• Published 30th Mar 2019
  • 10,937 Views, 476 Comments

Heaven of a Hell - Rambling Writer



Hell has an infinite library. Twilight wants to use that library. There goes the neighborhood. Yep, right out the door, and it’s taking the couch with it.

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4 - (Lack of) Silence in the Library

“No,” whispered Wormwhinny. “Don’t. Please.

“We are more than a yottalightyear away from her,” scoffed Belphegallop. “She won’t know.”

“She will. You don’t know her. You don’t know her.

“Right. Sure.” Belphegallop plucked a book from the shelf and tossed it in the air a few times. He smirked at Wormwhinny.

Please. I’m begging you.”

“Beg harder.” Belphegallop nudged a few books to the side and re-inserted the book back in the wrong place. He waited a few seconds. Nothing. “So!” he said, grinning. “Where is the might of Twilight you were so-”

He said no more, for a certain lavender alicorn hurtled down the aisle at physically-impossible speeds and slammed into him, throwing him literal miles down the hallway in seconds. The keening screech of a demon in pain — pain! — resounded through the Library, tearing at the fabric of reality with hedge clippers.

But the unstoppable force of nature whose wrath Belphegallop had incurred didn’t care in the slightest. “You think you can misplace books?” roared Twilight, her voice audible even at those distances. “Do you? Do you?!

Wormwhinny quickly put the books back in their proper places.

Pop. Twilight appeared before him, smiling sweetly. “Thank you.” She bowed and vanished with another pop. Wormwhinny took advantage of her inattention and began tiptoeing away. All the while, Belphegallop’s screams and Twilight’s yells echoed behind him.

“This is for every book you’ve mistreated!” Zap.

“Ow! My face!”

“This is for your disorganization!” Blam.

“Ow! My leg!”

“This is for disrespecting my system!” Pow.

“Ow! My vomeronasal!”

“…This is because I feel like it!” Wham.

“Ow! My other face!”


Starlight looked up as Twilight teleported back into the foyer, looking frazzled and frizzed. “Again!” Twilight screamed. “They keep rearranging stuff like it’s- like it’s a game!”

“Come on, Twilight, I don’t think-”

“I heard one of them yell, ‘Ten points!’”

“…Oh.”

“BUT!” Twilight sucked in a breath through her nose and let it out through her mouth. “Now. Everything. Is fixed. So now. I. Can read!” She slouched out on the floor and slammed her book open hard enough for the sound to echo around the room.

About two seconds passed before Twilight sat bolt upright. “Librarian senses tingling…” she whispered. Her ears swiveled back and forth like radar dishes. “Fluid Dynamics in Universes Where the Speed of Light is Less Than Ten Miles an Hour!” she yelled and vanished with a pop.

Starlight didn’t look up from her book, a perfectly ordinary adventure novel with no alternate-universe qualities or plot points whatsoever. “How did the alligator live in that trap for that long?” she asked herself.

Something exploded five stories up. A sword made of fire spun out of one of the upper aisles, flew across the room, and embedded itself in the opposite wall.

“Neat way of beating it, though. The traps in here are nasty.”

Twilight teleported back, smoking and covered in black fluid. “I think they’re playing tag with me,” she said in a haunted voice. “They were ready. But I got them.” She giggled shrilly. “I got them. By Celestia, I got them.”

“Couldn’t you just ignore them? Let them disorganize the library, leave it for a few hours, and fix it all later? If at all?”

SAY THAT AGAIN AND I WILL RIP YOUR SPLEEN OUT THROUGH YOUR SPHINCTER.

Starlight rolled her eyes. “Guess not.”

With a quick spell, Twilight was clean again. She started pacing, glaring at the carpet. “We need to stop them, Starlight. They’re turning the greatest place in the world into one of eternal torment! What sort of hell is this?”

Not stating the obvious took so much mental effort from Starlight that all spells she cast later in life seemed trivial by comparison.

“But I’ve tried everything!” said Twilight, flaring her wings. “Teleport interdiction spells? Nope! Dimensional shifting? Nuh-uh. Curses if books are disorganized? I actually think they took notes on that. Cute signs politely asking them to stop? That almost worked until somebody-” She threw back her head and shrieked, “BEEEEEEEELZEBUUUUUUUCK! -took them down. I knew I should’ve used better tape. I even tried writing to my congressmare!”

Starlight looked up, frowning. “What’d she say?”

“That congressmares don’t exist, since neither Equestria nor hell is a democracy. Also that he wasn’t a mare. Or even a pony. And that I should stop writing to him. He also wondered where I’d gotten his address from in the first place. Or how the mail was even being delivered in hell. Long story short, Derpy’s a lot tougher than we give her credit for.”

Going back to her book, Starlight said, “So what’s your next plan? Securing the shelves with the best locks in the multiverse? Hiring demons as guards?”

“No,” said Twilight, “we need a more permanent solution, one that- Ah-hah! Got it!”

“Yeah?”

“We’ll take over hell and order them to stop!”

“…You’re high, aren’t you?”

“Only on knowledge!”

“Yep. Sooooo high.”

