Episode 24: What the End Truly is

There was nothing left for the true god to say…

...so is this the end?

Indeed it is. This is the true end that has finally ended…

...so now we begin…

Remember the most important story of all that had yet to begin.

It finally starts after we can answer the question of what life is.

Puzzling as it has been, we have finally come to the conclusion thanks to our heroes.

So let us watch them rise again in new forms...for the SPIRITing…

The Dark Sky members were still in Fluttershy’s mansion that night, wondering what was going on. As all of them sat around in the living room, they discussed their concerns with each other.

“Do any of you get the feeling we still haven’t left Starcatch?” Dumb-bell asked.

“I do.” Hoops answered. “Even though the true god hasn’t contacted us since we beat Ninja Time God Rarity and Fantasy God Discord once and for all, he did say that our challenge there didn’t end with that world. This lack of a sense of accomplishment is making me feel more inclined to believe him now than ever.”

“...” Score silently spoke of how nihilism ironically draws people closer to God.

“All play and no work makes Jack a chronic masturbator!” Ghost Rainbow Dash exclaimed, intentionally rewording the classic reference. “If it’s true we got unfinished business, sign me up, because I’m already bored of being on vacation. I’m a ghost, for Pete’s sake! My whole existence is one big vacation from life!”

“But if what you say is true,” chimed in Derpy Hooves, “wouldn’t that mean Jack works out a lot?”

“Come on, Derpy.” G.R.D. retorted. “Even I wouldn’t be caught dead doing that at the gym.”

“It seems we all agree that our work here isn’t done yet.” Dumb-bell concluded. “I say that first thing tomorrow morning, we investigate this new area we’ve arrived in. If the true god was correct, then this should be another world where the world of the Awakening project and the world of the Transcending project are intertwined...weird as it sounds.”

“Wait, why can’t we just start investigating now?” G.R.D. questioned. “The night’s our time to shine! They don’t call us members of the Dark Sky for no reason…”

“Think two steps ahead, G.R.D.” Hoops said, glaring up suspiciously. “If we’re night owls, then the rats know the right time to hide…”

“Heh heh heh…” the Trinity laughed from above, knowing that they were onto them. “Clever. You know we won’t show ourselves this night. Confronting you then wouldn’t be in our favor. We want to wait until the day, where everyone around can see us. We are not mere spooks who only come out at night…we are eternal spirits who are always with you, even after night’s end...”

They said this as the stars in the night sky began to glow ominously…

“I’m sure our friends, the spirits of the dream realm, will show you that…”

After the Dark Sky members went to bed, with Dumb-bell, Hoops, and Score sleeping on the couch, G.R.D. sleeping in the living room table, and Derpy sleeping on the floor, using the rug on the floor as a blanket, they all soon found themselves in the dream realm…

“Huh?” they reacted as they looked around and saw nothing but stars in the night sky around them. “What’s going on? What is this place?”

“This is the dream realm.” the stars in the night sky answered them. “Though you are all dreaming right now, what you are experiencing at this moment is certainly real.”

“And we feel inclined to believe you.” the Dark Sky members said, feeling the spiritual energy emanating from the stars. “You’re not just figments in our heads. You’re all real spirits...created in the minds of gods…”

“Precisely.” the stars answered. “This is a fantasy world where the gods create the souls that will occupy the bodies of the mortals in a world of reality. Just as one thinks up the characters in a story before writing those characters in the story. Ninja Time God Rarity and Fantasy God Discord kept all the potential characters they could create here after they formed an agreement with Princess Luna. Permission to use this place at their leisure in exchange for permission to access Fluttershy’s mansion. I guess all that is irrelevant now, however, considering the ultimate fate of them all...”

“No, it’s all still very relevant.” the Dark Sky members retorted. “We’ve promised to carry on Rarity and Discord’s will. As for Luna and Fluttershy, we’ve not given up on them. Why would we ever when we’ve got a whole eternity to bring them back?”
“Ha ha ha.” the stars laughed. “We do enjoy your attitudes being so optimistic for undead servants. But pessimism was not what we meant to imply…”

“Then what did you mean?” the Dark Sky members asked.

“In calling the past irrelevant in concern to their ultimate fates,” explained the stars, “we didn’t mean to say that the past doesn’t matter because they’re “gone” now...we meant that the past doesn’t matter because they’re going to exist in the future no matter what.”

“!” the Dark Sky members were taken aback, and immediately thought to say…

“Wait, how are Luna and Fluttershy going to exist in the future?! Are they still going to be puppets of The Reborn One?! You have to tell us!”

