Episode 4: Never Cry, Maud Pie

“I completely understand now, Fluttershy.” Twilight told her friends. “I didn’t just create this hell…”

Twilight paused in mid-sentence as her eyes gave a lavender glow.

“I AM THIS HELL.” she said in her robotic voice.

Maud Pie, who was still standing by the punch table meditating, opened her eyes and looked over at Twilight and her friends upon hearing those words. It was then that Spike looked at Maud, and using his free hand, gave her a thumbs up. Upon giving her that thumbs up, Maud looked around at what she had been waiting for...the arrival of the demons.

“HA HA HA HA HA!” demons from all around gave an evil laugh.

Even with her newfound realizations, Twilight’s instincts still made her afraid as she watched the demons arrive. Dark portals opened up all around the room. Out of them sprawled forth devil ponies with black wings, black, scaled claws on their front legs, and red scales on the rest of their bodies. One portal even appeared above the punch bowl, right behind Maud Pie...

“Gotta love the special access for the V.I.P…” Maud Pie joked as the devil pony coming out of the portal behind her brought its right claw closer to her head… “...it already isn’t easy to get all the way over here from the underworld…”

The devil pony then tried to swipe her head off…

...only for Maud to duck, grabbing the punch bowl as she did so. She then took the ladle from the bowl and swung it at the demon pony’s hand, knocking it clean off. The demon pony shrieked in agony and retreated into the portal as the claw flew towards Spike, who casually sliced it into pieces with his free hand that emitted a mysterious aura of light. Likewise, a mysterious aura of darkness surrounded Maud as she prepared to finish her joke from earlier…

“...and then you get to have me cover the return trip…”

Maud then unsheathed her sword as Twilight remembered who she was...

“I knew it...she isn’t Maud Pie.” she thought. “She’s that supernatural detective…”

“Get in line everyone...for the ride back to hell.” she proclaimed.

Four demon ponies lunged towards Maud from above and tried to stab her with their claws, but Maud rolled to the side to dodge it, taking the punch bowl with her. Having attacked with enough force to puncture the floor, the demon ponies found that their claws were stuck in the floor, rendering them unable to avoid Maud’s counterattack, stabbing all four of them at once with a stinger from her sword. All four of the devils exploded in a mess of blood that soon transformed into dark energy. A dark aura glowed around Maud’s sword as it absorbed said energy. Watching this, the rest of the demons around the room were terrified. Twilight was also scared and shaking in fright.

“After everything I’ve thought through…” she said to herself. “Even after all the dark shit that my mind has had to handle...a sight like this has me paralyzed with fear…”

“Don’t worry,” said Maud, “we’ve got everything sorted out. Just whatever you do, don’t drink the punch…”

It was then that Maud stuck her left back foreleg in the punch bowl and used her right back foreleg to slide herself across the room while in a spinning motion. She pulled out two twin handguns and began firing bullets all around.

“Woo-hoo-hoo.” Maud said in her vintage monotone as she did this.

Although the attacks from Maud’s guns weren’t as powerful as the attacks from her sword, the spreadfire was still enough to kill half of the remaining devil ponies. The ones who were killed fell to the ground and melted into a mess of red blood that turned black as it seeped into the floor, while the surviving demons, who were flying high in the air, became desperate and tried to kill Maud with laser blasts from their fingers. Maud reacted to the assault by shooting the ropes that had held the disembodied pony legs. Having gone past them, she had reached the entrance to Sugarcube Corner, where she stopped sliding. Falling to the ground, the disembodied mass of flesh acted as a shield from the lasers, which blew up the legs and had more blood flying in Maud’s direction. Once again, it became dark energy for her sword to absorb. Only now, her sword was growing very bright with this dark energy.

“Yup…” Spike said as he used his free hand to create a bubble of light that encased him, Twilight, and Fluttershy’s head, acting as a shield.

Grabbing it with both hooves, she held it back as if she were about to swing a baseball bat. She then uttered another one-liner…

“Any way you slice it, this is going to be a big one…hyah.”

Maud made that cry in a dull tone as she swung the sword, causing a giant wave of energy to burst forth from it and slice all the remaining devil ponies in the room to pieces. The force from the wave was so strong that collateral damage resulted from it. The walls around developed several cracks, the picture of the devil that was used for what looked like a knife throwing game was torn, knives were spewn across the floor along with the pizza, and Twilight and her friends, excluding Applejack and Pinkie Pie, were blown back against the wall. Applejack and Pinkie, unfortunately, had their heads sliced to bits, which exploded right in front of Twilight and her remaining friends.

“AAAIIIEEEEE!” Twilight screamed as blood and bits of their brains splattered all over the shield.

“Whoopsie.” Spike said with a chuckle. “I forgot to protect them too.”