“These are demons, Starlight. Torment is in their blood. Ichor? Whatever demons have. They won’t stop unless we can force them to. And if that involves taking over hell, well…” Twilight shrugged.

Starlight flipped her book shut. “And I suppose, now that you’ve spent time in here, you all of a sudden know how to fight a war against hell?”

“Not exactly.” Twilight grinned smugly. “Even I don’t know everything. But I am a librarian, so I know where to find anything.”

“Oh, what,” scoffed Starlight, “you’re just gonna apply your system, find the book that tells you how to take over hell, a-”

Mid-sentence, the book Twilight threw hit her right in the face, still trailing a few sparks from Twilight’s return teleportation. Starlight rubbed her nose and glared.

Every. Book. Possible,” intoned Twilight. “EVER AND NEVER.

Starlight huffed and looked at the cover.

Starlight tossed the book back to Twilight. “Why do these things always have ridiculously on-the-muzzle titles?”

“Because it’s part of my system, obviously. Infinite books also means infinite titles for each possible set of contents, so my system paired titles and contents as closely as possible when the contents are coherent. You wouldn’t want to crack open Princess Luna’s Secret Passions and find a technical description of the construction of the Hoofer Dam, would you?”

“…How do you know that’s not her secret passion?”

Twilight smiled and raised a hoof. The smile abruptly slid off her face, to be replaced by thoughtfulness. She looked off down one of the aisles and tapped her chin. She teleported away; she was back a few seconds later, her nose buried in Princess Luna’s Secret Passions, frowning deeply. “Dang. Luna really likes rebar.”

Starlight considered. There was no stopping Twilight now, so she might as well go along for the ride. Even if the ride risked jumping the tracks and exploding, killing everypony on board. (Which wouldn’t be the first time Starlight had been in that situation, but still.) But she’d been in hell for so long, she was missing a few familiar faces. And since Twilight probably wouldn’t be opposed to getting some help- “Taking over hell could be lonely. Can Trixie come?”

“Sure, why not. Conquering hell needs some bombast, anyway.” Twilight tilted the book sideways. “Oh, wow. Kinky. Drill that hole, baby…”


“Hey, Trixie. Wanna do something nopony’s ever done before?”

“Trixie has done a great many things nopony had done before, Starlight. Splendorous things, wondrous things, things that captivate the mind and hold hostage the senses, things nopony had even imagined. Many once-undone things have been done because Trixie has done them. Doing undone things has become passé, in fact. It will take a very grand undone thing to divert Trixie’s attention.”

“As in taking over hell?”

“…Trixie’s pan-Equestrian tour has just concluded, so she has some free time.”


Starlight and Trixie popped into the Library. Trixie was curled into a ball and shivering, her hat crushed, her cape crumpled. “Eyes shouldn’t go there,” she mumbled in a high-pitched voice. “Eyes shouldn’t go there. Eyes shouldn’t go there…

“Calm down,” said Starlight, telekinetically yanking her to her hooves. “You’ll get used to it. Trixie saw a demon at the wrong time,” she explained to Twilight. “And now she’s…” She sighed. “We’ll need to snap her out of it somehow.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Twilight, fake-cringing. “I don’t think we should work with somepony who folds at the first sign of something scary. Maybe-”

In a flash, Trixie was snapped out of it. “You dare question Trixie’s courage?” she yelled, pointing at Twilight. “Pshaw! The Great and Powerful Trrrrrrrixie laughs in the face of danger, heckles it until it runs off the stage in tears! She flirts with disaster, buys it a drink, takes it out to dinner and a show before dumping it! Taking over hell will be beyond trivial with Trixie on your side!” She reared, whinnying dramatically. Then she remembered that she didn’t have her fireworks with her and made tiny whishoo, pfoom noises with her mouth as her horn threw sparks.

Twilight smirked at Starlight, then said, “I’m sure it will, Trixie, but listen. This is hell, and it’s dangerous, so you need to follow my lead. I know you’d rather chop your own tail off and call it spaghetti, but please trust me on this.”

Trixie’s ears twitched as she thought it over. She opened her mouth a few times, but never said anything. You could almost see the smoke coming from her ears as her brain processed that following the path that didn’t end in eternal damnation meant agreeing with Twilight. She abruptly shivered, muttered, “Eyes…” and asked tentatively, “Trixie will still get partial credit for the takeover, yes?”

“Oh, absolutely. An even split between all of us. Stick it on your fliers and I’ll back you up. Think about it…” Twilight swept a hoof through the air. “The Great, Powerful, Hell-Conquering Trixie, 100% Princess-Approved!”

“Trixie finds these terms most agreeable,” Trixie said, nodding. “She will gladly assist you, on one condition.” She looked around and lowered her voice, meaning she was still talking with what most ponies would consider a loud speaking voice. “Trixie would like to know where the porn is.”

“That’s a bit complicated, depending on your type. But since discussing that sort of thing can be awkward…” Twilight extracted a folded sheet of parchment from the catalog. “I made this handy blowchart.”

Trixie tilted her head. “You mean flowchart.”

“No. I don’t.”