“Alas, we can not.” the stars replied. “We are merely puppets of The Trinity, commanded by them to bring you a message.”

Now knowing that these stars were not on their side, the Dark Sky members relented and solemnly told them in response…

“Alright. What’s the memo?”

“The spiriting commences tomorrow morning.” the stars answered, speaking in a foreboding voice. “We will be coming back...and we’re going to love our new toys…”

With that, the stars around the Dark Sky members vanished, and in their place, the souls of Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, and Spike appeared before them.

“No way…” the Dark Sky members remarked. “Don’t tell us that you guys are…”

“Don’t show such surprise,” retorted Twilight, “acting like you really believe that we’ve done something truly wicked. Do you even know what the spiriting is?”

“It’s a virtuous mission.” Fluttershy purported. “We’re going to bring all the dead who claim to be among the living back to life…”

“...Will that include us?” the Dark Sky members asked curiously. “We are “undead servants” as your lackeys put it, after all…”

“Don’t play dumb.” Spike taunted. “You were all there with him when you decided that your world needed to be brought back to life...you were all there with our boss...The Reborn One…”

“You couldn’t possibly be talking about…” the Dark Sky members said as they began to wake up, slowly leaving the dream realm as Twilight, Fluttershy, and Spike faded away before them.

“...him...someone so sweet and innocent…is the one behind everything?!”

At that moment, a church bell began to ring, and all of the members’ eyes flew open in response. Going over to a window, they looked out and saw a large, black-colored church with a white-colored roof in the distance. On top of the roof was a crystal statue of Spike, holding a dark ball in one hand and a light ball in the other.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t feel like sleeping in this morning…” Dumb-bell remarked in a serious tone despite being aware of the irony in his comment.

“So that’s where we’re going to start investigating…” Hoops said forebodingly as the gang disappeared into dark mist and rematerialized outside of the church.

“...” Score silently remarked on the history of corruption in the church.

“Guess there’s no irony here for once.” G.R.D. commented. “It’s like, gee, I wonder why The Trinity would be hiding in a suspicious-looking church. I thought that after Rarity and Discord kicked the bucket, they would’ve left behind originality. Poor souls are rolling in their graves right now, I tell ya.”

“I know, right?” Derpy replied, trying to jive with the conversation. “It’s like, nothing’s original anymore. The society from Idiocracy is real now. It just feels that people are fine with being these mindless puppets who don’t care that they’re being manipulated. And that’s just really sad. Find the answers for yourself, damn it! Don’t just sit around and wait for some magical ghost to come in your room and tell you everything!”

Every other Dark Sky member turned to Derpy and gave her a blank stare before G.R.D. interjected…

“Nope, I was wrong about there being no irony. This world is a parody of itself.”

“Good on you for figuring that out!” a familiar voice shouted from above. “At least the sky being blue isn’t something you have to look up to find out!”

“That reminds me,” thought Derpy, “where did I put my phone?”

As Derpy looked around, the rest of the gang looked up to see Crazy Celes hanging out of the sky, only showing her upper body. The rest of her was hidden under the sky.

“Don’t ask me what I’m doing,” interjected Celes, “I’m just hanging for murder in the first degree! Good thing it never gets too hot up here!”

“...” the gang just stayed silent, trying to ignore her as they went towards the church.

“Wait!” Celes exclaimed as she saw them opening the church doors. “I can tell you whatever you want to know! I’m very high up! I’ve spoken with God!”

After only getting the response of the church doors slamming as the Dark Sky members entered, Celes sighed in discontent.

“I guess they’ve got their hooves full with their own investigation.” Celes surmised. “Maybe it’s for the best I don’t tell them where I buried her…”

Celes said that last part ominously as a familiar dark aura began to exude from the ground…

As the Dark Sky members entered the church, they were surprised to find not The Trinity awaiting them, but instead, a funeral service being conducted by another familiar face. A fourteen-year-old boy with blue and white hair, dressed in a white robe like the one Discord wore, was standing at a podium. He was giving a eulogy for someone in an open black casket, whom the Dark Sky members couldn’t see from the distance. About to finish his speech, he concluded it as such…

“And we will all miss this fallen one as we shall miss all our fallen heroes. May they return to the gods and become a new Trinity…”

Knowing what he was referring to, the Dark Sky members gasped in horror and shouted out…

“SKY!”

Ponies who were attending the service turned their heads towards the Dark Sky members as Sky looked up and responded to them with…

“That’s my first name. Last name is Wanderer.”

