Twilight stood upon the shattered ruin that was now the tallest tower of Canterlot. The land she gazed out over should have been full of life, green trees and flowing blue water.
Instead, it was a wasteland. What plants had managed to survive the lethal radiation clung bitterly to parched rocks. Twisting paths of pebbles and stone were now all that remained of the streams that had once crisscrossed the formerly vibrant and fertile land. No living creature moved; all life more complex than a cockroach had been scoured from the face of the planet... aside from the immortals.
“I-I didn't mean for any of this to happen,” she said, nearly whispering, as the other three Princesses came up the remains of the tower stairs behind her. “It was just... just...”
“Just an accident,” said Luna flippantly, waving a hoof. “It happens, don't worry about it.”
“What?! B-but I killed everypony! Everyone! I never should have made that bomb...”
“It was an interesting idea, and you ran with it.” Celestia shrugged. “Although really, if you wanted to know about advanced radiological warfare you could have just asked me. There's not much I don't know about that subject. I could also have given you some useful advice on security protocols, not to mention making sure that none of the weapons you create can be used without your personal authorization...”
“You knew about what I was doing? About all of it?” Twilight gaped openly at the Princess. “Why didn't you stop me?!”
“You're so cute when you get all interested in a subject, even when it's weapons with the potential to destroy the world. I just didn't have the heart to take that away from you.”
“Really, Twilight, you act like this is the first time an alicorn has wiped out all life on a planet,” said Cadance, rolling her eyes.
“It's not?!”
In response to Twilight's outburst, all three Princesses fell to the ground, rolling about with laughter.
“Oh... oh, I'm sorry Twilight, but the expression on your face...” Celestia paused to wipe away a tear. “With the powers Luna and I wield, you honestly thought this was the first planet we've ruled? You... you really...” she trailed off, as another fit of giggles took her.
“Twilight, I don't think even my aunts know how many planets they've destroyed at this point,” said Cadance to the stunned pony. “I haven't had many opportunities myself, since I was born in Equestria like you. Now it looks like you beat me to the punch.”
“I don't understand...” Twilight's ears were folded back against her head, her body sagging towards the ground as shock took the strength away from her legs.
“Twilight, alicorns are... immortal, would be the word,” said Luna, speaking for the still-laughing Celestia. “My sister and I have been around since the beginning of the universe, and have been 'Princesses' on countless worlds since.”
“Oh, remember the last one?” said Celestia, sitting up as she got herself somewhat under control. “It was monkeys! I still kind of miss having opposable thumbs.”
“Yes, well, you see, Twilight...” Luna trailed off, thinking, then said, “The point is, everything–except what you know as alicorns, obviously–has an ending. It is the natural course of existence. And while I suppose at first we found it as horrifying as you do now, after time that feeling fades. Now it is merely amusing.”
“Amusing?!”
“Yes. We don't specifically seek to end the world, nor desire it, but... think of it as if you are playing a game. A very high stakes game. And you do your best, you set everything up perfectly, you don't want to lose... but things happen. A meteor, wondering if it's possible to create a planetarily bound black hole, Celestia forgetting and leaving the sun on too high while on vacation–“
“Oh, you're one to talk, Ms.Get-Drunk-And-Crash-The-Moon-Into-Ursidaia.”
“–the point is, sometimes you lose, and you just have to take it graciously. Find what humor in it you can. Even a disaster can still be entertaining if it is spectacular enough.”
“But... but...” Twilight looked out, over the radiation-blasted landscape. “But what do we do now? There's nothing left...”
“Oh, we'll create a new world,” said Celestia, shrugging. “We just need to decide what animal we want to be the dominant lifeform this time. I'm thinking cats. Or maybe frogs.”
“It's been a while since we did octopuses,” pointed out Luna.
“Ooh, yes!”
“Sounds good,” said Cadance happily. “It's all new to me, of course.”
“I don't want to be an octopus!” protested Twilight.
“Well, you've been outvoted,” said Cadance, sticking out her tongue.
“Besides, you don't really think you're going to be there, do you?” asked Celestia.
She nodded her head, and Luna and Cadance dove forward, tackling Twilight and pinning her to the tower floor. She struggled, but the two other alicorns were larger and stronger than her.
