"And just like that, we find our hope down the drain," Sweetie muttered, cantering up to the edge and looking down at the soaked Blackjack. She carefully jumped down to stand next to her inside the tunnel she had discovered. "Is it an entrance of some sort, or did you just burst into a pipe? Because I know Rarity and she wouldn't be sitting in the middle of the pool, flush it, and then join the water going down to access an office."

Blackjack was sprawled out on some waterlogged metal steps underneath the pool. “No, I think there’s some way to open it normally. I just wasn’t going to wait for it,” he said as she shook herself off and rolled to her feet. “Looks like this is some sort of secret facility,” she said as she turned on her PipBuck lamp, not sure if Sweetie could see in the dark or not. “Looks like a pretty big shaft. That looks like an elevator call panel over there, or we can just take the stairs down,” she said, pointing at the stairs that coiled down around the elevator shaft.

Sweetie walked around, studying the structure. For such a straightforward mare, Blackjack was surprisingly observant. Much more so than Sweetie would have originally given her credit for. True, there was no tact, but then again Sweetie had been a Cutie Mark Crusader. Tact was overrated.

"Which one is less likely to get us killed?" Sweetie asked after some thought, turning back to Blackjack. "I mean it's been centuries, right? If we take the elevator, won't it snap and let us plummet several floors down into certain doom?"

“Yeah, but if the spa’s intact, I’m pretty sure this place is too,” she said as she walked around to the call box. “I’m also pretty sure that calling the elevator’s going to alert every nasty thing down here too,” she said as she examined the metal. “Looks pretty solid. We’ll just have to be quiet.” She levitated a pistol. “You know how to use one of these?”

Sweetie, who was looking down at the darkness below, didn't look up. "Huh? Of course I know how to use the stairs. What type of dumb unicorn do you take me—" She turned to face Blackjack and found the gun floating in front of her. "...oh. A gun." She coughed delicately into her hoof. "Well, not exactly. I saw some friends use them and automatic rifles and stuff like that, and I once used a minigun and almost killed myself." She smiled pleasantly, gently pushing the gun away with a shudder. "I can use combat spells and tear monsters apart in other ways if needed?"

“Alright,” Blackjack said with a shrug. “If you’re sure.” he then started down the stairs. Her metal hooves weren’t exactly stealthy, but she was taking pains to not simply clang all the way to the bottom. As they descended, Blackjack examined the surroundings. “You know, I’m surprised I haven’t come across a place like this before. It seems like all the ministries had their secret projects. I guess Rarity wasn’t much different. She was just better at keeping it all hidden.”

"Even in my world Rarity was good at keeping them. Probably not as… decisively as this one, but yeah… when she didn't want something known, she'd do anything in her power to make sure it was out of the way, buried, unnoticeable, possibly enchanted with invisibility and unknown to the rest of ponykind. I'm not sure how she handled that kind of thing once Princess Luna was back in the picture. You know, with the dream walking and such." Sweetie nodded to herself. "Yep. She must've panicked."

“I’m guessing Princess Luna probably didn’t care because she was successful at it. Not like Pinkie Pie, who was one bad trip from publicly humiliating herself.” Blackjack paused as she spotted the bottom of the stairs. It appeared like a natural cavern of sorts, but the rocks were jumbled and jutted oddly out of the walls. Down at the base, was that... “Are those buildings?” she asked, twisting her head at the geometric outlines at the bottom of the shaft. Tiny white motes swirled about like errant stars. “Wow. Soul motes. That can’t be a good sign. Last time we saw them Glory’s wing fell off.” Shegave Sweetie a worried frown. “Are you sure you feel alright?”

Sweetie frowned, taking short breaths. "Ugh. I feel like throwing up… the ground seems like… like it's swaying under my hooves." She very obviously swallowed. "I don't think I'll be passing out, but there's just this oppression, or anticipation? Like something is dragging invisible claws down my coat and making me shiver. It's wrong and poisonous…"

“Welcome to Hoofington. If you were anyone else, you’d be melting right now,” she said as she finished walking down the steps to the bottom. They were ruins! A whole partially excavated town! A zebra town, from the look of broken sculptures rising from the stones. Stars decorated the walls. The wispy-white soul motes crept in and out of the walls. Blackback walked up to one, rapping on it hard with a hoof. “Ow,” she said, shaking her hoof. “I think... I think these walls are soul jars!” She said as she gaped at the ruins. “Soul jars are supposed to be indestructible. I guess that’s why they’re still intact.” Then she pointed down at the far end of the cave. “I think I see something over there.” A raised metal walkway picked its way through the ruined city towards the large, domed building. It was oddly pretty to watch the tiny motes as they drifted to and fro through the air, as if swept by an unseen current.