“Thanks for the info…” the members replied facetiously. “What we want to know though are the names of those “fallen heroes”...”

“Tell you those names, I can not.” Sky declined solemnly.

“Why’s that?” the members asked indignantly.

“Because these heroes no longer have names.” Sky explained as he turned his attention to the casket. “When they left this world, they abandoned the identities of their former selves completely in order to become new forms. All three of them have been reborn with new names…”

“Three?” the members asked in confusion.

“Indeed.” Sky answered. “For these heroes are now a new Trinity…”

“Yeah right!” the members exclaimed. “Don’t think you can trick us with such a transparent lie! This is just another trap! If you want us to believe something so farfetched, why don’t you prove it?!”

“My sentiments exactly.” another recognizable character chimed in, a blue stallion with cyan and white hair speaking with a British accent. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence…”

“That voice...it’s Water Rinse.” the Dark Sky members said what they realized in thought. “Now that we know that he and Sky are here, we have our proof that this world is a mixture of the Transcending world and the Awakening world. The true god was telling the truth…”

“So the burden of proof lies on me?” Sky retorted. “Alright, I’m fine with carrying that weight like a man...under the condition that you tell me what you believe. Can you tell me what exactly happened to our heroes?”

“.....They died.” Water Rinse said after a long pause. “That’s it. They no longer exist in this world. And that’s all we can say for certain.”

“Are you fucking serious?!” the Dark Sky members yelled. “That’s what you have to say after all the insane stuff that’s happened in this universe?! If you don’t have any hope for our friends, then why the hell did you come to their funeral?!”

“Better yet,” interjected Sky, grinning deviously, “why are you even alive at all if that’s how you view death? Do you mean to tell me that you actually enjoy pretending to be a good guy while believing that there’s no point in being a good guy? Do you enjoy living just for fun while not actually having fun? Does it actually give you pleasure creating and burning your strawman of Mr. Fairytale, someone who at least knows what they believe in, while you don’t even know why you get out of bed in the morning?”

“Shut your fucking mouth, you deranged twat!” Water yelled furiously. “You don’t know anything about me! So what if you’re in a better place than me?! What does it mean to the world if I’m not happy?! I play my part! I do the best I can to be the best person I can be, even as I keep seeing that I’m never good enough! I give, the world takes, I hold everything inside so that everyone else can be happy, do I really need to suffer any more than I already do?!”

“Oh ho ho,” laughed Sky in a way that was reminiscent to Rarity and Discord’s guffaws, “you truly are more deluded than I could ever hope to be. If all life is to you is suffering, just die. Don’t pretend that the world is holding you hostage to it and that your loved ones won’t get over it. You’ll be happier that way regardless of what you believe. But if you still insist on living while you are dead on the inside…”

Sky gave an evil grin before he took a deep breath and breathed out magical gas that had dark purple, yellow, and light purple colors in it. It covered everyone in the church, including the Dark Sky members. However, they did not feel any effect from it, even as they breathed it in.

“What the hell is this stuff supposed to do?” they thought in perplexment as the gas soon dissipated. Seeing Water Rinse standing ahead of them, still close to Sky, they decided to ask him…

“Hey, Water, are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah, I’m feeling good.” he replied in a tone that sounded normal, to their surprise.

“Oh, that’s a relief.” the members responded. “We were worried that something bad would happen to you.”

“What difference would that make?” Water asked ominously. “After all…”

Water then abruptly turned around to show that his face was dark blue and corroding while his eyes were blank white, unnerving the Dark Sky members.

“Nothing bad is going to stop me from always being good.” he finished in a creepy monotone. “That is what I live for. To be good. That’s all there is to life. Being good. We just have to do it…”

The Dark Sky members then began to back away slowly, watching the other members in the church get up and show them that they had undergone the same transformation as Water. They began to repeat in a zombie-like tone…

“We have to be good. We have to be good…”

Finally, Sky finished what he had begun to say earlier…

“...I WILL GLADLY ACCOMMODATE YOU.”

Looking at him, the Dark Sky members gritted their teeth and growled, knowing that he was being controlled by the souls of The Trinity whom they could sense…

“We ought to transform into our holy dragon form right now and blast them…” they thought. “But we can’t have Sky and everyone else get caught in the crossfire. All we can do right now is run, hide, and think of a plan.”

With that in mind, the members bolted out of the doors behind them and running out into the field, looked around for somewhere safe to lie.

