Epilogue: Baneful Omens
“...And that concludes my report, Lord Bolas.”
Nicol Bolas scratched his chin thoughtfully as Ral Zarek finished his story, kneeling in a pose of complete supplication. Seeing a planeswalker bow before him was yet another reminder of his own power, and his Meditation Realm was already a masterwork of self-indulgence, an entire plane of monuments to his image. Even Niv-Mizzet would find his vanity excessive, a thought which only served to further his own pride.
“Interesting,” said Bolas. “This... ‘Twilight Sparkle’ sounds eerily similar to mythical creatures I’d heard stories of in my youth.”
Ral raised his eyebrows, still unmoving from his submissive pose. “Your youth, Lord Bolas?”
“Indeed,” said Bolas. “The alicorns were a race native to the plane of Concordia, or so the apocryphal legends had told. If the stories are to be believed, Concordia was destroyed in a cataclysm two-hundred thousand years ago, long before even I had graced the multiverse with my magnificent presence.”
Ral Zarek’s eyes went wide. Bolas grinned, knowing he had the Izzet Guildmage’s full attention. “Two hundred thousand?”
“Yes, I know. It’s hard to imagine a time when reality didn’t exist to cater to my whims. But it was there nonetheless.”
“And what should we do with this information, Lord Bolas?” asked Ral.
Lord Bolas paused. Ideas circulated within his mind, swirling with a scope that would rupture the brains of lesser beings who tried to comprehend them. That was to say, all beings not named Nicol Bolas.
“Send for Tezzeret,” said Bolas. “Tell him to report to me on the Gitaxians’ progress in New Phyrexia. If their planar portal is nearing completion, then I believe I will have another task for him shortly.”
Ral Zarek bowed his head. “Yes, Lord Bolas.”
————————
Your Entire World Forsaken
Ongoing Scheme
(An ongoing scheme remains face up until it’s abandoned.)
As you set this scheme in motion, choose an opponent.
Whenever the chosen player taps a land for mana, that land doesn’t untap during its controller’s next untap step.
At the beginning of your opponents’ end step, they may pay any amount of mana. If the total amount of mana paid this way is 8 or more, abandon this scheme.
————————
Tezzeret’s etherium surveillance drone zipped through the bowels of the Lumengrid, winding itself through the nightmarish maze of pipes, wires, contraptions, and gleaming metal. Eventually, guided by the extensive map Tezzeret had imprinted on it, it made its way to the deepest chamber, where all the of the most important tests were conducted.
There, standing on a large darksteel balcony, Jin-Gitaxias himself oversaw a massive chamber where an inactive planar portal lay in the center. Right in the portal’s nexus, a captured Neruok human, still miraculously untouched by the Glistening Oil, was bound in chains.
“Initiate test number four-thousand, three-hundred and seventy-six,” said Jin-Gitaxias.
At his command, a grotesque, vaguely humanoid abomination of equal parts flesh and metal walked over to the far wall, where a massive lever was embedded. The horrific Phyrexian ignored the Neurok’s shouts for mercy, and flipped the switch with a ker-chunk.
Then, in a blinding flash of crackling energy and an ear-shattering scream of agony, the human was annihilated.
“Begin recording,” said Jin-Gitaxias. “Test number four-thousand, three-hundred and seventy-six. Results: failure. Researcher’s commentary: Another test subject annihilated by the energies of the Blind Eternities. In more than a year since the first prototype, we have made no signs of progress. I am beginning to fear—”
Jin-Gitaxias interrupted himself, the space that might have been his eyes turning towards a glittering silver shape. “Cease recording,” he said. “There is an unidentified object in the portal nexus. Bring it to me.”
A hoverdrone with a single eye glided from the ceiling, towards the portal nexus. It grasped the item in its six insectoid legs, before flying over and dropping it into Jin-Gitaxias’s awaiting palm.
The praetor’s jaws split open into a rictus grin as his spindly fingers caressed the artifact, a silver amulet without a chain, forged into a very distinctive shape.
“Fascinating,” said Jin-Gitaxias. “Very fascinating, indeed...”
————————
Planar Amulet 5
Legendary Artifact
7, T: Search your library for a creature card, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library.
“Our tests show that this artifact will shield its wearer from the chaos of the Blind Eternities. When paired with our portal technology, there is no plane we cannot reach.”
— Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
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Bolas AND New Phyrexia. Sigh. I shall hold out hope that this doesn't careen off into Ridiculously-Dark-Ville.
While Nicol Bolas catching wind of Twilight through Ral is unsurprising, the development involving the Phyrexians is alarming, to say the least.