Sweetie blinked at the structures, following Blackjack's hoof to where she was pointing. "Yeah, I see it too, but… what do you mean 'soul jars'? Are you telling me these buildings have souls trapped in them?" She asked, discomfort slightly forgotten as she looked at the buildings in a mixture of horror and academic curiosity. "How… why? Is this something ponies did a lot here? Experiment with souls? Like… Puppy Smiles?"

Blackjack paused and glanced back at her. “I don’t know the specifics, but since souls are indestructible, putting them into an object also makes it indestructible. I don’t know how widespread the research was, but I do know that Rarity... she dug into that study. How to make soul jars. How to live forever.” She examined the ruins. “I think that this was a zebra community. Rarity was fascinated with zebra magic. She had a black book of necromantic spells. I can see why a place like this would appeal to her.”

Sweetie made a face and shuddered. "This Rarity had some serious issues." She cleared her throat and nodded at Blackjack. "Come on, let's find the shard… if she was experimenting with souls, I don't want to imagine what she might have tried on Twilight's."

omething dripped onto Sweetie’s flank. It was the consistency of molasses mixed with overcooked spaghetti, fluid, yet with texture. And it was moving.

Sweetie turned and looked at the thing that was slowly moving up her flank and blinked. The creature resembled a basketball-sized lump of maroon flesh, glistening wetly, an odd number of eyes scattered errantly over its surface. Two pseudopods tipped with curved barbs slithered over her hide, while its left mouth was trying to chew its way through her stony hide. "Oh hay, no!" she squeaked, making a considerably obvious effort to not scream before flames licked her coat from her horn all the way to the tip of her tail, throwing the creature off and setting it aflame. The creature squelched and spasmed under her attack, twitching this way and that before the flames died and it ceased moving.

"Oh my gosh!" Sweetie gasped, moving up to it and poking it with her hoof. "Blackjack! I think I killed a brown changeling! They're already in danger of becoming extinct!"

Then the blob grew a giant mouth, and with the sound of a glass figurine being shattered, bit her hoof clean off.

As she stared at the broken, jagged stump, there was no pain. The mouth extended and grew, swelling as it stretched out to bite again. From the other ruins, more maroon clumps were perambulating on stumpy legs, slithering on a mismatched multitude, flapping with ragged diaphanous wings, or stalking on long, clawed legs towards them. Then the mouth disappeared in a barrage of magical bolts that tore it’s flesh apart as Blackjack rushed to her. “Oh crap, are you okay?” she asked... as if half of Sweetie’s foreleg missing could be anything but ‘not okay!’

"Blackjack…" Sweetie's voice was low. "Did you say these buildings were indestructible?"

“Probably, and if they’re not I’m not that fussed about it!” she said as she drew a riot shotgun and blew the fleshy creatures to pieces as they drew near. The gobbits, however, simply reassembled themselves into larger and more complex bits of horror. Collections of mouths, claws, and eyes with no thought whatsoever to the needs of biology continuously advanced as Blackjack fired again and again.

Sweetie's green eyes glowed as she growled in a very un-pony manner. "That's good, because I'm not happy." Sigils of swirling energy materialized in the air around her as her horn crackled with electric-like streaks of magical energy. Then suddenly, white hot magic shot out of them, creasing the ground as they scorched it on the way to the bigger creatures, searing through the smaller ones and cauterizing almost immediately. A shimmering shield formed around herself and Blackjack, halting the advance of the smaller creatures that were closer to them, but thankfully not hindering Blackjack's shots.

“We need to get inside that building,” Blackjack said, not wasting ammo if a magic shield could keep these things at bay. The cauterized ones seemed to digest their own charred skins, the larger ones reforming into new collections. The cavern was filled with screams, cries, warbles, hisses, and burbles as the blobs threw themselves against the protection. They had faces... horrible, misshapen faces pressed themselves up against the field as their bodies melted, merged, and reformed. “I’ve dealt with things kind of like this before. They don’t die,” she said, glad for the protection... then she blinked. “Oh goddesses... you’re cracking,” she breathed, staring at the tiny fractures spreading up her shattered limb and along her spire. “Can you walk and maintain that shield?” Tiny bits of Sweetie were crumbling off her shattered limb before her very eyes.

"I can keep the shield up…" Sweetie said, stopping her barrage when she realized it wasn't helping that much. She glanced down at her missing hoof more worriedly. "I'm not sure what's going on down there… I'm bleeding but… I don't feel pain right now. I'll cast some healing magic as soon as we get somewhere safe. I should be able to keep the shield for a while, I'm just not sure how fast I can move like this."

Blackjack moved underneath her and carefully lifted her up. he slowly carried her ponyback towards the domed building. The malformed things attempted to batter their way through her shield. “Just keep it up,” she said as she carried her forward towards the domed structure. “I just hope that thing isn’t filled with these monsters,” she muttered as she approached the metal door installed in the structure. A faint purple light could be seen through the panes of glass in the dome’s roof. Every second, the cracks spread. Sweetie could feel them, like itchy mites burrowing into her hide. Her horn felt like any second it would shatter. Then Blackjack opened the door with her magic and carried them both inside.

