Spare Parts

by Crack-Fic Casey

The Perfect World: Coming Soon!

Author's Note:

To be clear, "Coming soon" is a part of the title for the story, not indicative of a longer story following.

This was part of a story I had that was supposed to be about Celestia. She was supposed to set Twilight up with a No-Win scenario, to help her get over her fear of failure. She and Twilight both entered magic comic books with a problem and had to complete the scenario. Celestia had an easy one so she could get out and make sure Twilight was okay, and Twilight had the above one.

Thing is, Celestia hadn't gone on an adventure for a while and doesn't read a lot of adventure fiction. Wrong Genre Savvy leads her in circles until Twilight accidentally paradoxes her comic to death and has to pull Celestia out, and Celestia admits that even somepony as old as her isn't perfect.

I wasn't totally on board with the concept. I always write Celestia as a character that's amazingly good— except for one thing that inevitably ruins her. She's a great politician, and can't protect her county without help. She's a loving mother figure, except for Sunset and Luna. Celestia believes in the magic of friendship so strongly because without it she wouldn't have half of what she has. (Daybreaker, by contrast, does nothing but has fun with evil, never plans anything, and is inevitably done in by her own hubris.) This story felt like it was going to lean hard on her doing stupid things. and while that kind of exaggeration is a legit comedy style, I didn't like doing that to somepony I loved so much.

Twilight's section was way easier to write because the comedy style was more Discworldian than Simpsonian. Twilight isn't my favorite character to watch, but she's easily my favorite character to work with. There are so many things you can do with her. Funny mad scientist, brooding evil princess, sarcastic voice of reason, dork, straight mare— she's got a fantastic range.

I had an introduction for Celestia and half of the below scene written out before I scrapped it and went to a similar story about Celestia and Luna as foals.

Twilight Sparkle was in hell. The world was hewn out of dead rock and filled with fire and brimstone and the occasional maimed skeleton despite how often she checked and cleaned the place. Demon flew across the sky carrying horrible weapons of death. Ponies huddled together in groups, ragged and unkempt, desperately trying to find scraps of food. The entire world was simply depressing and horrible.

Still, she was the Queen, and that helped.

One of her demonic legions landed before her and knelt. “Your Majesty. We’ve apprehended one of the warlords that were waylaying food transports. Would you me to send him in?”

“Oh of course!” Twilight said brightly. “Just give me a moment to freshen up, please.”

“Of course, your grace.” As the demon rose and left, Twilight stood and stretched. She placed her paperwork back in the hollowed-out portion of rock that functioned as shelving and magically sealed it in. She walked over to the cracked mirror to make sure her armor was straight. Twilight was glad it was a simulation, otherwise, the spikes would make the suit horribly uncomfortable. Still, until metalworking improved, there was nothing for it but armor carved from the bones of her enemies. It was surprisingly sturdy and made her tattered purple cloak look impressive instead of tacky. Rarity would be proud.

She cleared her throat. “Okay, evil voice, evil voice, evil voice.” She dropped her voice lower and lower each time she spoke and added a rumble in the back of her throat. It took a little practice, but she could manage a very intimidating demonic growl without even needing to use her magic. She levitated her hood over her head, casting her face in deep shadow. As a final touch, she canceled the perfectly normal lighting spell and lit a series of light blue fires around the walls. She returned to her throne and sat down, casting an imperious look at the door. “Bring him to me.”

The warlord (she couldn’t remember his name, something like Medaton, or something,) managed to walk with dignity as he was led in by her guards. He was taller than she was and strong enough to wear armor carved from granite. Twilight considered tracking some down but decided against. She’d already committed to her look. He sneered as he strode down past her guards and made sure that everypony could see his pointed teeth and terrifying red eyes “So, you are the ‘mighty’ Queen Twilight Sparkle. It’s just so good to finally meet face to face, isn’t it? After all this time?”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “I suppose. Remind me who are you, again?”

“Who am I,” the warlord repeated. “Who am I? I am the Gladiator of Kaon. I am the Emperor of Destruction. I am the one who has drunk of the Blood of the Great Destroyer itself. I. AM. MEGA—

“Actually, I don’t care,” Twilight interrupted. “I’m Twilight Sparkle. I don’t need titles because I’m Twilight Sparkle. You know who I am, that’s why you’re in chains.”

Mega-whatever chuckled. “Chains are a state of mind, your highness. I—”

Twilight lit her horn, yanking him by the chains up and into the ceiling. At her command, the floor cracked open, revealing a horrible pit of lava underneath. Dark shapes swam underneath, coming ominously close to the surface. “That’s really inspiring, but I’d point out that death can alter someponies state of mind very thoroughly as well.” She let some slack into the chains, letting the self-styled warlord slip perilously close to the lava. The chains made him immune to most heat, but she'd made sure to let some through for effect. "Now, I understand you have some kind of grievance with me?"

The warlord coughed. "Well, ah— the thing is, we feel sort of oppressed, you see."

"Ah." Happy to see that the grandstanding was out of his system, Twilight pulled him back up. "Well, that's very unfortunate. Please elaborate."

"You have reighned— can you let me stand on the floor."

"No, that's okay."

"Okay, um—" he cleared his throat. "Ponykind wishes to live in a land that is free, with full bellies and warm hearts. To do that, we require your death."

"And how does my death bring about those things?"

"You have become what you feared!" He roared with the passion of people who are really committed to other people being wrong about something. "You have betrayed your values and—"

"Stop shouting or I dunk you again."

He stopped shouting. Twilight sighed. "Listen, how does killing me make more food?"

He continued to stop shouting. As a matter of fact, he stopped speaking entirely. "We have an army protecting us, jobs, and enough food to put off dying in the near future. To keep that, I have to be this," she flexed, causing the spikes to conduct shimmering purple electricity with the four corners of the room "around bad ponies. It's not a permanent system. It's not a system I'll outlive. But it keeps us going until we can find a better one. Can you look me in the eye and tell me you have a better way?"

He stared at her for a long moment, considering her words.

Then he faded from existence.

Her throne room left too, and her armor and even her cloak. She was left in an empty blue void staring at repeating white words.

UNFEASABLE CONCLUSION. PLEASE RESET.

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Fiiiiine. Jeez. Let's run it again."

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Ugh. You'd think they'd playtest these things thoroughly.

A shame you couldn't rework the concept into a different sort of Kobayashi Maru scenario. Even this excerpt is a lot of fun. And probably quite cathartic for Twilight.