Slow, melodic piano music is the first thing I pick up once my senses return. Next thing I register is the large bedroom I'm standing in, carpeted by the soft feel on my feet and illuminated by afternoon sunlight made dim by the closed blinds of a set of windows in front of me. To my left is the bed in question: queen-sized, wooden frame, sloppily made. A wooden nightstand with drawers beside it holding a lamp, red LED alarm clock, glasses case and a smattering of dust and paper refuse. There's some posters on the wall behind it, one of them of an orange cat hugging a book with the words "Some of my best friends are books" in bold red letters. Pretty depressing outlook there.
To my right is a taller dresser cluttered with assorted things, including a portrait of some girl in a pink dress riding happily in a… soup bowl? Okay. There's also a stand for a TV and some game consoles, and adjacent to that is a tall shelf containing a globe, several books and miniatures, and folded clothes on one of the lower shelves. Bunch of papers jutting out from between some of the books as well.
Set before the windows is a desk made of glass with metal supports, from which a rhythmic tapping could be heard accompanying the music. A black leather office chair and the balding head sprouting from it obscures my view of what's on the desk itself. I smell the faint trace of chamomile and lavender dye.
"The third piece of Études Opus Ten by Frédéric Chopin, often referred to as 'L'Adieu' or Farewell," the chair's occupant spoke. "I think it's fitting with us having come to this point. But if that's not your preference, I also got Beethoven, Debussy, even Vivaldi if you're feeling baroque."
That's not important.
"Hm, I guess not. Just give me a few moments here while I finish up this paragraph."
I lean over to get a better look. Some keyboard with a glaring white screen affixed to it, filled with lines of black text. To the sounds of tapping more letters fill the screen, and I watch as a sentence is typed out describing how I was watching a sentence being typed out.
"It's rude to peek without permission, you know."
I straighten myself and wait patiently. Only three seconds later and the tapping stops, followed by two clicking sounds that stops the music and makes the white screen go away. The chair swivels around to reveal its occupant. It's still the same him, though he's suddenly sporting a bushy goatee, and he's wearing a wrinkled lint-covered white shirt and navy blue shorts that show off his obscenely hairy legs, leading down to feet in white socks stuffed in a pair of dusty black slippers. Not a flattering look; very bachelor-esque.
He's giving me an inviting smile while steepling his fingers together. "Well, here it is: the end of a long and exhausting journey. One fraught with peril, excitement, and absurdity."
You got that right.
"Yes. You've been a real champ putting up with all that intrigue and nonsense, and through determination and quick-thinking you have gained entry into the lair of the Overseer. What do you think of it?"
Brief look around.
It's roomy.
"Yeah it is," he nods. "Though I don't often get up to move around. Usually I'm sitting here at the laptop. But anyway, that was a pretty fun fight. It was enjoyable being able to make up random stuff like that again. And now that you have come here to my inner sanctum, I am happy to announce that you are victorious." He claps. "Congratulations, Spike: you have triumphed over the True Mastermind."
...Just like that?
"Just like that," he beams and shrugs.
That's really anticlimactic.
"That it is, but it's the truth. You have reached the end; there's no further progress to be made."
What about you conjuring up more bad things to happen in Equestria? You're just not gonna do anything?
"Oh no, not at all. That was just pretense to motivate you into fighting me instead of just, I dunno, throwing yourself off the platform or something. Though I like playing the campy villain, I'm just too good-natured to make things bad for people unless it was really necessary." He lifts up his right leg and crosses it over his left knee. "Besides, if I truly wanted to redo everything and keep making trouble for Equestria, I would have let you sacrifice yourself and moved on. But as my avatar said, it's all in the interest of conflict, i.e. for funsies."
Your avatar? You mean that wasn't actually you I fought?
"Nope; he's yet another fabrication. What you see now is the real me. Or, at least, as real as this format can allow."
...So this isn't the "real world" at all.
"The fabrications keep piling on, I know. We just haven't reached that point where people like me can truly engage with their creations. Something like that would require true artificial intelligence, which I've been told is significantly difficult and unlikely to realize. Bionics is the more likely next step in scientific evolution, but I can still fantasize about the kinds of fun I would have with Squishy and his lot were they fully sentient."
Squishy?
"Ehhhh, my first original character, but I'm getting sidetracked." That's for sure. "Now that you have come so far and responded to my whims admirably, I feel that I should clear up things regarding the, uh… hardships, I've put you through as of recent."
Would you now?
"Or at least provide clarity and context as to how I was able to do what I did with no discernible explanation. "
Yeah, that'd be swell.
