When Twilight finally woke up, she felt strangely rejuvenated. She tried to move, and fear flared up inside of her mind. She was sitting inside of a chair, heavy chains binding her hooves together, so that she couldn’t move around all that much. Did Cheerilee catch her again? As she looked around, however, she realized that wasn’t the case. She was in a very large room, and a great deal of ponies sat on benches behind her, while Princess Luna herself sat on a raised platform right in front of Twilight.
Two muscular, armor-clad guards flanked her on both sides and an earth pony with a monocle and a brown-coat paced back and forth restlessly in front of her. A table stood next to him, but Twilight couldn’t make out the items that lay on top of it.
It was Luna who first noticed the unicorn had woken up.
“Ah, we see that thou hast awakened, Twilight Sparkle. Court is now in session,” Luna decreed with a booming voice which easily reached every corner of the room, and the few ponies who had been talking to each other immediately fell silent.
Twilight stared at the Princess in bewilderment. “C-court?”
The Ruler of the Night frowned. “Surely thou dost not claim loss of memory? We are here to pass judge thee for the brutal murder of fourteen ponies, eight of whom hath not reached adulthood yet.”
“Wait, what?” Twilight said, utterly horrified. “I killed Cheerilee, true-”
“Do we really have to do this? She even confesses!” the brown-coated earth pony said.
“-but I had nothing to do with the others; they were killed by Cheerilee!”
The crowd behind Twilight mumbled, and the earth pony in front of Twilight addressed the Princess.
“If I may?”
“By all means, sir Hooves,” the princess said with a nod.
“Ehem,” Hooves scraped his throat. “I’m sure you are familiar with my work, miss Sparkle?”
Twilight nodded, dumbfounded. She had several of his books back at the library, she had just never thought she’d meet him in person.
“Yes, we already knew that,” he continued. “This also means you’re well aware of my expertise. I was summoned here today to present the evidence my research team managed to scrounge up which, as you’ll soon see, strongly suggests you are guilty. You’ve erased your trail well, and no event can be directly tied to you, but when they’re all added together...”
“That’s absurd!” Twilight yelled. “Where’s Princess Celestia? She would never-”
“Our royal sister is currently resting in her chambers, Twilight Sparkle. The procedure to save thee took a lot out of her.”
Twilight nodded slowly, as she recalled the conversation she had overheard while she was out of it. “Don’t I get anypony to defend me?”
“Only if somepony like that can be found in due time,” Hooves said dryly. “In your case, due to the heinous nature of your crimes, and the debt of evidence against you, no such pony could be found. “
He would have continued but suddenly one of the ponies in the courtroom, a very dark blue Pegasus, stood up. “I will represent her,” the Pegasus said in a voice that was deep and threatening but also soothing as if he would be there to protect no matter what, ”I believe this mare is wrongly accused.”
Twilight could barely believe it, she had just lost all her friends, was accused of violently murdering them and 8 little fillies, and this colt was going to defend her, and on top of that he thought she was innocent.
“Oh thank you so mu…” The colt held up a hoof to silence her. He leaned in closer to her and whispered “I believe you are innocent but wait until after the trial to thank me or hate me whichever this way may go,” He gave her a reassuring smile.
The entire time this had been going on unrest had been growing in the crowd behind them.
“I can’t believe he thinks she is innocent!”
“Maybe she is controlling him!”
“What is wrong with him?”
“SILENCE!” Princess Luna boomed. "This shall be allowed, as Twilight Sparkle was originally allowed somepony to defend her,” The rest of the audience quieted down but murmurs still rippled here and there “Now colt, your name.”
“Prinz Spectre, Princess now if we could skip the pleasantries we happen to have a mare fighting for her life here,” the colt said with slight irritation in his voice, “Now, this proof you were talking about…”
“Very well,” Hooves replied, “I shall start with the Ponyville Theatre Fire.”
“Alright,” Prinz said. Twilight was amazed that this Pegasus that was defending her was so calm, if she was in his shoes (which in fact she almost was) she would be nervous as all buck.
“We have quite a high number of ponies who swore, under oath, that you were there amongst the first. Considering your later involvement in the slaughter of the only survivor of that event, I find that to be highly suspicious.”
