Chapter 28: Aftermath
The ghosts remained silent as they continued to look at where Apple Bloom and Thanatos disappeared. The wait was unbearable! Especially for Apple Bloom's closest friends and Applejack who were really worried. She was all alone against the Lord of Death after all. Even if she seemed to have the advantage thanks to the Super Suction, who knew what Thanatos had up his sleeves, especially with this army of ghosts he took with him?
Suddenly, there was a flash, and the next instant, a small pony skeleton-ghost appeared. The only thing that revealed her identity was a pink bow somehow remaining on her head despite the absence of hair.
But no trace of Thanatos. Did it mean...?
Apple Bloom blinked, and then looked around, seeing that she was back in the Spiritual World, among her friends who all stared at her.
She smiled before she did a few circles and took a victory pose. "WHOOO!!! AH CAPTURED THANATOS!!!"
That did it. One after another, Applejack and the others smiled and flew to her, ending up in a giant group hug full of congratulating words.
Discord remained away, looking at the ponies with a big smirk. "And it looks like you did more than capturing him."
Hearing him, Apple Bloom looked at him and understood what he meant as she looked down at her new skeletal form. "Eeyup. Ah took all his powers with the Absorber. There's no way he'll be able to escape now. He's totally powerless." And to ensure that he would never recover these powers, she then took the Absorber and destroyed it. Thanatos will never be a threat again.
"Well then... Hail to the new Lady of Death!" shouted the draconequus before he materialized dozens of copies of himself and they all began to cheer and clap.
Apple Bloom shook her head. "Nuhu. No thanks. Ah won't be the Lady of anything."
"So that's why you now look like a skeleton?" asked Scootaloo.
"Eeyup. But it's not because Ah look like a skeleton that Ah'm gonna be the new Lady of Death."
"Too late. You got the title with the powers. But it's just a title. It doesn't mean that you will start to rule over the dead like Thanatos did. You could just use your new Death powers to do what you want," said Discord.
"Or help others," added Apple Bloom. "Which is what Ah'll do with them. Ah won't be like Thanatos."
Discord smiled. "I don't doubt it. Now, how about we leave this place and return to the valley to celebrate your victory and the end of Thanatos' bloody reign?"
"Shouldn't we deal with all these ghosts we captured first?" asked Sweetie Belle. "There must be thousands!"
"Hundreds of thousands, which would take a reeeally long time to sort them," said Discord.
"Yeah. Party now, sorting later, please," pleaded Scootaloo. After everything they went thought, she wouldn't mind having a few days of rest and fun. The captured ghosts could wait.
Apple Bloom nodded. "We'll put them in the vault and go have fun. Then, Ah'll start building my Ghost Portrificationizer with E. Gadd, Smart Spirit, and Twilight while ya guys'll sort the ghosts."
"Ugh... Very well," said Little Ghost.
When they returned in Evershade Valley using the portal they first took to enter the spiritual world, Apple Bloom and the others were welcomed with loud cheers and congratulations from the ones who hadn't be able to come and help, so Twilight and her friends (excepted Applejack of course), and the inhabitants from the Mushroom Kingdom.
The festivities almost immediately began all over the valley, prepared by Pinkie Pie. Discord brought back Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Applejack's body for them to return in, and Apple Bloom succeeded in reforming her physical body, proving that she could now switch back and forth between life and death at will. She wasn't sure if it was a result of absorbing Thanatos' powers or if she would still have been able to do it without them despite remaining a ghost beyond the time-limit. Having gained this ability from the Spectral Transmograftizer exploding just as she pressed the button while being hit by Thanatos' claw, she didn't know if the time-limit had remained. At least, one way or another, this limit was gone.
But her physical body had a few differences: Her fur, mane, and tail were much paler, closer to white than to their original color, and on her Cutie Mark, a purple pony skull seemingly made of energy had appeared on the red shield, and her eyes had a strange purple glow behind the iris. Also, her skeleton could be seen through her skin, which somewhat disturbed some of the others.
Instead of joining in the festivities, Apple Bloom went to a vault that had been placed not far of the portal. A newly built vault made with the help of both magic and technology for greater efficiency that also had the same function than Smart Spirit's computer. Thanks to a screen and a keyboard on it, they could select the ghosts in it and separate them into three groups, green, yellow, and red. The selected ghosts then could be released or transferred into a crystal, a Poltergust, another vault, or, in the near future, to Apple Bloom's Ghost Portrificationizer to be turned into portraits.