"Right. So, for starters..." He leans forward. "The world, the life you lived originally, was a story written by a group of creative minds and made real through the efforts of animators and voice actors. You, Twilight, the Elements, the friends and enemies you made, the highs and lows, all components for a running stage play that conveyed the values of friendship and goodness. Also merchandising. But that only applies to your childhood back in Ponyville, before you took up the sword. As to how you've become what you are now and where I fit into the picture… are you familiar with fan fiction?"
Yes. Wait… oh gods, for real?
"I'm afraid so. The adventures of Twilight and co was much enjoyed by a large audience covering a surprisingly wide age range, a good number of them aspiring and casual writers. You can think of it as the advent of alternate realities, where a copy of your reality is taken and tweaked, reshaped, or utterly broken down into all kinds of things. Comedy, drama, romance, tragedy, sex, gore, just to name most of the genres implemented. Oftentimes none of your friends are involved, but rather Equestria itself that's used solely as a backdrop for original creations that you have never heard of, or even thought possible to exist."
Then I'm a fabrication, just like Discord and your avatar.
"In a sense, yes. But the kooky thing about alternate realities is that they exist in their own way, so it's no different than how fairy tales and myths fit into reality. Universes of discourse for every thought and query, though admittedly yours is very obscure and known to just a few dozen people."
So my way of life only exists in the minds of people who read about me.
"Yes; it's best not to dwell on something like that, but props for coming to grips with what's normally world-shattering information."
Wouldn't be the first time I've dealt with that kind.
"Right. Now, as for my contribution to these offshoot realities, I chose to make a gritty deviation from a critical moment. Specifically, when Twilight ascended into an alicorn. That change was rather controversial at the time among my kind, and while I personally was in support of it and was eager to see where it would go, that didn't stop me from having an idea. That being: what if Twilight took her new princess role too far? What kind of world would be born from Twilight becoming an alicorn, with all that power and authority? So going with that, plus some other influences, I went about constructing a deviation in the timeline where things weren't all gems and friendship reports."
My time as Vanguard.
"Precisely. Though really I only wrote out the final months you were in that role and filled in the remaining years with backstory and reflections and such. This new time period I created, I named 'Death by Dragon'. A tale of violence, introspection, drama, and redemption, with you pitted against your most beloved maternal figure and her twisted ideals. To serve as my finest and most earnest contribution to the fanfic writing community; a veritable roller-coaster of action and emotion to amaze whatever readers may happen by. I consider it my 'pony magnum opus', heheh."
Oh yeah, a real marvel for the ages.
"Boy was it. It was time-consuming, but fun and worthwhile."
Figures that everything being screwed up was because someone had way too much time on their hands.
"Yeah yeah, although I was working a full-time job and living with my dad at the time. I can be very productive when I'm into something. But that's beside the point. Now that I've laid all that out, what followed was really no different." He puts his right leg down. "Your latest struggle is the result of yet another idea I had some two years after I ended your troubled career as a Vanguard. It was to be a fairly short continuation of your adventures, nothing grand. But my motivation slipped away during the initial planning, and I left it on the backburner for a spell. It wasn't until a friend of mine kept pestering me to see it through that I finally decided to buckle down and make this idea into reality. The result, while sloppy in my opinion, brings a definite conclusion to your story which will require no further meddling on my part. In short, your battles with the griffons, the trek into Tartarus, and my 'defeat' ensures no further conflict will ever come to your Equestria."
That doesn't make sense. You said you don't make things bad for people unless it was necessary, but things had worked out the first time around. I spared Twilight, we reconciled, we went on to rebuild Equestria and get our friends back together. It was as good as it was gonna get, so why did you make all that extra conflict if you just wanted us to have peace in the end?
A deep sigh. "That, you can blame on a fault of my own character." He gazes over to the bed briefly, as though in shame. "It had been perfect. I was completely satisfied with how it ended. There really was no reason to make a continuation aside from bonus chapters. But that idea, when it first flitted through my head… of you venturing into deep darkness, facing your guilt and then pulling yourself back into redemption. It excited me; fresh and tantalizing possibilities cascaded through my mind like a caffeine high. Though much of the story structure was incomplete, the parts that were clearly planned and envisioned, they thrilled me. Even without my friend's needling, it would have bugged me to leave them sitting in the back of my mind, bouncing around neglected. It wouldn't have been right, or rather… it would have marked me as a failure."
He pauses, looking glumly at his legs before looking back up to me. "When it comes to story ideas I legitimately put my heart into, I get this sense that either I see it through or I wind up feeling unfulfilled and miserable. Or, probably, as a means to make up for my own shortcomings." Another melancholy pause. "I have written for much of my life. Fanfiction mainly, but I took pride in the amount I could produce in so little time. How it excited me, gave me a sense of worth, alongside the promise I had during my years in school. But that all went away not long after college. Magna cum Laude, graduated a semester early with a Bachelor's Degree. I had my sights set on seeing the world and making a place for myself, but that was denied to me, either by cruel chance or the possibility that I'm really not that remarkable a person. Some desperate decisions leading to more failure and disappointment later, and one of my great achievements was Rick Rolling a writing contest. But apart from that, I'm just some unemployed shlub with thousands of dollars in student and medical debt, and an ongoing fixation on a sturdy black cat and her band of quirky, relatable friends."