The building within seemed to be some sort of temple. Stars decorated the walls in constellations, the pale black and white marble filled with inlays of silvery metal. Dull thuds banged against the door behind them as that purple light shone from a round atrium ahead. “Three guesses where Twilight is, and the first two don’t count.”

"Yeah," Sweetie replied tiredly, releasing her shield once she knew the things would stay outside. She slid down Blackjack's withers to balance a little wobbly on her remaining hooves. "I can see why you'd think that… but first…" She looked at the jagged pieces of crystal, rock and ruby dust that were where her hoof had been. "I need to take care of this somehow… let me cast a healing spell on it… I might need to make some sort of cast or something to be able to walk a bit better." She glanced at Blackjack, "You don't have an extra mechanical appendage I could borrow, do you?"

“Sorry. Scotch is the only one who knows how to detach my limbs anyway,” she said as she frowned. “Also, I wouldn’t do any magic if I were you. Your horn... it’s really cracked,” she said in alarm. “You’ve got cracks everywhere. Are you sure you don’t feel them?” she asked, pointing to a fissure in Sweetie Belle’s flank that issued a steady trickle of fine, glittering ruby dust. “I think the enervation is killing you, just in a different way! We need to get you out of here! To another dimension or something!”

Sweetie shook her head. She felt light-headed and a little detached, but Blackjack's words rang true. "I… I should leave, but I can't, not without Twilight's fragment. I can't leave it in this world."

“Okay. Then let's get it fast,” she said as she walked into the atrium. The round chamber seemed to be some kind of temple. Pillars rose from the floor to ceiling, which was decorated like the night sky. A desk and papers were set up around a stand in the middle made of silvery metal. A dusty purple cloth decorated with golden stars covered it, but the purple illumination was bright enough to shine through.

Blackjack levitated some of them. “I think these are notes... Rarity’s notes. Consulting the black book and how to use necromancy to live forever.” She looked around the ancient zebra temple. “I always wondered how a fashionista learned to unlock necromancy. It seems a little outside her skill set.” She then gestured to the cloth. “Is that it?” she asked, swallowing nervously.

Sweetie approached, stumbling a little as her 'healthy' forehoof, cracked down the middle with the sound of two stones smashing against each other. She still didn't feel pain, but worst of all, she knew she should feel worried or scared, but whatever was affecting her pain perception seemed to have also affected her emotionally. Even though she had an objective, it was more about doing it than any real investment at this point.She knew she was dying—whatever it was that corrupted this world was not functioning with her elemental side. The fae in her blood was not strong enough to combat it. Maybe if she were a creature such as The Beast or the Maester, she would be fine. But not good ol' changeling Sweetie Belle.

She levitated the cloth to the side, revealing under it the largest piece of Twilight she had ever seen. It was a flat piece, a little bit larger than her hoof. More importantly, it was a piece that she recognized: a starburst surrounded by five smaller stars. It was one of Twilight’s cutie marks. It throbbed with an inner light and life, even in this horrible place. How long had it been here? How long had this temple been here?

“Star worshiping zebras... they were worshiping Twilight’s Cutie mark,” Blackjack murmured weakly. “I’m not sure if I should be horrified or snickering right now,” she said as the crystal thrummed deeply.

"I think… I would be sad if I could be anything right now," Sweetie said, raising her cracked hoof to touch the cutie mark carefully. "If the zebras here worshipped Twilight… I probably sent her shard here millennia ago. I can't even imagine what she has been through." She glanced at Blackjack. "Or what she might have been the harbinger of."

And she glanced in time to have a steel hoof shatter her horn like a delicate crystal figurine. “Oh, little murderer,” Blackjack cooed as her eyes glowed a deep purple. “You have much greater things to worry about!” she said as her lips curled in a mad grin, pointing a shotgun at Sweetie Belle’s face. “Die!” she spat, and her world filled with an explosion and darkness.

Death was dark. Death was still. Cold. Quiet. A moment that was also an eternity. What was supposed to happen now? Was she supposed to return to Tir Na Nog with the other fae? The everafter with other ponies? Something else? Anything?

Anything happened. It was a wind. A great and terrible pull towards something massive that screamed eternally... and she’d scream too. But as she was torn towards it, a purple glow enmeshed her and kept her from that distant, swirling green vortex. “No no no,” Twilight purred in her mind. “Not... yet... I get you first.”

Then she became aware of a purple light all around her. The light congealed into the interior of an amethyst geode. Every surface was inscribed with hundreds and hundreds of notes, incantations, spells, and other theorems of magic. It seemed like gravity was wherever she stood at any moment, her body feeling whole and intact in all its crystal-rock state.

And there was Twilight, looking like a ghost of purple light, with only her cutie mark and eight other small pieces of her body solidified. “Well, now. We can speak properly now that everything’s fair. I killed you. You killed me. I was trapped here for eons. You’ll be trapped here for eons. Everything nice and square.”