She transferred all the ghosts she captured in it. Once she was done, she let the others plug their Poltergusts one by one to do the same, Discord plugging the ones that Scootaloo and Applejack used after they lost their robotic bodies. Once all the ghosts were inside the vault, Apple Bloom activated the screen to look at them.
"All there. Thanatos... Grogar... Toy Maker..."
"I can't wait to study these ghosts created by Thanatos," said E. Gadd.
"Ya should've enough time to study them while we work on the Ghost Portrificationizer," replied Apple Bloom.
"Yes. It will take a few months to build," said Smart Spirit. "It should also give enough time for the others to sort the ghosts and free the ones that don't deserve to be turned into portraits. The ones that followed Thanatos out of fear, that were manipulated, or that were controlled by him."
"I'll help! So many new friends to make!" shouted Pinkie Pie as she suddenly raised a leg. "Now, let's go party!"
The festivities over Thanatos' capture lasted... well, not all night, because the night lasted forever in Evershade Valley, but many hours. But Apple Bloom didn't participate much as she quickly fell asleep, exhausted, and she was transported to sleep in Gloomy Manor's bedroom. As time passed, the livings went to sleep one by one, Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Toadsworth returned in the Mushroom Kingdom, Spike fell asleep first and Twilight put him on the bed of the chamber in the first floor of the Haunted Towers before going to bed herself in the Flower Sisters' chamber, quickly joined by Rarity. Rainbow Dash went on a cloud, and Pinkie Pie was the last one once she saw that things were calming, taking the last bed of the Flower Sisters. E. Gadd went to Gloomy Manor's lab with Smart Spirit where they began to study the ghosts created by Thanatos, having brought the vault. Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Applejack, Little Ghost, Fluttershy, and Starlight, having nothing better to do, began to sort the captured ghosts with the help of some of the others, Discord remaining at Fluttershy's side.
Any ghost that they immediately knew wasn't evil was immediately released, like the Tricksters, Pranksters, Bulkys, Buffys, and so on. The new kinds of ghosts encountered in the castles, like the Icys or the Puffys, were carefully checked before they determined that they weren't bad too, they were just following Thanatos because they had no choice. Any ghost created by Thanatos, being inherently evil, was immediately put in the red group, excepted some that were transferred for E. Gadd and Smart Spirit to study. The wraiths too, but they eventually decided to put them in a fourth, special group after thinking that now that Apple Bloom had Thanatos' powers, maybe she could do something to 'heal' them. Not all wraiths were evil beings, some were just misguided creatures that let their hate get the better of them, like the leaders of the pony tribes (excepted Princess Rose who really had been horrible), and many others were victims that had been turned into wraiths by other wraiths.
Then there were the remaining ghosts. Ponies, griffons, zebras, and so on. Those were where things became complicated as it wasn't known for many where they were standing in regard of Thanatos. There were some they knew that deserved to go to red, like most of the ghosts captured in the VIP Wing, or Toy Maker, Big Brain, and Grogar, and there were others they knew could be released, like the Founders or Gusty the Great, but many others were uncertain and needed to be talked to to determine their fate. These ghosts were put in the yellow group. The green group was for ghosts they knew were innocent but couldn't be released for some reason, like because they were controlled. But with Thanatos out of the picture, there were no such ghosts.
They won't start talking to the ghosts of the yellow group before they will be done with the others however, and with the huge number of ghosts captured, they weren't even finished releasing known good ghosts or putting known evil ghosts in the red group when the first ponies started to wake up many hours later, Apple Bloom being the last. The filly then began to work of the Ghost Portrificationizer with Twilight, E. Gadd (who eventually went to sleep), and Smart Spirit while the others finally began to sort the ghosts of the yellow group, starting by the filly Candy, attempting to get her out of Thanatos' influence. Some hugs, soothing words, and other proofs that she will be loved and taken care of were all it took to convince her to forget the draconequus. They also promised her to investigate potential abuse from her mother.
They, however, eventually had to leave the valley and return to Ponyville to return to their life. There was still school for Apple Bloom and her friends after all, the Main 6 still had work, and Twilight needed to report to Celestia that Thanatos won't be a problem anymore. To avoid creeping out her classmates, Apple Bloom asked Twilight to put a charm on her to make her look like she was before, deciding that she will reveal her new nature to everypony little by little.
The princesses were very pleased to hear about Thanatos' capture and both Celestia and Luna personally came to congratulate the heroes, and also to see for themselves Apple Bloom's new nature. They also went to Evershade Valley to see that Thanatos was indeed in the vault, now looking like a simple draconequus ghost. They were impressed at seeing the number of ghosts that had been captured, and at who some of the ghosts were. Many of the most infamous criminals of Equestria, and even the world, Grogar, Sombra, the Founders... They regretted to not witness all this, and they were happy to talk to Clover the Clever and the others who wanted to remain there a little to see what had become of Equestria before they would move on.
