> The Darkness of Heaven
>  by Greenback
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> The Darkness of Heaven
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When the real Grogar returned, you, Twilight Sparkle, were ready for him. After fighting off so many foes with your friends during your time as the Princess of Friendship, and even more after becoming Equestria's sole ruler, you had spent a considerable amount of time researching all the other enemies from the past who might return one day to threaten Equestria. Grogar was no different, and you studied everything known about him in preparation for a fight you hoped would never come. But it did.

You weren’t ready for the depths of Grogar’s cunning. 

When he returned, Grogar was quick to assault Canterlot, obtain the dangerous time-travel spell, and use it to recruit all those throughout history who dreamed of power and conquest: Nightmare Moon, Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow, then Sombra, the Pony of Shadows, and even Starlight Glimmer. He made them all an offer none could: the chance to unite their might and not only take Equestria for themselves, but Equus as well.

Despite your planning, you were caught off guard at having your greatest foes uniting. You couldn’t fight them by yourself, even with the Elements of Harmony. Thus, you gathered your friends and allies and met Grogar and his forces on the fields outside Ponyville, where those who believed in friendship, harmony, and peaceful co-existence battled those who wanted to destroy it all.

You had fought these battles before. The Elements of Harmony and all of Equestria had taken on Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow, and won. 

But not this time.

Chrysalis and Sombra tore Thorax apart. Nightmare Moon brought down Luna. Celestia fell against the combined might of the Pony of Shadows, Starlight Glimmer, and Tirek. With Grogar leading the way, and with the power of his bell, your armies just weren’t enough.

Your friends fell. Even Spike, now fully grown and possessing all the powers of the dragons, died trying to give the few survivors a chance to escape. Soon, only you were left: Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship, last of the Bearers, standing against the most powerful villains the world had ever seen.

You fought harder than you ever had in your life. There was no thought of capturing your foes to reform them, not this time. You were fighting to kill. But even though you wounded Grogar and his allies, you didn't have the might to stop them all. 

Out of options and out of time, you did the one thing you had hoped you’d never have to do, the contingency plan you had formed in case Equus was ever in danger of being overrun by the forces of evil. But with no more armies to defend Equus, and with all its heroes slain, you had no choice.

Using the last of your magic, you grabbed hold of Luna’s moon and dragged it into Equus. The impact would cause unimaginable destruction and render it almost uninhabitable for decades, but before the battle had begun, you had warned the leaders of the world’s nations that this might happen, and that they needed to move their subjects underground to safety. You hoped they had done so; they would survive and emerge many years from now into a world wrecked and ruined, but they would be able to begin again.

More importantly, they would be free of the monsters who stood before you.

As the moon filled the sky, you watched Grogar and his allies realize what you were doing. They desperately pooled their magic and cast a spell to stop the moon. But not even their combined power could stop what was coming.

It was so satisfying to hear their screams as the moon hit. 

There was an explosion. Pain overwhelmed you as a tidal wave of debris rocketed over you.

And then there was nothing.

Nothing at all.


***


There is blackness. But how can you be aware of this if you don't exist anymore?

You open your eyes to find yourself surrounded by white. There’s no ground, no grass, or sky above you. There's only an endless void stretching out around you as far as you can see.

Looking down, you find that you still have a body; it's free of the cuts, slices, and dirt accumulated from the battle that raged only moments ago. Your legs respond effortlessly as you stand and look around. What is this place? Is this Heaven? You never believed in tales about the afterlife, but there was no way you could have survived the moon itself crashing down on you. No spell could protect you from that. As illogical as it may seem, the only logical answer is that you are indeed dead, and that there is indeed a continued existence after death.

You feel something: a warmth coming down from above. You look up and are surprised to see a bright, beautiful sky filled with enormous, billowing clouds. You reach up, wanting to go to that place and explore it, to find out what awaits you.

But you don’t move.

You try flapping your wings. They don’t send you anywhere. You try your horn, but no magic emerges from the tip. 

What’s going on?

Then you’re moving, but not towards the sky.

You’re heading down.

White fades away to darkness. You land on something soft in the middle of leafless trees within a dark, dimly-lit forest. You tense up, crushing the grass beneath you as you look about. There’s no one here; there are no animals, no insects, no forms of life. 

You’re alone.

But then you realize that’s wrong: you can’t see anything hiding inside the forest, but you sense that you’re being watched. It’s not the malevolent glare of a demon, but neither is it the benevolent gaze of a loving deity.

Gulping, you call out, asking if there’s someone there.

And then a presence is in your mind. You shriek and fall back, instinct telling you to run from this sudden and unwanted intrusion. But it's not someone trying to take over your mind; knowledge is being given you, rushing in so quickly you can barely keep track of it, much less process the information. You are shown the white void; forms are rising up through it, flying towards the beautiful sky. But who are they? Your friends? Your family?

Then you realize who they are, and your stomach drops 

Grogar, Nightmare Moon, Chrysalis, Cozy Glow, Tirek, Starlight Glimmer, the Pony of Shadows, and all the others who sought to conquer Equus fly up towards Heaven together, all of them surprised at where they’re going. But then they see what lies beyond the sky, and their faces light up in unspeakable joy.

Equus’ greatest monsters are going to Heaven.

You’re forced to watch as each one of Equestria’s greatest villains are given their own personal heaven, in which all their desires come true: Nightmare Moon overwhelms Celestia and destroys her before plunging her version of Equus into eternal night, forcing all to bow before her. Grogar, Sombra, and Tirek become warlords of unstoppable might and conquer not only Equestria, but all of Equus, subjugating every individual of every race. In her heaven, Chrysalis turns Equus into one giant changeling hive where she forces all non-changelings to become little more than food for her and her children, becoming the unquestioned monarch of Equus in the process.

