It was one thousand years to the day since Supreme Commander Colgate, the Goddess of Terror, destroyed Eqqus 1 with her black magic and had been thrown into Tartarus. The past thousand years had been tough on her as she had been sentenced to the most horrible of fates, being forced to share a cage with her most hated nemesis, the Dark Goddess Twilight Sparkle.
Outside of a few snide comments from Colgate mocking Twilight over her low body count and not knowing what evil truly meant, the two had remained silent. During these long moments of silence, the two were thinking about so many things. They were thinking about what went wrong, what they could have done to prevail, what they could have done to escape being thrown in Tartarus and in the case of one of them, regret over what they did.
One day Colgate let out a groan, "Ugh, curse that Celestia! Had she not stabbed me, I would be ruling Eqqus 1 with an iron hoof."
This caught the attention of her fellow inmate, "Well you were stabbed and there was nothing you could do about it." She remained quiet for a moment before asking, "Colgate, do you have any regrets over what happened in life? Do you ever think if you had done things differently you may not be here?"
Colgate replied, "Yes, I do have one little regret. I regret not seeing Celestia charging out from behind my tower. I regret that I took Dark Night to show him what I thought was Celestia's singed corpse." She became more agitated as she continued, "Had I just had my wits about me, I could be overseeing Eqqus 1. I could have forced those ungrateful ponies of other lands to become enslaved to the citizens of Coastal Equestria."
Twilight gave Colgate a look of disgust, "You know something Colgate? I know more than you think I do and while you may have claimed to care about the citizens of your country, you didn't." She raised her voice and continued, "Don't go thinking your yell of everypony living in despair went unheard everywhere." Her voice became more snide as she continued, "All you cared about was oppressing everypony all because of world leaders distrusting you. Your hatred and willingness to corrupt yourself wasn't even really warranted. She approached her, shook her hoof at her and added, "You killed for the fun of it. You enjoyed seeing other ponies die and I know you delighted in the destruction of Unicornia, I know you enjoyed hunting their kind to extinction."
Colgate couldn't help but laugh, "Yeah I did but like I said they day they hauled me here, I'm lawfully evil. I never turned anypony into a toy, I never forced anypony into sexual servitude and I never enslaved anypony." She could see that Twilight was getting frustrated and asked, "So little Twily, do you regret anything? Do you regret enslaving Celestia the way you did? Do you regret rounding up the citizens of Fillydelphia and using them as slave labor? Do you regret.....?"
Before Colgate could continue on something she never expected happened, Twilight began to cry, "I regret everything! I regret everything after my coronation!"
Colgate was in a state of shock. She never once imagined that a self-proclaimed Dark Goddess would break down crying. She began to say something before Twilight's cries continued, "I regret so much. I regret destroying the Crystal Empire, I regret brainwashing other ponies, I regret all the horrible spells I cast, I regret what I did to my family, I just regret everything."
Colgate found Twilight's crying amusing and downright hilarious. She mocked, "Oh I regret so much, I regret being a Dark Goddess, I regret being an amateur, I regret not really being evil." She began to laugh, "Awww, does the widdle dark goddess need a hug? Does hers need her superior to comfort her?"
The few times they did talk during their time in Tartarus Colgate always wound up talking to Twilight like she was a foal but this time Twilight would not throw a tantrum, she was not about to give Colgate the satisfaction she wanted. She gave the most unlikely response, "Actually yes, a hug would help."
Colgate gave Twilight a hug and couldn't help but laugh harder and harder as Twilight's cries only got worse. Once they broke the embrace Colgate notices something, she saw that Twilight was crying green tears. She noticed another thing as well. She saw that not only were Twilight's eyes returning to how they used to be before her corruption, but that she was also shrinking in size and her coat was returning to the color it was on her coronation day.
When Twilight finally stopped crying, her eyes had returned to normal and her appearance was the same as it was on the day that she was crowned as the fourth Alicorn princess of Equestria. Suddenly a blinding light appeared above their cage and three bright balls began to descend. When they reached the ground, three ponies emerged from them, three white ponies. Princess Celestia, Creator Goddess LaurFa and Queen Ruby Heart all appeared.