“It takes a lot of power to create a new world, and the easiest way to get that power is, well, sacrifice.” Celestia loomed over Twilight, her horn starting to glow with a white light.
“What?! No!” Twilight began struggling harder, to no avail.
“There's no point in fighting,” said Luna from her one side, easily keeping the smaller alicorn restrained. “One of us needs to be sacrificed, and you don't even want to be an octopus anyway.”
“I do! I do! I really, really want to be an octopus!”
“Too late now,” said Cadance from her other side, also having no problems holding Twilight in place. “Besides, all this was your fault anyway. Don't you think you should make up for what you did?”
“Celestia, please.” Twilight stopped her struggles, holding up one pleading hoof as best she could towards the Princess. “Don't... don't do this. It's me, Twilight Sparkle, remember? Your most faithful student?”
Celestia laughed. “Twilight, how many faithful students do you think I've had over the eons? Hardly any of them even survived to the point where I could change them into an alicorn–or whatever the current equivalent happened to be–and the fact that there aren't any around should tell you what I had to do to the ones that did make it. Luna, remember Rae, the one we used to make Equestria? She was a squirmy little monkey when it was her time. You could barely hold onto her!”
“Ha! And she ascended so late there at the end,” said Luna, with a twinkle in her eye. “I thought I would have to sacrifice you!”
“You wish!” Celestia stuck out her tongue. “I had your wine all drugged and ready to go when she suddenly discovered the true meaning of harmony or whatever.”
Celestia refocused her attention on the once-again stunned-speechless Twilight. “The point is, I've had to sacrifice plenty of 'faithful students' just like you over the years to keep things going. Not to mention close friends, husbands, wives... even children.”
“The children are always the hardest,” sighed Luna, shaking her head. “Again, squirmy little things.”
“And considering how you killed my husband, I think I've given up enough already,” pointed out Cadance. “This is only fair.”
“Goodbye, Twilight,” said Celestia, moving her head down. Twilight began struggling harder, crying out in pain as the horn pierced her chest. “And hello Cephalia!”
“AHHHHHH!!”
Twilight sat bolt upright in bed, panting hard, sweat dripping from her body. Quickly, she ran a hoof over her chest. Finding it holeless, she let out a sigh of relief. It had all been a dream, just some horrible nightmare.
Her room was nearly pitch black, so she lit up her horn to check the clock–
And found herself staring at Luna's face, currently less than an inch from her own due to the fact that the Princess was straddling her body on the bed.
“Hello, Twilight,” said Luna calmly.
“hello,” squeaked Twilight.
“I trust you now understand the dangers of certain roads of inquiry you may be pursuing?”
“yes.”
“And I trust you will begin dismantling your equipment and lab–that of it which pertains to said subject–at once upon the morrow?”
“yes.”
“Excellent. Then I shall be off.” Luna climbed down from the bed, striding to he balcony doors and throwing them open.
“Wait!” cried Twilight, holding out a hoof, and Luna halted upon the threshold and looked back inquiringly.
“Was... was any of that true? About you and Celestia being born when the universe was created, and hopping from planet to planet as they die, and... and the other thing?”
Luna considered her for a long, long moment... then, without a word, turned and leapt into the air, gliding gracefully away into the night.
Twilight stared after her, then slowly lay back down and pulled the covers over her head.
Hello Cephalia? What the heck is that supposed to mean?
And that's where The End of Ponies began!
No, but really. This was a rather amusing story, even for somepony who hasn't even seen Dr. Strangelove. (Your gonna burn me at the stake for that, aren't you?)
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The next incarnation of Equestria, I would think.
Good comedy. The formula worked.
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Octopus-land
Cephalopod-ia
Cephal-ia
6365703 oh that's just horrible.
So this definitely feels like its over but its marked as incomplete, is Twilight gonna get some revenge or something?
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Twilight is going to begin creating mass production series alicorns.
I thoroughly enjoyed this, but shouldn't it have a dark tag? Maybe?
You know, just because everyone is laughing at a murder scene doesn't actually mean murder is funny. This is actually pretty dark with the only humor coming from shock value. That "OMG, they actually did/said that" feeling. Personally, I like morbid humor, but I couldn't derive any laughs from this. Not even Cephalia did it.