“It’s okay, Spike.” Fluttershy said to comfort him. “It was an honest mistake.”

“YOU GUYS ARE FUCKING INSANE!” Twilight bellowed. “THEY WERE OUR FRIENDS!”

“And they still are.” Spike replied. “The only difference is that they’re dead now.”

“We’re just looking on the bright side of this.” Fluttershy explained. “At least this gives us an opportunity to save some time. Hey Spike, can you please kill me? Um...if that’s okay with you?”

“Sure thing Fluttershy,” replied Spike, “it’s never any trouble, trust me.”

Spike then put his free hand underneath Fluttershy’s head, and using that hand like a gun, blasted a laser of swirling light energy that destroyed Fluttershy’s head from the inside like a miniature cyclone would. Blood splattered on the faces of Twilight and Spike, traumatizing Twilight even further.

“Talk about a blessing, right?” Spike told Twilight happily. “To be covered in the blood of our savior?”

Twilight didn’t say anything. Instead, she began to break down crying.

“UH HU HU HU HUA!” she cried. “WAH HU HU HU HUA!”

Upon witnessing Twilight in tears, Spike actually stopped smiling for once. He saw the pain in the tears she was crying and empathized with her, for he was reminded of when he was living as an ordinary mortal and discovering what lied beyond for the “first time”.

“Twilight…” Spike said as he extended his right arm out to Twilight and opened his hand. “Do you...want to go home?”

Twilight turned to him, her tears beginning to cease as she did not feel that this was a trick. However, not feeling fully convinced, she replied with…

“Home? What home? I hope you don’t mean the castle. Maybe that’s what my brain wants, to just slump back in bed and try to rest, forgetting everything I’ve seen today. But then what? Then what?! It’s not going to change the fact that what I’ve seen today has scarred me for life, and there’s nothing that can be done about that…”

“If,” said Spike, putting emphasis on that word to assure Twilight he was speaking hypothetically, “if, the castle was the place you truly saw as home, I would take you back there in a heartbeat. But since it very much isn’t, that’s not where we’re going. I want to take you home to a place you’ve wanted to be for a long time...your birthplace. Your true birthplace...”

Twilight jumped slightly, remembering what she was told and shown by K.C. that reminded her about living in a false reality.

“You mean…” she said nervously. “...where I was...artificially created?”

“No,” replied Spike, shaking his head, “not even there. I’m taking you to where you were born even before that...the birthplace of all life…and the place that all try to return to when they’ve lost all hope...”

Twilight’s eyes widened, with her getting a feeling about where he was talking about…

“Are you going to teleport us there?” she asked.

“Sort of.” Spike responded. “The funny thing is, you don’t even need any magic to get there. Even the most untrained mortals could get there without any real effort. Because the fastest way to get there…”

Spike snapped his fingers with his left hand and grabbed Twilight’s right foreleg to comfort her as the bubble shield that encased them quickly began to shrink, naturally scaring Twilight as she felt herself become compressed by her closing surroundings.

“...is to die.” Spike finished as the shield squished both of them into a bloody pulp.

Both they and the shield disappeared with a popping noise, as an observing Maud gave a nod of acknowledgement. Having pulled her back leg out of the punch bowl, she put her sword away and carried the punch bowl in her right hoof.

“So he’s taking her to where I always go…” she said as she walked over to where the pizza was.

All of a sudden, the demon pony who had his claw knocked off earlier jumped in front of Maud and grinded his other claw into some of the pizza that had fallen on the floor.

“HHHIIISSS-” he hissed at her angrily before he was cut off by Maud throwing the punch bowl in his face, and following the throw with a shot from one of her handguns. The bullet that came from the gun destroyed the punch bowl, causing broken shards of glass and the remaining punch in the bowl to fly in the demon’s face, along with the bullet that hit him square in the forehead. As the demon fell to the ground dead, blood flying from his face from his fatal wounds, he melted into a mess of red blood that turned black, just as the other slain devils who had fallen on the floor did.

“And where they always go as well…” she continued what she had been saying before she had been interrupted. “...to the darkness.”

…..

Blackness. A dark, empty void. That’s all Twilight Sparkle could see in front of her right now. Her greatest fear had been realized.

“No…” she said in a mortified tone. “It’s true...there really is nothing after death...and I no longer exist…”

After she said that, she began to cry again. But soon, she heard a familiar voice telling her…

“You know, you don’t have to sit here and cry by yourself all the time.”

“Wha-” Twilight said in surprise as she looked around. “Aaahh…”

Twilight grunted as a bright flash of light appeared. Soon after the light vanished, she was able to see Spike in front of her, as well as her hooves that she brought to her face.