Your heart is crushed at seeing Starlight taking away everyone’s cutie mark and brainwashing them into worshiping her, obeying her every order without question. And in Cozy Glow's heaven, the poor, unfortunate souls there are subjected to the whims of a sociopath of unmatched cruelty and sadism, who laughs at them all from her throne.

How? How can this be? Why do all of them get to go to Heaven and you don’t? And what of your family? Your friends? What happened to them?

More knowledge is given to you, and you’re shown this darkened forest as it was before you arrived: Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity, your parents, and all your friends from Ponyville, Canterlot, Manehattan, and all over Equestria have been here. And not just them, but millions, perhaps billions of others from throughout Equus: all the good beings of your world have come to this dark and quiet place. 

You watch as all of them are given knowledge from the intelligence that now communicates with you. But when they’re finished, they lie down in the grass, as if falling asleep.

You watch as they all dissolve into nothingness.

No... No! No, that can’t be true! They can’t be gone!

But they are. They no longer exist. They’re gone. 

Forever.

You want to scream. You want to cry as the realization hits you that you will never see any of your loved ones ever again. You will never talk to them, never get to say goodbye or tell them that you love them, and they will never do the same to you. 

You scream at the unseen intelligence. Everything you ever did, every battle, every struggle, trial, and sacrifice was for nothing. In the end, those who embraced evil won. They have been given eternal life and everything they ever wanted, while those who just wanted to live in peace have been consigned to oblivion.

The intelligence does not try to defend itself. It does not chastise you or demand that you accept your fate.

Instead, it shows you more.

You don’t want this. You fight it; you refuse to watch, but you cannot stop the images entering your mind.

You watch as the universe begins. Galaxies take shape, and then planets. Life fills them. Civilizations rise and fall. But this is not the first time this has happened: The intelligence that created all this has done so before - trillions of times, to be precise. Trillions of universes have been born, lived, and then died. But it is not just for show, or for the amusement of a bored and indifferent creator.

The intelligence, you realize, awakened in a void. For countless eons it tried to understand why it had suddenly appeared, but could not find an answer. Despairing, it began to create universes, watching those born within each in the hopes of finding an answer, that mortals could somehow discover what it could not: the reason for existence, and a way to end it.

Each universe has failed. But the intelligence keeps trying. It has watched countless beings live out their lives, and it feels sympathy towards those like itself, those who are just trying to make it through life and find happiness. The intelligence watches as they sometimes find the happiness they seek, but more often than not being enslaved, killed, or tortured by those who take what they want without care for others.

You watch it all, but it still doesn’t make sense: why would this intelligence give tyrants, thugs, and dictators Heaven, while letting all those who are good be erased from existence?

Then you see Grogar and all the others once more and your stomach churns. You don’t want to see any more of them enjoying pleasures you’ll never know.

But then you realize something’s different.

Decades have passed since you saw Grogar and the others enter Heaven. All of them still have their kingdoms, their wealth, and their treasures, but the thrill of victory has long since worn off. None of it thrills them any more.

You watch as millennia pass. 

Grogar and the others are bored out of their minds. Their gold, their treasures, and their palaces are worthless. Their kingdoms and their subjects bore them. Not even being able to conquer and enslave them all over and over again brings any happiness to their miserable existences.

Trillions of years pass.

Grogar and the others are losing their minds. Their worlds are prisons now where nothing new ever happens, where they cannot create anything, only experience what they wanted and did in life. Now, on the brink of madness, they only have one dream now, and that is to no longer exist. But they can’t, for they all have eternal life. Trillions upon trillions of universes will be born, live, and die, and Grogar and the others will still exist.

You watch as they all go insane, but even then they are still denied the release of oblivion.

They will never receive it.

You watch, stunned. The void, the sky, the clouds... you weren’t seeing Heaven.

You were seeing Hell.

The intelligence, you realize, is not merciful to those who embrace evil and make life a living hell for those around them. After death, it uses its power to make them immortal, ensuring that they will know the despair of never being released from existence. But to those who reject evil, the intelligence is merciful. It spares them the curse of immortality it knows all too well, and lets them drift away into the eternal peace of non-existence.

You stand in the forest, stunned. Never in all your life did you imagine or read about an afterlife that was like this. But then numbness gives way to fear; your last act in life brought death to millions of beings and wrecked a planet. The survivors will face decades, if not centuries, of hardship as they try to rebuild. No benevolent deity would smile upon such an act.

You feel the intelligence once more, and you learn that it is aware of what you did. But unlike Sombra and the others, who wanted power to dominate others, you used your power to try and help others; even dropping the moon was an act of desperate hope to spare others from centuries of enslavement and worse.

The intelligence is pleased with you, and for that, it will grant you the rest you have earned.

A great weariness goes through you. It is the fatigue of decades, of a long life that has finally come to an end. Darkness awaits you, but it is warm and welcoming, beckoning you to come into its embrace of eternal, dreamless sleep, where you will be safe from suffering forevermore.

You lie down in the soft grass as warmth washes over you like a comforter on a cold, rainy night, and you realize why your friends, your families, and all those who came here were not afraid as they dissolved: they had realized that they were being freed, that they had lived good, worthwhile lives.

They had been given the gift of completion.

You feel yourself beginning to unravel. But it is not painful. It doesn’t hurt, and you don’t feel afraid. And as an unstoppable sleepiness overcomes you, you lay your head down and close your eyes for the last time.

You slip away to join those who have gone into the darkness of Heaven.