It felt strangely empty, the Crystal Hallway. I never realised just how many of the statues there represented unicorns. Seeing how few of these forgotten heroes remained now, and considering that Celestia had to wield the Elements alone all this time, it seemed like a miracle in itself that her Solar Empire stood as long as it did.

Once, I was completely crushed just by walking through this hallway. Now, I barely even noticed. My eyes were dead-set on my destination: the Chamber of Harmony opening from the far end. The place from which, by one force or another, the strings of all the puppets are pulled. In there, I would find the spirit of Celestia. In there, this terrible game of destiny would finally end.

Cough.

I cleared my throat to announce my presence to the spectre as I entered. In a flash of light, the translucent form of Celestia manifested itself before me. I saw no surprise in her eyes—much to my own.

“You've finally returned.” She spoke in her usual, soft and charming voice.

“Oh, so you remember me.” I rolled me eyes. “How eternally convenient.”

“It is something that even I do not fully understand. It is as though time itself had gone mad, twisting in ways it was never meant to. Even so, everything ends at the same place.”

“When you awoke following your murder, I assume you were in for a nasty surprise, then.” I raised an eyebrow, looking over her incorporeal form. “Beside the obvious, I mean.”

“I would have described the experience with a different selection of words.” She replied. “But yes. You are right. I was in for a nasty surprise. New memories bloomed as the recollection of my other life—the one in which I've known you—rushed in on me to fill the void I never knew existed.”

“You remember sending me on my quest then? Now that you're dead, you remember everything you've done in not one, but two millennial lifetimes?”

“Unbelievable as it, yes. I do indeed.”

“I assume you're pleased, then. I've fulfilled my task. I murdered my friends.”

A moment of silence. Just as her mouth opened to speak, I interrupted, silencing her again.

“For the good of Equestria.” I spat the words out in disgust. “Save it, Celestia. I know.”

“What—” She tried to speak, but I refused to listen, interrupting her again.

“I know what you've done to my kind, you degenerate!” I yelled at her. “You had no right!”

She took one step back, looking at me with wide eyes, as though she could not believe what I just said. Once she realised that her masquerade was over, however, she dropped the pretentious act.

“Oh, is that so?” She asked with a condescending look, drawing the words out as though she were talking to a foal. “Pray tell me, Twilight Sparkle, just how much do you know about ruling an empire for hundreds upon hundreds of years?”

She lowered her head, bringing hers straight in line with mine as she looked straight into my eyes.

“I rose up to defeat Discord and free all ponies from their torment. I saved the earthers, the pegasi and the unicorns just the same. I made all of their lives as they knew it possible.”

A smug grin took over her face.

“What I have given, I can also take, little foal.”

“Damn you, Celestia!” I burst out. “You are not God! What you've done cannot be justified! Such an act of genocide is unconscionable!”

She lifted her head again and stepped closer, trying to intimidate me by rising above me.

“Ah, conscience. There's that word again, conscience. Tell me then, champion of kindness and good will, do you have the faintest idea as to what you would have? Standing at the dawn of a new age, trying desperately to hold a failing empire together, your only companion—your other half—is murdered by something possibly more powerful and illusive than anything you have ever encountered. Your subjects panic and the fragile peace you've fought out over the past years threatens to collapse in on itself into a chaotic rampage of the masses. What do you do?”

She frowned in utter abhorrence of me.

“Can you even begin to conceive what action you would have taken in my position?”

“You are right, Celestia.” I could not deny it. “I would likely have chosen to do something utterly horrible as well.”

“Do you see? And then you dare preach to me about morality!”

“Yet you forget something, dear princess. You see, I learned everything I know from you. I was practically raised by you.”

I straightened up, allowing Celestia to take a good look at my blood-soaked mane before continuing.

“I am your faithful student. Now, as before.”

She pulled the corners of her mouth apart in disgust, separating her lips and revealing ethereal teeth.

“You criticise your own work.” I added salt to the wound. “And I know far more than just this little morsel, Celestia.”

“What might that be?” She asked, an eye twitching in barely contained fury.

“That your rise to power was not as smooth as you would have us believe.”

I smiled victoriously as Celestia's whole form shook with either anger or madness.

“It had to be done!” She yelled, finally snapping. “Six cannot rule! Equestria would have been consumed by inner conflict! There was a need for a firm hoof to guide the masses! Had it not been for my actions, Equestria would never have become the great empire that you knew!”

She huffed and panted, having completely lost control.

“Don't you understand?!” She asked, tearing up.

“Oh, I definitely understand. I understand just how much you enjoyed being the sole monarch of Equestria for a thousand years, plastering your face on every edifice you could find.”

“This is not about me!” She cried. “Or you! This is about—this is for Equestria!”

“Isn't this about me? You see, I've also come to learn of my true part in this game.”

“You—”

“Pinkamena told me. I confess, though, that I should have figured it out by myself. And I would have—long ago, in fact—had it not been for my blind ambition. My loyalty to you. Good job on that, by the way. You are an excellent manipulator.”