He stops to take a deep breath, then sighs. "On the cusp of thirty, with no idea what to make of my life. But with my writing, I'm reminded of how unique I am when it comes to fiction. How it thrills me to jot something on paper, tidy it up, publish it, and occasionally have people comment on them. That last one really raises my satisfaction in this silly craft: seeing that people actually took the time to not only read my stuff, but to make remarks about it. Usually telling me how good or neat it is. While I don't get nearly as much as I like, I'm still grateful for what little I garner. But I've rambled enough. To wrap this up, I tore you from your happy ending just for one more rush of self-worth and accomplishment. To unclutter my mind and prove that I'm still capable of making the kind of stories that no one else can make. If only for a fleeting moment."
I'm not gonna lie, that sounds really pathetic.
"I suppose so." Another deep breath, then he flips his mood around and claps his hands with a smile. "But enough moping; let's talk about what is in store for you."
There's more?
"But of course. It'd be lousy having you come this far just to have exposition dumped on you."
That would be lame, yeah.
"So to get to the meat of this meeting, I would like to offer you a special reward for all your hard work. A reward… in the form of a choice."
Of course.
"Now it's nothing dire like choosing Twilight over Equestria or something like that. No, this is solely about you." He points at me with clasped hands. Man the way he keeps gesticulating, still can't get over it. "And it pertains to where I send you once this meeting ends."
Not getting a good feeling from that.
"I could send you back to where you were before, right after you dealt the killing blow to Tartarus. Very simple, right? Or, I could send you further back. Specifically, back to when all your troubles began." He lifts up his leg again and leans back into his chair. "As I said, I made your reality based off a deviation from the story put forth by the original writers. And as you can imagine, those writers would have still gone on writing their planned story indifferent to what us amateurs were doing. So I'm offering to place you back to where the divergence occurred—when Twilight became an alicorn—and put you back into the hands of your original creators. You would go on to live out the life they had prescribed you, which is a far happier one than what I made for you. You would never be forced to take up the sword, to take another pony's life, to be encumbered by guilt and self-loathing. Your friends would stay the way they were originally; Pinkie, nor anyone else, would have to die; Discord would remain a mild nuisance and nothing more; there would be no war, no corrupting agents. Heck, in that timeline, the changeling race becomes redeemed. And spoiler: you make friends with their benevolent new ruler."
He gets to tapping at his fingers, holding a smirk. "A fresh start, free from suffering and despair. You can live out the rest of your childhood as it was meant to be, and have that normal life that had been yanked from you so unfairly. No intrigue, no tragedy. You'll go back to being the loving, carefree, innocent baby dragon, in a caring and just world."
He stops, looking to me expectantly. Guess that's it for the pitch; time to decide. I suppose I could go for the hidden "Fuck Off" option, but having no idea where this is or how I got here exactly, I better not test him. With that said, I don't doubt that he could make that second option happen. Send me back to those innocent days, that I so long yearned for during my training... that I eventually abandoned as being a hopeless dream. Just a word, and it can become true.
The choice is obvious.
What kind of incentive is that? If I go back, that invalidates everything I've done and everything I've been through. You might have a lot of things you wanna redo, and so do I, but I'm about dealing with the mistakes I made and living with them. It sucks, but it's what makes this life of mine my own. And I gotta say, it came out alright eventually. That other me can keep having it easy; I'm not interested.
"Mmmhm. That's just what I thought you would say." He clears his throat. "Since that is your choice, I shall return you to your unique timeline posthaste. And as an added bonus, I'll fix up that hole in your chest so you don't end up dying upon returning, along with some other surprises." He leans forward, planting his chin in a palm. "Consider it a final parting Deus ex Machina for all the troubles I put you through. Pretty cheap, I know, but I never claimed to be a great writer."
I'm not complaining. So this is it then?
"It certainly is. I would offer some parting wisdom and well-wishes, but I've gone on long enough as it is and I'm sure you're eager to get back."
Yeah I am. Say, how much of this am I gonna remember?
"Hmmmmm, I'd say most of it, in bits and pieces. Though nothing about my personal grievances or your life being fan fiction for a television show. That would really mess with your head given enough time. Also, you have my word that I will do no further meddling after this… aside from maybe some added chapters, but no sequels. Anyway, enjoy your latest ending, Spike, and all the best."
Yeah. Later, weirdo.
And just like that, I'm gone.
"As for the ones following along, go back: you should see an update at this time ;)"