Sweetie sighed. "I'm sorry." She glanced at the silent ghosts of the shards. "I can't imagine what you've seen or gone through Twilight…" she frowned. "But you don't get to kill me on purpose, trap me and call it fair. Not after all of this, not after what other pieces of you have endured and are still enduring. Not after what I have been through and would put myself through again for you." She sat down in the emptiness. Not that she needed to, or even knew if she was actually sitting. But it just felt like some sort of demonstration of stubbornness. Silly. But it made her feel slightly better.

“Kill you? Trap you?” She pressed a hoof to her chest. “You were dying the moment you stepped hoof in this place. You simply didn’t know it. Only that brain-addled descendant of mine is resistant to the Enervation due to that lump of moon in her chest, and she doesn’t even realize it.” She sighed and shook her head. “No, I just took the satisfaction of the killing blow, rather than the slow decay of your body shattering on itself as your soul was ripped from your body,” she said with a smug smile. “As for trapping you, that’s what happens here. To almost every soul that hasn’t been shattered into pieces by an inept filly interfering in delicate arcane spell research!”

One of the shards snorted.

Sweetie ignored it, looking down. "It was an accident, Twilight," she said, closing her eyes. "My studies since haven't shown any indication that levitating an object across a room would have caused the explosion… but…" she looked up at the ghostly apparition. "I am taking responsibility for it. I am not staying here… I can't. I'm bringing you and the other shards back home. We're putting you back together… and then, if you feel like I need more punishment… once you're whole and I've seen Rarity once more… then I'll be ready for whatever follows. But I promised you I would be back."

Twilight arched a brow. “Did it ever occur to you to simply let me die? It does happen, you know. I’m hardly the first unicorn killed by a magical mishap.”

For the first time since she arrived in that world, Sweetie felt tears welling up in her eyes. "You're not dead!" she cried, slumping down, almost prostrating herself before Twilight as the other fragments hovered worriedly behind her. "You're not dead! I've talked to you, to many of you. Immortal you. Warrior you. Crazy you. You're not dead! Each fragment is-is alive! Each one living separately from the others, some not long enough to become their own—others… ancient beyond anything I've ever encountered… you're not dead," she whispered. "I don't know if I caused it.. I don't know how, but… I was there and I can't just let you go. I can't make all of this be meaningless! You have family that loves you, friends waiting! A-a stupid filly apprentice! A lonely dragon! You can't just… ask me… to let you die." She sniffled. "N-not if I can at least try to make you as whole as I can."

Twilight didn’t respond as she blubbered, and then she felt a hoof on her shoulder. “Whatever life I had shattered at the moment I did. It’s not something that you can fix. It’s not something that should be attempted to be fixed. You’ve encountered other mes in alternate paradigms. Did you think that maybe that’s where those shards should be? You’ve encountered mes that are horrible, crazy and warped. Do you think that maybe that they were getting what they deserved? I died. I am dead.” She gestured at the geode around them. “I’ve cobbled together this afterlife of my own, but it’s a shadow of who and what I once was. There is no fixing this. There’s only accepting it.”

Sweetie nooded. "Once… one of you opened a portal back home. She let me see Rarity, sick and almost dead, worried to the extreme about me. She offered me to let me go, if I would just quit." She she gulped, looking up at this Twilight. "I would have… if that's what you had taught me, but it's not what you did." She smiled, a bit sad. "I know it's what you taught me back then… and not what you see right now, but it's helped me through assassin training. Being turned into…" she motioned with her hoof at the rock and crystal body that shimmered under her illusionary coat, clearly visible to Twilight. "This."

Sweetie shook her head. "I'm not saying it just to say it Twilight… you didn't die. I think… by my third year travelling I would have learned to accept it. I probably would have stayed with Blueblood or just gone back home." She smirked. "But when your teacher… your mentor in every world you go to is alive, and in some cases suffering and alone? How could I ignore that?" She looked up. "Did you know you were destined to become a Princess? Of friendship, no less. And I was your student. An idiot one, true, but… a student."

“I not only did die, but I can prove it,” Twilight replied calmly, laying down, folding her translucent legs before her, seeming to pity Sweetie Belle for all that bold, heartfelt declaration. “I’ve had millennia to work it out. You can check my notes when I’m done.” She arched her brow. “Or would you rather cling to denial?”

"I was killed by you a bunch of times, and here I am," Sweetie said with a shrug. "Your other selves don't seem to share this conviction. Your oldest self enjoys her life a lot more than I'm comfortable with admitting."

“If I stop your heart with an electrical shock, I’ve killed you. If I start it again within five to eight minutes, you survive. Being killed is not the same as death,” she said simply, that same calm, pitying expression on her face. “We are both dead, our souls ripped from their mortal shells, cast into the everafter.” She turned and looked in the direction of that horrible scream. “Or rather, to be consumed by something far worse.”