For the next months, the ponies regularly returned in Evershade Valley to sort the ghosts or work on the Ghost Portrificationizer, which they began to build in the basement of Gloomy Manor after they finished with the plans. Along the way, Apple Bloom tested her powers to see if she could heal the wraiths. Thanatos' powers were about Death and souls, so maybe she could manipulate the soul of the wraiths to get them rid of their hate and get them back to normal. She had to train a long time to get a feel of these new powers until she had more or less the hand of them, and she felt she could do it.
And, after a few tries, it worked. She healed a first wraith who turned back into an unicorn stallion. However, the guy quickly revealed to be a specist murderer, and he was quickly sent into the red group. But like they thought, not all wraiths were like him, and many, after healing, revealed to just be poor souls traumatized by their time as wraiths. Many almost immediately decided to move on, but some remained in Evershade Valley to recover.
At the same time, Apple Bloom began to use her fortune to build the ghost town she had talked about before. With the new arrivals, it was very needed, the buildings in the valley and her own manor overflowing with ghosts, to the point that many returned in the spiritual world while waiting to have somewhere to haunt. Others decided to explore the world, resulting in a huge increase of paranormal activities a little everywhere, much to the joy of the paranormal lovers.
Then, a few more months later, the Ghost Portrificationizer was finished.
It was a much improved version of E. Gadd's Ghost Portrificationizer. It started with the vault out of which the selected ghosts will be sent to be turned into portraits. The main modification was that several ghosts could now be turned into a single portrait, instead of having only one, two, or three ghosts for just one portrait. They intended to use this to turn, for example, all the captured Boggys into a single portrait, and do the same for the Slitherers, the Crawlers, and all the other kinds of ghosts created by Thanatos. One portrait per kind. Turning all of them into portraits only once at a time would have taken much too long, without forgetting that the ponies would have had to find place for them after. As a result, they also had to modify the GP so that it could do not only simple portraits, but also up to wall-sized ones that could contain hundreds, or even thousands of ghosts at once.
The ponies had to dig to extend the basement to get the necessary place for said portraits coming out of the GP which was also, as a result, very large at the end.
Getting such huge portraits out of the basement won't be a problem. A simple shrinking spell will do the job, and then, the portraits will all be stored in the various buildings of Evershade Valley while waiting for their finale resting place to be built: the museum.
An heavily guarded museum, of course. This will also serve as a prison, after all.
In the case they needed to deportrify someone, the vault could be disconnected, leaving place for the deportrified person to come out of the pipe. They knew that the Dark Light Device could deportrify, but who knew...
Apple Bloom smirked. "Ready, everyone?"
After everyone present confirmed, the filly then pressed a button.
The next instant, a ghost was transferred through a pipe from the vault to the Ghost Portrificationizer, and the ghost went through all the steps of being turned into a portrait, mixed, flattened, electrified, and finally put into a frame inside the last, huge machine.
The portrait that came out was a beautiful platinum-framed one three times larger than the classic ones. It was of Thanatos, sitting on a throne made of bones, at the top of a hill made of skeletons, with a black background where purple energy could be seen swirling.
Turning into her ghost form, Apple Bloom took the portrait, smirking again as some of her friends cheered. "Welcome to yer new home, Thanatos."
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I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the portraits and how all the evil ponies you added died.
That is some jail
The last bit of progression for Apple Bloom's ghost form parallels a lot of endgame or mid-final boss power-ups.
Case in point: Shantae reclaiming her magic in the middle of the fight against the Pirate Master.
Though, for Apple Bloom, it's more like Rey bypassing the compressor.
...Okay, I can't come up with a good comparison that actually happened. Think the permanent Hypermode from Metroid Prime 3 with an off switch and no threat of terminal corruption.
10587288
I guess that's a good comparison, especially that she got that power up midway through the final boss. A better comparison is, I think, Goku being able to turn into a Super Sayan (God) whenever he wants.
10587303
Is blue stronger then SSG?
10587809
Yep. It's the SSJ of the SSG.
10588198
So only one chapter left till the new story?
Also is the first adventure the one where she meets phantom?
10590429
Eeyup.
Nope.
10590436
Oh, hmm is it this story?
10590438
Sweetie Belle will first have a few adventures before she encounters Apple Bloom and Scootaloo
10590444
Is the final chapter of this fic almost ready yet?
10593949
Just done.