“Ugh…” they thought as they looked up and realized what may have been the only feasible option. “We can’t go back to the mansion, The Trinity knows we were staying there. Taking to the skies seems like the best option, but we don’t want to have to deal with that maniac, and it’s the first place they’d expect a group of pegasi to go. We’d prefer to stay on the ground if we can...but something feels wrong about the soil…”

A purple hand abruptly bursting from the ground confirmed the group’s doubts.

“Of fucking course…” they thought as they saw the hand lifting its body out of the grave. “Wait a minute, that can’t be…”

“Buried underground…” the figure rising from the ground hummed forebodingly. “Lost and never found. Waiting for my word. Seen but never heard. Buried underground...but I’ll keep coming.”

The Dark Sky members reviled in terror as the figure revealed itself to be Noimman. She clicked her fingers, causing all the dirt that had covered her to disappear from her body and give her a fresh, clean outfit like the one she had worn at the school.

“So what’s up?” Noimman nonchalantly greeted them, before realizing that the gang had taken off towards the skies. “Oh...I guess that’s what’s up.”

The Dark Sky members puffed and panted, flapping their wings as hard as they could to fly as far away as they could.

“How the hell did she end up here?!” they shouted in disbelief. “I thought we finished her off for good back at the carnival!”

“Finish someone off for good?” Crazy Celes retorted as she abruptly appeared on a cloud in front of the gang, who stopped flying as they saw her. “You clearly don’t watch enough horror movies!”

“Such deplorable social skills.” Noimman remarked as she abruptly appeared on a cloud behind the game. “It’s not even like I’ve come back good as new. I’m still bound by my own darkness, so I couldn’t do much harm to you even if I wanted.”

It was then that Noimman transformed herself into the black blob she had become after Adrian and Felix defeated her last, revealing that nothing had changed since then.
“I have no personal motives left for power and destruction.” she told them as she reverted back to her human form. “Even if I refused to accept my punishment, I’d be imprisoned by my own darkness forever and that’s it. It wasn’t my hand that brought me back here. It was the work of both Celes and Yata, who wanted my help for combatting The Reborn One. In short, we’re allies here.”

“Like hell!” the Dark Sky members retorted in distrust. “Show us some damn proof!”

“As you wish…” a voice from a cloud above them answered. Another figure turned their head from the cloud to face the members below, revealing himself to be Yata. The Dark Sky members were stunned, but also pleasantly surprised.

“So it’s legit?” they asked. “You all really do just want to help us defeat the The Reborn One?”

“Of course.” Yata replied. “Though before we can help you, each of you need to take a step back and truly assess what you’re doing…”

“Interesting…” Dumb-bell said, remembering how Rarity and Discord had asked them to break out of their hive mind. “Tell us, what exactly is the issue? What do we need to work on?”

“Finding out why you do what you do.” Yata answered. “What is it that you fight for? What sets you apart from those zombies? Back when you took down Rarity and Discord with the other heroes, you did so without really understanding what gave you the strength to stand up to them. You purported to fight for love, fun, and friendship, but anyone can say they fight for broad, interchangeable concepts of these things. What you need to do for yourselves is start fighting for definitive concepts of these things that you know to be true.”

“I get what you’re saying.” Hoops chimed in. “When we fought with the other heroes, we knew our idea of the truth was not as mature and firmly founded as theirs. We didn’t work for our truth like they did, we mostly just trusted what we already knew…”

“...” Score silently delved into the challenge of faith and finding the truth.

“And to think we’ve been so nonchalant…” G.R.D. reflected on their past, feeling honest regret. “I can’t believe I actually complained about our enemies not having originality…”

“I know!” Derpy exclaimed, having regrets herself as well. “Just because zombie apocalypse shit has been done to death, doesn’t mean they’re not allowed to do something original with it and succeed!”

“Indeed!” Crazy Celes exclaimed in tandem. “If they can succeed at transforming masses into mindless zombies, why shouldn’t they try?! I have to give my son a pat on the back for such ingenuity!”

“How did you know he was the one who turned those ponies into zombies?” Derpy asked.

“Because Yata is God, you idiot!” Celes yelled. “It’s not like he sees everything that happens, he fills the air with invisible surveillance cameras!”

“And speaking of cameras…” Yata said as he pulled out a disk from his shirt. “I never got to give this to Nero. Or should I say Nira...Spero?”

“Huh?” Hoops responded. “Wait, since you’re God, you must know what happened to Nero and the rest of the heroes! Please, tell us!”