Sweetie nodded firmly. "I agree. Therefore, by your own admission right there, we are not dead, given that this is not the everafter, nor have our souls been consumed yet. And trust me, that you would feel. Souls never heal when…" She trailed off. "They just don't."

“There are other destinations for souls than the Everafter,” she said solemnly. “Some far worse than others.” She rose and walked along the geode to a diagram carved into its surface. “When a pony is conceived, the potential for a soul is planted within them. When the foal is born and grows, its soul grows and develops into the greatest expression of the individual. When the soul dies, its energy leaves the mortal shell to travel to another plane of existence.”

She sighed, “In most cases, it is the Everafter, where the soul lingers in harmony with others, seeding new life with new potential soulseeds.” She then touched a swirling diagram. “However, in some occurrences, the soul’s destination is interrupted. Diverted. Such is the case now,” she said with a sigh as she tapped the diagram. “When my soul shattered, the fragments travelled to other paradigms of reality, just as they travel to the Everafter. That is only possible when death occurs. Q.E.D. we’re dead,” he said with a nod and smile. “Any questions?”

"Yes," Sweetie said eagerly. "Is this assumption based off specifically on the experiences from our previous lives in Universe ‘A’ and this one? Because I know for a fact it doesn't work at all like that at least in two different worlds. Also, I need to take notes!"

She smiled and shook her head. “My case is somewhat unique, in that my soul was damaged. Normally, souls divest themselves of specific memories so that when a soul is reborn, the nature of the personality remains, but the details differ. Hence you may be a gardener in one life and a warrior the next, with widely different skills, but same demeanor, even similar dreams and aspirations.” A pair of scholarly spectacles appeared on her muzzle as she talked, as if slipping back into the role. “And I think that the most pertinent case is that you are dead, and your soul’s destination is to be trapped here with me, or to be consumed for eons in the maw of the Eater.”

"Then he will get indigestion," Sweetie said firmly. "Or a kidney stone. But until that happens, it's you and me… and them." She motioned at the other fragments. "And while I don't amount to much in comparison, that's five geniuses right here. And you can't tell me to just give up with those odds stacked in our favor."

She gestured to the geode. “Well, I’ve had millions of years to work out my own notes, but by all means, I’m happy to collaborate.” She gave a little half-smile. “It feels good to work with you again, like this. Unfortunately, I anticipate that you’ll reach the same conclusion as I.”

“One good thing about being dead,” Twilight said thoughtfully as she and her soul shards poured over yet another theorem or idea. “It does give you rather a lot of time to think,” she said conversationally. It had seemed like years, and yet Twilight assured her it had only been a minute or two in the ‘real world’. She warned not to take it for granted, though, as millenia could slip by in that eternal study if you let it. “So, have you finally accepted the truth, Sweetie? I’m dead. You can’t change that.” It had to be the thousandth time she’d pressed the point... as if that was far more important than finding a way to bring her back.

"Uh?" Sweetie looked up from her own algorithm. "Wait, you did ask me that a while ago… I'm sorry I got caught up in this version of the thunderbolt spell…" Sweetie rolled off onto a standing position. "Fine. I have your answer, but answer me this: why are you so obsessed with me admitting to you you're dead? Why try to convince me so much?"

“Because you’re blaming yourself for my death,” she said quietly. “And you shouldn’t.”

Sweetie sighed. "Look… I don't know if I killed you or not with levitating an object. But I was there, and that I can't change. I am jumping from world to world, gathering your fragments to bring you back… but I know it's not going to be… well, you from before."

Sweetie walked to the floating fragments. "You'll have new memories," she said, touching one. "You'll have new experiences." She walked to stand in front of another. "You'll have fallen in love." She glanced at her mentor. "So yeah… 'you' won't ever be back. I can't bring that Twilight, with all her innocence and wide-eyed love for magic and eagerness for friendship back… I can come to terms with that… but I can at least put you back together within my power, if you want to be put back together. And whoever… the pony that comes out of that might be… I'll be there for her as you have been for me every single world."

“Good,” she said as she put her hooves on Sweetie’s shoulders. “Then I want you to stop looking.”

Sweetie chuckled, touching Twilight's hoof with her own. "No. Because that is also my choice… as yours is to decide whether to come with me or not."

“It’s not your choice, because you started this journey with the assumption that you were responsible for my death. You were not. The blame is solely my own for mishandling magic,” she replied evenly as she stared down at her. “I want you to take the other souls you’ve gathered, and resurrect whatever Twilight you can, and then I want you to live your life... whatever life that may be... unshackled from my mistake.”

"Twilight, look at me," Sweetie said. "You still see me as a filly, and I guess you have the right, given how long you've been here. But look at me. The Sweetie Belle that started this trip guilt-ridden for your apparent," when Twilight raised an eyebrow, Sweetie rolled her eyes. "For your original you's death… she's also gone too. You didn't teach a duelist-turned- assassin-turned-fae unicorn… who I am now is different, just as you are. And I also have a good memory of what happened. It wasn't you. Maybe it wasn't me. Something did happen, but the more I travel… the more I feel the claws of something out there beyond this universe and all the others I've been to involved… the less I believe it was you or I.