“Mr. Hooves,” Prinz said raising his hoof mockingly as if wanting to be called upon in class, Twilight shuddered at the thought of school,” That is where I have to stop you and question Twilight about that night seen as how you weren’t there.” He turned and faced Twilight, “Twilight I want you to tell me the entire truth, was Cheerilee out of the theatre before you tried to douse the flames?” he dead-panned.
If it was any other time and he was not trying to help her she would have been terrified at how he sounded. She wracked her brain trying to remember the night that seemed like forever ago. Slowly she said “Yes she was out of the theatre and she got out a little bit after I got there with my friends.” She said failing to recognize the importance of such a little detail.
“She was out of the theatre after Twilight got there…,” Prinz said “which means she watched Twilight destroy the building,” Twilight inhaled deeply as she realized where he was going with all of this, “If Twilight really was the killer and wanted no evidence she would have arrived, immediately thrown the river on the building and then claimed an accident later on the grounds she didn’t know the building was unstable or that she accidentally put too much water on the building.”
When Prinz finished the entire courtroom was silent. He looked around and absorbed the faces around him, most of them had their mouths open, Twilight’s in amazement at what he had just concluded, Hooves’ at being disproved, and the audience’s because it actually made sense. He briefly glanced at Luna as he turned to take his seat again. Her eyes betrayed her disbelief but her face was stoic and unchanging.
Hooves quickly regained composure “Very well,” he said obviously discomfited by the fact this Pegasus was crafty, “Now Twilight, you were aware of our fruitless efforts to find any sort of evidence in the debris you created, were you not?”
“Yes,” Twilight said reluctantly, trying to at least sound cooperative.
“Then why, might I ask, did we find a piece of bloody theatre board in your library that you omitted to tell us?”
Had the crowd not been so interested then they might have started buzzing again but the courtroom was silent for a moment before Twilight responded.
“Oh this one is easy to clear up,” Twilight said, “Twist brought it to me when she found it. We wanted to establish that it really was blood before we caused a fuss.”
“Hm and who could confirm this?”
“Uh… Spike…Twist.” Twilight stammered realizing what this must look like.
“Both of whom are dead.” Hooves said in a “how convenient” kind of tone.
“OBJECTION!” Prinz suddenly yelled startling Twilight, who hadn’t expected it coming, “Sorry about that,” he said sheepishly to Twilight, “This proves nothing. Have you ever considered that Twist was maybe looking into the deaths of her friends? She may have suspected foul play after finding the board then went to Twilight, who also just so happens to be the smartest unicorn in the town, to get help. Twist had just lost one of her closest friends and Twilight’s friends had lost 2 sisters and a loving little sister figure. Why would Twilight, who went on adventures with these same friends to save Equestria not once but twice, suddenly go psychotic ad start killing everypony?”
Luna decided to interject at this point, “Maybe the burden of responsibility was too much for her and broke her senses?”
“So anyway,” Hooves continued, “about this fortress in the Everfree forest that has been conveniently reduced to rubble. How did Cheerilee know where it was and even more so how was she able to gain access as Celestia destroyed all the entrance gems?”
“She obviously missed one!” Twilight blurted out
Luna’s voice filled with anger as she completely forgot to use the archaic language she was normally preferred during
official matters. “How dare you push this upon my sister! She has done nothing but be kind to you and you have the audacity to pull her actions into question!”
Luna was seething at this point but Prinz once again dead-panned “Twilight never pushed anything on Celestia she only pointed out that she may have made a mistake and missed a gem that Cheerilee found.”
The entire room was silent. Nopony moved as Prinz Spectre and Princess Luna starred at each other, each seeking their own justice. The silence was broken by Sherlock Hooves, “Ehem yes… moving on,” he strode toward Twilight with a piece of parchment in his hooves, “This is a letter from your assistant Spike to Princess Celestia, it reads:
Ruins in Everfree.
Everypony else dead.
Twi went after Cheerilee
Send help
Translation: Twilight just killed everypony and is now killing Cheerilee, Spike too was killed, hm don’t like when your assistant betra…”
“This is enough!” Prinz’s voice boomed in the quiet room, “How about this translation: Everypony else is dead, Twi went after Cheerilee to stop her, send help in case. Another thing to consider if Twilight is one of the strongest unicorns in existence why didn’t she just collapse the fortress once all her friends were inside. Why was Cheerilee able to get away only to be killed so easily by Twilight? The whole logic is flawed based on the fact that the townspeople heard them fighting and saw Cheerilee be ripped apart. That sort of power wouldn’t have allowed Cheerilee to leave the fortress.” He then turned to Twilight, “Twilight what happened in there?” He asked with genuine compassion behind his voice.
