> The Final Test > by Blarghalt > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > The Final Test > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It all began so innocently. In the weeks after my duel with Tirek, life in Ponyville slowly returned to normal. Damage to the countryside was repaired, homes were rebuilt and within a month most ponies had more or less forgotten about the incident. But Tirek made sure he left a scar on me. Golden Oaks. It was where I first met all of my friends, where I ascended to become an alicorn, and where I kept my precious books. Thanks to Tirek, it was now a useless gnarled stump, too twisted by evil magic to possibly be renewed. But in my greed, Celestia forgive me, I could not let the loss of my library go. I had to have it back, no matter the cost. Months after Tirek's re-imprisonment, I delved into Canterlot's great library to find answers. What I found were unproven hypotheses and basic spells that could not help me in the slightest. The might of an evil centaur who had absorbed the strength of three alicorn princesses was not something any scholar could have forseen, and as a result, I abandoned Canterlot's library and journeyed north to the Crystal Empire. Books far more ancient than Canterlot's adorned the glimmering shelves, and with only two words to Cadence and my brother, I threw myself into exhaustive study of the Empire's ancient tomes. I couldn't ask the other princesses for help; this was too personal, too raw. Then, one day, I found something. Two things, actually. The first was a ragged, preserved manuscript written by an old, forgotten mage. Unlike every other sorcerer's works, he had anticipated the possibility that a succession of pony princesses could have their power stolen, and calculated the steps required to fix the locations most affected by evil energy. The only problem was the spell required the one who destroyed the place in question to be present at the spell's casting. Beings imprisoned in Tartarus can, with strict supervision, be allowed out of the dark depths to perform acts of penance, but only if they agree to it; something told me Tirek would not consent. That left me with the second option: a summoning spell. Bound in black stone and written in a language it took me weeks to decipher, I found a spell that would summon a being named Jha-Tee, who could grant any wish. Weighing my options, I first decided to travel to Tartarus anyway. In his lonely cell I spoke to Tirek, giving him the choice of fresh air and sunshine for a few hours if he would perform let me perform the first spell I found. He simply growled and refused. Undeterred, I shrugged and told him I would just summon Jha-Tee. And for the first time, I saw true fear in Tirek's eyes. He became deathly silent, curling up into a ball and mumbling to himself. I should have stopped there, I should have accepted my home's fate. But something dark and horrible had reached across the aether and hardened my heart; by this time, Equestria's fate was more than sealed. I drew the spell's runes in the ruined husk of my library, chanting the language of the spell that ear had not hears in thousands of years. A great flash erupted from the center circle, and from that great light stepped out Jah-Tee. He was a curious thing; a small, hairless ape who wore a strange yellow symbol upon a black shirt. He had yellow hair that tapered off into yellow, and the smuggest smile I had ever seen. "Woah woah woah," he said the moment he had stepped out of his portal, "This isn't Bling Bling Boy's crib! My geeky sisters are dorks!" At this point I should mentioned that he would always move about wildly as he talked, his every motion followed by the sound of a whip cracking. "Excuse me," I said to Jah-Tee, "Are you Jah-Tee?" He looked at me for a moment, then smiled. "Woah, a talking pony! That's just like that TV Show, Colorful Talking Ponies!" His words almost seemed sarcastic. I pressed on. "Are you Jah-Tee or not?" He rolled his large eyes. "Ugh! No! Why do you people always get that wrong! It's Johnny! Johnny Test!" I apologized for my mistake, and quickly request that he return my library back to normal. He looked confused, then walked over to the still-active portal and poked his upper half inside, yelling something. A moment later he withdrew and held what looked like a weapon in his hand. At first I believed he was ready to kill me until he shot the ruined wooden walls of my library, and in an instant they were back to normal. He repeated this process, shooting streams out of his sidearm until the entire library had been revived, looking just like it did the day before its destruction. With sheer glee I thanked him, but he brushed it off as no problem, and instead insisted that it was his sisters to thank, as they had created his miraculous device. At that point, I believed he would return to whatever unfathomable dimension he had come from, as he had granted my wish. I was wrong. Instead of leaving my world, he stayed, and brought more beings with him. The first was a upright talking dog named Dukey, who consistently pointed out the obvious in a very annoying voice. His sisters made frequent excursions into my world as well, testing a variety of devices that laid great waste to Equestria. Then, the Madness began. Everything around Johnny, everything he talked to, interacted with became...less beautiful. I cannot describe it in words, but it was as if the very quality of nature degraded around him. This applied to personalities, as well. My brash, brave friend Rainbow Dash became a stock character who was little more than a bully and could only repeat the same five lines. Fluttershy became a mute, forgetting all the lessons she had learned about assertiveness. The list goes on and on. And I saw Johnny for what he truly was. Not just an irresponsible wish-granter, but a plague. Every horror he unleashed was forgiven, sometimes in minutes, by those he had wronged. Hate towards him by those not yet infected by The Madness seemed to only make him stronger. In the Final Days, only myself and Luna remained uncorrupted. And in those final moments, we decided that the only way to save Equestria was to burn it. Burn it all. And it didn't stop him. The fires that rolled across the continents were extinguished by his sisters in a manner that didn't even make sense, and all the corrupted forgot about the event within a week. And his influence continued to spread. Luna caught The Madness soon afterward, becoming what Johnny described as an "emo nerd", wearing dark makeup all the time and talking about death. Only I remain now, in an isolated mountain on a faraway island. And the Madness still spreads. I learned too late that he has done this an infinite amount of times to an infinite amount of worlds. He is known as the Ender of All Things, The Chaos Lord, The God of Screaming Chains to the cultures he has destroyed. I learned too late. I learned too late. To the soul who finD ThiS JournAl, knOw ThaT KNoW ThAT HE'S GOT A HEAD OF FIERY HAIR AND A TURBO-CHARGED BACKPACK HIS GENIUS SISTERS USE HIM LIKE A [The author's writings end here; the rest of the page is covered in blood and glue.]