She may not know it yet, but her initial, innocent experiment with the Blind Eternities will have far-reaching consequences.
Oh Ponyville, I guess I was wrong in the last chapter, hehe.
8534895
Pinkie's 'ambition' shows up for all of one episode, the lesson of which was that she shouldn't put her pride ahead of making sure the guest of honor (and her friends in general) had fun. If that 'ambition' shows up anywhere else, it's news to me.
And... that is a very, very strange interpretation of madness in the context of SOI. To be, it pretty blatantly had nothing to do with people learning the truth of Emrakul or whatever and instead just Emrakul invading and breaking their minds, inducing paranoia, hallucinations, various forms of mania, etc. Maybe not strictly parallel to real-world mental illness, but still mental illness. And Madness, as a mechanic, generally represents a mage using damage (discard) to part of their mind (their hand) as a way of casting spells more easily. That really doesn't strike me as relating at all to Pinkie Pie. She's not madness-crazy, she's Un-set crazy.
In the end, I still think you're seeing black traits in Pinkie that just aren't there.
8534930
Unless you're running Blue, and then you've basically been shut down in the field of dealing with Walkers. Granted, my thoughts were geared towards the EDH scene, where the Oath cards are more likely to see play...
Also, RE: throwing direct damage spells at Planeswalkers, that recently got quite a bit more difficult. Apparently WotC altered the rulings regarding damage redirection in a way that doesn't very easily facilitate burning Walkers for lethal damage...
Hello sequel hook. How are you this fine evening?
8534927
Rainbow Dash is the blackest probably. Both from 'ambition' and from her willingness to sacrifice other peoples' things to get her way.
Oh, look. Twilight making a mistake that will have ridiculously far reaching consequences in the future. How unsurprising.
*Grabs popcorn and anxiously awaits the sequels to give them a chance*
8534869 Seconded. If anything really annoys me about Magic's storyline these past years, it's that there has been no real victory for the good guys - it's always either been last-ditch "triumphs" that left entire worlds dead or nearly so (like Battle for Zendikar) or outright defeats (like Scars of Mirrodin or Amonkhet). I understand that worlds where good has triumphed are very hard to design for, but honestly, after following the Magic storyline for over twenty years, I'm tired of Phyrexia in all its forms, and I'm super tired of Nicol "Grandmaster of Everything, Ever" Bolas. I'm still holding out hope he'll be defeated eventually, but I fear he's got Joker Immunity by this point.
8534962
It's either her or Rarity, definitely.
8534946
EDH is generally a scene where it’s much more acceptable for cards to be blatantly overpowered, to be fair. I mean, Sol Ring is an EDH staple and it’s banned in Legacy, for crying out loud.
That said, I made sure that Oath of Twilight was not able to be used in an Atraxa deck, because holy hell would that get ridiculous quickly.
8534971
I'm just very, very picky about dark MLP fics these days. And Nicol Bolas and New Phyrexia are precisely the sort of villains that lead to the kind of dark fic I just won't bother reading, so I hope this fic's sequel doesn't go off the rails, because this crossover has the potential to be a lot of fun.
8535027
I’m going to go ahead and break my usual rule on spoilers and say that the main series (which I plan to have four parts) will have a happy ending.
It will be a long journey with plenty of dark situations, but it will end on an undeniably positive note. But I won’t say how, of course.
Bolas and Phyrexia....
Working together....kinda....
I mean, clearly Bolas is using the Phyrexians, but DAMN. Gatewatch has historically had trouble with EITHER of them. Togther...
This is going to get very messy. I pray for Equestria.
And for some reason, I am convinced that not only is Bolas looking to kidnap an Alicorn (Flurryheart, RUN!) but I totally see him trying to somehow steal the Elements of Harmony....trapped in the tree right now or not. Highly powerful 5 mana artifact that has defeated multiple evil forces. Definitely have to steal that to prove just how better he is at being....well everything.
8534989
True... the odds of having Sol Ring in your starting hand are astronomical, though.
Regardless, definitely looking forward to the sequels you hinted at. This story has been absolutely amazing to read!
Oh shit o_o
Welp, Bolas has figured out that the rumors of Concordia's demise had been somewhat exaggerated. And Phyrexia now has working planeswalking tech ahead of schedule.
I'm sorry, Twilight, but you may have just accidentally the Multiverse.
...
grabs popcorn
Hrm... is it just me, or am I seeing a 0px x 0px near the end where the planar amulet is supposed to show up? It's clickable sure but... was it meant to be a hyperlink? Just checking.
This summarizes Bolas so well, I want to give it a blue ribbon that is actually a slow, insidious mind-control device.