“Don’t you already know?” Yata retorted. “They took on new forms. They are not mortals anymore. They’re gods now, just like me.”

“.....” the Dark Sky members were silent for a long time...before Score finally broke the silence by asking Yata, saying normally…

“How did that happen? Please don’t answer in riddles...just tell us like the true god would...just tell us the truth...”

“Answer in riddles?” Yata replied. “How could I? There is nothing mysterious concerning what happened to your comrades. They each wrote the ending of their story, and thus, their mortal lives came to an end. They knew that as they were in their state, there was no longer any reason for them to exist in this universe. Myra Michaels, Adrian and Felix Bruce, Spira, and Nero have all died.”

………….shwoosh………..

A silent gust of chilling wind blew past the Dark Sky members as they surveyed their surroundings in self-reflection. The sight of the clouds made them think of the mist they had the ability to become...and then they thought about The Reborn One again…

“So that’s why he did it. It was never about some convoluted evil plan concocted to build himself up as the most powerful being in the universe...and it was also never about some insane madman scheme designed to make everyone suffer. It was just about finishing that story. He didn’t do it for love and recognition and he didn’t do it for hate and sadistic pleasure. He just feels that the right time has finally come to finish the story while also keeping it going somehow…”

All of the Dark Sky members smiled widely while also crying tears of joy as they finally understood why The Reborn One did what he did. They were even more happy, however, when they realized how it tied in with what happened to their friends.

“If the true ending to a story of fiction never ends…”
They said this as they transformed themselves into mist one last time and dissipated into the sky…

“...then the same can be applied to a story of reality…”

That is the story that can finally begin…

The Dark Sky members, as they were, faded away.

THE HEROES ARE DEAD

READ THE ORDER HARD

“MWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!” The Trinity laughed evilly. “FINALLY! AT LAST, THE MIST HAS RETURNED TO US! THE REBORN ONE WILL BECOME A PERFECT BEING AND BRING ABOUT THE SPIRITING AT LONG LAST!”

Knowing what The Trinity was gloating about, Yata smirked as he could be seen walking through a dark place filled with floating, green digital code. He was approaching the tower of Starcatch with the disk he wanted to give Nero in hand…

“I’m glad I waited until this moment to finally send this to my old friend.” Yata said happily. “Because now, he has new friends that I can share this with. The story of two youths who rose up against the embodiment of hatred while refusing to give in to hatred themselves is something that the modern world needs to fully believe as a story of reality…isn’t that right, Robot Alicorn Twilight?”

“INDEED.” the voice of the familiar cyborg boomed from Starcatch. “THAT STORY SHALL BE ETERNALLY PRESERVED AS DIGITAL DATA. EVERY MORTAL STORY, WHETHER REAL OR FICTIONAL, WILL EXIST FOREVER AS COMPUTER DATA INSIDE OF ME. REALITY AND FANTASY SHALL BE FOREVER INTERTWINED, AND AN ETERNAL TRUTH SHALL BE MADE TRUE TO ALL WHO LIVE. THEY WILL KNOW THE ONE THING THAT KEEPS REALITY AND FANTASY SEPARATE…”

Yata then uploaded the disk that held this secret Twilight’s robot self spoke of, and with this, the fate of everyone in the universe coming awake was inevitable. The first one who would realize the truth was once an ordinary youth who only wanted to know the answer to a question he asked his mother…because Twilight’s robot self had always been with him since the Transcending project, he was the first to ask those who surrounded him…

“Can you please explain to me what you guys are doing?” he asked the zombies he hadn’t even realized he had inadvertently helped create from being under the spell of The Trinity.

In response, the zombies turned to him, giving him menacing glares…

“We have to be good…” they told them in a creepy monotone.

“But it’s not enough to just be good.” Sky interjected. “You need a reason to be good to do good. If you don’t believe that there’s a purpose for doing the good you do, where’s the joy in that?”

“Joy?” the zombies asked. “What’s that? Are you questioning our right to be zombies?”

“No.” Sky answered. “I’m just asking, why would you want to be zombies? Why are you denying the fact that you’re not satisfied with a life that doesn’t bring you happiness?”

“Evil…” the zombies replied in a tone that was creepier than before. “You are evil...to question our beliefs is to question good itself...for that you must pay…we shall bring justice upon you...”

“No, you shall not.” the souls of another trinity that opposed the one that transformed the ponies in the church into zombies materialized in the air, speaking out against their behavior. “Sky has said nothing wrong. Even if he had used his words as a way to harm and deceive you, it would not be your duty to punish him. It would be mine. How do you who speak of good not believe and stay secure in a higher power of good?”

