Twilight looked around, her horn broken and bleeding. She saw her sisters around her, broken and bleeding, if they weren't dead, they'd be soon. Fluttercruel would see to that.
"You know... you and I SHOULD BE kindred spirits," Fluttercruel told Flutter. "WHICH IS WHY I'M GOING TO SHOW EXTRA LOVE FOR YOU!"
Twilight couldn't bear to look at the results...
Pinkie hadn't lasted long against Angry Pie once she laughed. Her shattered body returning to the raw material it had been made out of.
Poor Rarity... Those horrid screams of "MY FACE!" from Rarigreed.
Lairjack had been trying to take Jack prisoner... until Fluttercruel stepped in. Traitor Dash looked like she'd been TRYING to lose... until Discord had whispered something in her ear... Traitor Dash said, "I'm sorry," just before the sickening crack.
Now only she was left... but ... they planned everything... they'd been so careful...
'Everything... everything you told me was a lie... you... YOU WANTED them to win...' Twilight thought. Wishing she had the strength left to feel rage at this betrayal.
The voice was so, casual, like she was speaking to a potted plant. Of course it was... I swear, it's like Discord was giving orders to actually let you win... I'll have to do something about that next time.
'Next time?'
Huh? Oh! I thought I disconnected our link. Nothing a fake with fakes of fakes needs to think about. All you need to do is be gotten rid of.
'... Monster... You're Discord aren't you!?'
YOU WILL NEVER SAY THAT AGAIN YOU WORTHLESS NOTHING! And you never shall!
And it was like a shadow she hadn't even known was there was lifted from her.
"You know you were doomed to die from the start don't you?" Twilight Tragedy said soullessly bringing Twilight out of her inner thoughts. The forest burned around them. The Chaos Six surrounded her on all sides.
Twilight Tragedy continued robotically, "A soulless imitation like you could have never hoped to win against me. I am real. You were made from nothing and you'll return to nothing. I don't know why Queen Cadenza even tried with you. Explain it me."
Twilight panted, forcing herself to stand, she'd die on her hooves.
Her first memory, emerging from the burst husk of a tree, climbing to her hooves, fully formed, knowing to work a body that she'd never learned how. Crawling out, seeing five ponies doing the same. Never having learned what a pony was, yet knowing it just the same. Ideas, thoughts, but no memories to connect to any of them, simply THERE! A name, 'Twilight ... Twilight SOMETHING... but she couldn't remember what... her body felt wrong, but how could she even know it was right? And at at the center of them, stood a tall pink Alicorn... Looking at them all with tears in her eyes...
"Oh Twilight... it's wonderful to see you again!" She then did a dance. "Sunshine, sunshine, lady bugs awake, clap your hooves and do a little ... shake?"
She look distraught when Twilight just looked at her confused. How did Twilight even know what 'distraught' was?!
This was... Queen Cadenza... she knew that... this was her... creator... A image... a strand of hair...
The others climbed out of her wooden wombs (again how did she know these, and yet didn't know anything about herself? Or... who she was... made... from?). "AGH!" She cried out, her head hurt!
"Twilight!" Called Queen Cadenza.
"Excuse me... " said a white unicorn... her name was... Rarity? "Are you okay? Is something you need?"
"I... I have a lot to teach of all of you."
"I knew from the start, that me and my sisters were made because of nostalgia Cadenza had for you before you were Discord's slaves... I knew... I think she knew this was likely how it was going to turn out... but I think... she hoped against hope... that seeing yourselves, from before... might finally free you... She created us, we owed it to her to try."
"She thought wrong."
The beam went through Twilight's head, and she knew no more.
Twilight floated alone in Oblivion. This was where she ended up, her and her sisters. Nothingness...maybe Tragedy was right...maybe they were just soulless imitations...
That was, until a bright light appeared above her...
"~~Who are you?~~" she asked.
"...Someone who owes you something," Amicitia replied. "...You could have won...if Eclipse hadn't dedicated herself to only allowing the 'true' Twilight to win..."
"~~...You're that voice, aren't you?~~"
"Yes and no...I absorbed that voice, condemning her to a fate she had done to so many other versions of me...but in doing so, she became part of me...and her mistakes are mine to atone for..." Amicitia explained.
The shadow before her let out an empty, bitter laugh. "~~Good...But how exactly do you plan to fix THAT mistake? Allowing me and my sisters to be murdered?~~"
"I can't give every shadow here a new existence...I would if I could...but you're special...a vessel made in my image and with memory of me..." said Amicitia. "...I will be going soon...to leave my duty to another...but they will need help...an angel...You fought to your dying breath hoping to give a happy ending, despite knowing you weren't the 'original' Twilight Sparkle...there are many others like you across so many stories...creatures made, not born...who want their happy ending...A piece of my essence should be a good substitute for the light you lost. Not perfect...not enough to undo that mistake...but enough to become whole again..."
The Shadow gave a small look. " ~~And my sisters?~~"
"Your will is strong if you hung on to enough of yourself to think of them...I have others that will gladly take them to aid stories like theirs..."
Twilight looked around, seeing a pair of strangely realistic looking Alicorns resembling Rarity and Applejack, the former looking oddly beautiful while the latter simply looked odd. They were speaking to the shadows of her sisters. She saw an Alicorn Fluttershy who looked like a teacher, a 'dark and edgy' Alicorn of Rainbow Dash and a 'light and soft' Pinkie Pie, all talking to their copies among her sisters.
"Their Twilight wanted you, but it felt more a fit for me...So, do we have a deal?"
"~~What will I be doing?~~"
"Giving those like you, clones, robots, golems, you name it, those who were born not of a mother's womb but of something else, their happy ending you were denied."
"~~...I accept.~~"
Amicitia held out a sword with her Cutie Mark on the hilt. "...Then hold still..." she said, stabbing herself with a cringe, the blood flowing into Twilight's shadow, returning color and life to her form, two wings erupting on her back. Not Alicorn wings, ones made of paper, like those in a book...or a friendship lesson. A halo of lavender light appeared above her head. "...Now go, my angel. Give happy endings to those like you...but remember this rule above all else: never brute force it. Never use the hammer or the lash. Their reality will not accept. Be the good angel on their shoulder, the guiding whisper in their ear...And I'm sincerely sorry for all of this..."
