cobalt might have been a goddess-empowered assassin, but Twilight was a full goddess of the opposite power, placing her firmly in the “do not screw with” category.
As Twilight appeared next to her sister, she asked, “So where exactly are we going?”
“One of the new sections of the afterlife. I built this place with a large number of precautionary monitoring spells, so that I could always have a good idea of what’s happening in- and outside. When I arrived, I noticed that there was a large, steady flow of energy through this dimension, with a slight net increase in the total energy inside.”
“Could that chain that I used to get here be causing it?” Twilight asked.
“Wait. Was it a black chain that seemed to emerge from your body?” Sparkle asked, surprised.
“Not exactly. It seemed to flow into me and split into two smaller chains that came out of me,” Twilight said. “I had to pull on the big one really hard to get moving.”
“Interesting. I had the same chains, in the opposite directions. I just latched on to the big chain to get pulled here. I wonder what they were.” Sparkle paused. She lifted a hoof and pressed on a spot that looked like empty air to everyone else. The air split open like a curtain, revealing a dark room beyond. “Beauty first.”
Twilight raised the single eyebrow over her left eye cluster. Then, she turned and went inside. Sparkle followed suit, and then Cobalt and Thorn entered behind her. Sparkle clicked her tongue, and the room flooded with light.
Whatever they expected to see, that which lay before them was definitely not it. There were only two things, both of which dominated the massive chamber. Closest to them was a massive tree made of solid blue crystal, with branches that formed a perfect three dimensional fractal. Sparkle noted that it exactly matched the cutie mark tree on Twilight’s flanks, which had grown symmetrical because of her ascension. On the branches, Sparkle thought the tree was bearing glowing fruit, but then gasped when she realized that it wasn’t fruit, but infant souls growing on that tree. Down on the ground, a river of glowing, liquid soul-stuff fed the tree, originating from the main areas of the afterlife. From above, a golden mist - even purer soul-stuff, rained down upon the tree.
But behind the tree of souls, the far wall of the room was missing. Instead, there was a shimmering, translucent membrane, beyond which Sparkle could see the sheer madness of incomprehensible void. Something deep within her knew that bringing a mortal pony unprotected into this chamber would destroy them.
It seemed that even this glimpse was too much for Cobalt. He whimpered and covered his eyes. Taking pity on him, Sparkle teleported him out of the chamber.
“This is... wow.” The words to describe it simply wouldn’t come to Twilight.
“I think that this place is yours,” Sparkle said. “The tree, it’s your cutie mark.”
Drawn by some irresistible urge, Twilight trotted up to the tree and placed her hoof on it. Like a fireworks show encased in glass, color exploded forth from the point where she touched and ricocheted up the branches. Hundreds of new souls appeared in the branches above them. A golden aura surged from Twilight’s horn and plucked an infant soul from the lowest branch.
Immediately, it began expanding. The single, golden point of light grew into a little ball, where it promptly burst into flame. The color rapidly shifted to a pale blue, and within the span of half a second, it had completely specialized into a newborn pony foal’s soul.
“Euphoria.” The word escaped Twilight’s lips without her even consciously realizing what she had said. And yet, in the instant that followed, the soul surged in brightness. The magic of the afterlife kicked in, and within two seconds, the body of a pale blue foal formed around it. “She’s ready,” the goddess of life remarked with no small amount of awe and wonder.
Yet no instinct pushed her further. Twilight was left waiting, holding the new infant lovingly in her magic, but with almost no idea what to do next. “She needs to go. Her body’s waiting for her... but how do I get her there?”
“Twilight.” She turned towards her sister, who said, “I know you didn’t do the identity ritual, but I think I’ve figured it all out now. You are life. You, in a way, have always been life. Search within yourself; you’ll know what to do.”
Twilight closed her eyes. Her magic lifted little Euphoria up higher and towards the membrane that kept the void separate from them. Below her, one of the chains appeared, while a golden shell surrounded the infant. The shell sank down, merging with the chain until a single link was glowing with the same radiance. Then the chain shot forwards at impossible speeds, whisking the newborn Euphoria to the body she would inhabit for the rest of her life.
“That was amazing!” Thorn exclaimed. Sparkle nodded vigorously, too stunned for words but in full agreement.
She quickly composed herself. “I feel really honored to be one of the first people to see the birth of a new soul.”
“It wasn’t anything special,” Twilight remarked. “I do that all the time.”
“No, you didn’t,” Sparkle corrected. “Your abstract half did, but your mortal half was just an ordinary mare this morning. The new memories are probably really confusing.” She chuckled a little. “You confirmed a lot for me, though.”
Twilight took a second to process before she replied, “I did?”