“Well,” Twilight began, “after I left Spike I headed up the stairs and found what was left of Rarity,” Twilight suddenly burst into tears, “she was my friend and I couldn’t do anything to help her!” Twilight could do nothing but sob as the events of a few nights ago came flooding back to her. All Prinz could do was place a hoof on her shoulder and try to console her.
Luna was floored, no psychopath could possibly have this much sadness from having all of her friends ripped away from her, this much pain from being wrongly accused for all these heinous crimes, this much grief from being the only survivor of this horror. She. Was. Innocent.
Before Twilight could recover Luna was already sending the word to all her guards to tell everyone that the unicorn was wrongfully accused.
For Twilight things seem to move in slow motion. Her innocence being declared as Luna decreed “NOT GUILTY,” with a bang of her hoof and left to go find her sister. The many camera flashes of the newspaper ponies trying to get the best picture for the breaking news.
As Twilight walked outside she was met by the Family members of the deceased, who all embraced her for killing the real murderer and avenging all of the deaths caused over the past month. The entire group broke into tears as they held each other for support. As they turned to go home Twilight stopped. Could she just go back to normal life in Ponyville minus the comfort of her friends? No it was too much of a void that could not be filled.
“Twilight," Rarity’s father asked concern touching his already choked speech,"what's wrong?”
“I’m sorry but I just can go back. Ponyville is a rift in my memory that is too large to fill or even go near.” Twilight looked at all the ponies around her these ponies had just endured almost as much suffering as she had. “My friends, your family will always be with us and I will have it arranged to have the respective Element of Harmony personally delivered to your household as it should be with you the ponies that were blessed with their company the longest. The stain is too much and I am electing to stay here in Canterlot till Celestia knows when.”
“Actually I don’t know when,” said a white alicorn that had just glided off of her balcony to the courtyard below. “Please do not bow for I do not come to you as ruler I come to you as a comforter. The Elements of Harmony fought this evil till the very end and even then gave their strength to Twilight so she could bring swift justice to this unjust deed so fear not for your family members helped in cleansing this evil from the land.”
“Thank you Princess, but if you could excuse me I need to go speak with someone important.” Twilight said slowly turning to go back to the larger crowd.
“I understand my student, if you need anything at all then you just need find me.” Celestia said with compassion.
Twilight turned and ran back towards the crowd with tears of joy forming as she searched for him. When she finally found him he was standing away from everypony else. She ran up and nearly tackled him and broke into sobs which continued on for what seemed like forever. Eventually they separated, “I cannot thank you enough, I just don’t know where to start with everypony being against me and I was being accused but you believed me and I don’t even know you. Why?”
Prinz just smiled and looked back at her “I defended you because I knew you were innocent from the absurdity of the charges being placed against you. Everypony has heard of the mane 6 mares who saved Equestria on more than one occasion why would the leader, one of the most powerful unicorns in existence, and student of the Princess who could probably get her own castle if she asked, throw it away and kill her closest friends and family members, along with her assistant that she raised from an egg, and a classroom full of fillies. None of it made any sense whatsoever, plus I could hear the sound of lamentation in your voice, that much sadness could not come from a psychopath killer who just did away with her closest friends. There was also conviction in your voice as you tried to defend your actions.”
Twilight just smiled there really was somepony out there that still cared for her in her time of need when no one else believed what she had known to be truth all along. She leaned up towards him and quickly kissed him on the cheek,
“Thank you,” She said quietly. “You’re welcome,” he returned, “but now I must return home.” The Pegasus turned and flared his wings, “Be strong Twilight Sparkle.” And with that he propelled himself into the air headed home. Twilight watched him fly away and then turned and walked back towards Princess Celestia and the family that was essentially her own, and upon the breaking of dawn, the sun will shine down upon a new Equestria, changed by the actions of one mare..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author’s notes
Cheerille’s Garden is not my work I just decided to take a new approach on the ending.
Thank you to my proofreaders and to Unahim for creating the story
Disclaimer: some of the lines in this are not mine I took them from the original story.
