mylittlejamjar | This is it! This is the end of everything! ('Everything' meaning the plot.) [Visual]

Hyaaaa ha ha ha ha!

[Zetta stands atop the High Library Tower of Stalliongrad. Snow blasts diagonally across the field of vision and wind whips even the Overlord's flaming mane and tail as he brandishes a box aggressively at the scroll.]

[His foes had given him a mighty fight in the Library proper, but he'd managed to teleport the box out of reach before they could steal it back from him. Uncharacteristically clever, wasn't it?]

All your efforts are in vain, Equestria! Your best fighters and your most talented... uh, Pinkie Pies... couldn't prevent me from getting my hands on -- THIS!

[With a surge of magic, the Overlord rips the box open, discarding the metal shell to hold up -- a box of heart-shaped snack cakes!!]

HYAAA HA HA HA HA --

[Absolutely silence falls, broken only by the whistling of the wind. It lasts for about half a minute.]

What the hell is this crap?

...Damn. [He lowers his head, tail drooping and ears flattened.] The Princess's dreams were wrong, this entire time, weren't they? If there was ever a Frozen Fire of Friendship, it must have vanished with the windigos, in turn.

I'm not done with you, Equestria. [Sulky, the Overlord turns his back on the scrolls.] You would have lost today, if the artifact had been here. You can't stop me, ponies! Next time, I won't rely on some pony artifact. I'll break you with my own power!

[With a sharp gesture, the Overlord rolls up the scroll.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Flare thinks about that sincerely for a few moments. It's actually a legitimate question.]

No on the first, yes on the second. You strike me as the type to hoard impossibly powerful magical artifacts without having any idea how the buck they work or if they are, in fact, a box of prehistoric snack cakes.

Actually, that was more of my brother's thing. Before I became a pony, I didn't really have much use for magic or magic items. And if I wanted to deal with another world, I'd just go there myself. That was a privilege we Overlords possessed.

Oh? And what exactly happened t'this brother of yours?

[Her bets are "banished to the sun" or "utterly obliterated".]

...most likely, both of my brothers were destroyed in the same accident that cost me my body and my Netherworld.

...So you wrecked 'em - and the ENTIRE WORLD - by accident. Not doin' a good job of convincing me you'd be a better ruler than Celestia here.

Edited 2014-07-09 03:04 (UTC)

Accident might not be a strong enough word. Someone had deliberately tampered with the Sacred Tome, I'm certain of it! And I think that someone was the Pale Pony.

[Were you trying to set off the conspiracy theorist again? Because when even she calls bullshit...]

I'm pretty sure the Pale Pony had nothin' to do with it, chief. I mean, that sounds like Important Backstory which means you didn't even know Equestria existed.

[...Also some of Zetta's fourth wall breaking might be mildly contagious while in prolonged discussion with him.]

Of course she did! You can't even conceive of the power I wielded in my prime! Whatever you may think of the Pale Pony, she'd be a fool not to fear it and plot a way to lessen it like this!

I'm... not actually arguin' with you there, you know.

I'm just sayin' this sounds less like one of her conspiracies and more like someone else's conspiracy that she ganked. Vulture swooping for a fresh kill, so to speak.

That doesn't make any sense. There was a freaking prophecy about it!

Oh? Tell me where exactly you were in that translated prophecy, hot shot.

[Flare's assuming Zetta means the passage that Captain Celestia found mid-battle.]

..It was my Netherworld that was prophesied for destruction! I don't know it could have been any more obvious!

[Whereas Zetta isn't even thinking about that annoying show-stealing Stalliongrad verse.]

[...Oh. Different prophecy.]

Ah. Communication issue. In that case, tell me where your prophecy involves ponies thought to judge over the dead?

It didn't, but if it HAD, I would have just thought that Pram was screwing with me. It isn't rocket science to put the chain of logic together, you know.

You don't work a lot with oracles and prophecies, do ya? They're all sorts of cryptic crap that either spells everything out in the most confusing way possible or tells ya nothin' at all.

If the Pale Pony was involved, there'd probably be somethin' in there about a "ghostly horse" or "riding to your destiny" or somethin' equally flowery and bullshit.

I've been listening to Pram the Oracle for longer than YOU'VE been alive. Trust me, she's blunt and she usually doesn't beat around the bush too much. The prophecy just said my Netherworld was going to be destroyed, it didn't name names! So what's more likely -- that the unnamed meddler was the Pale Pony, who had every reason to want to sabotage me, or that it was some random other person and the Pale Pony just HAPPENED to show up at the same damn time?

Considerin' that you ended up showin' up at the same time as the rest of all of us? Actually the second one.

If she was just tryin' to depower you, why the hell would she scoop up all the rest of us? I couldn't give two bucks about your Netherworld politics, so what good is it draggin' me into this mess if it's just that?

The Sacred Tome doesn't just affect me, you know. It's a cosmic keystone sort of thing. It contains written within it everything that was and will be for I don't know how much, but it's a hell of a lot. Causing it to be destroyed might very well have been what she needed to do to set this whole thing off.

In which case she didn't even consider you and she'd have no reason to half-flank reducing your powers. She'd either wipe you out completely or do her thing without even botherin' ya.

Unless she's a complete ass-over-teakettle idiot, I mean.

It's a two-birds-with-one-stone thing! Besides, it's possible she didn't expect me to survive. But just having the power to tamper with the Sacred Tome doesn't mean having the power to take me on.

Your argument works the other way, too. If she could have just wiped me out, why didn't she?

Perverse lust over your smokin' hot bod?

[Zetta, she's seen enough of you on the scrolls to at least know how your ego works, even if she seems mildly disturbed by the words she's forcing out of her mouth.]

As plausible as that is, there hasn't been any follow-up on that point!