“Yes. First, you proved that those chains are our connection to home - I was tracking the soul as it left - and that those chains are the road by which souls travel to and from the afterlife. You also just proved reincarnation theory-” At Twilight’s confused expression, Sparkle added, “I’ll explain later. And, I think, based on how the light seemed to split, that we’re the Life and Death of both timelines. Anyway, with that information, I think I can make us a portal to each of our timelines. There’s just one problem...”
“What?”
“I have no idea which connection goes to which timeline.”
“That’s easy,” Twilight Velvet replied when the two goddesses explained their predicament. She brushed a loose strand of her unusually disheveled mane out of her eye. “Spike.”
“Spike?” Twilight asked, then it clicked. “That’s great! We open a portal to both worlds and have Thorn send a trackable letter to Spike. Whichever portal the smoke goes through is my home!”
Sparkle facehooved, disappointed in herself for not realizing that obvious solution. She announced that she would go grab some real paper, and then teleported away. A few moments later, she reappeared with the required materials. She scratched out a quick note, wrapped it up, cast a quick spell on it, and then handed it to Thorn. Then she set to work on opening the actual portals.
It took a few minutes, but she eventually pried the two holes in space open. “Ready.”
Thorn ignited the scroll with a jet of emerald flame. Disintegrating into smoke, the scroll hovered in place for a brief moment before surging towards the leftmost portal. Sparkle immediately tossed an anchor spell through Twilight’s portal, and then another, distinctly different anchor through her own.
With the dimensional anchors in place, Sparkle let her portals fade. “Feel for them. It’s a lot like when we’re bending spacetime to meet each other. Can you sense them?”
Twilight lit her horn and scrunched her face up in concentration. “Umm... yeah, I found them.”
“Do you think you can make the jump yourself?”
She thought for a second. “Yes. I’m sure I can.”
“Good.” The death goddess smiled. “Now remember, no banishing annoying ponies here, ok? I’ll get them eventually; I don’t need them any sooner than that.”
“Got it,” Twilight replied with mock exasperation. “I assume that I can visit any time?”
“Sure.”
“Hey, what did that letter say?” Twilight inquired.
Sparkle chuckled. “Dear Spike, Your mom died and went to paradise, and then she made a baby. With love, Aunt Sparkle.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “You do realise that he’s going to take that entirely the wrong way, don’t you?”
“He’s a hormonal drake on the cusp of puberty. I KNOW,” she replied, snickering. From nearby, Thorn echoed the sound.
Twilight merely rolled her eyes. “If that’s the way you’re going to be, then I’ll see you later. I’ve got a vine infestation to fix.” Her horn started glowing.
“Twilight, wait,” Sparkle said, causing her sister to extinguish her horn.
The goddess looked back at her darker sibling. “Yes?”
“Do you have to go yet?” She asked. “I mean, the time dilation is so extreme that a second of real time is almost eleven days in here, and I can push it faster if we need it. We’ve got time... and I kind of want your help in getting this place up and running.”
Twilight paused, her face contemplative. “I suppose I could stay for a while. I’m in no rush.” She turned back towards her sister. “But I thought that you built this place with dark magic. I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to do anything in here.”
“There’s more than that,” Sparkle said. “There’s all those souls I brought with me, there’s all the souls I need to sort... I need a sorting method, too. I also need to get more of the design work done for the pits and paradise, which is probably going to take me decades anyway. We also probably need some way of disguising ourselves when we return. I could use illusions, but they’re a pain to use for a long time and you’re so out of luck in that department. And then there’s all those souls calling out for me to end their pain and... yeah, I’ve suddenly got a whole lot to do, and that’s probably not even everything.”
Twilight sat down onto the hard ground. “Wow... Actually, now that I think about it, there’s probably something I need to be doing to get things up and running for myself as well. Does that identity ritual work if you cast if for somepony else?”
Sparkle nodded.
“Yeah, I probably need to do that myself. I’m glad you stopped me. What if I had just gone home and ended up neglecting something that catastrophically impacted the next generation of ponies?”
“That would have been bad,” Sparkle replied.
Thirty seconds. That was all the time that had passed since the moment of their ascent, if you counted with a clock in the real world. It had also been just that long since a subtle magical pulse rippled through the entirety of both sets of spacetime.
The shards of Time could feel it, as the pulse solidified a fundamental aspect of reality. But they weren't the only ones. Seven other individuals reacted to the pulse.
In the heart of the Great Minotaur Maze, King Bakhotir, the God of Stone, looked to the sky, worriedly. In the great Deer forests, Lady Holone, Goddess of Water, paused mid stride, only resuming when one of her assistants addressed her. The Storm Emperor, God of the Sky, grinned wickedly, putting the griffins near him on edge. Lady Evrfyr, Goddess of Fire and the largest dragon in the world, immediately started figuring how much her investments would change when this came to light. Princess Cadance, Goddess of Love, frowned, having never felt the sensation before. Princess Luna, Goddess of Outer Space and the Night, redoubled her efforts to break free of the vines.