“Sometimes…” Spike told her as he held out his right arm again. “...you can just ask for my hand. You don’t always have to wait for me to reach out to you.”

Twilight took Spike’s hand. After grabbing it with her right hoof, she could see something she couldn’t see before. The same way she could see the dark aura surrounding K.C. after he touched her, she could now see an aura of light surrounding Spike. Not only that, but as she looked all around her, she could see stars appearing. Bright stars that made this place look all too familiar…

“It looks like…” Twilight began. “The sky at night...”

“This is much more than just an ordinary night sky though.” Spike explained. “Much more than even the night sky that Princess Luna creates. This is what we call Dark Sky. It’s a collection of lost worlds that stretches on into infinity…both into the past...and into the future...”

Twilight was once more reminded of what K.C. said about time being endless, and then remembered what Spike said about the “birthplace of all life”...

“So this is where we were all created…” she said. “...and where we go when we die?”

“You catch on quick.” Spike replied, regaining his smile. Twilight, on the other hand, regained her fear.

“So we’re both dead now?!” she exclaimed.

“Yes.” Spike nonchalantly replied. “What’s wrong with that?”

“EVERYTHING!” Twilight bellowed. “You KILLED me! Why didn’t you just teleport us here?! You didn’t have to kill me!”

“Very wrong.” Spike responded. “I did, in fact, have to kill you. For you are the kind of mortal who can only conquer their fear of death by dying.”

“That makes no sense…” Twilight said in a crestfallen tone. “My life is gone now. Who cares if I overcome my fears? There’s nothing left…”

“Again, very wrong.” Spike replied. “You say that as if your old life was something you considered invaluable. Now that you’ve lost it, you have quite the opposite of nothing…”

Spike held his arms up in the air before he continued by saying…

“Just look at this vast, infinite world. You now have everything…”

Twilight took another look around the world of the Dark Sky before she responded to Spike with…

“I just don’t see it. It’s true that my old life was shit, and maybe it’s true that the times I did enjoy it were just me deluding myself, wanting to believe it was good. But there was definitely a time where I was more than happy with my life. A time where I knew for a fact that I enjoyed it every day and loved my friends. Knowing for certain that a time like that existed made my life worth living, because I knew for certain that life could be enjoyed if I could just find the answer to what was troubling me. Every day made me feel like I was closer to discovering the answer. Every day made me feel like I was taking a step closer to getting out of the darkness…”

“When was the time where you enjoyed your life every day?” Spike asked.

Oddly enough, Twilight was silent for a while in response to this question.

“That’s strange…” she replied. “I can’t seem to remember now. It just feels like it’s been so long…”

“Five years ago.” Spike said abruptly.

“Huh?” Twilight responded.

“It’s been five years, hasn’t it?” Spike told her. “But your mind is confused...because it feels like just last night…”

Twilight gasped as something dawned on her.

“Luna’s illusion!” she exclaimed.

“Correct,” replied Spike, “but not entirely so. Luna’s illusion indeed played a significant part in altering your sense of time, but the rest was your doing in your subconscious mind. You wanted your perception of time to be sped up as much as possible to make the times you weren’t enjoying shorter. More specifically, the days you weren’t enjoying shorter…”

“Oh...oh…” Twilight said nervously, realizing what he was getting at.

“You’re acting like you were cherishing every day as a step closer to your goal...when you were helping Luna speed up time...to the point where you can’t even remember a single day where you actually did something to help yourself achieve that goal.” Spike explained the problem with Twilight’s speech of grievance.

“Ugh…” Twilight grunted.

“Think about it,” continued Spike, “what progress have you actually made on your own? None. Absolutely none. You can complain all you want about how today has been the worst day of your life after everything that’s happened, but that’s just the thing. Everything happened. Everything you need to know to discover the truth has happened right before your eyes. We may have had some laughs of our own along the way, but everything we’ve done has been to help you. To us, this isn’t a torture session...it’s a counseling session.”

“When you said we were dead earlier, you only meant our physical bodies, correct?” Twilight replied. “I’m...not spiritually dead, am I?”

“I can’t answer that question.” Spike declined a response. “Only you can. You have to ask yourself if you’ve been dead these past five years or not. All I can vouch for is that I am the one who has killed the old life that you hated. You, on the other hand, are different. You can look at your old life and see what you did on that journey that did define you, but at the same time, you yourself are not the journey.”

“...” Twilight kept quiet, meditating on Spike’s words as she felt moved by them.

She then looked around at the Dark Sky again, and this time, she asked Spike…

“Can I begin a new journey here...with my friends?”

Spike responded with a smile and a nod.

“Yes, of course you can Twilight.” he told her as the souls of Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy surrounded him. “We just need to find Rarity and Rainbow Dash now. And then, you may finally…”

“...ascend…”