For your first fic, this was really good! I forgot to read Cheeriliee's Garden first, but I'll read it now!!
Very nice! And Dark... And i hate that picture... I just want to go and hold her. A'right enough. Thumbs up.
Well, this is really good for your first fic! You really made Twi look completely hopeless in the beginning, and i loved it. I thought it was over for her then and there. I saw some barely noticeable grammatical errors, but overall a great enjoyable read. I rate this a 4-4.5/5.
very nice and great Phoenix Wright quote anyway keep it up
762268 Yeah I don't think you realize how hard it was to type "sad Twilight Sparkle" into the google search
762332 Thank you for the rating and I would really like to know what the errors were
762420 Yeah it was a court thing and i had to find a way to slip it in somehow.
762110 It's a long and depressing read but if you really want the backstory that is the only place to find it
762686 I read some of it but I'm terrible with gore.
After reading the description, I thought it would be a Deadman Wonderland parody or something. Disappointed to see that it wasn't, but it was still pretty interesting.
Wish it was longer, I hoped to see twi run away to look for evidence or something, everything happened too fast Still, cool story.
762966 Well it says in the description that it is an alternate-ending
762708(hands stomach pills)Here , you might need it more than
I do.
(Takes one pill ) On second thought.....
763024
Yeah, I only read the first paragraph, didn't see the "more" underneath...New leasson! Pay better attention to descriptions ^_^;;
763030 That's okay, I looked it up, wow is the end of Scarlet Harvest so much alike to Deadman Wonderland(except Twilight kills herself at the end of SH)
763029 762708 Sorry if you did read it and were made sick by it. I figured I would make my own pleasant ending to an otherwise horrible(gore-wise) story
This was quite intriguing, I must say, though Luna's instant accusation did feel a little heartless compared to her relationship with Twilight.
763175 Well she was already under the assumption that Twilight had killed all of them because all the evidence was circumstantial and there was no evidence against her not doing it
763046Oh it's quite alright ,you really don't have anything to apologise for.
763046
I watched Deadman Wonderland at some point during the writing, and that's where I got the idea for the "Rarity's Dad" scene, since that felt really, really powerful to me in the anime. That's about it though, the rest just happens to look similar when viewed from a distance ^^
Anyway, I'll keep a running commentary here:
- Heh, I just thought "Well, his writing is rather good." after reading the first paragraph, then I realised that I was the one to write that xD I must thank you, you tricked me into judging my own writing from an outside perspective, something which normally would not have been possible :p That does mean I need to look for the point at which your own writing starts to give meaningful commentary, though...
- “Oh thank you so mu…,” The colt held up a hoof to silence her. -> "Oh thank you so mu..." The colt held up a hoof to silence her.
Reason: His holding up a hoof does not have anything to do with Twi speaking, so you can't combine them like that. It's not forbidden to use a dot at the end of a line of dialogue, you only make it a comma if something like "said" follows it.
- “SILENCE!” Princess Luna boomed. This shall be allowed as Twilight Sparkle was originally allowed somepony to defend her,”
-> you forgot to open the dialogue again, and I'd place a comma before the "as". In fact, you have many places where I'd put extra commas as's and and's and so on, your sentences tend to be a bit run-on ^^ I won't point all instances of this out. (also, for example: “Now this proof you were talking about…” -> "Now, this proof you were talking about..."
- this Pegasus that was defending -> it's a bit of a long description, just use his name. or even just "pegasus", Hooves is an earth pony, Luna is an alicorn, Twi is a unicorn... there's only one pegasus to refer to.
- if she was in his shoes (which in fact she almost was) she would be nervous as all buck. -> were she in his shoes (which she almost was) she would have been nervous as buck.
Reason: Need to keep in mind you're writing in the past tense, about a moment even further in the past here ^^
- school,” That -> the space needs to be before the ". Also, this sentence felt rather strange :p
- you and question -> too many spaces between the you and the and
- there with my friends.” She said failing -> this is the reverse from before, here you need to make it a comma, but didn't: there with my friends," she said failing
Notice: no capital after the comma.
- Prinz said “which -> Prinz said, "which
Always use a comma like this if you're continuing the same sentence.
- senses?”