It makes me wonder though if you tried to get a dark tag with this, only for it get rejected by the admins. I'm not sure if it's all, but some of them that approve stories have this weird idea that a story can't have both the dark and comedy tags together, causing them to reject story's if they have both tags. Something about them being them not making sense together. Whatever.
I strongly agree with the commenters saying this should have a Dark tag. 'Cause this shit be hella Dark.
That was bucking great. Buck the haters!!!
This just is... dark.
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Yes, mastermenthe got it right. Horses are from the family Equidae and genus Equus, which is where we get the term equestrian and, of course, Equestria from. The order, family, subfamily and genus for octopuses are all variations of the word 'octopus', so I went with the class name, Cephalopoda. And thus, came up with Cephalia for the name of the new kingdom.
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I have a small epilogue, will probably post it in the next day or two.
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I was originally going to give this the dark tag, but I honestly didn't think it was that dark, considering it all takes place in a dream and everything is fine after about a page and a half. I thought about pulling back on the actual sacrifice part a bit, but ultimately decided to keep it. In regards to the admins, I actually had this marked as Everyone and they told me to change it to Teen, but that was about it. I may have a... slightly skewed view on what makes things dark and mature, at least in regards to violence. (Fun fact, I read Cupcakes soon after joining the fandom. I got maybe halfway through it and started laughing, then just skimmed the rest. It's just such a cliche 'Hannibal Lecter'-type scene that I couldn't take it seriously)
In any case, I've added the dark tag to the story. Had I gotten other people's opinions before submitting this, I probably would have tagged it this way to start with.
:| ... Luna is hella scary, yo.
Ok luna i know you like the dark and mysterious vibe you have going on but seriously you are going to give some one a heart attack doing that shit
Look at it this way--if they went through planet to planet so easily, why waste time making you stop your current project? And if they would actually sacrifice you to make a new planet, why tell you about it first?
Your imagination is the biggest threat to you as far as that goes. Although I wonder what Luna will think when Twilight completely withdraws from interacting with other alicorns or goes stark raving mad at what she thought her beloved mentor, her dear friend, and her sister-in-law would eventually do to her.
Brilliant
And that Twilight Sparkle is why you never trust gods. Ones sense of morality is set by ones limits. Once you lose those limits, it's only a matter of time before it ceases to be important.
That is why John Constantine picks the middle road, and refuses to pick either side of the divine spectrum
And don't get me started on f***ing Miracle Man!
(I don't think of Celestia and Luna as full god's anyway, so this versions of Celestia and Luna that are demonstrated in Twilight's dream are basically completely different characters from my point of view.)
I remember I had to flood my homeland.
we had to sacrifice a race of all females living in the desert.
of course the one male was not very cooperative.
but he changed his mind after I use my master sword to preform a precise labotomy
The title image reminded me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wz2liKhg6c Offspring's "Slim Pickens..." with Rainbow Dash.
I thoroughly enjoyed this.
Just a note, though, in the short description (the one that shows up on the main page), you have written "Twilgiht".
Funny until the sacrifice bit, then just kinda bad. Too much of a tone dissonance between the dark humor and moral myopia before and the "on screen" personal betrayal afterwards.
The picture looks like it's from Dr. Strangelove...
Wait. I didn't read the note...
Twilight looks into radiation warfare
Celestia doesn't care
Luna gives her a seriously dark nightmare that convinces her to burn all her research
Luna is defiantly the most trustworthy out of the three, if a tad scary.
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Your comment also implies that what Twilight saw is true at least to some degree. After all, how else would Luna even know the term "radiological warfare"? It is entirely possible that Luna is either attached to Twilight as a friend or something, or feels indebted for freeing her of Nightmare Moon and decided to do what she could to postpone the destruction of the planet to spare Twilight.
What
What
What !!
What the frak did I just read?
-Presses button-
Nothing
-Presses button again-
"The eject isn't working!"
"F*ck it bail out!"
Luna is as insane as she is hot. Seriously she has a messed up sense of humor.
wait rae no! why would you sacrifice my favorite you tuber!!! you monster!
:(
That was... akward.
Just a bad simulation
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Nah man! This is the best playthrough of theirs!
You can hear the happiness here!