Is Your Entire World Forsaken supposed to let the opposing team pay for it over multiple turns? If that's the case, you may want to use counters to keep track of how much has been paid for the sake of simplicity. (And since schemes exist in the command zone, there's no risk of shenanigans from either end.)
Hello, Jin. It's been a while.
You might want to up the Amulet's activation cost by one. That can get pretty darn absurd.
In any case, at least the Gatewatch has already banished Emrakul to the moon. (And just wait until Luna hears about that one.) Eagerly looking forward to seeing where this saga goes.
8534971
I can't help but notice you left Kaladesh out of that consideration. Unless you count Tezzeret not dying as an automatic bad ending, I'd say that one went very well for the good guys. Chandra knows her mother's alive and proud of her. Pia Nalaar got the revolution she wanted and is now working to build a better Ghirapur. Dovin Baan may actually be forced to turn that oh-so-analytical mind on itself and discover the flaws in his thought process—unlikely, but I can dream—and failing that, his lawful stupid alignment means that he can't even bear the idea of a counterrevolution. The artificially induced citywide æther crisis is over. Baral's reign of terror and unseen persecution of Kaladeshi mages are over. And while Bolas expresses confidence in his plans within plans within et cetera, can we say for certain that Tezzeret ever did grasp the innermost secrets of the planar bridge? (And even if he did, there's the matter of powering the thing when the entire energy production of the capital of beautiful steampunk India isn't available, and adapting the bridge to whatever power source it uses instead.)
8535644 I left Kaladesh out because it was, to my mind, a lead-in to Amonkhet story-wise, and I can't begin to describe how angry the ending of that made me (did we really need to see Bolas effortlessly thrashing the Gatewatch? We get it, Wizards, he's old, powerful and intelligent. We got this back in Time Spiral block and Alara block, no need to reiterate). Whatever the planar bridge thing supposedly accomplished, I didn't get the feeling it actually had any negative effect on Bolas' plans, so that was all for nought (except the whole "save Kaladesh" thing). Good things happening in the first act don't count for much when the third throws them out of the window.
I'm mildly optimistic for what's currently happening with Ixalan, though. That story has been going some very interesting places.
I really dig this story but the Time Turner parts rub me the wrong way. Too much crossover? Not quite sure but it doesn't feel like it fits in to the over all story
8534927
You could also see Pinky as simply erratic and chaotic (red) with a far darker side in pinkamena. Pinkamena itself can easiely interpreted into both red and black. Either as a dark alternative personality or as her descent into madness.
8535644
In the Archenemy format, the Archenemy’s opponents share a turn, similar to the share team turn in two-headed giant. The Archenemy’s opponents’ therefore all get the same end step.
And yeah, the Planar Amulet’s activation cost should probably be upped by one. I wanted to make sure the wasn’t too close to Planar Bridge, since it would appear too weak in comparison for not enough of a cost reduction.
Maybe reduce the mana cost to five and up the activation cost to seven?
8535854
I know about the shared turn aspect of Archenemy. The "total amount paid" was ambiguous to me, but I see now that you meant it in the same vein as join forces.
As for the Amulet, five and seven actually seems safer. This way Treasure Mages can't find it.
... Wait, was that the Neurok test subject? If so, great Easter egg.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
As the little pegasus careens away, you can faintly hear her cries trailing into the distance: "Stupid Phyrexia! Stupid Bolas! Out of my lovely headspace, out out OUT! Unspeakably vile wastes of mana, wiping my field and infecting my beautiful elves, foul rotting vessels of necrotic pulsating...
(But in all reality, this is only mildly unexpected. You are totally within the realms of feasibility with this and I applaud your storytelling. It's just that the folks I play with use Bolas and Phyrexian things to totally wreck my decks. It's very irritating. I therefore hate these things on principle.)
Well this is bad, to say the least. But you should never underestimate a pony...
I had a feeling that amulet was going to come and bite Twilight in the rear.
I don't get it. Why is he so happy?(I have no knowledge of Magic: the Gathering. I like it, but I know nothing about it.)
8536800
creatures/humans without a planeswalker spark can't travel through the multiverse, but with this amulet which twilight made at the beginning of the story before she found out about her being a planeswalker, you can travel across the multiverse to ant plane you wish.
Oh! The plot thickens. (Evil chuckle) This should be most interesting to watch. I'm looking forward to what happens to Time Turner and if Rarity's secret get revealed. Oh so many ways this could go! (Evil cackle) I'm most interested in Bolas's part to play, it should be quite entertaining.
