Rise of Queen Twilight Sparkle
A Spiteverse Tale
By Skye Silverwing
Based on an idea by Digibrony
It all began where all Alternate Realities begin: With a Change.
It seemed like such a small thing in light of everything else. Instead of uttering his iconic line “It is quite lonely being encased in stone, but of course you wouldn’t know that, because I don’t turn ponies into stone.” Discord had chosen a slightly different tact. “It is quite lonely being encased in stone, but of course you wouldn’t know that, because you have never been turned to stone. Allow me to rectify that.”
With the snap of Discord’s fingers, Princess Celestia cried out as a she felt her wings and extremities stiffen, and released a terrified howl as her body petrified. In one last moment of clarity, though, she cried out to her student. “Twilight!” she shouted, “You must retrieve the Elements… and… Stop him!”
Then the stone covered her lips, leaving the Almighty ruler of Equestria helplessly trapped within the stone.
Discord laughed, and proceeded with his brilliant master plan. He lured the ponies into the maze, and one by one, he inverted their personalities, turning each of them against the Elements that lay at the core of their personalities. Without their connections to the Elements of Harmony, the Chaos God could have all the fun he wanted without those accursed jewels being used against him.
The final coupe came when Twilight Sparkle, abandoned by her friends, lost her faith in friendship, and took her baby Dragon, Spike, fled from Ponyville, leaving the now useless Elements of Harmony behind, and leaving Discord to rule Ponyville as he chose.
With no Princess Celestia to send Twilight’s letters back to her, and reignite her spark, Twilight wondered off into the Everfree forest. But even that wild place was not untouched by Discord’s Chaos. When she encountered Zecora, the usually cryptic and careful Zebra laughed and told her that if she wanted revenge against Discord, that it was possible to acquire a second set of Elements. The Elements of Domination.
She would need to acquire the five Elements from around the world.
First, and closest, was the Helm of Nightmares, the Element of Fear, which was said to be in the possession of the Pony of Shadows, manifesting as a remnant of Nightmare Moon’s Power. When Twilight and Zecora arrived at the Castle in the Middle of the Everfree, under the light of the Full Moon, the Pony of Shadows appeared.
After a long, tense moment, the Pony of shadows judged the Unicorn to be an apt vessel for its power, granting her the Helm of Nightmares and its own Power of Darkness. As Spike and Zecora looked on, the shadows wrapped around Twilight and drew her into them, remaking her body into a larger, more powerful form, staining her coat black, and granting her the stature and wings of an Alicorn.
Seeing what is mother figure had become, and sensing what was coming, Spike fled into the dark shadows of the Everfree. Zecora, Still Discorded to openly give advice that would lead others into great harm, chose to stay, and continue to assist the powerful pony.
Next, they would seek out the Alicorn Amulet, the Element of Cruelty. It was easy enough to find, thanks to Zecora’s scrying, in a small shop in the City of Manehatten, and simple to take, with the power of fear and Darkness. They left the shopkeeper trembling on the floor in terror. The Amulet pushed Twilight’s Dark Powers to a whole new level.
The next Element, the Element of Deception, was a small amount more difficult to retrieve, as it was the first Object of Power that lay outside of Discord’s reign of terror at least as far out as anyplace could be with Discord controlling the Sun and Moon.
It proved difficult to find indeed. The Changeling Crown was naturally in the possession of the Changeling Queen Chrysalis. Unfortunately, the Changeling Nation was a continuously mobile force, not setting up their base in any particular area until the queen had acquired the level of love energy necessary to stop and Spawn an army. The Changelings, like any hostile force, could not remain in an area for long without depleting its resources just to eat, and with Discord in control of Equestria, there was not a lot of love to be had anyway.
Twilight and Zecora finally caught up with Chrysalis, she found the Queen scheming to Capture the one Princess that Equestria had not seen turned to stone by that point, and feed on the love that the ponies of Equestria held for her. The gradually starving changelings stood no chance against the Powerful Alicorn’s dark magic, and were consigned to the path of extinction when she burned their Queen to a cinder and took the Crown from the ashes, placing it upon her head own head.