"So… if I can admit—reluctantly, mind you—that you are indeed dead, then you have to admit that the fault does not lie with you entirely. Especially in light of these revelations. Time and again, from beings as ancient as you, or more even, have revealed this other force acting against us… so you also have to let go of your guilt." She held Twilight's hoof in her own.

Twilight stared at her, and then waved her hoof. The purple crystals crumbled away, and the swirling green disk of baleful light came into view. “There are things greater and more terrible than I ever imagined,” she said quietly as she stared at it. Then she bowed her head again. “I know a way to bring you back to the world of the living, Sweetie Belle.”

"I'm… not going to like this, am I?" Sweetie asked in a small voice. Things seemed to be coming to a close, and this Twilight was different. She almost wanted to get to know her even longer.

“When I met Rarity in this world, I was overjoyed. Even if she was older than I last remembered, it gave me hope that somehow, I was in the same Equestria as when I had died. I learned, however, that it was far different. This Equestria was at war, and she was terrified of her loved ones dying.” She closed her eyes. “She begged me to help her unlock an ancient zebra tome, one I knew well... and... well...” she gave a little half smile. “How could I say no to a friend after being parted from her for so long?”

Twilight bowed her head. “I shouldn’t have helped her. A real friend wouldn’t. But I had her back, and she needed my help. I did. I taught her the secrets of the black book, and she used them to try and protect her friends, first with unbreakable armor, and then by the creation of a regeneration talisman. It would restore a person to life indefinitely, powered by the souls contained within.”

Sweetie winced. "I'm sorry… I know it couldn't have been easy to deal with what happened… but you had been alone all that time, it was an honest mistake, Twilight."

“A better friend would have refused her,” she said, shaking her head again. “I can transfer you and the other shards you’ve collected into one of these regeneration talismans. I know the means, and Blackjack has the magic and is still under my thrall. But you must understand, Sweetie, this is a perilous step. You risk becoming someone different from you. You might very well become... well... me. Every soul you absorb, the talisman will incorporate it. Memories... your very identity or even sanity may be threatened!” she said, looking anguished. “I may be killing you just as much as the enervation did. Just as much as I did by starting you on this foolish quest...”

Sweetie scratched the invisible floor with her hoof a little nervously. "Um… I uh, already did that." She winced. "At the beginning… one of the Twilights didn't tell me… afterwards another Twilight taught me how to not absorb your fragments. They're not here right now because they're in another dimension, but… I have a way to not take more of you anymore." She looked away. "I'm sorry."

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Sweetie Belle,” Twilight said as she put a hoof on her shoulder. “You’re not really my student any more. You stopped being that a long time ago.” She sighed softly. “If this works, you’ll have your body back. I have no idea if you’ll maintain your elemental powers. And you likely won’t remember all of your time here. A biological brain lacks the ability to truly process the afterlife’s distortion of time.” She paused and closed her eyes. “And you may be immortal. As immortal as princess Celestia. More, even. A soul jar is all but impenetrable, and it only grows stronger with the more souls it absorbs.”

Sweetie's eyes went wide. "Y-you know what the immortal version of you told me was essential for surviving immortality?" She looked up at Twilight. "To have a lot of kids."

“Can a stone have children?” Twilight asked with a sad smile. “You may very well be a unique species at this point.”

Sweetie forced out a chuckle. "I'm a fairy… or half fairy. I'm not dead rock so to speak… but Twilight… I think I'm in shock."

“I know. I’ve been trapped in this existence for longer than most ponies can imagine. I was worshiped by zebras for a thousand years, and that was just an afternoon. You might live that long. Or longer. And as the talisman absorbs more souls, you’ll change. Your nature. Your memory.” She gave a sad smile. “Though, I suppose it really isn’t that different from the other shocks you’ve experienced.” She closed her eyes. “I am so terribly sorry a part of me killed you so many times. I wish... I wish I wasn’t capable of that.” She faced her again, her face twisting in anguish. “Just... please promise me that whatever you do, you do it because you wish to do it, and not because of my stupid mistake!” she sobbed, fresh tears on her cheeks.

"Twilight… that part of you had been trapped with ghosts of her lost love in an alternate dimension they made to escape together… it would drive anyone mad, and I… well, Blueblood and I survived and I managed to rescue her." She embraced Twilight. "I forgive her for being a part of you, and I forgive you for being a pony with feelings that could be hurt. As for me…" She took a deep breath. "I have a way to not absorb any more of you, and I don't think I'll be running around taking other souls… but however it turns out, I'll always have you to thank for being alive."