(Chuckles darkly)
8610203
No. Mostly because even wheb I play a deck that depends on the PW to win I would not go for it unless I was sure my victory condiyion didn't get incapacitated easily, as I said it does nothing when it comes in play and keep doing nothing since it may be usefull only when casting a PW, though most will let it resolve and use a removal instead of contering it.
Uh oh. Watch out, Equestria. The manure is about to hit the fan...
So, after reading through all of this, my thoughts:
I quite enjoyed a lot of this fic, especially Twilight's interactions with Ravnica. However, there is one element of the fic that really hurt my enjoyment:
Time Turner. It felt to me like he was a bit of a walking plot device here, effortlessly bringing all the answers to the plot and going mostly unchallenged. The chapters focused on him felt, to me, like the lowest point of the fic, in which the invincible time wizard effortlessly brushes aside anything that could possibly be a hindrance.
I feel like you would have been better served by Twilight working things out on her own, or perhaps her friends back in Equestria finding some way to signal her.
8812321
I don't care if my comment is 6 months old either, I stand by what I said before.
Yes 'can't be countered' is insanely overpowerd but in this case it is only for PWs and even when they hit the field, wich is already most of the times anyway, the oponent have other ways to deal with them and that is all the oath does, wich is to say nothing most of the time.
Damnit Twilight, you just fucked over the entire Multiverse, didn't you?
Well... this story was... was.... was SO FREAKING AMAZING! Keeping in mind my entire knowledge of Magic is what I've picked up from FomE's episode reviews and a few bits and pieces from a few friends that play, so I was going into this mostly blind and with just a general idea of something. And it worked so well. I never really felt lost, other then a few bits that mostly felt more like set up for bigger reveals later on in the storyline. Pretty much the highest praise I think you could give to a crossover is if you are coming in because of one half of it, but come out interested in learning more about the other half as well, and this story definitely did that. At least as far as the lore and story goes. Also, I bucking love Chandra, by far my favorite character in the story so far.
And the pony side was really damn good too. Again, few mostly minor issues and places of YMMV, but on the whole, really damn amazing. Above all, managing to do a crossover like this, without tossing in needless darkness or 'grittyness' or any of that stuff, but actually having it a more slice-of-lifeish bit of fun about the two worlds starting to learn about each other, while still having just enough danger and threats to drive the point home for Twilight and work so well.
Not really sure what more to say, the story had me hooked and had to stay up a bit late to finish it. (Though thankfully not Project: Sunflower levels of screw up my sleep cycle) So bit tired but this story was just so damn good..... Again, not utterly perfect, (Rari-Vamp seemed to come right the buck out of nowhere) but still so damn amazing. Great job and thanks for writing it.
So now to sequels, and maybe find out more about what was going on with this Concordia, it's destruction, why Equestria has the mana issues it seems to, can even these Planeswalkers with all their experience explain The Pink One, and many other questions.
...
Hang on a second. The crisis that caused Equestria's mana to lose contact with the world happened two hundred thousand years ago, alicorns are native to Concordia, there are alicorns on Equestria, Equestria values harmony, which is another way to say concord...
I cannot believe I missed that on my first reading.
Equestria is Concordia.
Oh what the heck. That's a hell of a sequel hook.
Also, your amulet image broke again
9532517
Got it. I've already finished book 1 and am looking forward to the rest.
Ugh.
I think this card might be used in a future story if I'm in:
Oath of DangerDean 3W/R
Legendary Enchantment
Human Warrior creature spells you own can't be countered.
"If a battle is too small or too large... I will bring the final blow."
8534971
He's been stripped of his godhood as of the War of the Spark.
10240890 I know. But Mark Rosewater has already given hints that he'll be back eventually, which is probably why they didn't bother to kill him - it would just make bringing him back more of a hassle. I know popular villains can't be permanently removed, and I know I'm in the minority regarding that, but I just find it frustrating that these characters become millstones for their franchises. Be it the Joker in Batman, the Daleks in Doctor Who or Nicol Bolas or the Phyrexians in Magic, they hang over everything like a big black cloud, because you know they will return at some point, and I for one dread this moment more than anything else.
Ah well. Nothing to be done about it, I suppose.
10240890
He's still better off than LAST time he was stuck in the Meditation Realm.
Last time, the realm was cut off from the multiverse, he'd been de-powered, de-sparked, AND killed.
This time it's the same, but he wasn't killed.
11587224
Fair enough. As a magic fan, I find myself playing both tamiyo and that specific Liliana very often. That being said, Liliana of the veil is a lot more evil. All you have to do is put all their permanents in one pile and all their lands in another. That's even worse. Comes down turn 3 ults turn 6