Luna's struggles proved unnecessary, as Celestia promptly burst into celestial flame, incinerating the vines that bound her and a good portion of the surrounding Everfree in response to the pulse.
She was mortified to learn that she’d ignited near the Tree of Harmony, but then relieved to discover that it had survived unscathed. It was at this point that the two Celestia’s diverged slightly. In Sparkle’s timeline, Celestia smiled and said, “So it was Beatrix that fulfilled Apollo’s prophecy¹. She’s earlier than I expected².” Conversely, Twilight’s Celestia frowned with worry and muttered, “If Twilight fulfilled the prophecy, does that mean her double also ascended? That cannot be good.”
Both Celestias resynchronized when the looked towards Luna, who nodded in understanding. Then, both Celestias gathered their magic and teleported to the place where they expected their student to be: the aether. They were both wrong.
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Wow, just wow
Nice.
Oh, man. The Celestias' reactions are going to be fantastic. And ironically, I'm not worried about the one from Sparkle's timeline. The one from Twilight's timeline could be a problem, though...
Oh, the climax of the story is coming up!
Wow. Thorn bumped up my list by a couple, and I can't simply wait to see [Sparkle's] Celestia's reaction to find Beatrix didn't ascend.
6630633
I guess something along the lines of:
*Teleporting in the palace finding Trixy*
Trixy: PRINCESS, YOU ARE SAVE!
Tia: That i am my faithful student.... where are your wings?
Trixy: Wings?!
Tia: ..... BUCK!
Sparkle: Language.
And then there will be death and mayham. But mostly Death.
KEep it up man your on a roll
Continue wacking at your keyboard man
Jeez you're pounding these out...
Not complaining but props where they're due and all.
Also, is this story actually nearing it's end? I don't exactly know how you could continue this much longer if the protagonist just got a straight upgrade to the premium OP package.
You'd almost have to change it from what it is now to a more slice of life thing if you did, since chances are almost NOTHING would pose a threat to the embodiment of literally half of all existing magic itself.
6630583 why? twilight is the "good" one. sparkle is the "bad" one.
6630884
Sparkle's Celestia has more or less come to terms with Sparkle and the fact that she uses some very dark magic. She may not always approve of Sparkle's methods, but she's realised that, when all is said and done, Sparkle has always worked for the betterment of Equestria as a whole. I wouldn't say that they're friends or anything, but they have an understanding.
Twilight's Celestia, on the other hoof, actively hates Sparkle still. We've seen at numerous times throughout the story (most notably during Sparkle's visit to Twilight's timeline through the mirror and in the flashback to Twilight's first time seeing a dead body) that while she views Twilight as the embodiment of everything good, she similarly views Sparkle as inherently evil.
That's why Twilight's Celestia will be the most likely one to cause problems. The two Celestias had some sort of contact with each other (likely through the aether) even before Life and Death were linked as they are now, but now that Twilight and Sparkle are going to be actively interacting with one another more, the likelihood that she'll interfere in order to "protect" her student has also gone up dramatically.
Heh, the only typo I found was in the author's note...
No remember, no banishing annoying ponies here
1. Now.
And... I don't know what to expect from the Celestias later.
6630947 ok mis-understood what you typed yeah she is gonna be a bitch
So - Stone, Water, Sky, Love, Night and (presumably) Day.
I do believe that's only 6 - I wonder how Discord is going to react? As I imagine he'd probably be the 7th.
Edit: Either Discord as Chaos, or Celestia counts twice. Not entirely sure which one is more likely.
6630634
Actually, that was the reason why Death wouldn't let Sparkle talk to her parents when she brought Sparkle to the afterlife; Sparkle's parents were from the future and knew that she would become Death.
6631207
Fuck. I forgot fire.
6630878
To some extent, it is approaching its end. We're entering the final arc, I think. I'm planning to spend some time exploring the consequences of her new role, maybe get in some last minute world building and such. I've got stuff that will last to about the Equality town, including some Equestria Girls stuff, but after that, I think I'm going to write with progressively larger time skips until every loose end is tied up.
6631207
The edited version:
6631357 Shame that, I saw this around for ages and only started it a few weeks back. Kinda wish I could time travel to have followed this more than I did.
TL;DR Way to go jerk, I got invested!
Ahhhhhh, I really want to see Celestias' reactions now!
How long has it been (normal time flow) since the battle of Canterlot? I remember The Reaper telling Celestia that she (the reaper/death) would face a crisis in two years, at which point she asks that she send Luna to her.
6631478
Actually, that's coming up really, really soon.
6630583
Well, there isn't much she/they will be able to do about it. I have a feeling merging with the aspects of life/death makes them the top of the totem pole.