Twilight just looked pained at that. “I hope you always feel like that.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “Fortunately, Blackjack is my relative. That makes this easier,” she said as her horn glowed. The geode gave a shudder and started to crack, jagged splinters growing across the eons of notes.

"Thank you, Twilight… I'll remember you, "Sweetie shouted as the world crumbled around her.

“Perhaps you will. You’ve come so far,” Twilight said with a fading smile. “Goodbye, Sweetie Belle. Live the life you choose to live.” The geode crumbled to pieces around them, the motes being pulled into the swirling green vortex.

The rest of the geode shattered into dust as she felt herself being pulled away from that swirling green disk. She saw a momentary flare of purple, like a star giving one last brilliant flash, before winking out forever.

Breath. The first pull of cold air into her lungs. The slow beating of her heart. Had it all been a dream? Getting run over by a tank... meeting a crazy cyberpony... all that stuff about Rarity... Twilight...

Her eyes opened, and confirmed the nightmare. The ancient zebra temple loomed above her. Her green eyes slowly shifted to the altar where Twilight’s fragment floated. No longer. A purple slab of rock, cracked through, lay where the shard of her mentor had floated. No image of the starburst remained. It was dead. As dead as she had been.

“Goodbye,” she whispered.

“Thanks, but I’m not gone just yet,” Blackjack said as the cyberpony walked into her field of vision. Her red eyes stared at Sweetie in bafflement. “So... do you know what just happened? Because I remember us walking in here and then... well... you waking up just now,” she said, groaning softly. “Rampage was right. Not remembering sucks.”

Sweetie didn’t answer at first. She shifted slowly to her hooves, standing before it as tears ran down her cheek. “Yeah. I do. I remember everything.” It hadn’t been a dream. She wished with all her heart it had been, but no. Twilight... this part of Twilight... it was gone. She’d failed to save another piece of her mentor. She sat, covering her face with both her hooves as the despair welled up inside her.

Wait... both? It was a blessed distraction. She stared at her recently truncated limb, now whole. Slowly she turned it over, staring in shock. It felt... normal. She lightly poked it with a hoof. “What... what did you do?” she whispered.

“Me? I woke up. That’s what I did,” she said, gesturing to the floor. “What happened? I have no idea.”

Sweetie’s eyes dropped to the floor, where a star-metal sword had cut an intricate, arcane array into the floor. The glyphs cut into the floor were profane and disgusting. Forbidden. Necromancy. Her time with Twilight’s soul still lingered fresh in her memory, but it tied together so much of other dark magic she’d encountered. A violation of natural order. The manipulation of souls. The creation of life.

And all it had cost her was a part of her mentor.

“I think... I think Twilight made you make me a new... something. Something that regenerated me,” Sweetie muttered, then gasped and reached for her diary. To her immense relief she felt that connection. Whatever had happened to her body, she still was... her. Altered, but her. Such as she was. Then she felt that warmth inside her chest that seemed to suffuse her being. “What... something’s happening...”

“Uh...” Blackjack just tilted her head as she screwed up her face. “You’re... growing rocks.”

“I’m what?!” Sweetie shrieked, but stared in fascination as tiny purple gems seemed to form on top of her like a crystal encrustation. “Well! Make it stop!” she wailed in alarm.

“Um...” Blackjack repeated, then wordlessly drew her sword and levitated her shotgun with a helpless look on her face.

But to Sweetie’s immense relief, the crystals halted their spread, and then slowly slipped back into her. Not a normal body at all! She could feel her glamour spell failing with her emotional state, and risked a look at herself, lifting her hoof up. Her coat was almost a normal, pony coat, but under her glamour, the living rock had mutated... it was less solid, more... crystalline than before... she had been remade, but from the same components, after all. “Nevermind. I think I got it to stop.”

“Well... okay. Let’s get out of here then. Back to my friends.,” she said, taking a place at the door. “I’ll make a hole and you follow me through.”

But Sweetie’s eyes were still drawn to that glyph. The arcane array... the notes Twilight had. She walked over, shuffling through them. to understand, even if none of this could make sense. The warmth in her chest, she could feel others too. In the walls. In the air. In Blackjack.

She closed her eyes and reached out to the nearest one in the wall before her. Warmth there. Warmth inside. She willed her horn to draw it inside her. To add to the warmth in her chest. Her heart. Her soul. Opening her eyes, she saw a white glow, then a mote appeared. It bobbed in the air erratically... then disappeared inside her chest!

“Uh...” Blackjack repeated yet again.

The wall cracked. A large block of it tumbled away before her, opening a huge gap in the temple wall. “How’d you do that?!” Blackjack demanded.

“I don’t know,” Sweetie murmured as she stepped through the hole. The mouthy things immediately surged towards them, but she felt the warm motes inside them as well. She closed her eyes, despite their burbling advance, and thought of the necromantic array. Horrifying pops and squeals filled the air, and then silence.