After the Changelings, finding the Tenoch-teek-lan basin was easy, if something of a surprise. The fangirl in Twilight squealed in delight when she met Daring Do. Unfortunately, the Pegasus Archeologist stood in her way as she moved to collect her Prize, one of the Rings of Scorchera, which combined together would form the Element of Greed. For a moment, walking away from the author’s burning house gave Twilight pause, but that was before Zecora called up some ancient magic to help locate the other rings.
Fortunately, fate balanced the scales for Tenoch-teek-lan, and soon enough, Daring Do’s Nemesis, Ahuitzotal, also found himself in the Dark Alicorn’s path. He put up a valiant fight, but soon enough, he too perished before Twilight Sparkle’s might. She resized the rings and wore them in the style of her Zebra advisor.
This only left one artifact to find: The Dark Heart. Zecora tried to scry its location, but all she learned was that it was hidden in the far North, and that Twilight would need to go and find it alone.
Twilight, even with all of her power, struggled in the storms that raged in the Frozen North. She pushed through the storms and reached a tall crystal spire. The Spire seemed to mock her. Flaunting its resistance to the power she had struggled so hard to achieve. Twilight’s eyes blazed with her dark power and rage, and she struck the spire with her Power, shattering it into a thousand pieces.
To her surprise, a howl rose from within the ruined spire, and King Sombra, the once-mighty ruler of the Chrystal Empire rose in his shadowy form, his mind shattered by a thousand years buried beneath the ice. As he rose, a light burst from the snow nearby, and the Chrystal Empire itself, long thought lost, was broken from the enchantment Sombra had placed on it, and restored to its place in Equestria.
Sombra howled, and rose up over the Alicorn with all of the might and power of a force of nature, determined to swallow her up, but Twilight’s power was greater than the evil Sombra had steeped in for all those years. She drew his darkness into her, absorbing his essence into her, and making his power her own. For a moment, Sombra’s rage and hunger for power threatened to overwhelm her mind, but Twilight’s own lust for revenge took precedence and squashed him completely.
Twilight turned and entered the Empire, the Presence of Sombra within her keeping the pathetically sniveling Chrystal Ponies at bay while she entered the Chrystal Palace. Within, with Sombra’s magic at her command, she uncovered the stairs and made her way to the top of the palace, where the Chrystal Heart lay hidden. The defenses Sombra had put in place meant nothing to a Mare who had already seen one of her worst nightmares come true. It took a simple burst of Sombra’s magic to convert the Chrystal Heart into the Dark Heart, an act that caused Darkness to spread over the whole of the Chrystal Empire, and from there, to all of Equestria.
With the Element of Betrayal in her possession, Twilight was now prepared to summon the final Element. Unfortunately, the spread of Darkness had drawn the attention of Discord. The Dragoniquis took it upon himself to fly to the Chrystal Empire to investigate, and when he saw Twilight, with the Dark Heart and Alicorn Amulet at her neck, and the Nightmare Helm and Changeling Crown on her head, with the rings on her left front hoof, he laughed.
“What is this, the result of a half price sale at the local Evil Thrift Store?” he sneered. “Oh, Twilight, You crack me up. You even have that dullard Sombra’s horn now... This is priceless.”
Twilight glared at the laughing being. “Discord, in all of my travels and journeys, I have learned one important thing.” She said, “When it comes to stopping beings with power, the only way to best them is with greater POWER!”
As she spoke the words, the final element, the Mantle of Might, the Element of Power, appeared and settled itself on her shoulders.
Discord laughed and then pulled out a small book with the word “Script” printed on it in bold letters. “Hrm… You cannot hope to stop me.” He said in a dull, deliberately under-acted voice. “Give it your best shot.” He read a little further down the page, and looked toward the author. “Hey, what is this part here about me getting utterly dest-“
Twilight unleashed the full power of the Elements of Domination upon Discord, and he was completely and utterly destroyed.
Drawing deep on her magic, Twilight teleported directly back to the castle in Canterlot, where, for the first time in months, the laws of nature were beginning to restore themselves to normal as Discord’s influence faded.
On a small stand in the middle of the throne room, Twilight found the Statues of her former Mentor and Princess Luna. Even as she entered, the first cracks began to form in Celestia’s statue, a bright inner light pouring from the splits in the stone. As the shell of stone crumbled away, the Princess of the Sun took a moment to rest before opening her eyes. When she beheld the Mare that had once been her student, she gasped, instantly recognizing the items she wore for the dark artifacts they were.