“So anyway,” Hooves continued,
there needs to be a white line between the two
I stopped judging the spelling at that point, so let me just talk about some story elements. It is, of course, understood that we will disagree on this, seeing as I'm the writer who killed Twilight and you're the one who wrote a story with the express purpose of saving her. However, here's why I don't think Priz would win quite as easily as he did:
- The theatre fires: they only have Twilight's word to go by, which isn't reliable at all. Not to mention the fact that the investigators in the original ending already knew that Cheerilee got out before the flood: several witnesses could confirm that. The idea is that Twilight was forced to save Cheerilee when she showed up, and that she then flattened the theatre when things got a bit "too hot under her heels", now that one of them had made it out already (which meant others may make it out, too.) It's not evidence against Cheerilee that she "let" Twilight do it either, as Cheerilee was suffering from the effects of the smoke at that point... nobody could be sure if she was even fully conscious at that point or not. So no, Priz didn't change anythign there by making Twilight say that; it was already assumed common knowledge :p As to why she didn't do it before anyone else arrived: a fire is much, much harder to link to Twilight (bearing in mind they lack forensic technology) than a floodwave that is obviously controlled by her.
- The "bloody plank": it's all assumptions by Priz, which will not be enough to wipe away Hooves' assumptions, especially since it -is- rather strange that they didn't bring the evidence to the investigators. Twist didn't say anything because of her fear for her parents' reaction if she was wrong, Twilight didn't say anything because she's a perfectionist who doesn't like giving other people half-baked "maybe"'s + she's too curious for her own good, and the temptation to try the techniques found in Hooves' book would have been irresistible to her. It's very hard for Priz to prove any of this, since anything Twilight says is unreliable, and even Twist's parents would likely not be fully aware of their daughter's thought patterns.
- The letter: No comment here, that thing is so vague that you can interpret it any way you wish. It's just something you pull out at the end of the conclusion and say "See, even this can fit into this theory." but not the thing you build the theory around.
- Luna realising Twi is innocent from her crying: She could just as well be crying for her own life and out of fear. I let Celestia understand Twilight at the end of my story because those two have been together for many years, and they understand one another. The situation was likewise different. I don't think Luna knows Twilight well enough to make this call, especially in a situation where she's expected to fake her tears if they don't come naturally, really.
So you, I don't agree with it, but we both knew that would be the case from the start ^^ At the end of the day, this is a self-fulfilment fic for all the people who wished my fic ended a bit better, and it serves that purpose just fine.
Twi refusing to return to Ponyville and sending the element of harmony jewels to the families is a nice touch (if a bit questionable, since those things may still come in handy for the next generation of elements...).
For the last line: "and as the sun would rise in the morning it will shine an Equestria that changed from the actions of a single mare." doesn't work very well, and the last line of your fic -has- to sound epic, so what about:
"and upon the breaking of dawn, the sun will shine down upon a new Equestria, changed by the actions of one mare."?
Oh, and just one more note... I think it's a bit confusing that some parts of this story are literally written by me, since our style of writing is so different. In order to prevent that confusion (and inform people who'll never get through the 60k words of CG+SH :p) perhaps you should add a disclaimer in the description that a small amount of sections include material written by me?
At any rate, as a final judgement: You've got some punctuation rules to read up on, but you're not bad. Not bad at all. I'm proud to be affiliated to this story.
763363
But maybe -I- do... maybe...
762584 how will you add more chapters
763484Hey , what's that suppose to mean ?
"Captain! 14 Ponies are dead!"
"What? Who has done it!"
"Maybe that hooded pony over thing with a bloody knife and creepy smile?"
"Oh no, couldn't be him!"
"Who, then?"
"There, Twilight Sparkle over there, she obviously did it! I mean, despite the fact that she is the Princess's student and trusted above anybody in Equestria, she's obviously the one that did it!"
I know I haven't read it, but I felt this was too good to not be posted
763557
Well, I'm the one who wrote that story, so if anyone should apologise for you being sickened by it, it should probably be me.
763586
Yeah that's... that's not how it went :p
763605Well I have not the courage to read it,and I felt much worse when I go any were near anything related to rocket to
insanety,Cupcakes ,Raritys generous plan ,Rainbow Factory ,etc.Well when I know what it is about , or hear about it at least.Wow I am such a scardy brony.
763586 Ha .
(,). ('). This. Was . FUCKING. amasing.