Death gets bragging rights as being able to be the last mare standing at the end of the world. I wonder if it's like finishing a board game and being stuck as the one putting all of the pieces away too...
6630633 i know right? Her face is going to be epic when she finds out.
I just realised something. Twilight's Celestia still doesn't trust Sparkle since she's a necromancer.
What's she going to do when she finds it what happened as of late?
And one other thing that just hit me. Sparkle's parents said that they could see and hear just about what she saw. What about the other souls she consumed?
I sure hope Sparkle materializes in front of Celestia just to say, "I'm Death, bitch". Or something similar. So excited for whatever her reaction is to this news regardless of how you go about it!
So Twilight and Sparkle are Yin and Yang?
s3.amazonaws.com/images.hitfix.com/assets/2059/keanu2.gif
6631701
I think that would depend on how gods are ruled in this in terms of power. If they're all relatively equal (which seems likely since they're all created from the shards of time), Twilight's Celestia might not be able to truly hurt Sparkle, but that doesn't mean she can't make life very, very difficult for her.
Especially if she manages to get the other gods on her side. We had that snippet showing the others reacting to Life and Death's ascensions, and not all of the reactions were positive. Hell, I would even go so far as to say that the closest thing Sparkle got to a positive reaction was wary scrutiny.
Just thought of something odd. Twilight's Celestia immediately starts thinking about the possibility of Sparkle ascending too, but doesn't she think that Sparkle died? Twilight was in a depression for a year and physically injured after Sparkle's body was destroyed by the Crystal Heart. Unless ascension is possible even after death, shouldn't she believe that Sparkle is gone from the world and unable to ascend with Twilight? Or did she just assume that Sparkle would use some kind of forbidden magic to survive because that's what she expects from dark magic users?
6632477 Maybe Celestia was never properly informed about Sparkles assumed death?
Yea ok, fine. That does seem a little far fetched.
I love this story! I admit I'm a little sad that it will probably end soon.
6631486
I thought so, that really feels like it should have been 2 years or so ago.
Why you do this? Cliff hanger is almost inhumane.
On another note, love the reactions of the celestia's. TwiCele, if you knew putting your student on the path of ascension would ascend someone you don't want ascended then why do it?
6632477
Twilight probably told her that her sister survived (although as a wraith) when she got Sparkle's letter informing her about her continued existence.
6633335 Sparkle specifically asked her not to do that and Twilight agreed.
6633598
No, Twilight agreed to not telling her Celestia that Sparkle survived by reincarnating herself. However, IIRC, there were days or maybe even weeks (the time they needed to get to the coastal city, travel over the sea, get to Canterlot and buy the false papers and then travelling to Ponyville) between Sparkle sending her first letter to Twilight and the actual meeting.
6630658 Perfect
6631893 Absolutely.
I hope this isn't ending soon. There is too little slice-of-life styled stories when it comes to having ascended mortals interacting with the rest of the world.
6635757
No, but I can sketch something quickly to show you.
6635768 Oh good =D
6635928
Here. I did both Sparkle and Thorn.
pre08.deviantart.net/4d5e/th/pre/i/2015/319/a/7/reaper_sparkle_by_wille179-d9gsjmn.jpg
Sparkle
orig04.deviantart.net/a9a5/f/2015/319/7/1/keeper_thorn_by_wille179-d9gsjlt.jpg
Thorn
6636104
Thank you for the photo refrences... I hope you don't mind if I envision Thorn looking more like a flying alien queen...i32.photobucket.com/albums/d12/GabrielsThoughts/FlyingQueen_zpsupkdyo7y.jpg
i32.photobucket.com/albums/d12/GabrielsThoughts/queen02_l_zpsnp1blazm.jpg
i32.photobucket.com/albums/d12/GabrielsThoughts/0017394_vintage_kenner_aliens_action_figure_flying_queen_w_flapping_wings_zps1gmeycdj.jpeg
i32.photobucket.com/albums/d12/GabrielsThoughts/queen03_l_zpsbqnepyiu.jpg
6636406
Who am I to stop you from imagining them however you want? (Even if it is somewhat out there...)
6636424
well in all fairness, I can pick, mix, and match the parts I want for my head cannon... But, if you wanted to make a more three dimensional version of the characters for your own collection I felt it prudent you be aware of Alien and Dragonheart merchandise. Godzilla action figures are a riot as well.
6636104
orig05.deviantart.net/0bbd/f/2015/320/7/c/7ce26112cb2b21d7721afb123286fcdf-d9gvxbb.png
*screams in frustration*
*throws tablet out of a window*
6638575
Well, that's better than what I drew...
6638592 Did you know that straight lines are really hard to do on tablets?
This is going to be so much fun
6638621
Yes. Yes I do.