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Heaven of a Hell

by Rambling Writer

Chapter 6: 6 - Bureaucratic Realities of a Change in Management

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Even Twilight admitted that she couldn’t stay in the Library all the time; she had duties to attend to in Equestria. But the knowledge that the Library existed and she had access to it was enough for her to not freak out. After polishing off a declassified record of Mayor Mare’s time as part of a spec ops group, she headed back to Equestria for a quiet weekend of busywork.

And that was when the doorbell to the Castle of Friendship rang.

“Spike!” Twilight hollered. “Could you get that? I’m busy!”

“Sure!” Spike laid his book aside and began walking for the door.

Ding-dong.

“I’m coming!” Spike yelled. He sped up his pace slightly.

Ding-dong ding-dong ding-dong.

Spike started running. “Hold your horses, I’m almost there!”

Dingdongdingdongdingdong.

“Gah!” Spike broke into a sprint for the last few seconds. He slid to a stop at the door and pulled it open. “Alright,” he panted, “what- do you…”

Standing on the doorstep was a… thing. Pony-shaped and -sized, but otherwise, completely alien. Its flesh was living flame itself, twisting and writhing and constantly changing, yet always staying the same. Lightning crackled in place of its mane and tail, whipped about by an unfelt tempest. Its eyes were white-hot balls of fire, so hot that simply having their gaze directed at you was to be burned severely. Space seemed to flex around the shape to make way for it. Its wings, if they could even be called that, folded and unfolded constantly, always hiding and exposing countless eyes and mouths. In a reverberating voice that threatened to rend reality itself asunder, shaking it down to atoms and beyond, the figure intoned, «Fear not.»

Spike promptly and emphatically disobeyed.


“Again, I am deeply sorry,” the shadhavar said to Twilight. “I forgot that mortals aren’t as familiar with angels as they used to be.”

“He will stop screaming eventually, right?”

“Within the half-hour.”

“Then there’s no permanent harm done.”

“Very well.” The shadhavar took one last sip of his tea, then stood up and bowed. “I am Metatrot, the scribe of heaven and herald of the Almighty. I am here to provide assistance for your… ahem, transition.”

“Which one?” asked Twilight. “Becoming the queen of hell or ending the school year? Because I think I’d prefer help with the latter.”

“The… former, I’m afraid.”

“Oh. I think I’ve got it under control. And this isn’t going to be you stomping in and going, ‘we’re taking over’, is it? I thought heaven and hell were opposed.”

“Hardly,” said Metatrot airily. “Hell is Satanner’s penance, enforced by heaven. He has to be the warden for the worst prison in existence. How he runs it is his business. If he wanted to turn it into a knockoff of purgatory, having prisoners slowly reform, he could. And it would certainly be preferred,” he scowled, “but he interpreted Yahwhinny’s commands as-” He sucked in a breath through his nose and let it out through his mouth. “In any case, we won’t interfere with how you choose to manage things. This is simply an informational meeting.”

“Uh-huh,” said Twilight, nodding. Knockoff of purgatory: file and save.

“Now…” Metatrot picked up a folder from… somewhere and flipped through a few pages. “Such a rapid coup of hell is… unexpected, but not unprecedented. However, hell being what it is, most coups last only a few hours before demons remember how much they like sloth, start slacking off again, and Satanner reclaims his position. This arrangement, on the other hoof, seems far more likely to last if only because you can blackmail any opponents into submission.”

“I’m not really interested in ruling hell,” said Twilight, “so I let Satanner keep most of his power. I just wanted to-”

“Nevertheless,” said Metatrot, “you are the ultimate ruler of hell, if an absentee one, and are therefore responsible for its unwellbeing. As such, I have taken the liberty of arranging several dozen folders regarding the internals of hell, just in case. This one, for instance, goes into detail on the more commonly used punishments, such as the acid mines in Wrath…”


Twilight listened attentively as Metatrot described the contents of each folder and laid them out, all nice and neat. He was almost as fastidious as she was and certainly more concise. It wasn’t long before Twilight had a large pile of folders in front of her. Metatrot never had any folders with him, but that didn’t stop him from handing them over. But as she listened, a bad feeling began niggling at her. She raised a hoof. “Uh, quick question. I already got sent to hell, completely independent of this, but that was because of a misfile. That won’t prevent me from going to heaven, will it? Because if it does, I might as well start the debauchery now.”

“It will not, and the unusual circumstances have already been logged,” said Metatrot. “Remember, heaven gets the good bureaucrats.”

“Good bureaucrats exist?”

“Bureaucrats are like condoms — if they do their job correctly, you hardly even know they’re there and they save you a lot of trouble down the line, whereas you’re utterly screwed if they fail. And speaking of trouble…”

Metatrot extracted a folder from thin air and placed it in front of Twilight. “Beelzebuck is still angry at you for taking over so easily. He is planning on attempting a coup against you, but given your extensive blackmail portfolio, he’s only managed to convert one other demon to his cause.” He flipped open the folder to a photograph that had melted trying to capture irreality of that particular demon. “And don’t underestimate him. Although he has only one demon, he’s planning for that demon to be a spear aimed at you — and only you. Even if he gathers every other individual in hell, that demon will be groomed to be your specific assassin.”