Celestia looked upon Twilight Sparkle with a look of deep concern. “Twilight…” she whispered softly, “What have you done?”
The Dark-coated mare met her former teachers gaze without blinking. “I did what I had to do to rid this world of that monster once and for all.” She said simply. “I gained the power in the only way I could. I traveled far and defeated many foes so that I could ”
Celestia’s eyes hardened slightly. “And how many innocents suffered so that you could collect those Elements?” she asked.
Twilight narrowed her eyes slightly. “As many as it took.” She said, “I was fighting for the greater good. The lives of a few ponies pale incomparison.”
Celestia frowned. “No… Twilight… Can’t you see? Every pony’s life matters. It is so important to keep in mind not to harm those that you find along your path.” She said, “Everypony deserves the chance to live, the chance to thrive. Put away those Elements, and I can show you the ways of Harmony once again.”
Twilight’s eyes narrowed even further. “Suddenly I see.” She said darkly. “You are a part of the problem, aren’t you? You and Princess Luna, turning Discord to stone instead of properly destroying him? What, did you think that monster could be reformed? How many suffered at the hands of that Monster so that you could feel good about not Ending him?”
Celestia began to back up, slowly, searching her mind for a way to bring her Student back. “Twilight, please!” she begged, “The Elements of Harmony…”
Twilight cut her off. “Were useless without my fool friends!” she raged. “I had to retrieve the Elements of Domination to save the world on my own, and it was all because *you* could not bear to do what had to be done, all those years ago!”
She glared at the backpedaling Princess for a long moment and then turned to the statue of Princess Luna. The Moon Princess was completely helpless. But this was her fault, too. She ignited her horn.
“No!” Celestia cried, hurling herself between Twilight Sparkle and her sister, “Please, no! Luna did nothing to you! I beg you! Do not harm her!”
Twilight hesitated for a long moment. “So be it.” She said, unleashing her power. “Princess Celestia, I sentence you to death for your crimes against ponykind. As a final gift I grant to you, as my teacher, I will grant your request. Luna will be spared. Goodbye, my teacher.”
Celestia barely had time to cry out as the power of the Elements washed over her, burning her out of existence. Twilight spent a long moment staring at the scorch mark on the floor where she had stood, a single tear running down her cheek.
Then she turned again to the statue of Princess Luna. “Now… what to do with you?” she whispered, tapping her hoof on her chin, and then she smiled. “I know.”
Horn glowing, she turned a beam of deep ebon on the statue. The stone began to crack and splinter, and finally burst, turning into a cloud of purple smoke was all that remained.
The smoke swirled and formed into the form of a mare with deep purple, nearly black fur.
“Nightmare Luna.” Twilight said, “Arise.”
Luna stood at the order and then immediately bowed. “What are your orders, My Queen?” she asked.
Twilight smiled. “You will lead my armies.” She said, “Spread the word that my rule is supreme in all of Equestria, and crush anyone that resists.”
Nightmare Luna nodded, “Yes, my Queen.”
.o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o. .o0o.
A.N. There are a lot of events in here that I did not really want to write specifics for here. If somepony wants to write the specifics of those events (I would imagine there is a fair amount of story involved in Twilight hunting the Changeling Swarm, or facing Daring Do, but honestly, I just was not feeling it) or any other events in the world depicted here, I invite you to do so, there are many events that can happen in the Spiteverse. Just reference back to my work, let me know when your tale is done, and point out that the idea was originally Digibrony’s.
As always, Constructive Criticism is Appreciated.
Oh, and if someone wants draw up a picture of Queen Twilight for me, that would be great. I picture her like a “Nightmare” Twilight, with flowing hair in Twilight’s colors, Nightmare Moon’s helm and wings, black fur, Sombra’s horn, Chrysalis’s Crown, A set of rings on her left front leg, both the Alicorn Amulet and the Blackened Chrystal Heart on necklaces around her neck, and a Shoulder covering mantle with a cape. If you give me one that is close enough to what I am looking for, I will use it for the image for this story.