“And how do you actually believe such words will wake these zombies up?” The Trinity gloated. “You know logic and reason doesn’t work on those as far gone as them. The only thing that will wake them up from their illusion is death itself, for what made them this way was their mortal minds being corrupted by a disgusting mortal world. We will send them to inhabit new bodies in our new world, for only then will they see the truth…”

“Very wrong.” the other trinity interjected. “The truth is best taken to the grave, but only through life is the truth found in the first place. Wishing death on those who don’t believe the truth is foolishness, and bringing death on them is unpardonable. Belief in the truth is also trust in the truth making itself known to those who don’t believe. We trust in these good souls that have been led astray.”

“You trust?” The Trinity taunted again. “You’re the one who’s foolish. Having faith in mortals, hopeless creatures who trust in a false idea of God to show them the way. Their only hope is to destroy themselves in nihilism and nonbelief before real gods like ourselves save them.”

The Trinity then turned to the zombies that had long been silent.

“Now tear this degenerate who dared to defy you and I apart!” The Trinity commanded. “And prove that our word alone is the truth!”

“...” Water Rinse and the other zombies just stayed silent...and eventually began to cry…

“What?!” The Trinity cried in disbelief of this sight. “Why won’t you obey me?! I AM EVERYTHING YOU BELIEVE! I AM YOUR VOICE!”

The zombies smiled, crying tears of joy as they felt their flesh returning to normal.

“No, I think we can speak for ourselves, thank you very much.” Water Rinse made a sarcastic remark. “We want to go back to the real world now. We no longer have interest in this fairytale…”

The Trinity just stared at the restored ponies dumbfounded before they faded away, returning to the world their reality, now having the intention to make it a happy one…

“Now do you understand?” the other trinity said. “You have nothing if you know the truth but don’t have trust in others. Those ponies saw that the trust in our truth gave us hope and love for the lost. It’s not possible for the good to see that love and continue living the lie that the good they do is a meaningless chore. Trust in them, and they will trust in what they really believe.”

“.....Does that mean…..” The Trinity finally replied after a long pause. “You trust in us as well?”

“Of course,” replied the other trinity, “for you were only misguided as well. True evil knows the lie and wishes to corrupt the believers in the truth with lies. Such evil has influence on us all. Breaking free of that influence is the challenge The Reborn One gave the mortals of this universe. We know neither of you are truly evil...we just need to wake you up and have you live again...”

“...Show us.” The Trinity requested. “Show us who you are...and we shall return the favor by revealing who The Reborn One is…”

The other trinity listened to their request. They split apart into three souls that revealed their true forms one by one as they moved to the floor. A woman with spiked up black hair, a black ninja outfit, mask, and cloak, and a sword and a katana in her hands appeared, followed by another woman who had a red, punk-styled hairdo, was dressed in a white shirt and white shorts, and had skin that continually changed color, and finally, a shadow pony made of dark energy that glowed with a magnificently radiant light and had glowing white eyes that exuded dark energy of pure black. In response, The Trinity split themselves apart to show the souls of Twilight, Fluttershy, and Spike.

“I knew it.” Twilight said. “Besides The Reborn One, only you could have wisdom surpassing our understanding. You are the heroes who have taken on the forms of true gods, forms that even the heroes of the Awakening project couldn’t achieve. You are…”

“Myrick D. Miles.”

“Fadrian Willis.”

“Spiro.”

“Unlike the heroes from the Awakening project, you three chose the truth in the end.” Fluttershy commended them. “For that, you deserve to know who our maker, the true creator of the Spiriting project is.”

“It’s the last one you’d ever suspect it to be…” Spike told them ominously. “Even though it’s been very obvious from the start the only one who could’ve done all this, it will change the way you see everything once you learn that The Reborn One’s true identity is…”

“...you, Spike.” Myrick, Fadrian, and Spiro finished his sentence for him in an emotionless tone of voice. “We knew the whole time, we just showed you our real forms to show that we trusted you.”

Twilight, Fluttershy, and Spike stared blankly at them for a while before they burst out laughing, and the heroes joined in on the laughter as well. It was true. The Reborn One was Spike, and he had been right in front of them all along…

...however, the Spike who was part of The Trinity was not The Reborn One...the Spike who was The Reborn One was the lone survivor...the embodiment of the story’s beginning and end…

He would begin the spiriting...end the confusion...revive the soul of the dark sky...