Celestia at once collapsed upon hearing my words, unable to bear the weight of my words. She knew I was right. Crying her glowing tears, she lay on the ground covering her face with her front hooves in shame.

“It's terrible, isn't it?” I asked, looking down at her with pitying eyes. “You didn't even get to tell me yourself. I bet you've been preparing some sort of righteous speech about it, too, all this time.”

“I—I'm so sorry!” She cried, her words barely comprehensible as she heaved and wheezed with every sound she made. “It must be done!”

“I'm not so sure it does, you know. Still, even if it is true, tell me: why do I get to do the honours?”

She responded only with pained sobs and more tears.

“Because you never had the courage to do it yourself, that's why!” I shouted at her as she wriggled uncontrollably before me. “My task is even worse than yours was, in fact! You've killed four others in cold blood to take up their Elements, yet you faltered when you had to end your sister's life. She invited the corruption into her heart, yet you couldn't do it! Had you murdered Luna then, this all might have been avoided.”

She looked up at me with a begging look, still too weak to stand up.

“What made her different, Celestia?” I asked condescendingly. “She was merely the last mare standing.”

I took my eyes off her and looked at the Element of Magic, weeping on its gilded pedestal before me.

“As am I now.”

I listened to Celestia cry and sob without even looking, contemplating what I would have to do to purify the Elements. The groans and gasps of Celestia gradually faded, however, and I soon heard a quiet but definite whisper coming from her. It was not interrupted by her own wheezing, neither was it forcibly pushed from her throat like that last one. It was only that—quiet. And, I could tell, honest.

“I'm so sorry.”

I did not look down at her, but spoke instead with my head held above.

“Oh, you're sorry now, Celestia? Just how sorry are you, I wonder? Is it the kind of sorry you were when you murdered your own friends? Or the kind of sorry you felt when you banished your sister to the Moon for a thousand years? Or is it, perhaps, the sort of 'being sorry' you exhibited when you set me on my own friends, all the while keeping me ignorant of my final destiny? Need I mention genocide? How sorry were you about that?”

I went on and on, recounting every wrongdoing, every horrible deed of hers that I knew about. How she raised me with the express purpose of using me, how she specifically pre-planned the friendships I would make to serve her own ends. When I finished, I still held my head high, waiting for the pathetic princess to start crying at my hooves again.

After receiving no response in any form, however, I finally looked down at Celestia. We locked eyes. Hers were wide open, sincere in her apology. For a moment, I could almost believe that she only wanted to do her best for the sake of her subjects. Yet that thought was quickly destroyed by my own doubt.

“Consider this more ominous ending to your game, Celestia. What if my death does not restore the Elements? What if after everything I have done—everything you have done—it is simply too late? What if they are beyond redemption? Consider that you may be bound here eternally.”

“No.” Came her tired whisper accompanied by a genuinely frightened, yet somehow defiant expression. “That's not possible. Please, Twilight, this is the only way!”

“Even if I kill myself and restore the Elements,” I went on. “What then? Until now, they had you. In our other history, there were the unicorns and their magic. Now there is nothing left. You, Luna, Cadence—all dead. The unicorns—extinct. Save for me.”

“No, Twilight! Please! You have to do this!”

And she went on, whispering to me from below. I cared not for what she had to say any more, however. Her voice was completely drowned out by my inner thoughts.

For I stand here now, with the god-princess of Equestria at my hooves and the Elements of Harmony before me. My path to this point was long and hard, beset by manipulation from all sides. Treachery and lies were, in retrospect, the only constant events in this parade of ongoing misery.

I question now, however, whether there truly was some kind of higher power behind the scenes. Could it have been nothing but the wicked manipulations of a crazed Pinkamena, driven to insanity by Celestia herself, that resulted in this world's downfall? Or was she, perhaps, guided by something that's yet to show its face? She said I was important, more than I know—for she saw exactly what I would do when I came to this point. I myself have yet to decide, however.

On one hoof, I could sacrifice myself and die a martyr for the sake of Equestria. If the Elements of Harmony are purified, they might be used for either right or wrong in a world with no leaders and no guidance. The unicorn race itself would die with me—restoring the world, perhaps. Even so, after what has transpired, never again could any pony give Equestria back her innocence.

On the other hoof, I could refuse the sacrifice and take up the Elements myself. Although Celestia is convinced that the corrupted Elements are inert and unusable, I can feel their powerful magic around me even now. If I wished to bind them to my soul, there is nothing in this world that could stop me from doing so. I could rule over both the Sun and the Moon as the solitary monarch of Equestria—and who knows, perhaps the power of the Elements would let me defy even death. I could live forever—much like Celestia meant to—and control this dying world in eternal loneliness.

Yet even then, Pinkamena had counted on my decision, and if she had truly been an agent for something greater, there is no telling what chaos I might unleash by using the corrupted Elements.

Either way, the game is rigged.

At my whim, the world may be healed—or damned.

At my whim.