“Beelzebuck has a devil put aside for me?” Twilight asked, shocked.

Metatrot nodded.

“For… me.” Twilight put a hoof on her chest.

Metatrot pressed his lips together and nodded again.

For MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” shrilled Discord, and began headbanging.

“Gah!” Twilight yelped. “Discord, will you-” But he was already gone. Scowling, Twilight turned back to Metatrot.

Strumming away at the Red Special, Metatrot crooned, “So you think you can stone me and spit in- my…” Seeing Twilight’s look, he paused, cleared his throat, and muttered, “Extradimensional humor. It’s… complicated.” The guitar vanished. “Let’s continue.”


Hours had passed by the time Twilight and Metatrot were finished going over everything. The pile of folders was by now a foot tall and several wide, the table it was on groaning under the weight. Metatrot polished off his (still somehow warm) tea and stood up. “And I believe that covers everything,” he said.

As she got to her hooves, working crinks out of her stiff joints, Twilight gazed at all the new reading material hoof-delivered to her. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll make sure to read this all ASAP.”

“But before I leave,” said Metatrot, “I was wondering if you would be willing to answer a personal question: what caused you to conquer hell in the first place? Our intelligence in that matter is… lacking.” He stared thoughtfully at Twilight. “You do not relish in malevolence, like so many uncreative mortals who think conquering hell will be as simple as brushing their teeth because they’ve done some naughty things in life. You have no interest in binding demons to your will, and, indeed, those allied with you do so voluntarily. You do not even use the environment as an excuse to let loose and indulge your darkest passions. Yet you stampeded over hell with the speed and subtlety of a pyroclastic flow, only to appoint Satanner as de facto ruler the moment you were done. It is as if you conquered hell purely for the, ah, hell of it, but your boasts are nonexistent. So, with your permission, I would ask: why?”

“You know the Library of Babel?” said Twilight. “I organized it-” (Metatrot’s eyebrows went up.) “-and whenever I tried to actually get to use it, demons would show up and disorganize it. I tried a few other things, but they didn’t work. So I figured that if I ruled hell, I could order them away and they couldn’t do anything about it.”

“So…” said Metatrot, “you… took over hell itself… because they were getting in the way of reading time?”

“Well, yeah.”

Metatrot blinked. Then he broke out in a huge grin of divine serenity. “Finally!” He pulled Twilight into a hug. “Someone who understands!” Half a second later, he coughed and released her. “Hem. Apologies,” he said, resolutely examining the patterns in the floor. “Most individuals do not fully grasp the joy of reading.”

“I know!” said Twilight, flaring her wings. “Starlight thought I was crazy. But all I wanted was to read without any interruptions. It wasn’t like taking over hell was hard or anything.”

“With your permission, I might stop by sometime. For now, however, I must be off.” Metatrot bowed. “Thank you for your time and have a pleasant day, ma’am,” he said. “And if you ever have need of me… Well, I’ll know.” He stepped in between inches and vanished.

Twilight pondered the whole situation as she stared at the folders. Hmm. Heaven. She’d never imagined they would get involved, but now she wondered why she’d never imagined that. Hopefully, they wouldn’t want to get involved in her Library expeditions. And it wasn’t like she could use blackmail material against heaven, of all planes. They were, well, heaven!

Although, if they did and she could…

She cracked open her blackmail book and flipped through the pages. If she was going to blackmail anyangel, it’d be the one who reported back to heaven on her, the one she could force to fudge his reports. M… E… T… And there it was: Metatrot. Twilight read the entry eagerly.

Metatrot: Nice try. Who do you think recorded this? Nyeh-nyeh.

Eh. Worth a shot. Now, about handling hell…


“Tia?” Luna asked, waving the scroll in front of Celestia’s face. “Have you seen this letter Twilight Sparkle has sent us?”

“Yes, Luna,” said Celestia, very deliberately not looking Luna in the eye. “She took over hell and is going to attempt to reform it.”

“You know what this means, yes?”

“That my once-student is advancing through the world in leaps and bounds, has already surpassed us when we were her age, and is likely to have permanently befriended the entire solar system before the century is up?”

“…Yes, that, too. But, since it occurred in less than five years, what else does it mean?”

“Luna, be reasonable. That I owe you that much money is absurd. There’s no way you can possibly think of enforcing it.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. But it is the principle. Cash from your personal coffers is cash from your personal coffers, and I shall not rest until-”

“Fine.” Celestia dug around underneath her mattress and pulled out a coin. “Here.” She tossed it to Luna. “Five bits, as we bet.”

“Huzzah!” Luna deftly plucked the coin from the air and smirked. “Always bet on blue.”

Next Chapter: 7 - The Marriage of Friendship and Hell Estimated time remaining: 10 Minutes
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