\____/. Little sad over the deaths of MT6..... And now I can't use the ' dont die on me or cheerily will kill me.' excuse on BF3 brony servers. damn you
763459 Awesome a word wall, I've always wanted one (really I have). The reason for the large amounts of errors is that during the proofreading stages, my proofreader seemingly fell off the face of the Earth and I could not get a hold of him by any means, so I said to hell with him proofing it and was planing on FimFiction to do exactly what you did and point out the errors so I could fix them. Now onto the discussion and points of your wall, first of all his name is Prinz with an N, next onto the scenario points, my view on the theatre fire was explained in the next lines where if I were the killer that is what I would have done. The plank was the one part I hated writing because I didn't like that part in the original, so I pretty much went along with what really happened and tried to make it sound like it was another point of view. I tried the Luna scene because she was imprisoned on the moon for 1000 years so who else would be able to spot genuine lament than her. The whole idea for the elements to be sent to the families was an on the spot decision that suddenly popped into my head out of nowhere.
763543 I had originally planned 2 different alternate endings, this one and one where the where the other elements came back as force-ghost like spirit thingys and proved Twilights innocence( and I still might do that one eventually), but now after thinking about it and wanting to do a ship fic I considered having Prinz come and try to comfort Twi and then ship off of that or maybe do another story entirely so until I decide it will remain incomplete.
763586 Definitely not how it went
764799
It's a shame that your proofreader dropped out on you but, ultimately, you're the one responsible for the story, not him ^^ On Ponychan they have a few writers boards where you can get feedback on stories and such. It's a bit confusing to try and discover how they work at first (you generally shouldn't make new threads for yourself there) but they give awesome feedback. I brought Cheerilee's Garden there once, and they helped me get rid of a lot of mistakes... well, in the first part of the story, anyway, which they did as a form of kindness, since apparently the story was too extreme for the boards, but the rules weren't clear enough :p
(so if you do take this story there, I wouldn't tell them to read mine first, haha ^^)
It's actually really good.
Liked.....alot
Now we need an Umineko no Naku Koro ni crossover with Cheerilee’s Garden, (Warning: geek talk coming up, please reply or send me a PM regarding of what I'm going to talk about and is you don't know what I'm talking about then ignore the following)
For example, Erika being called to Equestria to solve the crime that Cheerliee commited, it would be awesome.
764799 Never said I didn't like it.
Seems like everypony goes fucking paranoid when something bad happens.
794241 I never took it as you had something wrong with it I was just stating that that isn't how the accusation and charges were placed on twilight
765457 Oh and the reason I added the "she shuddered at the thought of school" was because Cheerilee was the teacher and as Twilight remembered school, schools must have teachers and then the line comes full circle
894392 I'm not sure if you read the actual ending to Scarlet Harvest. In that ending the trial goes completely in the opposite direction and Twilight is put to death. When I wrote this alternate ending I was trying to prove the evidence was circumstantial (which all of it is). Also would you mind describing "too perfect".
I'm glad to see that I'm not the only Phoenix Wright fan that read that story.
That said, I was actually planning on writing something like this, just because the ending of Scarlet Harvest was just the most... ending I've ever seen.
that was the most perfect ending nothing could have been better or worse in this case
I can't help but when I read this, imagine Sherlock Hooves's voice being very snobbish and dry sounding, like that of the most vile aristocrat who was merely punching a time clock while I think Prinz would have the voice of a concerned man fighting for what he believed in. I'll be honest, I found Hooves to be despicable and dishonest in Scarlet Harvest and subsequently in your stories. I love your endings, especially this one because I feel it puts the snobbish Hooves in his rightful place, in the corner of defeat.
763586
Why don’t you read the original story before you comment things like this Smart Alec 😄
896684
Thank you for pointing this out! I didn't know I had this question until I read your comment: How would Cheerilee's family react to this trial?
By all logic, it would appear that Twilight killed Cheerilee either out of cold blood or to eliminate all threats and evidence of the murders that she, Twilight, commited. In the trial, Twilight seemingly accuses Cheerilee, a seemingly innocent mare and a victim, of these deeds. Given this outcome, I wonder how they would react to Twilight being deemed innocent and Cheerilee's innocence being put to question...
Cheerilee, you've dealt a great wound.