Over the blobs of flesh and blood, now still, bobbed a half dozen tiny motes. They streaked straight into her chest, and that sensation of warmth grew. “Sweetie... are you doing... necromancy? Like Rarity?” Blackjack asked sickly.

The question was a slap to her face. “What? No! I would never...” Her voice trailed off as her eyes returned to those heaps of once animate life. “I would never... intentionally...” she murmured. “We need to go!”

Sweetie led the way out, back out of the ruined city and up the stairs to the spa. Rarity here had used necromancy to do things. Now was she... was she doing evil magic too? The necromantic array that had brought her back... was it powered by souls? What happened when she took them in? Were they gone forever, like the shard of Twilight?

Sweet Celestia, what was happening to her?

The rain outside cleaned nothing. She sat outside the spa, feeling the rain pouring over her but doing nothing to wash away that sensation of wrongness. She lived. She was back. Was she now some sort of soul-sucking monster? Did she have to eat souls or die? Was she some kind of vampire soul pony thing?!

The one saving grace was the crystalline armor she could summon seemed to obey her will. Being covered with purple crystal armor was definitely unsettling, but at least it would come when she wanted it. Only, if it was fueled with souls too... ugh, was she going to need to suck more souls just to figure all this stuff out?

Was she really getting blase about it already?

“So,” Blackjack asked lightly, watching her experiment with a look of almost envy on her face. She idly tapped her mechanical limbs as she watched her. “Do you have to stay here for another shard or... do you have to go? And if you have to go... do you need to go right now? I mean, you could come with us. We have a Rainbow Dash. Why not add a Sweetie Belle to the team?” she added with a grin.

"Sure! What's the worst that could happen?"

Blackjack laughed, and Sweetie wasn’t sure that it was a good sort of laugh or not. She eyed her and gave a grin. “You know something? Horse might have been a pervert, but he had excellent taste.”

Sweetie coughed, an all too different warmth running through her. Well, she had told Twilight immortals needed to have babies... not that she’d go that far or anything but... well... “It would be nice to see how... sensitive this body is...” she murmured and then leaned towards the unicorn.

Blackjack pressed her lips to hers... but something was off. There was a tingling sensation on her lips, then... nothing. She opened her eyes to empty air, lips still smooching nothing.

“Um...” a stallion coughed. She glanced over at P-21, Glory, Rampage, Lacunae, and Scotch all watching her with alarm. “What are you doing?”

“I was kissing...” she started to say, then blinked as she saw danger signs in Glory’s eyes. “I mean, I was kissing Sweetie goodbye! A nice! Goodbye! No sexing involved at all!”

“Sweetie Belle? What are you talking about?” Rampage asked.

Lacunae frowned and Blackjack heard her voice lightly in her mind. “Don’t expect them to remember her. Few minds can adequately comprehend interdimensional travellers, let alone recall them.”

Blackjack paused, glancing at her friends, and wanting to tell her about all she’d learned and experienced, but from the mixed looks of bafflement and impatience, she knew she never could. Instead, she gave a wan grin. “Um... what’s going on now?”

“That’s our line,” Rampage asked back. “You went to the bathroom and never came back.”

“Seriously?” Blackjack glanced at the Spa again. “Well... I guess when you need a toilet, right?” She started back to her friends. “Come on. We need to get to the Society. Beg, borrow, or steal ourselves an airship,” he said as they trotted away from the spa. She glanced at Glory. “What?”

“Are you... okay?” she asked.

“Yeah. Sure. I’m great. Why?”

She pointed towards her saddlebags The video ‘Stripemistress and the seventy slut slaves’ was poking out.

”Oh! Ah! Just some... some salvage!” Blackjack answered. “Trust me, you’re going to love it!”

“Blackjack, you’re being perverted again, aren’t you?” Scotch asked with a snort. She flushed, stammering her innocence as they returned to Deus. Her five friends all shared a laugh, as if they would be together... forever.

Sweetie’s lips worked the open air, then she blinked. No Blackjack. No rain. No wasteland. She was back in civilization, breathing in clear air that smelled faintly of flowers.

When Sweetie opened her eyes, she found herself in a mundane little room. It was an office, with a oak desk in the corner and a table down the middle where guests could fit. A large window covered one wall, and traces of nighttime city lights could be seen beyond. It was just what she would expect of the office of any Manehatten executive or bigwig.

A fish swam past the window.

Slowly, haltingly, Sweetie walked over to the window. She was at the top of a great tower, and below her was a city of white stone and elegant brass. Whales maneuvered between the buildings. Fish swam in schools around its bridges. Ponies in diving suits lumbered along the ocean floor. What she had taken for the night sky was, in reality, the surface of the ocean. Screaming neon signs covered every free surface, advertising weapons and entertainments and something called "mantles," but one sign caught her eye in particular, worked out of verdigrised brass.

"Welcome to Vision."

Next: Siren Song

Author's Notes:

https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/818364/regarding-the-sweetie-chronicles