The three cast a long gaze at Twilight until one would speak, "Twilight, is that you? I haven't seen you like this since your coronation day!"
Twilight ran up to the front of the cage and exclaimed, "Princess Celestia!"
Twilight wanted to extend her hoof through the bars to reach out to her former mentor but was afraid of getting shocked. Princess Celestia reached her hoof through the bars and made contact with Twilight. This brought out suspicion from Colgate, "What are you three doing here?" She then began to laugh, "Did you know that the widdle dark goddess was sad and that hers needed comforting?"
LaurFa was the first to answer, "No Colgate, we could sense something going on and knew the situation warranted our presence."
Ruby added, "We knew something unexpected was going on, we knew that somepony had shown true remorse and that the evil was leaving her."
Celestia finished, "And look at her Colgate, she looks just like she did before her first corruption."
The three visitors began to whisper among one another and while neither could make out what they were saying, looks of optimism were clearly visible. The three turned back towards the prisoners and LaurFa began, "Twilight, in life you did many, many bad things. Some of the things you did were unspeakable...."
Colgate yelled, "Yeah, like turning Celestia into her sex toy."
Nopony responded to her statement. LaurFa continued, "Yes, some of the things you did in life were unspeakable. I can't help but notice that you look as you did long, long ago. You look the way you did before you did anything terrible."
Ruby approached the cage and asked, "Twilight, we want to know something. We want to know if you feel true remorse for the things you did in life?"
Twilight again broke down, "Yes, I feel so bad for so many things." She looked up at the three ponies with tears streaming down her face and continued, "I feel so bad for the brainwashing, the destruction of the Crystal Empire, I feel bad for enslaving ponies, I feel bad for banishing so many ponies, I feel bad for what I did to my family, I feel bad for the global conquest," her cries became louder as she looked Celestia in the eyes and finished, "and I feel most bad for what I did to you."
The three were watching Twilight closely as she was listing what she felt bad over and they saw something that Celestia had not seen in many many millennia and in the case of LaurFa and Ruby, never. They saw a look of true remorse and could tell that Twilight truly did feel horrible for what she did.
The three looked at one another, smiled and then turned back to Twilight. Celestia addressed her, "Twilight, it is obvious that you truly do show remorse for everything you have done and it is clearly visible that the evil within you has vanished...."
Ruby continued, "Because of this, the three of us have come to a decision."
LaurFa grabbed Twilight in her aura, pulled her out of the cage and finished, "We have decided to free you from Tartarus. We have decided you are deserving of coming with us to a better place under one condition."
"Anything." replied Twilight
"For the first thousand years," replied Celestia "you will remain close under my wing."
Ruby added, "After that, you will have the same freedoms as the rest of us."
LaurFa finished, "Do we have a deal?"
Twilight replied, "You bet you have a deal!"
This sent Colgate into a furious rage, "What, you're freeing her? You're freeing her just because she is claiming she is sorry?"
Ruby replied, "Colgate, we looked into her eyes and we saw true remorse and trust me, the three of us can pick up on those things." She then looked into Colgate's eyes and asked, "Do you feel remorse at all?"
Colgate snapped, "Why would I? That world got what it deserved and it was all your fault I had to destroy it." She pointed towards Celestia and added, "Had I just made sure she was good and dead when I fried her, I wouldn't be in this mess."
Ruby replied, "I'll take that as a no." She then flared up her horn and asked, "Shall we? Shall we get Twilight moved on to a better afterlife, the afterlife a truly remorseful pony has earned?"
Celestia gave Twilight a warm smile and said, "Come on Twilight, let's get you......"
She would be interrupted by a loud yell, "You're making a big mistake. When she winds up doing something bad and you have to haul her back down here, don't say I didn't warn you!"
Nopony gave Colgate the satisfaction of a response. Very soon the four would become encircled in white balls and float up and out of Tartarus. Colgate was left all alone in her cage with her thoughts. Colgate then began to think about something, she began to wonder if perhaps the presence of such an amateur wasn't inhibiting her magical abilities.
She walked up to the front of the cage, punched the bars and was thrown back by the shock. She grunted in frustration knowing that there was no escaping that cage and there was no escaping Tartarus. She knew that she was stuck there for all eternity.
